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Title: Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Complete
Author: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, 1675-1755
Language: English
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MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCY
BY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON
CONTENTS OF THE 15 VOLUMES
VOLUME 1.
CHAPTER I
Birth and Family.--Early Life.--Desire to join the Army.--Enter the
Musketeers.--The Campaign Commences.--Camp of Gevries.--Siege of Namur.
--Dreadful Weather.--Gentlemen Carrying Corn.--Sufferings during the
Siege.--The Monks of Marlaigne.--Rival Couriers.--Naval Battle.--
Playing with Fire-arms.--A Prediction Verified.
CHAPTER II
The King's Natural Children.--Proposed Marriage of the Duc de Chartres.--
Influence of Dubois.--The Duke and the King.--An Apartment.--Announcement
of the Marriage.--Anger of Madame.--Household of the Duchess.--Villars
and Rochefort.--Friend of King's Mistresses.--The Marriage Ceremony.--
Toilette of the Duchess.--Son of Montbron.--Marriage of M. du Maine.--
Duchess of Hanover.--Duc de Choiseul.--La Grande Mademoiselle.
CHAPTER III
Death of My Father.--Anecdotes of Louis XIII.--The Cardinal de
Richelieu.--The Duc de Bellegarde.--Madame de Hautefort.--My Father's
Enemy.--His Services and Reward.--A Duel against Law.--An Answer to a
Libel.--M. de la Rochefoucauld.--My Father's Gratitude to Louis XIII.
CHAPTER IV
Position of the Prince of Orange.--Strange Conduct of the King.--Surprise
and Indignation.--Battle of Neerwinden.--My Return to Paris.--Death of La
Vauguyon.--Symptoms of Madness.--Vauguyon at the Bastille.--Projects of
Marriage.--M. de Beauvilliers.--A Negotiation for a Wife.--My Failure.--
Visit to La Trappe.
CHAPTER V
M. de Luxemhourg's Claim of Precedence.--Origin of the Claim.--Duc de
Piney.--Character of Harlay.--Progress of the Trial.--Luxembourg and
Richelieu.--Double-dealing of Harlay.--The Duc de Gesvres.--Return to the
Seat of War.--Divers Operations.--Origin of These Memoirs.
CHAPTER VI
Quarrels of the Princesses.--Mademoiselle Choin.--A Disgraceful Affair.--
M. de Noyon.--Comic Scene at the Academie.--Anger and Forgiveness of
M. de Noyon.--M. de Noailles in Disgrace.--How He Gets into Favour Again.
--M. de Vendome in Command.--Character of M. de Luxembourg.--The Trial
for Precedence Again.--An Insolent Lawyer.--Extraordinary Decree.
CHAPTER VII
Harlay and the Dutch.--Death of the Princess of Orange.--Count
Koenigsmarck.--A New Proposal of Marriage.--My Marriage.--That of M. de
Lauzun.--Its Result.--La Fontaine and Mignard.--Illness of the Marechal
de Lorges.--Operations on the Rhine.--Village of Seckenheim.--An Episode
of War.--Cowardice of M. du Maine.--Despair of the King, Who Takes a
Knave in the Act.--Bon Mot of M. d'Elboeuf.
CHAPTER VIII
The Abbe de Fenelon.--The Jansenists and St. Sulpice.--Alliance with
Madame Guyon.--Preceptor of the Royal Children.--Acquaintance with Madame
de Maintenon.--Appointment to Cambrai.--Disclosure of Madame Guyon's
Doctrines.--Her Disgrace.--Bossuet and Fenelon.--Two Rival Books.--
Disgrace of Fenelon.
VOLUME 2.
CHAPTER IX
Death of Archbishop Harlay.--Scene at Conflans.--"The Good Langres."--
A Scene at Marly.--Princesses Smoke Pipes!--Fortunes of Cavoye.--
Mademoiselle de Coetlogon.--Madame de Guise.--Madame de Miramion.--Madame
de Sevigne.--Father Seraphin.--An Angry Bishop.--Death of La Bruyere.--
Burglary by a Duke.--Proposed Marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne.--The
Duchesse de Lude.--A Dangerous Lady.--Madame d'O.--Arrival of the
Duchesse de Bourgogne.
CHAPTER X
My Return to Fontainebleau.--A Calumny at Court.--Portrait of M. de La
Trappe.--A False Painter.--Fast Living at the "Desert."--Comte
d'Auvergne.--Perfidy of Harlay.--M. de Monaco.--Madame Panache.--The
Italian Actor and the "False Prude".
CHAPTER XI
A Scientific Retreat.--The Peace of Ryswick.--Prince of Conti King of
Poland.--His Voyage and Reception.--King of England Acknowledged.--Duc de
Conde in Burgundy.--Strange Death of Santeuil.--Duties of the Prince of
Darmstadt in Spain.--Madame de Maintenon's Brother.--Extravagant Dresses.
Marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne.--The Bedding of the Princesse.--Grand
Balls.--A Scandalous Bird.
CHAPTER XII
An Odd Marriage.--Black Daughter of the King.--Travels of Peter the
Great.--Magnificent English Ambassador.--The Prince of Parma.--
A Dissolute Abbe.--Orondat.--Dispute about Mourning.--M. de Cambrai's
Book Condemned by M. de La Trappe.--Anecdote of the Head of Madame de
Montbazon.--Condemnation of Fenelon by the Pope.--His Submission.
CHAPTER XIII
Charnace.--An Odd Ejectment.--A Squabble at Cards.--Birth of My Son.--
The Camp at Compiegne.--Splendour of Marechal Boufflers.--Pique of the
Ambassadors.--Tesse's Grey Hat.--A Sham Siege.--A Singular Scene.--
The King and Madame de Maintenon.--An Astonished Officer.--
Breaking-up of the Camp.
CHAPTER XIV
Gervaise Monk of La Trappe.----His Disgusting Profligacy.--The Author of
the Lord's Prayer.--A Struggle for Precedence.--Madame de Saint-Simon.--
The End of the Quarrel.--Death of the Chevalier de Coislin.--A Ludicrous
Incident.--Death of Racine.--The King and the Poet.--King Pays Debts of
Courtiers.--Impudence of M. de Vendome.--A Mysterious Murder.--
Extraordinary Theft.
CHAPTER XV
The Farrier of Salon.--Apparition of a Queen.--The Farrier Comes to
Versailles.--Revelations to the Queen.--Supposed Explanation.--
New Distinctions to the Bastards.--New Statue of the King.--
Disappointment of Harlay.--Honesty of Chamillart.--The Comtesse de
Fiesque.--Daughter of Jacquier.--Impudence of Saumery.--Amusing Scene.--
Attempted Murder.
CHAPTER XVI
Reform at Court.--Cardinal Delfini.--Pride of M. de Monaco.--Early Life
of Madame de Maintenon.--Madame de Navailles.--Balls at Marly.--An Odd
Mask.--Great Dancing--Fortunes of Langlee.--His Coarseness.--The Abbe de
Soubise.--Intrigues for His Promotion.--Disgrace and Obstinacy of
Cardinal de Bouillon.
CHAPTER XVII
A Marriage Bargain.--Mademoiselle de Mailly.--James II.--Begging
Champagne.--A Duel.--Death of Le Notre.--His Character.--History of
Vassor.--Comtesse de Verrue and Her Romance with M. de Savoie.--A Race of
Dwarfs.--An Indecorous Incident.--Death of M. de La Trappe.
VOLUME 3.
CHAPTER XVIII
Settlement of the Spanish Succession.--King William III.--New Party in
Spain.--Their Attack on the Queen.--Perplexity of the King.--His Will.--
Scene at the Palace.--News Sent to France.--Council at Madame de
Maintenon's.--The King's Decision.--A Public Declaration.--Treatment of
the New King.--His Departure for Spain.--Reflections.--Philip V. Arrives
in Spain.--The Queen Dowager Banished.
CHAPTER XIX
Marriage of Phillip V.--The Queen's Journey.--Rival Dishes.--
A Delicate Quarrel.--The King's journey to Italy.--The Intrigues against
Catinat.--Vaudemont's Success.--Appointment of Villeroy.--The First
Campaign.--A Snuffbox.--Prince Eugene's Plan.--Attack and Defence of
Cremona.--Villeroy Made Prisoner.--Appointment of M. de Vendome.
CHAPTER XX
Discontent and Death of Barbezieux.--His Character.--Elevation of
Chamillart.--Strange Reasons of His Success.--Death of Rose.--Anecdotes.
--An Invasion of Foxes.--M. le Prince.--A Horse upon Roses.--Marriage of
His Daughter: His Manners and Appearance
CHAPTER XXI
Monseigneur's Indigestion.--The King Disturbed.--The Ladies of the
Halle.--Quarrel of the King and His Brother.--Mutual Reproaches.--
Monsieur's Confessors.--A New Scene of Wrangling.--Monsieur at Table.--
He Is Seized with Apoplexy.--The News Carried to Marly.--How Received by
the King.--Death of Monsieur.--Various Forms of Grief.--The Duc de
Chartres.
CHAPTER XXII
The Dead Soon Forgotten.--Feelings of Madame de Maintenon.--And of the
Duc de Chartres.--Of the Courtiers.--Madame's Mode of Life.--Character of
Monsieur.--Anecdote of M. le Prince.--Strange Interview of Madame de
Maintenon with Madame.--Mourning at Court.--Death of Henriette
d'Angleterre.--A Poisoning Scene.--The King and the Accomplice.
CHAPTER XXIII
Scandalous Adventure of the Abbesse de la Joye.--Anecdote of Madame de
Saint-Herem.--Death of James II. and Recognition of His Son.--Alliance
against France.--Scene at St. Maur.--Balls and Plays.--The "Electra" of
Longepierre--Romantic Adventures of the Abbe de Vatterville.
CHAPTER XXIV
Changes in the Army.--I Leave the Service.--Annoyance of the King.--The
Medallic History of the Reign.--Louis XIII.--Death of William III.--
Accession of Queen Anne.--The Alliance Continued.--Anecdotes of Catinat.
--Madame de Maintenon and the King.
VOLUME 4.
CHAPTER XXV
Anecdote of Canaples.--Death of the Duc de Coislin.--Anecdotes of His
Unbearable Politeness.--Eccentric Character.--President de Novion.--
Death of M. de Lorges.--Death of the Duchesse de Gesvres.
CHAPTER XXVI
The Prince d'Harcourt.--His Character and That of His Wife.--Odd Court
Lady.--She Cheats at Play.--Scene at Fontainebleau.--Crackers at Marly.--
Snowballing a Princess.--Strange Manners of Madame d'Harcourt.--
Rebellion among Her Servants.--A Vigorous Chambermaid.
CHAPTER XXVII
Madame des Ursins.--Her Marriage and Character.--The Queen of Spain.--
Ambition of Madame de Maintenon.--Coronation of Philip V.--A Cardinal
Made Colonel.--Favourites of Madame des Ursins.--Her Complete Triumph.--
A Mistake.--A Despatch Violated.--Madame des Ursins in Disgrace.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Appointment of the Duke of Berwick.--Deception Practised by Orry.--Anger
of Louis XIV.--Dismissal of Madame des Ursins.--Her Intrigues to Return.
--Annoyance of the King and Queen of Spain.--Intrigues at Versailles.--
Triumphant Return of Madame des Ursins to Court.--Baseness of the
Courtiers.--Her Return to Spain Resolved On.
CHAPTER XXIX
An Honest Courtier.--Robbery of Courtin and Fieubet.--An Important
Affair.--My Interview with the King.--His Jealousy of His Authority.--
Madame La Queue, the King's Daughter.--Battle of Blenheim or Hochstedt.--
Our Defeat.--Effect of the News on the King.--Public Grief and Public
Rejoicing.--Death of My Friend Montfort.
CHAPTER XXX
Naval Battle of Malaga.--Danger of Gibraltar.--Duke of Mantua in Search
of a Wife.--Duchesse de Lesdiguieres.--Strange Intrigues.--Mademoiselle
d'Elboeuf Carries off the Prize.--A Curious Marriage.--Its Result.--
History of a Conversion to Catholicism.--Attempted Assassination.--
Singular Seclusion
CHAPTER XXXI
Fascination of the Duchesse de Bourgogne.--Fortunes of Nangis.--He Is
Loved by the Duchesse and Her Dame d'Atours.--Discretion of the Court.--
Maulevrier.--His Courtship of the Duchess.--Singular Trick.--Its Strange
Success.--Mad Conduct of Maulevrier--He Is Sent to Spain.--His Adventures
There.--His Return and Tragical Catastrophe.
CHAPTER XXXII
Death of M. de Duras.--Selfishness of the King.--Anecdote of Puysieux.--
Character of Pontchartrain.--Why He Ruined the French Fleet.--Madame des
Ursins at Last Resolves to Return to Spain.--Favours Heaped upon Her.--
M. de Lauzun at the Army.--His bon mot.--Conduct of M. de Vendome.--
Disgrace and Character of the Grand Prieur.
VOLUME 5.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A Hunting Adventure.--Story and Catastrophe of Fargues.--Death and
Character of Ninon de l'Enclos.--Odd Adventure of Courtenvaux.--Spies at
Court.--New Enlistment.--Wretched State of the Country.--Balls at Marly.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Arrival of Vendome at Court.--Character of That Disgusting Personage.--
Rise of Cardinal Alberoni.--Vendome's Reception at Marly.--His Unheard-of
Triumph.--His High Flight.--Returns to Italy.--Battle of Calcinato.--
Condition of the Army.--Pique of the Marechal de Villeroy.--Battle of
Ramillies.--Its Consequences.
CHAPTER XXXV
Abandonment of the Siege of Barcelona.--Affairs of Italy.--
La Feuillade.--Disastrous Rivalries.--Conduct of M. d'Orleans.--The Siege
of Turin.--Battle.--Victory of Prince Eugene.--Insubordination in the
Army.--Retreat.--M. d'Orleans Returns to Court.--Disgrace of La Feuillade
CHAPTER XXXVI
Measures of Economy.--Financial Embarrassments.--The King and
Chamillart.--Tax on Baptisms and Marriages.--Vauban's Patriotism.--
Its Punishment.--My Action with M. de Brissac.--I Appeal to the King.--
The Result.--I Gain My Action.
CHAPTER XXXVII
My Appointment as Ambassador to Rome.--How It Fell Through.--Anecdotes of
the Bishop of Orleans.--A Droll Song.--A Saint in Spite of Himself.--
Fashionable Crimes.--A Forged Genealogy.--Abduction of Beringhen.--
The 'Parvulos' of Meudon and Mademoiselle Choin.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Death and Last Days of Madame de Montespan.--Selfishness of the King.--
Death and Character of Madame de Nemours.--Neufchatel and Prussia.--
Campaign of Villars.--Naval Successes.--Inundations of the Loire.--Siege
of Toulon.--A Quarrel about News.--Quixotic Despatches of Tesse.
VOLUME 6.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Precedence at the Communion Table.--The King Offended with Madame de
Torcy.--The King's Religion.--Atheists and Jansenists.--Project against
Scotland.--Preparations.--Failure.--The Chevalier de St. George.--His
Return to Court.
CHAPTER XL
Death and Character of Brissac.--Brissac and the Court Ladies.--The
Duchesse de Bourgogne.--Scene at the Carp Basin.--King's Selfishness.--
The King Cuts Samuel Bernard's Purse.--A Vain Capitalist.--Story of Leon
and Florence the Actress.--His Loves with Mademoiselle de Roquelaure.--
Run--away Marriage.--Anger of Madame de Roquelaure.--A Furious Mother.--
Opinions of the Court.--A Mistake.--Interference of the King.--
Fate of the Couple.
CHAPTER XLI
The Duc d'Orleans in Spain.--Offends Madame des Ursins and Madame de
Maintenon.--Laziness of M. de Vendome in Flanders.--Battle of Oudenarde.
--Defeat and Disasters.--Difference of M. de Vendome and the Duc de
Bourgogne.
CHAPTER XLII
Conflicting Reports.--Attacks on the Duc de Bourgogne.--The Duchesse de
Bourgogne Acts against Vendome.--Weakness of the Duke.--Cunning of
Vendome.--The Siege of Lille.--Anxiety for a Battle.--Its Delay.--Conduct
of the King and Monseigneur.--A Picture of Royal Family Feeling.--Conduct
of the Marechal de Boufflers.
CHAPTER XLIII
Equivocal Position of the Duc de Bourgogne.--His Weak Conduct.--
Concealment of a Battle from the King.--Return of the Duc de Bourgogne to
Court.--Incidents of His Reception.--Monseigneur.--Reception of the Duc
de Berry.--Behaviour of the Duc de Bourgogne.--Anecdotes of Gamaches.--
Return of Vendome to Court.--His Star Begins to Wane.--Contrast of
Boufflers and Vendome.--Chamillart's Project for Retaking Lille.--How It
Was Defeated by Madame de Maintenon.
CHAPTER XLIV
Tremendous Cold in France.--Winters of 1708-1709--Financiers and the
Famine.--Interference of the Parliaments of Paris and Dijon.--Dreadful
Oppression.--Misery of the People.--New Taxes.--Forced Labour.--General
Ruin.--Increased Misfortunes.--Threatened Regicide.--Procession of Saint
Genevieve.--Offerings of Plate to the King.--Discontent of the People.--
A Bread Riot, How Appeased.
CHAPTER XLV
M. de Vendome out of Favour.--Death and Character of the Prince de
Conti.--Fall of Vendome.--Pursegur's Interview with the King.--Madame de
Bourgogne against Vendome.--Her Decided Conduct.--Vendome Excluded from
Marly.--He Clings to Meudon.--From Which He is also Expelled.--His Final
Disgrace and Abandonment.--Triumph of Madame de Maintenon.
CHAPTER XLVI
Death of Pere La Chaise.--His Infirmities in Old Age.--Partiality of the
King.--Character of Pere La Chaise.--The Jesuits.--Choice of a New
Confessor.--Fagon's Opinion.--Destruction of Port Royal.--Jansenists and
Molinists.--Pascal.--Violent Oppression of the Inhabitants of Port Royal.
VOLUME 7.
CHAPTER XLVII
Death of D'Avaux.--A Quarrel about a Window.--Louvois and the King.--
Anecdote of Boisseuil.--Madame de Maintenon and M. de Beauvilliers.--
Harcourt Proposed for the Council.--His Disappointment.--Death of M. le
Prince.--His Character.--Treatment of His Wife.--His Love Adventures.--
His Madness.--A Confessor Brought.--Nobody Regrets Him.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Progress of the War.--Simplicity of Chamillart.--The Imperialists and the
Pope.--Spanish Affairs.--Duc d'Orleans and Madame des Ursins.--Arrest of
Flotte in Spain.--Discovery of the Intrigues of the Duc d'Orleans.--Cabal
against Him.--His Disgrace and Its Consequences.
CHAPTER XLIX
Danger of Chamillart.--Witticism of D'Harcourt.--Faults of Chamillart.--
Court Intrigues against Him.--Behaviour of the Courtiers.--Influence of
Madame de Maintenon.--Dignified Fall of Chamillart.--He is Succeeded by
Voysin.--First Experience of the New Minister.--The Campaign in
Flanders.--Battle of Malplaquet.
CHAPTER L.
Disgrace of the Duc d'Orleans.--I Endeavor to Separate Him from Madame
d'Argenton.--Extraordinary Reports.--My Various Colloquies with Him.--The
Separation.--Conduct of Madame d'Argenton.--Death and Character of M. le
Duc.--The After-suppers of the King.
CHAPTER LI
Proposed Marriage of Mademoiselle.--My Intrigues to Bring It About.--The
Duchesse de Bourgogne and Other Allies.--The Attack Begun.--Progress of
the Intrigue.--Economy at Marly.--The Marriage Agreed Upon.--Scene at
Saint-Cloud.--Horrible Reports.--The Marriage.--Madame de Saint-Simon.--
Strange Character of the Duchesse de Berry
CHAPTER LII
Birth of Louis XV.--The Marechale de la Meilleraye.--Saint-Ruth's
Cudgel.--The Cardinal de Bouillon's Desertion from France.--Anecdotes of
His Audacity.
CHAPTER LIII
Imprudence of Villars.--The Danger of Truthfulness.--Military Mistakes.--
The Fortunes of Berwick.--The Son of James.--Berwick's Report on the
Army.--Imprudent Saying of Villars.--"The Good Little Fellow" in a
Scrape.--What Happens to Him.
CHAPTER LIV
Duchesse de Berry Drunk.--Operations in Spain.--Vendome Demanded by
Spain.--His Affront by the Duchesse de Bourgogne.--His Arrival.--
Staremberg and Stanhope.--The Flag of Spain Leaves Madrid.--Entry of the
Archduke.--Enthusiasm of the Spaniards--The King Returns.--Strategy, of
Staremberg.--Affair of Brighuega.--Battle of Villavciosa.--Its
Consequences to Vendome and to Spain.
VOLUME 8.
CHAPTER LV
State of the Country.--New Taxes.--The King's Conscience Troubled.--
Decision of the Sorbonne.--Debate in the Council.--Effect of the Royal
Tithe.--Tax on Agioteurs.--Merriment at Court.--Death of a Son of
Marechal Boufflers.--The Jesuits.
CHAPTER LVI
My Interview with Du Mont.--A Mysterious Communication.--Anger of
Monseigneur against Me.--Household of the Duchesse de Berry.--Monseigneur
Taken Ill of the Smallpox.--Effect of the News.--The King Goes to
Meudon.--The Danger Diminishes.--Madame de Maintenon at Meudon.--The
Court at Versailles.--Hopes and Fears.--The Danger Returns.--Death of
Monseigneur.--Conduct of the King.
CHAPTER LVII
A Rumour Reaches Versailles.--Aspect of the Court.--Various Forms of
Grief.--The Duc d'Orleans.--The News Confirmed at Versailles.--Behaviour
of the Courtiers.--The Duc and Duchesse de Berry.--The Duc and Duchesse
de Bourgogne.--Madame.--A Swiss Asleep.--Picture of a Court.--The Heir-
Apparent's Night.--The King Returns to Marly.--Character of Monseigneur.
--Effect of His Death.
CHAPTER LVIII
State of the Court at Death of Monseigneur.--Conduct of the Dauphin and
the Dauphine.--The Duchesse de Berry.--My Interview with the Dauphin.--
He is Reconciled with M. d'Orleans.
CHAPTER LIX
Warnings to the Dauphin and the Dauphine.--The Dauphine Sickens and
Dies.--Illness of the Dauphin.--His Death.--Character and Manners of the
Dauphine.--And of the Dauphin.
CHAPTER LX
Certainty of Poison.--The Supposed Criminal.--Excitement of the People
against M. d'Orleans.--The Cabal.--My Danger and Escape.--The Dauphin's
Casket.
VOLUME 9.
CHAPTER LXI
The King's Selfishness.--Defeat of the Czar.--Death of Catinat.--Last
Days of Vendome.--His Body at the Escurial.--Anecdote of Harlay and the
Jacobins.--Truce in Flanders.--Wolves.
CHAPTER LXII
Settlement of the Spanish Succession.--Renunciation of France.--Comic
Failure of the Duc de Berry.--Anecdotes of M. de Chevreuse.--Father
Daniel's History and Its Reward.
CHAPTER LXIII
The Bull Unigenitus.--My Interview with Father Tellier.--Curious
Inadvertence of Mine.--Peace.--Duc de la Rochefoucauld.--A Suicide in
Public.--Charmel.--Two Gay Sisters.
CHAPTER LXIV
The King of Spain a Widower.--Intrigues of Madame des Ursins.--Choice of
the Princes of Parma.--The King of France Kept in the Dark.--Celebration
of the Marriage.--Sudden Fall of the Princesse des Ursins.--Her Expulsion
from Spain.
CHAPTER LXV
The King of Spain Acquiesces in the Disgrace of Madame des Ursins.--Its
Origin.--Who Struck the Blow.--Her journey to Versailles.--Treatment
There.--My Interview with Her.--She Retires to Genoa.--Then to Rome.--
Dies.
CHAPTER LXVI
Sudden Illness of the Duc de Berry--Suspicious Symptoms.--The Duchess
Prevented from Seeing Him.--His Death.--Character.--Manners of the
Duchesse de Berry.
CHAPTER LXVII
Maisons Seeks My Acquaintance.--His Mysterious Manner.--Increase of the
Intimacy.--Extraordinary News.--The Bastards Declared Princes of the
Blood.--Rage of Maisons and Noailles.--Opinion of the Court and Country.
CHAPTER LXVIII
The King Unhappy and Ill at Ease.--Court Paid to Him.--A New Scheme to
Rule Him.--He Yields.--New Annoyance.--His Will.--Anecdotes Concerning
It.--Opinions of the Court.--M. du Maine
CHAPTER LXIX
A New Visit from Maisons.--His Violent Project.--My Objections.--He
Persists.--His Death and That of His Wife.--Death of the Duc de
Beauvilliers.--His Character.--Of the Cardinal d'Estrees.--Anecdotes.--
Death of Fenelon.
VOLUME 10.
CHAPTER LXX
Character and Position of the Duc d'Orleans--His Manners, Talents, and
Virtues.--His Weakness.--Anecdote Illustrative Thereof.--
The "Debonnaire"--Adventure of the Grand Prieur in England.--Education
of the Duc d'Orleans.--Character of Dubois.--His Pernicious Influence.--
The Duke's Emptiness.--His Deceit.--His Love of Painting.--The Fairies at
His Birth.--The Duke's Timidity.--An Instance of His Mistrustfulness.
CHAPTER LXXI
The Duke Tries to Raise the Devil.--Magical Experiments.--His Religious
Opinions.--Impiety.--Reads Rabelais at Church.--The Duchesse d'Orleans.--
Her Character.--Her Life with Her Husband.--My Discourses with the Duke
on the Future.--My Plans of Government.--A Place at Choice Offered Me.--
I Decline the Honour.--My Reason.--National Bankruptcy.--The Duke's Anger
at My Refusal.--A Final Decision.
CHAPTER LXXII
The King's Health Declines.--Bets about His Death.--Lord Stair.--My New
Friend.--The King's Last Hunt.--And Last Domestic and Public Acts.--
Doctors.--Opium.--The King's Diet.--Failure of His Strength.--His Hopes
of Recovery.--Increased Danger.--Codicil to His Will.--Interview with the
Duc d'Orleans.--With the Cardinal de Noailles.--Address to His
Attendants.--The Dauphin Brought to Him.--His Last Words.--
An Extraordinary Physician.--The Courtiers and the Duc d'Orleans.--
Conduct of Madame de Maintenon.--The King's Death.
CHAPTER LXXIII
Early Life of Louis XIV.--His Education.--His Enormous Vanity.--His
Ignorance.--Cause of the War with Holland.--His Mistakes and Weakness in
War.--The Ruin of France.--Origin of Versailles.--The King's Love of
Adulation, and Jealousy of People Who Came Not to Court.--His Spies.--
His Vindictiveness.--Opening of Letters.--Confidence Sometimes Placed in
Him--A Lady in a Predicament.
CHAPTER LXXIV
Excessive Politeness.--Influence of the Valets.--How the King Drove
Out.--Love of magnificence.--His Buildings.--Versailles.--The Supply of
Water.--The King Seeks for Quiet.--Creation of Marly.--Tremendous
Extravagance.
CHAPTER LXXV
Amours of the King.--La Valliere.--Montespan.--Scandalous Publicity.--
Temper of Madame de Montespan.--Her Unbearable Haughtiness.--Other
Mistresses.--Madame de Maintenon.--Her Fortunes.--Her Marriage with
Scarron.--His Character and Society.--How She Lived After His Death.--
Gets into Better Company.--Acquaintance with Madame de Montespan.--
The King's Children.--His Dislike of Widow Scarron.--Purchase of the
Maintenon Estate.--Further Demands.--M. du Maine on His Travels.--
Montespan's Ill--humour.--Madame de Maintenon Supplants Her.--Her Bitter
Annoyance.--Progress of the New Intrigue.--Marriage of the King and
Madame de Maintenon.
CHAPTER LXXVI
Character of Madame de Maintenon.--Her Conversation.--Her Narrow-
mindedness.--Her Devotion.--Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.--Its Fatal
Consequences.--Saint Cyr.--Madame de Maintenon Desires Her Marriage to be
Declared.--Her Schemes.--Counterworked by Louvois.--His Vigorous Conduct
and Sudden Death.--Behaviour of the King.--Extraordinary Death of Seron.
CHAPTER LXXVII
Daily Occupations of Madame de Maintenon.--Her Policy--How She Governed
the King's Affairs.--Connivance with the Ministers.--Anecdote of
Le Tellier.--Behaviour of the King to Madame de Maintenon.--
His Hardness.--Selfishness.--Want of Thought for Others.--Anecdotes.--
Resignation of the King.--Its Causes.--The Jesuits and the Doctors.--The
King and Lay Jesuits.
VOLUME 11.
CHAPTER LXXVIII
External Life of Louis XIV.--At the Army.--Etiquette of the King's
Table.--Court Manners and Customs.--The Rising of the King.--Morning
Occupations.--Secret Amours.--Going to Mass.--Councils.--Thursdays.--
Fridays.--Ceremony of the King's Dinner.--The King's Brother.--After
Dinner.--The Drive.--Walks at Marly and Elsewhere.--Stag--hunting.--Play-
tables.--Lotteries.--Visits to Madame de Maintenon.--Supper.--The King
Retires to Rest.--Medicine Days.--Kings Religious Observances.--Fervency
in Lent.--At Mass.--Costume.--Politeness of the King for the Court of
Saint-Germain.--Feelings of the Court at His Death.--Relief of Madame de
Maintenon.--Of the Duchesse d'Orleans.--Of the Court Generally.--Joy of
Paris and the Whole of France.--Decency of Foreigners.--Burial of the
King.
CHAPTER LXXIX
Surprise of M. d'Orleans at the King's Death.--My Interview with Him.--
Dispute about Hats.--M. du Maine at the Parliament.--His Reception.--
My Protest.--The King's Will.--Its Contents and Reception.--Speech of the
Duc d'Orleans.--Its Effect.--His Speech on the Codicil.--Violent
Discussion.--Curious Scene.--Interruption for Dinner.--Return to the
Parliament.--Abrogation of the Codicil.--New Scheme of Government.--
The Regent Visits Madame de Maintenon.--The Establishment of Saint-Cyr.--
The Regent's Liberality to Madame de Maintenon.
CHAPTER LXXX
The Young King's Cold.--'Lettres des Cachet' Revived.--A Melancholy
Story.--A Loan from Crosat.--Retrenchments.--Unpaid Ambassadors.--Council
of the Regency.--Influence of Lord Stair.--The Pretender.--His Departure
from Bar.--Colonel Douglas.--The Pursuit.--Adventure at Nonancourt.--Its
Upshot.--Madame l'Hospital.--Ingratitude of the Pretender.
CHAPTER LXXXI
Behaviour of the Duchesse de Berry.--Her Arrogance Checked by Public
Opinion.--Walls up the Luxembourg Garden.--La Muette.--Her Strange Amour
with Rion.--Extraordinary Details.--The Duchess at the Carmelites.--
Weakness of the Regent.--His Daily Round of Life.--His Suppers.--
How He Squandered His Time.--His Impenetrability.--Scandal of His Life.--
Public Balls at the Opera.
CHAPTER LXXXII
First Appearance of Law.--His Banking Project Supported by the Regent.--
Discussed by the Regent with Me.--Approved by the Council and Registered.
--My Interviews with Law.--His Reasons for Seeking My Friendship.--
Arouet de Voltaire.
CHAPTER LXXXIII
Rise of Alberoni.--Intimacy of France and England.--Gibraltar Proposed to
be Given Up.--Louville the Agent.--His Departure.--Arrives at Madrid.--
Alarm of Alberoni.--His Audacious Intrigues.--Louville in the Bath.--
His Attempts to See the King.--Defeated.--Driven out of Spain.--Impudence
of Alberoni.--Treaty between France and England.--Stipulation with
Reference to the Pretender.
CHAPTER LXXXIV
The Lieutenant of Police.--Jealousy of Parliament.--Arrest of Pomereu
Resolved On.--His Imprisonment and Sudden Release.--Proposed Destruction
of Marly.--How I Prevented It.--Sale of the Furniture.--I Obtain the
'Grandes Entrees'.--Their Importance and Nature.--Afterwards Lavished
Indiscriminately.--Adventure of the Diamond called "The Regent."--Bought
for the Crown of France.
CHAPTER LXXXV
Death of the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres.--Cavoye and His Wife.--Peter the
Great.--His Visit to France.--Enmity to England.--Its Cause.--Kourakin,
the Russian Ambassador.--The Czar Studies Rome.--Makes Himself the Head
of Religion.--New Desires for Rome--Ultimately Suppressed.--Preparations
to Receive the Czar at Paris.--His Arrival at Dunkerque.--At Beaumont.--
Dislikes the Fine Quarters Provided for Him.--His Singular Manners, and
Those of His Suite.
CHAPTER LXXXVI
Personal Appearance of the Czar.--His Meals.--Invited by the Regent.--
His Interview with the King--He Returns the Visit.--Excursion in Paris.--
Visits Madame.--Drinks Beer at the Opera.--At the Invalides.--Meudon.--
Issy.--The Tuileries.--Versailles.--Hunt at Fontainebleau.--Saint--Cyr.--
Extraordinary Interview with Madame de Maintenon.--My Meeting with the
Czar at D'Antin's.--The Ladies Crowd to See Him.--Interchange of
Presents.--A Review.--Party Visits.--Desire of the Czar to Be United to
France.
CHAPTER LXXXVII
Courson in Languedoc.--Complaints of Perigueux.--Deputies to Paris.--
Disunion at the Council.--Intrigues of the Duc de Noailles.--Scene.--
I Support the Perigueux People.--Triumph.--My Quarrel with Noailles.--
The Order of the Pavilion.
VOLUME 12.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII
Policy and Schemes of Alberoni.--He is Made a Cardinal.--Other Rewards
Bestowed on Him.--Dispute with the Majordomo.--An Irruption into the
Royal Apartment.--The Cardinal Thrashed.--Extraordinary Scene.
CHAPTER LXXXIX
Anecdote of the Duc d'Orleans.--He Pretends to Reform--Trick Played upon
Me.--His Hoaxes.--His Panegyric of Me.--Madame de Sabran.--How the Regent
Treated His Mistresses.
CHAPTER XC
Encroachments of the Parliament.--The Money Edict.--Conflict of Powers--
Vigorous Conduct of the Parliament.--Opposed with Equal Vigour by the
Regent.--Anecdote of the Duchesse du Maine.--Further Proceedings of the
Parliament.--Influence of the Reading of Memoirs.--Conduct of the
Regent.--My Political Attitude.--Conversation with the Regent on the
Subject of the Parliament.--Proposal to Hang Law.--Meeting at My House.--
Law Takes Refuge in the Palais Royal.
CHAPTER XCI
Proposed Bed of Justice.--My Scheme.--Interview with the Regent.--
The Necessary Seats for the Assembly.--I Go in Search of Fontanieu.--
My Interview with Hini.--I Return to the Palace.--Preparations.--
Proposals of M. le Duc to Degrade M. du Maine.--My Opposition.--My Joy
and Delight.--The Bed of Justice Finally Determined On.--A Charming
Messenger.--Final Preparations.--Illness of the Regent.--News Given to
M. du Maine.--Resolution of the Parliament.--Military Arrangements.--I Am
Summoned to the Council.--My Message to the Comte de Toulouse.
CHAPTER XCII
The Material Preparations for the Bed of Justice--Arrival of the Duc
d'Orleans:--The Council Chamber.--Attitude of the Various Actors.--The
Duc du Maine.--Various Movements.--Arrival of the Duc de Toulouse.--
Anxiety of the Two Bastards.--They Leave the Room.--Subsequent
Proceedings.--Arrangement of the Council Chamber.--Speech of the Regent.
--Countenances of the Members of Council.--The Regent Explains the Object
of the Bed of Justice.--Speech of the Keeper of the Seals.--Taking the
Votes.--Incidents That Followed.--New Speech of the Duc d'Orleans.--
Against the Bastards.--My Joy.--I Express My Opinion Modestly.--Exception
in Favour of the Comte de Toulouse.--New Proposal of M. le Duc.--Its
Effect.--Threatened Disobedience of the Parliament.--Proper Measures.--
The Parliament Sets Out.
CHAPTER XCIII
Continuation of the Scene in the Council Chamber.--Slowness of the
Parliament.--They Arrive at Last.--The King Fetched.--Commencement of the
Bed of Justice.--My Arrival.--Its Effect.--What I Observed.--Absence of
the Bastards Noticed.--Appearance of the King. The Keeper of the Seals.--
The Proceedings Opened.--Humiliation of the Parliament.--Speech of the
Chief-President.--New Announcement.--Fall of the Duc du Maine Announced.
--Rage of the Chief-President.--My Extreme joy.--M. le Duc Substituted
for M. du Maine.--Indifference of the King.--Registration of the Decrees.
CHAPTER XCIV
My Return Home.--Wanted for a New Commission.--Go to the Palais Royal.--
A Cunning Page.--My journey to Saint-Cloud.--My Reception.--Interview
with the Duchesse d'Orleans.--Her Grief.--My Embarrassment.--Interview
with Madame.--Her Triumph.--Letter of the Duchesse d'Orleans.--She Comes
to Paris.--Quarrels with the Regent.
CHAPTER XCV
Intrigues of M. du Maine.--And of Cellamare, the Spanish Ambassador.--
Monteleon and Portocarrero.--Their Despatches.--How Signed.--The
Conspiracy Revealed.--Conduct of the Regent.--Arrest of Cellamare.--His
House Searched.--The Regency Council.--Speech of the Duc d'Orleans.--
Resolutions Come To.--Arrests.--Relations with Spain.--Alberoni and
Saint-Aignan.--Their Quarrel.--Escape of Saint-Aignan.
CHAPTER XCVI
The Regent Sends for Me.--Guilt of the Duc de Maine.--Proposed Arrest.--
Discussion on the Prison to Be Chosen.--The Arrest.--His Dejection.--
Arrest of the Duchess.--Her Rage.--Taken to Dijon.--Other Arrests.--
Conduct of the Comte de Toulouse.--The Faux Sauniers.--Imprisonment of
the Duc and Duchesse du Maine.--Their Sham Disagreement.--Their
Liberation.--Their Reconciliation.
VOLUME 13.
CHAPTER XCVII
Anecdote of Madame de Charlus.--The 'Phillippaques'.--La Grange.--
Pere Tellier.--The Jesuits.--Anecdote----Tellier's Banishment.--Death of
Madame de Maintenon.--Her Life at Saint-Cyr.
CHAPTER XCVIII
Mode of Life of the Duchesse de Berry.--Her Illness.--Her Degrading
Amours.--Her Danger Increases.--The Sacraments Refused.--The Cure Is
Supported by the Cardinal de Noailles.--Curious Scene.--The Duchess
Refuses to Give Way.--She Recovers, and Is Delivered.--Ambition of Rion.
--He Marries the Duchess.--She Determines to Go to Meudon.--Rion Sent to
the Army.--Quarrels of Father and Daughter.--Supper on the Terrace of
Meudon.--The Duchess Again Ill.--Moves to La Muette.--Great Danger.--
Receives the Sacrament.--Garus and Chirac.--Rival Doctors.--Increased
Illness.--Death of the Duchess.--Sentiments on the Occasion.--Funeral
Ceremonies.--Madame de Saint-Simon Fails Ill.--Her Recovery.--We Move to
Meudon.--Character of the Duchesse de Berry.
CHAPTER XCIX
The Mississippi Scheme.--Law Offers Me Shares.--Compensation for Blaye.--
The Rue Quincampoix.--Excitement of the Public.--Increased Popularity of
the Scheme.--Conniving of Law.--Plot against His Life--Disagreement with
Argenson.--Their Quarrel.--Avarice of the Prince de Conti.--His
Audacity.--Anger of the Regent.--Comparison with the Period of Louis
XIV.--A Ballet Proposed.--The Marechal de Villeroy.--The Young King Is to
Dance.--Young Law Proposed.--Excitement.--The Young King's Disgust.--
Extravagant Presents of the Duc d'Orleans.
CHAPTER C
System of Law in Danger.--Prodigality of the Duc d'Orleans.--Admissions
of Law.--Fall of His Notes.--Violent Measures Taken to Support Them.--
Their Failure.--Increased Extravagance of the Regent.--Reduction of the
Fervour.--Proposed Colonies.--Forced Emigration.--Decree on the Indian
Company.--Scheming of Argenson. Attitude of the Parliament.--Their
Remonstrance.--Dismissal of Law.--His Coolness--Extraordinary Decree of
Council of State.--Prohibition of jewellery.--New Schemes.
CHAPTER CI
The New Edict.--The Commercial Company.--New Edict.--Rush on the Bank.--
People Stifled in the Crowd.--Excitement against Law.--Money of the
Bank.--Exile of the Parliament to Pontoise.--New Operation.--The Place
Vendome.--The Marechal de Villeroy.--Marseilles.--Flight of Law.--
Character of Him and His Wife.--Observations on His Schemes.--Decrees of
the Finance.
CHAPTER CII
Council on the Finances.--Departure of Law--A Strange Dialogue.--M. le
Duc and the Regent.--Crimes Imputed to Law during His Absence.--Schemes
Proposed.--End, of the Council.
CHAPTER CIII
Character of Alberoni.--His Grand Projects.--Plots against Him.--The
Queen's Nurse.--The Scheme against the Cardinal.--His Fall.--Theft of a
Will.--Reception in Italy.--His Adventures There.
CHAPTER CIV
Meetings of the Council.--A Kitten.--The Archbishopric of Cambrai.--
Scandalous Conduct of Dubois.--The Consecration.--I Persuade the Regent
Not to Go.--He Promises Not.--Breaks His Word.--Madame de Parabere.--The
Ceremony.--Story of the Comte de Horn.
VOLUME 14
CHAPTER CV
Quarrel of the King of England with His Son.--Schemes of Dubois.--
Marriage of Brissac.--His Death.--Birth of the Young Pretender.--
Cardinalate of Dubois.--Illness of the King.--His Convalescence.--
A Wonderful Lesson.--Prudence of the Regent.--Insinuations against Him.
CHAPTER CVI
Projected Marriages of the King and of the Daughter of the Duc d'Orleans--
--How It Was Communicated to Me.--I Ask for the Embassy to Spain.--It Is
Granted to Me.--Jealousy of Dubois.--His Petty Interference.--
Announcement of the Marriages.
CHAPTER CVII
Interview with Dubois.--His Singular Instructions to Ale.--His Insidious
Object.--Various Tricks and Manoeuvres.--My Departure for Spain.--Journey
by Way of Bordeaux and Bayonne.--Reception in Spain.--Arrival at Madrid.
CHAPTER CVIII
Interview in the Hall of Mirrors.--Preliminaries of the Marriages.--
Grimaldo.--How the Question of Precedence Was Settled.--I Ask for an
Audience.--Splendid Illuminations.--A Ball.--I Am Forced to Dance.
CHAPTER CIX
Mademoiselle de Montpensier Sets out for Spain.--I Carry the News to the
King.--Set out for Lerma.--Stay at the Escurial.--Take the Small--pox.--
Convalescence.
CHAPTER CX
Mode of Life of Their Catholic Majesties.--Their Night.--Morning.--
Toilette.--Character of Philippe V.--And of His Queen.--How She Governed
Him.
CHAPTER CXI
The King's Taste for Hunting.--Preparations for a Battue.--Dull Work.--
My Plans to Obtain the Grandesse.--Treachery of Dubois.--Friendship of
Grimaldo.--My Success.
CHAPTER CXII
Marriage of the Prince of the Asturias.--An Ignorant Cardinal.--I Am Made
Grandee of Spain.--The Vidame de Chartres Named Chevalier of the Golden
Fleece.--His Reception--My Adieux.--A Belching Princess.--
Return to France.
VOLUME 15.
CHAPTER CXIII
Attempted Reconciliation between Dubois and Villeroy.--Violent Scene.--
Trap Laid for the Marechal.--Its Success.--His Arrest.
CHAPTER CXIV
I Am Sent for by Cardinal Dubois.--Flight of Frejus.--He Is Sought and
Found.--Behaviour of Villeroy in His Exile at Lyons.--His Rage and
Reproaches against Frejus.--Rise of the Latter in the King's Confidence.
CHAPTER CXV
I Retire from Public Life.--Illness and Death of Dubois.--Account of His
Riches.--His Wife.--His Character.--Anecdotes.--Madame de Conflans.--
Relief of the Regent and the King.
CHAPTER CXVI
Death of Lauzun.--His Extraordinary Adventures.--His Success at Court.--
Appointment to the Artillery.--Counter--worked by Louvois.--Lauzun and
Madame de Montespan.--Scene with the King.--Mademoiselle and Madame de
Monaco.
CHAPTER CXVII
Lauzun's Magnificence.--Louvois Conspires against Him.--He Is
Imprisoned.--His Adventures at Pignerol.--On What Terms He Is Released.--
His Life Afterwards.--Return to Court.
CHAPTER CXVIII
Lauzun Regrets His Former Favour.--Means Taken to Recover It.--Failure.--
Anecdotes.--Biting Sayings.--My Intimacy with Lauzun.--His Illness,
Death, and Character.
CHAPTER CXIX
Ill-Health of the Regent.--My Fears.--He Desires a Sudden Death.--
Apoplectic Fit.--Death.--His Successor as Prime Minister.--The Duc de
Chartres.--End of the Memoirs.
INTRODUCTION
No library of Court documents could pretend to be representative which
ignored the famous "Memoirs" of the Duc de Saint-Simon. They stand, by
universal consent, at the head of French historical papers, and are the
one great source from which all historians derive their insight into the
closing years of the reign of the "Grand Monarch," Louis XIV: whom the
author shows to be anything but grand--and of the Regency. The opinion
of the French critic, Sainte-Beuve, is fairly typical. "With the Memoirs
of De Retz, it seemed that perfection had been attained, in interest, in
movement, in moral analysis, in pictorial vivacity, and that there was no
reason for expecting they could be surpassed. But the 'Memoirs' of
Saint-Simon came; and they offer merits . . . which make them the most
precious body of Memoirs that as yet exist."
Villemain declared their author to be "the most original of geniuses in
French literature, the foremost of prose satirists; inexhaustible in
details of manners and customs, a word-painter like Tacitus; the author
of a language of his own, lacking in accuracy, system, and art, yet an
admirable writer." Leon Vallee reinforces this by saying: "Saint-Simon
can not be compared to any of his contemporaries. He has an
individuality, a style, and a language solely his own.... Language he
treated like an abject slave. When he had gone to its farthest limit,
when it failed to express his ideas or feelings, he forced it--the result
was a new term, or a change in the ordinary meaning of words sprang forth
from has pen. With this was joined a vigour and breadth of style, very
pronounced, which makes up the originality of the works of Saint-Simon
and contributes toward placing their author in the foremost rank of
French writers."
Louis de Rouvroy, who later became the Duc de Saint-Simon, was born in
Paris, January 16, 1675. He claimed descent from Charlemagne, but the
story goes that his father, as a young page of Louis XIII., gained favour
with his royal master by his skill in holding the stirrup, and was
finally made a duke and peer of France. The boy Louis had no lesser
persons than the King and Queen Marie Therese as godparents, and made his
first formal appearance at Court when seventeen. He tells us that he was
not a studious boy, but was fond of reading history; and that if he had
been given rein to read all he desired of it, he might have made "some
figure in the world." At nineteen, like D'Artagnan, he entered the
King's Musketeers. At twenty he was made a captain in the cavalry; and
the same year he married the beautiful daughter of the Marechal de
Larges. This marriage, which was purely political in its inception,
finally turned into a genuine love match--a pleasant exception to the
majority of such affairs. He became devoted to his wife, saying: "she
exceeded all that was promised of her, and all that I myself had hoped."
Partly because of this marriage, and also because he felt himself
slighted in certain army appointments, he resigned his commissim after
five years' service, and retired for a time to private life.
Upon his return to Court, taking up apartments which the royal favour had
reserved for him at Versailles, Saint-Simon secretly entered upon the
self-appointed task for which he is now known to fame--a task which the
proud King of a vainglorious Court would have lost no time in terminating
had it been discovered--the task of judge, spy, critic, portraitist, and
historian, rolled into one. Day by day, henceforth for many years, he
was to set down upon his private "Memoirs" the results of his personal
observations, supplemented by the gossip brought to him by his
unsuspecting friends; for neither courtier, statesman, minister, nor
friend ever looked upon those notes which this "little Duke with his
cruel, piercing, unsatisfied eyes" was so busily penning. Says Vallee:
"He filled a unique position at Court, being accepted by all, even by the
King himself, as a cynic, personally liked for his disposition, enjoying
consideration on account of the prestige of his social connections,
inspiring fear in the more timid by the severity and fearlessness of his
criticism." Yet Louis XIV. never seems to have liked him, and Saint-
Simon owed his influence chiefly to his friendly relations with the
Dauphin's family. During the Regency, he tried to restrain the
profligate Duke of Orleans, and in return was offered the position of
governor of the boy, Louis XV., which he refused. Soon after, he retired
to private life, and devoted his remaining years largely to revising his
beloved "Memoirs." The autograph manuscript, still in existence, reveals
the immense labour which he put into it. The writing is remarkable for
its legibility and freedom from erasure. It comprises no less than 2,300
pages in folio.
After the author's death, in 1755, the secret of his lifelong labour was
revealed; and the Duc de Choiseul, fearing the result of these frank
revelations, confiscated them and placed them among the state archives.
For sixty years they remained under lock and key, being seen by only a
few privileged persons, among them Marmontel, Duclos, and Voltaire. A
garbled version of extracts appeared in 1789, possibly being used as a
Revolutionary text. Finally, in 1819, a descendant of the analyst,
bearing the same name, obtained permission from Louis XVIII. to set this
"prisoner of the Bastille" at liberty; and in 1829 an authoritative
edition, revised and arranged by chapters, appeared. It created a
tremendous stir. Saint-Simon had been merciless, from King down to
lady's maid, in depicting the daily life of a famous Court. He had
stripped it of all its tinsel and pretension, and laid the ragged
framework bare. "He wrote like the Devil for posterity!" exclaimed
Chateaubriand. But the work at once became universally read and quoted,
both in France and England. Macaulay made frequent use of it in his
historical essays. It was, in a word, recognised as the chief authority
upon an important period of thirty years (1694-1723).
Since then it has passed through many editions, finally receiving an
adequate English translation at the hands of Bayle St. John, who has been
careful to adhere to the peculiarities of Saint-Simon's style. It is
this version which is now presented in full, giving us not only many
vivid pictures of the author's time, but of the author himself. "I do
not pride myself upon my freedom from prejudice--impartiality," he
confesses--"it would be useless to attempt it. But I have tried at all
times to tell the truth."
VOLUME 1.
CHAPTER I
I was born on the night of the 15th of January, 1675, of Claude Duc de
Saint-Simon, Peer of France, and of his second wife Charlotte de
l'Aubepine. I was the only child of that marriage. By his first wife,
Diana de Budos, my father had had only a daughter. He married her to the
Duc de Brissac, Peer of France, only brother of the Duchesse de Villeroy.
She died in 1684, without children,--having been long before separated
from a husband who was unworthy of her--leaving me heir of all her
property.
I bore the name of the Vidame de Chartres; and was educated with great
care and attention. My mother, who was remarkable for virtue,
perseverance, and sense, busied herself continually in forming my mind
and body. She feared for me the usual fate of young men, who believe
their fortunes made, and who find themselves their own masters early in
life. It was not likely that my father, born in 1606, would live long
enough to ward off from me this danger; and my mother repeatedly
impressed on, me how necessary it was for a young man, the son of the
favourite of a King long dead,--with no new friends at Court,--to acquire
some personal value of his own. She succeeded in stimulating my courage;
and in exciting in me the desire to make the acquisitions she laid stress
on; but my aptitude for study and the sciences did not come up to my
desire to succeed in them. However, I had an innate inclination for
reading, especially works of history; and thus was inspired with ambition
to emulate the examples presented to my imagination,--to do something and
become somebody, which partly made amends for my coldness for letters.
In fact, I have always thought that if I had been allowed to read history
more constantly, instead of losing my time in studies for which I had no
aptness, I might have made some figure in the world.
What I read of my own accord, of history, and, above all, of the personal
memoirs of the times since Francis I., bred in me the desire to write
down what I might myself see. The hope of advancement, and of becoming
familiar with the affairs of my time, stirred me. The annoyances I might
thus bring upon myself did not fail to present themselves to my mind; but
the firm resolution I made to keep my writings secret from everybody,
appeared to me to remedy all evils. I commenced my memoirs then in July,
1694, being at that time colonel of a cavalry regiment bearing my name,
in the camp of Guinsheim, upon the old Rhine, in the army commanded by
the Marechal Duc de Lorges.
In 1691 I was studying my philosophy and beginning to learn to ride at an
academy at Rochefort, getting mightily tired of masters and books, and
anxious to join the army. The siege of Mons, formed by the King in
person, at the commencement of the spring, had drawn away all the young
men of my age to commence their first campaign; and, what piqued me most,
the Duc de Chartres was there, too. I had been, as it were, educated
with him. I was younger than he by eight months; and if the expression
be allowed in speaking of young people, so unequal in position,
friendship had united us. I made up my mind, therefore, to escape from
my leading-strings; but pass lightly over the artifices I used in order
to attain success. I addressed myself to my mother. I soon saw that she
trifled with me. I had recourse to my father, whom I made believe that
the King, having led a great siege this year, would rest the next.
I said nothing of this to my mother, who did not discover my plot until
it was just upon the point, of execution.
The King had determined rigidly to adhere to a rule he had laid down--
namely, that none who entered the service, except his illegitimate
children, and the Princes of the blood royal, should be exempt from
serving for a year in one of his two companies of musketeers; and passing
afterwards through the ordeal of being private or subaltern in one of the
regiments of cavalry or infantry, before receiving permission to purchase
a regiment. My father took me, therefore, to Versailles, where he had
not been for many years, and begged of the King admission for me into the
Musketeers. It was on the day of St. Simon and St. Jude, at half-past
twelve, and just as his Majesty came out of the council.
The King did my father the honour of embracing him three times, and then
turned towards me. Finding that I was little and of delicate appearance,
he said I was still very young; to which my father replied, that I should
be able in consequence to serve longer. Thereupon the King demanded in
which of the two companies he wished to put me; and my father named that
commanded by Maupertuis, who was one of his friends. The King relied
much upon the information given him by the captains of the two companies
of Musketeers, as to the young men who served in them. I have reason for
believing, that I owe to Maupertuis the first good opinion that his
Majesty had of me.
Three months after entering the Musketeers, that is to say, in the March
of the following year, the King held a review of his guards, and of the
gendarmerie, at Compiegne, and I mounted guard once at the palace.
During this little journey there was talk of a much more important one.
My joy was extreme; but my father, who had not counted upon this,
repented of having believed me, when I told him that the King would no
doubt rest at Paris this year. My mother, after a little vexation and
pouting at finding me enrolled by my father against her will, did not
fail to bring him to reason, and to make him provide me with an equipment
of thirty-five horses or mules, and means to live honourably.
A grievous annoyance happened in our house about three weeks before my
departure. A steward of my father named Tesse, who had been with him
many years, disappeared all at once with fifty thousand francs due to
various tradesfolk. He had written out false receipts from these people,
and put them in his accounts. He was a little man, gentle, affable, and
clever; who had shown some probity, and who had many friends.
The King set out on the 10th of May, 1692, with the ladies; and I
performed the journey on horseback with the soldiers and all the
attendants, like the other Musketeers, and continued to do so through the
whole campaign. I was accompanied by two gentlemen; the one had been my
tutor, the other was my mother's squire. The King's army was formed at
the camp of Gevries; that of M. de Luxembourg almost joined it: The
ladies were at Mons, two leagues distant. The King made them come into
his camp, where he entertained them; and then showed them, perhaps; the
most superb review which had ever been seen. The two armies were ranged
in two lines, the right of M. de Luxembourg's touching the left of the
King's,--the whole extending over three leagues of ground.
After stopping ten days at Gevries, the two armies separated and marched.
Two days afterwards the seige of Namur was declared. The King arrived
there in five days. Monseigneur (son of the King); Monsieur (Duc
d'Orleans, brother of the King); M. le Prince (de Conde) and Marechal
d'Humieres; all four, the one under the other, commanded in the King's
army under the King himself. The Duc de Luxembourg, sole general of his
own army, covered the siege operations, and observed the enemy. The
ladies went away to Dinant. On the third day of the march M. le Prince
went forward to invest the place.
The celebrated Vauban, the life and soul of all the sieges the King made,
was of opinion that the town should be attacked separately from the
castle; and his advice was acted upon. The Baron de Bresse, however,
who had fortified the place, was for attacking town and castle together.
He was a humble down-looking man, whose physiognomy promised nothing, but
who soon acquired the confidence of the King, and the esteem of the army.
The Prince de Conde, Marechal d'Humieres, and the Marquis de Boufflers
each led an attack. There was nothing worthy of note during the ten days
the siege lasted. On the eleventh day, after the trenches had been
opened, a parley was beaten and a capitulation made almost as the
besieged desired it. They withdrew to the castle; and it was agreed that
it should not be attacked from the town-side, and that the town was not
to be battered by it. During the siege the King was almost always in his
tent; and the weather remained constantly warm and serene. We lost
scarcely anybody of consequence. The Comte de Toulouse received a slight
wound in the arm while quite close to the King, who from a prominent
place was witnessing the attack of a half-moon, which was carried in
broad daylight by a detachment of the oldest of the two companies of
Musketeers.
The siege of the castle next commenced. The position of the camp was
changed. The King's tents and those of all the Court were pitched in a
beautiful meadow about five hundred paces from the monastery of
Marlaigne. The fine weather changed to rain, which fell with an
abundance and perseverance never before known by any one in the army.
This circumstance increased the reputation of Saint Medard, whose fete
falls on the 8th of June. It rained in torrents that day, and it is said
that when such is the case it will rain for forty days afterwards. By
chance it happened so this year. The soldiers in despair at this deluge
uttered many imprecations against the Saint; and looked for images of
him, burning and breaking as many as they could find. The rains sadly
interfered with the progress of the siege. The tents of the King could
only be communicated with by paths laid with fascines which required to
be renewed every day, as they sank down into the soil. The camps and
quarters were no longer accessible; the trenches were full of mud and
water, and it took often three days to remove cannon from one battery to
another. The waggons became useless, too, so that the transport of
bombs, shot, and so forth, could not be performed except upon the backs
of mules and of horses taken from the equipages of the Court and the
army. The state of the roads deprived the Duc de Luxembourg of the use
of waggons and other vehicles. His army was perishing for want of grain.
To remedy this inconvenience the King ordered all his household troops to
mount every day on horseback by detachments, and to take sacks of grain
upon their cruppers to a village where they were to be received and
counted by the officers of the Duc de Luxembourg. Although the household
of the King had scarcely any repose during this siege, what with carrying
fascines, furnishing guards, and other daily services, this increase of
duty was given to it because the cavalry served continually also, and was
reduced almost entirely to leaves of trees for provender.
The household of the King, accustomed to all sorts of distinctions,
complained bitterly of this task. But the King turned a deaf ear to
them, and would be obeyed. On the first day some of the Gendarmes and of
the light horse of the guard arrived early in the morning at the depot of
the sacks, and commenced murmuring and exciting each other by their
discourses. They threw down the sacks at last and flatly refused to
carry them. I had been asked very politely if I would be of the
detachment for the sacks or of some other. I decided for the sacks,
because I felt that I might thereby advance myself, the subject having
already made much noise. I arrived with the detachment of the Musketeers
at the moment of the refusal of the others; and I loaded my sack before
their eyes. Marin, a brigadier of cavalry and lieutenant of the body
guards, who was there to superintend the operation, noticed me, and full
of anger at the refusal he had just met with, exclaimed that as I did not
think such work beneath me, the rest would do well to imitate my example.
Without a word being spoken each took up his sack; and from that time
forward no further difficulty occurred in the matter. As soon as the
detachment had gone, Marin went straight to the King and told him what
had occurred. This was a service which procured for me several obliging
discourses from his Majesty, who during the rest of the siege always
sought to say something agreeable every time he met me.
The twenty-seventh day after opening the trenches, that is, the first of
July, 1692, a parley was sounded by the Prince de Barbanqon, governor of
the place,--a fortunate circumstance for the besiegers, who were worn
out with fatigue; and destitute of means, on account of the wretched
weather which still continued, and which had turned the whole country
round into a quagmire. Even the horses of the King lived upon leaves,
and not a horse of all our numerous cavalry ever thoroughly recovered
from the effects of such sorry fare. It is certain that without the
presence of the King the siege might never have been successful; but he
being there, everybody was stimulated. Yet had the place held out ten
days longer, there is no saying what might have happened. Before the end
of the siege the King was so much fatigued with his exertions, that a new
attack of gout came on, with more pain than ever, and compelled him to
keep his bed, where, however, he thought of everything, and laid out his
plans as though he had been at Versailles.
During the entire siege, the Prince of Orange (William III. of England)
had unavailingly used all his science to dislodge the Duc de Luxembourg;
but he had to do with a man who in matters of war was his superior, and
who continued so all his life. Namur, which, by the surrender of the
castle, was now entirely in our power, was one of the strongest places in
the Low Countries, and had hitherto boasted of having never changed
masters. The inhabitants could not restrain their tears of sorrow. Even
the monks of Marlaigne were profoundly moved, so much so, that they could
not disguise their grief. The King, feeling for the loss of their corn
that they had sent for safety into Namur, gave them double the quantity,
and abundant alms. He incommoded them as little as possible, and would
not permit the passage of cannon across their park, until it was found
impossible to transport it by any other road. Notwithstanding these acts
of goodness, they could scarcely look upon a Frenchman after the taking
of the place; and one actually refused to give a bottle of beer to an
usher of the King's antechamber, although offered a bottle of champagne
in exchange for it!
A circumstance happened just after the taking of Namur, which might have
led to the saddest results, under any other prince than the King. Before
he entered the town, a strict examination of every place was made,
although by the capitulation all the mines, magazines, &c., had to be
shown. At a visit paid to the Jesuits, they pretended to show
everything, expressing, however, surprise and something more, that their
bare word was not enough. But on examining here and there, where they
did not expect search would be made, their cellars were found to be
stored with gunpowder, of which they had taken good care to say no word.
What they meant to do with it is uncertain. It was carried away, and as
they were Jesuits nothing was done.
During the course of this siege, the King suffered a cruel
disappointment. James II. of England, then a refugee in France, had
advised the King to give battle to the English fleet. Joined to that of
Holland it was very superior to the sea forces of France. Tourville, our
admiral, so famous for his valour and skill, pointed this circumstance
out to the King. But it was all to no effect. He was ordered to attack
the enemy. He did so. Many of his ships were burnt, and the victory was
won by the English. A courier entrusted with this sad intelligence was
despatched to the King. On his way he was joined by another courier, who
pressed him for his news. The first courier knew that if he gave up his
news, the other, who was better mounted, would outstrip him, and be the
first to carry it to the King. He told his companion, therefore, an idle
tale, very different indeed from the truth, for he changed the defeat
into a great victory. Having gained this wonderful intelligence, the
second courier put spurs to his horse, and hurried away to the King's
camp, eager to be the bearer of good tidings. He reached the camp first,
and was received with delight. While his Majesty was still in great joy
at his happy victory, the other courier arrived with the real details.
The Court appeared prostrated. The King was much afflicted.
Nevertheless he found means to appear to retain his self-possession, and
I saw, for the first time, that Courts are not long in affliction or
occupied with sadness. I must mention that the (exiled) King of England
looked on at this naval battle from the shore; and was accused of
allowing expressions of partiality to escape him in favour of his
countrymen, although none had kept their promises to him.
Two days after the defeated garrison had marched out, the King went to
Dinant, to join the ladies, with whom he returned to Versailles. I had
hoped that Monseigneur would finish the campaign, and that I should be
with him, and it was not without regret that I returned towards Paris.
On the way a little circumstance happened. One of our halting-places was
Marienburgh, where we camped for the night. I had become united in
friendship with Comte de Coetquen, who was in the same company with
myself. He was well instructed and full of wit; was exceedingly rich,
and even more idle than rich. That evening he had invited several of us
to supper in his tent. I went there early, and found him stretched out
upon his bed, from which I dislodged him playfully and laid myself down
in his place, several of our officers standing by. Coetquen, sporting
with me in return, took his gun, which he thought to be unloaded, and
pointed it at me. But to our great surprise the weapon went off.
Fortunately for me, I was at that moment lying flat upon the bed. Three
balls passed just above my head, and then just above the heads of our two
tutors, who were walking outside the tent. Coetquen fainted at thought
of the mischief he might have done, and we had all the pains in the world
to bring him to himself again. Indeed, he did not thoroughly recover for
several days. I relate this as a lesson which ought to teach us never
to play with fire-arms.
The poor lad,--to finish at once all that concerns him,--did not long
survive this incident. He entered the King's regiment, and when just
upon the point of joining it in the following spring, came to me and said
he had had his fortune told by a woman named Du Perehoir, who practised
her trade secretly at Paris, and that she had predicted he would be soon
drowned. I rated him soundly for indulging a curiosity so dangerous and
so foolish. A few days after he set out for Amiens. He found another
fortune-teller there, a man, who made the same prediction. In marching
afterwards with the regiment of the King to join the army, he wished to
water his horse in the Escaut, and was drowned there, in the presence of
the whole regiment, without it being possible to give him any aid. I felt
extreme regret for his loss, which for his friends and his family was
irreparable.
But I must go back a little, and speak of two marriages that took place
at the commencement of this year the first (most extraordinary) on the
18th February the other a month after.
CHAPTER II.
The King was very anxious to establish his illegitimate children, whom he
advanced day by day; and had married two of them, daughters, to Princes
of the blood. One of these, the Princesse de Conti, only daughter of the
King and Madame de la Valliere, was a widow without children; the other,
eldest daughter of the King and Madame de Montespan, had married Monsieur
le Duc (Louis de Bourbon, eldest son of the Prince de Conde). For some
time past Madame de Maintenon, even more than the King, had thought of
nothing else than how to raise the remaining illegitimate children, and
wished to marry Mademoiselle de Blois (second daughter of the King and of
Madame de Montespan) to Monsieur the Duc de Chartres. The Duc de
Chartres was the sole nephew of the King, and was much above the Princes
of the blood by his rank of Grandson of France, and by the Court that
Monsieur his father kept up.
The marriages of the two Princes of the blood, of which I have just
spoken, had scandalised all the world. The King was not ignorant of
this; and he could thus judge of the effect of a marriage even more
startling; such as was this proposed one. But for four years he had
turned it over in his mind and had even taken the first steps to bring it
about. It was the more difficult because the father of the Duc de
Chartres was infinitely proud of his rank, and the mother belonged to a
nation which abhorred illegitimacy and, misalliances, and was indeed of a
character to forbid all hope of her ever relishing this marriage.
In order to vanquish all these obstacles, the King applied to M. le Grand
(Louis de Lorraine). This person was brother of the Chevalier de
Lorraine, the favourite, by disgraceful means, of Monsieur, father of the
Duc de Chartres. The two brothers, unscrupulous and corrupt, entered
willingly into the scheme, but demanded as a reward, paid in advance, to
be made "Chevaliers of the Order." This was done, although somewhat
against the inclination of the King, and success was promised.
The young Duc de Chartres had at that time for teacher Dubois (afterwards
the famous Cardinal Dubois), whose history was singular. He had formerly
been a valet; but displaying unusual aptitude for learning, had been
instructed by his master in literature and history, and in due time
passed into the service of Saint Laurent, who was the Duc de Chartres'
first instructor. He became so useful and showed so much skill, that
Saint Laurent made him become an abbe. Thus raised in position, he
passed much time with the Duc de Chartres, assisting him to prepare his
lessons, to write his exercises, and to look out words in the dictionary.
I have seen him thus engaged over and over again, when I used to go and
play with the Duc de Chartres. As Saint Laurent grew infirm, Dubois
little by little supplied his place; supplied it well too, and yet
pleased the young Duke. When Saint Laurent died Dubois aspired to
succeed him. He had paid his court to the Chevalier de Lorraine, by
whose influence he was much aided in obtaining his wish. When at last
appointed successor to Saint Laurent, I never saw a man so glad, nor with
more reason. The extreme obligation he was under to the Chevalier de
Lorraine, and still more the difficulty of maintaining himself in his new
position, attached him more and more to his protector.
It was, then, Dubois that the Chevalier de Lorraine made use of to gain
the consent of the young Duc de Chartres to the marriage proposed by the
King. Dubois had, in fact, gained the Duke's confidence, which it was
easy to do at that age; had made him afraid of his father and of the
King; and, on the other hand, had filled him with fine hopes and
expectations. All that Dubois could do, however, when he broke the
matter of the marriage to the young Duke, was to ward off a direct
refusal; but that was sufficient for the success of the enterprise.
Monsieur was already gained, and as soon as the King had a reply from
Dubois he hastened to broach the affair. A day or two before this,
however, Madame (mother of the Duc de Chartres) had scent of what was
going on. She spoke to her son of the indignity of this marriage with
that force in which she was never wanting, and drew from him a promise
that he would not consent to it. Thus, he was feeble towards his
teacher, feeble towards his mother, and there was aversion on the one
hand and fear on the other, and great embarrassment on all sides.
One day early after dinner I saw M. de Chartres, with a very sad air,
come out of his apartment and enter the closet of the King. He found his
Majesty alone with Monsieur. The King spoke very obligingly to the Duc
de Chartres, said that he wished to see him married; that he offered him
his daughter, but that he did not intend to constrain him in the matter,
but left him quite at liberty. This discourse, however, pronounced with
that terrifying majesty so natural to the King, and addressed to a timid
young prince, took away his voice, and quite unnerved him. He, thought
to escape from his slippery position by throwing himself upon Monsieur
and Madame, and stammeringly replied that the King was master, but that a
son's will depended upon that of his parents. "What you say is very
proper," replied the King; "but as soon as you consent to my proposition
your father and mother will not oppose it." And then turning to Monsieur
he said, "Is this not true, my brother?" Monsieur consented, as he had
already done, and the only person remaining to consult was Madame, who
was immediately sent for.
As soon as she came, the King, making her acquainted with his project,
said that he reckoned she would not oppose what her husband and her son
had already agreed to. Madame, who had counted upon the refusal of her
son, was tongue-tied. She threw two furious glances upon Monsieur and
upon the Duc de Chartres, and then said that, as they wished it, she had
nothing to say, made a slight reverence, and went away. Her son
immediately followed her to explain his conduct; but railing against him,
with tears in her eyes, she would not listen, and drove him from her
room. Her husband, who shortly afterwards joined her, met with almost
the same treatment.
That evening an "Apartment" was held at the palace, as was customary
three times a week during the winter; the other three evenings being set
apart for comedy, and the Sunday being free. An Apartment as it was
called, was an assemblage of all the Court in the grand saloon, from
seven o'clock in the evening until ten, when the King sat down to table;
and, after ten, in one of the saloons at the end of the grand gallery
towards the tribune of the chapel. In the first place there was some
music; then tables were placed all about for all kinds of gambling; there
was a 'lansquenet'; at which Monsieur and Monseigneur always played; also
a billiard-table; in a word, every one was free to play with every one,
and allowed to ask for fresh tables as all the others were occupied.
Beyond the billiards was a refreshment-room. All was perfectly lighted.
At the outset, the King went to the "apartments" very often and played,
but lately he had ceased to do so. He spent the evening with Madame de
Maintenon, working with different ministers one after the other. But
still he wished his courtiers to attend assiduously.
This evening, directly after the music had finished, the King sent for
Monseigneur and Monsieur, who were already playing at 'lansquenet';
Madame, who scarcely looked at a party of 'hombre' at which she had
seated herself; the Duc de Chartres, who, with a rueful visage, was
playing at chess; and Mademoiselle de Blois, who had scarcely begun to
appear in society, but who this evening was extraordinarily decked out,
and who, as yet, knew nothing and suspected nothing; and therefore, being
naturally very timid, and horribly afraid of the King, believed herself
sent for in order to be reprimanded, and trembled so that Madame de
Maintenon took her upon her knees, where she held her, but was scarcely
able to reassure her. The fact of these royal persons being sent for by
the King at once made people think that a marriage was in contemplation.
In a few minutes they returned, and then the announcement was made
public. I arrived at that moment. I found everybody in clusters, and
great astonishment expressed upon every face. Madame was walking in the
gallery with Chateauthiers--her favourite, and worthy of being so.
She took long strides, her handkerchief in her hand, weeping without
constraint, speaking pretty loudly, gesticulating; and looking like Ceres
after the rape of her daughter Proserpine, seeking her in fury, and
demanding her back from Jupiter. Every one respectfully made way to let
her pass. Monsieur, who had returned to 'lansquenet', seemed overwhelmed
with shame, and his son appeared in despair; and the bride-elect was
marvellously embarrassed and sad. Though very young, and likely to be
dazzled by such a marriage, she understood what was passing, and feared
the consequences. Most people appeared full of consternation.
The Apartment, which, however heavy in appearance, was full of interest
to, me, seemed quite short. It finished by the supper of the King. His
Majesty appeared quite at ease. Madame's eyes were full of tears, which
fell from time to time as she looked into every face around, as if in
search of all our thoughts. Her son, whose eyes too were red, she would
not give a glance to; nor to Monsieur: all three ate scarcely anything.
I remarked that the King offered Madame nearly all the dishes that were
before him, and that she refused with an air of rudeness which did not,
however, check his politeness. It was furthermore noticeable that, after
leaving the table, he made to Madame a very marked and very low
reverence, during which she performed so complete a pirouette, that the
King on raising his head found nothing but her back before him, removed
about a step further towards the door.
On the morrow we went as usual to wait in the gallery for the breaking-up
of the council, and for the King's Mass. Madame came there. Her son
approached her, as he did every day, to kiss her hand. At that very
moment she gave him a box on the ear, so sonorous that it was heard
several steps distant. Such treatment in presence of all the Court
covered with confusion this unfortunate prince, and overwhelmed the
infinite number of spectators, of whom I was one, with prodigious
astonishment.
That day the immense dowry was declared; and on Sunday there was a grand
ball, that is, a ball opened by a 'branle' which settled the order of the
dancing throughout the evening. Monseigneur the Duc de Bourgogne danced
on this occasion for the first time; and led off the 'branle' with
Mademoiselle. I danced also for the first time at Court. My partner was
Mademoiselle de Sourches, daughter of the Grand Prevot; she danced
excellently. I had been that morning to wait on Madame, who could not
refrain from saying, in a sharp and angry voice, that I was doubtless
very glad of the promise of so many balls--that this was natural at my
age; but that, for her part, she was old, and wished they were well over.
A few days after, the contract of marriage was signed in the closet of
the King, and in the presence of all the Court. The same day the
household of the future Duchesse de Chartres was declared. The King gave
her a first gentleman usher and a Dame d'Atours, until then reserved to
the daughters of France, and a lady of honour, in order to carry out
completely so strange a novelty. I must say something about the persons
who composed this household.
M. de Villars was gentleman usher; he was grandson of a recorder of
Coindrieu, and one of the best made men in France. There was a great
deal of fighting in his young days, and he had acquired a reputation for
courage and skill. To these qualities he owed his fortune. M. de
Nemours was his first patron, and, in a duel which he had with M. de
Beaufort, took Villars for second. M. de Nemours was killed; but Villars
was victorious against his adversary, anal passed into the service of the
Prince de Conti as one of his gentlemen. He succeeded in gaining
confidence in his new employment; so much so, that the marriage which
afterwards took place between the Prince de Conti and the niece of
Cardinal Mazarin was brought about in part by his assistance. He became
the confidant of the married pair, and their bond: of union with the
Cardinal. His position gave him an opportunity of mixing in society much
above him; but on this he never presumed. His face was his, passport
with the ladies: he was gallant, even discreet; and this means was not
unuseful to him. He pleased Madame Scarron, who upon the throne never
forgot the friendships of this kind, so freely intimate, which she had
formed as a private person. Villars was employed in diplomacy; and from
honour to honour, at last reached the order of the Saint Esprit, in 1698.
His wife was full of wit, and scandalously inclined. Both were very
poor--and always dangled about the Court, where they had many powerful
friends.
The Marechale de Rochefort was lady of honour. She was of the house of
Montmorency--a widow--handsome--sprightly; formed by nature to live at
Court--apt for gallantry and intrigues; full of worldly cleverness, from
living much in the world, with little cleverness of any other kind,
nearly enough for any post and any business. M. de Louvois found her
suited to his taste, and she accommodated herself very well to his purse,
and to the display she made by this intimacy. She always became the
friend of every new mistress of the King; and when he favoured Madame de
Soubise, it was at the Marechale's house that she waited, with closed
doors, for Bontems, the King's valet, who led her by private ways to his
Majesty. The Marechale herself has related to me how one day she was
embarrassed to get rid of the people that Madame de Soubise (who had not
had time to announce her arrival) found at her house; and how she most
died of fright lest Bontems should return and the interview be broken off
if he arrived before the company had departed. The Marechale de
Rochefort was in this way the friend of Mesdames de la Valliere, de
Montespan, and de Soubise; and she became the friend of Madame de
Maintenon, to whom she attached herself in proportion as she saw her
favour increase. She had, at the marriage of Monseigneur, been made Dame
d'Atours to the new Dauphiness; and, if people were astonished at that,
they were also astonished to see her lady of honour to an "illegitimate
grand-daughter of France."
The Comtesse de Mailly was Dame d'Atours. She was related to Madame de
Maintenon, to whose favour she owed her marriage with the Comte de
Mailly. She had come to Paris with all her provincial awkwardness, and,
from want of wit, had never been able to get rid of it. On the contrary,
she grafted thereon an immense conceit, caused by the favour of Madame de
Maintenon. To complete the household, came M. de Fontaine-Martel, poor
and gouty, who was first master of the horse.
On the Monday before Shrove Tuesday, all the marriage party and the bride
and bridegroom, superbly dressed, repaired, a little before mid-day, to
the closet of the King, and afterwards to the chapel. It was arranged,
as usual, for the Mass of the King, excepting that between his place and
the altar were two cushions for the bride and bridegroom, who turned
their backs to the King. Cardinal de Bouillon, in full robes, married
them, and said Mass. From the chapel all the company went to table: it
was of horse-shoe shape. The Princes and Princesses of the blood were
placed at the right and at the left, according to their rank, terminated
by the two illegitimate children of the King, and, for the first time,
after them, the Duchesse de Verneuil; so that M. de Verneuil,
illegitimate son of Henry IV., became thus "Prince of the blood" so many
years after his death, without having ever suspected it. The Duc d'Uzes
thought this so amusing that he marched in front of the Duchess, crying
out, as loud as he could--"Place, place for Madame Charlotte Seguier!"
In the afternoon the King and Queen of England came to Versailles with
their Court. There was a great concert; and the play-tables were set
out. The supper was similar to the dinner. Afterwards the married
couple were led into the apartment of the new Duchesse de Chartres. The
Queen of England gave the Duchess her chemise; and the shirt of the Duke
was given to him by the King, who had at first refused on the plea that
he was in too unhappy circumstances. The benediction of the bed was
pronounced by the Cardinal de Bouillon, who kept us all waiting for a
quarter of an hour; which made people say that such airs little became a
man returned as he was from a long exile, to which he had been sent
because he had had the madness to refuse the nuptial benediction to
Madame la Duchesse unless admitted to the royal banquet.
On Shrove Tuesday, there was a grand toilette of the Duchesse de
Chartres, to which the King and all the Court came; and in the evening a
grand ball, similar to that which had just taken place, except that the
new Duchesse de Chartres was led out by the Duc de Bourgogne. Every one
wore the same dress, and had the same partner as before.
I cannot pass over in silence a very ridiculous adventure which occurred
at both of these balls. A son of Montbron, no more made to dance at
Court than his father was to be chevalier of the order (to which however,
he was promoted in 1688), was among the company. He had been asked if he
danced well; and he had replied with a confidence which made every one
hope that the contrary was the case. Every one was satisfied. From the
very first bow, he became confused, and he lost step at once. He tried
to divert attention from his mistake by affected attitudes, and carrying
his arms high; but this made him only more ridiculous, and excited bursts
of laughter, which, in despite of the respect due to the person of the
King (who likewise had great difficulty to hinder himself from laughing),
degenerated at length into regular hooting. On the morrow, instead of
flying the Court or holding his tongue, he excused himself by saying that
the presence of the King had disconcerted him; and promised marvels for
the ball which was to follow. He was one of my friends, and I felt for
him, I should even have warned him against a second attempt, if the very
indifferent success I had met with had not made me fear that my advice
would be taken in ill part. As soon as he began to dance at the second
ball, those who were near stood up, those who were far off climbed
wherever they could get a sight; and the shouts of laughter were mingled
with clapping of hands. Every one, even the King himself, laughed
heartily, and most of us quite loud, so that I do not think any one was
ever treated so before. Montbron disappeared immediately afterwards, and
did not show himself again for a long time, It was a pity he exposed
himself to this defeat, for he was an honourable and brave man.
Ash Wednesday put an end to all these sad rejoicings by command, and only
the expected rejoicings were spoken of. M. du Maine wished to marry.
The King tried to turn him from it, and said frankly to him, that it was
not for such as he to make a lineage. But pressed M. by Madame de
Maintenon, who had educated Maine; and who felt for him as a nurse the
King resolved to marry him to a daughter of the Prince de Conde. The
Prince was greatly pleased at the project. He had three daughters for
M. du Maine to choose from: all three were extremely little. An inch of
height, that the second had above the others, procured for her the
preference, much to the grief of the eldest, who was beautiful and
clever, and who dearly wished to escape from the slavery in which her
father kept her. The dignity with which she bore her disappointment was
admired by every one, but it cost her an effort that ruined her health.
The marriage once arranged, was celebrated on the 19th of March; much in
the same manner as had been that of the Duc de Chartres. Madame de
Saint-Vallery was appointed lady of honour to Madame du Maine, and M. de
Montchevreuil gentleman of the chamber. This last had been one of the
friends of Madame de Maintenon when she was Madame Scarron.
Montchevreuil was a very honest man, modest, brave, but thick-headed.
His wife was a tall creature, meagre, and yellow, who laughed sillily,
and showed long and ugly teeth; who was extremely devout, of a compassed
mien, and who only wanted a broomstick to be a perfect witch. Without
possessing any wit, she had so captivated Madame de Maintenon, that the
latter saw only with her eyes. All the ladies of the Court were under
her surveillance: they depended upon her for their distinctions, and
often for their fortunes. Everybody, from the ministers to the daughters
of the King, trembled before her. The King himself showed her the most
marked consideration. She was of all the Court journeys, and always with
Madame de Maintenon.
The marriage of M. du Maine caused a rupture between the Princess de
Conde and the Duchess of Hanover her sister, who had strongly desired
M. du Maine for one of her daughters, and who pretended that the Prince
de Conde had cut the grass from under her feet. She lived in Paris,
making a display quite unsuited to her rank, and had even carried it so
far as to go about with two coaches and many liveried servants. With
this state one day she met in the streets the coach of Madame de
Bouillon, which the servants of the German woman forced to give way to
their mistress's. The Bouillons, piqued to excess, resolved to be
revenged. One day, when they knew the Duchess was going to the play,
they went there attended by a numerous livery. Their servants had orders
to pick a quarrel with those of the Duchess. They executed these orders
completely; the servants of the Duchess were thoroughly thrashed--the
harness of her horses cut--her coaches maltreated. The Duchess made a
great fuss, and complained to the King, but he would not mix himself in
the matter. She was so outraged, that she resolved to retire into
Germany, and in a very few months did so.
My year of service in the Musketeers being over, the King, after a time,
gave me, without purchase, a company of cavalry in the Royal Roussillon,
in garrison at Mons, and just then very incomplete. I thanked the King,
who replied to me very obligingly. The company was entirely made up in a
fortnight. This was towards the middle of April.
A little before, that is, on the 27th of March, the King made seven new
marechals of France. They were the Comte de Choiseul, the Duc de
Villeroy, the Marquis de Joyeuse, Tourville, the Duc de Noailles, the
Marquis de Boufllers, and Catinat. These promotions caused very great
discontent. Complaint was more especially made that the Duc de Choiseul
had not been named. The cause of his exclusion is curious. His wife,
beautiful, with the form of a goddess--notorious for the number of her
gallantries--was very intimate with the Princess de Conti. The King, not
liking such a companion for his daughter, gave the Duc de Choiseul to
understand that the public disorders of the Duchess offended him. If the
Duke would send her into a convent, the Marechal's baton would be his.
The Duc de Choiseul, indignant that the reward of his services in the war
was attached to a domestic affair which concerned himself alone, refused
promotion on such terms. He thus lost the baton; and, what was worse for
him, the Duchess soon after was driven from Court, and so misbehaved
herself, that at last he could endure her no longer, drove her away
himself, and separated from her for ever.
Mademoiselle la grande Mademoiselle, as she was called, to distinguish
her from the daughter of Monsieur--or to call her by her name,
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, died on Sunday the 5th of April, at her
palace in the Luxembourg, sixty-three years of age, and the richest
private princess in Europe. She interested herself much in those who
were related to her, even to the lowest degree, and wore mourning for
them, however far removed. It is well known, from all the memoirs of the
time, that she was greatly in love with M. de Lauzun, and that she
suffered much when the King withheld his permission to their marriage.
M. de Lauzun was so enraged, that he could not contain himself, and at
last went so far beyond bounds, that he was sent prisoner to Pignerol,
where he remained, extremely ill-treated, for ten years. The affection
of Mademoiselle did not grow cold by separation. The King profited by
it, to make M. de Lauzun buy his liberty at her expense, and thus
enriched M. du Maine. He always gave out that he had married
Mademoiselle, and appeared before the King, after her death, in a long
cloak, which gave great displeasure. He also assumed ever afterwards a
dark brown livery, as an external expression of his grief for
Mademoiselle, of whom he had portraits everywhere. As for Mademoiselle,
the King never quite forgave her the day of Saint Antoine; and I heard
him once at supper reproach her in jest, for having fired the cannons of
the Bastille upon his troops. She was a little embarrassed, but she got
out of the difficulty very well.
Her body was laid out with great state, watched for several days, two
hours at a time, by a duchess or a princess, and by two ladies of
quality. The Comtesse de Soissons refused to take part in this watching,
and would not obey until the King threatened to dismiss her from the
Court. A very ridiculous accident happened in the midst of this
ceremony. The urn containing the entrails fell over, with a frightful
noise and a stink sudden and intolerable. The ladies, the heralds, the
psalmodists, everybody present fled, in confusion. Every one tried to
gain the door first. The entrails had been badly embalmed, and it was
their fermentation which caused the accident. They were soon perfumed
and put in order, and everybody laughed at this mishap. These entrails
were in the end carried to the Celestins, the heart to Val de Grace, and
the body to the Cathedral of Saint Denis, followed by a numerous company.
CHAPTER III
On May 3d 1693, the King announced his intention of placing himself at
the head of his army in Flanders, and, having made certain alterations in
the rule of precedence of the marechale of France, soon after began the
campaign. I have here, however, to draw attention to my private affairs,
for on the above-mentioned day, at ten o'clock in the morning, I had the
misfortune to lose my father. He was eighty-seven years of age, and had
been in bad health for some time, with a touch of gout during the last
three weeks. On the day in question he had dined as usual with his
friends, had retired to bed, and, while talking to those around him
there, all at once gave three violent sighs. He was dead almost before
it was perceived that he was ill; there was no more oil in the lamp.
I learned this sad news after seeing the King to bed; his Majesty was to
purge himself on the morrow. The night was given to the just sentiments
of nature; but the next day I went early to visit Bontems, and then the
Duc de Beauvilliers, who promised to ask the King, as soon as his
curtains were opened, to grant me the--offices my father had held. The
King very graciously complied with his request, and in the afternoon said
many obliging things to me, particularly expressing his regret that my
father had not been able to receive the last sacraments. I was able to
say that a very short time before, my father had retired for several days
to Saint Lazare, where was his confessor, and added something on the
piety of his life. The King exhorted me to behave well, and promised to
take care of me. When my father was first taken ill; several persons,
amongst others, D'Aubigne, brother of Madame de Maintenon, had asked for
the governorship of Blaye. But the King refused them all, and said very
bluntly to D'Aubigne, "Is there not a son?" He had, in fact, always
given my father to understand I should succeed him, although generally he
did not allow offices to descend from father to son.
Let me say a few words about my father. Our family in my grandfather's
time had become impoverished; and my father was early sent to the Court
as page to Louis XIII. It was very customary then for the sons of
reduced gentlemen to accept this occupation. The King was passionately
fond of hunting, an amusement that was carried on with far less state,
without that abundance of dogs, and followers, and convenience of all
kinds which his successor introduced, and especially without roads
through the forests. My father, who noticed the impatience of the King
at the delays that occurred in changing horses, thought of turning the
head of the horse he brought towards the crupper of that which the King
quitted. By this means, without putting his feet to the ground, his
Majesty, who was active, jumped from one horse to another. He was so
pleased that whenever he changed horses he asked for this same page.
From that time my father grew day by day in favour. The King made him
Chief Ecuyer, and in course of years bestowed other rewards upon him,
created him Duke and peer of France, and gave him the Government of
Blaye. My father, much attached to the King, followed him in all his
expeditions, several times commanded the cavalry of the army, was
commander-in-chief of all the arrierebans of the kingdom, and acquired
great reputation in the field for his valour and skill. With Cardinal
Richelieu he was intimate without sympathy, and more than once, but
notably on the famous Day of the Dupes, rendered signal service to that
minister. My father used often to be startled out of his sleep in the
middle of the night by a valet, with a taper in his hand, drawing the
curtain--having behind him the Cardinal de Richelieu, who would often
take the taper and sit down upon the bed and exclaim that he was a lost
man, and ask my father's advice upon news that he had received or on
quarrels he had had with the King. When all Paris was in consternation
at the success of the Spaniards, who had crossed the frontier, taken
Corbie, and seized all the country as far as Compiegne, the King insisted
on my father being present at the council which was then held. The
Cardinal de Richelieu maintained that the King should retreat beyond the
Seine, and all the assembly seemed of that opinion. But the King in a
speech which lasted a quarter of an hour opposed this, and said that to
retreat at such a moment would be to increase the general disorder. Then
turning to my father he ordered him to be prepared to depart for Corbie
on the morrow, with as many of his men as he could get ready. The
histories and the memoirs of the time show that this bold step saved the
state. The Cardinal, great man as he was, trembled, until the first
appearance of success, when he grew bold enough to join the King. This
is a specimen of the conduct of that weak King governed by that first
minister to whom poets and historians have given the glory they have
stripped from his master; as, for instance, all the works of the siege of
Rochelle, and the invention and unheard-of success of the celebrated
dyke, all solely due to the late King!
Louis XIII. loved my father; but he could scold him at times. On two
occasions he did so. The first, as my father has related to me, was on
account of the Duc de Bellegarde. The Duke was in disgrace, and had been
exiled. My father, who was a friend of his, wished to write to him one
day, and for want of other leisure, being then much occupied, took the
opportunity of the King's momentary absence to carry out his desire.
Just as he was finishing his letter, the King came in; my father tried to
hide the paper, but the eyes of the King were too quick for him. "What
is that paper?" said he. My father, embarrassed, admitted that it was a
few words he had written to M. de Bellegarde.
"Let me see it," said the King; and he took the paper and read it.
"I don't find fault with you," said he, "for writing to your friends,
although in disgrace, for I know you will write nothing improper; but
what displeases me is, that you should fail in the respect you owe to a
duke and peer, in that, because he is exiled, you should omit to address
him as Monseigneur;" and then tearing the letter in two, he added, "Write
it again after the hunt, and put, Monseigneur, as you ought." My father
was very glad to be let off so easily.
The other reprimand was upon a more serious subject. The King was really
enamoured of Mademoiselle d'Hautefort. My father, young and gallant,
could not comprehend why he did not gratify his love. He believed his
reserve to arise from timidity, and under this impression proposed one
day to the King to be his ambassador and to bring the affair to a
satisfactory conclusion. The King allowed him to speak to the end, and
then assumed a severe air. "It is true," said he, "that I am enamoured
of her, that I feel it, that I seek her, that I speak of her willingly,
and think of her still more willingly; it is true also that I act thus in
spite of myself, because I am mortal and have this weakness; but the more
facility I have as King to gratify myself, the more I ought to be on my
guard against sin and scandal. I pardon you this time, but never address
to me a similar discourse again if you wish that I should continue to
love you." This was a thunderbolt for my father; the scales fell from
his eyes; the idea of the King's timidity in love disappeared before the
display of a virtue so pure and so triumphant.
My father's career was for a long time very successful, but unfortunately
he had an enemy who brought it to an end. This enemy was M. de Chavigny:
he was secretary of state, and had also the war department. Either from
stupidity or malice he had left all the towns in Picardy badly supported;
a circumstance the Spaniards knew well how to profit by when they took
Corbie in 1636. My father had an uncle who commanded in one of these
towns, La Capelle, and who had several times asked for ammunition and
stores without success. My father spoke upon this subject to Chavigny,
to the Cardinal de Richelieu, and to the King, but with no good effect.
La Capelle, left without resources, fell like the places around. As I
have said before, Louis XIII. did not long allow the Spaniards to enjoy
the advantages they had gained. All the towns in Picardy were soon
retaken, and the King, urged on by Chavigny, determined to punish the
governors of these places for surrendering them so easily. My father's
uncle was included with the others. This injustice was not to be borne.
My father represented the real state of the case and used every effort,
to save his uncle, but it was in vain. Stung to the quick he demanded
permission to retire, and was allowed to do so. Accordingly, at the
commencement of 1637, he left for Blaye; and remained there until the
death of Cardinal Richelieu. During this retirement the King frequently
wrote to him, in a language they had composed so as to speak before
people without being understood; and I possess still many of these
letters, with much regret that I am ignorant of their contents.
Chavigny served my father another ill turn. At the Cardinal's death my
father had returned to the Court and was in greater favour than ever.
Just before Louis XIII. died he gave my father the place of first master
of the horse, but left his name blank in the paper fixing the
appointment. The paper was given into the hands of Chavigny. At the
King's death he had the villainy, in concert with the Queen-regent, to
fill in the name of Comte d'Harcourt, instead of that the King had
instructed him of. The indignation of my father was great, but, as he
could obtain no redress, he retired once again to his Government of
Blaye. Notwithstanding the manner in which he had been treated by the
Queen-regent, he stoutly defended her cause when the civil war broke out,
led by M. le Prince. He garrisoned Blaye at his own expense, incurring
thereby debts which hung upon him all his life, and which I feel the
effects of still, and repulsed all attempts of friends to corrupt his
loyalty. The Queen and Mazarin could not close their eyes to his
devotion, and offered him, while the war was still going on, a marechal's
baton, or the title of foreign prince. But he refused both, and the
offer was not renewed when the war ended. These disturbances over, and
Louis XIV. being married, my father came again to Paris, where he had
many friends. He had married in 1644, and had had, as I have said, one
only daughter. His wife dying in 1670, and leaving him without male
children, he determined, however much he might be afflicted at the loss
he had sustained, to marry again, although old. He carried out his
resolution in October of the same year, and was very pleased with the
choice he had made. He liked his new wife so much, in fact, that when
Madame de Montespan obtained for her a place at the Court, he declined it
at once. At his age--it was thus he wrote to Madame de Montespan, he had
taken a wife not for the Court, but for himself. My mother, who was
absent when the letter announcing the appointment was sent, felt much
regret, but never showed it.
Before I finish this account of my father, I will here relate adventures
which happened to him, and which I ought to have placed before his second
marriage. A disagreement arose between my father and M. de Vardes, and
still existed long after everybody thought they were reconciled. It was
ultimately agreed that upon an early day, at about twelve o'clock, they
should meet at the Porte St. Honore, then a very deserted spot, and that
the coach of M. de Vardes should run against my father's, and a general
quarrel arise between masters and servants. Under cover of this quarrel,
a duel could easily take place, and would seem simply to arise out of the
broil there and then occasioned. On the morning appointed, my father
called as usual upon several of his friends, and, taking one of them for
second, went to the Porte St. Honore. There everything fell out just as
had been arranged. The coach of M. de Vardes struck against the other.
My father leaped out, M. de Vardes did the same, and the duel took place.
M. de Vardes fell, and was disarmed. My father wished to make him beg
for his life; he would not do this, but confessed himself vanquished.
My father's coach being the nearest, M. de Vardes got into it. He
fainted on the road. They separated afterwards like brave people, and
went their way. Madame de Chatillon, since of Mecklenburg, lodged in one
of the last houses near the Porte St. Honore, and at the noise made by
the coaches, put, her head to the window, and coolly looked at the whole
of the combat. It soon made a great noise. My father was complimented
everywhere. M. de Vardes was sent for ten or twelve days to the
Bastille. My father and he afterwards became completely reconciled to
each other.
The other adventure was of gentler ending. The Memoirs of M. de la
Rochefoucauld appeared. They contained certain atrocious and false
statements against my father, who so severely resented the calumny, that
he seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin of the book, "The author has
told a lie." Not content with this, he went to the bookseller, whom he
discovered with some difficulty, for the book was not sold publicly at
first. He asked to see all the copies of the work, prayed, promised,
threatened, and at last succeeded in obtaining them. Then he took a pen
and wrote in all of them the same marginal note. The astonishment of the
bookseller may be imagined. He was not long in letting M. de la
Rochefoucauld know what had happened to his books: it may well be
believed that he also was astonished. This affair made great noise. My
father, having truth on his side, wished to obtain public satisfaction
from M. de la Rochefoucauld. Friends, however, interposed, and the
matter was allowed to drop. But M. de la Rochefoucauld never pardoned my
father; so true it is that we less easily forget the injuries we inflict
than those that we receive.
My father passed the rest of his long life surrounded by friends, and
held in high esteem by the King and his ministers. His advice was often
sought for by them, and was always acted upon. He never consoled himself
for the loss of Louis XIII., to whom he owed his advancement and his
fortune. Every year he kept sacred the day of his death, going to Saint-
Denis, or holding solemnities in his own house if at Blaye. Veneration,
gratitude, tenderness, ever adorned his lips every time he spoke of that
monarch.
CHAPTER IV
After having paid the last duties to my father I betook myself to Mons to
join the Royal Roussillon cavalry regiment, in which I was captain. The
King, after stopping eight or ten days with the ladies at Quesnoy, sent
them to Namur, and put himself at the head of the army of M. de
Boufflers, and camped at Gembloux, so that his left was only half a
league distant from the right of M. de Luxembourg. The Prince of Orange
was encamped at the Abbey of Pure, was unable to receive supplies, and
could not leave his position without having the two armies of the King to
grapple with: he entrenched himself in haste, and bitterly repented
having allowed himself to be thus driven into a corner. We knew
afterwards that he wrote several times to his intimate friend the Prince
de Vaudemont, saying that he was lost, and that nothing short of a
miracle could save him.
We were in this position, with an army in every way infinitely superior
to that of the Prince of Orange, and with four whole months before us to
profit by our strength, when the King declared on the 8th of June that he
should return to Versailles, and sent off a large detachment of the army
into Germany. The surprise of the Marechal de Luxembourg was without
bounds. He represented the facility with which the Prince of Orange
might now be beaten with one army and pursued by another; and how
important it was to draw off detachments of the Imperial forces from
Germany into Flanders, and how, by sending an army into Flanders instead
of Germany, the whole of the Low Countries would be in our power. But
the King would not change his plans, although M. de Luxembourg went down
on his knees and begged him not to allow such a glorious opportunity to
escape. Madame de Maintenon, by her tears when she parted from his
Majesty, and by her letters since, had brought about this resolution.
The news had not spread on the morrow, June 9th. I chanced to go alone
to the quarters of M. de Luxembourg, and was surprised to find not a soul
there; every one had gone to the King's army. Pensively bringing my
horse to a stand, I was ruminating on a fact so strange, and debating
whether I should return to my tent or push on to the royal camp, when up
came M. le Prince de Conti with a single page and a groom leading a
horse. "What are you doing there?" cried he, laughing at my surprise.
Thereupon he told me he was going to say adieu to the King, and advised
me to do likewise. "What do you mean by saying Adieu?" answered I.
He sent his servants to a little distance, and begged me to do the same,
and with shouts of laughter told me about the King's retreat, making
tremendous fun of him, despite my youth, for he had confidence in me.
I was astonished. We soon after met the whole company coming back;
and the great people went aside to talk and sneer. I then proceeded to
pay my respects to the King, by whom I was honourably received.
Surprise, however, was expressed by all faces, and indignation by some.
The effect of the King's retreat, indeed, was incredible, even amongst
the soldiers and the people. The general officers could not keep silent
upon it, and the inferior officers spoke loudly, with a license that
could not be restrained. All through the army, in the towns, and even at
Court, it was talked about openly. The courtiers, generally so glad to
find themselves again at Versailles, now declared that they were ashamed
to be there; as for the enemy, they could not contain their surprise and
joy. The Prince of Orange said that the retreat was a miracle he could
not have hoped for; that he could scarcely believe in it, but that it had
saved his army, and the whole of the Low Countries. In the midst of all
this excitement the King arrived with the ladies, on the 25th of June, at
Versailles.
We gained some successes, however, this year. Marechal de Villeroy took
Huy in three days, losing only a sub-engineer and some soldiers. On the
29th of July we attacked at dawn the Prince of Orange at Neerwinden, and
after twelve hours of hard fighting, under a blazing sun, entirely routed
him. I was of the third squadron of the Royal Roussillon, and made five
charges. One of the gold ornaments of my coat was torn away, but I
received no wound. During the battle our brigadier, Quoadt, was killed
before my eyes. The Duc de Feuillade became thus commander of the
brigade. We missed him immediately, and for more than half an hour saw
nothing of him; he had gone to make his toilette. When he returned he
was powdered and decked out in a fine red surtotxt, embroidered with
silver, and all his trappings and those of his horse were magnificent; he
acquitted himself with distinction.
Our cavalry stood so well against the fire from the enemy's guns, that
the Prince of Orange lost all patience, and turning away, exclaimed--
"Oh, the insolent nation!" He fought until the last, and retired with
the Elector of Hanover only when he saw there was no longer any hope.
After the battle my people brought us a leg of mutton and a bottle of
wine, which they had wisely saved from the previous evening, and we
attacked them in good earnest, as may be believed.
The enemy lost about twenty thousand men, including a large number of
officers; our loss was not more than half that number. We took all their
cannon, eight mortars, many artillery waggons, a quantity of standards,
and some pairs of kettle-drums. The victory was complete.
Meanwhile, the army which had been sent to Germany under the command of
Monseigneur and of the Marechal de Lorges, did little or nothing. The
Marechal wished to attack Heilbronn, but Monseigneur was opposed to it;
and, to the great regret of the principal generals and of the troops, the
attack was not made. Monseigneur returned early to Versailles.
At sea we were more active. The rich merchant fleet of Smyrna was
attacked by Tourville; fifty vessels were burnt or sunk, and twenty-seven
taken, all richly freighted. This campaign cost the English and Dutch
dear. It is believed their loss was more than thirty millions of ecus.
The season finished with the taking of Charleroy. On the 16th of
September the Marechal de Villeroy, supported by M. de Luxembourg, laid
siege to it, and on the 11th of October, after a good defence, the place
capitulated. Our loss was very slight. Charleroy taken, our troops went
into winter-quarters, and I returned to Court, like the rest. The roads
and the posting service were in great disorder. Amongst other adventures
I met with, I was driven by a deaf and dumb postillion, who stuck me fast
in the mud when near Quesnoy. At Pont Saint-Maxence all the horses were
retained by M. de Luxembourg. Fearing I might be left behind, I told the
postmaster that I was governor (which was true), and that I would put him
in jail if he did not give me horses. I should have been sadly puzzled
how to do it; but he was simple enough to believe me, and gave the
horses. I arrived, however, at last at Paris, and found a change at the
Court, which surprised me.
Daquin--first doctor of the King and creature of Madame de Montespan--had
lost nothing of his credit by her removal, but had never been able to get
on well with Madame de Maintenon, who looked coldly upon all the friends
of her predecessor. Daquin had a son, an abbe, and wearied the King with
solicitations on his behalf. Madame de Maintenon seized the opportunity,
when the King was more than usually angry with Daquin, to obtain his
dismissal: it came upon him like a thunderbolt. On the previous evening
the King had spoken to him for a long time as usual, and had never
treated him better. All the Court was astonished also. Fagon, a very
skilful and learned man, was appointed in his place at the instance of
Madame de Maintenon.
Another event excited less surprise than interest. On Sunday, the 29th
of November, the King learned that La Vauguyon had killed himself in his
bed, that morning, by firing twice into his throat. I must say a few
words about this Vauguyon. He was one of the pettiest and poorest
gentlemen of France: he was well-made, but very swarthy, with Spanish
features, had a charming voice, played the guitar and lute very well, and
was skilled in the arts of gallantry. By these talents he had succeeded,
in finding favour with Madame de Beauvais, much regarded at the Court as
having been the King's first mistress. I have seen her--old, blear-eyed,
and half blind,--at the toilette of the Dauphiness of Bavaria, where
everybody courted her, because she was still much considered by the King.
Under this protection La Vauguyon succeeded well; was several times sent
as ambassador to foreign countries; was made councillor of state, and to
the scandal of everybody, was raised to the Order in 1688. Of late
years, having no appointments, he had scarcely the means of living, and
endeavoured, but without success, to improve his condition.
Poverty by degrees turned his brain; but a long time passed before it was
perceived. The first proof that he gave of it was at the house of Madame
Pelot, widow of the Chief President of the Rouen parliament. Playing at
brelan one evening, she offered him a stake, and because he would not
accept it bantered him, and playfully called him a poltroon. He said
nothing, but waited until all the rest of the company had left the room;
and when he found himself alone with Madame Pelot, he bolted the door,
clapped his hat on his head, drove her up against the chimney, and
holding her head between his two fists, said he knew no reason why he
should not pound it into a jelly, in order to teach her to call him
poltroon again. The poor woman was horribly frightened, and made
perpendicular curtseys between his two fists, and all sorts of excuses.
At last he let her go, more dead than alive. She had the generosity to
say no syllable of this occurrence until after his death; she even
allowed him to come to the house as usual, but took care never to be
alone with him.
One day, a long time after this, meeting, in a gallery, at Fontainebleau,
M. de Courtenay, La Vauguyon drew his sword, and compelled the other to
draw also, although there had never been the slightest quarrel between
them. They were soon separated and La Vauguyon immediately fled to the
King, who was just then in his private closet, where nobody ever entered
unless expressly summoned. But La Vauguyon turned the key, and, in spite
of the usher on guard, forced his way in. The King in great emotion
asked him what was the matter. La Vauguyon on his knees said he had been
insulted by M. de Courtenay and demanded pardon for having drawn his
sword in the palace. His Majesty, promising to examine the matter, with
great trouble got rid of La Vauguyon. As nothing could be made of it, M.
de Courtenay declaring he had been insulted by La Vauguyon and forced to
draw his sword, and the other telling the same tale, both were sent to
the Bastille. After a short imprisonment they were released, and
appeared at the Court as usual.
Another adventure, which succeeded this, threw some light upon the state
of affairs. Going to Versailles, one day, La Vauguyon met a groom of the
Prince de Conde leading a saddled horse, he stopped the man, descended
from his coach, asked whom the horse belonged to, said that the Prince
would not object to his riding it, and leaping upon the animal's back,
galloped off. The groom, all amazed, followed him. La Vauguyon rode on
until he reached the Bastille, descended there, gave a gratuity to the
man, and dismissed him: he then went straight to the governor of the
prison, said he had had the misfortune to displease the King, and begged
to be confined there. The governor, having no orders to do so, refused;
and sent off an express for instructions how to act. In reply he was
told not to receive La Vauguyon, whom at last, after great difficulty, he
prevailed upon to go away. This occurrence made great noise. Yet even
afterwards the King continued to receive La Vauguyon at the Court, and to
affect to treat him well, although everybody else avoided him and was
afraid of him. His poor wife became so affected by these public
derangements, that she retired from Paris, and shortly afterwards died.
This completed her husband's madness; he survived her only a month, dying
by his own hand, as I have mentioned. During the last two years of his
life he carried pistols in his carriage, and frequently pointed them at
his coachman and postilion. It is certain that without the assistance of
M. de Beauvais he would often have been brought to the last extremities.
Beauvais frequently spoke of him to the King; and it is inconceivable
that having raised this man to such a point; and having always shown him
particular kindness, his Majesty should perseveringly have left him to
die of hunger and become mad from misery.
The year finished without any remarkable occurrence.
My mother; who had been much disquieted for me during the campaign,
desired strongly that I should not make another without being married.
Although very young, I had no repugnance to marry, but wished to do so
according to my own inclinations. With a large establishment I felt very
lonely in a country where credit and consideration do more than all the
rest. Without uncle, aunt, cousins-German, or near relatives, I found
myself, I say, extremely solitary.
Among my best friends, as he had been the friend of my father; was the
Duc de Beauvilliers. He had always shown me much affection, and I felt a
great desire to unite myself to his family: My mother approved of my
inclination, and gave me an exact account of my estates and possessions.
I carried it to Versailles, and sought a private interview with M. de
Beauvilliers. At eight o'clock the same evening he received me alone in
the cabinet of Madame de Beauvilliers. After making my compliments to
him, I told him my wish, showed him the state of my affairs, and said
that all I demanded of him was one of his daughters in marriage, and that
whatever contract he thought fit to draw up would be signed by my mother
and myself without examination.
The Duke, who had fixed his eyes upon me all this time, replied like a
man penetrated with gratitude by the offer I had made. He said, that of
his eight daughters the eldest was between fourteen and fifteen years
old; the second much deformed, and in no way marriageable; the third
between twelve and thirteen years of age, and the rest were children: the
eldest wished to enter a convent, and had shown herself firm upon that
point. He seemed inclined to make a difficulty of his want of fortune;
but, reminding him of the proposition I had made, I said that it was not
for fortune I had come to him, not even for his daughter, whom I had
never seen; that it was he and Madame de Beauvilliers who had charmed me,
and whom I wished to marry!
"But," said he, "if my eldest daughter wishes absolutely to enter a
convent?"
"Then," replied I, "I ask the third of you." To this he objected, on the
ground that if he gave the dowry of the first to the third daughter, and
the first afterwards changed her mind and wished to marry, he should be
thrown into an embarrassment. I replied that I would take the third as
though the first were to be married, and that if she were not, the
difference between what he destined for her and what he destined for the
third, should be given to me. The Duke, raising his eyes to heaven,
protested that he had never been combated in this manner, and that he was
obliged to gather up all his forces in order to prevent himself yielding
to me that very instant.
On the next day, at half-past three, I had another interview with M. de
Beauvilliers. With much tenderness he declined my proposal, resting his
refusal upon the inclination his daughter had displayed for the convent,
upon his little wealth, if, the marriage of the third being made, she
should change her mind--and upon other reasons. He spoke to me with much
regret and friendship, and I to him in the same manner; and we separated,
unable any longer to speak to each other. Two days after, however, I had
another interview with him by his appointment. I endeavoured to overcome
the objections that he made, but all in vain. He could not give me his
third daughter with the first unmarried, and he would not force her, he
said, to change her wish of retiring from the world. His words, pious
and elevated, augmented my respect for him, and my desire for the
marriage. In the evening, at the breaking up of the appointment, I could
not prevent myself whispering in his ear that I should never live happily
with anybody but his daughter, and without waiting for a reply hastened
away. I had the next evening, at eight o'clock, an interview with Madame
de Beauvilliers. I argued with her with such prodigious ardor that she
was surprised, and, although she did not give way, she said she would be
inconsolable for the loss of me, repeating the same tender and flattering
things her husband had said before, and with the same effusion of
feeling.
I had yet another interview with M. de Beauvilliers. He showed even more
affection for me than before, but I could not succeed in putting aside
his scruples. He unbosomed himself afterwards to one of our friends, and
in his bitterness said he could only console himself by hoping that his
children and mine might some day intermarry, and he prayed me to go and
pass some days at Paris, in order to allow him to seek a truce to his
grief in my absence. We both were in want of it. I have judged it
fitting to give these details, for they afford a key to my exceeding
intimacy with M. de Beauvilliers, which otherwise, considering the
difference in our ages, might appear incomprehensible.
There was nothing left for me but to look out for another marriage. One
soon presented itself, but as soon fell to the ground; and I went to La
Trappe to console myself for the impossibility of making an alliance with
the Duc de Beauvilliers.
La Trappe is a place so celebrated and so well known, and its reformer so
famous, that I shall say but little about it. I will, however, mention
that this abbey is five leagues from La Ferme-au-Vidame, or Arnold, which
is the real distinctive name of this Ferme among so many other Fetes in
France, which have preserved the generic name of what they have been,
that is to say, forts or fortresses ('freitas'). My father had been very
intimate with M. de la Trappe, and had taken me to him.
Although I was very young then, M. de la Trappe charmed me, and the
sanctity of the place enchanted me. Every year I stayed some days there,
sometimes a week at a time, and was never tired of admiring this great
and distinguished man. He loved me as a son, and I respected him as
though he were any father. This intimacy, singular at my age, I kept
secret from everybody, and only went to the convent clandestinely.
CHAPTER V
On my return from La Trappe, I became engaged in an affair which made a
great noise, and which had many results for me.
M. de Luxembourg, proud of his successes, and of the applause of the
world at his victories, believed himself sufficiently strong to claim
precedence over seventeen dukes, myself among the number; to step, in
fact, from the eighteenth rank, that he held amongst the peers, to the
second. The following are the names and the order in precedence of the
dukes he wished to supersede:
The Duc d'Elboeuf; the Duc de Montbazon; the Duc de Ventadour; the Duc de
Vendome; the Duc de la Tremoille; the Duc de Sully; the Duc de Chevreuse,
the son (minor) of the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres-Gondi; the Duc de
Brissac; Charles d'Albert, called d'Ailly; the Duc de Richelieu; the Duc
de Saint-Simon; the Duc de la Rochefoucauld; the Duc de la Force; the Duc
de Valentinois; the Duc de Rohan; the Duc de Bouillon.
To explain this pretension of M. de Luxembourg, I must give some details
respecting him and the family whose name he bore. He was the only son of
M. de Bouteville, and had married a descendant of Francois de Luxembourg,
Duke of Piney, created Peer of France in 1581. It was a peerage which,
in default of male successors, went to the female, but this descendant
was not heir to it. She was the child of a second marriage, and by a
first marriage her mother had given birth to a son and a daughter, who
were the inheritors of the peerage, both of whom were still living. The
son was, however, an idiot, had been declared incapable of attending to
his affairs, and was shut up in Saint Lazare, at Paris. The daughter had
taken the veil, and was mistress of the novices at the Abbaye-aux-Bois.
The peerage had thus, it might almost be said, become extinct, for it was
vested in an idiot, who could not marry (to prevent him doing so, he had
been made a deacon, and he was bound in consequence to remain single),
and in a nun, who was equally bound by her vows to the same state of
celibacy.
When M. de Bouteville, for that was his only title then, married, he took
the arms and the name of Luxembourg. He did more. By powerful
influence--notably that of his patron the Prince de Conde--he released
the idiot deacon from his asylum, and the nun from her convent, and
induced them both to surrender to him their possessions and their titles.
This done, he commenced proceedings at once in order to obtain legal
recognition of his right to the dignities he had thus got possession of.
He claimed to be acknowledged Duc de Piney, with all the privileges
attached to that title as a creation of 1581. Foremost among these
privileges was that of taking precedence of all dukes whose title did not
go back so far as that year. Before any decision was given either for or
against this claim, he was made Duc de Piney by new letters patent,
dating from 1662, with a clause which left his pretensions to the title
of 1581 by no means affected by this new creation. M. de Luxembourg,
however, seemed satisfied with what he had obtained, and was apparently
disposed to pursue his claim no further. He was received as Duke and
Peer in the Parliament, took his seat in the last rank after all the
other peers, and allowed his suit to drop. Since then he had tried
successfully to gain it by stealth, but for several years nothing more
had been heard of it. Now, however, he recommenced it, and with every
intention, as we soon found, to stop at no intrigue or baseness in order
to carry his point.
Nearly everybody was in his favour. The Court, though not the King, was
almost entirely for him; and the town, dazzled by the splendour of his
exploits, was devoted to him. The young men regarded him as the
protector of their debauches; for, notwithstanding his age, his conduct
was as free as theirs. He had captivated the troops and the general
officers.
In the Parliament he had a staunch supporter in Harlay, the Chief
President, who led that great body at his will, and whose devotion he had
acquired to such a degree, that he believed that to undertake and succeed
were only the same things, and that this grand affair would scarcely cost
him a winter to carry.
Let me say something more of this Harlay.
Descended from two celebrated magistrates, Achille d'Harlay and
Christopher De Thou, Harlay imitated their gravity, but carried it to a
cynical extent, affected their disinterestedness and modesty, but
dishonoured the first by his conduct, and the second by a refined pride
which he endeavoured without success to conceal. He piqued himself,
above all things, upon his probity and justice, but the mask soon fell.
Between Peter and Paul he maintained the strictest fairness, but as soon
as he perceived interest or favour to be acquired, he sold himself. This
trial will show him stripped of all disguise. He was learned in the law;
in letters he was second to no one; he was well acquainted with history,
and knew how, above all, to govern his company with an authority which
suffered no reply, and which no other chief president had ever attained.
A pharisaical austerity rendered him redoubtable by the license he
assumed in his public reprimands, whether to plaintiffs, or defendants,
advocates or magistrates; so that there was not a single person who did
not tremble to have to do with him. Besides this, sustained in all by
the Court (of which he was the slave, and the very humble servant of
those who were really in favour), a subtle courtier, a singularly crafty
politician, he used all those talents solely to further his ambition, his
desire of domination and his thirst of the reputation of a great man.
He was without real honour, secretly of corrupt manners, with only
outside probity, without humanity even; in one word, a perfect hypocrite;
without faith, without law, without a God, and without a soul; a cruel
husband, a barbarous father, a tyrannical brother, a friend of himself
alone, wicked by nature--taking pleasure in insulting, outraging, and
overwhelming others, and never in his life having lost an occasion to do
so. His wit was great, but was always subservient to his wickedness.
He was small, vigorous, and thin, with a lozenge-shaped face, a long
aquiline nose--fine, speaking, keen eyes, that usually looked furtively
at you, but which, if fixed on a client or a magistrate, were fit to make
him sink into the earth. He wore narrow robes, an almost ecclesiastical
collar and wristband to match, a brown wig mimed with white, thickly
furnished but short, and with a great cap over it. He affected a bending
attitude, and walked so, with a false air, more humble than modest, and
always shaved along the walls, to make people make way for him with
greater noise; and at Versailles worked his way on by a series of
respectful and, as it were, shame-faced bows to the right and left. He
held to the King and to Madame de Maintenon by knowing their weak side;
and it was he who, being consulted upon the unheard-of legitimation of
children without naming the mother, had sanctioned that illegality in
favour of the King.
Such was the man whose influence was given entirely to our opponent.
To assist M. de Luxembourg's case as much as possible, the celebrated
Racine, so known by his plays, and by the order he had received at that
time to write the history of the King, was employed to polish and
ornament his pleas. Nothing was left undone by M. de Luxembourg in order
to gain this cause.
I cannot give all the details of the case, the statements made on both
sides, and the defences; they would occupy entire volumes. We maintained
that M. de Luxembourg was in no way entitled to the precedence he
claimed, and we had both law and justice on our side. To give
instructions to our counsel, and to follow the progress of the case,
we met once a week, seven or eight of us at least, those best disposed
to give our time to the matter. Among the most punctual was M. de la
Rochefoucauld. I had been solicited from the commencement to take part
in the proceedings, and I complied most willingly, apologising for so
doing to M. de Luxembourg, who replied with all the politeness and
gallantry possible, that I could not do less than follow an example my
father had set me.
The trial having commenced, we soon saw how badly disposed the Chief
President was towards us. He obstructed us in every way, and acted
against all rules. There seemed no other means of defeating his evident
intention of judging against us than by gaining time, first of all; and
to do this we determined to get the case adjourned, There were, however,
only two days at our disposal, and that was not enough in order to comply
with the forms required for such a step. We were all in the greatest
embarrassment, when it fortunately came into the head of one of our
lawyers to remind us of a privilege we possessed, by which, without much
difficulty, we could obtain what we required. I was the only one who
could, at that moment, make use of this privilege. I hastened home, at
once, to obtain the necessary papers, deposited them with the procureur
of M. de Luxembourg, and the adjournment was obtained. The rage of M. de
Luxembourg was without bounds. When we met he would not salute me, and
in consequence I discontinued to salute him; by which he lost more than
I, in his position and at his age, and furnished in the rooms and the
galleries of Versailles a sufficiently ridiculous spectacle. In addition
to this he quarrelled openly with M. de Richelieu, and made a bitter
attack upon him in one of his pleas. But M. de Richelieu, meeting him
soon after in the Salle des Gardes at Versailles, told him to his face
that he should soon have a reply; and said that he feared him neither on
horseback nor on foot--neither him nor his crew--neither in town nor at
the Court, nor even in the army, nor in any place in the world; and
without allowing time for a reply he turned on his heel. In the end, M.
de Luxembourg found himself so closely pressed that he was glad to
apologise to M. de Richelieu.
After a time our cause, sent back again to the Parliament, was argued
there with the same vigour, the same partiality, and the same injustice
as before: seeing this, we felt that the only course left open to us was
to get the case sent before the Assembly of all the Chambers, where the
judges, from their number, could not be corrupted by M. de Luxembourg,
and where the authority of Harlay was feeble, while over the Grand
Chambre, in which the case was at present, it was absolute. The
difficulty was to obtain an assembly of all the Chambers, for the power
of summoning them was vested solely in Harlay. However, we determined to
try and gain his consent. M. de Chaulnes undertook to go upon this
delicate errand, and acquitted himself well of his mission. He pointed
out to Harlay that everybody was convinced of his leaning towards M. de
Luxembourg, and that the only way to efface the conviction that had gone
abroad was to comply with our request; in fine, he used so many
arguments, and with such address, that Harlay, confused and thrown off
his guard, and repenting of the manner in which he had acted towards us
as being likely to injure his interests, gave a positive assurance to M.
de Chaulnes that what we asked should be granted.
We had scarcely finished congratulating ourselves upon this unhoped-for
success, when we found that we had to do with a man whose word was a very
sorry support to rest upon. M. de Luxembourg, affrighted at the promise
Harlay had given, made him resolve to break it. Suspecting this, M. de
Chaulnes paid another visit to the Chief President, who admitted, with
much confusion, that he had changed his views, and that it was impossible
to carry out what he had agreed to. After this we felt that to treat any
longer with a man so perfidious would be time lost; and we determined,
therefore, to put it out of his power to judge the case at all.
According to the received maxim, whoever is at law with the son cannot be
judged by the father. Harlay had a son who was Advocate-General. We
resolved that one among us should bring an action against him.
After trying in vain to induce the Duc de Rohan, who was the only one of
our number who could readily have done it, to commence a suit against
Harlay's sort, we began to despair of arriving at our aim. Fortunately
for us, the vexation of Harlay became so great at this time, in
consequence of the disdain with which we treated him, and which we openly
published, that he extricated us himself from our difficulty. We had
only to supplicate the Duc de Gesvres in the cause (he said to some of
our people), and we should obtain what we wanted; for the Duc de Gesvres
was his relative. We took him at his word. The Duc de Gesvres received
in two days a summons on our part. Harlay, annoyed with himself for the
advice he had given, relented of it: but it was too late; he was declared
unable to judge the cause, and the case itself was postponed until the
next year.
Meanwhile, let me mention a circumstance which should have found a place
before, and then state what occurred in the interval which followed until
the trial recommenced.
It was while our proceedings were making some little stir that fresh
favours were heaped upon the King's illegitimate sons, at the instance of
the King himself, and with the connivance of Harlay, who, for the part he
took in the affair, was promised the chancellorship when it should become
vacant. The rank of these illegitimate sons was placed just below that
of the princes, of the blood, and just above that of the peers even of
the oldest creation. This gave us all exceeding annoyance: it was the
greatest injury the peerage could have received, and became its leprosy
and sore. All the peers who could, kept themselves aloof from the
parliament, when M. du Maine, M. de Vendome, and the Comte de Toulouse,
for whom this arrangement was specially made, were received there.
There were several marriages at the Court this winter and many very fine
balls, at which latter I danced. By the spring, preparations were ready
for fresh campaigns. My regiment (I had bought one at the close of the
last season) was ordered to join the army of M. de Luxembourg; but, as I
had no desire to be under him, I wrote to the King, begging to be
exchanged. In a short time, to the great vexation, as I know, of M. de
Luxembourg, my request was granted. The Chevalier de Sully went to
Flanders in my place, and I to Germany in his. I went first to Soissons
to see my regiment, and in consequence of the recommendation of the King,
was more severe with it than I should otherwise have been. I set out
afterwards for Strasbourg, where I was surprised with the magnificence of
the town, and with the number, beauty, and grandeur of its
fortifications. As from my youth I knew and spoke German perfectly, I
sought out one of my early German acquaintances, who gave me much
pleasure. I stopped six days at Strasbourg and then went by the Rhine to
Philipsburg. On the next day after arriving there, I joined the cavalry,
which was encamped at Obersheim.
After several movements--in which we passed and repassed the Rhine--but
which led to no effective result, we encamped for forty days at Gaw-
Boecklheim, one of the best and most beautiful positions in the world,
and where we had charming weather, although a little disposed to cold.
It was in the leisure of that long camp that I commenced these memoirs,
incited by the pleasure I took in reading those of Marshal Bassompierre,
which invited me thus to write what I should see in my own time.
During this season M. de Noailles took Palamos, Girone, and the fortress
of Castel-Follit in Catalonia. This last was taken by the daring of a
soldier, who led on a small number of his comrades, and carried the place
by assault. Nothing was done in Italy; and in Flanders M. de Luxembourg
came to no engagement with the Prince of Orange.
CHAPTER VI
After our long rest at the camp of Gaw-Boecklheim we again put ourselves
in movement, but without doing much against the enemy, and on the 16th of
October I received permission to return to Paris. Upon my arrival there
I learnt that many things had occurred since I left. During that time
some adventures had happened to the Princesses, as the three illegitimate
daughters of the King were called for distinction sake. Monsieur wished
that the Duchesse de Chartres should always call the others "sister," but
that the others should never address her except as "Madame." The
Princesse de Conti submitted to this; but the other (Madame la Duchesse,
being the produce of the same love) set herself to call the Duchesse de
Chartres "mignonne." But nothing was less a mignonne than her face and
her figure; and Monsieur, feeling the ridicule, complained to the King.
The King prohibited very severely this familiarity.
While at Trianon these Princesses took it into their heads to walk out
at night and divert themselves with crackers. Either from malice or
imprudence they let off some one night under the windows of Monsieur,
rousing him thereby out of his sleep. He was so displeased, that he
complained to the King, who made him many excuses (scolding the
Princesses), but had great trouble to appease him. His anger lasted a
long time, and the Duchesse de Chartres felt it. I do not know if the
other two were very sorry. Madame la Duchesse was accused of writing
some songs upon the Duchesse de Chartres.
The Princesse de Conti had another adventure, which made considerable
noise, and which had great results. She had taken into her favour
Clermont, ensign of the gensdarmes and of the Guard. He had pretended to
be enamoured of her, and had not been repelled, for she soon became in
love with him. Clermont had attached himself to the service of M. de
Luxembourg, and was the merest creature in his hands. At the instigation
of M. de Luxembourg, he turned away his regards from the Princesse de
Conti, and fixed them upon one of her maids of honour--Mademoiselle
Choin, a great, ugly, brown, thick-set girl, upon whom Monseigneur had
lately bestowed his affection. Monseigneur made no secret of this, nor
did she. Such being the case, it occurred to M. de Luxembourg (who knew
he was no favourite with the King, and who built all his hopes of the
future upon Monseigneur) that Clermont, by marrying La Choin, might thus
secure the favour of Monseigneur, whose entire confidence she possessed.
Clermont was easily persuaded that this would be for him a royal road to
fortune, and he accordingly entered willingly into the scheme, which had
just begun to move, when the campaign commenced, and everybody went away
to join the armies.
The King, who partly saw this intrigue, soon made himself entirely master
of it, by intercepting the letters which passed between the various
parties. He read there the project of Clermont and La Choin to marry,
and thus govern Monseigneur; he saw how M. de Luxembourg was the soul of
this scheme, and the marvels to himself he expected from it. The letters
Clermont had received from the Princesse de Conti he now sent to
Mademoiselle la Choin, and always spoke to her of Monseigneur as their
"fat friend." With this correspondence in his hands, the King one day
sent for the Princesse de Conti, said in a severe tone that he knew of
her weakness for Clermont; and, to prove to her how badly she had placed
her affection, showed her her own letters to Clermont, and letters in
which he had spoken most contemptuously of her to La Choin. Then, as a
cruel punishment, he made her read aloud to him the whole of those
letters. At this she almost died, and threw herself, bathed in tears, at
the feet of the King, scarcely able to articulate. Then came sobs,
entreaty, despair, and rage, and cries for justice and revenge. This was
soon obtained. Mademoiselle la Choin was driven away the next day; and
M. de Luxembourg had orders to strip Clermont of his office, and send him
to the most distant part of the kingdom. The terror of M. de Luxembourg
and the Prince de Conti at this discovery may be imagined. Songs
increased the notoriety of this strange adventure between the Princess
and her confidant.
M. de Noyon had furnished on my return another subject for the song-
writers, and felt it the more sensibly because everybody was diverted at
his expense, M. de Noyon was extremely vain, and afforded thereby much
amusement to the King. A Chair was vacant at the Academic Francaise.
The King wished it to be given to M. de Noyon, and expressed himself to
that effect to Dangeau, who was a member. As may be believed, the
prelate was elected without difficulty. His Majesty testified to the
Prince de Conde, and to the most distinguished persons of the Court, that
he should be glad to see them at the reception. Thus M. de Noyon was the
first member of the Academia chosen by the King, and the first at whose
reception he had taken the trouble to invite his courtiers to attend.
The Abbe de Caumartin was at that time Director of the Academie. He knew
the vanity of M. de Noyon, and determined to divert the public at his
expense. He had many friends in power, and judged that his pleasantry
would be overlooked, and even approved. He composed, therefore, a
confused and bombastic discourse in the style of M. de Noyon, full of
pompous phrases, turning the prelate into ridicule, while they seemed to
praise him. After finishing this work, he was afraid lest it should be
thought out of all measure, and, to reassure himself, carried it to M. de
Noyon himself, as a scholar might to his master, in order to see whether
it fully met with his approval. M. de Noyon, so far from suspecting
anything, was charmed by the discourse, and simply made a few corrections
in the style. The Abbe de Caumartin rejoiced at the success of the snare
he had laid, and felt quite bold enough to deliver his harangue.
The day came. The Academie was crowded. The King and the Court were
there, all expecting to be diverted. M. de Noyon, saluting everybody
with a satisfaction he did not dissimulate, made his speech with his
usual confidence, and in his usual style. The Abbe replied with a modest
air, and with a gravity and slowness that gave great effect to his
ridiculous discourse. The surprise and pleasure were general, and each
person strove to intoxicate M. de Noyon more and more, making him believe
that the speech of the Abbe was relished solely because it had so
worthily praised him. The prelate was delighted with the Abbe and the
public, and conceived not the slightest mistrust.
The noise which this occurrence made may be imagined, and the praises M.
de Noyon gave himself in relating everywhere what he had said, and what
had been replied to him. M. de Paris, to whose house he went, thus
triumphing, did not like him, and endeavoured to open his eyes to the
humiliation he had received. For some time M. de Noyon would not be
convinced of the truth; it was not until he had consulted with Pere la
Chaise that he believed it. The excess of rage and vexation succeeded
then to the excess of rapture he had felt. In this state he returned to
his house, and went the next day to Versailles. There he made the most
bitter complaints to the King, of the Abbe de Caumartin, by whose means
he had become the sport and laughing-stock of all the world.
The King, who had learned what had passed, was himself displeased. He
ordered Pontchartrain (who was related to Caumartin) to rebuke the Abbe,
and to send him a lettre de cachet, in order that he might go and ripen
his brain in his Abbey of Busay, in Brittany, and better learn there how
to speak and write. Pontchartrain executed the first part of his
commission, but not the second. He pointed out to the King that the
speech of the Abbe de Caumartin had been revised and corrected by M. de
Noyon, and that, therefore, this latter had only himself to blame in the
matter. He declared, too, that the Abbe was very sorry for what he had
done, and was most willing to beg pardon of M. de Noyon. The lettre de
cachet thus fell to the ground, but not the anger of the prelate. He was
so outraged that he would not see the Abbe, retired into his diocese to
hide his shame, and remained there a long time.
Upon his return to Paris, however, being taken ill, before consenting to
receive the sacraments, he sent for the Abbe, embraced him, pardoned him,
and gave him a diamond ring, that he drew from his finger, and that he
begged him to keep in memory of him. Nay, more, when he was cured, he
used all his influence to reinstate the Abbe in the esteem of the King.
But the King could never forgive what had taken place, and M. de Noyon,
by this grand action, gained only the favour of God and the honour of the
world.
I must finish the account of the war of this year with a strange
incident. M. de Noailles, who had been so successful in Catalonia, was
on very bad terms with Barbezieux, secretary of state for the war
department. Both were in good favour with the King; both high in power,
both spoiled. The successes in Catalonia had annoyed Barbezieux. They
smoothed the way for the siege of Barcelona, and that place once taken,
the very heart of Spain would have been exposed, and M. de Noailles would
have gained fresh honours and glory. M. de Noailles felt this so
completely that he had pressed upon the King the siege of Barcelona; and
when the fitting time came for undertaking it, sent a messenger to him
with full information of the forces and supplies he required. Fearing
that if he wrote out this information it might fall into the hands of
Barbezieux, and never reach the King, he simply gave his messenger
instructions by word of mouth, and charged him to deliver them so. But
the very means he had taken to ensure success brought about failure.
Barbezieux, informed by his spies of the departure of the messenger,
waylaid him, bribed him, and induced him to act with the blackest
perfidy, by telling the King quite a different story to that he was
charged with. In this way, the project for the siege of Barcelona was
entirely broken, at the moment for its execution, and with the most
reasonable hopes of success; and upon M. de Noailles rested all the
blame. What a thunderbolt this was for him may easily be imagined. But
the trick had been so well played, that he could not clear himself with
the King; and all through this winter he remained out of favour.
At last he thought of a means by which he might regain his position. He
saw the inclination of the King for his illegitimate children; and
determined to make a sacrifice in favour of one of them; rightly judging
that this would be a sure means to step back into the confidence he had
been so craftily driven from. His scheme, which he caused to be placed
before the King, was to go into Catalonia at the commencement of the next
campaign, to make a semblance of falling ill immediately upon arriving,
to send to Versailles a request that he might be recalled, and at the
same time a suggestion that M. de Vendome (who would then be near Nice,
under Marechal Catinat) should succeed him. In order that no time might
be lost, nor the army left without a general, he proposed to carry with
him the letters patent; appointing M. de Vendome, and to send them to him
at the same time that he sent to be recalled.
It is impossible to express the relief and satisfaction with which this
proposition was received. The King was delighted with it, as with
everything tending to advance his illegitimate children and to put a
slight upon the Princes of the blood. He could not openly have made this
promotion without embroiling himself with the latter; but coming as it
would from M. de Noailles, he had nothing to fear. M. de Vendome, once
general of an army, could no longer serve in any other quality; and would
act as a stepping-stone for M. du Maine.
From this moment M. de Noailles returned more than ever into the good
graces of the King. Everything happened as it had been arranged. But
the secret was betrayed in the execution. Surprise was felt that at the
same moment M. de Noailles sent a request to be recalled, he also sent,
and without waiting for a reply, to call M. de Vendame to the command.
What completely raised the veil were the letters patent that he sent
immediately after to M. de Vendome, and that it was known he could not
have received from the King in the time that had elapsed. M. de Noailles
returned from Catalonia, and was received as his address merited. He
feigned being lame with rheumatism, and played the part for a long time,
but forgot himself occasionally, and made his company smile. He fixed
himself at the Court, and gained there much more favour than he could
have gained by the war; to the great vexation of Barbezieux.
M. de Luxembourg very strangely married his daughter at this time to the
Chevalier de Soissons (an illegitimate son of the Comte de Soissons),
brought out from the greatest obscurity by the Comtesse de Nemours, and
adopted by her to spite her family: M. de Luxembourg did not long survive
this fine marriage. At sixty-seven years of age he believed himself
twenty-five, and lived accordingly. The want of genuine intrigues, from
which his age and his face excluded him, he supplied by money-power; and
his intimacy, and that of his son, with the Prince de Conti and
Albergotti was kept up almost entirely by the community of their habits,
and the secret parties of pleasure they concocted together. All the
burden of marches, of orders of subsistence, fell upon a subordinate.
Nothing could be more exact than the coup d'oeil of M. de Luxembourg--
nobody could be more brilliant, more sagacious, more penetrating than he
before the enemy or in battle, and this, too, with an audacity, an ease,
and at the same time a coolness, which allowed him to see all and foresee
all under the hottest fire, and in the most imminent danger: It was at
such times that he was great. For the rest he was idleness itself. He
rarely walked unless absolutely obliged, spent his time in gaming, or in
conversation With his familiars; and had every evening a supper with a
chosen few (nearly always the same); and if near a town, the other sex
were always agreeably mingled with them. When thus occupied, he was
inaccessible to everybody, and if anything pressing happened, it was his
subordinate who attended to it. Such was at the army the life of this
great general, and such it was at Paris, except that the Court and the
great world occupied his days, and his pleasures the evenings. At last,
age, temperament, and constitution betrayed him. He fell ill at
Versailles. Given over by Fagon, the King's physician, Coretti, an
Italian, who had secrets of his own, undertook his cure, and relieved
him, but only for a short time. His door during this illness was
besieged by all the Court. The King sent to inquire after him, but it
was more for appearance' sake than from sympathy, for I have already
remarked that the King did not like him. The brilliancy of his
campaigns, and the difficulty of replacing him, caused all the
disquietude. Becoming worse, M. de Luxembourg received the sacraments,
showed some religion and firmness, and died on the morning of the 4th of
January, 1695, the fifth day of his illness, much regretted by many
people, but personally esteemed by none, and loved by very few.
Not one of the Dukes M. de Luxembourg had attacked went to see him during
his illness. I neither went nor sent, although at Versailles; and I must
admit that I felt my deliverance from such an enemy.
Here, perhaps, I may as well relate the result of the trial in which we
were engaged, and which, after the death of M. de Luxembourg, was
continued by his son. It was not judged until the following year.
I have shown that by our implicating the Duc de Gesvres, the Chief
President had been declared incapable of trying the case. The rage he
conceived against us cannot be expressed, and, great actor that he was,
he could not hide it. All his endeavour afterwards was to do what he
could against us; the rest of the mask fell, and the deformity of the
judge appeared in the man, stripped of all disguise.
We immediately signified to M. de Luxembourg that he must choose between
the letters patent of 1581 and those of 1662. If he abandoned the first
the case fell through; in repudiating the last he renounced the certainty
of being duke and peer after us; and ran the risk of being reduced to an
inferior title previously granted to him. The position was a delicate
one; he was affrighted; but after much consultation he resolved to run
all risks and maintain his pretensions. It thus simply became a question
of his right to the title of Duc de Piney, with the privilege attached to
it as a creation of 1581.
In the spring of 1696 the case was at last brought on, before the
Assembly of all the Chambers. Myself and the other Dukes seated
ourselves in court to hear the proceedings. The trial commenced.
All the facts and particulars of the cause were brought forward.
Our advocates spoke, and then few doubted but that we should gain the
victory. M. de Luxembourg's advocate, Dumont, was next heard. He was
very audacious, and spoke so insolently of us, saying, in Scripture
phraseology, that we honoured the King with our lips, whilst our hearts
were far from him, that I could not contain myself. I was seated between
the Duc de la Rochefoucauld and the Duc d'Estrees. I stood up, crying
out against the imposture of this knave, and calling for justice on him.
M. de la Rochefoucauld pulled me back, made me keep silent, and I plunged
down into my seat more from anger against him than against the advocate.
My movement excited a murmur. We might on the instant have had justice
against Dumont, but the opportunity had passed for us to ask for it, and
the President de Maisons made a slight excuse for him. We complained,
however, afterwards to the King, who expressed his surprise that Dumont
had not been stopped in the midst of his speech.
The summing up was made by D'Aguesseau, who acquitted himself of the task
with much eloquence and impartiality. His speech lasted two days. This
being over, the court was cleared, and the judges were left alone to
deliberate upon their verdict. Some time after we were called in to hear
that verdict given. It was in favour of M. de Luxembourg in so far as
the title dating from 1662 was concerned; but the consideration of his
claim to the title of 1581 was adjourned indefinitely, so that he
remained exactly in the same position as his father.
It was with difficulty we could believe in a decree so unjust and so
novel, and which decided a question that was not under dispute. I was
outraged, but I endeavoured to contain myself. I spoke to M. de la
Rochefoucauld; I tried to make him listen to me, and to agree that we
should complain to the King, but I spoke to a man furious, incapable of
understanding anything or of doing anything. Returning to my own house,
I wrote a letter to the King, in which I complained of the opinion of the
judges. I also pointed out, that when everybody had been ordered to
retire from the council chamber, Harlay and his secretary had been
allowed to remain. On these and other grounds I begged the King to grant
a new trial.
I carried this letter to the Duc de la Tremoille, but I could not get him
to look at it. I returned home more vexed if possible than when I left.
The King, nevertheless, was exceedingly dissatisfied with the judgment.
He explained himself to that effect at his dinner, and in a manner but
little advantageous to the Parliament, and prepared himself to receive
the complaints he expected would be laid before him. But the obstinacy
of M. de la Rochefoucauld, which turned into vexation against himself,
rendered it impossible for us to take any steps in the matter, and so
overwhelmed me with displeasure, that I retired to La Trappe during
Passion Week in order to recover myself.
At my return I learned that the King had spoken of this judgment to the
Chief President, and that that magistrate had blamed it, saying the cause
was indubitably ours, and that he had always thought so! If he thought
so, why oppose us so long? and if he did not think so, what a
prevaricator was he to reply with this flattery, so as to be in accord
with the King? The judges themselves were ashamed of their verdict, and
excused themselves for it on the ground of their compassion for the state
in which M. de Luxembourg would have been placed had he lost the title of
1662, and upon its being impossible that he should gain the one of 1581,
of which they had left him the chimera. M. de Luxembourg was accordingly
received at the Parliament on the 4th of the following May, with the rank
of 1662. He came and visited all of us, but we would have no intercourse
with him or with his judges. To the Advocate-General, D'Aguesseau, we
carried our thanks.
CHAPTER VII
Thus ended this long and important case; and now let me go back again to
the events of the previous year.
Towards the end of the summer and the commencement of the winter of 1695,
negotiations for peace were set on foot by the King. Harlay, son-in-law
of our enemy, was sent to Maestricht to sound the Dutch. But in
proportion as they saw peace desired were they less inclined to listen to
terms. They had even the impudence to insinuate to Harlay, whose
paleness and thinness were extraordinary, that they took him for a sample
of the reduced state of France! He, without getting angry, replied
pleasantly, that if they would give him the time to send for his wife,
they would, perhaps, conceive another opinion of the position of the
realm. In effect, she was extremely fat, and of a very high colour. He
was rather roughly dismissed, and hastened to regain our frontier.
Two events followed each other very closely this winter. The first was
the death of the Princess of Orange, in London, at the end of January.
The King of England prayed our King to allow the Court to wear no
mourning, and it was even prohibited to M. de Bouillon and M. de Duras,
who were both related to the Prince of Orange. The order was obeyed, and
no word was said; but this sort of vengeance was thought petty. Hopes
were held out of a change in England, but they vanished immediately, and
the Prince of Orange appeared more accredited there and stronger than
ever. The Princess was much regretted, and the Prince of Orange, who
loved her and gave her his entire confidence, and even most marked
respect, was for some days ill with grief.
The other event was strange. The Duke of Hanover, who, in consequence of
the Revolution, was destined to the throne of England after the Prince
and Princess of Orange and the Princess of Denmark, had married his
cousin-german, a daughter of the Duke of Zell. She was beautiful, and he
lived happily with her for some time. The Count of Koenigsmarck, young
and very well made, came to the Court, and gave him some umbrage. The
Duke of Hanover became jealous; he watched his wife and the Count, and at
length believed himself fully assured of what he would have wished to
remain ignorant of all his life. Fury seized him: he had the Count
arrested and thrown into a hot oven. Immediately afterwards he sent his
wife to her father, who shut her up in one of his castles, where she was
strictly guarded by the people of the Duke of Hanover. An assembly of
the Consistory was held in order to break off his marriage. It was
decided, very singularly, that the marriage was annulled so far as the
Duke was concerned, and that he could marry another woman; but that it
remained binding on the Duchess, and that she could not marry. The
children she had had during her marriage were declared legitimate. The
Duke of Hanover did not remain persuaded as to this last article.
The King, entirely occupied with the aggrandisement of his natural
children, had heaped upon the Comte de Toulouse every possible favour.
He now (in order to evade a promise he had made to his brother, that the
first vacant government should be given to the Duc de Chartres) forced M.
de Chaulnes to give up the government of Brittany, which he had long
held, and conferred it upon the Comte de Toulouse, giving to the friend
and heir of the former the successorship to the government of Guyenne, by
way of recompense.
M. de Chaulnes was old and fat, but much loved by the people of Brittany.
He was overwhelmed by this determination of the King, and his wife, who
had long been accustomed to play the little Queen, still more so; yet
there was nothing for them but to obey. They did obey, but it was with a
sorrow and chagrin they could not hide.
The appointment was announced one morning at the rising of the King.
Monsieur, who awoke later, heard of it at the drawing of his curtains,
and was extremely piqued. The Comte de Toulouse came shortly afterwards,
and announced it himself. Monsieur interrupted him, and before everybody
assembled there said, "The King has given you a good present; but I know
not if what he has done is good policy." Monsieur went shortly
afterwards to the King, and reproached him for giving, under cover of a
trick, the government of Brittany to the Comte de Toulouse, having
promised it to the Duc de Chartres. The King heard him in silence: he
knew well how to appease him. Some money for play and to embellish Saint
Cloud, soon effaced Monsieur's chagrin.
All this winter my mother was solely occupied in finding a good match for
me. Some attempt was made to marry me to Mademoiselle de Royan. It
would have been a noble and rich marriage; but I was alone, Mademoiselle
de Royan was an orphan, and I wished a father-in-law and a family upon
whom I could lean. During the preceding year there had been some talk of
the eldest daughter of Marechal de Lorges for me. The affair had fallen
through, almost as soon as suggested, and now, on both sides, there was a
desire to recommence negotiations. The probity, integrity, the freedom
of Marechal de Lorges pleased me infinitely, and everything tended to
give me an extreme desire for this marriage. Madame de Lorges by her
virtue and good sense was all I could wish for as the mother of my future
wife. Mademoiselle de Lorges was a blonde, with a complexion and figure
perfect, a very amiable face, an extremely noble and modest deportment,
and with I know not what of majesty derived from her air of virtue, and
of natural gentleness. The Marechal had five other daughters, but I
liked this one best without comparison, and hoped to find with her that
happiness which she since has given me. As she has become my wife, I
will abstain here from saying more about her, unless it be that she has
exceeded all that was promised of her, and all that I myself had hoped.
My marriage being agreed upon and arranged the Marechal de Lorges spoke
of it to the King, who had the goodness to reply to him that he could not
do better, and to speak of me very obligingly. The marriage accordingly
took place at the Hotel de Lorges, on the 8th of April, 1695, which I
have always regarded, and with good reason, as the happiest day of my
life. My mother treated me like the best mother in the world. On the
Thursday before Quasimodo the contract was signed; a grand repast
followed; at midnight the cure of Saint Roch said mass, and married us in
the chapel of the house. On the eve, my mother had sent forty thousand
livres' worth of precious stones to Mademoiselle de Lorges, and I six
hundred Louis in a corbeille filled with all the knick-knacks that are
given on these occasions.
We slept in the grand apartment of the Hotel des Lorges. On the morrow,
after dinner, my wife went to bed, and received a crowd of visitors, who
came to pay their respects and to gratify their curiosity. The next
evening we went to Versailles, and were received by Madame de Maintenon
and the King. On arriving at the supper-table, the King said to the new
Duchess:--"Madame, will you be pleased to seat yourself?"
His napkin being unfolded, he saw all the duchesses and princesses still
standing; and rising in his chair, he said to Madame de Saint-Simon--
"Madame, I have already begged you to be seated;" and all immediately
seated themselves. On the morrow, Madame de Saint-Simon received all the
Court in her bed in the apartment of the Duchesse d'Arpajon, as being
more handy, being on the ground floor. Our festivities finished by a
supper that I gave to the former friends of my father, whose acquaintance
I had always cultivated with great care.
Almost immediately after my marriage the second daughter of the Marechal
de Lorges followed in the footsteps of her sister. She was fifteen years
of age, and at the reception of Madame de Saint-Simon had attracted the
admiration of M. de Lauzun, who was then sixty-three. Since his return
to the Court he had been reinstated in the dignity he had previously
held. He flattered himself that by marrying the daughter of a General he
should re-open a path to himself for command in the army. Full of this
idea he spoke to M. de Lorges, who was by no means inclined towards the
marriage. M. de Lauzun offered, however, to marry without dowry; and M.
de Lorges, moved by this consideration, assented to his wish. The affair
concluded, M. de Lorges spoke of it to the King. "You are bold," said
his Majesty, "to take Lauzun into your family. I hope you may not repent
of it."
The contract was soon after signed. M. de Lorges gave no dowry with his
daughter, but she was to inherit something upon the death of M. Fremont.
We carried this contract to the King, who smiled and bantered M. de
Lauzun. M. de Lauzun replied, that he was only too happy, since it was
the first time since his return that he had seen the King smile at him.
The marriage took place without delay: there were only seven or eight
persons present at the ceremony. M. de Lauzun would undress himself
alone with his valet de chambre, and did not enter the apartment of his
wife until after everybody had left it, and she was in bed with the
curtains closed, and nobody to meet him on his passage. His wife
received company in bed, as mine had done. Nobody was able to understand
this marriage; and all foresaw that a rupture would speedily be brought
about by the well-known temper of M. de Lauzun. In effect, this is what
soon happened. The Marechal de Lorges, remaining still in weak health,
was deemed by the King unable to take the field again, and his army given
over to the command of another General. M. de Lauzun thus saw all his
hopes of advancement at an end, and, discontented that the Marechal had
done nothing for him, broke off all connection with the family, took away
Madame de Lauzun from her mother (to the great grief of the latter; who
doted upon this daughter), and established her in a house of his own
adjoining the Assumption, in the Faubourg Saint-Honore. There she had to
endure her husband's continual caprices, but little removed in their
manifestation from madness. Everybody cast blame upon him, and strongly
pitied her and her father and mother; but nobody was surprised.
A few days after the marriage of M. de Lauzun, as the King was being
wheeled in his easy chair in the gardens at Versailles, he asked me for
many minute particulars concerning the family of the Marechal de Lorges.
He then set himself to joke with me upon the marriage of M. de Lauzun--
and upon mine. He said to me, in spite of that gravity which never
quitted him, that he had learnt from the Marechal I had well acquitted
myself, but that he believed the Marechal had still better news.
The loss of two illustrious men about this time, made more noise than
that of two of our grand ladies. The first of these men was La Fontaine,
so well known by his "Fables" and stories, and who, nevertheless, was so
heavy in conversation. The other was Mignard--so illustrious by his
pencil: he had an only daughter--perfectly beautiful: she is repeated in
several of those magnificent historical pictures which adorn the grand
gallery of Versailles and its two salons, and which have had no slight
share in irritating all Europe against the King, and in leaguing it still
more against his person than his realm.
At the usual time the armies were got ready for active service, and
everybody set out to join them. That of the Rhine, in which I was, was
commanded by the Marechal de Lorges. No sooner had we crossed the river
and come upon the enemy, than the Marechal fell ill. Although we were in
want of forage and were badly encamped, nobody complained--nobody wished
to move. Never did an army show so much interest in the life of its
chief, or so much love for him. M. de Lorges was, in truth, at the last
extremity, and the doctors that had been sent for from Strasbourg gave
him up entirely. I took upon myself to administer to him some "English
Drops." One hundred and thirty were given him in three doses: the effect
was astonishing; an eruption burst out upon the Marechal's body, and
saved his life. His illness was not, however, at an end; and the army,
although suffering considerably, would not hear of moving until he was
quite ready to move also. There was no extremity it would not undergo
rather than endanger the life of its chief.
Prince Louis of Baden offered by trumpets all sorts of assistance--
doctors and remedies, and gave his word that if the army removed from its
General, he and those who remained with him should be provided with
forage and provisions--should be unmolested and allowed to rejoin the
main body in perfect safety, or go whithersoever they pleased. He was
thanked, as he merited, for those very kind offers, which we did not
wish, however, to profit by.
Little by little the health of the General was reestablished, and the
army demonstrated its joy by bonfire's all over the camp, and by salvos,
which it was impossible to prevent. Never was seen testimony of love so
universal or so flattering. The King was much concerned at the illness
of the Marechal; all the Court was infinitely touched by it. M. de
Lorges was not less loved by it than by the troops. When able to support
the fatigues of the journey, he was removed in a coach to Philipsburg,
where he was joined by the Marechal, who had come there to meet him. The
next day he went to Landau, and I, who formed one of his numerous and
distinguished escort, accompanied him there, and then returned to the
army, which was placed under the command of the Marechal de Joyeuse.
We found it at about three leagues from Ketsch, its right at Roth, and
its left at Waldsdorff. We learned that the Marechal de Joyeuse had lost
a good occasion of fighting the enemy; but as I was not in camp at the
time, I will say no more of the matter. Our position was not good:
Schwartz was on our left, and the Prince of Baden on our right, hemming
us in, as it were, between them. We had no forage, whilst they had
abundance of everything, and were able to procure all they wanted. There
was a contest who should decamp the last. All our communications were
cut off with Philipsburg, so that we could not repass the Rhine under the
protection of that place. To get out of our position, it was necessary
to defile before our enemies into the plain of Hockenun, and this was a
delicate operation. The most annoying circumstance was, that M. de
Joyeuse would communicate with nobody, and was so ill-tempered that none
dared to speak to him. At last he determined upon his plans, and I was
of the detachment by which they were to be carried out. We were sent to
Manheim to see if out of the ruins of that place (burned in 1688 by M. de
Louvois) sufficient, materials could be found to construct bridges, by
which we might cross the Rhine there. We found that the bridges could be
made, and returned to announce this to M. de Joyeuse. Accordingly, on
the 20th of July, the army put itself in movement. The march was made in
the utmost confusion. Everything was in disorder; the infantry and
cavalry were huddled together pell-mell; no commands could be acted upon,
and indeed the whole army was so disorganised that it could have been
easily beaten by a handful of men. In effect, the enemy at last tried to
take advantage of our confusion, by sending a few troops to harass us.
But it was too late; we had sufficiently rallied to be able to turn upon
them, and they narrowly escaped falling into our hands. We encamped that
night in the plain on the banks of the Necker--our rear at Manheim, and
our left at Seckenheim, while waiting for the remainder of the army,
still very distant. Indeed, so great had been the confusion, that the
first troops arrived at one o'clock at night, and the last late in the
morning of the next day.
I thought that our headquarters were to be in this village of Seckenheim,
and, in company with several officers took possession of a large house
and prepared to pass the night there. While we were resting from the
fatigues of the day we heard a great noise, and soon after a frightful
uproar. It was caused by a body of our men, who, searching for water,
had discovered this village, and after having quenched their thirst had,
under the cover of thick darkness, set themselves to pillage, to violate,
to massacre, and to commit all the horrors inspired by the most unbridled
licence: La Bretesche, a lieutenant-general, declared to me that he had
never seen anything like it, although he had several times been at
pillages and sackings. He was very grateful that he had not yielded to
my advice, and taken off his wooden leg to be more at ease; for in a
short time we ourselves were invaded, and had some trouble to defend
ourselves. As we bore the livery of M. de Lorges, we were respected,
but those who bore that of M. de Joyeuse were in some cases severely
maltreated. We passed the rest of the night as well as we could in this
unhappy place, which was not abandoned by our soldiers until long after
there was nothing more to find. At daylight we went to the camp.
We found the army beginning to move: it had passed the night as well as
it could without order, the troops constantly arriving, and the last
comers simply joining themselves on to the rest. Our camp was soon,
however, properly formed, and on the 24th July, the bridges being ready,
all the army crossed the Rhine, without any attempt being made by the
enemy to follow us. On the day after, the Marechal de Joyeuse permitted
me to go to Landau, where I remained with the Marechal and the Marechale
de Lorges until the General was again able to place himself at the head
of his army.
Nothing of importance was done by our other armies; but in Flanders an
interesting adventure occurred. The Prince of Orange, after playing a
fine game of chess with our army, suddenly invested Namur with a large
force, leaving the rest of his troops under the command of M. de
Vaudemont. The Marechal de Villeroy, who had the command of our army in
Flanders, at once pressed upon M. de Vaudemont, who, being much the
weaker of the two, tried hard to escape. Both felt that everything was
in their hands: Vaudemont, that upon his safety depended the success of
the siege of Namur; and Villeroy, that to his victory was attached the
fate of the Low Countries, and very likely a glorious peace, with all the
personal results of such an event. He took his measures so well that on
the evening of the 13th of July it was impossible for M. de Vaudemont to
escape falling into his hands on the 14th, and he wrote thus to the King.
At daybreak on the 14th M. de Villeroy sent word to M. du Maine to
commence the action. Impatient that his orders were not obeyed, he sent
again five or six times. M. du Maine wished in the first instance to
reconnoitre, then to confess himself, and delayed in effect so long that
M. de Vaudemont was able to commence his retreat. The general officers
cried out at this. One of them came to M. du Maine and reminded him of
the repeated orders of the Marechal de Villeroy, represented the
importance of victory, and the ease with which it could be obtained: with
tears in his eyes he begged M. du Maine to commence the attack. It was
all in vain; M. du Maine stammered, and could not be prevailed upon to
charge, and so allowed M. de Vaudemont's army to escape, when by a single
movement it might have been entirely defeated.
All our army was in despair, and officers and soldiers made no scruple of
expressing their anger and contempt. M. de Villeroy, more outraged than
anybody else, was yet too good a courtier to excuse himself at the
expense of M. du Maine. He simply wrote to the King, that he had been
deceived in those hopes of success which appeared certain the day before,
entered into no further details, and resigned himself to all that might
happen. The King, who had counted the hours until news of a great and
decisive victory should reach him, was very much surprised when this
letter came: he saw at once that something strange had happened of which
no intelligence had been sent: he searched the gazettes of Holland; in
one he read of a great action said to have been fought, and in which M.
du Maine had been grievously wounded; in the next the news of the action
was contradicted, and M. du Maine was declared to have received no wounds
at all. In order to learn what had really taken place, the King sent for
Lavienne, a man he was in the habit of consulting when he wanted to learn
things no one else dared to tell him.
This Lavienne had been a bath-keeper much in vogue in Paris, and had
become bath-keeper to the King at the time of his amours. He had pleased
by his drugs, which had frequently put the King in a state to enjoy
himself more, and this road had led Lavienne to become one of the four
chief valets de chambre. He was a very honest man, but coarse, rough,
and free-spoken; it was this last quality which made him useful in the
manner I have before mentioned. From Lavienne the King, but not without
difficulty, learned the truth: it threw him into despair. The other
illegitimate children were favourites with him, but it was upon M. du
Maine that all his hopes were placed. They now fell to the ground, and
the grief of the King was insupportable: he felt deeply for that dear son
whose troops had become the laughing stock of the army; he felt the
railleries that, as the gazettes showed him, foreigners were heaping upon
his forces; and his vexation was inconceivable.
This Prince, so equal in his manners, so thoroughly master of his
lightest movements, even upon the gravest occasions, succumbed under this
event. On rising from the table at Marly he saw a servant who, while
taking away the dessert, helped himself to a biscuit, which he put in his
pocket. On the instant, the King forgets his dignity, and cane in hand
runs to this valet (who little suspected what was in store for him),
strikes him; abuses him, and breaks the cane upon his body! The truth
is, 'twas only a reed, and snapped easily. However, the stump in his
hand, he walked away like a man quite beside himself, continuing to abuse
this valet, and entered Madame de Maintenon's room, where he remained
nearly an hour. Upon coming out he met Father la Chaise. "My father,"
said the King to him, in a very loud voice, "I have beaten a knave and
broken my cane over his shoulders, but I do not think I have offended
God." Everybody around trembled at this public confession, and the poor
priest muttered a semblance of approval between his teeth, to avoid
irritating the King more. The noise that the affair made and the terror
it inspired may be imagined; for nobody could divine for some time the
cause; and everybody easily understood that that which had appeared could
not be the real one. To finish with this matter, once for all, let us
add here the saying of M. d'Elboeuf. Courtier though he was, the upward
flight of the illegitimate children weighed upon his heart. As the
campaign was at its close and the Princes were about to depart, he begged
M. du Maine before everybody to say where he expected to serve during the
next campaign, because wherever it might be he should like to be there
also.
After being pressed to say why, he replied that "with him one's life was
safe." This pointed remark made much noise. M. du Maine lowered his
eyes, and did not reply one word. As for the Marechal de Villeroy he
grew more and more in favour with the King and with Madame de Maintenon.
The bitter fruit of M. du Maine's act was the taking of Namur, which
capitulated on August 4th (1695). The Marechal de Villeroy in turn
bombarded Brussels, which was sorely maltreated. The Marechal de
Boufflers, who had defended Namur, was made Duke, and those who had
served under him were variously rewarded. This gave occasion for the
Prince of Orange to say, that the King recompensed more liberally the
loss of a place than he could the conquest of one. The army retired into
winter-quarters at the end of October, and the Generals went to Paris.
As for me, I remained six weeks at Landau with M. and Madame de Lorges.
At the end of that time, the Marechal, having regained his health,
returned to the army, where he was welcomed with the utmost joy: he soon
after had an attack of apoplexy, and, by not attending to his malady in
time, became seriously ill again. When a little recovered, he and Madame
de Lorges set out for Vichy, and I went to Paris.
CHAPTER VIII
Before speaking of what happened at Court after my return, it will be
necessary to record what had occurred there during the campaign.
M. de Brias, Archbishop of Cambrai, had died, and the King had given that
valuable preferment to the Abbe de Fenelon, preceptor of the children of
France. Fenelon was a man of quality, without fortune, whom the
consciousness of wit--of the insinuating and captivating kind--united
with much ability, gracefulness of intellect, and learning, inspired with
ambition. He had been long going about from door to door, knocking for
admission, but without success. Piqued against the Jesuits, to whom he
had addressed himself at first, as holding all favours in their hands,
and discouraged because unable to succeed in that quarter, he turned next
to the Jansenists, to console himself by the reputation he hoped he
should derive from them, for the loss of those gifts of fortune which
hitherto had despised him.
He remained a considerable time undergoing the process of initiation, and
succeeded at last in being of the private parties that some of the
important Jansenists then held once or twice a week at the house of the
Duchesse de Brancas. I know not if he appeared too clever for them, or
if he hoped elsewhere for better things than he could get among people
who had only sores to share; but little by little his intimacy with them
cooled; and by dint of turning around Saint Sulpice, he succeeded in
forming another connection there, upon which he built greater
expectations. This society of priests was beginning to distinguish
itself, and from a seminary of a Paris parish to extend abroad.
Ignorance, the minuteness of their practices, the absence of all patrons
and of members at all distinguished in any way, inspired them with a
blind obedience to Rome and to all its maxims; with a great aversion for
everything that passed for Jansenism, and made them so dependent upon the
bishops that they began to be considered an acquisition in many dioceses.
They appeared a middle party, very useful to the prelates; who equally
feared the Court, on account of suspicions of doctrine, and the Jesuits
for as soon as the latter had insinuated themselves into the good graces
of the prelates, they imposed their yoke upon them, or ruined them
hopelessly;--thus the Sulpicians grew apace. None amongst them could
compare in any way with the Abbe de Fenelon; so that he was able easily
to play first fiddle, and to make for himself protectors who were
interested in advancing him, in order that they might be protected in
turn.
His piety, which was all things to all men, and his doctrine that he
formed upon theirs (abjuring, as it were, in whispers, the impurities he
might have contracted amongst those he had abandoned)--the charms, the
graces, the sweetness, the insinuation of his mind, rendered him a dear
friend to this new congregation, and procured for him what he had long
sought, people upon whom he could lean, and who could and would serve.
Whilst waiting opportunities, he carefully courted these people, without
thinking, however, of positively joining them, his views being more
ambitious; so that he ever sought to make new acquaintances and friends.
His was a coquettish mind, which from people the most influential down to
the workman and the lackey sought appreciation and was determined to
please; and his talents for this work perfectly seconded his desires.
At this time, and while still obscure, he heard speak of Madame Guyon,
who has since made so much noise in the world, and who is too well known
to need that I should dwell upon her here. He saw her. There was an
interchange of pleasure between their minds. Their sublimes amalgamated.
I know not if they understood each other very clearly in that system, and
that new tongue which they hatched subsequently, but they persuaded
themselves they did, and friendship grew up between them. Although more
known than he, Madame Guyon was nevertheless not much known, and their
intimacy was not perceived, because nobody thought of them; Saint Sulpice
even was ignorant of what was going on.
The Duc de Beauvilliers became Governor of the children of France almost
in spite of himself, without having thought of it. He had to choose a
preceptor for Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne. He addressed himself to
Saint Sulpice, where for a long time he had confessed, for he liked and
protected it. He had heard speak of Fenelon with eulogy: the Sulpicians
vaunted his piety, his intelligence, his knowledge, his talents; at last
they proposed him for preceptor. The Duc de Beauvilliers saw him, was
charmed with him, and appointed him to the office.
As soon as installed, Fenelon saw of what importance it would be to gain
the entire favour of the Duc de Beauvilliers, and of his brother-in-law
the Duc de Chevreuse, both very intimate friends, and both in the highest
confidence of the King and Madame de Maintenon. This was his first care,
and he succeeded beyond his hopes, becoming the master of their hearts
and minds, and the director of their consciences.
Madame de Maintenon dined regularly once a week at the house of one or
other of the two Dukes, fifth of a little party, composed of the two
sisters and the two husbands,--with a bell upon the table, in order to
dispense with servants in waiting, and to be able to talk without
restraint. Fenelon was at last admitted to this sanctuary, at foot of
which all the Court was prostrated. He was almost as successful with
Madame de Maintenon as he had been with the two Dukes. His spirituality
enchanted her: the Court soon perceived the giant strides of the
fortunate Abbe, and eagerly courted him. But, desiring to be free and
entirely devoted to his great object, he kept himself aloof from their
flatteries--made for himself a shield with his modesty and his duties of
preceptor--and thus rendered himself still more dear to the persons he
had captivated, and that he had so much interest in retaining in that
attachment.
Among these cares he forgot not his dear Madame Guyon; he had already
vaunted her to the two Dukes and to Madame de Maintenon. He had even
introduced her to them, but as though with difficulty and for a few
moments, as a woman all in God, whose humility and whose love of
contemplation and solitude kept her within the strictest limits, and
whose fear, above all, was that she should become known. The tone of her
mind pleased Madame de Maintenon extremely; her reserve, mixed with
delicate flatteries, won upon her. Madame de Maintenon wished to hear
her talk upon matters of piety; with difficulty she consented to speak.
She seemed to surrender herself to the charms and to the virtue of Madame
de Maintenon, and Madame de Maintenon fell into the nets so skilfully
prepared for her.
Such was the situation of Fenelon when he became Archbishop of Cambrai;
increasing the admiration in which he was held by taking no step to gain
that great benefice. He had taken care not to seek to procure himself
Cambrai; the least spark of ambition would have destroyed all his
edifice; and, moreover, it was not Cambrai that he coveted.
Little by little he appropriated to himself some distinguished sheep of
the small flock Madame Guyon had gathered together. He only conducted
them, however, under the direction of that prophetess, and, everything
passed with a secrecy and mystery that gave additional relish to the
manna distributed.
Cambrai was a thunderbolt for this little flock. It was the
archbishopric of Paris they wished. Cambrai they looked upon with
disdain as a country diocese, the residence in which (impossible to avoid
from time to time) would deprive them of their pastor. Their grief was
then profound at what the rest of the world took for a piece of amazing
luck, and the Countess of Guiche was so affected as to be unable to hide
her tears. The new prelate had not neglected such of his brethren as
made the most figure; they, in turn, considered it a distinction to
command his regard. Saint Cyr, that spot so valuable and so
inaccessible, was the place chosen for his consecration; and M. de Meaux,
dictator then of the episcopacy and or doctrine, consecrated him. The
children of France were among the spectators, and Madame de Maintenon was
present with her little court of familiars. No others were invited; the
doors were closed to those who sought to pay their court.
The new Archbishop of Cambrai, gratified with his influence over Madame
de Maintenon and with the advantages it had brought him, felt that unless
he became completely master of her, the hopes he still entertained could
not be satisfied. But there was a rival in his way--Godet, Bishop of
Chartres, who was much in the confidence of Madame de Maintenon, and had
long discourses with her at Saint Cyr. As he was, however, of a very ill
figure, had but little support at Court, and appeared exceedingly simple,
M. de Cambrai believed he could easily overthrow him. To do this, he
determined to make use of Madame Guyon, whose new spirituality had
already been so highly relished by Madame de Maintenon. He persuaded
this latter to allow Madame Guyon to enter Saint Cyr, where they could
discourse together much more at their ease than at the Hotel de Chevreuse
or Beauvilliers. Madame Guyon went accordingly to Saint Cyr two or three
times. Soon after, Madame de Maintenon, who relished her more and more,
made her sleep there, and their meetings grew longer. Madame Guyon
admitted that she sought persons proper to become her disciples, and in a
short time she formed a little flock, whose maxims and language appeared
very strange to all the rest of the house, and, above all, to M. de
Chartres. That prelate was not so simple as M. de Cambrai imagined.
Profound theologian and scholar, pious, disinterested, and of rare
probity, he could be, if necessary, a most skilful courtier; but he
rarely exerted this power, for the favour of Madame de Maintenon sufficed
him of itself. As soon as he got scent of this strange doctrine, he
caused two ladies, upon whom he could count, to be admitted to Saint Cyr,
as if to become disciples of Madame Guyon. He gave them full
instructions, and they played their parts to perfection. In the first
place they appeared to be ravished, and by degrees enchanted, with the
new doctrine. Madame Guyon, pleased with this fresh conquest, took the
ladies into her most intimate confidence in order to gain them entirely.
They communicated everything to M. de Chartres, who quietly looked on,
allowed things to take their course, and, when he believed the right
moment had arrived, disclosed all he had learnt to Madame de Maintenon.
She was strangely surprised when she saw the extraordinary drift of the
new doctrine. Troubled and uncertain, she consulted with M. de Cambrai,
who, not suspecting she had been so well instructed, became, when he
discovered it, embarrassed, and thus augmented her suspicions.
Suddenly Madame Guyon was driven away from Saint Cyr, and prohibited from
spreading her doctrine elsewhere. But the admiring disciples she had
made still gathered round her in secret, and this becoming known, she was
ordered to leave Paris. She feigned obedience, but in effect went no
further than the Faubourg Saint Antoine, where, with great secrecy, she
continued to receive her flock. But being again detected, she was sent,
without further parley, to the Bastille, well treated there, but allowed
to see nobody, not even to write. Before being arrested, however, she
had been put into the hands of M. de Meaux, who used all his endeavours
to change her sentiments. Tired at last of his sermons, she feigned
conviction, signed a recantation of her opinions, and was set at liberty.
Yet, directly after, she held her secret assemblies in the Faubourg Saint
Antoine, and it was in consequence of this abuse of freedom that she was
arrested. These adventures bring me far into the year 1696, and the
sequel extends into the following year. Let us finish this history at
once, and return afterwards to what happened meanwhile.
Monsieur de Cambrai, stunned but not overpowered by the reverse he had
sustained, and by his loss of favour with Madame de Maintenon, stood firm
in his stirrups. After Madame Guyon's abuse of her liberty, and the
conferences of Issy, he bethought himself of confessing to M. de Meaux,
by which celebrated trick he hoped to close that prelate's mouth. These
circumstances induced M. de Meaux to take pen in hand, in order to expose
to the public the full account of his affair, and of Madame Guyon's
doctrine; and he did so in a work under the title of 'Instruction sur les
Etats d'Oyaison'.
While the book was yet unpublished, M. de Cambrai was shown a copy. He
saw at once the necessity of writing another to ward off the effect of
such a blow. He must have had a great deal of matter already prepared,
otherwise the diligence he used would be incredible. Before M. de
Meaux's book was ready, M. de Cambrai's, entitled 'Maximes des Saints',
was published and distributed. M. de Chevreuse, who corrected the
proofs, installed himself at the printer's, so as to see every sheet as
soon as printed.
This book, written in the strangest manner, did M. de Cambrai little
service. If people were offended to find it supported upon no authority,
they were much more so with its confused and embarrassed style, its
precision so restrained and so decided, its barbarous terms which seemed
as though taken from a foreign tongue, above all, its high-flown and far-
fetched thoughts, which took one's breath away, as in the too subtle air
of the middle region. Nobody, except the theologians, understood it, and
even they not without reading it three or four times. Connoisseurs found
in it a pure Quietism, which, although wrapped up in fine language, was
clearly visible. I do not give my own judgment of things so much beyond
me, but repeat what was said everywhere. Nothing else was talked about,
even by the ladies; and a propos of this, the saying of Madame de Sevigne
was revived: "Make religion a little more palpable; it evaporates by dint
of being over-refined."
Not a word was heard in praise of the book; everybody was opposed to it,
and it was the means of making Madame de Maintenon more unfavourable to
M. de Cambrai than ever. He sent the King a copy, without informing her.
This completed her annoyance against him. M. de Cambrai, finding his
book so ill-received by the Court and by the prelates, determined to try
and support it on the authority of Rome, a step quite opposed to our
manners. In the mean time, M. de Meaux's book appeared in two volumes
octavo, well written, clear, modest, and supported upon the authority of
the Scriptures. It was received with avidity, and absolutely devoured.
There was not a person at the Court who did not take a pleasure in
reading it, so that for a long time it was the common subject of
conversation of the Court and of the town.
These two books, so opposed in doctrine and in style, made such a stir on
every side that the King interposed, and forced M. de Cambrai to submit
his work to an examination by a council of prelates, whom he named.
M. de Cambrai asked permission to go to Rome to defend his cause in
person, but this the King refused. He sent his book, therefore, to the
Pope, and had the annoyance to receive a dry, cold reply, and to see
M. de Meaux's book triumph. His good fortune was in effect at an end.
He remained at Court some little time, but the King was soon irritated
against him, sent him off post-haste to Paris, and from there to his
diocese, whence he has never returned. He left behind him a letter for
one of his friends, M. de Chevreuse it was generally believed, which
immediately after became public. It appeared like the manifesto of a man
who disgorges his bile and restrains himself no more, because he has
nothing more to hope. The letter, bold and bitter in style, was besides
so full of ability and artifice, that it was extremely pleasant to read,
without finding approvers; so true it is that a wise and disdainful
silence is difficult to keep under reverses.
VOLUME 2.
CHAPTER IX
To return now to the date from which I started. On the 6th of August,
1695, Harlay, Arch-bishop of Paris, died of epilepsy at Conflans. He was
a prelate of profound knowledge and ability, very amiable, and of most
gallant manners. For some time past he had lost favour with the King and
with Madame de Maintenon, for opposing the declaration of her marriage--
of which marriage he had been one of the three witnesses. The clergy,
who perceived his fall, and to whom envy is not unfamiliar, took pleasure
in revenging themselves upon M. de Paris, for the domination, although
gentle and kindly, he had exercised. Unaccustomed to this decay of his
power, all the graces of his mind and body withered. He could find no
resource but to shut himself up with his dear friend the Duchesse de
Lesdiguieres, whom he saw every day of his life, either at her own house
or at Conflans, where he had laid out a delicious garden, kept so
strictly clean, that as the two walked, gardeners followed at a distance,
and effaced their footprints with rakes. The vapours seized the
Archbishop, and turned themselves into slight attacks of epilepsy. He
felt this, but prohibited his servants to send for help, when they should
see him attacked; and he was only too well obeyed. The Duchesse de
Lesdiguieres never slept at Conflans, but she went there every afternoon,
and was always alone with him. On the 6th of August, he passed the
morning, as usual, until dinner-time; his steward came there to him, and
found him in his cabinet, fallen back upon a sofa; he was dead. The
celebrated Jesuit-Father Gaillard preached his funeral sermon, and
carefully eluded pointing the moral of the event. The King and Madame de
Maintenon were much relieved by the loss of M. de Paris. Various places
he had held were at once distributed. His archbishopric and his
nomination to the cardinalship required more discussion. The King learnt
the news of the death of M. de Paris on the 6th. On the 8th, in going as
usual to his cabinet, he went straight up to the Bishop of Orleans, led
him to the Cardinals de Bouillon and de Fursternberg, and said to them:-
"Gentlemen, I think you will thank me for giving you an associate like M.
d'Orleans, to whom I give my nomination to the cardinalship." At this
word the Bishop, who little expected such a scene, fell at the King's
feet and embraced his knees. He was a man whose face spoke at once of
the virtue and benignity he possessed. In youth he was so pious, that
young and old were afraid to say afoul word in his presence. Although
very rich, he appropriated scarcely any of his wealth to himself, but
gave it away for good works. The modesty and the simplicity with which
M. d'Orleans sustained his nomination, increased the universal esteem in
which he was held.
The archbishopric of Paris was given to a brother of the Duc de Noailles-
the Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne--M. de Noailles thus reaping the fruit of
his wise sacrifice to M. de Vendome, before related. M. de Chalons was
of singular goodness and modesty. He did not wish for this preferment,
and seeing from far the prospect of its being given to him, hastened to
declare himself against the Jesuits, in the expectation that Pere la
Chaise, who was of them, and who was always consulted upon these
occasions, might oppose him. But it happened, perhaps for the first
time, that Madame de Maintenon, who felt restrained by the Jesuits, did
not consult Pere la Chaise, and the preferment was made without his
knowledge, and without that of M. de Chalons. The affront was a violent
one, and the Jesuits never forgave the new Archbishop: he was, however,
so little anxious for the office, that it was only after repeated orders
he could be made to accept it.
The Bishop of Langres also died about this time. He was a true
gentleman, much liked, and called "the good Langres." There was nothing
bad about him, except his manners; he was not made for a bishop--gambled
very much, and staked high. M. de Vendome and others won largely at
billiards of him, two or three times. He said no word, but, on returning
to Langres, did nothing but practise billiards in secret for six months.
When next in Paris, he was again asked to play, and his adversaries, who
thought him as unskilful as before, expected an easy victory but, to
their astonishment, he gained almost every game, won back much more than
he had lost, and then laughed in the faces of his companions.
I paid about this time, my first journey to Marly, and a singular scene
happened there. The King at dinner, setting aside his usual gravity,
laughed and joked very much with Madame la Duchesse, eating olives with
her in sport, and thereby causing her to drink more than usual--which he
also pretended to do. Upon rising from the table the King, seeing the
Princesse de Conti look extremely serious, said, dryly, that her gravity
did not accommodate itself to their drunkenness. The Princess, piqued,
allowed the King to pass without saying anything; and then, turning to
Madame de Chatillon, said, in the midst of the noise, whilst everybody
was washing his mouth, "that she would rather be grave than be a wine-
sack" (alluding to some bouts a little prolonged that her sister had
recently had).
The saying was heard by the Duchesse de Chartres, who replied, loud
enough to be heard, in her slow and trembling voice, that she preferred
to be a "winesack" rather than a "rag-sack" (sac d'guenilles) by which
she alluded to the Clermont and La Choin adventure I have related before.
This remark was so cruel that it met with no reply; it spread through
Marly, and thence to Paris; and Madame la Duchesse, who had the art of
writing witty songs, made one upon this theme. The Princesse de Conti
was in despair, for she had not the same weapon at her disposal.
Monsieur tried to reconcile them gave them a dinner at Meudon--but they
returned from it as they went.
The end of the year was stormy at Marly. One evening, after the King had
gone to bed, and while Monseigneur was playing in the saloon, the
Duchesse de Chartres and Madame la Duchesse (who were bound together by
their mutual aversion to the Princesse de Conti) sat down to a supper in
the chamber of the first-named. Monseigneur, upon retiring late to his
own room, found them smoking with pipes, which they had sent for from the
Swiss Guards! Knowing what would happen if the smell were discovered, he
made them leave off, but the smoke had betrayed them. The King next day
severely scolded them, at which the Princesse de Conti triumphed.
Nevertheless, these broils multiplied, and the King at last grew so weary
of them that one evening he called the Princesses before him, and
threatened that if they did not improve he would banish them all from the
Court. The measure had its effect; calm and decorum returned, and
supplied the place of friendship.
There were many marriages this winter, and amongst them one very strange
--a marriage of love, between a brother of Feuquiere's, who had never
done much, and the daughter of the celebrated Mignard, first painter of
his time. This daughter was still so beautiful, that Bloin, chief valet
of the King, had kept her for some time, with the knowledge of every one,
and used his influence to make the King sign the marriage-contract.
There are in all Courts persons who, without wit and without
distinguished birth, without patrons, or service rendered, pierce into
the intimacy of the most brilliant, and succeed at last, I know not how,
in forcing the world to look upon them as somebody. Such a person was
Cavoye. Rising from nothing, he became Grand Marechal des Logis in the
royal household: he arrived at that office by a perfect romance. He was
one of the best made men in France, and was much in favour with the
ladies. He first appeared at the Court at a time when much duelling was
taking place, in spite of the edicts. Cavoye, brave and skilful,
acquired so much reputation m this particular, that the name of "Brave
Cavoye" has stuck to him ever since. An ugly but very good creature,
Mademoiselle de Coetlogon, one of the Queen's waiting-women, fill in love
with him, even to madness. She made all the advances; but Cavoye treated
her so cruelly, nay, sometimes so brutally, that (wonderful to say)
everybody pitied her, and the King at last interfered, and commanded him
to be more humane. Cavoye went to the army; the poor Coetlogon was in
tears until his return. In the winter, for being second in a duel, he
was sent to the Bastille. Then the grief of Coetlogon knew no bounds:
she threw aside all ornaments, and clad herself as meanly as possible;
she begged the King to grant Cavoye his liberty, and, upon the King's
refusing, quarrelled with him violently, and when in return he laughed at
her, became so furious, that she would have used her nails, had he not
been too wise to expose himself to them. Then she refused to attend to
her duties, would not serve the King, saying, that he did not deserve it,
and grew so yellow and ill, that at last she was allowed to visit her
lover at the Bastille. When he was liberated, her joy was extreme, she
decked herself out anon, but it was with difficulty that she consented to
be reconciled to the King.
Cavoye had many times been promised an appointment, but had never
received one such as he wished. The office of Grand Marechal des Logis
had just become vacant: the King offered it to Cavoye, but on condition
that he should marry Mademoiselle Coetlogon. Cavoye sniffed a little
longer, but was obliged to submit to this condition at last. They were
married, and she has still the same admiration for him, and it is
sometimes fine fun to see the caresses she gives him before all the
world, and the constrained gravity with which he receives them. The
history of Cavoye would fill a volume, but this I have selected suffices
for its singularity, which assuredly is without example.
About this time the King of England thought matters were ripe for an
attempt to reinstate himself upon the throne. The Duke of Berwick had
been secretly into England, where he narrowly escaped being arrested,
and upon his report these hopes were built. Great preparations were
made, but they came to nothing, as was always the case with the projects
of this unhappy prince.
Madame de Guise died at this time. Her father was the brother of Louis
XIII., and she, humpbacked and deformed to excess, had married the last
Duc de Guise, rather than not marry at all. During all their lives, she
compelled him to pay her all the deference due to her rank. At table he
stood while she unfolded her napkin and seated herself, and did not sit
until she told him to do so, and then at the end of the table. This form
was observed every day of their lives. She was equally severe in such
matters of etiquette with all the rest of the world. She would keep her
diocesan, the Bishop of Seez, standing for entire hours, while she was
seated in her arm-chair and never once offered him a seat even in the
corner. She was in other things an entirely good and sensible woman.
Not until after her death was it discovered that she had been afflicted
for a long time with a cancer, which appeared as though about to burst.
God spared her this pain.
We lost, in the month of March, Madame de Miramion, aged sixty-six. She
was a bourgeoise, married, and in the same year became a widow very rich,
young, and beautiful. Bussy Rabutin, so known by his 'Histoire Amoureuse
des Gaules', and by the profound disgrace it drew upon him, and still
more by the vanity of his mind and the baseness of his heart, wished
absolutely to marry her, and actually carried her off to a chateau. Upon
arriving at the place, she pronounced before everybody assembled there a
vow of chastity, and then dared Bussy to do his worst. He, strangely
discomfited by this action, at once set her at liberty, and tried to
accommodate the affair. From that moment she devoted herself entirely,
to works of piety, and was much esteemed by the King. She was the first
woman of her condition who wrote above her door, "Hotel de Nesmond."
Everybody cried out, and was scandalised, but the writing remained, and
became the example and the father of those of all kinds which little by
little have inundated Paris.
Madame de Sevigne, so amiable and of such excellent company, died some
time after at Grignan, at the house of her daughter, her idol, but who
merited little to be so. I was very intimate with the young Marquis de
Grignan, her grandson. This woman, by her natural graces, the sweetness
of her wit, communicated these qualities to those who had them not; she
was besides extremely good, and knew thoroughly many things without ever
wishing to appear as though she knew anything.
Father Seraphin preached during Lent this year at the Court. His
sermons, in which he often repeated twice running the same phrase, were
much in vogue. It was from him that came the saying, "Without God there
is no wit." The King was much pleased with him, and reproached M. de
Vendome and M. de la Rochefoucauld because they never went to hear his
sermons. M. de Vendome replied off-hand, that he did not care to go to
hear a man who said whatever he pleased without allowing anybody to reply
to him, and made the King smile by this sally. But M. de la
Rochefoucauld treated the matter in another manner he said that he could
not induce himself to go like the merest hanger-on about the Court, and
beg a seat of the officer who distributed them, and then betake himself
early to church in order to have a good one, and wait about in order to
put himself where it might please that officer to place him. Whereupon
the King immediately gave him a fourth seat behind him, by the side of
the Grand Chamberlain, so that everywhere he is thus placed.
M. d'Orleans had been in the habit of seating himself there (although his
right place was on the prie-Dieu), and little by little had accustomed
himself to consider it as his proper place. When he found himself driven
away, he made a great ado, and, not daring to complain to the King,
quarrelled with M. de la Rochefoucauld, who, until then, had been one of
his particular friends. The affair soon made a great stir; the friends
of both parties mixed themselves up in it. The King tried in vain to
make M. d'Orleans listen to reason; the prelate was inflexible, and when
he found he could gain nothing by clamour and complaint, he retired in
high dudgeon into his diocese: he remained there some time, and upon his
return resumed his complaints with more determination than ever; he fell
at the feet of the King, protesting that he would rather die than see his
office degraded. M. de la Rochefoucauld entreated the King to be allowed
to surrender the seat in favour of M. d'Orleans. But the King would not
change his decision; he said that if the matter were to be decided
between M. d'Orleans and a lackey, he would give the seat to the lackey
rather than to M. d'Orleans. Upon this the prelate returned to his
diocese, which he would have been wiser never to have quitted in order to
obtain a place which did not belong to him.
As the King really esteemed M. d'Orleans, he determined to appease his
anger; and to put an end to this dispute he gave therefore the bishopric
of Metz to the nephew of M. d'Orleans; and by this means a reconciliation
was established. M. d'Orleans and M. de la Rochefoucauld joined hands
again, and the King looked on delighted.
The public lost soon after a man illustrious by his genius, by his style,
and by his knowledge of men, I mean La Bruyere, who died of apoplexy at
Versailles, after having surpassed Theophrastus in his own manner, and
after painting, in the new characters, the men of our days in a manner
inimitable. He was besides a very honest man, of excellent breeding,
simple, very disinterested, and without anything of the pedant. I had
sufficiently known him to regret his death, and the works that might have
been hoped from him.
The command of the armies was distributed in the same manner as before,
with the exception that M. de Choiseul had the army of the Rhine in place
of M. de Lorges. Every one set out to take the field. The Duc de la
Feuillade in passing by Metz, to join the army in Germany, called upon
his uncle, who was very rich and in his second childhood. La Feuillade
thought fit to make sure of his uncle's money beforehand, demanded the
key of the cabinet and of the coffers, broke them open upon being refused
by the servants, and took away thirty thousand crowns in gold, and many
jewels, leaving untouched the silver. The King, who for a long time had
been much discontented with La Feuillade for his debauches and his
negligence, spoke very strongly and very openly upon this strange
forestalling of inheritance. It was only with great difficulty he could
be persuaded not to strip La Feuillade of his rank.
Our campaign was undistinguished by any striking event. From June to
September of this year (1696), we did little but subsist and observe,
after which we recrossed the Rhine at Philipsburg, where our rear guard
was slightly inconvenienced by the enemy. In Italy there was more
movement. The King sought to bring about peace by dividing the forces of
his enemies, and secretly entered into a treaty with Savoy. The
conditions were, that every place belonging to Savoy which had been taken
by our troops should be restored, and that a marriage should take place
between Monseigneur the Duc de Bourgogne and the daughter of the Duke of
Savoy, when she became twelve years of age. In the mean time she was to
be sent to the Court of France, and preparations were at once made there
to provide her with a suitable establishment.
The King was ill with an anthrax in the throat. The eyes of all Europe
were turned towards him, for his malady was not without danger;
nevertheless in his bed he affected to attend to affairs as usual; and he
arranged there with Madame de Maintenon, who scarcely ever quitted his
side, the household of the Savoy Princess. The persons selected for the
offices in that household were either entirely devoted to Madame de
Maintenon, or possessed of so little wit that she had nothing to fear
from them. A selection which excited much envy and great surprise was
that of the Duchesse de Lude to be lady of honour. The day before she
was appointed, Monsieur had mentioned her name in sport to the King.
"Yes," said the King, "she would be the best woman in the world to teach
the Princess to put rouge and patches on her cheek;" and then, being
more devout than usual, he said other things as bitter and marking strong
aversion on his part to the Duchess. In fact, she was no favourite of
his nor of Madame de Maintenon; and this was so well understood that the
surprise of Monsieur and of everybody else was great, upon finding, the
day after this discourse, that she had been appointed to the place.
The cause of this was soon learnt. The Duchesse de Lude coveted much to
be made lady of honour to the Princess, but knew she had but little
chance, so many others more in favour than herself being in the field.
Madame de Maintenon had an old servant named Nanon, who had been with her
from the time of her early days of misery, and who had such influence
with her, that this servant was made much of by everybody at Court, even
by the ministers and the daughters of the King. The Duchesse de Lude had
also an old servant who was on good terms with the other. The affair
therefore was not difficult. The Duchesse de Lude sent twenty thousand
crowns to Nanon, and on the very evening of the day on which the King had
spoken to Monsieur, she had the place. Thus it is! A Nanon sells the
most important and the most brilliant offices, and a Duchess of high
birth is silly enough to buy herself into servitude!
This appointment excited much envy. The Marechal de Rochefort, who had
expected to be named, made a great ado. Madame de Maintenon, who
despised her, was piqued, and said that she should have had it but for
the conduct of her daughter. This was a mere artifice; but the daughter
was, in truth, no sample of purity. She had acted in such a manner with
Blansac that he was sent for from the army to marry her, and on the very
night of their wedding she gave birth to a daughter. She was full of
wit, vivacity, intrigue, and sweetness; yet most wicked, false, and
artificial, and all this with a simplicity of manner, that imposed even
upon those who knew her best. More than gallant while her face lasted,
she afterwards was easier of access, and at last ruined herself for the
meanest valets. Yet, notwithstanding her vices, she was the prettiest
flower of the Court bunch, and had her chamber always full of the best
company: she was also much sought after by the three daughters of the
King. Driven away from the Court, she was after much supplication
recalled, and pleased the King so much that Madame de Maintenon, in fear
of her, sent her away again. But to go back again to the household of
the Princess of Savoy.
Dangeau was made chevalier d'honneur. He owed his success to his good
looks, to the court he paid to the King's mistresses, to his skilfulness
at play, and to a lucky stroke of fortune. The King had oftentimes been
importuned to give him a lodging, and one day, joking with him upon his
fancy of versifying; proposed to him some very hard rhymes, and promised
him a lodging if he filled them up upon the spot. Dangeau accepted,
thought but for a moment, performed the task, and thus gained his
lodging. He was an old friend of Madame de Maintenon, and it was to her
he was indebted for his post of chevalier d'honneur in the new household.
Madame d'O was appointed lady of the palace. Her father, named
Guilleragues, a gluttonous Gascon, had been one of the intimate friends
of Madame Scarron, who, as Madame de Maintenon, did not forget her old
acquaintance, but procured him the embassy to Constantinople. Dying
there, he left an only daughter, who, on the voyage home to France,
gained the heart of Villers, lieutenant of the vessel, and became his
wife in Asia-Minor, near the ruins of Troy. Villers claimed to be of the
house of d'O; hence the name his wife bore.
Established at the Court, the newly-married couple quickly worked
themselves into the favour of Madame de Maintenon, both being very clever
in intrigue. M. d'O was made governor of the Comte de Toulouse, and soon
gained his entire confidence. Madame d'O, too, infinitely pleased the
young Count, just then entering upon manhood, by her gallantry, her wit,
and the facilities she allowed him. Both, in consequence, grew in great
esteem with the King. Had they been attendants upon Princes of the
blood, he would assuredly have slighted them. But he always showed great
indulgence to those who served his illegitimate children. Hence the
appointment of Madame d'O to be lady of the palace.
The household of the Princess of Savoy being completed, the members of it
were sent to the Pont Beauvosin to meet their young mistress. She
arrived early on the 16th of October, slept at the Pont Beauvosin that
night, and on the morrow parted with her Italian attendants without
shedding a single tear. On the 4th of November she arrived at Montargis,
and was received by the King, Monseigneur, and Monsieur. The King handed
her down from her coach, and conducted her to the apartment he had
prepared for her. Her respectful and flattering manners pleased him
highly. Her cajoleries, too, soon bewitched Madame de Maintenon, whom
she never addressed except as "Aunt;" whom she treated with a respect,
and yet with a freedom, that ravished everybody. She became the doll of
Madame de Maintenon and the King, pleased them infinitely by her
insinuating spirit, and took greater liberties with them than the
children of the King had ever dared to attempt.
CHAPTER X
Meanwhile our campaign upon the Rhine proceeded, and the enemy, having
had all their grand projects of victory defeated by the firmness and the
capacity of the Marechal de Choiseul, retired into winter-quarters, and
we prepared to do the same. The month of October was almost over when
Madame de Saint-Simon lost M. Fremont, father of the Marechal de Lorges.
She had happily given birth to a daughter on the 8th of September. I was
desirous accordingly to go to Paris, and having obtained permission from
the Marechal de Choiseul, who had treated me throughout the campaign with
much politeness and attention, I set out. Upon arriving at Paris I found
the Court at Fontainebleau. I had arrived from the army a little before
the rest, and did not wish that the King should know it without seeing
me, lest he might think I had returned in secret. I hastened at once
therefore to Fontainebleau, where the King received me with his usual
goodness,-saying, nevertheless, that I had returned a little too early,
but that it was of no consequence.
I had not long left his presence when I learned a report that made my
face burn again. It was affirmed that when the King remarked upon my
arriving a little early, I had replied that I preferred arriving at once
to see him, as my sole mistress, than to remain some days in Paris, as
did the other young men with their mistresses. I went at once to the
King, who had a numerous company around him; and I openly denied what had
been reported, offering a reward for the discovery of the knave who had
thus calumniated me, in order that I might give him a sound thrashing.
All day I sought to discover the scoundrel. My speech to the King and my
choler were the topic of the day, and I was blamed for having spoken so
loudly and in such terms. But of two evils I had chosen the least,--a
reprimand from the King, or a few days in the Bastille; and I had avoided
the greatest, which was to allow myself to be believed an infamous
libeller of our young men, in order to basely and miserably curry favour
at the Court. The course I took succeeded. The King said nothing of the
matter, and I went upon a little journey I wished particularly to take,
for reasons I will now relate.
I had, as I have already mentioned, conceived a strong attachment and
admiration for M. de La Trappe. I wished to secure a portrait of him,
but such was his modesty and humility that I feared to ask him to allow
himself to be painted. I went therefore to Rigault, then the first
portrait-painter in Europe. In consideration of a sum of a thousand
crowns, and all his expenses paid, he agreed to accompany me to La
Trappe, and to make a portrait of him from memory. The whole affair was
to be kept a profound secret, and only one copy of the picture was to be
made, and that for the artist himself.
My plan being fully arranged, I and Rigault set out. As soon as we
arrived at our journey's end, I sought M. de La Trappe, and begged to be
allowed to introduce to him a friend of mine, an officer, who much wished
to see him: I added, that my friend was a stammerer, and that therefore
he would be importuned merely with looks and not words. M. de La Trappe
smiled with goodness, thought the officer curious about little, and
consented to see him. The interview took place. Rigault excusing
himself on the ground of his infirmity, did little during three-quarters
of an hour but keep his eyes upon M. de La Trappe, and at the end went
into a room where materials were already provided for him, and covered
his canvas with the images and the ideas he had filled himself with.
On the morrow the same thing was repeated, although M. de La Trappe,
thinking that a man whom he knew not, and who could take no part in
conversation, had sufficiently seen him, agreed to the interview only out
of complaisance to me. Another sitting was needed in order to finish the
work; but it was with great difficulty M. de La Trappe could be persuaded
to consent to it. When the third and last interview was at an end, M. de
La Trappe testified to me his surprise at having been so much and so long
looked at by a species of mute. I made the best excuses I could, and
hastened to turn the conversation.
The portrait was at length finished, and was a most perfect likeness of
my venerable friend. Rigault admitted to me that he had worked so hard
to produce it from memory, that for several months afterwards he had been
unable to do anything to his other portraits. Notwithstanding the
thousand crowns I had paid him, he broke the engagement he had made by
showing the portrait before giving it up to me. Then, solicited for
copies, he made several, gaining thereby, according to his own admission,
more than twenty-five thousand francs, and thus gave publicity to the
affair.
I was very much annoyed at this, and with the noise it made in the world;
and I wrote to M. de La Trappe, relating the deception I had practised
upon him, and sued for pardon. He was pained to excess, hurt, and
afflicted; nevertheless he showed no anger. He wrote in return to me,
and said, I was not ignorant that a Roman Emperor had said, "I love
treason but not traitors;" but that, as for himself, he felt on the
contrary that he loved the traitor but could only hate his treason.
I made presents of three copies of the picture to the monastery of La
Trappe. On the back of the original I described the circumstance under
which the portrait had been taken, in order to show that M. de La Trappe
had not consented to it, and I pointed out that for some years he had
been unable to use his right hand, to acknowledge thus the error which
had been made in representing him as writing.
The King, about this time, set on foot negotiations for peace in Holland,
sending there two plenipotentiaries, Courtin and Harlay, and
acknowledging one of his agents, Caillieres, who had been for some little
time secretly in that country.
The year finished with the disgrace of Madame de Saint Geran. She was on
the best of terms with the Princesses, and as much a lover of good cheer
as Madame de Chartres and Madame la Duchesse. This latter had in the
park of Versailles a little house that she called the "Desert." There
she had received very doubtful company, giving such gay repasts that the
King, informed of her doings, was angry, and forbade her to continue
these parties or to receive certain guests. Madame de Saint Geran was
then in the first year of her mourning, so that the King did not think it
necessary to include her among the interdicted; but he intimated that he
did not approve of her. In spite of this, Madame la Duchesse invited her
to an early supper at the Desert a short time after, and the meal was
prolonged so far into the night, and with so much gaiety, that it came to
the ears of the King. He was in great anger, and learning that Madame de
Saint Geran had been of the party, sentenced her to be banished twenty
leagues from the Court. Like a clever woman, she retired into a convent
at Rouen, saying that as she had been unfortunate enough to displease the
King, a convent was the only place for her; and this was much approved.
At the commencement of the next year (1697) the eldest son of the Comte
d'Auvergne completed his dishonour by a duel he fought with the Chevalier
de Caylus, on account of a tavern broil, and a dispute about some
wenches. Caylus, who had fought well, fled from the kingdom; the other,
who had used his sword like a poltroon, and had run away dismayed into
the streets, was disinherited by his father, sent out of the country, and
returned no more. He was in every respect a wretch, who, on account of
his disgraceful adventures, was forced to allow himself to be
disinherited and to take the cross of Malta; he was hanged in effigy at
the Greve, to the great regret of his family, not on account of the
sentence, but because, in spite of every entreaty, he had been proceeded
against like the most obscure gentleman. The exile of Caylus afterwards
made his fortune.
We had another instance, about this time, of the perfidy of Harlay. He
had been entrusted with a valuable deposit by Ruvigny, a Huguenot
officer, who, quitting France, had entered the service of the Prince of
Orange, and who was, with the exception of Marshal Schomberg, the only
Huguenot to whom the King offered the permission of remaining at Court
with full liberty to practise his religion in secret. This, Ruvigny,
like Marshal Schomberg, refused. He was, nevertheless, allowed to retain
the property he possessed in France; but after his death his son, not
showing himself at all grateful for this favour, the King at last
confiscated the property, and publicly testified his anger. This was the
moment that Harlay seized to tell the King of the deposit he had. As a
recompense the King gave it to him as confiscated, and this hypocrite of
justice, of virtue, of disinterestedness, and of rigorism was not ashamed
to appropriate it to himself, and to close his ears and his eyes to the
noise this perfidy excited.
M. de Monaco, who had obtained for himself the title of foreign prince by
the marriage of his son with the Duchesse de Valentinois, daughter of M.
le Grand, and who enjoyed, as it were, the sovereignty of a rock--beyond
whose narrow limits anybody might spit, so to speak, whilst standing in
the middle--soon found, and his son still more so, that they had bought
the title very dearly. The Duchess was charming, gallant, and was
spoiled by the homage of the Court, in a house open night and day, and to
which her beauty attracted all that was young and brilliant. Her
husband, with much intelligence, was diffident; his face and figure had
acquired for him the name of Goliath; he suffered for a long time the
haughtiness and the disdain of his wife and her family. At last he and
his father grew tired and took away Madame de Valentinois to Monaco. She
grieved, and her parents also, as though she had been carried off to the
Indies. After two years of absence and repentance, she promised marvels,
and was allowed to return to Paris. I know not who counselled her, but,
without changing her conduct, she thought only how to prevent a return to
Monaco; and to insure herself against this, she accused her father-in-law
of having made vile proposals to her, and of attempting to take her by
force. This charge made a most scandalous uproar, but was believed by
nobody. M. de Monaco was no longer young; he was a very honest man, and
had always passed for such; besides, he was almost blind in both eyes,
and had a huge pointed belly, which absolutely excited fear, it jutted
out so far!
After some time, as Madame de Valentinois still continued to swim in the
pleasures of the Court under the shelter of her family, her husband
redemanded her; and though he was laughed at at first, she was at last
given up to him.
A marriage took place at this time between the son of Pontchartrain and
the daughter of the Comte de Roye. The Comte de Roye was a Huguenot,
and, at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, had taken refuge, with his
wife, in Denmark, where he had been made grand marshal and commander of
all the troops. One day, as the Comte de Roye was dining with his wife
and daughter at the King's table, the Comtesse de Roye asked her daughter
if she did not think the Queen of Denmark and Madame Panache resembled
each other like two drops of water? Although she spoke in French and in
a low tone, the Queen both heard and understood her, and inquired at once
who was Madame Panache. The Countess in her surprise replied, that she
was a very amiable woman at the French Court. The Queen, who had noticed
the surprise of the Countess, was not satisfied with this reply. She
wrote to the Danish minister at Paris, desiring to be informed of every
particular respecting Madame Panache, her face, her age, her condition,
and upon what footing she was at the French Court. The minister, all
astonished that the Queen should have heard of Madame Panache, wrote word
that she was a little and very old creature, with lips and eyes so
disfigured that they were painful to look upon; a species of beggar who
had obtained a footing at Court from being half-witted, who was now at
the supper of the King, now at the dinner of Monseigneur, or at other
places, where everybody amused themselves by tormenting her: She in turn
abused the company at these parties, in order to cause diversion, but
sometimes rated them very seriously and with strong words, which
delighted still more those princes and princesses, who emptied into her
pockets meat and ragouts, the sauces of which ran all down her
petticoats: at these parties some gave her a pistole or a crown, and
others a filip or a smack in the face, which put her in a fury, because
with her bleared eyes not being able to see the end of her nose, she
could not tell who had struck her;--she was, in a word, the pastime of
the Court!
Upon learning this, the Queen of Denmark was so piqued, that she could no
longer suffer the Comtesse de Roye near her; she complained to the King:
he was much offended that foreigners, whom he had loaded with favour,
should so repay him. The Comte de Roye was unable to stand up against
the storm, and withdrew to England, where he died a few years after.
The King at this time drove away the company of Italian actors, and would
not permit another in its place. So long as the Italians had simply
allowed their stage to overflow with filth or impiety they only caused
laughter; but they set about playing a piece called "The False Prude," in
which Madame de Maintenon was easily recognised. Everybody ran to see
the piece; but after three or four representations, given consecutively
on account of the gain it brought, the Italians received orders to close
their theatre and to quit the realm in a month. This affair made a great
noise; and if the comedians lost an establishment by their boldness and
folly, they who drove them away gained nothing--such was the licence with
which this ridiculous event was spoken of!
CHAPTER XI
The disposition of the armies was the same this year as last, except that
the Princes did not serve. Towards the end of May I joined the army of
the Rhine, under the Marechal de Choiseul, as before. We made some
skilful manoeuvres, but did little in the way of fighting. For sixteen
days we encamped at Nieder-buhl, where we obtained a good supply of
forage. At the end of that time the Marechal de Choiseul determined to
change his position. Our army was so placed, that the enemy could see
almost all of it quite distinctly; yet, nevertheless, we succeeded in
decamping so quickly, that we disappeared from under their very eyes in
open daylight, and in a moment as it were. Such of the Imperial Generals
as were out riding ran from all parts to the banks of the Murg, to see
our retreat, but it was so promptly executed that there was no time for
them, to attempt to hinder us. When the Prince of Baden was told of our
departure he could not credit it. He had seen us so lately, quietly
resting in our position, that it seemed impossible to him we had left it
in such a short space of time. When his own eyes assured him of the
fact, he was filled with such astonishment and admiration, that he asked
those around him if they had ever seen such a retreat, adding, that he
could not have believed, until then, that an army so numerous and so
considerable should have been able to disappear thus in an instant.
This honourable and bold retreat was attended by a sad accident. One of
our officers, named Blansac, while leading a column of infantry through
the wood, was overtaken by night. A small party of his men heard some
cavalry near them. The cavalry belonged to the enemy, and had lost their
way. Instead of replying when challenged, they said to each other in
German, "Let us run for it." Nothing more was wanting to draw upon them
a discharge from the small body of our men, by whom they had been heard.
To this they replied with their pistols. Immediately, and without
orders, the whole column of infantry fired in that direction, and, before
Blansac could inquire the cause, fired again. Fortunately he was not
wounded; but five unhappy captains were killed, and some subalterns
wounded.
Our campaign was brought to an end by the peace of Ryswick. The first
news of that event arrived at Fontainebleau on the 22nd of September.
Celi, son of Harlay, had been despatched with the intelligence; but he
did not arrive until five o'clock in the morning of the 26th of
September. He had amused himself by the way with a young girl who had
struck his fancy, and with some wine that he equally relished. He had
committed all the absurdities and impertinences which might be expected
of a debauched, hare-brained young fellow, completely spoiled by his
father, and he crowned all by this fine delay.
A little time before the signing of peace, the Prince de Conti, having
been elected King of Poland, set out to take possession of his throne.
The King, ravished with joy to see himself delivered from a Prince whom
he disliked, could not hide his satisfaction--his eagerness--to get rid
of a Prince whose only faults were that he had no bastard blood in his
veins, and that he was so much liked by all the nation that they wished
him at the head of the army, and murmured at the little favour he
received, as compared with that showered down upon the illegitimate
children.
The King made all haste to treat the Prince to royal honours. After an
interview in the cabinet of Madame de Maintenon, he presented him to a
number of ladies, saying, "I bring you a king." The Prince was all along
doubtful of the validity of his election, and begged that the Princess
might not be treated as a queen, until he should have been crowned.
He received two millions in cash from the King, and other assistances.
Samuel Bernard undertook to make the necessary payments in Poland. The
Prince started by way of Dunkerque, and went to that place at such speed,
that an ill-closed chest opened, and two thousand Louis were scattered on
the road, a portion only of which was brought back to the Hotel Conti.
The celebrated Jean Bart pledged himself to take him safely, despite the
enemy's fleet; and kept his word. The convoy was of five frigates. The
Chevalier de Sillery, before starting, married Mademoiselle Bigot, rich
and witty, with whom he had been living for some time. Meanwhile the
best news arrived from our ambassador, the Abbe de Polignac, to the King;
but all answers were intercepted at Dantzic by the retired Queen of
Poland, who sent on only the envelopes! However, the Prince de Conti
passed up the Sound; and the King and Queen of Denmark watched them from
the windows of the Chateau de Cronenbourg. Jean Bart, against custom,
ordered a salute to be fired. It was returned; and as some light vessels
passing near the frigates said that the King and Queen were looking on,
the Prince ordered another salvo.
There was, however, another claimant to the throne of Poland; I mean the
Elector of Saxony, who had also been elected, and who had many partisans;
so many, indeed, that when the Prince de Conti arrived at Dantzic, he
found himself almost entirely unsupported. The people even refused
provision to his frigates. However, the Prince's partisans at length
arrived to salute him. The Bishop of Plosko gave him a grand repast,
near the Abbey of Oliva. Marege, a Gascon gentleman of the Prince's
suite, was present, but had been ill. There was drinking in the Polish
fashion, and he tried to be let off. The Prince pleaded for him; but
these Poles, who, in order to make themselves understood, spoke Latin--
and very bad Latin indeed--would not accept such an excuse, and forcing
him to drink, howled furiously 'Bibat et Moriatur! Marege, who was very
jocular and yet very choleric; used to tell this story in the same
spirit, and made everyone who heard it laugh.
However, the party of the Prince de Conti made no way, and at length he
was fain to make his way back to France with all speed. The King
received him very graciously, although at heart exceeding sorry to see
him again. A short time after, the Elector of Saxony mounted the throne
of Poland without opposition, and was publicly recognised by the King,
towards the commencement of August.
By the above-mentioned peace of Ryswick, the King acknowledged the Prince
of Orange as King of England. It was, however, a bitter draught for him
to swallow, and for these reasons: Some years before, the King had
offered his illegitimate daughter, the Princesse de Conti, in marriage to
the Prince of Orange, believing he did that Prince great honour by the
proposal. The Prince did not think in the same manner, and flatly
refused; saying, that the House of Orange was accustomed to marry the
legitimate daughters of great kings, and not their bastards. These words
sank so deeply into the heart of the King, that he never forgot them; and
often, against even his most palpable interest, showed how firmly the
indignation he felt at them had taken possession of his mind: Since then,
the Prince of Orange had done all in his power to efface the effect his
words had made, but every attempt was rejected with disdain. The King's
ministers in Holland had orders to do all they could to thwart the
projects of the Prince of Orange, to excite people against him, to
protect openly those opposed to him, and to be in no way niggard of money
in order to secure the election of magistrates unfavourable to him. The
Prince never ceased, until the breaking-out of this war, to use every
effort to appease the anger of the King. At last, growing tired, and
hoping soon to make his invasion into England, he said publicly, that he
had uselessly laboured all his life to gain the favours of the King, but
that he hoped to be more fortunate in meriting his esteem. It may be
imagined, therefore, what a triumph it was for him when he forced the
King to recognise him as monarch of England, and what that recognition
cost the King.
M. le Duc presided this year over the Assembly of the States of Burgundy,
in place of his father M. le Prince, who did not wish to go there. The
Duke gave on that occasion a striking example of the friendship of
princes, and a fine lesson to those who seek it. Santeuil, Canon of
Saint Victor, and the greatest Latin poet who has appeared for many
centuries, accompanied him. Santeuil was an excellent fellow, full of
wit and of life, and of pleasantries, which rendered him an admirable
boon-companion. Fond of wine and of good cheer, he was not debauched;
and with a disposition and talents so little fitted for the cloister,
was nevertheless, at bottom, as good a churchman as with such a character
he could be. He was a great favourite with all the house of Conde, and
was invited to their parties, where his witticisms, his verses, and his
pleasantries had afforded infinite amusement for many years.
M. le Duc wished to take him to Dijon. Santeuil tried to excuse himself,
but without effect; he was obliged to go, and was established at the
house of the Duke while the States were held. Every evening there was a
supper, and Santeuil was always the life of the company. One evening M.
le Duc diverted himself by forcing Santeuil to drink champagne, and
passing from pleasantry to pleasantry, thought it would be a good joke to
empty his snuff-box, full of Spanish snuff, into a large glass of wine,
and to make Santeuil drink it, in order to see what would happen. It was
not long before he was enlightened upon this point. Santeuil was seized
with vomiting and with fever, and in twice twenty-four hours the unhappy
man died-suffering the tortures of the damned, but with sentiments of
extreme penitence, in which he received the sacrament, and edified a
company little disposed towards edification, but who detested such a
cruel joke.
In consequence of the peace just concluded at Ryswick, many fresh
arrangements were made about this time in our embassies abroad. This
allusion to our foreign appointments brings to my mind an anecdote which
deserves to be remembered. When M. de Vendome took Barcelona, the
Montjoui (which is as it were its citadel) was commanded by the Prince of
Darmstadt. He was of the house of Hesse, and had gone into Spain to seek
employment; he was a relative of the Queen of Spain, and, being a very
well-made man, had not, it was said, displeased her. It was said also,
and by people whose word was not without weight, that the same council of
Vienna, which for reasons of state had made no scruple of poisoning the
late Queen of Spain (daughter of Monsieur), because she had no children,
and because she had, also, too much ascendancy over the heart of her
husband; it was said, I say, that this same council had no scruples upon
another point. After poisoning the first Queen, it had remarried the
King of Spain to a sister of the Empress. She was tall, majestic, not
without beauty and capacity, and, guided by the ministers of the Emperor,
soon acquired much influence over the King her husband. So far all was
well, but the most important thing was wanting--she had no children. The
council had hoped some from this second marriage, because it had lured
itself into the belief that previously the fault rested with the late
Queen. After some years, this same council, being no longer able to
disguise the fact that the King could have no children, sent the Prince
of Darmstadt into Spain, for the purpose of establishing himself there,
and of ingratiating himself into the favour of the Queen to such an
extent that this defect might be remedied. The Prince of Darmstadt was
well received; he obtained command in the army; defended, as I have said,
Barcelona; and obtained a good footing at the Court. But the object for
which he had been more especially sent he could not accomplish. I will
not say whether the Queen was inaccessible from her own fault or that of
others. Nor will I say, although I have been assured, but I believe by
persons without good knowledge of the subject, that naturally it was
impossible for her to become a mother. I will simply say that the Prince
of Darmstadt was on the best terms with the King and the Queen, and had
opportunities very rare in that country, without any fruit which could
put the succession of the monarchy in safety against the different
pretensions afloat, or reassure on that head the politic council of
Vienna.
But to return to France.
Madame de Maintenon, despite the height to which her insignificance had
risen, had yet her troubles. Her brother, who was called the Comte
d'Aubigne, was of but little worth, yet always spoke as though no man
were his equal, complained that he had not been made Marechal of France
--sometimes said that he had taken his baton in money, and constantly
bullied Madame de Maintenon because she did not make him a duke and a
peer. He spent his time running after girls in the Tuileries, always had
several on his hands, and lived and spent his money with their families
and friends of the same kidney. He was just fit for a strait-waistcoat,
but comical, full of wit and unexpected repartees. A good, humorous
fellow, and honest-polite, and not too impertinent on account of his
sister's fortune. Yet it was a pleasure to hear him talk of the time of
Scarron and the Hotel d'Albret, and of the gallantries and adventures of
his sister, which he contrasted with her present position and devotion.
He would talk in this manner, not before one or two, but in a
compromising manner, quite openly in the Tuileries gardens, or in the
galleries of Versailles, before everybody, and would often drolly speak
of the King as "the brother-in-law." I have frequently heard him talk in
this manner; above all, when he came (more often than was desired) to
dine with my father and mother, who were much embarrassed with him; at
which I used to laugh in my sleeve.
A brother like this was a great annoyance to Madame de Maintenon. His
wife, an obscure creature, more obscure, if possible, than her birth;
--foolish to the last degree, and of humble mien, was almost equally so.
Madame de Maintenon determined to rid herself of both. She persuaded her
brother to enter a society that had been established by a M. Doyen, at
St. Sulpice, for decayed gentlemen. His wife at the same time was
induced to retire into another community, where, however, she did not
fail to say to her companions that her fate was very hard, and that she
wished to be free. As for d'Aubigne he concealed from nobody that his
sister was putting a joke on him by trying to persuade him that he was
devout, declared that he was pestered by priests, and that he should give
up the ghost in M. Doyen's house. He could not stand it long, and went
back to his girls and to the Tuileries, and wherever he could; but they
caught him again, and placed him under the guardianship of one of the
stupidest priests of St. Sulpice, who followed him everywhere like his
shadow, and made him miserable. The fellow's name was Madot: he was good
for no other employment, but gained his pay in this one by an assiduity
of which perhaps no one else would have been capable. The only child of
this Comte d'Aubigne was a daughter, taken care of by Madame de
Maintenon, and educated under her eyes as though her own child.
Towards the end of the year, and not long after my return from the army,
the King fixed the day for the marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne to the
young Princesse de Savoy. He announced that on that occasion he should
be glad to see a magnificent Court; and he himself, who for a long time
had worn only the most simple habits, ordered the most superb. This was
enough; no one thought of consulting his purse or his state; everyone
tried to surpass his neighbour in richness and invention. Gold and
silver scarcely sufficed: the shops of the dealers were emptied in a few
days; in a word luxury the most unbridled reigned over Court and city,
for the fete had a huge crowd of spectators. Things went to such a
point, that the King almost repented of what he had said, and remarked,
that he could not understand how husbands could be such fools as to ruin
themselves by dresses for their wives; he might have added, by dresses
for themselves. But the impulse had been given; there was now no time to
remedy it, and I believe the King at heart was glad; for it pleased him
during the fetes to look at all the dresses. He loved passionately all
kinds of sumptuosity at his Court; and he who should have held only to
what had been said, as to the folly of expense, would have grown little
in favour. There was no means, therefore, of being wise among so many
fools. Several dresses were necessary. Those for Madame Saint-Simon and
myself cost us twenty thousand francs. Workmen were wanting to make up
so many rich habits. Madame la Duchesse actually sent her people to take
some by force who were working at the Duc de Rohan's! The King heard of
it, did not like it, and had the workmen sent back immediately to the
Hotel de Rohan, although the Duc de Rohan was one of the men he liked the
least in all France. The King did another thing, which showed that he
desired everybody to be magnificent: he himself chose the design for the
embroidery of the Princess. The embroiderer said he would leave all his
other designs for that. The King would not permit this, but caused him
to finish the work he had in hand, and to set himself afterwards at the
other; adding, that if it was not ready in time, the Princess could do
without it.
The marriage was fixed for Saturday, the 7th of December; and, to avoid
disputes and difficulties, the King suppressed all ceremonies. The day
arrived. At an early hour all the Court went to Monseigneur the Duc de
Bourgogne, who went afterwards to the Princess. A little before mid-day
the procession started from the salon, and proceeded to the chapel.
Cardinal de Coislin performed the marriage service.
As soon as the ceremony was finished, a courier, ready at the door of the
chapel, started for Turin. The day passed wearily. The King and Queen
of England came about seven o'clock in the evening, and some time
afterwards supper was served. Upon rising from the table, the Princess
was shown to her bed, none but ladies being allowed to remain in the
chamber. Her chemise was given her by the Queen of England through the
Duchesse de Lude. The Duc de Bourgogne undressed in another room, in the
midst of all the Court, and seated upon a folding-chair. The King of
England gave him his shirt, which was presented by the Duc de
Beauvilliers. As soon as the Duchesse de Bourgogne was in bed, the Duc
de Bourgogne entered, and placed himself at her side, in the presence of
all the Court. Immediately afterwards everybody went away from the
nuptial chamber, except Monseigneur, the ladies of the Princess, and the
Duc de Beauvilliers, who remained at the pillow by the side of his pupil,
with the Duchesse de Lude on the other side. Monseigneur stopped a
quarter of an hour talking with the newly-married couple, then he made
his son get up, after having told him to kiss the Princess, in spite of
the opposition of the Duchesse de Lude. As it proved, too, her
opposition was not wrong. The King said he did not wish that his
grandson should kiss the end of the Princess's finger until they were
completely on the footing of man and wife. Monsieur le Duc de Bourgogne
after this re-dressed himself in the ante-chamber, and went to his own
bed as usual. The little Duc de Berry, spirited and resolute, did not
approve of the docility of his brother, and declared that he would have
remained in bed. The young couple were not, indeed, allowed to live
together as man and wife until nearly two years afterwards. The first
night that this privilege was granted them, the King repaired to their
chamber hoping to surprise them as they went to bed; but he found the
doors closed, and would not allow them to be opened. The marriage-fetes
spread over several days. On the Sunday there was an assembly in the
apartments of the new Duchesse de Bourgogne. It was magnificent by the
prodigious number of ladies seated in a circle, or standing behind the
stools, gentlemen in turn behind them, and the dresses of all beautiful.
It commenced at six o'clock. The King came at the end, and led all the
ladies into the saloon near the chapel, where was a fine collation, and
the music. At nine o'clock he conducted Monsieur and Madame la Duchesse
de Bourgogne to the apartment of the latter, and all was finished for the
day. The Princess continued to live just as before, and the ladies had
strict orders never to leave her alone with her husband.
On the Wednesday there was a grand ball in the gallery, superbly
ornamented for the occasion. There was such a crowd, and such disorder,
that even the King was inconvenienced, and Monsieur was pushed and
knocked about in the crush. How other people fared may be imagined. No
place was kept--strength or chance decided everything--people squeezed in
where they could. This spoiled all the fete. About nine o'clock
refreshments were handed round, and at half-past ten supper was served.
Only the Princesses of the blood and the royal family were admitted to
it. On the following Sunday there was another ball, but this time
matters were so arranged that no crowding or inconvenience occurred. The
ball commenced at seven o'clock and was admirable; everybody appeared in
dresses that had not previously been seen. The King found that of Madame
de Saint-Simon much to his taste, and gave it the palm over all the
others.
Madame de Maintenon did not appear at these balls, at least only for half
an hour at each. On the following Tuesday all the Court went at four
o'clock in the afternoon to Trianon, where all gambled until the arrival
of the King and Queen of England. The King took them into the theatre,
where Destouches's opera of Isse was very well performed. The opera
being finished, everybody went his way, and thus these marriage-fetes
were brought to an end.
Tesse had married his eldest daughter to La Varenne last year, and now
married his second daughter to Maulevrier, son of a brother of Colbert.
This mention of La Varenne brings to my recollection a very pleasant
anecdote of his ancestor, the La Varenne so known in all the memoirs of
the time as having risen from the position of scullion to that of cook,
and then to that of cloak-bearer to Henry IV., whom he served in his
pleasures, and afterwards in his state-affairs. At the death of the
King, La Varenne retired, very old and very rich, into the country.
Birds were much in vogue at that time, and he often amused himself with
falconry. One day a magpie perched on one of his trees, and neither
sticks nor stones could dislodge it. La Varenne and a number of
sportsmen gathered around the tree and tried to drive away the magpie.
Importuned with all this noise, the bird at last began to cry repeatedly
with all its might, "Pandar! Pandar!"
Now La Varenne had gained all he possessed by that trade. Hearing the
magpie repeat again and again the same word, he took it into his head
that by a miracle, like the observation Balaam's ass made to his master,
the bird was reproaching him for his sins. He was so troubled that he
could not help showing it; then, more and more agitated, he told the
cause of his disturbance to the company, who laughed at him in the first
place, but, upon finding that he was growing really ill, they endeavoured
to convince him that the magpie belonged to a neighbouring village, where
it had learned the word. It was all in vain: La Varenne was so ill that
he was obliged to be carried home; fever seized him and in four days he
died.
CHAPTER XII
Here perhaps is the place to speak of Charles IV., Duc de Lorraine, so
well known by his genius, and the extremities to which he was urged. He
was married in 1621 to the Duchesse Nicole, his cousin-german, but after
a time ceased to live with her. Being at Brussels he fell in love with
Madame de Cantecroix, a widow. He bribed a courier to bring him news of
the death of the Duchesse Nicole; he circulated the report throughout the
town, wore mourning, and fourteen days afterwards, in April, 1637,
married Madame de Cantecroix. In a short time it was discovered that the
Duchesse Nicole was full of life and health, and had not even been ill.
Madame de Cantecroix made believe that she had been duped, but still
lived with the Duke. They continued to repute the Duchesse Nicole as
dead, and lived together in the face of the world as though effectually
married, although there had never been any question either before or
since of dissolving the first marriage. The Duc Charles had by this fine
marriage a daughter and then a son, both perfectly illegitimate, and
universally regarded as such. Of these the daughter married Comte de
Lislebonne, by whom she had four children. The son, educated under his
father's eye as legitimate, was called Prince de Vaudemont, and by that
name has ever since been known. He entered the service of Spain,
distinguished himself in the army, obtained the support of the Prince of
Orange, and ultimately rose to the very highest influence and prosperity.
People were astonished this year, that while the Princess of Savoy was at
Fontainebleau, just before her marriage, she was taken several times by
Madame de Maintenon to a little unknown convent at Moret, where there was
nothing to amuse her, and no nuns who were known. Madame de Maintenon
often went there, and Monseigneur with his children sometimes; the late
Queen used to go also. This awakened much curiosity and gave rise to
many reports. It seems that in this convent there was a woman of colour,
a Moorish woman, who had been placed there very young by Bontems, valet
of the King. She received the utmost care and attention, but never was
shown to anybody. When the late Queen or Madame de Maintenon went, they
did not always see her, but always watched over her welfare. She was
treated with more consideration than people the most distinguished; and
herself made much of the care that was taken of her, and the mystery by
which she was surrounded. Although she lived regularly, it was easy to
see she was not too contented with her position. Hearing Monseigneur
hunt in the forest one day, she forgot herself so far as to exclaim,
"My brother is hunting!" It was pretended that she was a daughter of the
King and Queen, but that she had been hidden away on account of her
colour; and the report was spread that the Queen had had a miscarriage.
Many people believed this story; but whether it was true or not has
remained an enigma.
The year 1698 commenced by a reconciliation between the Jesuits and the
Archbishop of Rheims. That prelate upon the occasion of an ordinance had
expressed himself upon matters of doctrine and morality in a manner that
displeased the Jesuits. They acted towards him in their usual manner, by
writing an attack upon him, which appeared without any author's name.
But the Archbishop complained to the King, and altogether stood his
ground so firmly, that in the end the Jesuits were glad to give way,
disavow the book, and arrange the reconciliation which took place.
The Czar, Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia, had at this time already
commenced his voyages; he was in Holland, learning ship-building.
Although incognito, he wished to be recognised, but after his own
fashion; and was annoyed that, being so near to England, no embassy was
sent to him from that country, which he wished to ally himself with for
commercial reasons.
At last an embassy arrived; he delayed for some time to give it an
audience, but in the end fixed the day and hour at which he would see it.
The reception, however, was to take place on board a large Dutch vessel
that he was going to examine. There were two ambassadors; they thought
the meeting-place rather an odd one, but were obliged to go there. When
they arrived on board the Czar sent word that he was in the "top," and
that it was there he would see them. The ambassadors, whose feet were
unaccustomed to rope-ladders, tried to excuse themselves from mounting;
but it was all in vain. The Czar would receive them in the "top" or not
at all. At last they were compelled to ascend, and the meeting took
place on that narrow place high up in the air. The Czar received them
there with as much majesty as though he had been upon his throne,
listened to their harangue, replied very graciously, and then laughed at
the fear painted upon their faces, and good-humouredly gave them to
understand that he had punished them thus for arriving so late.
After this the Czar passed into England, curious to see and learn as much
as possible; and, having well fulfilled his views, repaired into Holland.
He wished to visit France, but the King civilly declined to receive him.
He went, therefore, much mortified, to Vienna instead. Three weeks after
his arrival he was informed of a conspiracy that had been formed against
him in Moscow. He hastened there at once, and found that it was headed
by his own sister; he put her in prison, and hanged her most guilty
accomplices to the bars of his windows, as many each day as the bars
would hold. I have related at once all that regards the Czar for this
year, in order not to leap without ceasing from one matter to another; I
shall do this, and for the same reason, with that which follows.
The King of England was, as I have before said, at the height of
satisfaction at having been recognised by the King (Louis XIV.), and at
finding himself secure upon the throne. But a usurper is never tranquil
and content. William was annoyed by the residence of the legitimate King
and his family at Saint Germains. It was too close to the King (of
France), and too near England to leave him without disquietude. He had
tried hard at Ryswick to obtain the dismissal of James II. from the
realm, or at least from the Court of France, but without effect.
Afterwards he sent the Duke of St. Albans to our King openly, in order to
compliment him upon the marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne, but in reality
to obtain the dismissal.
The Duke of St. Albans meeting with no success, the Duke of Portland was
sent to succeed him. The Duke of Portland came over with a numerous and
superb suite; he kept up a magnificent table, and had horses, liveries,
furniture, and dresses of the most tasteful and costly kind. He was on
his way when a fire destroyed Whitehall, the largest and ugliest palace
in Europe, and which has not since been rebuilt; so that the kings are
lodged, and very badly, at St. James's Palace.
Portland had his first audience of the King on the 4th of February, and
remained four months in France. His politeness, his courtly and gallant
manners, and the good cheer he gave, charmed everybody, and made him
universally popular. It became the fashion to give fetes in his honour;
and the astonishing fact is, that the King, who at heart was more
offended than ever with William of Orange, treated this ambassador with
the most marked distinction. One evening he even gave Portland his
bedroom candlestick, a favour only accorded to the most considerable
persons, and always regarded as a special mark of the King's bounty.
Notwithstanding all these attentions, Portland was as unsuccessful as his
predecessor. The King had firmly resolved to continue his protection to
James II., and nothing could shake this determination. Portland was
warned from the first, that if he attempted to speak to the King upon the
point, his labour would be thrown away; he wisely therefore kept silence,
and went home again without in any way having fulfilled the mission upon
which he had been sent.
We had another distinguished foreigner arrive in France about this time,
--I mean, the Prince of Parma, respecting whom I remember a pleasing
adventure. At Fontainebleau more great dancing-parties are given than
elsewhere, and Cardinal d'Estrees wished to give one there in honour of
this Prince. I and many others were invited to the banquet; but the
Prince himself, for whom the invitation was specially provided, was
forgotten. The Cardinal had given invitations right and left, but by
some omission the Prince had not had one sent to him. On the morning of
the dinner this discovery was made. The Prince was at once sent to, but
he was engaged, and for several days. The dinner therefore took place
without him; the Cardinal was much laughed at for his absence of mind.
He was often similarly forgetful.
The Bishop of Poitiers died at the commencement of this year, and his
bishopric was given at Easter to the Abbe de Caudelet. The Abbe was a
very good man, but made himself an enemy, who circulated the blackest
calumnies against him. Amongst other impostures it was said that the
Abbe had gambled all Good Friday; the truth being, that in the evening,
after all the services were over, he went to see the Marechale de Crequi,
who prevailed upon him to amuse her for an hour by playing at piquet.
But the calumny had such effect, that the bishopric of Poitiers was taken
from him, and he retired into Brittany, where he passed the rest of his
life in solitude and piety. His brother in the meantime fully proved to
Pere de la Chaise the falsehood of this accusation; and he, who was
upright and good, did all he could to bestow some other living upon the
Abbe, in recompense for that he had been stripped of. But the King would
not consent, although often importuned, and even reproached for his
cruelty.
It was known, too, who was the author of the calumny. It was the Abbe de
la Chatre, who for a long time had been chaplain to the King, and who was
enraged against everyone who was made bishop before him. He was a man
not wanting in intelligence, but bitter, disagreeable, punctilious; very
ignorant, because he would never study, and so destitute of morality,
that I saw him say mass in the chapel on Ash Wednesday, after having
passed a night, masked at a ball, where he said and did the most filthy
things, as seen and heard by M. de La Vrilliere, before whom he unmasked,
and who related this to me: half an hour after, I met the Abbe de la
Chatre, dressed and going to the altar. Other adventures had already
deprived him of all chance of being made bishop by the King.
The old Villars died at this time. I have already mentioned him as
having been made chevalier d'honneur to the Duchesse de Chartres at her
marriage. I mention him now, because I omitted to say before the origin
of his name of Orondat, by which he was generally known, and which did
not displease him. This is the circumstance that gave rise to it.
Madame de Choisy, a lady of the fashionable world, went one day to see
the Comtesse de Fiesque, and found there a large company. The Countess
had a young girl living with her, whose name was Mademoiselle
d'Outrelaise, but who was called the Divine. Madame de Choisy, wishing
to go into the bedroom, said she would go there, and see the Divine.
Mounting rapidly, she found in the chamber a young and very pretty girl,
Mademoiselle Bellefonds, and a man, who escaped immediately upon seeing
her. The face of this man being perfectly well made, so struck her,
that, upon coming down again, she said it could only be that of Orondat.
Now that romances are happily no longer read, it is necessary to say that
Orondat is a character in Cyrus, celebrated by his figure and his good
looks, and who charmed all the heroines of that romance, which was then
much in vogue. The greater part of the company knew that Villars was
upstairs to see Mademoiselle de Bellefonds, with whom he was much in
love, and whom he soon afterwards married. Everybody therefore smiled at
this adventure of Orondat, and the name clung ever afterwards to Villars.
The Prince de Conti lost, before this time, his son, Prince la Roche-sur-
Yon, who was only four years old. The King wore mourning for him,
although it was the custom not to do so for children under seven years of
age. But the King had already departed from this custom for one of the
children of M. du Maine, and he dared not afterwards act differently
towards the children of a prince of the blood. Just at the end of
September, M. du Maine lost another child, his only son. The King wept
very much, and, although the child was considerably under seven years of
age, wore mourning for it. The marriage of Mademoiselle to M. de
Lorraine was then just upon the point of taking place; and Monsieur
(father of Mademoiselle) begged that this mourning might be laid aside
when the marriage was celebrated. The King agreed, but Madame la
Duchesse and the Princesse de Conti believed it apparently beneath them
to render this respect to Monsieur, and refused to comply. The King
commanded them to do so, but they pushed the matter so far as to say that
they had no other clothes. Upon this, the King ordered them to send and
get some directly. They were obliged to obey, and admit themselves
vanquished; but they did so not without great vexation. M. de Cambrai's
affairs still continued to make a great stir among the prelates and at
the Court. Madame Guyon was transferred from the Vincennes to the
Bastille, and it was believed she would remain there all her life. The
Ducs de Chevreuse and Beauvilliers lost all favour with M. de Maintenon,
and narrowly escaped losing the favour of the King. An attempt was in
fact made, which Madame de Maintenon strongly supported, to get them
disgraced; and, but for the Archbishop of Paris, this would have taken
place. But this prelate, thoroughly upright and conscientious,
counselled the King against such a step, to the great vexation of his
relations, who were the chief plotters in the conspiracy to overthrow the
two Dukes. As for M. de Cambrai's book 'Les Maxinies des Saints', it was
as little liked as ever, and underwent rather a strong criticism at this
time from M. de La Trappe, which did not do much to improve its
reputation. At the commencement of the dispute M. de Meaux had sent a
copy of 'Les Maximes des Saints' to M. de La Trappe, asking as a friend
for his opinion of the work. M. de La Trappe read it, and was much
scandalized. The more he studied it, the more this sentiment penetrated
him. At last, after having well examined the book, he sent his opinion
to M. de Meaux, believing it would be considered as private, and not be
shown to anybody. He did not measure his words, therefore, but wrote
openly, that if M. de Cambrai was right he might burn the Evangelists,
and complain of Jesus Christ, who could have come into the world only to
deceive us. The frightful force of this phrase was so terrifying, that
M. de Meaux thought it worthy of being shown to Madame de Maintenon; and
she, seeking only to crush M. de Cambrai with all the authorities
possible, would insist upon this opinion of M. de La Trappe being
printed.
It may be imagined what triumphing there was on the one side, and what
piercing cries on the other. The friends of M. de Cambrai complained
most bitterly that M. de La Trappe had mixed himself up in the matter,
and had passed such a violent and cruel sentence upon a book then under
the consideration of the Pope. M. de La Trappe on his side was much
afflicted that his letter had been published. He wrote to M. de Meaux
protesting against this breach of confidence; and said that, although he
had only expressed what he really thought, he should have been careful to
use more measured language, had he supposed his letter would have seen
the light. He said all he could to heal the wounds his words had caused,
but M. de Cambrai and his friends never forgave him for having written
them.
This circumstance caused much discussion, and M. de La Trappe, to whom I
was passionately attached, was frequently spoken of in a manner that
caused me much annoyance. Riding out one day in a coach with some of my
friends, the conversation took this turn. I listened in silence for some
time, and then, feeling no longer able to support the discourse, desired
to be set down, so that my friends might talk at their ease, without pain
to me. They tried to retain me, but I insisted and carried my point.
Another time, Charost, one of my friends, spoke so disdainfully of M. de
La Trappe, and I replied to him with such warmth, that on the instant he
was seized with a fit, tottered, stammered, his throat swelled, his eyes
seemed starting from his head, and his tongue from his mouth. Madame de
Saint-Simon and the other ladies who were present flew to his assistance;
one unfastened his cravat and his shirt-collar, another threw a jug of
water over him and made him drink something; but as for me, I was struck
motionless at the sudden change brought about by an excess of anger and
infatuation. Charost was soon restored, and when he left I was taken to
task by the ladies. In reply I simply smiled. I gained this by the
occurrence, that Charost never committed himself again upon the subject
of M. de La Trappe.
Before quitting this theme, I will relate an anecdote which has found
belief. It has been said, that when M. de La Trappe was the Abbe de
Rance he was much in love with the beautiful Madame de Montbazon, and
that he was well treated by her. On one occasion after leaving her, in
perfect health, in order to go into the country, he learnt that she had
fallen ill. He hastened back, entered hurriedly into her chamber, and
the first sight he saw there was her head, that the surgeons, in opening
her, had separated from her body. It was the first intimation he had had
that she was dead, and the surprise and horror of the sight so converted
him that immediately afterwards he retired from the world. There is
nothing true in all this except the foundation upon which the fiction
arose. I have frankly asked M. de La Trappe upon this matter, and from
him I have learned that he was one of the friends of Madame de Montbazon,
but that so far from being ignorant of the time of her death, he was by
her side at the time, administered the sacrament to her, and had never
quitted her during the few days she was ill. The truth is, her sudden
death so touched him, that it made him carry out his intention of
retiring from the world--an intention, however, he had formed for many
years.
The affair of M. de Cambrai was not finally settled until the
commencement of the following year, 1699, but went on making more noise
day by day. At the date I have named the verdict from Rome arrived
Twenty-three propositions of the 'Maximes des Saints' were declared rash,
dangerous, erroneous--'in globo'--and the Pope excommunicated those who
read the book or kept it in their houses. The King was much pleased with
this condemnation, and openly expressed his satisfaction. Madame de
Maintenon appeared at the summit of joy. As for M. de Cambrai, he learnt
his fate in a moment which would have overwhelmed a man with less
resources in himself. He was on the point of mounting into the pulpit:
he was by no means troubled; put aside the sermon he had prepared, and,
without delaying a moment, took for subject the submission due to the
Church; he treated this theme in a powerful and touching manner;
announced the condemnation of his book; retracted the opinions he had
professed; and concluded his sermon by a perfect acquiescence and
submission to the judgment the Pope had just pronounced. Two days
afterwards he published his retraction, condemned his book, prohibited
the reading of it, acquiesced and submitted himself anew to his
condemnation, and in the clearest terms took away from himself all means
of returning to his opinions. A submission so prompt, so clear, so
perfect, was generally admired, although there were not wanting censors
who wished he had shown less readiness in giving way. His friends
believed the submission would be so flattering to the Pope, that M. de
Cambrai might rely upon advancement to a cardinalship, and steps were
taken, but without any good result, to bring about that event.
CHAPTER XIII
About this time the King caused Charnace to be arrested in a province to
which he had been banished. He was accused of many wicked things, and;
amongst others, of coining. Charnace was a lad of spirit, who had been
page to the King and officer in the body-guard. Having retired to his
own house, he often played off many a prank. One of these I will
mention, as being full of wit and very laughable.
He had a very long and perfectly beautiful avenue before his house in
Anjou, but in the midst of it were the cottage and garden of a peasant;
and neither Charnace, nor his father before him, could prevail upon him
to remove, although they offered him large sums. Charnace at last
determined to gain his point by stratagem. The peasant was a tailor,
and lived all alone, without wife or child. One day Charnace sent for
him, said he wanted a Court suit in all haste, and, agreeing to lodge and
feed him, stipulated that he should not leave the house until it was
done. The tailor agreed, and set himself to the work. While he was thus
occupied, Charnace had the dimensions of his house and garden taken with
the utmost exactitude; made a plan of the interior, showing the precise
position of the furniture and the utensils; and, when all was done,
pulled down the house and removed it a short distance off.
Then it was arranged as before with a similar looking garden, and at the
same time the spot on which it had previously stood was smoothed and
levelled. All this was done before the suit was finished. The work
being at length over on both sides, Charnace amused the tailor until it
was quite dark, paid him, and dismissed him content. The man went on his
way down the avenue; but, finding the distance longer than usual, looked
about, and perceived he had gone too far. Returning, he searched
diligently for his house, but without being able to find it. The night
passed in this exercise. When the day came, he rubbed his eyes, thinking
they might have been in fault; but as he found them as clear as usual,
began to believe that the devil had carried away his house, garden and
all. By dint of wandering to and fro, and casting his eyes in every
direction, he saw at last a house which was as like to his as are two
drops of water to each other. Curiosity tempted him to go and examine
it. He did so, and became convinced it was his own. He entered, found
everything inside as he had left it, and then became quite persuaded he
had been tricked by a sorcerer. The day was not, however, very far
advanced before he learned the truth through the banter of his
neighbours. In fury he talked of going to law, or demanding justice, but
was laughed at everywhere. The King when he heard of it laughed also;
and Charnace had his avenue free. If he had never done anything worse
than this, he would have preserved his reputation and his liberty.
A strange scene happened at Meudon after supper one evening, towards the
end of July. The Prince de Conti and the Grand Prieur were playing, and
a dispute arose respecting the game. The Grand Prieur, inflated by pride
on account of the favours the King had showered upon him, and rendered
audacious by being placed almost on a level with the Princes of the
blood, used words which would have been too strong even towards an equal.
The Prince de Conti answered by a repartee, in which the other's honesty
at play and his courage in war--both, in truth, little to boast about--
were attacked. Upon this the Grand Prieur flew into a passion, flung
away the cards, and demanded satisfaction, sword in hand. The Prince de
Conti, with a smile of contempt, reminded him that he was wanting in
respect, and at the same time said he could have the satisfaction he
asked for whenever he pleased. The arrival of Monseigneur, in his
dressing-gown, put an end to the fray. He ordered the Marquis de
Gesvres, who was one of the courtiers present, to report the whole affair
to the King, and that every one should go to bed. On the morrow the King
was informed of what had taken place, and immediately ordered the Grand
Prieur to go to the Bastille. He was obliged to obey, and remained in
confinement several days. The affair made a great stir at Court. The
Princes of the blood took a very high tone, and the illegitimates were
much embarrassed. At last, on the 7th of August, the affair was finally
accommodated through the intercession of Monseigneur. The Grand Prieur
demanded pardon of the Prince de Conti in the presence of his brother, M.
de Vendome, who was obliged to swallow this bitter draught, although
against his will, in order to appease the Princes of the blood, who were
extremely excited.
Nearly at the same time, that is to say, on the 29th of May, in the
morning Madame de Saint-Simon was happily delivered of a child. God did
us the grace to give us a son. He bore, as I had, the name of Vidame of
Chartres. I do not know why people have the fancy for these odd names,
but they seduce in all nations, and they who feel the triviality of them,
imitate them. It is true that the titles of Count and Marquis have
fallen into the dust because of the quantity of people without wealth,
and even without land, who usurp them; and that they have become so
worthless, that people of quality who are Marquises or Counts (if they
will permit me to say it) are silly enough to be annoyed if those titles
are given to them in conversation. It is certain, however, that these
titles emanated from landed creations, and that in their origin they had
functions attached to them, which, they have since outlived. The
vidames, on the contrary, were only principal officers of certain
bishops, with authority to lead all the rest of their seigneurs' vassals
to the field, either to fight against other lords, or in the armies that
our kings used to assemble to combat their enemies before the creation of
a standing army put an end to the employment of vassals (there being no
further need for them), and to all the power and authority of the
seigneurs. There is thus no comparison between the title of vidame,
which only marks a vassal, and the titles which by fief emanate from the
King. Yet because the few Vidames who have been known were illustrious,
the name has appeared grand, and for this reason was given to me, and
afterwards by me to my son:
Some little time before this, the King resolved to show all Europe, which
believed his resources exhausted by a long war, that in the midst of
profound peace, he was as fully prepared as ever for arms. He wished at
the same time, to present a superb spectacle to Madame de Maintenon,
under pretext of teaching the young Duc de Bourgogne his first lesson in
war. He gave all the necessary orders, therefore, for forming a camp at
Compiegne, to be commanded by the Marechal de Boufflers under the young
Duke. On Thursday, the 28th of August, all the Court set out for the
camp. Sixty thousand men were assembled there. The King, as at the
marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne, had announced that he counted upon
seeing the troops look their best. The consequence of this was to excite
the army to an emulation that was repented of afterwards. Not only were
the troops in such beautiful order that it was impossible to give the
palm to any one corps, but their commanders added the finery and
magnificence of the Court to the majestic and warlike beauty of the men,
of the arms, and of the horses; and the officers exhausted their means in
uniforms which would have graced a fete.
Colonels, and even simple captains, kept open table; but the Marechal de
Boufflers outstripped everybody by his expenditure, by his magnificence,
and his good taste. Never was seen a spectacle so transcendent--so
dazzling--and (it must be said) so terrifying. At all hours, day or
night, the Marechal's table was open to every comer--whether officer,
courtier, or spectator. All were welcomed and invited, with the utmost
civility and attention, to partake of the good things provided. There
was every kind of hot and cold liquors; everything which can be the most
widely and the most splendidly comprehended under the term refreshment:
French and foreign wines, and the rarest liqueurs in the utmost
abundance. Measures were so well taken that quantities of game and
venison arrived from all sides; and the seas of Normandy, of Holland, of
England, of Brittany, even the Mediterranean, furnished all they
contained--the most unheard-of, extraordinary, and most exquisite--at a
given day and hour with inimitable order, and by a prodigious number of
horsemen and little express carriages. Even the water was fetched from
Sainte Reine, from the Seine, and from sources the most esteemed; and it
is impossible to imagine anything of any kind which was not at once ready
for the obscurest as for the most distinguished visitor, the guest most
expected, and the guest not expected at all. Wooden houses and
magnificent tents stretched all around, in number sufficient to form a
camp of themselves, and were furnished in the most superb manner, like
the houses in Paris. Kitchens and rooms for every purpose were there,
and the whole was marked by an order and cleanliness that excited
surprise and admiration. The King, wishing that the magnificence of this
camp should be seen by the ambassadors, invited them there, and prepared
lodgings for them. But the ambassadors claimed a silly distinction,
which the King would not grant, and they refused his invitation. This
distinction I call silly because it brings no advantage with it of any
kind. I am ignorant of its origin, but this is what it consists in.
When, as upon such an occasion as this, lodgings are allotted to the
Court, the quartermaster writes in chalk, "for Monsieur Such-a-one," upon
those intended for Princes of the blood, cardinals, and foreign princes;
but for none other. The King would not allow the "for" to be written
upon the lodgings of the ambassadors; and the ambassadors, therefore,
kept away. The King was much piqued at this, and I heard him say at
supper, that if he treated them as they deserved, he should only allow
them to come to Court at audience times, as was the custom everywhere
else.
The King arrived at the camp on Saturday, the 30th of August, and went
with the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne and others to the quarters of
Marechal de Boufflers, where a magnificent collation was served up to
them--so magnificent that when the King returned, he said it would be
useless for the Duc de Bourgogne to attempt anything so splendid; and
that whenever he went to the camp he ought to dine with Marechal de
Bouffiers. In effect, the King himself soon after dined there, and led
to the Marechal's table the King of England, who was passing three or
four days in the camp.
On these occasions the King pressed Marechal de Boufflers to be seated.
He would never comply, but waited upon the King while the Duc de
Grammont, his brother-in-law, waited upon Monseigneur.
The King amused himself much in pointing out the disposition of the
troops to the ladies of the Court, and in the evening showed them a grand
review.
A very pleasant adventure happened at this review to Count Tesse, colonel
of dragoons. Two days previously M. de Lauzun, in the course of chit-
chat, asked him how he intended to dress at the review; and persuaded him
that, it being the custom, he must appear at the head of his troops in a
grey hat, or that he would assuredly displease the King. Tesse, grateful
for this information, and ashamed of his ignorance, thanked M. de Lauzun,
and sent off for a hat in all haste to Paris. The King, as M. de Lauzun
well knew, had an aversion to grey, and nobody had worn it for several
years. When, therefore, on the day of the review he saw Tesse in a hat
of that colour, with a black feather, and a huge cockade dangling and
flaunting above, he called to him, and asked him why he wore it. Tesse
replied that it was the privilege of the colonel-general to wear that day
a grey hat. "A grey hat," replied the King; "where the devil did you
learn that?"
"From M. de, Lauzun, Sire, for whom you created the charge," said Tesse,
all embarrassment. On the instant, the good Lauzun vanished, bursting
with laughter, and the King assured Tesse that M. de Lauzun had merely
been joking with him. I never saw a man so confounded as Tesse at this.
He remained with downcast eyes, looking at his hat, with a sadness and
confusion that rendered the scene perfect. He was obliged to treat the
matter as a joke, but was for a long time much tormented about it, and
much ashamed of it.
Nearly every day the Princes dined with Marechal de Boufflers, whose
splendour and abundance knew no end. Everybody who visited him, even the
humblest, was served with liberality and attention. All the villages and
farms for four leagues round Compiegne were filled with people, French,
and foreigners, yet there was no disorder. The gentlemen and valets at
the Marechal's quarters were of themselves quite a world, each more
polite than his neighbour, and all incessantly engaged from five o'clock
in the morning until ten and eleven o'clock at night, doing the honours
to various guests. I return in spite of myself to the Marechal's
liberality; because, who ever saw it, cannot forget, or ever cease to be
in a state of astonishment and admiration at its abundance and
sumptuousness, or at the order, never deranged for a moment at a single
point, that prevailed.
The King wished to show the Court all the manoeuvres of war; the siege of
Compiegne was therefore undertaken, according to due form, with lines,
trenches, batteries, mines, &c. On Saturday, the 13th of September, the
assault took place. To witness it, the King, Madame de Maintenon, all
the ladies of the Court, and a number of gentlemen, stationed themselves
upon an old rampart, from which the plain and all the disposition of the
troops could be seen. I was in the half circle very close to the King.
It was the most beautiful sight that can be imagined, to see all that
army, and the prodigious number of spectators on horse and foot, and that
game of attack and defence so cleverly conducted.
But a spectacle of another sort, that I could paint forty years hence as
well as to-day, so strongly did it strike me, was that which from the
summit of this rampart the King gave to all his army, and to the
innumerable crowd of spectators of all kinds in the plain below. Madame
de Maintenon faced the plain and the troops in her sedan-chair-alone,
between its three windows drawn up-her porters having retired to a
distance. On the left pole in front sat Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne;
and on the same side in a semicircle, standing, were Madame la Duchesse,
Madame la Princesse de Conti, and all the ladies, and behind them again,
many men. At the right window was the King, standing, and a little in
the rear, a semicircle of the most distinguished men of the Court. The
King was nearly always uncovered; and every now and then stooped to speak
to Madame de Maintenon, and explain to her what she saw, and the reason
of each movement. Each time that he did so she was obliging enough to
open the window four or five inches, but never half way; for I noticed
particularly, and I admit that I was more attentive to this spectacle
than to that of the troops. Sometimes she opened of her own accord to
ask some question of him, but generally it was he who, without waiting
for her, stooped down to instruct her of what was passing; and sometimes,
if she did not notice him, he tapped at the glass to make her open it.
He never spoke, save to her, except when he gave a few brief orders, or
just answered Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, who wanted to make him
speak, and with whom Madame de Maintenon carried on a conversation by
signs, without opening the front window, through which the young Princess
screamed to her from time to time. I watched the countenance of every
one carefully; all expressed surprise tempered with prudence and shame,
that was, as it were, ashamed of itself: every one behind the chair and
in the semicircle watched this scene more than what was going on in the
army. The King often put his hat on the top of the chair in order to get
his head in to speak; and this continual exercise tired his loins very
much. Monseigneur was on horseback in the plain with the young Princes.
It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, and the weather was as
brilliant as could be desired.
Opposite the sedan-chair was an opening with some steps cut through the
wall, and communicating with the plain below. It had been made for the
purpose of fetching orders from the King, should they be necessary. The
case happened. Crenan, who commanded, sent Conillac, an officer in one
of the defending regiments, to ask for some instructions from the King.
Conillac had been stationed at the foot of the rampart, where what was
passing above could not be seen. He mounted the steps; and as soon as
his head and shoulders were at the top, caught sight of the chair, the
King, and all the assembled company. He was not prepared for such a
scene, and it struck him with such astonishment, that he stopped short,
with mouth and eyes wide open-surprise painted upon every feature. I see
him now as distinctly as I did then. The King, as well as all the rest
of the company, remarked the agitation of Conillac, and said to him with
emotion, "Well, Conillac! come up." Conillac remained motionless, and
the King continued, "Come up. What is the matter?" Conillac, thus
addressed, finished his ascent, and came towards the King with slow and
trembling steps, rolling his eyes from right to left like one deranged.
Then he stammered something, but in a tone so low that it could not be
heard. "What do you say?" cried the King. "Speak up." But Conillac was
unable; and the King, finding he could get nothing out of him, told him
to go away. He did not need to be told twice, but disappeared at once.
As soon as he was gone, the King, looking round, said, "I don't know what
is the matter with Conillac. He has lost his wits; he did not remember
what he had to say to me." No one answered.
Towards the moment of the capitulation, Madame de Maintenon apparently
asked permission to go away, for the King cried, "The chairmen of
Madame!" They came and took her away; in less than a quarter of an hour
afterwards the King retired also, and nearly everybody else. There was
much interchange of glances, nudging with elbows, and then whisperings in
the ear. Everybody was full of what had taken place on the ramparts
between the King and Madame de Maintenon. Even the soldiers asked what
meant that sedan-chair and the King every moment stooping to put his head
inside of it. It became necessary gently to silence these questions of
the troops. What effect this sight had upon foreigners present, and what
they said of it, may be imagined. All over Europe it was as much talked
of as the camp of Compiegne itself, with all its pomp and prodigious
splendour.
The last act of this great drama was a sham fight. The execution was
perfect; but the commander, Rose, who was supposed to be beaten, would
not yield. Marechal de Boufflers sent and told him more than once that
it was time. Rose flew into a passion, and would not obey. The King
laughed much at this, and said, "Rose does not like to be beaten." At
last he himself sent the order for retreat. Rose was forced then to
comply; but he did it with a very bad grace, and abused the bearer of the
order.
The King left the camp on Monday the 22d of September, much pleased with
the troops. He gave, in parting, six hundred francs to each cavalry
captain, and three hundred francs to each captain of infantry. He gave
as much to the majors of all the regiments, and distributed some favours
to his household. To Marechal de Boufflers he presented one hundred
thousand francs. All these gifts together amounted to something: but
separately were as mere drops of water. There was not a single regiment
that was not ruined, officers and men, for several years. As for
Marechal de Boufflers, I leave it to be imagined what a hundred thousand
francs were to him whose magnificence astounded all Europe, described as
it was by foreigners who were witnesses of it, and who day after day
could scarcely believe their own eyes.
CHAPTER XIV
Here I will relate an adventure, which shows that, however wise and
enlightened a man may be, he is never infallible. M. de La Trappe had
selected from amongst his brethren one who was to be his successor. The
name of this monk was D. Francois Gervaise. He had been in the monastery
for some years, had lived regularly during that time, and had gained the
confidence of M. de La Trappe. As soon, however, as he received this
appointment, his manners began to change. He acted as though he were
already master, brought disorder and ill-feeling into the monastery, and
sorely grieved M. de La Trapp; who, however, looked upon this affliction
as the work of Heaven, and meekly resigned him self to it. At last,
Francois Gervaise was by the merest chance detected openly, under
circumstances which blasted his character for ever. His companion in
guilt was brought before M. de La Trappe, to leave no doubt upon the
matter. D. Francois Gervaise, utterly prostrated, resigned his office,
and left La Trappe. Yet, even after this, he had the hardihood to show
himself in the world, and to try and work himself into the favour of Pere
la Chaise. A discovery that was made, effectually stopped short his
hopes in this direction. A letter of his was found, written to a nun
with whom he had been intimate, whom he loved, and by whom he was
passionately loved. It was a tissue of filthiness and stark indecency,
enough to make the most abandoned tremble. The pleasures, the regrets,
the desires, the hopes of this precious pair, were all expressed in the
boldest language, and with the utmost licence. I believe that so many
abominations are not uttered in several days, even in the worst places.
For this offence Gervaise might have been confined in a dungeon all his
life, but he was allowed to go at large. He wandered from monastery to
monastery for five or six years, and always caused so much disorder
wherever he stopped, that at last the superiors thought it best to let
him live as he liked in a curacy of his brother's. He never ceased
troubling La Trappe, to which he wished to return; so that at last I
obtained a 'lettre de cachet', which prohibited him from approaching
within thirty leagues of the abbey, and within twenty of Paris. It was I
who made known to him that his abominations had been discovered. He was
in no way disturbed, declared he was glad to be free, and assured me with
the hypocrisy which never left him, that in his solitude he was going to
occupy himself in studying the Holy Scriptures.
Bonnceil, introducer of the ambassadors, being dead, Breteuil obtained
his post. Breteuil was not without intellect, but aped courtly manners,
called himself Baron de Breteuil, and was much tormented and laughed at
by his friends. One day, dining at the house of Madame de Pontchartrain,
and, speaking very authoritatively, Madame de Pontchartrain disputed with
him, and, to test his knowledge, offered to make a bet that he did not
know who wrote the Lord's Prayer. He defended himself as well as he was
able, and succeeded in leaving the table without being called upon to
decide the point. Caumartin, who saw his embarrassment, ran to him, and
kindly whispered in his ear that Moses was the author of the Lord's
Prayer. Thus strengthened, Breteuil returned to the attack, brought,
while taking coffee, the conversation back again to the bet; and, after
reproaching Madame de Pontchartrain for supposing him ignorant upon such
a point, and declaring he was ashamed of being obliged to say such a
trivial thing, pronounced emphatically that it was Moses who had written
the Lord's Prayer. The burst of laughter that, of course, followed this,
overwhelmed him with confusion. Poor Breteuil was for a long time at
loggerheads with his friend, and the Lord's Prayer became a standing
reproach to him.
He had a friend, the Marquis de Gesvres, who, upon some points, was not
much better informed. Talking one day in the cabinet of the King, and
admiring in the tone of a connoisseur some fine paintings of the
Crucifixion by the first masters, he remarked that they were all by one
hand.
He was laughed at, and the different painters were named, as recognized
by their style.
"Not at all," said the Marquis, "the painter is called INRI; do you not
see his name upon all the pictures?" What followed after such gross
stupidity and ignorance may be imagined.
At the end of this year the King resolved to undertake three grand
projects, which ought to have been carried out long before: the chapel of
Versailles, the Church of the Invalides, and the altar of Notre-Dame de
Paris. This last was a vow of Louis XIII., made when, he no longer was
able to accomplish it, and which he had left to his successor, who had
been more than fifty years without thinking of it.
On the 6th of January, upon the reception of the ambassadors at the house
of the Duchesse de Bourogogne, an adventure happened which I will here
relate. M. de Lorraine belonged to a family which had been noted for its
pretensions, and for the disputes of precedency in which it engaged. He
was as prone to this absurdity as the rest, and on this occasion incited
the Princesse d'Harcourt, one of his relations, to act in a manner that
scandalised all the Court. Entering the room in which the ambassadors
were to be received and where a large number of ladies were already
collected, she glided behind the Duchesse de Rohan, and told her to pass
to the left. The Duchesse de Rohan, much surprised, replied that she was
very well placed already. Whereupon, the Princesse d'Harcourt, who was
tall and strong, made no further ado, but with her two arms seized the
Duchesse de Rohan, turned her round, and sat down in her place. All the
ladies were strangely scandalised at this, but none dared say a word, not
even Madame de Lude, lady in waiting on the Duchesse de Bourgogne, who,
for her part also, felt the insolence of the act, but dared not speak,
being so young. As for the Duchesse de Rohan, feeling that opposition
must lead to fisticuffs, she curtseyed to the Duchess, and quietly
retired to another place. A few minutes after this, Madame de Saint-
Simon, who was then with child, feeling herself unwell, and tired of
standing, seated herself upon the first cushion she could find. It so
happened, that in the position she thus occupied, she had taken
precedence of Madame d'Armagnac by two degrees. Madame d'Armagnac,
perceiving it, spoke to her upon the subject. Madame de Saint-Simon, who
had only placed herself there for a moment, did not reply, but went
elsewhere.
As soon as I learnt of the first adventure, I thought it important that
such an insult should not be borne, and I went and conferred with M. de
la Rochefoucauld upon the subject, at the same time that Marechal de
Boufflers spoke of it to M. de Noailles. I called upon other of my
friends, and the opinion was that the Duc de Rohan should complain to the
King on the morrow of the treatment his wife had received.
In the evening while I was at the King's supper, I was sent for by Madame
de Saint-Simon, who informed me that the Lorraines, afraid of the
complaints that would probably be addressed to the King upon what had
taken place between the Princesse d'Harcourt and the Duchesse de Rohan,
had availed themselves of what happened between Madame de Saint-Simon and
Madame d'Armagnac, in order to be the first to complain, so that one
might balance the other. Here was a specimen of the artifice of these
gentlemen, which much enraged me. On the instant I determined to lose no
time in speaking to the King; and that very evening I related what had
occurred, in so far as Madame de Saint-Simon was concerned, but made no
allusion to M. de Rohan's affair, thinking it best to leave that to be
settled by itself on the morrow. The King replied to me very graciously,
and I retired, after assuring him that all I had said was true from
beginning to end.
The next day the Duc de Rohan made his complaint. The King, who had
already been fully informed of the matter, received him well, praised the
respect and moderation of Madame de Rohan, declared Madame d'Harcourt to
have been very impertinent, and said some very hard words upon the
Lorraines.
I found afterwards, that Madame de Maintenon, who much favoured Madame
d'Harcourt, had all the trouble in the world to persuade the King not to
exclude her from the next journey to Marly. She received a severe
reprimand from the King, a good scolding from Madame de Maintenon, and
was compelled publicly to ask pardon of the Duchesse de Rohan. This she
did; but with a crawling baseness equal to her previous audacity. Such
was the end of this strange history.
There appeared at this time a book entitled "Probleme," but without name
of author, and directed against M. de Paris, declaring that he had
uttered sentiments favourable to the Jansenists being at Chalons, and
unfavourable being at Paris. The book came from the Jesuits, who could
not pardon M. de Paris for having become archbishop without their
assistance. It was condemned and burnt by decree of the Parliament, and
the Jesuits had to swallow all the shame of it. The author was soon
after discovered. He was named Boileau; not the friend of Bontems, who
so often preached before the King, and still less the celebrated poet and
author of the 'Flagellants', but a doctor of much wit and learning whom
M. de Paris had taken into his favour and treated like a brother. Who
would have believed that "Probleme" could spring from such a man? M. de
Paris was much hurt; but instead of imprisoning Boileau for the rest of
his days, as he might have done, he acted the part of a great bishop, and
gave him a good canonical of Saint Honore, which became vacant a few days
afterwards. Boileau, who was quite without means, completed his
dishonour by accepting it.
The honest people of the Court regretted a cynic who died at this time,
I mean the Chevalier de Coislin. He was a most extraordinary man, very
splenetic, and very difficult to deal with. He rarely left Versailles,
and never went to see the king. I have seen him get out of the way not
to meet him. He lived with Cardinal Coislin, his brother. If anybody
displeased him, he would go and sulk in his own room; and if, whilst at
table, any one came whom he did not like, he would throw away his plate,
go off to sulk, or to finish his dinner all alone. One circumstance will
paint him completely. Being on a journey once with his brothers, the Duc
de Coislin and the Cardinal de Coislin, the party rested for the night at
the house of a vivacious and very pretty bourgeoise. The Duc de Coislin
was an exceedingly polite man, and bestowed amiable compliments and
civilities upon their hostess, much to the disgust of the Chevalier. At
parting, the Duke renewed the politeness he had displayed so abundantly
the previous evening, and delayed the others by his long-winded
flatteries. When, at last, they left the house, and were two or three
leagues away from it, the Chevalier de Coislin said, that, in spite of
all this politeness, he had reason to believe that their pretty hostess
would not long be pleased with the Duke. The Duke, disturbed, asked his
reason for thinking so. "Do you wish to learn it?" said the Chevalier;
"well, then, you must know that, disgusted by your compliments, I went up
into the bedroom in which you slept, and made a filthy mess on the floor,
which the landlady will no doubt attribute to you, despite all your fine
speeches."
At this there was loud laughter, but the Duke was in fury, and wished to
return in order to clear up his character. Although it rained hard, they
had all the pains in the world to hinder him, and still more to bring
about a reconciliation. Nothing was more pleasant than to hear the
brothers relate this adventure each in his own way.
Two cruel effects of gambling were noticed at this time. Reineville, a
lieutenant of the body-guard, a general officer distinguished in war,
very well treated by the King, and much esteemed by the captain of the
Guards, suddenly disappeared, and could not be found anywhere, although
the utmost care was taken to search for him. He loved gaming. He had
lost what he could not pay. He was a man of honour, and could not
sustain his misfortune. Twelve or fifteen years afterwards he was
recognised among the Bavarian troops, in which he was serving in order to
gain his bread and to live unknown. The other case was still worse.
Permillac, a man of much intelligence and talent, had lost more than he
possessed, and blew his brains out one morning in bed. He was much liked
throughout the army; had taken a friendship for me, and I for him.
Everybody pitied him, and I much regretted him.
Nearly at the same time we lost the celebrated Racine, so known by his
beautiful plays. No one possessed a greater talent or a more agreeable
mien. There was nothing of the poet in his manners: he had the air of a
well-bred and modest man, and at last that of a good man. He had
friends, the most illustrious, at the Court as well as among men of
letters. I leave it to the latter to speak of him in a better way than I
can. He wrote, for the amusement of the King and Madame de Maintenon,
and to exercise the young ladies of Saint Cyr, two dramatic masterpieces,
Esther and Athalie. They were very difficult to write, because there
could be no love in them, and because they are sacred tragedies, in
which, from respect to the Holy Scriptures, it was necessary rigidly to
keep to the historical truth. They were several times played at Saint
Cyr before a select Court. Racine was charged with the history of the
King, conjointly with Despreaux, his friend. This employment, the pieces
I have just spoken of, and his friends, gained for Racine some special
favours: It sometimes happened that the King had no ministers with him,
as on Fridays, and, above all, when the bad weather of winter rendered
the sittings very long; then he would send for Racine to amuse him and
Madame de Maintenon. Unfortunately the poet was oftentimes very absent.
It happened one evening that, talking with Racine upon the theatre, the
King asked why comedy was so much out of fashion. Racine gave several
reasons, and concluded by naming the principal,--namely, that for want of
new pieces the comedians gave old ones, and, amongst others, those of
Scarron, which were worth nothing, and which found no favour with
anybody. At this the poor widow blushed, not for the reputation of the
cripple attacked, but at hearing his name uttered in presence of his
successor! The King was also embarrassed, and the unhappy Racine, by the
silence which followed, felt what a slip he had made. He remained the
most confounded of the three, without daring to raise his eyes or to open
his mouth. This silence did not terminate for several moments, so heavy
and profound was the surprise. The end was that the King sent away
Racine, saying he was going to work. The poet never afterwards recovered
his position. Neither the King nor Madame de Maintenon ever spoke to him
again, or even looked at him; and he conceived so much sorrow at this,
that he fell into a languor, and died two years afterwards. At his
death, Valincourt was chosen to work in his place with Despreaux upon the
history of the King.
The King, who had just paid the heavy gaming and tradesmen's debts of
Madame la Duchesse, paid also those of Monseigneur, which amounted to
fifty thousand francs, undertook the payment of the buildings at Meudon,
and, in lieu of fifteen hundred pistoles a month which he had allowed
Monseigneur, gave him fifty thousand crowns. M. de la Rochefoucauld,
always necessitous and pitiful in the midst of riches, a prey to his
servants, obtained an increase of forty-two thousand francs a-year upon
the salary he received as Grand Veneur, although it was but a short time
since the King had paid his debts. The King gave also, but in secret,
twenty thousand francs a-year to M. de Chartres, who had spent so much in
journeys and building that he feared he should be unable to pay his
debts. He had asked for an abbey; but as he had already one, the King
did not like to give him another, lest it should be thought too much.
M. de Vendome began at last to think about his health, which his
debauches had thrown into a very bad state. He took public leave of the
King and of all the Court before going away, to put himself in the hands
of the doctors. It was the first and only example of such impudence.
From this time he lost ground. The King said, at parting, that he hoped
he would come back in such a state that people might kiss him without
danger! His going in triumph, where another would have gone in shame and
secrecy, was startling and disgusting. He was nearly three months under
the most skilful treatment-and returned to the Court with half his nose,
his teeth out, and a physiognomy entirely changed, almost idiotic. The
King was so much struck by this change, that he recommended the courtiers
not to appear to notice it, for fear of afflicting M. de Vendome. That
was taking much interest in him assuredly. As, moreover, he had departed
in triumph upon this medical expedition, so he returned triumphant by the
reception of the King, which was imitated by all the Court. He remained
only a few days, and then, his mirror telling sad tales, went away to
Anet, to see if nose and teeth would come back to him with his hair.
A strange adventure, which happened at this time, terrified everybody,
and gave rise to many surmises. Savary was found assassinated in his
house at Paris he kept only a valet and a maid-servant, and they were
discovered murdered at the same time, quite dressed, like their master,
and in different parts of the house. It appeared by writings found
there, that the crime was one of revenge: it was supposed to have been
committed in broad daylight. Savary was a citizen of Paris, very rich,
without occupation, and lived like an epicurean. He had some friends of
the highest rank, and gave parties, of all kinds of pleasure, at his
house, politics sometimes being discussed. The cause of this
assassination was never known; but so much of it was found out, that no
one dared to search for more. Few doubted but that the deed had been
done by a very ugly little man, but of a blood so highly respected, that
all forms were dispensed with, in the fear lest it should be brought home
to him; and, after the first excitement, everybody ceased to speak of
this tragic history.
On the night between the 3rd and 4th of June, a daring robbery was
effected at the grand stables of Versailles. All the horse-cloths and
trappings, worth at least fifty thousand crowns, were carried off, and so
cleverly and with such speed, although the night was short, that no
traces of them could ever afterwards be found. This theft reminds me of
another which took place a little before the commencement of these
memoirs. The grand apartment at Versailles, that is to say, from the
gallery to the tribune, was hung with crimson velvet, trimmed and fringed
with gold. One fine morning the fringe and trimmings were all found to
have been cut away. This appeared extraordinary in a place so frequented
all day, so well closed at night, and so well guarded at all times.
Bontems, the King's valet, was in despair, and did his utmost to discover
the thieves, but without success.
Five or six days afterwards, I was at the King's supper, with nobody but
Daqum, chief physician, between the King and me, and nobody at all
between one and the table. Suddenly I perceived a large black form in
the air, but before I could tell what it was, it fell upon the end of the
King's table just before the cover which had been laid for Monseigneur
and Madame. By the noise it made in falling, and the weight of the thing
itself, it seemed as though the table must be broken. The plates jumped
up, but none were upset, and the thing, as luck would have it, did not
fall upon any of them, but simply upon the cloth. The King moved his
head half round, and without being moved in any way said, "I think that
is my fringe!"
It was indeed a bundle, larger than a flat-brimmed priest's hat, about
two feet in height, and shaped like a pyramid. It had come from behind
me, from towards the middle door of the two ante-chambers, and a piece of
fringe getting loose in the air, had fallen upon the King's wig, from
which it was removed by Livry, a gentleman-in-waiting. Livry also opened
the bundle, and saw that it did indeed contain the fringes all twisted
up, and everybody saw likewise. A murmur was heard. Livry wishing to
take away the bundle found a paper attached to it. He took the paper and
left the bundle. The King stretched out his hand and said, "Let us see."
Livry, and with reason, would not give up the paper, but stepped back,
read it, and then passed it to Daquin, in whose hands I read it. The
writing, counterfeited and long like that of a woman, was in these
words:--"Take back your fringes, Bontems; they are not worth the trouble
of keeping--my compliments to the King."
The paper was rolled up, not folded: the King wished to take it from
Daquin, who, after much hesitation, allowed him to read it, but did not
let it out of his hands. "Well, that is very insolent!" said the King,
but in quite a placid unmoved tone--as it were, an historical tone.
Afterwards he ordered the bundle to be taken away. Livry found it so
heavy that he could scarcely lift it from the table, and gave it to an
attendant who presented himself. The King spoke no more of this matter,
nobody else dared to do so; and the supper finished as though nothing had
happened.
Besides the excess of insolence and impudence of this act, it was so
perilous as to be scarcely understood. How could any one, without being
seconded by accomplices, throw a bundle of this weight and volume in the
midst of a crowd such as was always present at the supper of the King, so
dense that it could with difficulty be passed through? How, in spite of
a circle of accomplices, could a movement of the arms necessary for such
a throw escape all eyes? The Duc de Gesvres was in waiting. Neither he
nor anybody else thought of closing the doors until the King had left the
table. It may be guessed whether the guilty parties remained until then,
having had more than three-quarters of an hour to escape, and every issue
being free. Only one person was discovered, who was not known, but he
proved to be a very honest man, and was dismissed after a short
detention. Nothing has since been discovered respecting this theft or
its bold restitution.
CHAPTER XV
On the 12th August, Madame de Saint-Simon was happily delivered of a
second son, who bore the name of Marquis de Ruffec. A singular event
which happened soon after, made all the world marvel.
There arrived at Versailles a farrier, from the little town of Salon, in
Provence, who asked to see the King in private. In spite of the rebuffs
he met with, he persisted in his request, so that at last it got to the
ears of the King. The King sent word that he was not accustomed to grant
such audiences to whoever liked to ask for them. Thereupon the farrier
declared that if he was allowed to see the King he would tell him things
so secret and so unknown to everybody else that he would be persuaded of
their importance, demanding, if the King would not see him, to be sent to
a minister of state. Upon this the King allowed him to have an interview
with one of his secretaries, Barbezieux. But Barbezieux was not a
minister of state, and to the great surprise of everybody, the farrier,
who had only just arrived from the country, and who had never before left
it or his trade, replied, that not being a minister of state he would not
speak with him. Upon this he was allowed to see Pomponne, and converse
with him; and this is the story he told:
He said, that returning home late one evening he found himself surrounded
by a great light, close against a tree and near Salon. A woman clad in
white--but altogether in a royal manner, and beautiful, fair, and very
dazzling--called him by his name, commanded him to listen to her, and
spake to him more than half-an-hour. She told him she was the Queen,
who had been the wife of the King; to whom she ordered him to go and say
what she had communicated; assuring him that God would assist him through
all the journey, and that upon a secret thing he should say, the King,
who alone knew that secret, would recognise the truth of all he uttered.
She said that in case he could not see the King he was to speak with a
minister of state, telling him certain things, but reserving certain
others for the King alone. She told him, moreover, to set out at once,
assuring him he would be punished with death if he neglected to acquit
himself of his commission. The farrier promised to obey her in
everything, and the queen then disappeared. He found himself in darkness
near the tree. He lay down and passed the night there, scarcely knowing
whether he was awake or asleep. In the morning he went home, persuaded
that what he had seen was a mere delusion and folly, and said nothing
about it to a living soul.
Two days afterwards he was passing by the same place when the same vision
appeared to him, and he was addressed in the same terms. Fresh threats
of punishment were uttered if he did not comply, and he was ordered to go
at once to the Intendant of the province, who would assuredly furnish him
with money, after saying what he had seen. This time the farrier was
convinced there was no delusion in the matter; but, halting between his
fears and doubts, knew not what to do, told no one what had passed,
and was in great perplexity. He remained thus eight days, and at last
had resolved not to make the journey; when, passing by the same spot,
he saw and heard the same vision, which bestowed upon him so many
dreadful menaces that he no longer thought of anything but setting out
immediately. In two days from that time he presented himself, at Aix,
to the Intendant of the province, who, without a moment's hesitation,
urged him to pursue his journey, and gave him sufficient money to travel
by a public conveyance. Nothing more of the story was ever known.
The farrier had three interviews with M. de Pomponne, each of two hours'
length. M. de Pomponne rendered, in private, an account of these to the
King, who desired him to speak more fully upon the point in a council
composed of the Ducs de Beauvilliers, Pontchartrain, Torcy, and Pomponne
himself; Monseigneur to be excluded. This council sat very long, perhaps
because other things were spoken of. Be that as it may, the King after
this wished to converse with the farrier, and did so in his cabinet. Two
days afterwards he saw the man again; at each time was nearly an hour
with him, and was careful that no one was within hearing.
The day after the first interview, as the King was descending the
staircase, to go a-hunting, M. de Duras, who was in waiting, and who was
upon such a footing that he said almost what he liked, began to speak of
this farrier with contempt, and, quoting the bad proverb, said, "The man
was mad, or the King was not noble." At this the King stopped, and,
turning round, a thing he scarcely ever did in walking, replied, "If that
be so, I am not noble, for I have discoursed with him long, he has spoken
to me with much good sense, and I assure you he is far from being mad."
These last words were pronounced with a sustained gravity which greatly
surprised those near, and which in the midst of deep silence opened all
eyes and ears. After the second interview the King felt persuaded that
one circumstance had been related to him by the farrier, which he alone
knew, and which had happened more than twenty years before. It was that
he had seen a phantom in the forest of Saint Germains. Of this phantom
he had never breathed a syllable to anybody.
The King on several other occasions spoke favourably of the farrier;
moreover, he paid all the expenses the man had been put to, gave him a
gratuity, sent him back free, and wrote to the Intendant of the province
to take particular care of him, and never to let him want for anything
all his life.
The most surprising thing of all this is, that none of the ministers
could be induced to speak a word upon the occurrence. Their most
intimate friends continually questioned them, but without being able to
draw forth a syllable. The ministers either affected to laugh at the
matter or answered evasively. This was the case whenever I questioned
M. de Beauvilliers or M. de Pontchartrain, and I knew from their most
intimate friends that nothing more could ever be obtained from M. de
Pomponne or M. de Torcy. As for the farrier himself, he was equally
reserved. He was a simple, honest, and modest man, about fifty years of
age. Whenever addressed upon this subject, he cut short all discourse by
saying, "I am not allowed to speak," and nothing more could be extracted
from him. When he returned to his home he conducted himself just as
before, gave himself no airs, and never boasted of the interview he had
had with the King and his ministers. He went back to his trade, and
worked at it as usual.
Such is the singular story which filled everybody with astonishment, but
which nobody could understand. It is true that some people persuaded
themselves, and tried to persuade others, that the whole affair was a
clever trick, of which the simple farrier had been the dupe. They said
that a certain Madame Arnoul, who passed for a witch, and who, having
known Madame de Maintenon when she was Madame Scarron, still kept up a
secret intimacy with her, had caused the three visions to appear to the
farrier, in order to oblige the King to declare Madame de Maintenon
queen. But the truth of the matter was never known.
The King bestowed at this time some more distinctions on his illegitimate
children. M. du Maine, as grand-master of the artillery, had to be
received at the Chambre des Comptes; and his place ought to have been,
according to custom, immediately above that of the senior member. But
the King wished him to be put between the first and second presidents;
and this was done. The King accorded also to the Princesse de Conti that
her two ladies of honour should be allowed to sit at the Duchesse de
Bourgogne's table. It was a privilege that no lady of honour to a
Princess of the blood had ever been allowed. But the King gave these
distinctions to the ladies of his illegitimate children, and refused it
to those of the Princesses of the blood.
In thus according honours, the King seemed to merit some new ones
himself. But nothing fresh could be thought of. What had been done
therefore at his statue in the Place des Victoires, was done over again
in the Place Vendome on the 13th August, after midday. Another statue
which had been erected there was uncovered. The Duc de Gesvres, Governor
of Paris, was in attendance on horseback, at the head of the city troops,
and made turns, and reverences, and other ceremonies, imitated from those
in use at the consecration of the Roman Emperors. There were, it is
true, no incense and no victims: something more in harmony with the title
of Christian King was necessary. In the evening, there was upon the
river a fine illumination, which Monsieur and Madame went to see.
A difficulty arose soon after this with Denmark. The Prince Royal had
become King, and announced the circumstance to our King, but would not
receive the reply sent him because he was not styled in it "Majesty."
We had never accorded to the Kings of Denmark this title, and they had
always been contented with that of "Serenity." The King in his turn
would not wear mourning for the King of Denmark, just dead, although he
always did so for any crowned head, whether related to him or not. This
state of things lasted some months; until, in the end, the new King of
Denmark gave way, received the reply as it had been first sent, and our
King wore mourning as if the time for it had not long since passed.
Boucherat, chancellor and keeper of the seals, died on the 2nd of
September. Harlay, as I have previously said, had been promised this
appointment when it became vacant. But the part he had taken in our case
with M. de Luxembourg had made him so lose ground, that the appointment
was not given to him. M. de la Rochefoucauld, above all, had undermined
him in the favour of the King; and none of us had lost an opportunity of
assisting in this work. Our joy, therefore, was extreme when we saw all
Harlay's hopes frustrated, and we did not fail to let it burst forth.
The vexation that Harlay conceived was so great, that he became
absolutely intractable, and often cried out with a bitterness he could
not contain, that he should be left to die in the dust of the palace.
His weakness was such, that he could not prevent himself six weeks after
from complaining to the King at Fontainebleau, where he was playing the
valet with his accustomed suppleness and deceit. The King put him off
with fine speeches, and by appointing him to take part in a commission
then sitting for the purpose of bringing about a reduction in the price
of corn in Paris and the suburbs, where it had become very dear. Harlay
made a semblance of being contented, but remained not the less annoyed.
His health and his head were at last so much attacked that he was forced
to quit his post: he then fell into contempt after having excited so much
hatred. The chancellorship was given to Pontchartrain, and the office of
comptroller-general, which became vacant at the same time, was given to
Chamillart; a very honest man, who owed his first advancement to his
skill at billiards, of which game the King was formerly very fond.
It was while Chamillart was accustomed to play billiards with the King,
at least three times a week, that an incident happened which ought not to
be forgotten. Chamillart was Counsellor of the Parliament at that time.
He had just reported on a case that had been submitted to him.
The losing party came to him, and complained that he had omitted to bring
forward a document that had been given into his hands, and that would
assuredly have turned the verdict. Chamillart searched for the document,
found it, and saw that the complainer was right. He said so, and added,
--"I do not know how the document escaped me, but it decides in your
favour. You claimed twenty thousand francs, and it is my fault you did
not get them. Come to-morrow, and I will pay you." Chamillart, although
then by no means rich, scraped together all the money he had, borrowing
the rest, and paid the man as he had promised, only demanding that the
matter should be kept a secret. But after this, feeling that billiards
three times a week interfered with his legal duties, he surrendered part
of them, and thus left himself more free for other charges he was obliged
to attend to.
The Comtesse de Fiesque died very aged, while the Court was at
Fontainebleau this year. She had passed her life with the most frivolous
of the great world. Two incidents amongst a thousand will characterise
her. She was very straitened in means, because she had frittered away
all her substance, or allowed herself to be pillaged by her business
people. When those beautiful mirrors were first introduced she obtained
one, although they were then very dear and very rare. "Ah, Countess!"
said her friends, "where did you find that?"
"Oh!" replied she, "I had a miserable piece of land, which only yielded
me corn; I have sold it, and I have this mirror instead. Is not this
excellent? Who would hesitate between corn and this beautiful mirror?"
On another occasion she harangued with her son, who was as poor as a rat,
for the purpose of persuading him to make a good match and thus enrich
himself. Her son, who had no desire to marry, allowed her to talk on,
and pretended to listen to her reasons: She was delighted--entered into a
description of the wife she destined for him, painting her as young,
rich, an only child, beautiful, well-educated, and with parents who would
be delighted to agree to the marriage. When she had finished, he pressed
her for the name of this charming and desirable person. The Countess
said she was the daughter of Jacquier, a man well known to everybody,
and who had been a contractor of provisions to the armies of M. de
Turenne. Upon this, her son burst out into a hearty laugh, and she in
anger demanded why he did so and what he found so ridiculous in the
match.
The truth was, Jacquier had no children, as the Countess soon remembered.
At which she said it was a great pity, since no marriage would have
better suited all parties. She was full of such oddities, which she
persisted in for some time with anger, but at which she was the first to
laugh. People said of her that she had never been more than eighteen
years old. The memoirs of Mademoiselle paint her well. She lived with
Mademoiselle, and passed all her life in quarrels about trifles.
It was immediately after leaving Fontainebleau that the marriage between
the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne was consummated. It was upon this
occasion that the King named four gentlemen to wait upon the Duke,--
four who in truth could not have been more badly chosen. One of them,
Gamaches, was a gossip; who never knew what he was doing or saying--
who knew nothing of the world, or the Court, or of war, although he had
always been in the army. D'O was another; but of him I have spoken.
Cheverny was the third, and Saumery the fourth. Saumery had been raised
out of obscurity by M. de Beauvilliers. Never was man so intriguing, so
truckling, so mean, so boastful, so ambitious, so intent upon fortune,
and all this without disguise, without veil, without shame! Saumery had
been wounded, and no man ever made so much of such a mishap. I used to
say of him that he limped audaciously, and it was true. He would speak
of personages the most distinguished, whose ante-chambers even he had
scarcely seen, as though he spoke of his equals or of his particular
friends. He related what he had heard, and was not ashamed to say before
people who at least had common sense, "Poor Mons. Turenne said to me,"
M. de Turenne never having probably heard of his existence. With
Monsieur in full he honoured nobody. It was Mons. de Beauvilliers, Mons.
de Chevreuse, and so on; except with those whose names he clipped off
short, as he frequently would even with Princes of the blood. I have
heard him say many times, "the Princesse de Conti," in speaking of the
daughter of the King; and "the Prince de Conti," in speaking of Monsieur
her brother-in-law! As for the chief nobles of the Court, it was rare
for him to give them the Monsieur or the Mons. It was Marechal
d'Humieres, and so on with the others. Fatuity and insolence were united
in him, and by dint of mounting a hundred staircases a day, and bowing
and scraping everywhere, he had gained the ear of I know not how many
people. His wife was a tall creature, as impertinent as he, who wore the
breeches, and before whom he dared not breathe. Her effrontery blushed
at nothing, and after many gallantries she had linked herself on to M. de
Duras, whom she governed, and of whom she was publicly and absolutely the
mistress, living at his expense. Children, friends, servants, all were
at her mercy; even Madame de Duras herself when she came, which was but
seldom, from the country.
Such were the people whom the King placed near M. le Duc de Bourgogne.
The Duc de Gesvres, a malicious old man, a cruel husband and unnatural
father, sadly annoyed Marechal de Villeroy towards the end of this year,
having previously treated me very scurvily for some advice I gave him
respecting the ceremonies to be observed at the reception by the King of
M. de Lorraine as Duc de Bar. M. de Gesvres and M. de Villeroy had both
had fathers who made large fortunes and who became secretaries of state.
One morning M. de Gesvres was waiting for the King, with a number of
other courtiers, when M. de Villeroy arrived, with all that noise and
those airs he had long assumed, and which his favour and his appointments
rendered more superb. I know not whether this annoyed De Gesvres, more
than usual, but as soon as the other had placed himself, he said,
"Monsieur le Marechal, it must be admitted that you and I are very
lucky." The Marechal, surprised at a remark which seemed to be suggested
by nothing, assented with a modest air, and, shaking his head and his
wig, began to talk to some one else. But M. de Gesvres had not commenced
without a purpose. He went on, addressed M. de Villeroy point-blank,
admiring their mutual good fortune, but when he came to speak of the
father of each, "Let us go no further," said he, "for what did our
fathers spring from? From tradesmen; even tradesmen they were
themselves. Yours was the son of a dealer in fresh fish at the markets,
and mine of a pedlar, or, perhaps, worse. Gentlemen," said he,
addressing the company, "have we not reason to think our fortune
prodigious--the Marechal and I?" The Marechal would have liked to
strangle M. de Gesvres, or to see him dead--but what can be done with a
man who, in order to say something cutting to you, says it to himself
first? Everybody was silent, and all eyes were lowered. Many, however,
were not sorry to see M. de Villeroy so pleasantly humiliated. The King
came and put an end to the scene, which was the talk of the Court for
several days.
Omissions must be repaired as soon as they are perceived. Other matters
have carried me away. At the commencement of April, Ticquet, Counsellor
at the Parliament, was assassinated in his own house; and if he did not
die, it was not the fault of his porter, or of the soldier who had
attempted to kill him, and who left him for dead, disturbed by a noise
they heard. This councillor, who was a very poor man, had complained to
the King, the preceding year, of the conduct of his wife with
Montgeorges, captain in the Guards, and much esteemed. The King
prohibited Montgeorges from seeing the wife of the councillor again.
Such having been the case, when the crime was attempted, suspicion fell
upon Montgeorges and the wife of Ticquet, a beautiful, gallant, and bold
woman, who took a very high tone in the matter. She was advised to fly,
and one of my friends offered to assist her to do so, maintaining that in
all such cases it is safer to be far off than close at hand. The woman
would listen to no such advice, and in a few days she was no longer able.
The porter and the soldier were arrested and tortured, and Madame
Ticquet, who was foolish enough to allow herself to be arrested, also
underwent the same examination, and avowed all. She was condemned to
lose her head, and her accomplice to be broken on the wheel. Montgeorges
managed so well, that he was not legally criminated. When Ticquet heard
the sentence, he came with all his family to the King, and sued for
mercy. But the King would not listen to him, and the execution took
place on Wednesday, the 17th of June, after mid-day, at the Greve. All
the windows of the Hotel de Ville, and of the houses in the Place de
Greve, in the streets that lead to it from the Conciergerie of the palace
where Madame Ticquet was confined, were filled with spectators, men and
women, many of title and distinction. There were even friends of both
sexes of this unhappy woman, who felt no shame or horror in going there.
In the streets the crowd was so great that it could not be passed
through. In general, pity was felt for the culprit; people hoped she
would be pardoned, and it was because they hoped so, that they went to
see her die. But such is the world; so unreasoning, and so little in
accord with itself.
CHAPTER XVI
The year 1700 commenced by a reform. The King declared that he would no
longer bear the expense of the changes that the courtiers introduced into
their apartments. It had cost him more than sixty thousand francs since
the Court left Fontainebleau. It is believed that Madame de Mailly was
the cause of this determination of the King; for during the last two or
three years she had made changes in her apartments every year.
A difficulty occurred at this time which much mortified the King. Little
by little he had taken all the ambassadors to visit Messieurs du Maine
and de Toulouse, as though they were Princes of the blood. The nuncio,
Cavallerini, visited them thus, but upon his return to Rome was so taken
to task for it, that his successor, Delfini, did not dare to imitate him.
The cardinals considered that they had lowered themselves, since
Richelieu and Mazarm, by treating even the Princes of the blood on terms
of equality, and giving them their hand, which had not been customary m
the time of the two first ministers just named. To do so to the
illegitimate offspring of the King, and on occasions of ceremony,
appeared to them monstrous. Negotiations were carried on for a month,
but Delfini would not bend, and although in every other respect he had
afforded great satisfaction during his nunciature, no farewell audience
was given to him; nor even a secret audience. He was deprived of the
gift of a silver vessel worth eighteen hundred francs, that it was
customary to present to the cardinal nuncios at their departure: and he
went away without saying adieu to anybody.
Some time before, M. de Monaco had been sent as ambassador to Rome. He
claimed to be addressed by the title of "Highness," and persisted in it
with so much obstinacy that he isolated, himself from almost everybody,
and brought the affairs of his embassy nearly to a standstill by the
fetters he imposed upon them in the most necessary transactions. Tired
at last of the resistance he met with, he determined to refuse the title
of "Excellence," although it might fairly belong to them, to all who
refused to address him as "Highness." This finished his affair; for
after that determination no one would see him, and the business of the
embassy suffered even more than before. It is difficult to comprehend
why the King permitted such a man to remain as his representative at a
foreign Court.
Madame de Navailles died on the 14th of February: Her mother, Madame de
Neuillant, who became a widow, was avarice itself. I cannot say by what
accident or chance it was that Madame de Maintenon in returning young and
poor from America, where she had lost her father and mother, fell in
landing at Rochelle into the hands of Madame de Neuillant, who lived in
Poitou. Madame de Neuillant took home Madame de Maintenon, but could not
resolve to feed her without making her do something in return. Madame de
Maintenon was charged therefore with the key of the granary, had to
measure out the corn and to see that it was given to the horses. It was
Madame de Neuillant who brought Madame de Maintenon to Paris, and to get
rid of her married her to Scarron, and then retired into Poitou.
Madame de Navailles was the eldest daughter of this Madame de Neuillant,
and it was her husband, M. de Navailles, who, serving under M. le Prince
in Flanders, received from that General a strong reprimand for his
ignorance. M. le Prince wanted to find the exact position of a little
brook which his maps did not mark. To assist him in the search, M. de
Navailles brought a map of the world! On another occasion, visiting
M. Colbert, at Sceaux, the only thing M. de Navailles could find to
praise was the endive of the kitchen garden: and when on the occasion of
the Huguenots the difficulty of changing religion was spoken of, he
declared that if God had been good enough to make him a Turk, he should
have remained so.
Madame de Navailles had been lady of honour to the Queen-mother, and lost
that place by a strange adventure.
She was a woman of spirit and of virtue, and the young ladies of honour
were put under her charge. The King was at this time young and gallant.
So long as he held aloof from the chamber of the young ladies, Madame de
Navailles meddled not, but she kept her eye fixed upon all that she
controlled. She soon perceived that the King was beginning to amuse
himself, and immediately after she found that a door had secretly been
made into the chamber of the young ladies; that this door communicated
with a staircase by which the King mounted into the room at night, and
was hidden during the day by the back of a bed placed against it. Upon
this Madame de Navailles held counsel with her husband. On one side was
virtue and honour, on the other, the King's anger, disgrace, and exile.
The husband and wife did not long hesitate. Madame de Navailles at once
took her measures, and so well, that in a few hours one evening the door
was entirely closed up. During the same night the King, thinking to
enter as usual by the little staircase, was much surprised to no longer
find a door. He groped, he searched, he could not comprehend the
disappearance of the door, or by what means it had become wall again.
Anger seized him; he doubted not that the door had been closed by Madame
de Navailles and her husband. He soon found that such was the case, and
on the instant stripped them of almost all their offices, and exiled them
from the Court. The exile was not long; the Queen-mother on her death-
bed implored him to receive back Monsieur and Madame de Navailles, and he
could not refuse. They returned, and M. de Navailles nine years
afterwards was made Marechal of France. After this Madame de Navailles
rarely appeared at the Court. Madame de Maintenon could not refuse her
distinctions and special favours, but they were accorded rarely and by
moments. The King always remembered his door; Madame de Maintenon always
remembered the hay and barley of Madame de Neuillant, and neither years
nor devotion could deaden the bitterness of the recollection.
From just before Candlemas-day to Easter of this year, nothing was heard
of but balls and pleasures of the Court. The King gave at Versailles and
at Marly several masquerades, by which he was much amused, under pretext
of amusing the Duchesse de Bourgogne. At one of these balls at Marly a
ridiculous scene occurred. Dancers were wanting and Madame de Luxembourg
on account of this obtained an invitation, but with great difficulty, for
she lived in such a fashion that no woman would see her. Monsieur de
Luxembourg was perhaps the only person in France who was ignorant of
Madame de Luxembourg's conduct. He lived with his wife on apparently
good terms and as though he had not the slightest mistrust of her. On
this occasion, because of the want of dancers, the King made older people
dance than was customary, and among others M. de Luxembourg. Everybody
was compelled to be masked. M. de Luxembourg spoke on this subject to
M. le Prince, who, malicious as any monkey, determined to divert all the
Court and himself at the Duke's expense. He invited M. de Luxembourg to
supper, and after that meal was over, masked him according to his fancy.
Soon after my arrival at the ball, I saw a figure strangely clad in long
flowing muslin, and with a headdress on which was fixed the horns of a
stag, so high that they became entangled in the chandelier. Of course
everybody was much astonished at so strange a sight, and all thought that
that mask must be very sure of his wife to deck himself so. Suddenly the
mask turned round and showed us M. de Luxembourg. The burst of laughter
at this was scandalous. Good M. de Luxembourg, who never was very
remarkable for wit, benignly took all this laughter as having been
excited simply by the singularity of his costume, and to the questions
addressed him, replied quite simply that his dress had been arranged by
M. le Prince; then, turning to the right and to the left, he admired
himself and strutted with pleasure at having been masked by M. le Prince.
In a moment more the ladies arrived, and the King immediately after them.
The laughter commenced anew as loudly as ever, and M. de Luxembourg
presented himself to the company with a confidence that was ravishing.
His wife had heard nothing of this masquerading, and when she saw it,
lost countenance, brazen as she was. Everybody stared at her and her
husband, and seemed dying of laughter. M. le Prince looked at the scene
from behind the King, and inwardly laughed at his malicious trick. This
amusement lasted throughout all the ball, and the King, self-contained as
he usually was, laughed also; people were never tired of admiring an
invention so, cruelly ridiculous, and spoke of it for several days.
No evening passed on which there was not a ball. The chancellor's wife
gave one which was a fete the most gallant and the most magnificent
possible. There were different rooms for the fancy-dress ball, for the
masqueraders, for a superb collation, for shops of all countries,
Chinese, Japanese, &c., where many singular and beautiful things were
sold, but no money taken; they were presents for the Duchesse de
Bourgogne and the ladies. Everybody was especially diverted at this
entertainment, which did not finish until eight o'clock in the morning.
Madame de Saint-Simon and I passed the last three weeks of this time
without ever seeing the day. Certain dancers were only allowed to leave
off dancing at the same time as the Duchesse de Bourgogne. One morning,
at Marty, wishing to escape too early, the Duchess caused me to be
forbidden to pass the doors of the salon; several of us had the same
fate. I was delighted when Ash Wednesday arrived; and I remained a day
or two dead beat, and Madame de Saint-Simon could not get over Shrove
Tuesday.
La Bourlie, brother of Guiscard, after having quitted the service, had
retired to his estate near Cevennes, where he led a life of much licence.
About this time a robbery was committed in his house; he suspected one of
the servants, and on his own authority put the man to the torture. This
circumstance could not remain so secret but that complaints spread
abroad. The offence was a capital one. La Bourlie fled from the realm,
and did many strange things until his death, which was still more
strange; but of which it is not yet time to speak.
Madame la Duchesse, whose heavy tradesmen's debts the King had paid not
long since, had not dared to speak of her gambling debts, also very
heavy. They increased, and, entirely unable to pay them, she found
herself in the greatest embarrassment. She feared, above all things,
lest M. le Prince or M. le Duc should hear of this. In this extremity
she addressed herself to Madame de Maintenon, laying bare the state of
her finances, without the slightest disguise. Madame de Maintenon had
pity on her situation, and arranged that the King should pay her debts,
abstain from scolding her, and keep her secret. Thus, in a few weeks,
Madame la Duchesse found herself free of debts, without anybody whom she
feared having known even of their existence.
Langlee was entrusted with the payment and arrangement of these debts.
He was a singular kind of man at the Court, and deserves a word. Born of
obscure parents, who had enriched themselves, he had early been
introduced into the great world, and had devoted himself to play, gaining
an immense fortune; but without being accused of the least unfairness.
With but little or no wit, but much knowledge of the world, he had
succeeded in securing many friends, and in making his way at the Court.
He joined in all the King's parties, at the time of his mistresses.
Similarity of tastes attached Langlee to Monsieur, but he never lost
sight of the King. At all the fetes Langlee was present, he took part in
the journeys, he was invited to Marly, was intimate with all the King's
mistresses; then with all the daughters of the King, with whom indeed he
was so familiar that he often spoke to them with the utmost freedom. He
had become such a master of fashions and of fetes that none of the latter
were given, even by Princes of the blood, except under his directions;
and no houses were bought, built, furnished, or ornamented, without his
taste being consulted. There were no marriages of which the dresses and
the presents were not chosen, or at least approved, by him. He was on
intimate terms with the most distinguished people of the Court; and often
took improper advantage of his position. To the daughters of the King
and to a number of female friends he said horribly filthy things, and
that too in their own houses, at St. Cloud or at Marly. He was often
made a confidant in matters of gallantry, and continued to be made so all
his life. For he was a sure man, had nothing disagreeable about him, was
obliging, always ready to serve others with his purse or his influence,
and was on bad terms with no one.
While everybody, during all this winter, was at balls and amusements,
the beautiful Madame de Soubise--for she was so still--employed herself
with more serious matters. She had just bought, very cheap, the immense
Hotel de Guise, that the King assisted her to pay for. Assisted also by
the King, she took steps to make her bastard son canon of Strasbourg;
intrigued so well that his birth was made to pass muster, although among
Germans there is a great horror of illegitimacy, and he was received into
the chapter. This point gained, she laid her plans for carrying out
another, and a higher one, nothing less than that of making her son
Archbishop of Strasbourg.
But there was an obstacle, in the way. This obstacle was the Abbe
d'Auvergne (nephew of Cardinal de Bouillon), who had the highest position
in the chapter, that of Grand Prevot, had been there much longer than the
Abbe de Soubise, was older, and of more consequence. His reputation,
however, was against him; his habits were publicly known to be those of
the Greeks, whilst his intellect resembled theirs in no way. By his
stupidity he published his bad conduct, his perfect ignorance, his
dissipation, his ambition; and to sustain himself he had only a low,
stinking, continual vanity, which drew upon him as much disdain as did
his habits, alienated him from all the world, and constantly subjected
him to ridicule.
The Abbe de Soubise had, on the contrary, everything smiling in his
favour, even his exterior, which showed that he was born of the tenderest
amours. Upon the farms of the Sorbonne he had much distinguished
himself. He had been made Prior of Sorbonne, and had shone conspicuously
in that position, gaining eulogies of the most flattering kind from
everybody, and highly pleasing the King. After this, he entered the
seminary of Saint Magloire, then much in vogue, and gained the good
graces of the Archbishop of Paris, by whom that seminary was favoured.
On every side the Abbe de Soubise was regarded, either as a marvel of
learning, or a miracle of piety and purity of manners. He had made
himself loved everywhere, and his gentleness, his politeness, his
intelligence, his graces, and his talent for securing friends, confirmed
more and more the reputation he had established.
The Abbe d'Auvergne had a relative, the Cardinal de Furstenberg, who also
had two nephews, canons of Strasbourg, and in a position to become
claimants to the bishopric. Madame de Soubise rightly thought that her
first step must be to gain over the Cardinal to her side. There was a
channel through which this could be done which at once suggested itself
to her mind. Cardinal Furstenberg, it was said, had been much enamoured
of the Comtesse de La Marck, and had married her to one of his nephews,
in order that he might thus see her more easily. It was also said that
he had been well treated, and it is certain that nothing was so striking
as the resemblance, feature for feature, of the Comte de La Marck to
Cardinal de Furstenberg. If the Count was not the son of the Cardinal he
was nothing to him. The attachment of Cardinal Furstenberg for the
Comtesse de La Marck did not abate when she became by her marriage
Comtesse de Furstenberg; indeed he could not exist without her; she lived
and reigned in his house. Her son, the Comte de La Marck, lived there
also, and her dominion over the Cardinal was so public, that whoever had
affairs with him spoke to the Countess, if he wished to succeed. She had
been very beautiful, and at fifty-two years of age, still showed it,
although tall, stout, and coarse featured as a Swiss guard in woman's
clothes. She was, moreover, bold, audacious, talking loudly and always
with authority; was polished, however, and of good manners when she
pleased. Being the most imperious woman in the world, the Cardinal was
fairly tied to her apron-strings, and scarcely dared to breathe in her
presence. In dress and finery she spent like a prodigal, played every
night, and lost large sums, oftentimes staking her jewels and her various
ornaments. She was a woman who loved herself alone, who wished for
everything, and who refused herself nothing, not even, it was said,
certain gallantries which the poor Cardinal was obliged to pay for, as
for everything else. Her extravagance was such, that she was obliged to
pass six or seven months of the year in the country, in order to have
enough to spend in Paris during the remainder of the year.
It was to the Comtesse de Furstenberg, therefore, that Madame de Soubise
addressed herself in order to gain over the support of Cardinal de
Furstenberg, in behalf of her son. Rumour said, and it was never
contradicted, that Madame de Soubise paid much money to the Cardinal
through the Countess, in order to carry this point. It is certain that
in addition to the prodigious pensions the Cardinal drew from the King,
he touched at this time a gratification of forty thousand crowns, that it
was pretended had been long promised him.
Madame de Soubise having thus assured herself of the Countess and the
Cardinal (and they having been privately thanked by the King), she caused
an order to be sent to Cardinal de Bouillon, who was then at Rome,
requesting him to ask the Pope in the name of the King, for a bull
summoning the Chapter of Strasbourg to meet and elect a coadjutor and a
declaration of the eligibility of the Abbe de Soubise.
But here a new obstacle arose in the path of Madame de Soubise. Cardinal
de Bouillon, a man of excessive pride and pretension, who upon reaching
Rome claimed to be addressed as "Most Eminent Highness," and obtaining
this title from nobody except his servants, set himself at loggerheads
with all the city--Cardinal de Bouillon, I say, was himself canon of
Strasbourg, and uncle of the Abbe d'Auvergne. So anxious was the
Cardinal to secure the advancement of the Abbe d'Auvergne, that he had
already made a daring and fraudulent attempt to procure for him a
cardinalship. But the false representations which he made in order to
carry his point, having been seen through, his attempt came to nothing,
and he himself lost all favour with the King for his deceit. He,
however; hoped to make the Abbe d'Auvergne bishop of Strasbourg, and was
overpowered, therefore, when he saw this magnificent prey about to escape
him. The news came upon him like a thunderbolt. It was bad enough to
see his hopes trampled under foot; it was insupportable to be obliged to
aid in crushing them. Vexation so transported and blinded him, that he
forgot the relative positions of himself and of Madame de Soubise, and
imagined that he should be able to make the King break a resolution he
had taken, and an engagement he had entered into. He sent therefore, as
though he had been a great man, a letter to the King, telling him that he
had not thought sufficiently upon this matter, and raising scruples
against it. At the same time he despatched a letter to the canons of
Strasbourg, full of gall and compliments, trying to persuade them that
the Abbe de Soubise was too young for the honour intended him, and
plainly intimating that the Cardinal de Furstenberg had been gained over
by a heavy bribe paid to the Comtesse de Furstenberg. These letters.
made a terrible uproar.
I was at the palace on Tuesday, March 30th, and after supper I saw Madame
de Soubise arrive, leading the Comtesse de Furstenberg, both of whom
posted themselves at the door of the King's cabinet. It was not that
Madame de Soubise had not the privilege of entering if she pleased, but
she preferred making her complaint as public as the charges made against
her by Cardinal de Bouillon had become. I approached in order to witness
the scene. Madame de Soubise appeared scarcely able to contain herself,
and the Countess seemed furious. As the King passed, they stopped him.
Madame de Soubise said two words in a low tone. The Countess in a louder
strain demanded justice against the Cardinal de Bouillon, who, she said,
not content in his pride and ambition with disregarding the orders of the
King, had calumniated her and Cardinal de Furstenberg in the most
atrocious manner, and had not even spared Madame de Soubise herself. The
King replied to her with much politeness, assured her she should be
contented, and passed on.
Madame de Soubise was so much the more piqued because Cardinal de
Bouillon had acquainted the King with the simony she had committed,
and assuredly if he had not been ignorant of this he would never have
supported her in the affair. She hastened therefore to secure the
success of her son, and was so well served by the whispered authority of
the King, and the money she had spent, that the Abbe de Soubise was
elected by unanimity Coadjutor of Strasbourg.
As for the Cardinal de Bouillon, foiled in all his attempts to prevent
the election, he wrote a second letter to the King, more foolish than the
first. This filled the cup to overflowing. For reply, he received
orders, by a courier, to quit Rome immediately and to retire to Cluni or
to Tournus, at his choice, until further orders. This order appeared so
cruel to him that he could not make up his mind to obey. He was
underdoyen of the sacred college. Cibo, the doyen, was no longer able to
leave his bed. To become doyen, it was necessary to be in Rome when the
appointment became vacant. Cardinal de Bouillon wrote therefore to the
King, begging to be allowed to stay a short time, in order to pray the
Pope to set aside this rule, and give him permission to succeed to the
doyenship, even although absent from Rome when it became vacant. He knew
he should not obtain this permission, but he asked for it in order to
gain time, hoping that in the meanwhile Cardinal Cibo might die, or even
the Pope himself, whose health had been threatened with ruin for some
time. This request of the Cardinal de Bouillon was refused. There
seemed nothing for him but to comply with the orders he had received.
But he had evaded them so long that he thought he might continue to do
so. He wrote to Pere la Chaise, begging him to ask the King for
permission to remain at Rome until the death of Cardinal Cibo, adding
that he would wait for a reply at Caprarole, a magnificent house of the
Duke of Parma, at eight leagues from Rome. He addressed himself to Pere
la Chaise, because M. de Torcy, to whom he had previously written, had
been forbidden to open his letters, and had sent him word to that effect.
Having, too, been always on the best of terms with the Jesuits, he hoped
for good assistance from Pere la Chaise. But he found this door closed
like that of M. de Torcy. Pere la Chaise wrote to Cardinal de Bouillon
that he too was prohibited from opening his letters. At the same time a
new order was sent to the Cardinal to set out immediately. Just after he
had read it Cardinal Cibo died, and the Cardinal de Bouillon hastened at
once to Rome to secure the doyenship, writing to the King to say that he
had done so, that he would depart in twenty-four hours, and expressing a
hope that this delay would not be refused him. This was laughing at the
King and his orders, and becoming doyen in spite of him. The King,
therefore, displayed his anger immediately he learnt this last act of
disobedience. He sent word immediately to M. de Monaco to command the
Cardinal de Bouillon to surrender his charge of grand chaplain, to give
up his cordon bleu, and to take down the arms of France from the door of
his palace; M. de Monaco was also ordered to prohibit all French people
in Rome from seeing Cardinal de Bouillon, or from having any
communication with him. M. de Monaco, who hated the Cardinal, hastened
willingly to obey these instructions. The Cardinal appeared overwhelmed,
but he did not even then give in. He pretended that his charge of grand
chaplain was a crown office, of which he could not be dispossessed,
without resigning. The King, out of all patience with a disobedience so
stubborn and so marked, ordered, by a decree in council, on the 12th
September, the seizure of all the Cardinal's estates, laical and
ecclesiastical, the latter to be confiscated to the state, the former to
be divided into three portions, and applied to various uses. The same
day the charge of grand chaplain was given to Cardinal Coislin, and that
of chief chaplain to the Bishop of Metz. The despair of the Cardinal
de Bouillon, on hearing of this decree, was extreme. Pride had hitherto
hindered him from believing that matters would be pushed so far against
him. He sent in his resignation only when it was no longer needed of
him. His order he would not give up. M. de Monaco warned him that,
in case of refusal, he had orders to snatch it from his neck. Upon this
the Cardinal saw the folly of holding out against the orders of the King.
He quitted then the marks of the order, but he was pitiful enough to wear
a narrow blue ribbon, with a cross of gold attached, under his cassock,
and tried from time to time to show a little of the blue. A short time
afterwards, to make the best of a bad bargain, he tried to persuade
himself and others, that no cardinal was at liberty to wear the orders of
any prince. But it was rather late in the day to think of this, after
having worn the order of the King for thirty years, as grand chaplain;
and everybody thought so, and laughed at the idea.
CHAPTER XVII
Chateauneuf, Secretary of State, died about this time. He had asked that
his son, La Vrilliere, might be allowed to succeed him, and was much
vexed that the King refused this favour. The news of Chateauneuf's death
was brought to La Vrilliere by a courier, at five o'clock in the morning.
He did not lose his wits at the news, but at once sent and woke up the
Princesse d'Harcourt, and begged her to come and see him instantly.
Opening his purse, he prayed her to go and see Madame de Maintenon as
soon as she got up, and propose his marriage with Mademoiselle de Mailly,
whom he would take without dowry, if the King gave him his father's
appointments. The Princesse d'Harcourt, whose habit it was to accept any
sum, from a crown upwards, willingly undertook this strange business.
She went upon her errand immediately, and then repaired to Madame de
Mailly, who without property, and burdened with a troop of children--sons
and daughters, was in no way averse to the marriage.
The King, upon getting up, was duly made acquainted with La Vrilliere's
proposal, and at once agreed to it. There was only one person opposed to
the marriage, and that was Mademoiselle de Mailly. She was not quite
twelve years of age. She burst out a-crying, and declared she was very
unhappy, that she would not mind marrying a poor man, if necessary,
provided he was a gentleman, but that to marry a paltry bourgeois, in
order to make his fortune, was odious to her. She was furious against
her mother and against Madame de Maintenon. She could not be kept quiet
or appeased, or hindered from making grimaces at La Vrilliere and all his
family, who came to see her and her mother.
They felt it; but the bargain was made, and was too good to be broken.
They thought Mademoiselle de Mailly's annoyance would pass with her
youth--but they were mistaken. Mademoiselle de Mailly always was sore at
having been made Madame de la Vrilliere, and people often observed it.
At the marriage of Monseigneur the Duc de Bourgogne, the King had offered
to augment considerably his monthly income. The young Prince, who found
it sufficient, replied with thanks, and said that if money failed him at
any time he would take the liberty, of asking the King for more. Finding
himself short just now, he was as good as his word. The King praised him
highly, and told him to ask whenever he wanted money, not through a third
person, but direct, as he had done in this instance. The King, moreover,
told the Duc de Bourgogne to play without fear, for it was of no
consequence how much such persons as he might lose. The King was pleased
with confidence, but liked not less to see himself feared; and when timid
people who spoke to him discovered themselves, and grew embarrassed in
their discourse, nothing better made their court, or advanced their
interests.
The Archbishop of Rheims presided this year over the assembly of the
clergy, which was held every five years. It took place on this occasion
at Saint Germains, although the King of England occupied the chateau. M.
de Rheims kept open table there, and had some champagne that was much
vaunted. The King of England, who drank scarcely any other wine, heard
of this and asked for some. The Archbishop sent him six bottles. Some
time after, the King of England, who had much relished the wine, sent and
asked for more. The Archbishop, more sparing of his wine than of his
money, bluntly sent word that his wine was not mad, and did not run
through the streets; and sent none. However accustomed people might be
to the rudeness of the Archbishop, this appeared so strange that it was
much spoken of: but that was all.
M. de Vendome took another public leave of the King, the Princes, and the
Princesses, in order to place himself again under the doctor's hands.
He perceived at last that he was not cured, and that it would be long
before he was; so went to Anet to try and recover his health, but without
success better than before. He brought back a face upon which his state
was still more plainly printed than at first. Madame d'Uzes, only
daughter of the Prince de Monaco, died of this disease. She was a woman
of merit--very virtuous and unhappy--who merited a better fate.
M. d'Uzes was an obscure man, who frequented the lowest society, and
suffered less from its effects than his wife, who was much pitied and
regretted. Her children perished of the same disease, and she left none
behind her.--[Syphilis. D.W.]
Soon after this the King ordered the Comtes d'Uzes and d'Albert to go to
the Conciergerie for having fought a duel against the Comtes de Rontzau,
a Dane, and Schwartzenberg, an Austrian. Uzes gave himself up, but the
Comte d'Albert did not do so for a long Time, and was broken for his
disobedience. He had been on more than good terms with Madame de
Luxembourg--the Comte de Rontzau also: hence the quarrel; the cause of
which was known by everybody, and made a great stir. Everybody knew it,
at least, except M. de Luxembourg, and said nothing, but was glad of it;
and yet in every direction he asked the reason; but, as may be imagined,
could find nobody to tell him, so that he went over and over again to M.
le Prince de Conti, his most intimate friend, praying him for information
upon the subject. M. de Conti related to me that on one occasion, coming
from Meudon, he was so solicited by M. de Luxembourg on this account,
that he was completely embarrassed, and never suffered to such an extent
in all his life. He contrived to put off M. de Luxembourg, and said
nothing, but was glad indeed to get away from him at the end of the
journey.
Le Notre died about this time, after having been eighty-eight years in
perfect health, and with all his faculties and good taste to the very
last. He was illustrious, as having been the first designer of those
beautiful gardens which adorn France, and which, indeed, have so
surpassed the gardens of Italy, that the most famous masters of that
country come here to admire and learn. Le Notre had a probity, an
exactitude, and an uprightness which made him esteemed and loved by
everybody. He never forgot his position, and was always perfectly
disinterested. He worked for private people as for the King, and with
the same application--seeking only to aid nature, and to attain the
beautiful by the shortest road. He was of a charming simplicity and
truthfulness. The Pope, upon one occasion, begged the King to lend him
Le Notre for some months. On entering the Pope's chamber, instead of
going down upon his knees, Le Notre ran to the Holy Father, clasped him
round the neck, kissed him on the two cheeks, and said--"Good morning,
Reverend Father; how well you look, and how glad I am to see you in such
good health."
The Pope, who was Clement X., Altieri, burst out laughing with all his
might. He was delighted with this odd salutation, and showed his
friendship towards the gardener in a thousand ways. Upon Le Notre's
return, the King led him into the gardens of Versailles, and showed him
what had been done in his absence. About the Colonnade he said nothing.
The King pressed him to give his opinion thereupon.
"Why, sire," said Le Notre, "what can I say? Of a mason you have made a
gardener, and he has given you a sample of his trade."
The King kept silence and everybody laughed; and it was true that this
morsel of architecture, which was anything but a fountain, and yet which
was intended to be one, was much out of place in a garden. A month
before Le Notre's death, the King, who liked to see him and to make him
talk, led him into the gardens, and on account of his great age, placed
him in a wheeled chair, by the side of his own. Upon this Le Notre said,
"Ah, my poor father, if you were living and could see a simple gardener
like me, your son, wheeled along in a chair by the side of the greatest
King in the world, nothing would be wanting to my joy!"
Le Notre was Overseer of the Public Buildings, and lodged at the
Tuileries, the garden of which (his design), together with the Palace,
being under his charge. All that he did is still much superior to
everything that has been done since, whatever care may have been taken to
imitate and follow him as closely as possible. He used to say of flower-
beds that they were only good for nurses, who, not being able to quit the
children, walked on them with their eyes, and admired them from the
second floor. He excelled, nevertheless, in flowerbeds, as in everything
concerning gardens; but he made little account of them, and he was right,
for they are the spots upon which people never walk.
The King of England (William III.) lost the Duke of Gloucester, heir-
presumptive to the crown. He was eleven years of age, and was the only
son of the Princess of Denmark, sister of the defunct Queen Mary, wife of
William. His preceptor was Doctor Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, who was
in the secret of the invasion, and who passed into England with the
Prince of Orange at the Revolution, of which Revolution he has left a
very fraudulent history, and many other works of as little truth and good
faith. The underpreceptor was the famous Vassor, author of the "History
of Louis XIII.," which would be read with more pleasure if there were
less spite against the Catholic religion, and less passion against the
King. With those exceptions it is excellent and true. Vassor must have
been singularly well informed of the anecdotes that he relates, and which
escape almost all historians. I have found there, for instance, the Day
of the Dupes related precisely as my father has related it to me, and
several other curious things not less exact. This author has made such a
stir that it is worth while to say something about him. He was a priest
of the Oratory, and in much estimation as a man whose manners were
without reproach. After a time, however, he was found to have disclosed
a secret that had been entrusted to him, and to have acted the spy on
behalf of the Jesuits. The proofs of his treason were found upon his
table, and were so conclusive that there was nothing for him but to leave
the Oratory. He did so, and being deserted by his Jesuit employers,
threw himself into La Trappe. But he did not enter the place in a proper
spirit, and in a few days withdrew. After this he went to the Abbey of
Perseigne, hired a lodging there, and remained several months. But he
was continually at loggerheads with the monks. Their garden was separate
from his only by a thick hedge; their fowls could jump over it. He laid
the blame upon the monks, and one day caught as many of their fowls as he
could; cut off their beaks and their spurs with a cleaver, and threw them
back again over the hedge. This was cruelty so marked that I could not
refrain from relating it.
Vassor did not long remain in this retreat, but returned to Paris, and
still being unable to gain a living, passed into Holland, from rage and
hunger became a Protestant, and set himself to work to live by his pen.
His knowledge, talent, and intelligence procured him many friends, and
his reputation reached England, into which country he passed, hoping to
gain there more fortune than in Holland. Burnet received him with open
arms, and obtained for him the post of under-preceptor to the Duke of
Gloucester. It would have been difficult to have found two instructors
so opposed to the Catholics and to France, or so well suited to the King
as teachers of his successor.
Among so many things which paved the way for the greatest events, a very
strange one happened, which from its singularity merits a short recital.
For many years the Comtesse de Verrue lived at Turin, mistress, publicly,
of M. de Savoie. The Comtesse de Verrue was daughter of the Duc de
Luynes, and had been married in Piedmont, when she was only fourteen
years of age, to the Comte de Verrue, young, handsome, rich, and honest;
whose mother was lady of honour to Madame de Savoie.
M. de Savoie often met the Comtesse de Verrue, and soon found her much to
his taste. She saw this, and said so to her husband and her mother-in-
law. They praised her, but took no further notice of the matter. M. de
Savoie redoubled his attentions, and, contrary to his usual custom, gave
fetes, which the Comtesse de Verrue felt were for her. She did all she
could not to attend them, but her mother-in-law quarrelled with her, said
she wished to play the important, and that it was her vanity which gave
her these ideas. Her husband, more gentle, desired her to attend these
fetes, saying that even if M. de Savoie were really in love with her, it
would not do to fail in anything towards him. Soon after M. de Savoie
spoke to the Comtesse de Verrue. She told her husband and her mother-in-
law, and used every entreaty in order to prevail upon them to let her go
and pass some time in the country. They would not listen to her, and
seeing no other course open, she feigned to be ill, and had herself sent
to the waters of Bourbon. She wrote to her father, the Duc de Luynes, to
meet her there, and set out under the charge of the Abbe de Verrue; uncle
of her husband. As soon as the Duc de Luynes arrived at Bourbon, and
became acquainted with the danger which threatened his daughter; he
conferred with the Abbe as to the best course to adopt, and agreed with
him that the Countess should remain away from Turin some time, in order
that M. de Savoie might get cured of his passion. M. de Luynes little
thought that he had conferred with a wolf who wished to carry off his
lamb. The Abbe de Verrue, it seems, was himself violently in love with
the Countess, and directly her father had gone declared the state of his
heart. Finding himself only repulsed, the miserable old man turned his
love into hate; ill-treated the Countess, and upon her return to Turin,
lost no opportunity of injuring her in the eyes of her husband and her
mother-in-law.
The Comtesse de Verrue suffered this for some time, but at last her
virtue yielded to the bad treatment she received. She listened to M. de
Savoie, and delivered herself up to him in order to free herself from
persecution. Is not this a real romance? But it happened in our own
time, under the eyes and to the knowledge of everybody.
When the truth became known, the Verrues were in despair, although they
had only themselves to blame for what had happened. Soon the new
mistress ruled all the Court of Savoy, whose sovereign was at her feet as
before a goddess. She disposed of the favours of her lover, and was
feared and courted by the ministry. Her haughtiness made her hated; she
was poisoned; M. de Savoie gave her a subtle antidote, which fortunately
cured her, and without injury to her beauty. Her reign still lasted.
After a while she had the small-pox. M. de Savoie tended her during this
illness, as though he had been a nurse; and although her face suffered a
little by it, he loved her not the less. But he loved her after his own
fashion. He kept her shut up from view, and at last she grew so tired of
her restraint that she determined to fly. She conferred with her
brother, the Chevalier de Luynes, who served with much distinction in the
navy, and together they arranged the matter.
They seized an opportunity when M. de Savoie had gone on a tour to
Chambery, and departed furtively. Crossing our frontier, they arrived m
Paris, where the Comtesse de Verrue, who had grown very rich, took a
house, and by degrees succeeded in getting people to come and see her,
though, at first, owing to the scandal of her life, this was difficult.
In the end, her opulence gained her a large number of friends, and she
availed herself so well of her opportunities, that she became of much
importance, and influenced strongly the government. But that time goes
beyond my memoirs. She left in Turin a son and a daughter, both
recognised by M. de Savoie, after the manner of our King. He loved
passionately these, illegitimate children, and married the daughter to
the Prince de Carignan.
Mademoiselle de Conde died at Paris on October 24th, after a long
illness, from a disease in the chest, which consumed her less than the
torments she experienced without end from M. le Prince, her father, whose
continual caprices were the plague of all those over whom he could
exercise them. Almost all the children of M. le Prince were little
bigger than dwarfs, which caused M. le Prince, who was tall, to say in
pleasantry, that if his race went on always thus diminishing it would
come to nothing. People attributed the cause to a dwarf that Madame la
Princesse had had for a long time near her.
At the funeral of Mademoiselle de Conde, a very indecorous incident
happened. My mother, who was invited to take part in the ceremony, went
to the Hotel de Conde, in a coach and six horses, to join Mademoiselle
d'Enghien. When the procession was about to start the Duchesse de
Chatillon tried to take precedence of my mother. But my mother called
upon Mademoiselle d'Enghien to prevent this, or else to allow her to
return. Madame de Chatillon persisted in her attempt, saying that
relationship decided the question of precedence on these occasions, and
that she was a nearer relative to the deceased than my mother. My
mother, in a cold but haughty tone, replied that she could pardon this
mistake on account of the youth and ignorance of Madame de Chatillon; but
that in all such cases it was rank and not relationship which decided the
point. The dispute was at last put to an end by Madame de Chatillon
giving way. But when the procession started an attempt was made by her
coachman to drive before the coach of my mother, and one of the company
had to descend and decide the dispute. On the morrow M. le Prince sent
to apologise to my mother for the occurrence that had taken place, and
came himself shortly afterwards full of compliments and excuses. I never
could understand what induced Madame de Chatillon to take this fancy into
her head; but she was much ashamed of it afterwards, and made many
excuses to my mother.
I experienced, shortly after this, at Fontainebleau, one of the greatest
afflictions I had ever endured. I mean the loss of M. de La Trappe,
These Memoirs are too profane to treat slightly of a life so sublimely
holy, and of a death so glorious and precious before God. I will content
myself with saying here that praises of M. de La Trappe were so much the
more great and prolonged because the King eulogised him in public; that
he wished to see narrations of his death; and that he spoke more than
once of it to his grandsons by way of instruction. In every part of
Europe this great loss was severely felt. The Church wept for him, and
the world even rendered him justice. His death, so happy for him and so
sad for his friends, happened on the 26th of October, towards half-past
twelve, in the arms of his bishop, and in presence of his community, at
the age of nearly seventy-seven years, and after nearly forty years of
the most prodigious penance. I cannot omit, however, the most touching
and the most honourable mark of his friendship. Lying upon the ground,
on straw and ashes, in order to die like all the brethren of La Trappe,
he deigned, of his own accord, to recollect me, and charged the Abbe La
Trappe to send word to me, on his part, that as he was quite sure of my
affection for him, he reckoned that I should not doubt of his tenderness
for me. I check myself at this point; everything I could add would be
too much out of place here.
VOLUME 3.
CHAPTER XVIII
For the last two or three years the King of Spain had been in very weak
health, and in danger of his life several times. He had no children, and
no hope of having any. The question, therefore, of the succession to his
vast empire began now to agitate every European Court. The King of
England (William III.), who since his usurpation had much augmented his
credit by the grand alliance he had formed against France, and of which
he had been the soul and the chief up to the Peace of Ryswick, undertook
to arrange this question in a manner that should prevent war when the
King of Spain died. His plan was to give Spain, the Indies, the Low
Countries, and the title of King of Spain to the Archduke, second son of
the Emperor; Guipuscoa, Naples, Sicily, and Lorraine to France; and the
Milanese to M. de Lorraine, as compensation for taking away from him his
territory.
The King of England made this proposition first of all to our King; who,
tired of war, and anxious for repose, as was natural at his age, made few
difficulties, and soon accepted. M. de Lorraine was not in a position to
refuse his consent to a change recommended by England, France, and
Holland. Thus much being settled, the Emperor was next applied to. But
he was not so easy to persuade: he wished to inherit the entire
succession, and would not brook the idea of seeing the House of Austria
driven from Italy, as it would have been if the King of England's
proposal had been carried out. He therefore declared it was altogether
unheard of and unnatural to divide a succession under such circumstances,
and that he would hear nothing upon the subject until after the death of
the King of Spain. The resistance he made caused the whole scheme to
come to the ears of the King of Spain, instead of remaining a secret, as
was intended.
The King of Spain made a great stir in consequence of what had taken
place, as though the project had been formed to strip him, during his
lifetime, of his realm. His ambassador in England spoke so insolently
that he was ordered to leave the country by William, and retired to
Flanders. The Emperor, who did not wish to quarrel with England,
intervened at this point, and brought about a reconciliation between the
two powers. The Spanish ambassador returned to London.
The Emperor next endeavoured to strengthen his party in Spain. The
reigning Queen was his sister-in-law and was all-powerful. Such of the
nobility and of the ministers who would not bend before her she caused to
be dismissed; and none were favoured by her who were not partisans of the
House of Austria. The Emperor had, therefore, a powerful ally at the
Court of Madrid to aid him in carrying out his plans; and the King was so
much in his favour, that he had made a will bequeathing his succession to
the Archduke. Everything therefore seemed to promise success to the
Emperor.
But just at this time, a small party arose in Spain, equally opposed to
the Emperor, and to the propositions of the King of England. This party
consisted at first of only five persons: namely, Villafranca, Medina-
Sidonia, Villagarcias, Villena, and San Estevan, all of them nobles, and
well instructed in the affairs of government. Their wish was to prevent
the dismemberment of the Spanish kingdom by conferring the whole
succession upon the son of the only son of the Queen of France, Maria
Theresa, sister of the King of Spain. There were, however, two great
obstacles in their path. Maria Theresa, upon her marriage with our King,
had solemnly renounced all claim to the Spanish throne, and these
renunciations had been repeated at the Peace of the Pyrenees. The other
obstacle was the affection the King of Spain bore to the House of
Austria,--an affection which naturally would render him opposed to any
project by which a rival house would be aggrandised at its expense.
As to the first obstacle, these politicians were of opinion that the
renunciations made by Maria Theresa held good only as far as they applied
to the object for which they were made. That object was to prevent the
crowns of France and Spain from being united upon one head, as might have
happened in the person of the Dauphin. But now that the Dauphin had
three sons, the second of whom could be called to the throne of Spain,
the renunciations of the Queen became of no import. As to the second
obstacle, it was only to be removed by great perseverance and exertions;
but they determined to leave no stone unturned to achieve their ends.
One of the first resolutions of this little party was to bind one another
to secrecy. Their next was to admit into their confidence Cardinal
Portocarrero, a determined enemy to the Queen. Then they commenced an
attack upon the Queen in the council; and being supported by the popular
voice, succeeded in driving out of the country Madame Berlips, a German
favourite of hers, who was much hated on account of the undue influence
she exerted, and the rapacity she displayed. The next measure was of
equal importance. Madrid and its environs groaned under the weight of
a regiment of Germans commanded by the Prince of Darmstadt. The council
decreed that this regiment should be disbanded, and the Prince thanked
for his assistance. These two blows following upon each other so
closely, frightened the Queen, isolated her, and put it out of her power
to act during the rest of the life of the King.
There was yet one of the preliminary steps to take, without which it was
thought that success would not be certain. This was to dismiss the
King's Confessor, who had been given to him by the Queen, and who was a
zealous Austrian.
Cardinal Portocarrero was charged with this duty, and he succeeded so
well, that two birds were killed with one stone. The Confessor was
dismissed, and another was put in his place, who could be relied upon to
do and say exactly as he was requested. Thus, the King of Spain was
influenced in his conscience, which had over him so much the more power,
because he was beginning to look upon the things of this world by the
glare of that terrible flambeau that is lighted for the dying. The
Confessor and the Cardinal, after a short time, began unceasingly to
attack the King upon the subject of the succession. The King, enfeebled
by illness, and by a lifetime of weak health, had little power of
resistance. Pressed by the many temporal, and affrighted by the many
spiritual reasons which were brought forward by the two ecclesiastics,
with no friend near whose opinion he could consult, no Austrian at hand
to confer with, and no Spaniard who was not opposed to Austria;--the King
fell into a profound perplexity, and in this strait, proposed to consult
the Pope, as an authority whose decision would be infallible. The
Cardinal, who felt persuaded that the Pope was sufficiently enlightened
and sufficiently impartial to declare in favour of France, assented to
this step; and the King of Spain accordingly wrote a long letter to Rome,
feeling much relieved by the course he had adopted.
The Pope replied at once and in the most decided manner. He said he saw
clearly that the children of the Dauphin were the next heirs to the
Spanish throne, and that the House of Austria had not the smallest right
to it. He recommended therefore the King of Spain to render justice to
whom justice was due, and to assign the succession of his monarchy to a
son of France. This reply, and the letter which had given rise to it,
were kept so profoundly secret that they were not known in Spain until
after the King's death.
Directly the Pope's answer had been received the King was pressed to make
a fresh will, and to destroy that which he had previously made in favour
of the Archduke. The new will accordingly was at once drawn up and
signed; and the old one burned in the presence, of several witnesses.
Matters having arrived at this point, it was thought opportune to admit
others to the knowledge of what had taken place. The council of state,
consisting of eight members, four of whom were already in the secret, was
made acquainted with the movements of the new party; and, after a little
hesitation, were gained over.
The King, meantime, was drawing near to his end. A few days after he had
signed the new will he was at the last extremity, and in a few days more
he died. In his last moments the Queen had been kept from him as much as
possible, and was unable in any way to interfere with the plans that had
been so deeply laid. As soon as the King was dead the first thing to be
done was to open his will. The council of state assembled for that
purpose, and all the grandees of Spain who were in the capital took part
in it, The singularity and the importance of such an event, interesting
many millions of men, drew all Madrid to the palace, and the rooms
adjoining that in which the council assembled were filled to suffocation.
All the foreign ministers besieged the door. Every one sought to be the
first to know the choice of the King who had just died, in order to be
the first to inform his court. Blecourt, our ambassador, was there with
the others, without knowing more than they; and Count d'Harrach,
ambassador from the Emperor, who counted upon the will in favour of the
Archduke, was there also, with a triumphant look, just opposite the door,
and close by it.
At last the door opened, and immediately closed again. The Duc
d'Abrantes, a man of much wit and humour, but not to be trifled with,
came out. He wished to have the pleasure of announcing upon whom the
successorship had fallen, and was surrounded as soon as he appeared.
Keeping silence, and turning his eyes on all sides, he fixed them for a
moment on Blecourt, then looked in another direction, as if seeking some
one else. Blecourt interpreted this action as a bad omen. The Duc
d'Abrantes feigning at last to discover the Count d'Harrach, assumed a
gratified look, flew to him, embraced him, and said aloud in Spanish,
"Sir, it is with much pleasure;" then pausing, as though to embrace him
better, he added: "Yes, sir, it is with an extreme joy that for all my
life," here the embraces were redoubled as an excuse for a second pause,
after which he went on--"and with the greatest contentment that I part
from you, and take leave of the very august House of Austria." So saying
he clove the crowd, and every one ran after him to know the name of the
real heir.
The astonishment and indignation of Count d'Harrach disabled him from
speaking, but showed themselves upon his face in all their extent. He
remained motionless some moments, and then went away in the greatest
confusion at the manner in which he had been duped.
Blecourt, on the other hand, ran home without asking other information,
and at once despatched to the King a courier, who fell ill at Bayonne,
and was replaced by one named by Harcourt, then at Bayonne getting ready
for the occupation of Guipuscoa. The news arrived at Court
(Fontainebleau) in the month of November. The King was going out
shooting that day; but, upon learning what had taken place, at once
countermanded the sport, announced the death of the King of Spain, and at
three o'clock held a council of the ministers in the apartments of Madame
de Maintenon. This council lasted until past seven o'clock in the
evening. Monseigneur, who had been out wolf-hunting, returned in time to
attend it. On the next morning, Wednesday, another council was held, and
in the evening a third, in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon.
However accustomed persons were at the Court to the favour Madame de
Maintenon enjoyed there, they were extremely surprised to see two
councils assembled in her rooms for the greatest and most important
deliberation that had taken place during this long reign, or indeed
during many others.
The King, Monseigneur, the Chancellor, the Duc de Brinvilliers, Torcy,
and Madame de Maintenon, were the only persons who deliberated upon this
affair. Madame de Maintenon preserved at first a modest silence; but the
King forced her to give her opinion after everybody had spoken except
herself. The council was divided. Two were for keeping to the treaty
that had been signed with King William, two for accepting the will.
Monseigneur, drowned as he was in fat and sloth, appeared in quite
another character from his usual ones at these councils. To the great
surprise of the King and his assistants, when it was his turn to speak he
expressed himself with force in favour of accepting the testament. Then,
turning towards the King in a respectful but firm manner, he said that he
took the liberty of asking for his inheritance, that the monarchy of
Spain belonged to the Queen his mother, and consequently to him; that he
surrendered it willingly to his second son for the tranquillity of
Europe; but that to none other would he yield an inch of ground. These
words, spoken with an inflamed countenance, caused excessive surprise,
The King listened very attentively, and then said to Madame de Maintenon,
"And you, Madame, what do you think upon all this?" She began by
affecting modesty; but pressed, and even commanded to speak, she
expressed herself with becoming confusion; briefly sang the praises of
Monseigneur, whom she feared and liked but little--sentiments perfectly
reciprocated--and at last was for accepting the will.
[Illustration: Madame Maintenon In Conferance--Painted by Sir John
Gilbert--front1]
The King did not yet declare himself. He said that the affair might well
be allowed to sleep for four-and-twenty hours, in order that they might
ascertain if the Spaniards approved the choice of their King. He
dismissed the council, but ordered it to meet again the next evening at
the same hour and place. Next day, several couriers arrived from Spain,
and the news they brought left no doubt upon the King's mind as to the
wishes of the Spanish nobles and people upon the subject of the will.
When therefore the council reassembled in the apartments of Madame de
Maintenon, the King, after fully discussing the matter, resolved to
accept the will.
At the first receipt of the news the King and his ministers had been
overwhelmed with a surprise that they could not recover from for several
days. When the news was spread abroad, the Court was equally surprised.
The foreign ministers passed whole nights deliberating upon the course
the King would adopt. Nothing else was spoken of but this matter. The
King one evening, to divert himself, asked the princesses their opinion.
They replied that he should send M. le Duc d'Anjou (the second son of
Monseigneur), into Spain, and that this was the general sentiment.
"I am sure," replied the King, "that whatever course I adopt many people
will condemn me."
At last, on Tuesday, the 16th of November, the King publicly declared
himself. The Spanish ambassador had received intelligence which proved
the eagerness of Spain to welcome the Duc d'Anjou as its King. There
seemed to be no doubt of the matter. The King, immediately after getting
up, called the ambassador into his cabinet, where M. le Duc d'Anjou had
already arrived. Then, pointing to the Duke, he told the ambassador he
might salute him as King of Spain. The ambassador threw himself upon his
knees after the fashion of his country, and addressed to the Duke a
tolerably long compliment in the Spanish language. Immediately
afterwards, the King, contrary to all custom, opened the two folding
doors of his cabinet, and commanded everybody to enter. It was a very
full Court that day. The King, majestically turning his eyes towards the
numerous company, and showing them M. le Duc d'Anjou said--"Gentlemen,
behold the King of Spain. His birth called him to that crown: the late
King also has called him to it by his will; the whole nation wished for
him, and has asked me for him eagerly; it is the will of heaven: I have
obeyed it with pleasure." And then, turning towards his grandson, he
said, "Be a good Spaniard, that is your first duty; but remember that you
are a Frenchman born, in order that the union between the two nations may
be preserved; it will be the means of rendering both happy, and of
preserving the peace of Europe." Pointing afterwards with his finger to
the Duc d'Anjou, to indicate him to the ambassador, the King added, "If
he follows my counsels you will be a grandee, and soon; he cannot do
better than follow your advice."
When the hubbub of the courtiers had subsided, the two other sons of
France, brothers of M. d'Anjou, arrived, and all three embraced one
another tenderly several times, with tears in their eyes. The ambassador
of the Emperor immediately entered, little suspecting what had taken
place, and was confounded when he learned the news. The King afterwards
went to mass, during which at his right hand was the new King of Spain,
who during the rest of his stay in France, was publicly treated in every
respect as a sovereign, by the King and all the Court.
The joy of Monseigneur at all this was very great. He seemed beside
himself, and continually repeated that no man had ever found himself in a
condition to say as he could, "The King my father, and the King my son."
If he had known the prophecy which from his birth had been said of him,
"A King's son, a King's father, and never a King," which everybody had
heard repeated a thousand times, I think he would not have so much
rejoiced, however vain may be such prophecies. The King himself was so
overcome, that at supper he turned to the Spanish ambassador and said
that the whole affair seemed to him like a dream. In public, as I have
observed, the new King of Spain was treated in every respect as a
sovereign, but in private he was still the Duc d'Anjou. He passed his
evenings in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, where he played at all
sorts of children's games, scampering to and fro with Messeigneurs his
brothers, with Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and with the few ladies
to whom access was permitted.
On Friday, the 19th of November, the new King of Spain put on mourning.
Two days after, the King did the same. On Monday, the 22nd, letters were
received from the Elector of Bavaria, stating that the King of Spain had
been proclaimed at Brussels with much rejoicing and illuminations. On
Sunday, the 28th, M. Vaudemont, governor of the Milanese, sent word that
he had been proclaimed in that territory, and with the same
demonstrations of joy as at Brussels.
On Saturday, the 4th of December, the King of Spain set out for his
dominions. The King rode with him in his coach as far as Sceaux,
surrounded in pomp by many more guards than usual, gendarmes and light
horse, all the road covered with coaches and people; and Sceaux, where
they arrived a little after midday, full of ladies and courtiers, guarded
by two companies of Musketeers. There was a good deal of leave-taking,
and all the family was collected alone in the last room of the apartment;
but as the doors were left open, the tears they shed so bitterly could be
seen. In presenting the King of Spain to the Princes of the blood, the
King said--"Behold the Princes of my blood and of yours; the two nations
from this time ought to regard themselves as one nation; they ought to
have the same interests; therefore I wish these Princes to be attached to
you as to me; you cannot have friends more faithful or more certain."
All this lasted a good hour and a half. But the time of separation at
last came. The King conducted the King of Spain to the end of the
apartment, and embraced him several times, holding him a long while in.
his arms. Monseigneur did the same. The spectacle was extremely
touching.
The King returned into the palace for some time, in order to recover
himself. Monseigneur got into a caleche alone, and went to Meudon; and
the King of Spain, with his brother, M. de Noailles, and a large number
of courtiers, set out on his journey. The King gave to his grandson
twenty-one purses of a thousand louis each, for pocket-money, and much
money besides for presents. Let us leave them on their journey, and
admire the Providence which sports with the thoughts of men and disposes
of states. What would have said Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V. and
Philip II., who so many times attempted to conquer France, and who have
been so frequently accused of aspiring to universal monarchy, and Philip
IV., even, with all his precautions at the marriage of the King and at
the Peace of the Pyrenees,--what would they have said, to see a son of
France become King of Spain, by the will and testament of the last of
their blood in Spain, and by the universal wish of all the Spaniards--
without plot, without intrigue, without a shot being fired on our part,
and without the sanction of our King, nay even to his extreme surprise
and that of all his ministers, who had only the trouble of making up
their minds and of accepting? What great and wise reflections might be
made thereon! But they would be out of place in these Memoirs.
The King of Spain arrived in Madrid on the 19th February. From his first
entrance into the country he had everywhere been most warmly welcomed.
Acclamations were uttered when he appeared; fetes and bull-fights were
given in his honour; the nobles and ladies pressed around him. He had
been proclaimed in Madrid some time before, in the midst of
demonstrations of joy. Now that he had arrived among his subjects there,
that joy burst out anew. There was such a crowd in the streets that
sixty people were stifled! All along the line of route were an infinity
of coaches filled with ladies richly decked. The streets through which
he passed were hung in the Spanish fashion; stands were placed, adorned
with fine pictures and a vast number of silver vessels; triumphal arches
were built from side to side. It is impossible to conceive a greater or
more general demonstration of joy. The Buen-Retiro, where the new King
took up his quarters, was filled with the Court and the nobility. The
junta and a number of great men received him at the door, and the
Cardinal Portocarrero, who was there, threw himself on his knees, and
wished to kiss the King's hand. But the King would not permit this;
raised the Cardinal, embraced him, and treated him as his father. The
Cardinal wept with joy, and could not take his eyes off the King. He was
just then in the flower of his first youth--fair like the late King
Charles, and the Queen his grandmother; grave, silent, measured, self-
contained, formed exactly to live among Spaniards. With all this, very
attentive in his demeanour, and paying everybody the attention due to
him, having taken lessons from d'Harcourt on the way. Indeed he took off
his hat or raised it to nearly everybody, so that the Spaniards spoke on
the subject to the Duc d'Harcourt, who replied to them that the King in
all essential things would conform himself to usage, but that in others
he must be allowed to act according to French politeness. It cannot be
imagined how much these trifling external attentions attached all hearts
to this Prince.
He was, indeed, completely triumphant in Spain, and the Austrian party as
completely routed. The Queen of Spain was sent away from Madrid, and
banished to Toledo, where she remained with but a small suite, and still
less consideration. Each day the nobles, the citizens, and the people
had given fresh proof of their hatred against the Germans and against the
Queen. She had been almost entirely abandoned, and was refused the most
ordinary necessaries of her state.
CHAPTER XIX
Shortly after his arrival in Madrid, the new King of Spain began to look
about him for a wife, and his marriage with the second daughter of M. de
Savoie (younger sister of Madame de Bourgogne) was decided upon as an
alliance of much honour and importance to M. de Savoie, and, by binding
him to her interest, of much utility to France. An extraordinary
ambassador (Homodei, brother of the Cardinal of that name) was sent to
Turin to sign the contract of marriage, and bring back the new Queen into
Spain. He was also appointed her Ecuyer, and the Princesse des Ursins
was selected as her 'Camarera Mayor', a very important office. The
Princesse des Ursins seemed just adapted for it. A Spanish lady could
not have been relied upon: a lady of our court would not have been fit
for the post. The Princesse des Ursins was, as it were, both French and
Spanish--French by birth, Spanish by marriage. She had passed the
greater part of her life in Rome and Italy, and was a widow without
children. I shall have more hereafter to say of this celebrated woman,
who so long and so publicly governed the Court and Crown of Spain, and
who has made so much stir in the world by her reign and by her fall; at
present let me finish with the new Queen of Spain.
She was married, then, at Turin, on the 11th of September, with but
little display, the King being represented by procuration, and set out on
the 13th for Nice, where she was to embark on board the Spanish galleys
for Barcelona. The King of Spain, meanwhile, after hearing news that he
had been proclaimed with much unanimity and rejoicing in Peru and Mexico,
left Madrid on the 5th of September, to journey through Aragon and
Catalonia to Barcelona to meet his wife. He was much welcomed on his
route, above all by Saragossa, which received him magnificently.
The new Queen of Spain, brought by the French galleys to Nice, was so
fatigued with the sea when she arrived there, that she determined to
finish the rest of the journey by land, through Provence and Languedoc.
Her graces, her presence of mind, the aptness and the politeness of her
short replies, and her judicious curiosity, remarkable at her age,
surprised everybody, and gave great hopes to the Princesse des Ursins.
When within two days' journey of Barcelona, the Queen was met by a
messenger, bearing presents and compliments from the King. All her
household joined her at the same time, being sent on in advance for that
purpose, and her Piedmontese attendants were dismissed. She appeared
more affected by this separation than Madame de Bourgogne had been when
parting from her attendants. She wept bitterly, and seemed quite lost in
the midst of so many new faces, the most familiar of which (that of
Madame des Ursins) was quite fresh to her. Upon arriving at Figueras,
the King, impatient to see her, went on before on horseback. In this
first embarrassment Madame des Ursins, although completely unknown to the
King, and but little known to the Queen, was of great service to both.
Upon arriving at Figueras, the bishop diocesan married them anew, with
little ceremony, and soon after they sat down to supper, waited upon by
the Princesse des Ursins and the ladies of the palace, half the dishes
being French, half Spanish. This mixture displeased the ladies of the
palace and several of the Spanish grandees, who plotted with the ladies
openly to mark their displeasure; and they did so in a scandalous manner.
Under one pretext or another--such as the weight or heat of the dishes--
not one of the French dishes arrived upon the table; all were upset;
while the Spanish dishes, on the contrary, were served without any
accident. The affectation and air of chagrin, to say the least of it,
of the ladies of the palace, were too visible not to be perceived. But
the King and Queen were wise enough to appear not to notice this; and
Madame des Ursins, much astonished, said not a word.
After a long and disagreeable supper, the King and Queen withdrew. Then
feelings which had been kept in during supper overflowed. The Queen wept
for her Piedmontese women. Like a child, as she was, she thought herself
lost in the hands of ladies so insolent; and when it was time to go to
bed, she said flatly that she would not go, and that she wished to return
home. Everything was done to console her; but the astonishment and
embarrassment were great indeed when it was found that all was of no
avail. The King had undressed, and was awaiting her. Madame des Ursins
was at length obliged to go and tell him the resolution the Queen had
taken. He was piqued and annoyed. He had until that time lived with the
completest regularity; which had contributed to make him find the
Princess more to his taste than he might otherwise have done. He was
therefore affected by her 'fantaisie', and by the same reason easily
persuaded that she would not keep to it beyond the first night. They did
not see each other therefore until the morrow, and after they were
dressed. It was lucky that by the Spanish custom no one was permitted to
be present when the newly-married pair went to bed; or this affair, which
went no further than the young couple, Madame des Ursins, and one or two
domestics, might have made a very unpleasant noise.
Madame des Ursins consulted with two of the courtiers, as to the best
measures to be adopted with a child who showed so much force and
resolution. The night was passed in exhortations and in promises upon
what had occurred at the supper; and the Queen consented at last to
remain Queen. The Duke of Medina-Sidonia and Count San Estevan were
consulted on the morrow. They were of opinion that in his turn the King,
in order to mortify her and reduce her to terms, should not visit the
Queen on the following night. This opinion was acted upon. The King and
Queen did not see each other in private that day. In the evening the
Queen was very sorry. Her pride and her little vanity were wounded;
perhaps also she had found the King to her taste.
The ladies and the grand seigneurs who had attended at the supper were
lectured for what had occurred there. Excuses, promises, demands for
pardon, followed; all was put right; the third day was tranquil, and the
third night still more agreeable to the young people. On the fourth day
they went to Barcelona, where only fetes and pleasures awaited them.
Soon after they set out for Madrid.
At the commencement of the following year (1702), it was resolved, after
much debate, at our court, that Philip V. should make a journey to Italy,
and on Easter-day he set out. He went to Naples, Leghorn, Milan, and
Alessandria. While at the first-named place a conspiracy which had been
hatching against his life was discovered, and put down. But other things
which previously occurred in Italy ought to have been related before. I
must therefore return to them now.
From the moment that Philip V. ascended the Spanish throne it was seen
that a war was certain. England maintained for some time an obstinate
silence, refusing to acknowledge the new King; the Dutch secretly
murmured against him, and the Emperor openly prepared for battle. Italy,
it was evident at once, would be the spot on which hostilities would
commence, and our King lost no time in taking measures to be ready for
events. By land and by sea every preparation was made for the struggle
about to take place.
After some time the war, waited for and expected by all Europe, at last
broke out, by some Imperialist troops firing upon a handful of men near
Albaredo. One Spaniard was killed, and all the rest of the men were
taken prisoners. The Imperialists would not give them up until a cartel
was arranged. The King, upon hearing this, at once despatched the
general officers to Italy. Our troops were to be commanded by Catinat,
under M. de Savoie; and the Spanish troops by Vaudemont, who was
Governor-General of the Milanese, and to whom, and his dislike to our
King, I have before alluded.
Vaudemont at once began to plot to overthrow Catinat, in conjunction with
Tesse, who had expected the command, and who was irritated because it had
not been given to him. They were in communication with Chamillart,
Minister of War, who aided them, as did other friends at Court, to be
hereafter named, in carrying out their object. It was all the more easy
because they had to do with a man who depended for support solely upon
his own talent, and whose virtue and simplicity raised him above all
intrigue and scheming; and who, with much ability and intelligence, was
severe in command, very laconic, disinterested, and of exceeding pure
life.
Prince Eugene commanded the army of the Emperor in Italy. The first two
generals under him, in order of rank, were allied with Vaudemont: one, in
fact, was his only son; the other was the son of a friend of his. The
least reflection ought to have opened all eyes to the conduct of
Vaudemont, and to have discerned it to be more than suspicious. Catinat
soon found it out. He could plan nothing against the enemy that they did
not learn immediately; and he never attempted any movement without
finding himself opposed by a force more than double his own; so gross was
this treachery.
Catinat often complained of this: he sent word of it to the Court, but
without daring to draw any conclusion from what happened. Nobody
sustained him at Court, for Vaudemont had everybody in his favour. He
captured our general officers by his politeness, his magnificence, and,
above all, by presenting them with abundant supplies. All the useful,
and the agreeable, came from his side; all the dryness, all the
exactitude, came from Catinat. It need not be asked which of the two had
all hearts. In fine, Tesse and Vaudemont carried out their schemes so
well that Catinat could do nothing.
While these schemes were going on, the Imperialists were enabled to gain
time, to strengthen themselves, to cross the rivers without obstacle, to,
approach us; and, acquainted with everything as they were, to attack a
portion of our army on the 9th July, at Capri, with five regiments of
cavalry and dragoons. Prince Eugene led this attack without his coming
being in the least degree suspected, and fell suddenly upon our troops.
Tesse, who was in the immediate neighbourhood with some dragoons,
advanced rapidly upon hearing this, but only with a few dragoons. A long
resistance was made, but at last retreat became necessary. It was
accomplished in excellent order, and without disturbance from the enemy;
but our loss was very great, many officers of rank being among the dead.
Such was our first exploit in Italy; all the fault of which was
attributed to Catinat. Tesse and Vaudemont did everything in their power
to secure his disgrace. The King, indeed, thus prejudiced against
Catinat, determined to take from him the command, and appointed the
Marechal de Villeroy as his successor. The surprise of everybody at this
was very great, for no one expected that the Marechal de Villeroy would
repair the fault of Catinat. On the evening of his appointment, this
general was exposed in a very straightforward and public manner by M. de
Duras. He did not like the Marechal de Villeroy; and, while everybody
else was applauding, took the Marechal by the arm, and said, "Monsieur le
Marechal, everybody is paying you compliments upon your departure to
Italy, I keep mine until you return;" and then, bursting out laughing, he
looked round upon the company. Villeroy remained confounded, without
offering a word. Everybody smiled and looked down. The King took no
notice.
Catinat, when the command was taken out of his hands by the Marechal de
Villeroy, made himself admired on every side by the moderation and
tranquillity with which he conducted himself. If Vaudemont was satisfied
with the success of his schemes, it was far otherwise with Tesse, who had
merely intrigued against Catinat for the purpose of obtaining the command
of the army. He did all in his power to ingratiate himself into the
favour of the Marechal de Villeroy; but the Marechal received these
advances very coldly. Tesse's schemes against Catinat were beginning to
be scented out; he was accused of having wished the Imperialists to
succeed at Capri, and of indirectly aiding them by keeping back his
troops; his tirades against Catinat, too, made him suspected. The
Marechal de Villeroy would have nothing to do with him. His conduct was
contrasted with that of Catinat, who, free after his fall to retire from
the army, continued to remain there, with rare modesty, interfering in
nothing.
The first campaign passed without notable incident, except an
unsuccessful attack upon Chiari, by our troops on the 1st of September.
M. de Savoie led the attack; but was so firmly met by Prince Eugene, who
was in an excellent position for defence, that he could do nothing, and
in the end was compelled to retire disgracefully. We lost five or six
colonels and many men, and had a large number wounded. This action much
astonished our army, and encouraged that of the enemy, who did almost as
they wished during the rest of the campaign.
Towards the end of this campaign, the grand airs of familiarity which the
Marechal de Villeroy gave himself with M. de Savoie drew upon him a cruel
rebuke, not to say an affront. M. de Savoie being in the midst of all
the generals and of the flower of the army, opened, while talking, his
snuff-box, and was about to take a pinch of snuff, when M. de Villeroy,
who was standing near, stretched out his hand and put it into the box
without saying a word. M. de Savoie flushed up, and instantly threw all
the snuff upon the ground, gave the box to one of his attendants, and
told him to fill it again. The Marechal, not knowing what to do with
himself, swallowed his shame without daring to say a word, M. de Savoie
continuing the conversation that he had not interrupted, except to ask
for the fresh snuff.
The campaign passed away, our troops always retreating, the Imperialists
always gaining ground; they continually increasing in numbers; we
diminishing little by little every day. The Marechal de Villeroy and
Prince Eugene each took up his winter quarters and crossed the frontier:
M. de Savoie returned to Turin, and Catinat went to Paris. The King
received him well, but spoke of nothing but unimportant matters, and gave
him no private audience, nor did he ask for one.
Prince Eugene, who was more knowing than the Marechal de Villeroy, had
obliged him to winter in the midst of the Milanese, and kept him closely
pressed there, while his own troops enjoyed perfect liberty, by means of
which they much disturbed ours. In this advantageous situation, Prince
Eugene conceived the design of surprising the centre of our quarters, and
by that blow to make himself master of our positions, and afterwards of
Milan, and other places of the country, all in very bad order; thus
finishing effectively and suddenly his conquest.
Cremona was our centre, and it was defended by a strong garrison. Prince
Eugene ascertained that there was at Cremona an ancient aqueduct which
extended far out into the country, and which started from the town in the
vault of a house occupied by a priest. He also learnt that this aqueduct
had been recently cleaned, but that it carried very little water, and
that in former times the town had been surprised by means of it. He
caused the entrance of the aqueduct, in the country, to be reconnoitred,
he gained over the priest in whose vault it ended, and who lived close to
one of the gates of the city, which was walled up and but little guarded;
he sent into Cremona as many chosen soldiers as he could, disguised as
priests or peasants, and these hiding themselves in the house of the
friendly priest, obtained secretly as many axes as they could. Then the
Prince despatched five hundred picked men and officers to march by the
aqueduct to the priest's vault; he put Thomas de Vaudemont, son of the
Governor General of the Milanese, at the head of a large detachment of
troops, with orders to occupy a redoubt that defended the Po, and to come
by the bridge to his assistance, when the struggle commenced in the town;
and he charged the soldiers secreted in the priest's house to break down
the walled-up gate, so as to admit the troops whom he would lead there.
Everything, thus concerted with exactness, was executed with precision,
and with all possible secrecy and success. It was on the 1st of
February, 1702, at break of day, that the surprise was attempted. The
Marechal de Villeroy had only arrived in the town on the previous night.
The first person who got scent of what was going forward was the cook of
the Lieutenant-General Crenan, who going out in the early morning to buy
provisions, saw the streets full of soldiers, whose uniforms were unknown
to him. He ran back and awakened his master. Neither he nor his valets
would believe what the cook said, but nevertheless Crenan hurriedly
dressed himself, went out, and was only too soon convinced that it was
true.
At the same time, by a piece of good luck, which proved the saving of
Cremona, a regiment under the command of D'Entragues, drew up in battle
array in one of the public places. D'Entragues was a bold and skilful
soldier, with a great desire to distinguish himself. He wished to review
this regiment, and had commenced business before the dawn. While the
light was still uncertain and feeble, and his battalions were under arms,
he indistinctly perceived infantry troops forming at the end of the
street, in front of him. He knew by the order's given on the previous
evening that no other review was to take place except his own. He
immediately feared, therefore, some surprise, marched at once to these
troops, whom he found to be Imperialists, charged them, overthrew them,
sustained the shock of the fresh troops which arrived, and kept up a
defence so obstinate, that he gave time to all the town to awake, and to
the majority of the troops to take up arms. Without him, all would have
been slaughtered as they slept.
Just at dawn the Marechal de Villeroy, already up and dressed, was
writing in his chamber. He heard a noise, called for a horse, and
followed by a single aide-de-camp and a page, threaded his way through
the streets to the grand place, which is always the rendezvous in case of
alarm. At the turning of one of the streets he fell into the midst of an
Imperialist corps de garde, who surrounded him and arrested him. Feeling
that it was impossible to defend himself, the Marechal de Villeroy
whispered his name to the officer, and promised him ten thousand
pistoles, a regiment, and the grandest recompenses from the King, to be
allowed to escape. The officer was, however, above all bribes, said he
had not served the Emperor so long in order to end by betraying him, and
conducted the Marechal de Villeroy to Prince Eugene, who did not receive
him so well as he himself would have been received, under similar
circumstances, by the Marechal. While in the suite of Prince Eugene,
Villeroy saw Crenan led in prisoner, and wounded to the death, and
exclaimed that he should like to be in his place. A moment after they
were both sent out of the town, and passed the day, guarded, in the coach
of Prince Eugene.
Revel, become commander-in-chief by the capture of the Marechal de
Villeroy, tried to rally the troops. There was a fight in every street;
the troops dispersed about, some in detachments, several scarcely armed;
some only in their shirts fought with the greatest bravery. They were
driven at last to the ramparts, where they had time to look about them,
to rally and form themselves. If the enemy had not allowed our troops
time to gain the ramparts, or if they had driven them beyond this
position, when they reached it, the town could never have held out. But
the imperialists kept themselves entirely towards the centre of the town,
and made no effort to fall upon our men, or to drive them from the
ramparts.
Praslin, who had the command of our cavalry, put himself at the head of
some Irish battalions which under him did wonders. Although continually
occupied in defending and attacking, Praslin conceived the idea that the
safety of Cremona depended upon the destruction of the bridge of the Po,
so that the Imperialists could not receive reinforcements from that
point. He repeated this so many times, that Revel was informed of it,
and ordered Praslin to do what he thought most advisable in the matter.
Thereupon, Praslin instantly commanded the bridge to be broken down:
There was not a moment to lose. Thomas de Vaudemont was already
approaching the bridge at the head of his troops. But the bridge,
nevertheless, was destroyed before his eyes, and with all his musketeers
he was not able to prevent it.
It was now three o'clock in the afternoon. Prince Eugene was at the
Hotel de Ville, swearing in the magistrates. Leaving that place, and
finding that his troops were giving way, he ascended the cathedral
steeple to see what was passing in different parts of the town, and to
discover why the troops of Thomas de Vaudemont did not arrive. He had
scarcely reached the top of the steeple, when he saw his detachments on
the banks of the Po, and the bridge broken, thus rendering their
assistance useless. He was not more satisfied with what he discovered in
every other direction. Furious at seeing his enterprise in such bad
case, after having been so nearly successful, he descended, tearing his
hair and yelling. From that time, although superior in force, he thought
of nothing but retreat.
Revel, who saw that his troops were overwhelmed by hunger, fatigue, and
wounds, for since the break of day they had had no repose or leisure,
thought on his side of withdrawing his men into the castle of Cremona,
in order, at least, to defend himself under cover, and to obtain a
capitulation. So that the two opposing chiefs each thought at one and
the same time of retreat.
Towards the evening therefore the combat slackened on both sides, until
our troops made a last effort to drive the enemy from one of the gates of
the town; so as to have that gate free and open during the night to let
in assistance. The Irish seconded so well this attack, that it was at
length successful. A tolerably long calm succeeded this last struggle.
Revel, nevertheless, thought of withdrawing his troops to the castle,
when Mahony, an Irish officer who had fought bravely as a lion all day,
proposed to go and see what was passing all around. It was already
growing dark; the reconnoiterers profited by this. They saw that
everything was tranquil, and understood that the enemy had retreated.
This grand news was carried to Revel, who, with many around him, was a
long time in believing it. Persuaded at last, he left everything as it
was then, until broad daylight, when he found that the enemy had gone,
and that the streets and public places were filled with the wounded, the
dying, and the dead. He made arrangements for everything, and dispatched
Mahony to the King.
Prince Eugene retreated all that night with the detachment he had led,
and made the Marechal de Villeroy, disarmed and badly mounted, follow
him, very indecently. The Marechal was afterwards sent to Gratz in
Styria. Crenan died in the coach of the Marechal de Villeroy.
D'Entragues, to whose valour the safety of Cremona was owing, did not
survive this glorious day. Our loss was great; that of the enemy
greater.
The news of this, the most surprising event that has been heard of in
recent ages, was brought to the King at Marly on the 9th of February,
1702, by Mahony. Soon after it arrived I heard of it, and at once
hastened to the chateau, where I found a great buzzing and several groups
of people talking. Mahony was closeted a long time with the King. At
the end of an hour the King came out of his cabinet, and spoke strongly
in praise of what had occurred. He took pleasure in dwelling at great
length upon Mahony, and declared that he had never heard anybody give
such a clear and good account of an occurrence as he. The King kindly
added that he should bestow a thousand francs a year upon Mahony, and a
brevet of Colonel.
In the evening M. le Prince de Conti told me that the King had decorated
Revel, and made Praslin Lieutenant-General. As the latter was one of my
particular friends, this intelligence gave me much joy. I asked again to
be more sure of the news. The other principal officers were advanced in
proportion to their grades, and many received pensions.
As for the Marechal de Villeroy he was treated as those who excite envy
and then become unfortunate are always treated. The King, however,
openly took his part; and in truth it was no fault of the Marechal, who
had arrived at Cremona the day before the surprise, that he was taken
prisoner directly he set his foot in the street.--How could he know of
the aqueduct, the barred-up gate, and the concealed soldiers?
Nevertheless, his friends were plunged into the greatest grief, and his
wife, who had not been duped by the eclat which accompanied her husband
upon his departure for Italy, but who feared for the result, was
completely overwhelmed, and for a long time could not be prevailed upon
to see anybody.
M. de Vendome was appointed successor to M. de Villeroy, in command of
the army in Italy.
CHAPTER XX
But it is time now for me to go back to other matters, and to start again
from the commencement of 1701, from which I have been led by reciting, in
a continuous story, the particulars of our first campaign in Italy.
Barbezieux had viewed with discontent the elevation of Chamillart. His
pride and presumption rose in arms against it; but as there was no remedy
he gave himself up to debauch, to dissipate his annoyance. He had built
between Versailles and Vaucresson, at the end of the park of Saint Cloud,
a house in the open fields, called l'Etang, which though in the dismalest
position in the world had cost him millions. He went there to feast and
riot with his friends; and committing excesses above his strength, was
seized with a fever, and died in a few days, looking death steadily in
the face. He was told of his approaching end by the Archbishop of
Rheims; for he would not believe Fagon.
He was thirty-three years of age, with a striking and expressive
countenance, and much wit and aptitude for labour. He was remarkable for
grace, fine manners, and winning ways; but his pride and ambition were
excessive, and when his fits of ill-temper came, nothing could repress
them. Resistance always excited and irritated him. He had accustomed
the King--whenever he had drunk too much, or when a party of pleasure was
toward--to put off work to another time. It was a great question,
whether the State gained or lost most by his death?
As soon as he was dead, Saint-Pouange went to Marly to tell the news to
the King, who was so prepared for it that two hours before, starting from
Versailles, he had left La Vrilliere behind to put the seals everywhere.
Fagon, who had condemned him at once, had never loved him or his father,
and was accused of over-bleeding him on purpose. At any rate he allowed,
at one of his last visits, expressions of joy to escape him because
recovery was impossible. Barbezieux used to annoy people very much by
answering aloud when they spoke to him in whispers, and by keeping
visitors waiting whilst he was playing with his dogs or some base
parasite.
Many people, especially divers beautiful ladies, lost much by his death.
Some of the latter looked very disconsolate in the salon at Marly; but
when they had gone to table, and the cake had been cut (it was Twelfth
Night), the King manifested a joy which seemed to command imitation.
He was not content with exclaiming "The Queen drinks," but as in a common
wine-shop, he clattered his spoon and fork on his plate, and made others
do so likewise, which caused a strange din, that lasted at intervals all
through the supper. The snivellers made more noise than the others, and
uttered louder screams of laughter; and the nearest relatives and best
friends were still more riotous. On the morrow all signs of grief had
disappeared.
Chamillart was appointed in the place of Barbezieux, as Secretary of
State; and wanted to give up the Finance, but the King, remembering the
disputes of Louvois and Colbert, insisted on his occupying both posts.
Chamillart was a very worthy man, with clean hands and the best
intentions; polite, patient, obliging, a good friend, and a moderate
enemy, loving his country, but his King better; and on very good terms
with him and Madame de Maintenon. His mind was limited and; like all
persons of little wit and knowledge, he was obstinate and pig-headed--
smiling affectedly with a gentle compassion on whoever opposed reasons to
his, but utterly incapable of understanding them--consequently a dupe in
friendship, in business, in everything; governed by all who could manage
to win his admiration, or on very slight grounds could claim his
affection. His capacity was small, and yet he believed he knew
everything, which was the more pitiable, as all this came to him with his
places, and arose more from stupidity than presumption--not at all from
vanity, of which he was divested. The most remarkable thing is that the
chief origin of the King's tender regard for him was this very
incapacity. He used to confess it to the King at every opportunity; and
the King took pleasure in directing and instructing him, so that he was
interested in his successes as if they had been his own, and always
excused him. The world and the Court excused him also, charmed by the
facility with which he received people, the pleasure he felt in granting
requests and rendering services, the gentleness and regretfulness of his
refusals, and his indefatigable patience as a listener. His memory was
so great that he remembered all matters submitted to him, which gave
pleasure to people who were afraid of being forgotten. He wrote
excellently; and his clear, flowing, and precise style was extremely
pleasing to the King and Madame de Maintenon, who were never weary of
praising him, encouraging him, and congratulating themselves for having
placed upon such weak shoulders two burdens, each of which was sufficient
to overwhelm the most sturdy.
Rose, secretary in the King's cabinet, died, aged about eighty-six, at
the commencement of the year 1701. For nearly fifty years he had held
the office of the "pen," as it is called. To have the "pen," is to be a
public forger, and to do what would cost anybody else his life. This
office consists in imitating so exactly the handwriting of the King; that
the real cannot be distinguished from the counterfeit. In this manner
are written all the letters that the King ought or wishes to write with
his own hand, but which, nevertheless, he will not take the trouble to
write. Sovereigns and people of high rank, even generals and others of
importance, employ a secretary of this kind. It is not possible to make
a great King speak with more dignity than did Rose; nor with more fitness
to each person, and upon every subject. The King signed all the letters
Rose wrote, and the characters were so alike it was impossible to find
the smallest difference. Many important things had passed through the
hands of Rose: He was extremely faithful and secret, and the King put
entire trust in him.
Rose was artful, scheming, adroit, and dangerous. There are stories
without number of him; and I will relate one or two solely because they
characterise him, and those to whom they also relate.
He had, near Chantilly, a nice house and grounds that he much liked, and
that he often visited. This little property bordered the estate of M. le
Prince, who, not liking so close a neighbour, wished to get rid of him.
M. le Prince endeavoured to induce Rose to give up his house and grounds,
but all to no effect; and at last tried to annoy him in various ways into
acquiescence. Among other of his tricks, he put about four hundred
foxes, old and young, into Rose's park. It may be imagined what disorder
this company made there, and the surprise of Rose and his servants at an
inexhaustible ant-hill of foxes come to one night!
The worthy fellow, who was anger and vehemence itself, knew only too well
who had treated him thus scurvily, and straightway went to the King,
requesting to be allowed to ask him rather a rough question. The King,
quite accustomed to him and to his jokes,--for he was pleasant and very
witty, demanded what was the matter.
"What is the matter, Sire?" replied Rose, with a face all flushed.
"Why, I beg you will tell me if we have two Kings in France?"
"What do you mean?" said the King, surprised, and flushing in his turn.
"What I mean, Sire, is, that if M. le Prince is King like you, folks must
weep and lower their heads before that tyrant. If he is only Prince of
the blood, I ask justice from you, Sire, for you owe it to all your
subjects, and you ought not to suffer them to be the prey of M. le
Prince," said Rose; and he related everything that had taken place,
concluding with the adventure of the foxes.
The King promised that he would speak to M. le Prince in a manner to
insure the future repose of Rose; and, indeed, he ordered all the foxes
to be removed from the worthy man's park, all the damages they had made
to be repaired, and all the expenses incurred to be paid by M. le Prince.
M. le Prince was too good a courtier to fail in obeying this order, and
never afterwards troubled Rose in the least thing; but, on the contrary,
made all the advances towards a reconciliation. Rose was obliged to
receive them, but held himself aloof, nevertheless, and continually let
slip some raillery against M. le Prince. I and fifty others were one day
witnesses of this.
M. le Prince was accustomed to pay his court to the ministers as they
stood waiting to attend the council in the King's chamber; and although
he had nothing to say, spoke to them with the mien of a client obliged to
fawn. One morning, when there was a large assembly of the Court in this
chamber, and M. le Prince had been cajoling the ministers with much
suppleness and flattery, Secretary Rose, who saw what had been going on,
went up to him on a sudden, and said aloud, putting one finger under his
closed eye, as was sometimes his habit, "Sir, I have seen your scheming
here with all these gentlemen, and for several days; it is not for
nothing. I have known the Court and mankind many years; and am not to be
imposed upon: I see clearly where matters point:" and this with turns and
inflections of voice which thoroughly embarrassed M. le Prince, who
defended himself as he could. Every one crowded to hear what was going
on; and at last Rose, taking M. le Prince respectfully by his arm, said,
with a cunning and meaning smile; "Is it not that you wish to be made
first Prince of the blood royal?" Then he turned on his heel, and
slipped off. The Prince was stupefied; and all present tried in vain to
restrain their laughter.
Rose had never pardoned M. de Duras an ill turn the latter had served
him. During one of the Court journeys, the carriage in which Rose was
riding broke down. He took a horse; but, not being a good equestrian,
was very soon pitched into a hole full of mud. While there M. de Duras
passed, and Rose from the midst of the mire cried for help. But M. de
Duras, instead of giving assistance, looked from his coach-window, burst
out laughing, and cried out: "What a luxurious horse thus to roll upon
Roses!"--and with this witticism passed gently on through the mud. The
next comer, the Duc de Coislin, was more charitable; he picked up the
worthy man, who was so furious, so carried away by anger, that it was
some time before he could say who he was. But the worst was to come; for
M. de Duras, who feared nobody, and whose tongue was accustomed to wag as
freely as that of Rose, told the story to the King and to all the Court,
who much laughed at it. This outraged Rose to such a point, that he
never afterwards approached M. de Duras, and only spoke of him in fury.
Whenever he hazarded some joke upon M. de Duras, the King began to laugh,
and reminded him of the mud-ducking he had received.
Towards the end of his life, Rose married his granddaughter, who was to
be his heiress, to Portail, since Chief President of the Parliament.
The marriage was not a happy one; the young spouse despised her husband;
and said that instead of entering into a good house, she had remained at
the portal. At last her husband and his father complained to Rose. He
paid no attention at first; but, tired out at last, said if his
granddaughter persisted in her bad conduct, he would disinherit her.
There were no complaints after this.
Rose was a little man, neither fat nor lean, with a tolerably handsome
face, keen expression, piercing eyes sparkling with cleverness; a little
cloak, a satin skull-cap over his grey hairs, a smooth collar, almost
like an Abbe's, and his pocket-handkerchief always between his coat and
his vest. He used to say that it was nearer his nose there. He had
taken me into his friendship. He laughed very freely at the foreign
princes; and always called the Dukes with whom he was familiar, "Your
Ducal Highness," in ridicule of the sham Highnesses. He was extremely
neat and brisk, and full of sense to the last; he was a sort of
personage.
CHAPTER XXI
On Saturday, the 19th of March, in the evening, the King was about to
undress himself, when he heard cries in his chamber, which was full of
courtiers; everybody calling for Fagon and Felix. Monseigneur had been
taken very ill. He had passed the day at Meudon, where he had eaten only
a collation; at the King's supper he had made amends by gorging himself
nigh to bursting with fish. He was a great eater, like the King, and
like the Queens his mother and grandmother. He had not appeared after
supper, but had jest gone down to his own room from the King's cabinet,
and was about to undress himself, when all at once he lost consciousness.
His valets, frightened out of their wits, and some courtiers who were
near, ran to the King's chambers, to his chief physician and his chief
surgeon with the hubbub which I have mentioned above. The King, all
unbuttoned, started to his feet immediately, and descended by a little
dark, narrow, and steep staircase towards the chamber of Monseigneur.
Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne arrived at the same time, and in an
instant the chamber, which was vast, was filled.
They found Monseigneur half naked: his servants endeavouring to make him
walk erect, and dragging rather than leading him about. He did not know
the King, who spoke to him, nor anybody else; and defended himself as
long as he could against Felix, who, in this pressing necessity, hazarded
bleeding him, and succeeded. Consciousness returned. Monseigneur asked
for a confessor; the King had already sent for, the cure. Many emetics
were given to him: but two hours passed before they operated. At half-
past two in the morning, no further danger appearing, the King, who had
shed tears, went to bed, leaving orders that he was to be awakened if any
fresh accident happened. At five o'clock, however, all the effect having
passed, the doctors went away, and made everybody leave the sick chamber.
During the night all Paris hastened hither. Monseigneur was compelled to
keep his room for eight or ten days; and took care in future not to gorge
himself so much with food. Had this accident happened a quarter of an
hour later, the chief valet de chambre, who slept in his room, would have
found him dead in his bed.
Paris loved Monseigneur, perhaps because he often went to the opera.
The fish-fags of the Halles thought it would be proper to exhibit their
affection, and deputed four stout gossips to wait upon him: they were
admitted. One of them took him round the neck and kissed him on both
cheeks; the others kissed his hand. They were all very well received.
Bontems showed them over the apartments, and treated them to a dinner.
Monseigneur gave them some money, and the King did so also. They
determined not to remain in debt, and had a fine Te Deum sung at Saint
Eustache, and then feasted.
For some time past Monsieur had been sorely grieved that his son, M. le
Duc de Chartres, had not been appointed to the command of an army. When
M. de Chartres married, the King, who had converted his nephew by force
into a son-in-law, promised him all kinds of favours; but except those
which were written down in black and white had not given him any. M. de
Chartres, annoyed at this, and at the manner m which the illegitimate
children were promoted over his head, had given himself up to all kinds
of youthful follies and excesses. The King was surprised to find
Monsieur agree with his son's ambition; but gave a flat refusal when
overtures were made to him on the subject. All hope of rising to a high
command was thus forbidden to the Duc de Chartres; so that Madame had a
fine excuse for sneering at the weakness which had been shown by
Monsieur, who, on his part, had long before repented of it. He winked,
therefore, at all the escapades performed or threatened by his son, and
said nothing, not being sorry that the King should become uneasy, which
was soon the case.
The King at last spoke to Monsieur; and being coldly received, reproached
him for not knowing how to exercise authority over his son. Upon this
Monsieur fired up; and, quite as much from foregone decision as from
anger, in his turn asked the King what was to be done with a son at such
an age: who was sick of treading the galleries of Versailles and the
pavement of the Court; of being married as he was, and of remaining, as
it were, naked, whilst his brothers-in-law were clothed in dignities,
governments, establishments, and offices,--against all policy and all
example. His son, he said, was worse off than any one in the King's
service, for all others could earn distinction; added, that idleness was
the mother of all vice, and that it gave him much pain to see his only
son abandon himself to debauchery and bad company; but that it would be
cruel to blame a young man, forced as it were into these follies, and to
say nothing against him by whom he was thus forced.
Who was astonished to hear this straightforward language? Why, the King.
Monsieur had never let out to within a thousand leagues of this tone,
which was only the more annoying because supported by unanswerable
reasons that did not convince. Mastering his embarrassments however, the
King answered as a brother rather than as a sovereign; endeavouring, by
gentle words, to calm the excitement of Monsieur. But Monsieur was stung
to the quick by the King's neglect of M. de Chartres, and would not be
pacified; yet the real subject of the annoyance was never once alluded
to, whilst the one kept it steadily in his mind; and the other was
determined not to yield. The conversation lasted very long, and was
pushed very far; Monsieur throughout taking the high tone, the King very
gentle. They separated in this manner,--Monsieur frowning, but not
daring to burst out; the King annoyed, but not wishing to estrange his
brother, much less to let their squabble be known.
As Monsieur passed most of his summers at Saint Cloud, the separation
which this occasioned put them at their ease whilst waiting for a
reconciliation; and Monsieur came less often than before, but when he did
filled all their private interviews with bitter talk. In public little
or nothing appeared, except that familiar people remarked politeness and
attention on the King's part, coldness on that of Monsieur--moods not
common to either. Nevertheless, being advised not to push matters too
far, he read a lecture to his son, and made him change his conduct by
degrees. But Monsieur still remained irritated against the King; and
this completely upset him, accustomed as he always had been to live on
the best of terms with his brother, and to be treated by him in every
respect as such--except that the King would not allow Monsieur to become
a great personage.
Ordinarily, whenever Monsieur or Madame were unwell, even if their little
finger ached, the King visited them at once; and continued his visits if
the sickness lasted. But now, Madame had been laid up for six weeks with
a tertian fever, for which she would do nothing, because she treated
herself in her German fashion, and despised physic and doctors. The
King, who, besides the affair of M. le Duc de Chartres, was secretly
angered with her, as will presently be seen, had not been to see her,
although Monsieur had urged him to do so during those flying visits which
he made to Versailles without sleeping there. This was taken by
Monsieur, who was ignorant of the private cause of indignation alluded
to, for a public mark of extreme disrespect; and being proud and
sensitive he was piqued thereby to the last degree.
He had other mental troubles to torment him. For some time past he had
had a confessor who, although a Jesuit, kept as tight a hand over him as
he could. He was a gentleman of good birth, and of Brittany, by name le
Pere du Trevoux. He forbade Monsieur not only certain strange pleasures,
but many which he thought he could innocently indulge in as a penance for
his past life. He often told him that he had no mind to be damned on his
account; and that if he was thought too harsh let another confessor be
appointed. He also told him to take great care of himself, as he was
old, worn out with debauchery, fat, short-necked, and, according to all
appearance, likely to die soon of apoplexy. These were terrible words to
a prince the most voluptuous and the most attached to life that had been
seen for a long time; who had always passed his days in the most
luxurious idleness and who was the most incapable by nature of all
serious application, of all serious reading, and of all self-examination.
He was afraid of the devil; and he remembered that his former confessor
had resigned for similar reasons as this new one was actuated by. He was
forced now, therefore, to look a little into himself, and to live in a
manner that, for him, might be considered rigid. From time to time he
said many prayers; he obeyed his confessor, and rendered an account to
him of the conduct he had prescribed in respect to play and many other
things, and patiently suffered his confessor's long discourses. He
became sad, dejected, and spoke less than usual--that is to say, only
about as much as three or four women--so that everybody soon saw this
great change. It would have been strange if all these troubles together
had not made a great revolution in a man like Monsieur, full-bodied, and
a great eater, not only at meals, but all the day.
On Thursday, the 8th of June, he went from Saint Cloud to dine with the
King at Marly; and, as was his custom, entered the cabinet as soon as the
Council of State went out. He found the King angry with M. de Chartres
for neglecting his wife, and allowing her to seek consolation for this
neglect in the society of others. M. de Chartres was at that time
enamoured of Mademoiselle de Sary, maid of honour to Madame, and carried
on his suit in the most open and flagrant manner. The King took this for
his theme, and very stiffly reproached Monsieur for the conduct of his
son. Monsieur, who needed little to exasperate him, tartly replied, that
fathers who had led certain lives had little authority over their
children, and little right to blame them. The King, who felt the point
of the answer, fell back on the patience of his daughter, and said that
at least she ought not to be allowed to see the truth so clearly. But
Monsieur was resolved to have his fling, and recalled, in the most
aggravating manner, the conduct the King had adopted towards his Queen,
with respect to his mistresses, even allowing the latter to accompany him
in his journeys--the Queen at his side, and all in the same coach. This
last remark drove the King beyond all patience, and he redoubled his
reproaches, so that presently both were shouting to each other at the top
of their voices. The door of the room in which they wrangled was open,
and only covered by a curtain, as was the custom at Marly, and the
adjoining room was full of courtiers, waiting to see the King go by to
dinner. On the other side was a little salon, devoted to very private
purposes, and filled with valets, who could hear distinctly every word of
what passed. The attendant without, upon hearing this noise, entered,
and told the King how many people were within hearing, and immediately
retired. The conversation did not stop, however; it was simply carried
on in a lower tone. Monsieur continued his reproaches; said that the
King, in marrying his daughter to M. de Chartres, had promised marvels,
and had done nothing; that for his part he had wished his son to serve,
to keep him out of the way of these intrigues, but that his demands had
been vain; that it was no wonder M. de Chartres amused himself, by way of
consolation, for the neglect he had been treated with. Monsieur added,
that he saw only too plainly the truth of what had been predicted,
namely, that he would have all the shame and dishonour of the marriage
without ever deriving any profit from it. The King, more and more
carried away by anger, replied, that the war would soon oblige him to
make some retrenchments, and that he would commence by cutting down the
pensions of Monsieur, since he showed himself so little accommodating.
At this moment the King was informed that his dinner was ready, and both
he and Monsieur left the room and went to table, Monsieur, all fury,
flushed, and with eyes inflamed by anger. His face thus crimsoned
induced some ladies who were at table, and some courtiers behind--but
more for the purpose of saying something than anything else--to make the
remark, that Monsieur, by his appearance, had great need of bleeding.
The same thing had been said some time before at Saint Cloud; he was
absolutely too full; and, indeed, he had himself admitted that it was
true. Even the King, in spite of their squabbles, had more than once
pressed him to consent. But Tancrede, his head surgeon, was old, and an
unskilful bleeder: he had missed fire once. Monsieur would not be bled
by him; and not to vex him was good enough to refuse being bled by
another, and to die in consequence.
Upon hearing this observation about bleeding, the King spoke to him again
on the subject; and said that he did not know what prevented him from
having him at once taken to his room, and bled by force. The dinner
passed in the ordinary manner; and Monsieur ate extremely, as he did at
all his meals, to say nothing of an abundant supply of chocolate in the
morning, and what he swallowed all day in the shape of fruit, pastry,
preserves, and every kind of dainties, with which indeed the tables of
his cabinets and his pockets were always filled.
Upon rising from the table, the King, in his carriage, alone went to
Saint Germain, to visit the King and Queen of England. Other members of
the family went there likewise separately; and Monsieur, after going
there also, returned to Saint Cloud.
In the evening, after supper, the King was in his cabinet, with
Monseigneur and the Princesses, as at Versailles, when a messenger came
from Saint Cloud, and asked to see the King in the name of the Duc de
Chartres. He was admitted into the cabinet, and said that Monsieur had
been taken very ill while at supper; that he had been bled, that he was
better, but that an emetic had been given to him. The fact was, Monsieur
had supped as usual with the ladies, who were at Saint Cloud. During the
meal, as he poured out a glass of liqueur for Madame de Bouillon, it was
perceived that he stammered, and pointed at something with his hand. As
it was customary with him sometimes to speak Spanish, some of the ladies
asked what he said, others cried aloud. All this was the work of an
instant, and immediately afterwards Monsieur fell in a fit of apoplexy
upon M. de Chartres, who supported him. He was taken into his room,
shaken, moved about, bled considerably, and had strong emetics
administered to him, but scarcely any signs of life did he show.
Upon hearing this news, the King, who had been accustomed to fly to visit
Monsieur for a mere nothing, went to Madame de Maintenon's, and had her
waked up. He passed a quarter of an hour with her, and then, towards
midnight, returning to his room, ordered his coach to be got ready, and
sent the Marquis de Gesvres to Saint Cloud, to see if Monsieur was worse,
in which case he was to return and wake him; and they went quickly to
bed. Besides the particular relations in which they were at that time, I
think that the King suspected some artifice; that he went in consequence
to consult Madame de Maintenon, and preferred sinning against all laws of
propriety to running the chance of being duped. Madame de Maintenon did
not like Monsieur. She feared him. He paid her very little court, and
despite all his timidity and his more than deference, observations
escaped him at times, when he was with the King, which marked his disdain
of her, and the shame that he felt of public opinion. She was not eager,
therefore, to advise the King to go and visit him, still less to commence
a journey by night, the loss of rest, and the witnessing a spectacle so
sad, and so likely to touch him, and make him make reflections on
himself; for she hoped that if things went quietly he might be spared the
trouble altogether.
A moment after the King had got into bed, a page came to say that
Monsieur was better, and that he had just asked for some Schaffhausen
water, which is excellent for apoplexy. An hour and a half later,
another messenger came, awakened the King, and told him that the emetic
had no effect, and that Monsieur was very ill. At this the King rose and
set out at once. On the way he met the Marquis de Gesvres, who was
coming to fetch him, and brought similar news. It may be imagined what a
hubbub and disorder there was this night at Marly, and what horror at
Saint Cloud, that palace of delight! Everybody who was at Marly hastened
as he was best able to Saint Cloud. Whoever was first ready started
together. Men and women jostled each other, and then threw themselves
into the coaches without order and without regard to etiquette.
Monseigneur was with Madame la Duchesse. He was so struck by what had
occurred, and its resemblance to what he himself had experienced, that he
could scarcely stand, and was dragged, almost carried, to the carriage,
all trembling.
The King arrived at Saint Cloud before three o'clock in the morning.
Monsieur had not had a moment's consciousness since his attack. A ray of
intelligence came to him for an instant, while his confessor, Pere du
Trevoux, went to say mass, but it returned no more. The most horrible
sights have often ridiculous contrasts. When the said confessor came
back, he cried, "Monsieur, do you not know your confessor? Do you not
know the good little Pere du Trevoux, who is speaking to you?" and thus
caused the less afflicted to laugh indecently.
The King appeared much moved; naturally he wept with great facility; he
was, therefore, all tears. He had never had cause not to love his
brother tenderly; although on bad terms with him for the last two months,
these sad moments recalled all his tenderness; perhaps, too, he
reproached himself for having hastened death by the scene of the morning.
And finally, Monsieur was younger than he by two years, and all his life
had enjoyed as good health as he, and better! The King heard mass at
Saint Cloud; and, towards eight o'clock in the morning, Monsieur being
past all hope, Madame de Maintenon and Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne
persuaded the King to stay no longer, and accordingly returned with him
in his carriage to Marly. As he was going out and was showing some sign
of affection to M. de Chartres--both weeping very much--that young Prince
did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity. "Oh Sire!" he
exclaimed, embracing the King's thighs, "what will become of me? I lose
Monsieur, and I know that you do not like me." The King, surprised and
much touched, embraced him, and said all the tender things he could.
On arriving at Marly, the King went with the Duchesse de Bourgogne to
Madame de Maintenon. Three hours after came M. Fagon, who had been
ordered not to leave Monsieur until he was dead or better--which could
not be but by miracle. The King said, as soon as he saw him: "Well!
M. Fagon, my brother is dead?"--"Yes, Sire," said Fagon, "no remedy has
taken effect."
The King wept a good deal. He was pressed to dine with Madame de
Maintenon; but he would not do so, and had his dinner, as usual, with the
ladies. The tears often ran down his cheek, during the meal, which was
short. After this, he shut himself up in Madame de Maintenon's rooms
until seven o'clock, and then took a turn in his garden. Afterwards he
worked with Chamillart and Pontchartrain; and arranged all the funeral
ceremonies of Monsieur. He supped an hour before his customary time, and
went to bed soon afterwards.
At the departure from St. Cloud of the King, all the crowd assembled
there little by little withdrew, so that Monsieur dying, stretched upon a
couch in his cabinet, remained exposed to the scullions and the lower
officers of the household, the majority of whom, either by affection or
interest, were much afflicted. The chief officers and others who lost
posts and pensions filled the air with their cries; whilst all the women
who were at Saint Cloud, and who lost their consideration and their
amusement, ran here and there, crying, with dishevelled hair, like
Bacchantes. The Duchesse de la Ferme, who had basely married her
daughter to one of Monsieur's minions, named La Carte, came into the
cabinet; and, whilst gazing on the Prince, who still palpitated there,
exclaimed, giving vent to her profound reflections, "Pardi! Here is a
daughter well married!"
"A very important matter!" cried Chatillon, who himself lost everything
by this death. "Is this a moment to consider whether your daughter is
well married or not?"
Madame, who had never had great affection or great esteem for Monsieur,
but who felt her loss and her fall, meanwhile remained in her cabinet,
and in the midst of her grief cried out, with all her might, "No convent!
Let no one talk of a convent! I will have nothing to do with a convent!"
The good Princess had not lost her judgment. She knew that, by her
compact of marriage, she had to choose, on becoming a widow, between a
convent and the chateau of Montargis. She liked neither alternative; but
she had greater fear of the convent than of Montargis; and perhaps
thought it would be easier to escape from the latter than the former.
She knew she had much to fear from the King, although she did not yet
know all, and although he had been properly polite to her, considering
the occasion.
Next morning, Friday, M. de Chartres, came to the King, who was still in
bed, and who spoke to him in a very friendly manner. He said that the
Duke must for the future regard him as his father; that he would take
care of his position and his interests; that he had forgotten all the
little causes of anger he had had against him; that he hoped the Duke
would also forget them; that he begged that the advances of friendship he
made, might serve to attach him to him, and make their two hearts belong
to one another again. It may easily be conceived how well M. de Chartres
answered all this.
CHAPTER XXII
After such a frightful spectacle as had been witnessed, so many tears and
so much tenderness, nobody doubted that the three, days which remained of
the stay at Marly would be exceedingly sad. But, on the very morrow of
the day on which Monsieur died, some ladies of the palace, upon entering
the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, where was the King with the
Duchesse de Bourgogne, about twelve o'clock, heard her from the chamber
where they were, next to hers, singing opera tunes. A little while
after, the King, seeing the Duchesse de Bourgogne very sad in a corner of
the room, asked Madame de Maintenon, with surprise, why the said Duchess
was so melancholy; set himself to work to rouse her; then played with her
and some ladies of the palace he had called in to join in the sport.
This was not all. Before rising from the dinner table, at a little after
two o'clock, and twenty-six hours after the death of Monsieur,
Monseigneur the Duc de Bourgogne asked the Duc de Montfort if he would
play at brelan.
"At brelan!" cried Montfort, in extreme astonishment; "you cannot mean
it! Monsieur is still warm."
"Pardon me," replied the Prince, "I do mean it though. The King does not
wish that we should be dull here at Marly, and has ordered me to make
everybody play; and, for fear that nobody should dare to begin, to set,
myself, the example;" and with this he began to play at brelan; and the
salon was soon filled with gaming tables.
Such was the affection of the King: such that of Madame de Maintenon!
She felt the loss of Monsieur as a deliverance, and could scarcely
restrain her joy; and it was with the greatest difficulty she succeeded
in putting on a mournful countenance. She saw that the King was already
consoled; nothing could therefore be more becoming than for her to divert
him, and nothing suited her better than to bring things back into their
usual course, so that there might be no more talk of Monsieur nor of
affliction. For propriety of appearance she cared nothing. The thing
could not fail, however, to be scandalous; and in whispers was found so.
Monseigneur, though he had appeared to like Monsieur, who had given him
all sorts of balls and amusements, and shown him every kind of attention
and complaisance, went out wolf hunting the very day after his death;
and, upon his return, finding play going on in the salons, went without
hesitation and played himself like the rest. Monseigneur le Duc de
Bourgogne and M. le Duc de Berry only saw Monsieur on public occasions,
and therefore could not be much moved by his loss. But Madame la
Duchesse was extremely touched by this event. He was her grandfather;
and she tenderly loved her mother, who loved Monsieur; and Monsieur had
always been very kind to her, and provided all kinds of diversion for
her. Although not very loving to anybody, she loved Monsieur; and was
much affected not to dare to show her grief, which she indulged a long
time in private. What the grief of Madame was has already been seen.
As for M. de Chartres, he was much affected by his loss. The father and
son loved each other extremely. Monsieur was a gentle and indulgent
parent, who had never constrained his son. But if the Duke's heart was
touched, his reason also was. Besides the great assistance it was to him
to have a father, brother of the King, that father was, as it were,
a barrier between him and the King, under whose hand he now found himself
directly placed. His greatness, his consideration, the comfort of his
house and his life, would, therefore, depend on him alone. Assiduity,
propriety of conduct, a certain manner, and, above all, a very different
deportment towards his wife, would now become the price of everything he
could expect to obtain from the King. Madame la Duchesse de Chartres,
although well treated by Monsieur, was glad to be delivered from him; for
he was a barrier betwixt her and the King, that left her at the mercy of
her husband. She was charmed to be quit of the duty of following
Monsieur to Paris or Saint Cloud, where she found herself, as it were, in
a foreign country, with faces which she never saw anywhere else, which
did not make her welcome; and where she was exposed to the contempt and
humour of Madame, who little spared her. She expected for the future
never to leave the Court, and to be not only exempt from paying her court
to Monsieur, but that Madame and her husband would for the future be
obliged to treat her in quite another manner.
The bulk of the Court regretted Monsieur, for it was he who set all
pleasure a-going; and when he left it, life and merriment seemed to have
disappeared likewise. Setting aside his obstinacy with regard to the
Princes, he loved the order of rank; preferences, and distinctions: he
caused them to be observed as much as possible, and himself set the
example. He loved great people; and was so affable and polite, that
crowds came to him. The difference which he knew how to make, and which
he never failed to make, between every one according to his position,
contributed greatly to his popularity. In his receptions, by his greater
or less, or more neglectful attention, and by his words, he always marked
in a flattering manner the differences made by birth and dignity, by age
and merit, and by profession; and all this with a dignity natural to him,
and a constant facility which he had acquired. His familiarity obliged,
and yet no rash people ever ventured to take advantage of it. He visited
or sent exactly when it was proper; and under his roof he allowed a
complete liberty, without injury to the respect shown him, or to a
perfect court air.
He had learned from the Queen his mother, and well remembered this art.
The crowd, therefore, constantly flocked towards the Palais Royal.
At Saint Cloud, where all his numerous household used to assemble, there
were many ladies who, to speak the truth, would scarcely have been
received elsewhere, but many also of a higher set, and great store of
gamblers. The pleasures of all kinds of games, and the singular beauty
of the place, where a thousand caleches were always ready to whirl even
the most lazy ladies through the walks, soft music and good cheer, made
it a palace of delight, grace, and magnificence.
All this without any assistance from Madame, who dined and supped with
the ladies and Monsieur, rode out sometimes in a caleche with one of
them, often sulked with the company, made herself feared for her harsh
and surly temper--frequently even for her words; and passed her days in a
little cabinet she had chosen, where the windows were ten feet from the
ground, gazing perpetually on the portraits of Paladins and other German
princes, with which she had tapestried the walls; and writing every day
with her own hand whole volumes of letters, of which she always kept
autograph copies. Monsieur had never been able to bend her to a more
human way of life; and lived decently with her, without caring for her
person in any way.
For his part, Monsieur, who had very gallantly won the battle of Cassel,
and who had always shown courage in the sieges where he had served, had
only the bad qualities that distinguish women. With more knowledge of
the world than wit, with no reading, though he had a vast and exact
acquaintance with noble houses, their births and marriages, he was good
for nothing. Nobody was so flabby in body and mind, no one so weak,
so timid, so open to deception, so led by the nose, so despised by his
favourites, often so roughly treated by them. He was quarrelsome in
small matters, incapable of keeping any secret, suspicious, mistrustful;
fond of spreading reports in his Court to make mischief, to learn what
was really going on or just to amuse himself: he fetched and carried from
one to the other. With so many defects, unrelated to any virtue, he had
such an abominable taste, that his gifts and the fortunes that he gave to
those he took into favour had rendered him publicly scandalous. He
neither respected times nor places. His minions, who owed him
everything, sometimes treated him most insolently; and he had often much
to do to appease horrible jealousies. He lived in continual hot water
with his favourites, to say nothing of the quarrels of that troop of
ladies of a very decided character--many of whom were very malicious,
and, most, more than malicious--with whom Monsieur used to divert
himself, entering into all their wretched squabbles.
The Chevaliers de Lorraine and Chatillon had both made a large fortune by
their good looks, with which he was more smitten than with those of any
other of his favourites. Chatillon, who had neither head, nor sense, nor
wit, got on in this way, and acquired fortune. The other behaved like a
Guisard, who blushes at nothing provided he succeeds; and governed
Monsieur with a high hand all his life, was overwhelmed with money and
benefices, did what he liked for his family, lived always publicly as the
master with Monsieur; and as he had, with the pride of the Guises, their
art and cleverness, he contrived to get between the King and Monsieur,
to be dealt with gingerly, if not feared by both, and was almost as
important a man with the one as with the other. He had the finest
apartments in the Palais Royal and Saint Cloud, and a pension of ten
thousand crowns. He remained in his apartments after the death of
Monsieur, but would not from pride continue to receive the pension, which
from pride was offered him. Although it would have been difficult to be
more timid and submissive than was Monsieur with the King--for he
flattered both his ministers and his mistresses--he, nevertheless,
mingled with his respectful demeanour the demeanour of a brother, and the
free and easy ways of one. In private, he was yet more unconstrained;
always taking an armed chair, and never waiting until the King told him
to sit. In the Cabinet, after the King appeared, no other Prince sat
besides him, not even Monseigneur. But in what regarded his service, and
his manner of approaching and leaving the King, no private person could
behave with more respect; and he naturally did everything with grace and
dignity. He never, however, was able to bend to Madame de Maintenon
completely, nor avoid making small attacks on her to the King, nor avoid
satirising her pretty broadly in person. It was not her success that
annoyed him; but simply the idea that La Scarron had become his sister-
in-law; this was insupportable to him. Monsieur was extremely vain, but
not haughty, very sensitive, and a great stickler for what was due to
him. Upon one occasion he complained to the King that M. le Duc had for
some time neglected to attend upon him, as he was bound, and had boasted
that he would not do it. The King replied, that it was not a thing to be
angry about, that he ought to seek an opportunity to be served by M. le
Duc, and if he would not, to affront him. Accordingly, one morning at
Marly, as he was dressing, seeing M. le Duc walking in the garden,
Monsieur opened the window and called to him. Monsieur le Duc came up,
and entered the room. Then, while one remark was leading to another,
Monsieur slipped off his dressing-gown, and then his shirt. A valet de
chambre standing by, at once slipped a clean shirt into the hands of M.
le Duc, who, caught thus in a trap, was compelled to offer the garment to
Monsieur, as it was his duty to do. As soon as Monsieur had received it,
he burst out laughing, and said--"Good-bye, cousin, go away. I do not
want to delay you longer." M. le Duc felt the point of this, and went
away very angry, and continued so in consequence of the high tone
Monsieur afterwards kept up on the subject.
Monsieur was a little round-bellied man, who wore such high-heeled shoes
that he seemed mounted always upon stilts; was always decked out like a
woman, covered everywhere with rings, bracelets, jewels; with a long
black wig, powdered, and curled in front; with ribbons wherever he could
put them; steeped in perfumes, and in fine a model of cleanliness. He
was accused of putting on an imperceptible touch of rouge. He had a long
nose, good eyes and mouth, a full but very long face. All his portraits
resembled him. I was piqued to see that his features recalled those of
Louis XIII., to whom; except in matters of courage, he was so completely
dissimilar.
On Saturday, the 11th of June, the Court returned to Versailles. On
arriving there the King went to visit Madame and her son and daughter-in-
law separately. Madame, very much troubled by reflection on her position
with regard to the King, had sent the Duchesse de Ventadour to Madame de
Maintenon. The latter replied to the message only in general terms; said
she would visit Madame after dinner, and requested that the Duchess might
be present at the interview. It was Sunday, the morning after the return
from Marly. After the first compliments, every one went out except
Madame de Ventadour. Then Madame requested Madame de Maintenon to sit
down; and she must have felt her position keenly to bring her to this.
She began the conversation by complaining of the indifference with which
the King had treated her during her illness. Madame de Maintenon allowed
her to talk on; and when she had finished, said that the King had
commanded her to say that their common loss effaced all the past,
provided that he had reason to be better satisfied for the future, not
only as regarded M. le Duc de Chartres, but other matters also. Upon
this Madame exclaimed and protested that, except in as far as regarded
her son, she had never given cause for displeasure; and went on
alternating complaints and justifications. Precisely at the point when
she was most emphatic, Madame de Maintenon drew forth a letter from her
pocket and asked if the handwriting was known to her. It was a letter
from Madame to the Duchess of Hanover, in which she said, after giving
news of the Court, that no one knew what to say of the intercourse
between the King and Madame de Maintenon, whether it was that of marriage
or of concubinage; and then, touching upon other matters, launched out
upon the misery of the realm: that, she said, was too great to be
relieved. This letter had been opened at the post--as almost all letters
were at that time, and are indeed still--and sent to the King. It may be
imagined that this was a thunderstroke to Madame: it nearly killed her.
She burst into tears; and Madame de Maintenon very quietly and demurely
began to represent to her the contents of the letter in all its parts,
especially as it was addressed to a foreign country. Madame de Ventadour
interposed with some twaddle, to give Madame time to breathe and recover
sufficiently to say something. The best excuse was the admission of what
could not be denied, with supplications for pardon, expressions of
repentance, prayers, promises. But Madame de Maintenon had not finished
yet. Having got rid of the commission she had been charged with by the
King, she next turned to her own business: she asked Madame how it was,
that after being so friendly with her a long time ago, she had suddenly
ceased to bestow any regard upon her, and had continued to treat her with
coldness ever since. At this, Madame thinking herself quite safe, said
that the coldness was on the part of Madame de Maintenon, who had all on
a sudden discontinued the friendly intercourse which formerly existed
between them. As before, Madame de Maintenon allowed Madame to talk her
fill before she replied. She then said she was about to divulge a secret
which had never escaped her mouth, although she had for ten years been at
liberty to tell it; and she forthwith related a thousand most offensive
things which had been uttered against her by Madame to the late Madame la
Dauphine. This latter, falling out with Madame, had related all these
things to Madame de Maintenon, who now brought them forward triumphantly.
At this new blow, Madame was thunderstruck, and stood like a statue.
There was nothing for it but to behave as before--that is to say, shed
tears, cry, ask pardon, humble herself, and beg for mercy. Madame de
Maintenon triumphed coldly over her for a long time,--allowing her to
excite herself in talking, and weeping, and taking her hands, which she
did with increasing energy and humility. This was a terrible humiliation
for such a haughty German. Madame de Maintenon at last gave way, as she
had always meant to do after having satiated her vengeance. They
embraced, promised forgetfulness on both sides, and a new friendship from
that time. The King, who was not ignorant of what had occurred, took
back Madame into favour. She went neither to a convent nor to Montargis,
but was allowed to remain in Paris, and her pension was augmented. As
for M. le Duc de Chartres, he was prodigiously well treated. The King
gave him all the pensions Monsieur had enjoyed, besides allowing him to
retain his own; so that he had one million eight hundred thousand livres
a year; added to the Palais Royal, Saint Cloud, and other mansions. He
had a Swiss guard, which none but the sons of France had ever had before;
in fact he retained all the privileges his father had enjoyed, and he
took the name of Duc d'Orleans. The pensions of Madame de Chartres were
augmented. All these honours so great and so unheard of bestowed on M.
de Chartres, and an income of a hundred thousand crowns more than his
father, were due solely to the quarrel which had recently taken place
between Monsieur and the King, as to the marriage M. de Chartres had
made. People accustom themselves to everything, but this prodigious good
fortune infinitely surprised everybody. The Princes of the blood were
extremely mortified. To console them, the King immediately gave to M. le
Prince all the advantages of a first Prince of the blood, and added ten
thousand crowns to his pension.
Madame wore deep mourning for forty days, after which she threw it almost
entirely aside, with the King's permission. He did not like to see such
sad-looking things before his eyes every day. Madame went about in
public, and with the Court, in her half-mourning, under pretence that
being with the King, and living under his roof, she was of the family.
But her conduct was not the less thought strange in spite of this excuse.
During the winter, as the King could not well go to the theatre, the
theatre cane to him, in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, where
comedies with music were played. The King wore mourning for six months,
and paid all the expenses of the superb funeral which took place on the
13th of June.
While upon the subject of Monsieur, I will relate an anecdote known to
but few people, concerning the death of his first wife, Henriette
d'Angleterre, whom nobody doubts was poisoned. Her gallantries made
Monsieur jealous; and his tastes made her furious. His favourites, whom
she hated, did all in their power to sow discord between them, in order
to dispose of Monsieur at their will. The Chevalier de Lorraine, then in
the prime of his first youth (having been born in 1643) completely ruled
over Monsieur, and made Madame feel that he had this power. She,
charming and young, could not suffer this, and complained to the King,
so that M. de Lorraine was exiled. When Monsieur heard this, he swooned,
then melted into tears, and throwing himself at the feet of the King,
implored him to recall M. de Lorraine. But his prayers were useless,
and, rushing away in fury, he retired into the country and remained there
until, ashamed of a thing so publicly disgraceful, he returned to Paris
and lived with Madame as before.
Although M. de Lorraine was banished, two of his intimate friends,
D'Effiat and the Count de Beuvron, remained in the household of Monsieur.
The absence of M. de Lorraine nipped all their hopes of success, and made
them fear that some other favourite might arrive from whom they could
hope for nothing. They saw no chance that M. de Lorraine's exile would
speedily terminate; for Madame (Henriette d'Angleterre) was in greater
favour with the King than ever, and had just been sent by him into
England on a mysterious errand in which she had perfectly succeeded.
She returned triumphant and very well in health. This gave the last blow
to the hopes of D'Effiat and Beuvron, as to the return of M. de Lorraine,
who had gone to Italy to try to get rid of his vexation. I know not
which of the three thought of it first, but the Chevalier de Lorraine
sent a sure and rapid poison to his two friends by a messenger who did
not probably know what he carried.
At Saint Cloud, Madame was in the habit of taking a glass of endive-
water, at about seven o'clock in the evening. A servant of hers used to
make it, and then put it away in a cupboard where there was some ordinary
water for the use of Madame if she found the other too bitter. The
cupboard was in an antechamber which served as the public passage by
which the apartments of Madame were reached. D'Effiat took notice of all
these things, and on the 29th of June, 1670, he went to the ante-chamber;
saw that he was unobserved and that nobody was near, and threw the poison
into the endive-water; then hearing some one approaching, he seized the
jug of common water and feigned to be putting it back in its place just
as the servant, before alluded to, entered and asked him sharply what he
was doing in that cupboard. D'Effiat, without losing countenance, asked
his pardon, and said, that being thirsty, and knowing there was some
water in the cupboard, he could not resist drinking. The servant
grumbled; and D'Effiat, trying to appease him, entered the apartments of
Madame, like the other courtiers, and began talking without the slightest
emotion.
What followed an hour afterwards does not belong to my subject, and has
made only too much stir throughout all Europe. Madame died on the
morrow, June 30, at three o'clock in the morning; and the King was
profoundly prostrated with grief. Apparently during the day, some
indications showed him that Purnon, chief steward of Madame, was in the
secret of her decease. Purnon was brought before him privately, and was
threatened with instant death, unless he disclosed all; full pardon being
on the contrary promised him if he did. Purnon, thus pressed, admitted
that Madame had been poisoned, and under the circumstance I have just
related. "And my brother," said the King, "did he know of this?"--
"No, Sire, not one of us was stupid enough to tell him; he has no
secrecy, he would have betrayed us." On hearing this answer the King
uttered a great "ah!" like a man oppressed, who suddenly breathes again.
Purnon was immediately set at liberty; and years afterwards related this
narrative to M. Joly de Fleury, procureur-general of the Parliament, by
which magistrate it was related to me. From this same magistrate I
learned that, a few days before the second marriage of Monsieur, the King
took Madame aside and told her that circumstance, assuring her that he
was too honest a man to wish her to marry his brother, if that brother
could be capable of such a crime. Madame profited by what she heard.
Purnon remained in her service; but after a time she pretended to find
faults in him, and made him resign; he sold his post accordingly, towards
the end of 1674, to Maurel de Vaulonne, and quitted her service.
CHAPTER XXIII
A the breaking out of the war in Italy this year Segur bought the
government of the Foix country from Tallard, one of the generals called
away to serve in that war. Segur had been in his youth a very handsome
fellow; he was at that time in the Black Musketeers, and this company was
always quartered at Nemours while the Court was at Fontainebleau. Segur
played very well upon the lute; but found life dull, nevertheless, at
Nemours, made the acquaintance of the Abbesse de la Joye, a place hard
by, and charmed her ears and eyes so much that she became with child by
him. After some months the Abbess pleaded illness, left the convent, and
set out for the waters, as she said. Putting off her journey too long,
she was obliged to stop a night at Fontainebleau; and in consequence of
the Court being there, could find no accommodation, except in a wretched
little inn already full of company. She had delayed so long that the
pangs of labour seized her in the night, and the cries she uttered
brought all the house to her assistance. She was delivered of a child
then and there; and the next morning this fact was the talk of the town.
The Duc de Saint Aignan, one of the first of the courtiers who learned
it, went straight to the King, who was brisk and free enough in those
days, and related to him what had occurred; the King laughed heartily at
the poor Abbess, who, while trying to hide her shame, had come into the
very midst of the Court. Nobody knew then that her abbey was only four
leagues distant, but everybody learned it soon, and the Duc de Saint
Aignan among the first.
When he returned to his house, he found long faces on every side. His
servants made signs one to another, but nobody said a word. He perceived
this, and asked what was the matter; but, for some time, no one dared to
reply. At last a valet-de-chambre grew bold enough to say to Saint
Aignan, that the Abbess, whose adventure had afforded so much mirth, was
his own daughter; and that, after he had gone to the King, she had sent
for assistance, in order to get out of the place where she was staying.
It was now the Duke's turn to be confused. After having made the King
and all the Court laugh at this adventure, he became himself the
laughing-stock of everybody. He bore the affair as well as he could;
carried away the Abbess and her baggage; and, as the scandal was public,
made her send in her resignation and hide herself in another convent,
where she lived more than forty years.
That worthy man, Saint-Herem, died this year at his house in Auvergne, to
which he had retired. Everybody liked him; and M. de Rochefoucauld had
reproached the King for not making him Chevalier of the Order. The King
had confounded him with Courtine, his brother-in-law, for they had
married two sisters; but when put right had not given the favour.
Madame de Saint-Herem was the most singular creature in the world, not
only in face but in manners. She half boiled her thigh one day in the
Seine, near Fontainebleau, where she was bathing. The river was too
cold; she wished to warm it, and had a quantity of water heated and
thrown into the stream just above her. The water reaching her before it
could grow cold, scalded her so much that she was forced to keep her bed.
When it thundered, she used to squat herself under a couch and make all
her servants lie above, one upon the other, so that if the thunderbolt
fell, it might have its effect upon them before penetrating to her. She
had ruined herself and her husband, though they were rich, through sheer
imbecility; and it is incredible the amount of money she spent in her
absurdities.
The best adventure which happened to her, among a thousand others, was at
her house in the Place Royale, where she was one day attacked by a
madman, who, finding her alone in her chamber, was very enterprising.
The good lady, hideous at eighteen, but who was at this time eighty and a
widow, cried aloud as well as she could. Her servants heard her at last,
ran to her assistance, and found her all disordered, struggling in the
hands of this raging madman. The man was found to be really out of his
senses when brought before the tribunal, and the story amused everybody.
The health of the King of England (James II.), which had for some time
been very languishing, grew weaker towards the middle of August of this
year, and by the 8th of September completely gave way. There was no
longer any hope. The King, Madame de Maintenon, and all the royal
persons, visited him often. He received the last sacrament with a piety
in keeping with his past life, and his death was expected every instant.
In this conjuncture the King made a resolve more worthy of Louis XII., or
Francis I., than of his own wisdom. On Tuesday, the 13th of September,
he went from Marly to Saint Germain. The King of England was so ill that
when the King was announced to him he scarcely opened his eyes for an
instant. The King told him that he might die in peace respecting the
Prince of Wales, whom he would recognise as King of England, Scotland,
and Ireland.
The few English who were there threw themselves upon their knees, but the
King of England gave no signs of life. The gratitude of the Prince of
Wales and of his mother, when they heard what the King had said, may be
imagined. Returned to Marly, the King repeated to all the Court what he
had said. Nothing was heard but praises and applause.
Yet reflections did not fail to be made promptly, if not publicly. It
was seen, that to recognise the Prince of Wales was to act in direct
opposition to the recognition of the Prince of Orange as King of England,
that the King had declared at the Peace of Ryswick. It was to wound the
Prince of Orange in the tenderest point, and to invite England and
Holland to become allies of the Emperor against France. As for the
Prince of Wales, this recognition was no solid advantage to him, but was
calculated to make the party opposed to him in England only more bitter
and vigilant in their opposition.
The King of England, in the few intervals of intelligence he had,
appeared much impressed by what the King had done. He died about three
o'clock in the afternoon of the 16th September of this year, 1701.
He had requested that there might he no display at his funeral, and his
wish was faithfully observed. He was buried on the Saturday, at seven
o'clock in the evening, in the church of the English Benedictines at
Paris, Rue St. Jacques, without pomp, and attended by but few mourners.
His body rests in the chapel, like that of the simplest private person,
until the time, apparently very distant, when it shall be transported to
England. His heart is at the Filles de Sainte Marie, of Chaillot.
Immediately afterwards, the Prince of Wales was received by the King as
King of England, with all the formalities and state with which his father
before him had been received. Soon afterwards he was recognised by the
new King of Spain.
The Count of Manchester, English ambassador in France, ceased to appear
at Versailles after this recognition of the Prince of Wales by the King,
and immediately quitted his post and left the country without any leave-
taking. King William heard, while in Holland, of the death of James II.
and of this recognition. He was at table with some German princes and
other lords when the news arrived; did not utter a word, except to
announce the death; but blushed, pulled down his hat, and could not keep
his countenance. He sent orders to London, to drive out Poussin, acting
as French ambassador, immediately; and Poussin directly crossed the sea
and arrived at Calais.
This event was itself followed by the signing of the great treaty of
alliance, offensive and defensive, against France and Spain, by Austria,
England, and Holland; in which they afterwards succeeded in engaging
other powers, which compelled the King to increase the number of his
troops.
Just after the return of the Court from Fontainebleau, a strange scene
happened at St. Maur, in a pretty house there which M. le Duc possessed.
He was at this house one night with five or six intimate friends, whom he
had invited to pass the night there. One of these friends was the Comte
de Fiesque. At table, and before the wine had begun to circulate, a
dispute upon some historical point arose between him and M. le Duc. The
Comte de Fiesque, who had some intellect and learning, strongly sustained
his opinion. M. le Duc sustained his; and for want of better reasons,
threw a plate at the head of Fiesque, drove him from the table and out of
the house. So sudden and strange a scene frightened the guests. The
Comte de Fiesque, who had gone to M. le Duc's house with the intention of
passing the night there, had not retained a carriage, went to ask shelter
of the cure, and got back to Paris the next day as early in the morning
as he could. It may be imagined that the rest of the supper and of the
evening was terribly dull. M. le Duc remained fuming (perhaps against
himself, but without saying so), and could not be induced to apologise
for the affront. It made a great stir in society, and things remained
thus several months. After a while, friends mixed themselves in the
matter; M. le Duc, completely himself again, made all the advances
towards a reconciliation. The Comte de Fiesque received them, and the
reconciliation took place. The most surprising thing is, that after this
they continued on as good terms as though nothing had passed between
them.
The year 1702 commenced with balls at Versailles, many of which were
masquerades. Madame du Maine gave several in her chamber, always keeping
her bed because she was in the family-way; which made rather a singular
spectacle. There were several balls at Marly, but the majority were not
masquerades. The King often witnessed, but in strict privacy, and always
in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, sacred dramas such as
"Absalon," "Athalie," &c. Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, M. le Duc
d'Orleans, the Comte and Comtesse d'Anjou, the young Comte de Noailles,
Mademoiselle de Melun, urged by the Noailles, played the principal
characters in very magnificent stage dresses. Baron, the excellent old
actor, instructed them and played with them. M. de Noailles and his
clever wife were the inventors and promoters of these interior pleasures,
for the purpose of intruding themselves more and more into the society of
the King, in support of the alliance of Madame de Maintenon.
Only forty spectators were admitted to the representations. Madame was
sometimes invited by the King, because she liked plays. This favour was
much sought after. Madame de Maintenon wished to show that she had
forgotten the past.
Longepierre had written a very singular piece called "Electra," which was
played on a magnificent stage erected in Madame de Conti's house, and all
the Court flocked several times to see it. This piece was without love,
but full of other passions and of most interesting situations. I think
it had been written in the hopes that the King would go and see it. But
he contented himself with hearing it talked about, and the representation
was confined to the Hotel de Conti. Longepierre would not allow it to be
given elsewhere. He was an intriguing fellow of much wit, gentle,
insinuating, and who, under a tranquillity and indifference and a very
deceitful philosophy, thrust himself everywhere, and meddled with
everything in order to make his fortune. He succeeded in intruding
himself into favour with the Duc d'Orleans, but behaved so badly that he
was driven away.
The death of the Abbe de Vatteville occurred at the commencement of this
year, and made some noise, on account of the prodigies of the Abbe's
life. This Vatteville was the younger son of a Franche-Comte family;
early in life he joined the Order of the Chartreux monks, and was
ordained priest. He had much intellect, but was of an impetuous spirit,
and soon began to chafe under the yoke of a religious life. He
determined, therefore, to set himself free from it, and procured some
secular habits, pistols, and a horse. Just as he was about to escape
over the walls of the monastery by means of a ladder, the prior entered
his cell.
Vatteville made no to-do, but at once drew a pistol, shot the prior dead,
and effected his escape.
Two or three days afterwards, travelling over the country and avoiding
as much as possible the frequented places, he arrived at a wretched
roadside inn, and asked what there was in the house. The landlord
replied--"A leg of mutton and a capon."--"Good!" replied our unfrocked
monk; "put them down to roast."
The landlord replied that they were too much for a single person, and
that he had nothing else for the whole house. The monk upon this flew
into a passion, and declared that the least the landlord could do was to
give him what he would pay for; and that he had sufficient appetite to
eat both leg of mutton and capon. They were accordingly put down to the
fire, the landlord not daring to say another word. While they were
cooking, a traveller on horseback arrived at the inn, and learning that
they were for one person, was much astonished. He offered to pay his
share to be allowed to dine off them with the stranger who had ordered
this dinner; but the landlord told him he was afraid the gentleman would
not consent to the arrangement. Thereupon the traveller went upstairs,
and civilly asked Vatteville if he might dine with him on paying half of
the expense. Vatteville would not consent, and a dispute soon arose
between the two; to be brief, the monk served this traveller as he had
served the prior, killed him with a pistol shot. After this he went
downstairs tranquilly, and in the midst of the fright of the landlord and
of the whole house, had the leg of mutton and capon served up to him,
picked both to the very bone, paid his score, remounted his horse, and
went his way.
Not knowing what course to take, he went to Turkey, and in order to
succeed there, had himself circumcised, put on the turban, and entered
into the militia. His blasphemy advanced him, his talents and his colour
distinguished him; he became Bacha, and the confidential man in the
Morea, where the Turks were making war against the Venetians. He
determined to make use of this position in order to advance his own
interests, and entering into communication with the generalissimo of the
Republic, promised to betray into his hands several secret places
belonging to the Turks, but on certain conditions. These were,
absolution from the Pope for all crimes of his life, his murders and his
apostasy included; security against the Chartreux and against being
placed in any other Order; full restitution of his civil rights, and
liberty to exercise his profession of priest with the right of possessing
all benefices of every kind. The Venetians thought the bargain too good
to be refused, and the Pope, in the interest of the Church, accorded all
the demands of the Bacha. When Vatteville was quite assured that his
conditions would be complied with, he took his measures so well that he
executed perfectly all he had undertaken. Immediately after he threw
himself into the Venetian army, and passed into Italy. He was well
received at Rome by the Pope, and returned to his family in Franche-
Comte, and amused himself by braving the Chartreux.
At the first conquest of the Franche-Comte, he intrigued so well with the
Queen-mother and the ministry, that he was promised the Archbishopric of
Besancon; but the Pope cried out against this on account of his murders,
circumcision, and apostasy. The King sided with the Pope, and Vatteville
was obliged to be contented with the abbey of Baume, another good abbey
in Picardy, and divers other advantages.
Except when he came to the Court, where he was always received with great
distinction, he remained at his abbey of Baume, living there like a grand
seigneur, keeping a fine pack of hounds, a good table, entertaining
jovial company, keeping mistresses very freely; tyrannising over his
tenants and his neighbours in the most absolute manner. The intendants
gave way to him, and by express orders of the Court allowed him to act
much as he pleased, even with the taxes, which he regulated at his will,
and in his conduct was oftentimes very violent. With these manners and
this bearing, which caused him to be both feared and respected, he would
often amuse himself by going to see the Chartreux, in order to plume
himself on having quitted their frock. He played much at hombre, and
frequently gained 'codille' (a term of the game), so that the name of the
Abbe Codille was given to him. He lived in this manner always with the
same licence and in the same consideration, until nearly ninety years of
age.
CHAPTER XXIV
The changes which took place in the army after the Peace of Ryswick, were
very great and very strange. The excellence of the regiments, the merits
of the officers, those who commanded, all were forgotten by Barbezieux,
young and impetuous, whom the King allowed to act as he liked. My
regiment was disbanded, and my company was incorporated with that of
Count d'Uzes, brother-in-law of Duras, who looked well after the
interests of his relative. I was thus deprived of command, without
regiment, without company, and the only opportunity offered me was to
serve in a regiment commanded by Saint Morris, where I should have been,
as it were, at the lowest step of the ladder, with my whole military
career to begin over again.
I had served at the head of my regiment during four campaigns, with
applause and reputation, I am bold enough to say it. I thought therefore
I was entitled to better treatment than this. Promotions were made; five
officers, all my juniors, were placed over my head. I resolved then to
leave the service, but not to take a rash step. I consulted first with
several friends before sending in my resignation. All whom I consulted
advised me to quit the service, but for a long time I could not resolve
to do so. Nearly three months passed, during which I suffered cruel
anguish of mind from my irresolution. I knew that if I left the army I
should be certain to incur the anger of the King, and I do not hesitate
to say that this was not a matter of indifference to me. The King was
always annoyed when anybody ceased to serve; he called it "quitting him;"
and made his anger felt for a long time. At last, however, I determined
on my course of action.
I wrote a short letter to the King, in which, without making any
complaints, I said that as my health was not good (it had given me some
trouble on different occasions) I begged to be allowed to quit his
service, and said that I hoped I should be permitted to console myself
for leaving the army by assiduously attending upon him at the Court:
After despatching this letter I went away immediately to Paris.
I learnt afterwards from my friends, that upon receiving my letter the
King called Chamillart to him, and said with emotion: "Well! Monsieur,
here is another man who quits us!--" and he read my letter word for word.
I did not learn that anything else escaped him.
As for me, I did not return to Versailles for a whole week, or see the
King again until Easter Monday. After his supper that evening, and when
about to undress himself, he paid me a distinction, a mere trifle I
admit, and which I should be ashamed to mention if it did not under the
circumstances serve as a characteristic of him.
Although the place he undressed in was very well illuminated, the
chaplain at the evening prayers there held in his hand a lighted candle,
which he gave afterwards to the chief valet-de-chambre, who carried it
before the King until he reached his arm-chair, and then handed it to
whomever the King ordered him to give it to. On this evening the King,
glancing all around him, cast his eye upon me, and told the valet to give
the candle to me. It was an honour which he bestowed sometimes upon one,
sometimes upon another, according to his whim, but which, by his manner
of bestowing it, was always coveted, as a great distinction. My surprise
may be imagined when I heard myself named aloud for this office, not only
on this but on many other occasions. It was not that there was any lack
of people of consideration to hold the candle; but the King was
sufficiently piqued by my retirement not to wish everybody to see that
he was so.
For three years he failed not to make me feel to what extent he was angry
with me. He spoke to me no longer; he scarcely bestowed a glance upon
me, and never once alluded to my letter. To show that his annoyance did
not extend to my wife, but that it was solely and wholly directed against
me, he bestowed, about eight months after, several marks of favour upon
Madame de Saint-Simon. She was continually invited to the suppers at
Trianon--an honour which had never before been granted her. I only
laughed at this. Madame de Saint-Simon was not invited to Marly; because
the husbands always, by right, accompanied their wives there, apartments
being given for both. At Trianon it was different. Nobody was allowed
to sleep there except those absolutely in attendance. The King wished,
therefore, the better to mark by this distinction that the exclusion was
intended for me alone, and that my wife had no part in it.
Notwithstanding this; I persevered in my ordinary assiduity, without ever
asking to be invited to Marly, and lived agreeably with my wife and my
friends. I have thought it best to finish with this subject at once--now
I must go back to my starting point.
At the commencement of this year (1702) it seemed as though the
flatterers of the King foresaw that the prosperity of his reign was at
an end, and that henceforth they would only have to praise him for his
constancy. The great number of medals that had been struck on all
occasions--the most ordinary not having been forgotten--were collected,
engraved, and destined for a medallic history. The Abbes Tallemant,
Toureil, and Dacier, three learned members of the Academy, were charged
with the explanation to be placed opposite each of these medals, in a
large volume of the most magnificent impression of the Louvre. As the
history commenced at the death of Louis XIII., his medal was placed at
the head of the book, and thus it became necessary to say something of
him in the preface.
As it was known that I had a correct knowledge of Louis XIII., I was
asked to write that portion of the preface which related to him. I
consented to this, but on condition that I should be spared the ridicule
of it in society, and that the matter should be faithfully kept secret.
I wrote my theme then, which cost me little more than a morning, being of
small extent. I had the fate of authors: my writing was praised, and
appeared to answer all expectations. I congratulated myself, delighted
at having devoted two or three hours to a grateful duty--for so I
considered it.
But when my essay was examined, the three gentlemen above-named were
affrighted. There are truths the unstudied simplicity of which emits a
lustre which obscures all the results of an eloquence which exaggerates
or extenuates; Louis XIII. furnished such proofs in abundance. I had
contented myself by showing them forth; but this picture tarnished those
which followed--so at least it appeared to those who had gilded the
latter. They applied themselves, therefore, to cut out, or weaken,
everything that might, by comparison, obscure their hero. But as they
found at last that it was not me they had to correct, but the thing
itself, they gave up the task altogether, threw aside my writing, and
printed the history without any notice whatever of Louis XIII. under his
portrait--except to note that his death caused his son to ascend the
throne.
Reflections upon this kind of iniquity would carry me too far.
In the early part of this year (1702), King William (of England), worn
out before his time with labours and business, in which he had been
engaged all his life, and which he had carried on with a capacity, an
address, a superiority of genius that acquired for him supreme authority
in Holland, the crown of England, the confidence, and, to speak the
truth, the complete dictatorship of all Europe--except France;--King
William, I say, had fallen into a wasting of strength and of health
which, without attacking or diminishing his intellect, or causing him to
relax the infinite labours of his cabinet, was accompanied by a
deficiency of breath, which aggravated the asthma he had had for several
years. He felt his condition, and his powerful genius did not disavow
it. Under forged names he consulted the most eminent physicians of
Europe, among others, Fagon; who, having to do, as he thought, with a
cure, replied in all sincerity, and with out dissimulation, that he must
prepare for a speedy death. His illness increasing, William consulted
Fagon, anew, but this time openly. The physician recognised the malady
of the cure--he did not change his opinion, but expressed it in a less
decided manner, and prescribed with much feeling the remedies most likely
if not to cure, at least to prolong. These remedies were followed and
gave relief; but at last the time had arrived when William was to feel
that the greatest men finish like the humblest and to see the nothingness
of what the world calls great destinies.
He rode out as often as he could; but no longer having the strength to
hold himself on horseback, received a fall, which hastened his end by the
shock it gave him. He occupied himself with religion as little as he had
all his life. He ordered everything, and spoke to his ministers and his
familiars with a surprising tranquillity, which did not abandon him until
the last moment. Although crushed with pain, he had the satisfaction of
thinking that he had consummated a great alliance, which would last after
his death, and that it would strike the great blow against France, which
he had projected. This thought, which flattered him even in the hour of
death, stood in place of all other consolation,--a consolation frivolous
and cruelly deceitful, which left him soon the prey to eternal truths!
For two days he was sustained by strong waters and spirituous liquors.
His last nourishment was a cup of chocolate. He died the 19th March,
1702, at ten o'clock in the morning.
The Princess Anne, his sister-in-law, wife of Prince George of Denmark,
was at the same time proclaimed queen. A few days after, she declared
her husband Grand Admiral and Commander-in-Chief (generalissimo),
recalled the Earl of Rochester, her maternal uncle, and the Earl of
Sunderland, and sent the Count of Marlborough, afterwards so well known,
to Holland to follow out there all the plans of his predecessor.
The King did not learn this death until the Saturday morning following,
by a courier from Calais. A boat had escaped, in spite of the vigilance
which had closed the ports. The King was silent upon the news, except to
Monseigneur and to Madame de Maintenon. On the next day confirmation of
the intelligence arrived from all parts. The King no longer made a
secret of it, but spoke little on the subject, and affected much
indifference respecting it. With the recollection of all the indecent
follies committed in Paris during the last war, when it was believed that
William had been killed at the battle of the Boyne in Ireland, the
necessary precautions against falling into the same error were taken by
the King's orders.
The King simply declared that he would not wear mourning, and prohibited
the Duc de Bouillon, the Marechal de Duras and the Marechal de Lorges,
who were all related to William, from doing so--an act probably without
example. Nearly all England and the United Provinces mourned the loss of
William. Some good republicans alone breathed again with joy in secret,
at having recovered their liberty. The grand alliance was very sensibly
touched by this loss, but found itself so well cemented, that the spirit
of William continued to animate it; and Heinsius, his confidant,
perpetuated it, and inspired all the chiefs of the republic, their allies
and their generals, with it, so that it scarcely appeared that William
was no more.
I have related, in its proper place, all that happened to Catinat in
Italy, when the schemes of Tesse and M. de Vaudemont caused him to be
dismissed from the command of the army. After the signing of the
alliance against France by the Emperor, England, and Holland, the war
took a more extended field. It became necessary to send an army to the
Rhine. There was nothing for it but to have recourse to Catinat.
Since his return from Italy, he had almost always lived at his little
house of Saint Gratien, beyond Saint Denis, where he bore with wisdom the
injury that had been done him and the neglect he had experienced upon his
return, surrounded by his family and a small number of friends.
Chamillart one day sent for him, saying that he had the King's order to
talk with him. Catinat went accordingly to Chamillart, from whom he
learned that he was destined for the Rhine; he refused the command, and
only accepted it after a long dispute, by the necessity of obedience.
On the morrow, the 11th of March, the King called Catinat into his
cabinet. The conversation was amiable on the part of the King, serious
and respectful on the part of Catinat. The King, who perceived this,
wished to make him speak about Italy, and pressed him to explain what had
really passed there. Catinat excused himself, saying that everything
belonged to the past, and that it was useless now to rake up matters
which would give him a bad opinion of the people who served him, and
nourish eternal enmity. The King admired the sagacity and virtue of
Catinat, but, wishing to sound the depths of certain things, and discover
who was really to blame, pressed him more and more to speak out;
mentioning certain things which Catinat had not rendered an account of,
and others he had been silent upon, all of which had come to him from
other sources.
Catinat, who, by his conversation of the previous evening with
Chamillart, suspected that the King would say something to him, had
brought his papers to Versailles. Sure of his position, he declared that
he had not in any way failed to render account to Chamillart or to the
King, and detailed the very things that had just been mentioned to him.
He begged that a messenger might be despatched in order to search his
cassette, in which the proofs of what he had advanced could be seen,
truths that Chamillart, if present, he said, would not dare to disavow.
The King took him at his word, and sent in search of Chamillart.
When he arrived, the King related to him the conversation that had just
taken place. Chamillart replied with an embarrassed voice, that there
was no necessity to wait for the cassette of Catinat, for he admitted
that the accusation against him was true in every respect. The King,
much astonished, reproved him for his infidelity in keeping silence upon
these comments, whereby Catinat had lost his favour.
Chamillart, his eyes lowered, allowed the King to say on; but as he felt
that his anger was rising; said. "Sire, you are right; but it is not my
fault."
"And whose is it, then?" replied the King warmly. "Is it mine?"
"Certainly not, Sire," said Chamillart, trembling; "but I am bold enough
to tell you, with the most exact truth, that it is not mine."
The King insisting, Chamillart was obliged to explain, that having shown
the letters of Catinat to Madame de Maintenon, she had commanded him to
keep them from his Majesty, and to say not a syllable about them.
Chamillart added, that Madame de Maintenon was not far off, and
supplicated the King to ask her the truth of this matter.
In his turn, the King was now more embarrassed than Chamillart; lowering
his voice, he said that it was inconceivable how Madame de Maintenon felt
interested in his comfort, and endeavoured to keep from him everything
that might vex him, and without showing any more displeasure, turned to
Marshal Catinat, said he was delighted with an explanation which showed
that nobody was wrong; addressed several gracious remarks to the Marshal;
begged him to remain on good terms with Chamillart, and hastened to quit
them and enter into his private cabinet.
Catinat, more ashamed of what he had just heard and seen than pleased
with a justification so complete, paid some compliments to Chamillart,
who, out of his wits at the perilous explanation he had given, received
them, and returned them as well as he could. They left the cabinet soon
after, and the selection of Catinat by the King for the command of the
army of the Rhine was declared.
Reflections upon this affair present themselves of their own accord.
The King verified what had been said that very evening with Madame de
Maintenon. They were only on better terms than ever in consequence. She
approved of Chamillart for avowing all; and this minister was only the
better treated afterwards by the King and by Madame de Maintenon.
As for Catinat, he took the command he had been called to, but did not
remain long in it. The explanations that had passed, all the more
dangerous because in his favour, were not of a kind to prove otherwise
than hurtful to him. He soon resigned his command, finding himself too
much obstructed to do anything, and retired to his house of Saint
Gratien, near Saint Denis, which he scarcely ever left, and where he saw
only a few private friends, sorry that he had ever left it, and that he
had listened to the cajoleries of the King.
VOLUME 4.
CHAPTER XXV
Canaples, brother of the Marechal de Crequi, wished to marry Mademoiselle
de Vivonne who was no longer young, but was distinguished by talent,
virtue and high birth; she had not a penny. The Cardinal de Coislin,
thinking Canaples too old to marry, told him so. Canaples said he wanted
to have children. "Children!" exclaimed the Cardinal. "But she is so
virtuous!" Everybody burst out laughing; and the more willingly, as the
Cardinal, very pure in his manners, was still more so in his language.
His saying was verified by the event: the marriage proved sterile.
The Duc de Coislin died about this time. I have related in its proper
place an adventure that happened to him and his brother, the Chevalier de
Coislin: now I will say something more of the Duke. He was a very little
man, of much humour and virtue, but of a politeness that was unendurable,
and that passed all bounds, though not incompatible with dignity. He had
been lieutenant-general in the army. Upon one occasion, after a battle
in which he had taken part, one of the Rhingraves who had been made
prisoner, fell to his lot. The Duc de Coislin wished to give up to the
other his bed, which consisted indeed of but a mattress. They
complimented each other so much, the one pressing, the other refusing,
that in the end they both slept upon the ground, leaving the mattress
between them. The Rhingrave in due time came to Paris and called on the
Duc de Coislin. When he was going, there was such a profusion of
compliments, and the Duke insisted so much on seeing him out, that the
Rhingrave, as a last resource, ran out of the room, and double locked the
door outside. M. de Coislin was not thus to be outdone. His apartments
were only a few feet above the ground. He opened the window accordingly,
leaped out into the court, and arrived thus at the entrance-door before
the Rhingrave, who thought the devil must have carried him there. The
Duc de Coislin, however, had managed to put his thumb out of joint by
this leap. He called in Felix, chief surgeon of the King, who soon put
the thumb to rights. Soon afterwards Felix made a call upon M. de
Coislin to see how he was, and found that the cure was perfect. As he
was about to leave, M. de Coislin must needs open the door for him.
Felix, with a shower of bows, tried hard to prevent this, and while they
were thus vying in politeness, each with a hand upon the door, the Duke
suddenly drew back; he had put his thumb out of joint again, and Felix
was obliged to attend to it on the spot! It may be imagined what
laughter this story caused the King, and everybody else, when it became
known.
There was no end to the outrageous civilities of M. de Coislin. On
returning from Fontainebleau one day, we, that is Madame de Saint-Simon
and myself, encountered M. de Coislin and his son, M. de Metz, on foot
upon the pavement of Ponthierry, where their coach had broken down. We
sent word, accordingly, that we should be glad to accommodate them in
ours. But message followed message on both sides; and at last I was
compelled to alight and to walk through the mud, begging them to mount
into my coach. M. de Coislin, yielding to my prayers, consented to this.
M. de Metz was furious with him for his compliments, and at last
prevailed on him. When M. de Coislin had accepted my offer and we had
nothing more to do than to gain the coach, he began to capitulate, and to
protest that he would not displace the two young ladies he saw seated in
the vehicle. I told him that the two young ladies were chambermaids, who
could well afford to wait until the other carriage was mended, and then
continue their journey in that. But he would not hear of this; and at
last all that M. de Metz and I could do was to compromise the matter, by
agreeing to take one of the chambermaids with us. When we arrived at the
coach, they both descended, in order to allow us to mount. During the
compliments that passed--and they were not short--I told the servant who
held the coach-door open, to close it as soon as I was inside, and to
order the coachman to drive on at once. This was done; but M. de Coislin
immediately began to cry aloud that he would jump out if we did not stop
for the young ladies; and he set himself to do so in such an odd manner,
that I had only time to catch hold of the belt of his breeches and hold
him back; but he still, with his head hanging out of the window,
exclaimed that he would leap out, and pulled against me. At this
absurdity I called to the coachman to stop; the Duke with difficulty
recovered himself, and persisted that he would have thrown himself out.
The chambermaid was ordered to mount, and mount she did, all covered with
mud, which daubed us; and she nearly crushed M. de Metz and me in this
carriage fit only for four.
M. de Coislin could not bear that at parting anybody should give him the
"last touch;" a piece of sport, rarely cared for except in early youth,
and out of which arises a chase by the person touched, in order to catch
him by whom he has been touched. One evening, when the Court was at
Nancy, and just as everybody was going to bed, M. de Longueville spoke a
few words in private to two of his torch-bearers, and then touching the
Duc de Coislin, said he had given him the last touch, and scampered away,
the Duke hotly pursuing him. Once a little in advance, M. de Longueville
hid himself in a doorway, allowed M. de Coislin to pass on, and then went
quietly home to bed. Meanwhile the Duke, lighted by the torch-bearers,
searched for M. de Longueville all over the town, but meeting with no
success, was obliged to give up the chase, and went home all in a sweat.
He was obliged of course to laugh a good deal at this joke, but he
evidently did not like it over much.
With all his politeness, which was in no way put on, M. de Coislin could,
when he pleased, show a great deal of firmness, and a resolution to
maintain his proper dignity worthy of much praise. At Nancy, on this
same occasion, the Duc de Crequi, not finding apartments provided for him
to his taste on arriving in town, went, in his brutal manner, and seized
upon those allotted to the Duc de Coislin. The Duke, arriving a moment
after, found his servants turned into the street, and soon learned who
had sent them there. M. de Crequi had precedence of him in rank; he said
not a word, therefore, but went to the apartments provided for the
Marechal de Crequi (brother of the other), served him exactly as he
himself had just been served, and took up his quarters there. The
Marechal de Crequi arrived in his turn, learned what had occurred, and
immediately seized upon the apartments of Cavoye, in order to teach him
how to provide quarters in future so as to avoid all disputes.
On another occasion, M. de Coislin went to the Sorbonne to listen to a
thesis sustained by the second son of M. de Bouillon. When persons of
distinction gave these discourses, it was customary for the Princes of
the blood, and for many of the Court, to go and hear them. M. de Coislin
was at that time almost last in order of precedence among the Dukes.
When he took his seat, therefore, knowing that a number of them would
probably arrive, he left several rows of vacant places in front of him,
and sat himself down. Immediately afterwards, Novion, Chief President of
the Parliament, arrived, and seated himself in front of M. de Coislin.
Astonished at this act of madness, M. de Coislin said not a word, but
took an arm-chair, and, while Novion turned his head to speak to Cardinal
de Bouillon, placed that arm-chair in front of the Chief President in
such a manner that he was as it were imprisoned, and unable to stir.
M. de Coislin then sat down. This was done so rapidly, that nobody saw
it until it was finished. When once it was observed, a great stir arose.
Cardinal de Bouillon tried to intervene. M. de Coislin replied, that
since the Chief President had forgotten his position he must be taught
it, and would not budge. The other presidents were in a fright, and
Novion, enraged by the offence put on him, knew not what to do. It was
in vain that Cardinal de Bouillon on one side, and his brother on the
other, tried to persuade M. de Coislin to give way. He would not listen
to them. They sent a message to him to say that somebody wanted to see
him at the door on most important business. But this had no effect.
"There is no business so important," replied M. de Coislin, "as that of
teaching M. le Premier President what he owes me, and nothing will make
me go from this place unless M. le President, whom you see behind me,
goes away first."
At last M. le Prince was sent for, and he with much persuasion
endeavoured to induce M. de Coislin to release the Chief President from
his prison. But for some time M. de Coislin would listen as little to M.
le Prince as he had listened to the others, and threatened to keep Novion
thus shut up during all the thesis. At length, he consented to set the
Chief President free, but only on condition that he left the building
immediately; that M. le Prince should guarantee this; and that no
"juggling tricks" (that was the term he made use of), should be played
off to defeat the agreement. M. le Prince at once gave his word that
everything should be as he required, and M. de Coislin then rose, moved
away his arm-chair, and said to the Chief President, "Go away, sir! go
away, sir!" Novion did on the instant go away, in the utmost confusion,
and jumped into his coach. M. de Coislin thereupon took back his chair
to its former position and composed himself to listen again.
On every side M. de Coislin was praised for the firmness he had shown.
The Princes of the blood called upon him the same evening, and
complimented him for the course he had adopted; and so many other
visitors came during the evening that his house was quite full until a
late hour. On the morrow the King also praised him for his conduct, and
severely blamed the Chief President. Nay more, he commanded the latter
to go to M. de Coislin, at his house, and beg pardon of him. It is easy
to comprehend the shame and despair of Novion at being ordered to take so
humiliating a step, especially after what had already happened to him.
He prevailed upon M. le Coislin, through the mediation of friends, to
spare him this pain, and M. de Coislin had the generosity to do so. He
agreed therefore that when Novion called upon him he would pretend to be
out, and this was done. The King, when he heard of it, praised very
highly the forbearance of the Duke.
He was not an old man when he died, but was eaten up with the gout, which
he sometimes had in his eyes, in his nose, and in his tongue. When in
this state, his room was filled with the best company. He was very
generally liked, was truth itself in his dealings and his words, and was
one of my friends, as he had been the friend of my father before me.
The President de Novion, above alluded to, was a man given up to
iniquity, whom money and obscure mistresses alone influenced. Lawyers
complained of his caprices, and pleaders of his injustice. At last, he
went so far as to change decisions of the court when they were given him
to sign, which was not found out for some time, but which led to his
disgrace. He was replaced by Harlay in 1689; and lived in ignominy for
four years more.
About this time died Petit, a great physician, who had wit, knowledge,
experience, and probity; and yet lived to the last without being ever
brought to admit the circulation of the blood.
A rather strange novelty was observed at Fontainebleau: Madame publicly
at the play, in the second year of her mourning for Monsieur! She made
some objections at first, but the King persuaded her, saying that what
took place in his palace ought not to be considered as public.
On Saturday, the 22nd of October of this year (1702), at about ten in the
morning, I had the misfortune to lose my father-in-law, the Marechal de
Lorges, who died from the effects of an unskilful operation performed
upon him for the stone. He had been brought up as a Protestant, and had
practised that religion. But he had consulted on the one hand with
Bossuet, and on the other hand with M. Claude, (Protestant) minister of
Charenton, without acquainting them that he was thus in communication
with both. In the end the arguments of Bossuet so convinced him that he
lost from that time all his doubts, became steadfastly attached to the
Catholic religion, and strove hard to convert to it all the Protestants
with whom he spoke. M. de Turenne, with whom he was intimately allied,
was in a similar state of mind, and, singularly enough, his doubts were
resolved at the same time, and in exactly the same manner, as those of M.
de Lorges. The joy of the two friends, who had both feared they should
be estranged from each other when they announced their conversion, was
very great. The Comtesse de Roye, sister to M. de Lorges, was sorely
affected at this change, and she would not consent to see him except on
condition that he never spoke of it.
M. de Lorges commanded with great distinction in Holland and elsewhere,
and at the death of M. de Turenne, took for the time, and with great
honour, his place. He was made Marshal of France on the 21st of
February, 1676, not before he had fairly won that distinction. The
remainder of his career showed his capacity in many ways, and acquired
for him the esteem of all. His family were affected beyond measure at
his loss. That house was in truth terrible to see. Never was man so
tenderly or so universally regretted, or so worthy of being so. Besides
my own grief, I had to sustain that of Madame de Saint-Simon, whom many
times I thought I should lose. Nothing was comparable to the attachment
she had for her father, or the tenderness he had for her; nothing more
perfectly alike than their hearts and their dispositions. As for me, I
loved him as a father, and he loved me as a son, with the most entire and
sweetest confidence.
About the same time died the Duchesse de Gesvres, separated from a
husband who had been the scourge of his family, and had dissipated
millions of her fortune. She was a sort of witch, tall and lean, who
walked like an ostrich. She sometimes came to Court, with the odd look
and famished expression to which her husband had brought her. Virtue,
wit, and dignity distinguished her. I remember that one summer the King
took to going very often in the evening to Trianon, and that once for all
he gave permission to all the Court, men and women, to follow him. There
was a grand collation for the Princesses, his daughters, who took their
friends there, and indeed all the women went to it if they pleased. One
day the Duchesse de Gesvres took it into her head to go to Trianon and
partake of this meal; her age, her rarity at Court, her accoutrements,
and her face, provoked the Princesses to make fun of her in whispers with
their fair visitors. She perceived this, and without being embarrassed,
took them up so sharply, that they were silenced, and looked down. But
this was not all: after the collation she began to talk so freely and yet
so humorously about them that they were frightened, and went and made
their excuses, and very frankly asked for quarter. Madame de Gesvres was
good enough to grant them this, but said it was only on condition that
they learned how to behave. Never afterwards did they venture to look at
her impertinently. Nothing was ever so magnificent as these soirees of
Trianon. All the flowers of the parterres were renewed every day; and I
have seen the King and all the Court obliged to go away because of the
tuberoses, the odour of which perfumed the air, but so powerfully, on
account of their quantity, that nobody could remain in the garden,
although very vast, and stretching like a terrace all along the canal.
CHAPTER XXVI
The Prince d'Harcourt at last obtained permission to wait on the King,
after having never appeared at Court for seventeen years. He had
followed the King in all his conquests in the Low Countries and Franche-
Comte; but he had remained little at the Court since his voyage to Spain,
whither he had accompanied the daughter of Monsieur to the King, Charles
II., her husband. The Prince d'Harcourt took service with Venice, and
fought in the Morea until the Republic made peace with the Turks. He was
tall, well made; and, although he looked like a nobleman and had wit,
reminded one at the same time of a country actor. He was a great liar,
and a libertine in body and mind; a great spendthrift, a great and
impudent swindler, with a tendency to low debauchery, that cursed him all
his life. Having fluttered about a long time after his return, and found
it impossible either to live with his wife--which is not surprising--or
accommodate himself to the Court or to Paris, he set up his rest at Lyons
with wine, street-walkers, a society to match, a pack of hounds, and a
gaming-table to support his extravagance and enable him to live at the
expense of the dupes, the imbeciles, and the sons of fat tradesmen, whom
he could lure into his nets. Thus he spent many years, and seemed to
forget that there existed in the world another country besides Lyons.
At last he got tired, and returned to Paris. The King, who despised him,
let him alone, but would not see him; and it was only after two months of
begging for him by the Lorraines, that he received permission to present
himself. His wife, the Princesse d'Harcourt, was a favourite of Madame
de Maintenon. The origin of their friendship is traced to the fact that
Brancas, the father of the Princess, had been one of the lovers of Madame
de Maintenon. No claim less powerful could have induced the latter to
take into her favour a person who was so little worthy. Like all women
who know nothing but what chance has taught them, and who have long
languished in obscurity before arriving at splendour, Madame de Maintenon
was dazzled by the very name of Princess, even if assumed: as to a real
Princess, nothing equalled her in her opinion. The Princess then tried
hard to get the Prince invited to Marly, but without success. Upon this
she pretended to sulk, in hopes that Madame de Maintenon would exert all
her influence; but in this she was mistaken. The Prince accordingly by
degrees got disgusted with the Court, and retired into the provinces for
a time.
The Princesse d'Harcourt was a sort of personage whom it is good to make
known, in order better to lay bare a Court which did not scruple to
receive such as she. She had once been beautiful and gay; but though not
old, all her grace and beauty had vanished. The rose had become an ugly
thorn. At the time I speak of she was a tall, fat creature, mightily
brisk in her movements, with a complexion like milk-porridge; great,
ugly, thick lips, and hair like tow, always sticking out and hanging down
in disorder, like all the rest of her fittings out. Dirty, slatternly,
always intriguing, pretending, enterprising, quarrelling--always low as
the grass or high as the rainbow, according to the person with whom she
had to deal: she was a blonde Fury, nay more, a harpy: she had all the
effrontery of one, and the deceit and violence; all the avarice and the
audacity; moreover, all the gluttony, and all the promptitude to relieve
herself from the effects thereof; so that she drove out of their wits
those at whose house she dined; was often a victim of her confidence; and
was many a time sent to the devil by the servants of M. du Maine and M.
le Grand. She, however, was never in the least embarrassed, tucked up
her petticoats and went her way; then returned, saying she had been
unwell. People were accustomed to it.
Whenever money was to be made by scheming and bribery, she was there to
make it. At play she always cheated, and if found out stormed and raged;
but pocketed what she had won. People looked upon her as they would have
looked upon a fish-fag, and did not like to commit themselves by
quarrelling with her. At the end of every game she used to say that she
gave whatever might have been unfairly gained to those who had gained it,
and hoped that others would do likewise. For she was very devout by
profession, and thought by so doing to put her conscience in safety;
because, she used to add, in play there is always some mistake. She went
to church always, and constantly took the sacrament, very often after
having played until four o'clock in the morning.
One day, when there was a grand fete at Fontainebleau, Madame la
Marechale de Villeroy persuaded her, out of malice, to sit down and play,
instead of going to evening prayers. She resisted some time, saying that
Madame de Maintenon was going; but the Marechale laughed at her for
believing that her patron could see who was and who was not at the
chapel: so down they sat to play. When the prayers were over, Madame de
Maintenon, by the merest accident--for she scarcely ever visited any one
--went to the apartments of the Marechale de Villeroy. The door was
flung back, and she was announced. This was a thunderbolt for the
Princesse d'Harcourt. "I am ruined," cried she, unable to restrain
herself; "she will see me playing, and I ought to have been at chapel!"
Down fell the cards from her hands, and down fell she all abroad in her
chair. The Marechale laughed most heartily at so complete an adventure.
Madame de Maintenon entered slowly, and found the Princess in this state,
with five or six persons. The Marechale de Villeroy, who was full of
wit, began to say that, whilst doing her a great honour, Madame was the
cause of great disorder; and showed her the Princesse d'Harcourt in her
state of discomfiture. Madame de Maintenon smiled with majestic
kindness, and addressing the Princesse d'Harcourt, "Is this the way,"
said she; "that you go to prayers?" Thereupon the Princess flew out of
her half-faint into a sort of fury; said that this was the kind of trick
that was played off upon her; that no doubt the Marechale knew that
Madame de Maintenon was coming, and for that reason had persecuted her to
play. "Persecuted!" exclaimed the Marechale, "I thought I could not
receive you better than by proposing a game; it is true you were for a
moment troubled at missing the chapel, but your tastes carried the day.
--This, Madame, is my whole crime," continued she, addressing Madame de
Maintenon. Upon this, everybody laughed louder than before: Madame de
Maintenon, in order to stop the quarrel; commanded them both to continue
their game; and they continued accordingly, the Princesse d'Harcourt,
still grumbling, quite beside herself, blinded with fury, so as to commit
fresh mistakes every minute. So ridiculous an adventure diverted the
Court for several days; for this beautiful Princess was equally feared,
hated, and despised.
Monseigneur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne continually played
off pranks upon her. They put, one day, crackers all along the avenue of
the chateau at Marly, that led to the Perspective where she lodged. She
was horribly afraid of everything. The Duke and Duchess bribed two
porters to be ready to take her into the mischief. When she was right in
the middle of the avenue the crackers began to go off; and she to cry
aloud for mercy; the chairman set her down and ran for it. There she
was, then, struggling in her chair, furiously enough to upset it, and
yelling like a demon. At this the company, which had gathered at the
door of the chateau to see the fun, ran to her assistance, in order to
have the pleasure of enjoying the scene more fully. Thereupon she set to
abusing everybody right and left, commencing with Monseigneur and Madame
la Duchesse de Bourgogne. At another time M. de Bourgogne put a cracker
under her chair in the salon, where she was playing at piquet. As he was
about to set fire to this cracker, some charitable soul warned him that
it would maim her, and he desisted.
Sometimes they used to send about twenty Swiss guards, with drums, into
her chamber, who roused her from her first sleep by their horrid din.
Another time--and these scenes were always at Marly--they waited until
very late for her to go to bed and sleep. She lodged not far from the
post of the captain of the guards, who was at that time the Marechal de
Lorges. It had snowed very hard, and had frozen. Madame la Duchesse de
Bourgogne and her suite gathered snow from the terrace which is on a
level with their lodgings; and, in order to be better supplied, waked up,
to assist them, the Marechal's people, who did not let them want for
ammunition. Then, with a false key, and lights, they gently slipped into
the chamber of the Princesse d'Harcourt; and, suddenly drawing the
curtains of her bed, pelted her amain with snowballs. The filthy
creature, waking up with a start, bruised and stifled in snow, with which
even her ears were filled, with dishevelled hair, yelling at the top of
her voice, and wriggling like an eel, without knowing where to hide,
formed a spectacle that diverted people more than half an hour: so that
at last the nymph swam in her bed, from which the water flowed
everywhere, slushing all the chamber. It was enough to make one die of
laughter. On the morrow she sulked, and was more than ever laughed at
for her pains.
Her fits of sulkiness came over her either when the tricks played were
too violent, or when M. le Grand abused her. He thought, very properly,
that a person who bore the name of Lorraine should not put herself so
much on the footing of a buffoon; and, as he was a rough speaker, he
sometimes said the most abominable things to her at table; upon which the
Princess would burst out crying, and then, being enraged, would sulk.
The Duchesse de Bourgogne used then to pretend to sulk, too; but the
other did not hold out long, and came crawling back to her, crying,
begging pardon for having sulked, and praying that she might not cease to
be a source of amusement! After some time the Duchess would allow
herself to be melted, and the Princess was more villainously treated than
ever, for the Duchesse de Bourgogne had her own way in everything.
Neither the King nor Madame de Maintenon found fault with what she did,
so that the Princesse d'Harcourt had no resource; she did not even dare
to complain of those who aided in tormenting her; yet it would not have
been prudent in any one to make her an enemy.
The Princesse d'Harcourt paid her servants so badly that they concocted a
plan, and one fine day drew up on the Pont Neuf. The coachman and
footmen got down, and came and spoke to her at the door, in language she
was not used to hear. Her ladies and chambermaid got down, and went
away, leaving her to shift as she might. Upon this she set herself to
harangue the blackguards who collected, and was only too happy to find a
man, who mounted upon the seat and drove her home. Another time, Madame
de Saint-Simon, returning from Versailles, overtook her, walking in full
dress in the street, and with her train under her arms. Madame de Saint-
Simon stopped, offered her assistance, and found that she had been left
by her servants, as on the Pont Neuf. It was volume the second of that
story; and even when she came back she found her house deserted, every
one having gone away at once by agreement. She was very violent with her
servants, beat them, and changed diem every day.
Upon one occasion, she took into her service a strong and robust
chambermaid, to whom, from the first day of her arrival, she gave many
slaps and boxes on the ear. The chambermaid said nothing, but after
submitting to this treatment for five or six days, conferred with the
other servants; and one morning, while in her mistress's room, locked the
door without being perceived, said something to bring down punishment
upon her, and at the first box on the ear she received, flew upon the
Princesse d'Harcourt, gave her no end of thumps and slaps, knocked her
down, kicked her, mauled her from her head to her feet, and when she was
tired of this exercise, left her on the ground, all torn and dishevelled,
howling like a devil. The chambermaid then quitted the room, double-
locked the door on the outside, gained the staircase, and fled the house.
Every day the Princess was fighting, or mixed up in some adventures.
Her neighbours at Marly said they could not sleep for the riot she made
at night; and I remember that, after one of these scenes, everybody went
to see the room of the Duchesse de Villeroy and that of Madame d'Espinoy,
who had put their bed in the middle of their room, and who related their
night vigils to every one.
Such was this favourite of Madame de Maintenon; so insolent and so
insupportable to every one, but who had favours and preferences for those
who brought her over, and who had raised so many young men, amassed their
wealth, and made herself feared even by the Prince and minister.
CHAPTER XXVII
In a previous page I have alluded to the Princesse des Ursins, when she
was appointed 'Camerera Mayor' to the Queen of Spain on her marriage.
As I have now to occupy myself more particularly with her, it may be as
well to give a description of this extraordinary woman, which I omitted
when I first spoke of her.
Anne Marie de la Tremoille, was daughter of M. de Noirmoutiers, who
figured sufficiently in the troubles of the minority to be made a 'Duc a
brevet'. She first married M. Talleyrand, who called himself Prince de
Chalais, and who was obliged to quit the kingdom for engaging in the
famous duel against Messieurs de la Frette. She followed her husband to
Spain, where he died. Having gone to Rome, she got into favour with the
Cardinals de Bouillon and d'Estrees, first on account of her name and
nation, and afterwards for more tender reasons. In order to detain her
at Rome, these dignitaries thought of obtaining her an establishment.
She had no children, and almost no fortune, they wrote to Court that so
important a man as the Duc de Bracciano, Prince des Ursins, was worth
gaining; and that the way to arrive at this result was to have him
married to Madame de Chalais. The Duke was persuaded by the two
Cardinals that he was in love with Madame de Chalais: and so the affair
was arranged. Madame des Ursins displayed all her wit and charms at
Rome; and soon her palace became a sort of court, where all the best
company assembled. It grew to be the fashion to go there.
The husband amidst all this counts for not much. There was sometimes a
little disagreement between the two, without open rupture; yet they were
now and then glad to separate. This is why the Duchesse de Bracciano
made two journeys to France: the second time she spent four or five years
there. It was then I knew her, or rather formed a particular friendship
with her. My mother had made her acquaintance during her previous visit.
She lodged near us. Her wit, her grace, her manners enchanted me: she
received me with tenderness and I was always at her house. It was she
who proposed to me a marriage with Mlle. de Royan, which I rejected for
the reason already given.
When Madame des Ursins was appointed 'Camerera Mayor', she was a widow,
without children. No one could have been better suited for the post.
A lady of our court would not have done: a Spanish lady was not to be
depended on, and might have easily disgusted the Queen. The Princesse
des Ursins appeared to be a middle term. She was French, had been in
Spain, and she passed a great part of her life at Rome, and in Italy.
She was of the house of La Tremoille: her husband was chief of the house
of Ursins, a grandee of Spain, and Prince of the Soglio. She was also on
very good terms with the Duchess of Savoy, and with the Queen of
Portugal. The Cardinal d'Estrees, also, was known to have remained her
friend, after having been something more in their youth; and he gave
information that the Cardinal Portocarrero had been much in love with her
at Rome, and that they were then on very good terms. As it was through
the latter Cardinal that it was necessary to govern everything, this
circumstance was considered very important.
Age and health were also appropriate; and likewise her appearance. She
was rather tall than otherwise, a brunette, with blue eyes of the most
varied expression, in figure perfect, with a most exquisite bosom; her
face, without being beautiful, was charming; she was extremely noble in
air, very majestic in demeanour, full of graces so natural and so
continual in everything, that I have never seen any one approach her,
either in form or mind. Her wit was copious and of all kinds: she was
flattering, caressing, insinuating, moderate, wishing to please for
pleasing's sake, with charms irresistible when she strove to persuade and
win over; accompanying all this, she had a grandeur that encouraged
instead of frightening; a delicious conversation, inexhaustible and very
amusing, for she had seen many countries and persons; a voice and way of
speaking extremely agreeable, and full of sweetness. She had read much,
and reflected much. She knew how to choose the best society, how to
receive them, and could even have held a court; was polite,
distinguished; and above all was careful never to take a step in advance
without dignity and discretion. She was eminently fitted for intrigue,
in which, from taste; she had passed her time at Rome; with much
ambition, but of that vast kind, far above her sex, and the common run of
men--a desire to occupy a great position and to govern. A love for
gallantry and personal vanity were her foibles, and these clung to her
until her latest day; consequently, she dressed in a way that no longer
became her, and as she advanced in life, removed further from propriety
in this particular. She was an ardent and excellent friend--of a
friendship that time and absence never enfeebled; and, consequently, an
implacable enemy, pursuing her hatred to the infernal regions. While
caring little for the means by which she gained her ends, she tried as
much as possible to reach them by honest means. Secret, not only for
herself, but for her friends, she was yet, of a decorous gaiety, and so
governed her humours, that at all times and in everything she was
mistress of herself. Such was the Princesse des Ursins.
From the first moment on which she entered the service of the Queen of
Spain, it became her desire to govern not only the Queen, but the King;
and by this means the realm itself. Such a grand project had need of
support from our King, who, at the commencement, ruled the Court of Spain
as much as his own Court, with entire influence over all matters.
The young Queen of Spain had been not less carefully educated than her
sister, the Duchesse de Bourgogne. She had even when so young much
intelligence and firmness, without being incapable of restraint; and as
time went on, improved still further, and displayed a constancy and
courage which were admirably set off by her meekness and natural graces.
According to everything I have heard said in France and in Spain, she
possessed all qualities that were necessary to make her adored. Indeed
she became a divinity among the Spaniards, and to their affection for
her, Philip V. was more than once indebted for his crown. Lords, ladies,
soldiers, and the people still remember her with tears in their eyes; and
even after the lapse of so many years, are not yet consoled for her loss.
Madame des Ursins soon managed to obtain the entire confidence of this
Queen; and during the absence of Philip V. in Italy, assisted her in the
administration of all public offices. She even accompanied her to the
junta, it not being thought proper that the Queen should be alone amid
such an assemblage of men. In this way she became acquainted with
everything that was passing, and knew all the affairs of the Government.
This step gained, it will be imagined that the Princesse des Ursins did
not forget to pay her court most assiduously to our King and to Madame de
Maintenon. She continually sent them an exact account of everything
relating to the Queen--making her appear in the most favourable light
possible. Little by little she introduced into her letters details
respecting public events; without, however, conveying a suspicion of her
own ambition, or that she wished to meddle in these matters. Anchored in
this way, she next began to flatter Madame de Maintenon, and by degrees
to hint that she might rule over Spain, even more firmly than she ruled
over France, if she would entrust her commands to Madame des Ursins.
Madame des Ursins offered, in fact, to be the instrument of Madame de
Maintenon; representing how much better it would be to rule affairs in
this manner, than through the instrumentality of the ministers of either
country.
Madame de Maintenon, whose passion it was to know everything, to mix
herself in everything, and to govern everything, was, enchanted by the
siren. This method of governing Spain without ministers appeared to her
an admirable idea. She embraced it with avidity, without reflecting that
she would govern only in appearance, since she would know nothing except
through the Princesse des Ursins, see nothing except in the light in
which she presented it. From that time dates the intimate union which
existed between these two important women, the unbounded authority of
Madame des Ursins, the fall of all those who had placed Philip V. upon
the throne, and of all our ministers in Spain who stood in the way of the
new power.
Such an alliance being made between the two women, it was necessary to
draw the King of Spain into the same net. This was not a very arduous
task. Nature and art indeed had combined to make it easy.
Younger brother of an excitable, violent, and robust Prince, Philip V,
had been bred up in a submission and dependence that were necessary for
the repose of the Royal family. Until the testament of Charles II., the
Duc d'Anjou was necessarily regarded as destined to be a subject all his
life; and therefore could not be too much abased by education, and
trained to patience and obedience: That supreme law, the reason of state,
demanded this preference, for the safety and happiness of the kingdom,
of the elder over the younger brother. His mind for this reason was
purposely narrowed and beaten down, and his natural docility and
gentleness greatly assisted in the process, He was quite formed to be
led, although he had enough judgment left to choose the better of two
courses proposed to him, and even to express himself in good phrase, when
the slowness, not to say the laziness, of his mind did not prevent him
from speaking at all. His great piety contributed to weaken his mind;
and, being joined to very lively passions, made it disagreeable and even
dangerous for him to be separated from his Queen. It may easily be
conceived, therefore, how he loved her; and that he allowed himself to be
guided by her in all things. As the Queen herself was guided in all
things by Madame des Ursins, the influence of this latter was all-
powerful.
Soon, indeed, the junta became a mere show. Everything was brought
before the King in private, and he gave no decision until the Queen and
Madame des Ursins had passed theirs. This conduct met with no opposition
from our Court, but our ministers at the Court of Spain and the Spanish
ministers here soon began to complain of it. The first to do so were
Cardinals d'Estrees and Portocarrero. Madame de Maintenon laughed at
them, and Madame des Ursins, of whom they were old friends, soon showed
them that she did not mean to abate one jot of her power. She first
endeavoured to bring about a coldness between the two, and this succeeded
so well, that in consequence of the quarrels that resulted, the Spanish
Cardinal, Portocarrero (who, it will be remembered, had played an
important part in bringing Philip to the Spanish throne) wished to quit
the junta. But Madame des Ursins, who thought that the time had not yet
arrived for this step, persuaded him to remain, and endeavoured to
flatter his vanity by an expedient altogether ridiculous. She gave him
the command of a regiment of guards, and he, priest, archbishop, primate
and cardinal, accepted it, and was, of course, well laughed at by
everybody for his pains. The two cardinals soon after became reconciled
to each other, feeling, perhaps, the necessity of uniting against the
common enemy. But they could come to no better understanding with her.
Disagreements continued, so that at last, feeling her position perfectly
secure, the Princesse des Ursins begged permission to retire into Italy,
knowing full well that she would not be taken at her word, and hoping by
this means to deliver herself of these stumbling-blocks in her path.
Our ministers, who felt they would lose all control over Spanish affairs
if Madame des Ursins was allowed to remain mistress, did all in their
power to support the D'Estrees. But Madame de Maintenon pleaded so well
with the King, representing the good policy of allowing a woman so much
attached to him, and to the Spanish Queen, as was Madame des Ursins, to
remain where she was, that he entirely swallowed the bait; the D'Estrees
were left without support; the French ambassador at Madrid was virtually
deprived of all power: the Spanish ministers were fettered in their every
movement, and the authority of Madame des Ursins became stronger than
ever. All public affairs passed through her hands. The King decided
nothing without conferring with the Queen and her.
While excluding almost all the ministers from public offices, Madame des
Ursins admitted a few favourites into her confidence. Amongst them was
D'Harcourt, who stood well with Madame de Maintenon, and who cared little
for the means by which he obtained consideration; Orry, who had the
management of the finances; and D'Aubigny, son of a Procureur in Paris.
The last was a tall, handsome fellow, well made, and active in mind and
body; who for many years had been with the Princess, as a sort of squire,
and on very intimate terms with her. One day, when, followed by some of
the ministers, she entered a room in which he was writing, he burst out
into exclamations against her, without being aware that she was not
alone, swore at her, asked her why she could not leave him an hour in
peace, called her by the strangest names, and all this with so much
impetuosity that she had no time to show him who were behind her. When
he found it out, he ran from the room, leaving Madame des Ursins so
confused that the ministers looked for two or three minutes upon the
walls of the room in order to give her time to recover herself. Soon
after this, D'Aubigny had a splendid suite of apartments, that had
formerly been occupied by Maria Theresa (afterwards wife of Louis XIV.),
placed at his disposal, with some rooms added, in despite of the murmurs
that arose at a distinction so strange accorded to this favourite.
At length, Cardinal d'Estrees, continually in arms against Madame des
Ursins, and continually defeated, could not bear his position any longer,
but asked to be immediately recalled. All that the ministry could do was
to obtain permission for the Abbe d'Estrees (nephew of the Cardinal) to
remain as Ambassador of France at Madrid. As for Portocarrero, seeing
the step his associate had taken, he resolved to quit public business
also, and resigned his place accordingly. Several others who stood in
the way of the Princesse des Ursins were got rid of at the same time, so
that she was now left mistress of the field. She governed absolutely in
all things; the ministers became instruments in her hands; the King and
Queen agents to work out her will. She was at the highest pinnacle of
power. Together with Orry she enjoyed a power such as no one had ever
attained since the time of the Duke of Lerma and of Olivares.
In the mean time the Archduke was declared King of Spain by the Emperor,
who made no mystery of his intention of attacking Spain by way of
Portugal. The Archduke soon afterwards was recognised by Holland,
England, Portugal, Brandenburg, Savoy, and Hanover, as King of Spain,
under the title of Charles III., and soon after by the other powers of
Europe. The Duke of Savoy had been treacherous to us, had shown that he
was in league with the Emperor. The King accordingly had broken off all
relations with him, and sent an army to invade his territory. It need be
no cause of surprise, therefore, that the Archduke was recognised by
Savoy. While our armies were fighting with varied fortune those of the
Emperor and his allies, in different parts of Europe, notably upon the
Rhine, Madame des Ursins was pressing matters to extremities in Spain.
Dazzled by her success in expelling the two cardinals from public
affairs, and all the ministers who had assisted in placing Philip V.
upon the throne, she committed a blunder of which she soon had cause to
repent.
I have said, that when Cardinal d'Estrees quitted Spain, the Abbe
d'Estrees was left behind, so that France should not be altogether
unrepresented in an official manner at the Court of Madrid. Madame des
Ursins did not like this arrangement, but as Madame de Maintenon insisted
upon it, she was obliged to accept it with as good grace as possible.
The Abbe, vain of his family and of his position, was not a man much to
be feared as it seemed. Madame des Ursins accordingly laughed at and
despised him. He was admitted to the council, but was quite without
influence there, and when he attempted to make any representations to
Madame des Ursins or to Orry, they listened to him without attending in
the least to what he said. The Princess reigned supreme, and thought of
nothing but getting rid of all who attempted to divide her authority.
At last she obtained such a command over the poor Abbe d'Estrees, so
teased and hampered him, that he consented to the hitherto unheard-of
arrangement, that the Ambassador of France should not write to the King
without first concerting his letter with her, and then show her its
contents before he despatched it. But such restraint as this became, in
a short time, so fettering, that the Abbe determined to break away from
it. He wrote a letter to the King, without showing it to Madame des
Ursins. She soon had scent of what he had done; seized the letter as it
passed through the post, opened it, and, as she expected, found its
contents were not of a kind to give her much satisfaction. But what
piqued her most was, to find details exaggerating the authority of
D'Aubigny, and a statement to the effect that it was generally believed
she had married him. Beside herself with rage and vexation, she wrote
with her own hand upon the margin of the letter, 'Pour mariee non'
("At any rate, not married"), showed it in this state to the King and
Queen of Spain, to a number of other people, always with strange
clamouring, and finally crowned her folly by sending it to the King
(Louis XIV.), with furious complaints against the Abbe for writing it
without her knowledge, and for inflicting upon her such an atrocious
injury as to mention this pretended marriage. Her letter and its
enclosure reached the King at a very inopportune moment. Just before,
he had received a letter, which, taken in connection with this of the
Princesse des Ursins, struck a blow at her power of the most decisive
kind.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Some little time previously it had been thought necessary to send an army
to the frontiers of Portugal to oppose the Archduke. A French general
was wanted to command this army. Madame des Ursins, who had been very
intimate with the King of England (James II.) and his Queen, thought she
would please them if she gave this post to the Duke of Berwick,
illegitimate son of King James. She proposed this therefore; and our
King, out of regard for his brother monarch, and from a natural affection
for bastards, consented to the appointment; but as the Duke of Berwick
had never before commanded an army, he stipulated that Pursegur, known to
be a skilful officer, should go with him and assist him with his counsels
and advice.
Pursegur set out before the Duke of Berwick. From the Pyrenees as far as
Madrid, he found every provision made for the subsistence of the French
troops, and sent a very advantageous account to the King of this
circumstance. Arrived at Madrid, he had interviews with Orry (who, as I
have already mentioned, had the finances under his control, and who was a
mere instrument in the hands of Madame des Ursins), and was assured by
the minister that all the magazines along the line of route to the
frontiers of Portugal were abundantly filled with supplies for the French
troops, that all the money necessary was ready; and that nothing, in
fact, should fail in the course of the campaign. Pursegur, who had found
nothing wanting up to that time, never doubted but that these statements
were perfectly correct; and had no suspicion that a minister would have
the effrontery to show him in detail all these precautions if he had
taken none. Pleased, then, to the utmost degree, he wrote to the King in
praise of Orry, and consequently of Madame des Ursins and her wise
government. Full of these ideas, he set out for the frontier of Portugal
to reconnoitre the ground himself, and arrange everything for the arrival
of the army and its general. What was his surprise, when he found that
from Madrid to the frontier not a single preparation had been made for
the troops, and that in consequence all that Orry had shown him, drawn
out upon paper, was utterly fictitious. His vexation upon finding that
nothing upon which he had reckoned was provided, may be imagined. He at
once wrote to the King, in order to contradict all that he had recently
written.
This conduct of Orry--his impudence, I may say--in deceiving a man who
immediately after would have under his eyes the proof of his deceit, is a
thing past all comprehension. It is easy to understand that rogues
should steal, but not that they should have the audacity to do so in the
face of facts which so quickly and so easily could prove their villainy.
It was Pursegur's letter then, detailing this rascality on the part of
Orry, that had reached the King just before that respecting the Abbe
d'Estrees. The two disclosed a state of things that could not be allowed
any longer to exist. Our ministers, who, step by step, had been deprived
of all control over the affairs of Spain, profited by the discontentment
of the King to reclaim their functions. Harcourt and Madame de Maintenon
did all they could to ward off the blow from Madame des Ursins, but
without effect. The King determined to banish her to Rome and to dismiss
Orry from his post.
It was felt, however, that these steps must be taken cautiously, to avoid
offending too deeply the King and Queen of Spain, who supported their
favourite through every emergency.
In the first place, then, a simple reprimand was sent to the Princesse
des Ursins for the violation of the respect due to the King, by opening a
letter addressed to him by one of his ambassadors. The Abbe d'Estrees,
who expected that Madame des Ursins would be at once disgraced, and who
had made a great outcry when his letter was opened, fell into such
despair when he saw how lightly she was let off, that he asked for his
dismissal. He was taken at his word; and this was a new triumph for
Madame des Ursins, who thought herself more secure than ever. Her
triumph was of but short duration. The King wrote to Philip,
recommending him to head in person the army for the frontiers of
Portugal, which, in spite of Orry's deception, it was still determined to
send. No sooner was Philip fairly away, separated from the Queen and
Madame des Ursins, and no longer under their influence, than the King
wrote to the Queen of Spain, requesting her, in terms that could not be
disputed, to dismiss at once and for ever her favourite 'Camerera Mayor'.
The Queen, in despair at the idea of losing a friend and adviser to whom
she had been so much attached, believed herself lost. At the same time
that the King wrote to the Queen of Spain, he also wrote to the Princesse
des Ursins, ordering her to quit Madrid immediately, to leave Spain, and
to retire into Italy.
At this conjuncture of affairs, when the Queen was in despair, Madame des
Ursins did not lose her composure. She opened her eyes to all that had
passed since she had violated D'Estrees' letter, and saw the vanity of
the triumph she had recently enjoyed. She felt at once that for the
present all was lost, that her only hope was to be allowed to remain in
France. She made all her arrangements, therefore, so that affairs might
proceed in her absence as much as possible as though she were present,
and then prepared to set out. Dawdling day by day, she put off her
departure as long as could be, and when at length she left Madrid only
went to Alcala, a few leagues distant. She stopped there under various
pretexts, and at length, after five weeks of delay, set out for Bayonne,
journeying as slowly as she could and stopping as often as she dared.
She lost no opportunity of demanding an audience at Versailles, in order
to clear herself of the charge which weighed upon her, and her
importunities at length were not without effect. The most terrible
storms at Court soon blow over. The King (Louis XIV.) was satisfied with
the success of his plans. He had been revenged in every way, and had
humbled the pride of the Princesse des Ursins. It was not necessary to
excite the anger of the Queen and King of Spain by too great harshness
against their fallen friend. Madame de Maintenon took advantage of this
change in the temper of the King, and by dint of persuasion and scheming
succeeded in obtaining from him the permission for Madame des Ursins to
remain in France. Toulouse was fixed upon for her residence. It was a
place that just suited her, and from which communication with Spain was
easy. Here accordingly she took up her residence, determined to watch
well the course of events, and to avail herself of every opportunity that
could bring about her complete reconciliation with the King (Louis XIV.),
and obtain for her in consequence the permission to return to Madrid.
In the mean time, the King and Queen of Spain, distressed beyond measure
at the loss of their favourite, thought only of the best means of
obtaining her recall. They plotted with such ministers as were
favourable to her; they openly quarrelled with and thwarted those who
were her opponents, so that the most important matters perished in their
hands. Nay more, upon the King of Spain's return, the Queen persuaded
him to oppose in all things the wishes of the King (Louis XIV.), his
grandfather, and to neglect his counsels with studied care. Our King
complained of this with bitterness. The aim of it was to tire him out,
and to make him understand that it was only Madame des Ursins, well
treated and sent back, who could restore Spanish affairs to their
original state, and cause his authority to be respected. Madame de
Maintenon, on her side, neglected no opportunity of pressing the King to
allow Madame des Ursins, not to return into Spain--that would have been
to spoil all by asking too much but simply to come to Versailles in order
to have the opportunity of justifying herself for her past conduct. From
other quarters the King was similarly importuned. Tired at last of the
obstinate opposition he met with in Spain from the Queen; who governed
completely her husband, he gave permission to Madame des Ursins to come
to Versailles to plead her own cause. Self-imprisoned as he was in
seclusion, the truth never approached him, and he was the only man in the
two kingdoms who had no suspicion that the arrival of Madame ales Ursins
at the Court was the certain sign of her speedy return to Spain more
powerful than ever. But he was fatigued with the constant resistance he
met with; with the disorder which this occasioned in public affairs at a
time too when, as I will afterwards explain, the closest union was
necessary between the two crowns in order to repel the common enemy, and
these motives induced him, to the astonishment of his ministers, to grant
the favour requested of him.
However well informed Madame des Ursins might be of all that was being
done on her account, this permission surpassed her hopes. Her joy
accordingly was very great; but it did not at all carry her away. She
saw that her return to Spain would now depend upon herself. She
determined to put on the air of one who is disgraced, but who hopes, and
yet is humiliated. She instructed all her friends to assume the same
manner; took all measures with infinite presence of mind; did not hurry
her departure, and yet set out with sufficient promptness to prevent any
coldness springing up, and to show with what eagerness she profited by
the favour accorded to her, and which she had so much wished.
No sooner was the courier gone who carried this news to her, than the
rumour of her return was whispered all over the Court, and became
publicly confirmed a few days afterwards. The movement that it produced
at Court was inconceivable. Only the friends of Madame des Ursins were
able to remain in a tolerably tranquil state. Everybody opened his eyes
and comprehended that the return of such an important personage was a
fact that could not be insignificant. People prepared themselves for a
sort of rising sun that was going to change and renew many things in
nature. On every side were seen people who had scarcely ever uttered her
name, and who now boasted of their intimacy with her and of her
friendship for them. Other people were seen, who, although openly allied
with her enemies, had the baseness to affect transports of joy at her
forthcoming return, and to flatter those whom they thought likely to
favour them with her.
She reached Paris on Sunday, the 4th of January, 1705. The Duc d'Albe
met her several miles out of the city, escorted her to his house, and
gave a fete in her honour there. Several persons of distinction went out
to meet her. Madame des Ursins had reason to be surprised at an entry so
triumphant: she would not, however, stay with the Duc and Duchesse
d'Albe, but took up her quarters with the Comtesse d'Egmont, niece of the
Archbishop of Aix; the said Archbishop having been instrumental in
obtaining her recall. The King was at Marly. I was there with Madame de
Saint-Simon. During the remainder of the stay at Marly everybody flocked
to the house of Madame des Ursins, anxious to pay her their court.
However flattered she may have been by this concourse, she had matters to
occupy her, pleaded want of repose, and shut her door to three people out
of four who called upon her. Curiosity, perhaps fashion, drew this great
crowd to her. The ministers were startled by it. Torcy had orders from
the King to go, and see her: he did so; and from that moment Madame des
Ursins changed her tone. Until then her manner had been modest,
supplicating, nearly timid. She now saw and heard so much that from
defendant, which she had intended to be, she thought herself in a
condition to become accuser; and to demand justice of those who, abusing
the confidence of the King, had drawn upon her such a long and cruel
punishment, and made her a show for the two kingdoms. All that happened
to her surpassed her hopes. Several times when with me she has expressed
her astonishment; and with me has laughed at many people, often of much
consideration, whom she scarcely knew, or who had been strongly opposed
to her, and who basely crouched at her feet.
The King returned to Versailles on Saturday, the 10th of January. Madame
des Ursins arrived there the same day. I went immediately to see her,
not having been able to do so before, because I could not quit Marly. My
mother had seen a great deal of Madame des Ursins at Paris. I had always
been on good terms with her, and had received on all occasions proofs of
her friendship. She received me very well, spoke with much freedom, and
said she promised herself the pleasure of seeing me again, and of talking
with me more at her ease. On, the morrow, Sunday, she dined at home
alone, dressed herself in grand style, and went to the King, with whom
she remained alone two hours and a half conversing in his cabinet. From
there she went to the Duchesse de Bourgogne, with whom she also conversed
a long time alone. In the evening, the King said, while in Madame de
Maintenon's apartments, that there were still many things upon which he
had not yet spoken to Madame des Ursins. The next day she saw Madame de
Maintenon in private for a long time, and much at her ease. She had an
interview soon after with the King and Madame de Maintenon, which was
also very long.
A month after this a special courier arrived from the King and Queen of
Spain, to thank the King (Louis XIV.) for his conduct towards the
Princesse des Ursins. From that moment it was announced that she would
remain at Court until the month of April, in order to attend to her
affairs and her health. It was already to have made a grand step to be
mistress enough to announce thus her stay. Nobody in truth doubted of
her return to Spain, but the word was not yet said. She avoided all
explanations, and it may be believed did not have many indiscreet
questions put to her upon the subject.
So many and such long audiences with the King, followed by so much
serenity, had a great effect upon the world, and the crowd that flocked
to see Madame des Ursins was greater than ever; but under various
pretences she shut herself up and would see only a few intimate friends,
foremost among which were Madame de Saint-Simon and myself. Whilst
triumphant beyond all her hopes in Paris, she was at work in Spain, and
with equal success. Rivas, who had drawn up the will of the late King
Charles II., was disgraced, and never afterwards rose to favour. The Duc
de Grammont, our ambassador at Madrid, was so overwhelmed with annoyance,
that he asked for his recall. Amelot, whom Madame des Ursins favoured,
was appointed in his place, and many who had been disgraced were
reinstated in office; everything was ordered according to her wishes.
We returned to Marly, where many balls took place. It need not be
doubted that Madame des Ursins was among the invited. Apartments were
given her, and nothing could equal the triumphant air with which she took
possession of them, the continual attentions of the King to her, as
though she were some little foreign queen just arrived at his Court, or
the majestic fashion in which she received them, mingled with grace and
respectful politeness, then almost out of date, and which recalled the
stately old dames of the Queen-mother. She never came without the King,
who appeared to be completely occupied with her, talking with her,
pointing out objects for her inspection, seeking her opinion and her
approbation with an air of gallantry, even of flattery, which never
ceased. The frequent private conversations that she had with him in the
apartment of Madame de Maintenon, and which lasted an hour, and sometimes
double that time; those that she very often had in the morning alone with
Madame de Maintenon, rendered her the divinity of the Court. The
Princesses encircled her the moment she appeared anywhere, and went to
see her in her chamber. Nothing was more surprising than the servile
eagerness with which the greatest people, the highest in power and the
most in favour, clustered around her. Her very glances were counted, and
her words, addressed even to ladies of the highest rank, imprinted upon
them a look of ravishment.
I went nearly every morning to her house: she always rose very early,
dressed herself at once, so that she was never seen at her toilette.
I was in advance of the hour fixed for the most important visitors, and
we talked with the same liberty as of yore. I learnt from her many
details, and the opinion of the King and of Madame de Maintenon upon many
people. We often used to laugh in concert at the truckling to her of
persons the most considerable, and of the disdain they drew upon
themselves, although she did not testify it to them. We laughed too at
the falsehood of others, who after having done her all the injury in
their power ever since her arrival, lavished upon her all kinds of
flatteries, and boasted of their affection for her and of zeal in her
cause. I was flattered with this confidence of the dictatress of the
Court. It drew upon me a sudden consideration; for people of the
greatest distinction often found me alone with her in the morning, and
the messengers who rained down at that time reported that they had found
me with her, and that they had not been able to speak to her. Oftentimes
in the salon she called me to her, or at other times I went to her and
whispered a word in her ear, with an air of ease and liberty much envied
but little imitated. She never met Madame de Saint-Simon without going
to her, praising her, making her join in the conversation that was
passing around; oftentimes leading her to the glass and adjusting her
head-dress or her robe as she might have done in private to a daughter.
People asked with surprise and much annoyance whence came such a great
friendship which had never been suspected by anybody? What completed the
torment of the majority, was to see Madame des Ursins, as soon as she
quitted the chamber of Madame de Maintenon, go immediately to Madame de
Saint-Simon, lead her aside, and speak to her in a low tone. This opened
the eyes of everybody and drew upon us many civilities.
A more solid gratification to us were the kind things Madame des Ursins
said in our behalf to the King and Madame de Maintenon. She spoke in the
highest praise of Madame de Saint-Simon, and declared that there was no
woman at Court so fitting as she, so expressly made by her virtue, good
conduct, and ability, to be lady of the Palace, or even lady-of-honour to
Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, should the post become vacant. Madame
des Ursins did not forget me; but a woman was more susceptible of her
praise. It made, therefore, all the more impression. This kind manner
towards us did not change during all her stay at Court.
At all the balls which Madame des Ursins attended, she was treated with
much distinction, and at one she obtained permission for the Duc and
Duchesse d'Albe to be present, but with some little trouble. I say with
some little trouble, because no ambassador, no foreigner, had ever,
with one exception, been admitted to Marly. It was a great favour,
therefore, for Madame des Ursins to obtain. The King, too, treated the
Duc and Duchesse d'Albe, throughout the evening with marked respect, and
placed the latter in the most distinguished position, not only in the
ball-room but at supper. When he went to bed, too, he gave the Duc
d'Albe his candlestick; an honour the importance of which I have already
described.
At the other balls Madame des Ursins seated herself near the Grand
Chamberlain, and looked at everybody with her lorgnette. At every moment
the King turned round to speak to her and Madame de Maintenon, who came
for half an hour or so to these balls, and on her account displaced the
Grand Chamberlain, who put himself behind her. In this manner she joined
Madame des Ursins, and was close to the King--the conversation between
the three being continual. What appeared extremely singular was to see
Madame des Ursins in the salon with a little spaniel in her arms, as
though she had been in her own house. People could not sufficiently
express their astonishment at a familiarity which even Madame la Duchesse
de Bourgogne would not have dared to venture; still less could they do so
when they saw the King caress this little dog over and over again. In
fine, such a high flight has never been seen. People could not accustom
themselves to it, and those who knew the King and his Court are surprised
still, when they think of it, after so many years. There was no longer
any doubt that Madame des Ursins would return into Spain. All her
frequent private conversations with the King and Madame de Maintenon were
upon that country. I will only add here that her return took place in
due time; and that her influence became more paramount than ever.
CHAPTER XXIX
In relating what happened to Madame des Ursins upon her return to Spain,
I have carried the narrative into the year 1705. It is not necessary to
retrace our steps. Towards the end of 1703 Courtin died. He had early
shone at the Council, and had been made Intendant of Picardy.
M. de Chaulnes, whose estates were there, begged him to tax them as
lightly as possible. Courtin, who was a very intimate friend of M. de
Chaulnes, complied with his request; but the next year, in going over his
accounts, he found that to do a good turn to M. de Chaulnes he had done
an ill turn to many others--that is to say, he had relieved M. de
Chaulnes at the expense of other parishes, which he had overcharged.
The trouble this caused him made him search deeply into the matter, and
he found that the wrong he had done amounted to forty thousand francs.
Without a second thought he paid back this money, and asked to be
recalled. As he was much esteemed, his request was not at once complied
with, but he represented so well that he could not pass his life doing
wrong, and unable to serve his friends, that at last what he asked was
granted. He afterwards had several embassies, went to England as
ambassador, and was very successful in that capacity. I cannot quit
Courtin without relating an adventure he had one day with Fieubet, a
Councillor of State like himself. As they were going to Saint Germain
they were stopped by several men and robbed; robbery was common in those
days, and Fieubet lost all he had in his pockets. When the thieves had
left them, and while Fieubet was complaining of his misfortune, Courtin
began to applaud himself for having saved his watch and fifty pistoles
that he had time to slip into his trowsers. Immediately on hearing this,
Fieubet put his head out of the coach window, and called back the
thieves, who came sure enough to see what he wanted.
"Gentlemen," said he, "you appear to be honest folks in distress; it is
not reasonable that you should be the dupes of this gentleman, who his
swindled you out of fifty pistoles and his watch." And then turning to
Courtin, he smilingly said: "You told me so yourself, monsieur; so give
the things up like a man, without being searched."
The astonishment and indignation of Courtin were such that he allowed
money and watch to be taken from him without uttering a single word; but
when the thieves were gone away, he would have strangled Fieubet had not
this latter been the stronger of the two. Fieubet only laughed at him;
and upon arriving at Saint Germain told the adventure to everybody he
met. Their friends had all the trouble in the world to reconcile them.
The year finished with an affair in which I was not a little interested.
During the year there were several grand fetes, at which the King went to
High Mass and vespers. On these occasions a lady of the Court, named by
the Queen, or when there was none, by the Dauphiness, made a collection
for the poor. The house of Lorraine, always anxious to increase its
importance, shirked impudently this duty, in order thereby to give itself
a new distinction, and assimilate its rank to that of the Princes of the
blood. It was a long time before this was perceived. At last the
Duchesse de Noailles, the Duchesse de Guiche, her daughter, the Marechal
de Boufflers, and others, took notice of it; and I was soon after
informed of it. I determined that the matter should be arranged, and
that justice should be done.
The Duchesse de Lude was first spoken to on the subject; she, weak and
timid, did not dare to do anything; but at last was induced to speak to
Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, who, wishing to judge for herself as to
the truth of the matter, ordered Madame de Montbazon to make the
collection for the poor at the next fete that took place. Although very
well, Madame de Montbazon pretended to be ill, stopped in bed half a day,
and excused herself on this ground from performing the duty. Madame de
Bourgogne was annoyed, but she did not dare to push matters farther; and,
in consequence of this refusal, none of the Duchesses would make the
collection. Other ladies of quality soon perceived this, and they also
refused to serve; so that the collection fell into all sorts of hands,
and sometimes was not made at all. Matters went on so far, indeed, that
the King at last grew angry, and threatened to make Madame de Bourgogne
herself take this office. But refusals still followed upon refusals, and
the bomb thus at length was ready to burst.
The King, who at last ordered the daughter of M. le Grand to take the
plate on New Year's Day, 1704., had, it seems, got scent of the part I
was taking in this matter, and expressed himself to Madame de Maintenon,
as I learnt, as very discontented with me and one or two other Dukes.
He said that the Dukes were much less obedient to him than the Princes;
and that although many Duchesses had refused to make the collection, the
moment he had proposed that the daughter of M. le Grand should take it,
M. le Grand consented. On the next day, early in the morning, I saw
Chamillart, who related to me that on the previous evening, before he had
had time to open his business, the King had burst out in anger against
me, saying it was very strange, but that since I had quitted the army I
did nothing but meddle in matters of rank and bring actions against
everybody; finishing, by declaring that if he acted well he should send
me so far away that I should be unable to importune him any more.
Chamillart added, that he had done all in his power to appease the King,
but with little effect.
After consulting with my friends, I determined to go up to the King and
boldly ask to speak to him in his cabinet, believing that to be the
wisest course I could pursue. He was not yet so reconciled to me as he
afterwards became, and, in fact, was sorely out of humour with me. This
step did not seem, therefore, altogether unattended with danger; but,
as I have said, I resolved to take it. As he passed, therefore, from his
dinner that same day, I asked permission to follow him into his cabinet.
Without replying to me, he made a sign that I might enter, and went into
the embrasure of the window.
When we were quite alone I explained, at considerable length, my reasons
for acting in this matter, declaring that it was from no disrespect to
his Majesty that I had requested Madame de Saint-Simon and the other
Duchesses to refuse to collect for the poor, but simply to bring those to
account who had claimed without reason to be exempt from this duty.
I added, keeping my eyes fixed upon the King all the time, that I begged
him to believe that none of his subjects were more submissive to his will
or more willing to acknowledge the supremacy of his authority in all
things than the Dukes. Until this his tone and manner had been very
severe; but now they both softened, and he said, with much goodness and
familiarity, that "that was how it was proper to speak and think," and
other remarks equally gracious. I took then the opportunity of
expressing the sorrow I felt at seeing, that while my sole endeavour was
to please him, my enemies did all they could to blacken me in his eyes,
indicating that I suspected M. le Grand, who had never pardoned me for
the part I took in the affair of the Princesse d'Harcourt, was one of the
number. After I had finished the King remained still a moment, as if
ready to hear if I had anything more to say, and then quitted me with a
bow, slight but very gracious, saying it was well, and that he was
pleased with me.
I learnt afterwards that he said the same thing of me in the evening to
Chamillart, but, nevertheless, that he did not seem at all shaken in his
prejudice in favour of M. le Grand. The King was in fact very easy to
prejudice, difficult to lead back, and most unwilling to seek
enlightenment, or to listen to any explanations, if authority was in the
slightest degree at stake. Whoever had the address to make a question
take this shape, might be assured that the King would throw aside all
consideration of justice, right, and reason, and dismiss all evidence.
It was by playing on this chord that his ministers knew how to manage him
with so much art, and to make themselves despotic masters, causing him to
believe all they wished, while at the same time they rendered him
inaccessible to explanation, and to those who might have explained.
I have, perhaps, too much expanded an affair which might have been more
compressed. But in addition to the fact that I was mixed up in it, it is
by these little private details, as it seems to me, that the characters
of the Court and King are best made known.
In the early part of the next year, 1704., the King made La Queue, who
was a captain of cavalry, campmaster. This La Queue was seigneur of the
place of which he bore the name, distant six leagues from Versailles, and
as much from Dreux. He had married a girl that the King had had by a
gardener's wife. Bontems, the confidential valet of the King, had
brought about the marriage without declaring the names of the father or
the mother of the girl; but La Queue knew it, and promised himself a
fortune. The girl herself was tall and strongly resembled the King.
Unfortunately for her, she knew the secret of her birth, and much envied
her three sisters--recognised, and so grandly married. She lived on very
good terms with her husband--always, however, in the greatest privacy--
and had several children by him. La Queue himself, although by this
marriage son-in-law of the King, seldom appeared at the Court, and, when
there, was on the same footing as the simplest soldier. Bontems did not
fail from time to time to give him money. The wife of La Queue lived
very melancholily for twenty years in her village, never left it, and
scarcely ever went abroad for fear of betraying herself.
On Wednesday, the 25th of June, Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne had a son
born to him. This event caused great joy to the King and the Court.
The town shared their delight, and carried their enthusiasm almost to
madness, by the excess of their demonstration and their fetes. The King
gave a fete at Marly, and made the most magnificent presents to Madame la
Duchesse de Bourgogne when she left her bed. But we soon had reason to
repent of so much joy, for the child died in less than a year--and of so
much money unwisely spent, in fetes when it was wanted for more pressing
purposes. Even while these rejoicings were being celebrated, news
reached us which spread consternation in every family, and cast a gloom
over the whole city.
I have already said that a grand alliance, with the Emperor at its head,
had been formed against France, and that our troops were opposing the
Allies in various parts of Europe. The Elector of Bavaria had joined his
forces to ours, and had already done us some service. On the 12th of
August he led his men into the plain of Hochstedt, where, during the
previous year, he had gained a victory over the Imperialists. In this
plain he was joined by our troops, who took up positions right and left
of him, under the command of Tallard and Marsin. The Elector himself had
command of all. Soon after their arrival at Hochstedt, they received
intelligence that Prince Eugene, with the Imperialist forces, and the
Duke of Marlborough with the English were coming to meet them. Our
generals had, however, all the day before them to choose their ground,
and to make their dispositions. It would have been difficult to succeed
worse, both with the one and the other. A brook, by no means of a miry
kind, ran parallel to our army; and in front of it a spring, which formed
a long and large quagmire, nearly separated the two lines of Marshal
Tallard. It was a strange situation for a general to take up, who is
master of a vast plain; and it became, as will be seen, a very sad one.
At his extreme right was the large village of Blenheim, in which, by a
blindness without example, he had placed twenty-six battalions of
infantry, six regiments of dragoons, and a brigade of cavalry. It was an
entire army merely for the purpose of holding this village, and
supporting his right, and of course he had all these troops the less to
aid him in the battle which took place. The first battle of Hochstedt
afforded a lesson which ought to have been studied on this occasion.
There were many officers present, too, who had been at that battle; but
they were not consulted. One of two courses was open, either to take up
a position behind the brook, and parallel to it, so as to dispute its
passage with the enemies, or to take advantage of the disorder they would
be thrown into in crossing it by attacking them then. Both these plans
were good; the second was the better; but neither was adopted. What was
done was, to leave a large space between our troops and the brook, that
the enemy might pass at their ease, and be overthrown afterwards, as was
said. With such dispositions it is impossible to doubt but that our
chiefs were struck with blindness. The Danube flowed near enough to
Blenheim to be of sufficient support to our right, better indeed than
that village, which consequently there was no necessity to hold.
The enemies arrived on the 13th of August at the dawn, and at once took
up their position on the banks of the brook. Their surprise must have
been great to see our army so far off, drawn up in battle array. They
profited by the extent of ground left to them, crossed the brook at
nearly every point, formed themselves in several lines on the side to
which they crossed, and then extended themselves at their ease, without
receiving the slightest opposition. This is exact truth, but without any
appearance of being so; and posterity will with difficulty believe it.
It was nearly eight o'clock before all these dispositions, which our
troops saw made without moving, were completed. Prince Eugene with his
army had the right; the Duke of Marlborough the left. The latter thus
opposed to the forces of Tallard, and Prince Eugene to those of Marsin.
The battle commenced; and in one part was so far favourable to us that
the attack of Prince Eugene was repulsed by Marsin, who might have
profited by this circumstance but for the unfortunate position of our
right. Two things contributed to place us at a disadvantage. The second
line, separated by the quagmire I have alluded to from the first line,
could not sustain it properly; and in consequence of the long bend it was
necessary to make round this quagmire, neither line, after receiving or
making a charge, could retire quickly to rally and return again to the
attack. As for the infantry, the twenty-six battalions shut up in
Blenheim left a great gap in it that could not fail to, be felt. The
English, who soon perceived the advantage they might obtain from this
want of infantry, and from the difficulty with which our cavalry of the
right was rallied, profited by these circumstances with the readiness of
people who have plenty of ground at their disposal. They redoubled their
charges, and to say all in one word, they defeated at their first attack
all this army, notwithstanding the efforts of our general officers and of
several regiments to repel them. The army of the Elector, entirely
unsupported, and taken in flank by the English, wavered in its turn.
All the valour of the Bavarians, all the prodigies of the Elector, were
unable to remedy the effects of this wavering. Thus was seen, at one and
the same time, the army of Tallard beaten and thrown into the utmost
disorder; that of the Elector sustaining itself with great intrepidity,
but already in retreat; and that of Marsin charging and gaining ground
upon Prince Eugene. It was not until Marsin learnt of the defeat of
Tallard and of the Elector, that he ceased to pursue his advantages, and
commenced his retreat. This retreat he was able to make without being
pursued.
[Illustration: After The Battle of Blenheim--Painted by R. Canton
Woodville--354]
In the mean time the troops in Blenheim had been twice attacked, and had
twice repulsed the enemy. Tallard had given orders to these troops on no
account to leave their positions, nor to allow a single man even to quit
them. Now, seeing his army defeated and in flight, he wished to
countermand these orders. He was riding in hot haste to Blenheim to do
so, with only two attendants, when all three were surrounded, recognised,
and taken prisoners.
These troops shut up in Blenheim had been left under the command of
Blansac, camp-marshal, and Clerembault, lieutenant-general. During the
battle this latter was missed, and could nowhere be found. It was known
afterwards that, for fear of being killed, he had endeavoured to escape
across the Danube on horseback attended by a single valet. The valet
passed over the river in safety, but his master went to the bottom.
Blansac, thus left alone in command, was much troubled by the disorders
he saw and heard, and by the want which he felt of fresh orders. He sent
a messenger to Tallard for instructions how to act, but his messenger was
stopped on the road, and taken prisoner. I only repeat what Blansac
himself reported in his defence, which was equally ill-received by the
King and the public, but which had no contradictors, for nobody was
witness of what took place at Blenheim except those actually there, and
they all, the principals at least, agreed in their story. What some of
the soldiers said was not of a kind that could altogether be relied upon.
While Blansac was in this trouble, he saw Denonville, one of our officers
who had been taken prisoner, coming towards the village, accompanied by
an officer who waved a handkerchief in the air and demanded a parley.
Denonville was a young man, very handsome and well made, who being a
great favourite with Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne had become
presumptuous and somewhat audacious. Instead of speaking in private to
Blansac and the other principal officers--since he had undertaken so
strange a mission--Denonville, who had some intellect, plenty of fine
talk, and a mighty opinion of himself, set to work haranguing the troops,
trying to persuade them to surrender themselves prisoners of war, so that
they might preserve themselves for the service of the King. Blansac, who
saw the wavering this caused among the troops, sharply told Denonville to
hold his tongue, and began himself to harangue the troops in a contrary
spirit. But it was to late. The mischief was done. Only one regiment,
that of Navarre, applauded him, all the rest maintained a dull silence.
I remind my readers that it is Blansac's version of the story I am
giving.
Soon after Denonville and his companion had returned to the enemy, an
English lord came, demanding a parley with the commandant. He was
admitted to Blansac, to whom he said that the Duke of Marlborough had
sent him to say that he had forty battalions and sixty pieces of cannon
at his disposal, with reinforcements to any extent at command; that he
should surround the village on all sides; that the army of Tallard was in
flight, and the remains of that of the Elector in retreat; that Tallard
and many general officers were prisoners; that Blansac could hope for no
reinforcements; and that, therefore, he had better at once make an
honourable capitulation, and surrender, himself with all his men
prisoners of war, than attempt a struggle in which he was sure to be
worsted with great loss. Blansac wanted to dismiss this messenger at
once, but the Englishman pressed him to advance a few steps out of the
village, and see with his own eyes the defeat of the Electoral army, and
the preparations that were made on the other side to continue the battle.
Blansac accordingly, attended by one of his officers, followed this lord,
and was astounded to see with his own eyes that all he had just heard was
true. Returned into Bleinheim, Blansac assembled all his principal
officers, made them acquainted with the proposition that had been made,
and told them what he had himself seen. Every one comprehended what a
frightful shock it would be for the country when it learnt that they had
surrendered themselves prisoners of war; but all things well considered,
it was thought best to accept these terms, and so preserve to the King
the twenty-six battalions and the twelve squadrons of dragoons who were
there. This terrible capitulation was at once, therefore, drawn up and
signed by Blansac, the general officers, and the heads of every corps
except that of Navarre, which was thus the sole one which refused.
The number of prisoners that fell to the enemy in this battle was
infinite. The Duke of Marlborough took charge of the most distinguished,
until he could carry them away to England, to grace his triumph there.
He treated them all, even the humblest, with the utmost attention,
consideration, and politeness, and with a modesty that did him even more
honour than his victory. Those that came under the charge of Prince
Louis of Baden were much less kindly treated.
The King received the cruel news of this battle on the 21st of August, by
a courier from the Marechal de Villeroy. By this courier the King learnt
that a battle had taken place on the 13th; had lasted from eight o'clock
in the morning until evening; that the entire army of Tallard was killed
or taken prisoners; that it was not known what had become of Tallard
himself, or whether the Elector and Marsin had been at the action. The
private letters that arrived were all opened to see what news they
contained, but no fresh information could be got from them. For six days
the King remained in this uncertainty as to the real losses that had been
sustained. Everybody was afraid to write bad news; all the letters which
from time to time arrived, gave, therefore, but an unsatisfactory account
of what had taken place. The King used every means in his power to
obtain some news. Every post that came in was examined by him, but there
was little found to satisfy him. Neither the King nor anybody else could
understand, from what had reached them, how it was that an entire army
had been placed inside a village, and had surrendered itself by a signed
capitulation. It puzzled every brain. At last the details, that had
oozed out little by little, augmented to a perfect stream by the
arrival of one of our officers, who, taken prisoner, had been allowed by
the Duke of Marlborough to go to Paris to relate to the King the
misfortune that had happened to him.
We were not accustomed to misfortunes. This one, very reasonably, was
utterly unexpected. It seemed in every way the result of bad
generalship, of an unjustifiable disposition of troops, and of a series
of gross and incredible errors. The commotion was general. There was
scarcely an illustrious family that had not had one of its members
killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Other families were in the same
case. The public sorrow and indignation burst out without restraint.
Nobody who had taken part in this humiliation was spared; the generals
and the private soldiers alike came in for blame. Denonville was
ignominiously broken for the speech he had made at Blenheim. The
generals, however, were entirely let off. All the punishment fell upon
certain regiments, which were broken, and upon certain unimportant
officers--the guilty and innocent mixed together. The outcry was
universal. The grief of the King at this ignominy and this loss, at the
moment when he imagined that the fate of the Emperor was in his hands,
may be imagined. At a time when he might have counted upon striking a
decisive blow, he saw himself reduced to act simply on the defensive, in
order to preserve his troops; and had to repair the loss of an entire
army, killed or taken prisoners. The sequel showed not less that the
hand of God was weighty upon us. All judgment was lost. We trembled
even in the midst of Alsace.
In the midst of all this public sorrow, the rejoicing and the fetes for
the birth of the Duc de Bretagne son of Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne,
were not discontinued. The city gave a firework fete upon the river,
that Monseigneur, the Princes, his sons, and Madame la Duchesse de
Bourgogne, with many ladies and courtiers, came to see from the windows
of the Louvre, magnificent cheer and refreshments being provided for
them. This was a contrast which irritated the people, who would not
understand that it was meant for magnanimity. A few days afterwards the
King gave an illumination and a fete at Marly, to which the Court of
Saint Germain was invited; and which was all in honour of Madame la
Duchesse de Bourgogne. He thanked the Prevot des Marchand for the
fireworks upon the river, and said that Monseigneur and Madame had found
them very beautiful.
Shortly after this, I received a letter from one of my friends, the Duc
de Montfort, who had always been in the army of the Marechal de Villeroy.
He sent word to me, that upon his return he intended to break his sword,
and retire from the army. His letter was written in such a despairing
tone that, fearing lest with his burning courage he might commit some
martial folly, I conjured him not to throw himself into danger for the
sake of being killed. It seemed that I had anticipated his intentions.
A convoy of money was to be sent to Landau. Twice he asked to be allowed
to take charge of this convoy, and twice he was told it was too
insignificant a charge for a camp-marshal to undertake. The third time
that he asked this favour, he obtained it by pure importunity. He
carried the money safely into Landau, without meeting with any obstacle.
On his return he saw some hussars roving about. Without a moment's
hesitation he resolved to give chase to them. He was with difficulty
restrained for some time, and a last, breaking away, he set off to attack
them, followed by only two officers. The hussars dispersed themselves,
and retreated; the Duc de Montfort followed them, rode into the midst of
them, was surrounded on all sides, and soon received a blow which
overturned him. In a few moments after, being carried off by his men, he
died, having only had time to confess himself, and to arrive at his
quarters. He was infinitely regretted by everybody who had known him.
The grief of his family may be imagined.
CHAPTER XXX
The King did not long remain without some consolation for the loss of the
battle of Hochstedt (Blenheim). The Comte de Toulouse--very different in
every respect from his brother, the Duc du Maine--was wearied with
cruising in the Mediterranean, without daring to attack enemies that were
too strong for him. He had, therefore, obtained reinforcements this
year, so that he was in a state to measure his forces with any opponent.
The English fleet was under the command of Admiral Rooks. The Comte de
Toulouse wished above all things to attack. He asked permission to do
so, and, the permission being granted, he set about his enterprise. He
met the fleet of Admiral Rooks near Malaga, on the 24th of September of
this year, and fought with it from ten o'clock in the morning until eight
o'clock in the evening. The fleets, as far as the number of vessels was
concerned, were nearly equal. So furious or so obstinate a sea-fight had
not been seen for a long time. They had always the wind upon our fleet,
yet all the advantage was on the side of the Comte de Toulouse, who could
boast that he had obtained the victory, and whose vessel fought that of
Rooks, dismasted it, and pursued it all next day towards the coast of
Barbary, where the Admiral retired. The enemy lost six thousand men; the
ship of the Dutch Vice-Admiral was blown up; several others were sunk,
and some dismasted. Our fleet lost neither ship nor mast, but the
victory cost the lives of many distinguished people, in addition to those
of fifteen hundred soldiers or sailors killed or wounded.
Towards evening on the 25th, by dint of maneuvers, aided by the wind, our
fleet came up again with that of Rooks. The Comte de Toulouse was for
attacking it again on the morrow, and showed that if the attack were
successful, Gibraltar would be the first result of the victory. That
famous place, which commands the important strait of the same name, had
been allowed to fall into neglect, and was defended by a miserable
garrison of forty men. In this state it had of course easily fallen into
the hands of the enemies. But they had not yet had time to man it with a
much superior force, and Admiral Rooks once defeated, it must have
surrendered to us.
The Comte de Toulouse urged his advice with all the energy of which he
was capable, and he was supported in opinion by others of more experience
than himself. But D'O, the mentor of the fleet, against whose counsel he
had been expressly ordered by the King never to act, opposed the project
of another attack with such disdainful determination, that the Comte had
no course open but to give way. The annoyance which this caused
throughout the fleet was very great. It soon was known what would have
become of the enemy's fleet had it been attacked, and that Gibraltar
would have been found in exactly the same state as when abandoned. The
Comte de Toulouse acquired great honour in this campaign, and his stupid
teacher lost little, because he had little to lose.
M. de Mantua having surrendered his state to the King, thereby rendering
us a most important service in Italy, found himself ill at ease in his
territory, which had become the theatre of war, and had come incognito to
Paris. He had apartments provided for him in the Luxembourg, furnished
magnificently with the Crown furniture, and was very graciously received
by the King. The principal object of his journey was to marry some
French lady; and as he made no secret of this intention, more than one
plot was laid in order to provide him with a wife. M. de Vaudemont,
intent upon aggrandizing the house of Lorraine, wished. M de Mantua to
marry a member of that family, and fixed upon Mademoiselle d'Elboeuf for
his bride. The Lorraines did all in their power to induce M. de Mantua
to accept her. But M. le Prince had also his designs in this matter. He
had a daughter; whom he knew not how to get off his hands, and he thought
that in more ways than one it would be to his advantage to marry her to
the Duke of Mantua. He explained his views to the King, who gave him
permission to follow them out, and promised to serve him with all his
protection. But when the subject was broached to M. de Mantua, he
declined this match in such a respectful, yet firm, manner that M. le
Prince felt he must abandon all hope of carrying it out. The Lorraines
were not more successful in their designs. When M. de Vaudemont had
first spoken of Mademoiselle d'Elboeuf, M. de Mantua had appeared to
listen favourably. This was in Italy. Now that he was in Paris he acted
very differently. It was in vain that Mademoiselle d'Elboeuf was thrust
in his way, as though by chance, at the promenades, in the churches; her
beauty, which might have touched many others, made no impression upon
him. The fact was that M. de Mantua, even long before leaving his state,
had fixed upon a wife.
Supping one evening with the Duc de Lesdiguieres, a little before the
death of the latter, he saw a ring with a portrait in it; upon the Duke's
finger. He begged to be allowed to look at the portrait, was charmed
with it, and said he should be very happy to have such a beautiful
mistress. The Duke at this burst out laughing, and said it was the
portrait of his wife. As soon as the Duc de Lesdiguieres was dead,
de Mantua thought only of marrying the young widowed Duchess. He sought
her everywhere when he arrived in Paris, but without being able to find
her; because she was in the first year of her widowhood. He therefore
unbosomed himself to Torcy, who reported the matter to the King. The
King approved of the design of M. de Mantua, and charged the Marechal de
Duras to speak to the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who was his daughter.
The Duchess was equally surprised and afflicted when she learned what was
in progress. She testified to her father her repugnance to abandon
herself to the caprices and the jealousy of an old Italian 'debauche' the
horror she felt at the idea of being left alone with him in Italy; and
the reasonable fear she had of her health, with a man whose own could not
be good.
I was promptly made acquainted with this affair; for Madame de
Lesdiguieres and Madame de Saint-Simon were on the most intimate terms.
I did everything in my power to persuade Madame de Lesdirguieres to
content to the match, insisting at once on her family position, on the
reason of state, and on the pleasure of ousting Madame d'Elboeuf,--but it
was all in vain. I never saw such firmness. Pontchartrain, who came and
reasoned with her, was even less successful than I, for he excited her by
threats and menaces. M. le Prince himself supported us--having no longer
any hope for himself, and fearing, above all things, M. de Mantua's
marriage with a Lorraine--and did all he could to persuade Madame de
Lesdiguieres to give in. I renewed my efforts in the same direction, but
with no better success than before. Nevertheless, M. de Mantua,
irritated by not being able to see Madame de Lesdirguieres, resolved to
go and wait for her on a Sunday at the Minimes. He found her shut up in
a chapel, and drew near the door in order to see her as she went out. He
was not much gratified; her thick crape veil was lowered; it was with
difficulty he could get a glance at her. Resolved to succeed, he spoke
to Torcy, intimating that Madame de Lesdiguieres ought not to refuse such
a slight favour as to allow herself to be seen in a church. Torcy
communicated this to the King, who sent word to Madame de Lesdiguieres
that she must consent to the favour M. de Mantua demanded. She could not
refuse after this. M. de Mantua went accordingly, and waited for her in
the same place, where he had once already so badly seen her. He found
her, in the chapel, and drew near the door, as before. She came out, her
veil raised, passed lightly before him, made him a sliding courtesy as
she glided by, in reply to his bow, and reached her coach.
M. de Mantua was charmed; he redoubled his efforts with the King and M.
de Duras; the matter was discussed in full council, like an affair of
state--indeed it was one; and it was resolved to amuse M. de Mantua, and
yet at the same time to do everything to vanquish this resistance of
Madame de Lesdiguieres, except employing the full authority of the King,
which the King himself did not wish to exert. Everything was promised to
her on the part of the King: that it should be his Majesty who would make
the stipulations of the marriage contract; that it should be his Majesty
who would give her a dowry, and would guarantee her return to France if
she became a widow, and assure her his protection while she remained a
wife; in one word, everything was tried, and in the gentlest and most
honourable manner, to persuade her. Her mother lent us her house one
afternoon, in order that we might speak more at length and more at our
ease there to Madame de Lesdiguieres than we could at the Hotel de Duras.
We only gained a torrent of tears for our pains.
A few days after this, I was very much astonished to hear Chamillart
relate to me all that had passed at this interview. I learnt afterwards
that Madame de Lesdiguieres, fearing that if, entirely unsupported, she
persisted in her refusal, it might draw upon her the anger of the King,
had begged Chamillart to implore his Majesty not to insist upon this
marriage. M. de Mantua hearing this, turned his thoughts elsewhere; and
she was at last delivered of a pursuit which had become a painful
persecution to her. Chamillart served her so well that the affair came
to an end; and the King, flattered perhaps by the desire this young
Duchess showed to remain his subject instead of becoming a sovereign,
passed a eulogium upon her the same evening in his cabinet to his family
and to the Princesses, by whom it was spread abroad through society.
I may as well finish this matter at once. The Lorraines, who had watched
very closely the affair up to this point, took hope again directly they
heard of the resolution M. de Mantua had formed to abandon his pursuit of
Madame de Lesdiguieres. They, in their turn, were closely watched by
M. le Prince, who so excited the King against them, that Madame d'Elboeuf
received orders from him not to continue pressing her suit upon M. de
Mantua. That did not stop them. They felt that the King would not
interfere with them by an express prohibition, and sure, by past
experience, of being on better terms with him afterwards than before,
they pursued their object with obstinacy. By dint of much plotting and
scheming, and by the aid of their creatures, they contrived to overcome
the repugnance of M. de Mantua to Mademoiselle d'Elboeuf, which at bottom
could be only caprice--her beauty, her figure, and her birth taken into
account. But Mademoiselle d'Elboeuf, in her turn, was as opposed to
marriage with M. de Mantua as Madame de Lesdiguieres had been. She was,
however, brought round ere long, and then the consent of the King was the
only thing left to be obtained. The Lorraines made use of their usual
suppleness in order to gain that. They represented the impolicy of
interfering with the selection of a sovereign who was the ally of France,
and who wished to select a wife from among her subjects, and succeeded so
well, that the King determined to become neutral; that is to say, neither
to prohibit nor to sanction this match. M. le Prince was instrumental in
inducing the King to take this neutral position; and he furthermore
caused the stipulation to be made, that it should not be celebrated in
France, but at Mantua.
After parting with the King, M. de Mantua, on the 21st of September, went
to Nemours, slept there, and then set out for Italy. At the same time
Madame and Mademoiselle d'Elboeuf, with Madame de Pompadour, sister of
the former, passed through Fontainebleau without going to see a soul, and
followed their prey lest he should change his mind and escape them until
the road he was to take branched off from that they were to go by; he in
fact intending to travel by sea and they by land. On the way their fears
redoubled. Arrived at Nevers, and lodged in a hostelrie, they thought it
would not be well to commit themselves further without more certain
security: Madame de Pompadour therefore proposed to M. de Mantua not to
delay his happiness any longer, but to celebrate his marriage at once.
He defended himself as well as he could, but was at last obliged to give
in. During this indecent dispute, the Bishop was sent to. He had just
died, and the Grand Vicar, not knowing what might be the wishes of the
King upon this marriage, refused to celebrate it. The chaplain was
therefore appealed to, and he at once married Mademoiselle d'Elboeuf to
M. de Mantua in the hotel. As soon as the ceremony was over, Madame
d'Elboeuf wished to leave her daughter alone with M. de Mantua, and
although he strongly objected to this, everybody quitted the room,
leaving only the newly married couple there, and Madame de Pompadour
outside upon the step listening to what passed between them. But finding
after a while that both were very much embarrassed, and that M. de Mantua
did little but cry out for the company to return, she conferred with her
sister, and they agreed to give him his liberty. Immediately he had
obtained it, he mounted his horse, though it was not early, and did not
see them again until they reached Italy--though all went the same road as
far as Lyons. The news of this strange celebration of marriage was soon
spread abroad with all the ridicule which attached to it.
The King was very much annoyed when he learnt that his orders had been
thus disobeyed. The Lorraines plastered over the affair by representing
that they feared an affront from M. de Mantua, and indeed it did not seem
at all unlikely that M. de Mantua, forced as it were into compliance with
their wishes, might have liked nothing better than to reach Italy and
then laugh at them. Meanwhile, Madame d'Elboeuf and her daughter
embarked on board the royal galleys and started for Italy. On the way
they were fiercely chased by some African corsairs, and it is a great
pity they were not taken to finish the romance.
However, upon arriving in Italy, the marriage was again celebrated, this
time with all the forms necessary for the occasion. But Madame d'Elboeuf
had no cause to rejoice that she had succeeded in thus disposing of her
daughter. The new Duchesse de Mantua was guarded by her husband with the
utmost jealousy. She was not allowed to see anybody except her mother,
and that only for an hour each day. Her women entered her apartment only
to dress and undress her. The Duke walled up very high all the windows
of his house, and caused his wife to, be guarded by old women. She
passed her days thus in a cruel prison. This treatment, which I did not
expect, and the little consideration, not to say contempt, shown here for
M. de Mantua since his departure, consoled me much for the invincible
obstinacy of Madame de Lesdiguieres. Six months after, Madame d'Elboeuf
returned, beside herself with vexation, but too vain to show it. She
disguised the misfortune of her daughter, and appeared to be offended if
it was spoken of; but all our letters from the army showed that the news
was true. The strangest thing of all is, that the Lorraines after this
journey were as well treated by the King as if they had never undertaken
it; a fact which shows their art and ascendency.
I have dwelt too long perhaps upon this matter. It appeared to me to
merit attention by its singularity, and still more so because it is by
facts of this sort that is shown what was the composition of the Court of
the King.
About this time the Comtesse d'Auvergne finished a short life by an
illness very strange and uncommon. When she married the Comte d'Auvergne
she was a Huguenot, and he much wanted to make her turn Catholic.
A famous advocate of that time, who was named Chardon, had been a
Huguenot, and his wife also; they had made a semblance, however, of
abjuring, but made no open profession of Catholicism. Chardon was
sustained by his great reputation, and by the number of protectors he had
made for himself.
One morning he and his wife were in their coach before the Hotel-Dieu,
waiting for a reply that their lackey was a very long time in bringing
them. Madame Chardon glanced by chance upon the grand portal of Notre
Dame, and little by little fell into a profound reverie, which might be
better called reflection. Her husband, who at last perceived this, asked
her what had sent her into such deep thought, and pushed her elbow even
to draw a reply from her. She told him then what she was thinking about.
Pointing to Notre Dame, she said that it was many centuries before Luther
and Calvin that those images of saints had been sculptured over that
portal; that this proved that saints had long since been invoked; the
opposition of the reformers to this ancient opinion was a novelty; that
this novelty rendered suspicious other dogmas against the antiquity of
Catholicism that they taught; that these reflections, which she had never
before made, gave her much disquietude, and made her form the resolution
to seek to enlighten herself.
Chardon thought his wife right, and from that day they laid themselves
out to seek the truth, then to consult, then to be instructed. This
lasted a year, and then they made a new abjuration, and both ever
afterwards passed their lives in zeal and good works. Madame Chardon
converted many Huguenots. The Comte d'Auvergne took his wife to her.
The Countess was converted by her, and became a very good Catholic. When
she died she was extremely regretted by all the relatives of her husband,
although at first they had looked upon her coldly.
In the month of this September, a strange attempt at assassination
occurred. Vervins had been forced into many suits against his relatives,
and was upon the point of gaining them all, when one of his cousins-
german, who called himself the Abbe de Pre, caused him to be attacked as
he passed in his coach along the Quai de la Tournelle, before the
community of Madame de Miramion. Vervins was wounded with several sword
cuts, and also his coachman, who wished to defend him. In consequence of
the complaint Vervins made, the Abbe escaped abroad, whence he never
returned, and soon after, his crime being proved, was condemned to be
broken alive on the wheel. Vervins had long been menaced with an attack
by the Abbe. Vervins was an agreeable, well-made man, but very idle.
He had entered the army; but quitted it soon, and retired to his estates
in Picardy. There he shut himself up without any cause of disgust or of
displeasure, without being in any embarrassment, for on the contrary he
was well to do, and all his affairs were in good order, and he never
married; without motives of piety, for piety was not at all in his vein;
without being in bad health, for his health was always perfect; without a
taste for improvement, for no workmen were ever seen in his house; still
less on account of the chase, for he never went to it. Yet he stayed in
his house for several years, without intercourse with a soul, and, what
is most incomprehensible, without budging from his bed, except to allow
it to be made. He dined there, and often all alone; he transacted what
little business he had to do there, and received while there the few
people he could not refuse admission to; and each day, from the moment he
opened his eyes until he closed them again, worked at tapestry, or read a
little; he persevered until his death in this strange fashion of
existence; so uniquely singular, that I have wished to describe it.
CHAPTER XXXI
There presents itself to my memory an anecdote which it would be very
prudent perhaps to be silent upon, and which is very curious for anybody
who has seen things so closely as I have, to describe. What determines
me to relate it is that the fact is not altogether unknown, and that
every Court swarms with similar adventures. Must it be said then? We
had amongst us a charming young Princess who, by her graces, her
attentions, and her original manners, had taken possession of the hearts
of the King, of Madame de Maintenon, and of her husband, Monseigneur le
Duc de Bourgogne. The extreme discontent so justly felt against her
father, M. de Savoie, had not made the slightest alteration in their
tenderness for her. The King, who hid nothing from her, who worked with
his ministers in her presence whenever she liked to enter, took care not
to say a word in her hearing against her father. In private, she clasped
the King round the neck at all hours, jumped upon his knees, tormented
him with all sorts of sportiveness, rummaged among his papers, opened his
letters end read them in his presence, sometimes in spite of him; and
acted in the same manner with Madame de Maintenon. Despite this extreme
liberty, she never spoke against any one: gracious to all, she
endeavoured to ward off blows from all whenever she could; was attentive
to the private comforts of the King, even the humblest: kind to all who
served her, and living with her ladies, as with friends, in complete
liberty, old and young; she was the darling of the Court, adored by all;
everybody, great and small, was anxious to please her; everybody missed
her when she was away; when she reappeared the void was filled up; in a
word, she had attached all hearts to her; but while in this brilliant
situation she lost her own.
Nangis, now a very commonplace Marshal of France, was at that time in
full bloom. He had an agreeable but not an uncommon face; was well made,
without anything marvellous; and had been educated in intrigue by the
Marechale de Rochefort, his grandmother, and Madame de Blansac, his
mother, who were skilled mistresses of that art. Early introduced by
them into the great world of which they were, so to speak, the centre,
he had no talent but that of pleasing women, of speaking their language,
and of monopolising the most desirable by a discretion beyond his years,
and which did not belong to his time. Nobody was more in vogue than he.
He had had the command of a regiment when he was quite a child. He had
shown firmness, application, and brilliant valour in war, that the ladies
had made the most of, and they sufficed at his age; he was of the Court
of Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne, about the same age, and well treated
by him.
The Duc de Bourgogne, passionately in love with his wife, was not so well
made as Nangis; but the Princess reciprocated his ardor so perfectly that
up to his death he never suspected that her glances had wandered to any
one else. They fell, however, upon Nangis, and soon redoubled. Nangis
was not ungrateful, but he feared the thunderbolt; and his heart, too,
was already engaged. Madame de la Vrilliere, who, without beauty, was
pretty and grateful as Love, had made this conquest. She was, as I have
said, daughter of Madame de Mailly, Dame d'Atours of Madame la Duchesse
de Bourgogne; and was always near her. Jealousy soon enlightened her as
to what was taking place. Far from yielding her conquest to the Duchess;
she made a point of preserving it, of disputing its possession, and
carrying it off. This struggle threw Nangis into a terrible
embarrassment. He feared the fury of Madame de la Vrilliere, who
affected to be more ready to break out than in reality she was. Besides
his love for her, he feared the result of an outburst, and already saw
his fortune lost. On the other hand, any reserve of his towards the
Duchess, who had so much power in her hands--and seemed destined to
have more--and who he knew was not likely to suffer a rival
--might, he felt, be his ruin. This perplexity, for those who were aware
of it, gave rise to continual scenes. I was then a constant visitor of
Madame de Blansac, at Paris, and of the Marechale de Rochefort, at
Versailles; and, through them and several other ladies of the Court, with
whom I was intimate, I learnt, day by day, everything that passed. In
addition to the fact that nothing diverted me more, the results of this
affair might be great; and it was my especial ambition to be well
informed of everything. At length, all members of the Court who were
assiduous and enlightened understood the state of affairs; but either
through fear or from love to the Duchess, the whole Court was silent, saw
everything, whispered discreetly, and actually kept the secret that was
not entrusted to it. The struggle between the two ladies, not without
bitterness, and sometimes insolence on the part of Madame de la
Vrilliere, nor without suffering and displeasure gently manifested on the
part of Madame de Bourgogne, was for a long time a singular sight.
Whether Nangis, too faithful to his first love, needed some grains of
jealousy to excite him, or whether things fell out naturally, it happened
that he found a rival. Maulevrier, son of a brother of Colbert who had
died of grief at not being named Marshal of France, was this rival. He
had married a daughter of the Marechal de Tesse, and was not very
agreeable in appearance--his face, indeed, was very commonplace. He was
by no means framed for gallantry; but he had wit, and a mind fertile in
intrigues, with a measureless ambition that was sometimes pushed to
madness. His wife was pretty, not clever, quarrelsome, and under a
virginal appearance; mischievous to the last degree. As daughter of a
man for whom Madame de Bourgogne had much gratitude for the part he had
taken in negotiating her marriage, and the Peace of Savoy, she was easily
enabled to make her way at Court, and her husband with her. He soon
sniffed what was passing in respect to Nangis, and obtained means of
access to Madame de Bourgogne, through the influence of his father-in-
law; was assiduous in his attentions; and at length, excited by example,
dared to sigh. Tired of not being understood, he ventured to write. It
is pretended that he sent his letters through one of the Court ladies,
who thought they came from Tesse, delivered them, and handed him back the
answers, as though for delivery by him. I will not add what more was
believed. I will simply say that this affair was as soon perceived as
had been the other, and was treated, with the same silence.
Under pretext of friendship, Madame de Bourgogne went more than once--on
account of the speedy departure of her husband (for the army), attended
some, times by La Maintenon,--to the house of Madame de Maulevrier, to
weep with her. The Court smiled. Whether the tears were for Madame de
Maulevrier or for Nangis, was doubtful. But Nangis, nevertheless,
aroused by this rivalry, threw Madame de la Vrilliere into terrible
grief, and into a humour over which she was not mistress.
This tocsin made itself heard by Maulevrier. What will not a man think
of doing when possessed to excess by love or ambition? He pretended to
have something the matter with his chest, put himself on a milk diet,
made believe that he had lost his voice, and was sufficiently master of
himself to refrain from uttering an intelligible word during a whole
year; by these means evading the campaign and remaining at the Court.
He was mad enough to relate this project, and many others, to his friend
the Duc de Lorges, from whom, in turn, I learnt it. The fact was, that
bringing himself thus to the necessity of never speaking to anybody
except in their ear, he had the liberty of speaking low to--Madame la
Duchesse de Bourgogne before all the Court without impropriety and
without suspicion. In this manner he said to her whatever he wished day
by day, and was never overheard. He also contrived to say things the
short answers to which were equally unheard. He so accustomed people to
this manner of speaking that they took no more notice of it than was
expressed in pity for such a sad state; but it happened that those who
approached the nearest to Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne when Maulevrier
was at her side, soon knew enough not to be eager to draw near her again
when she was thus situated. This trick lasted more than a year: his
conversation was principally composed of reproaches--but reproaches
rarely succeed in love. Maulevrier, judging by the ill-humour of Madame
de la Vrilliere, believed Nangis to be happy. Jealousy and rage
transported him at last to the extremity of folly.
One day, as Madame de Bourgogne was coming from mass and he knew that
Dangeau, her chevalier d'honneur, was absent, he gave her his hand. The
attendants had accustomed themselves to let him have this honour, on
account of his distinguished voice, so as to allow him to speak by the
way, and retired respectfully so as not to hear what he said. The ladies
always followed far behind, so that, in the midst of all the Court, he
had, from the chapel to the apartments of Madame de Bourgogne, the full
advantages of a private interview--advantages that he had availed himself
of several times. On this day he railed against Nangis to Madame de
Bourgogne, called him by all sorts of names, threatened to tell
everything to the King and to Madame de Maintenon, and to the Duc de
Bourgogne, squeezed her fingers as if he would break them, and led her in
this manner, like a madman as he was, to her apartments. Upon entering
them she was ready to swoon. Trembling all over she entered her
wardrobe, called one of her favourite ladies, Madame de Nogaret, to her,
related what had occurred, saying she knew not how she had reached her
rooms, or how it was she had not sunk beneath the floor, or died. She
had never been so dismayed. The same day Madame de Nogaret related this
to Madame de Saint-Simon and to me, in the strictest confidence. She
counselled the Duchess to behave gently with such a dangerous madman, and
to avoid committing herself in any way with him. The worst was, that
after this he threatened and said many things against Nangis, as a man
with whom he was deeply offended, and whom he meant to call to account.
Although he gave no reason for this, the reason was only too evident.
The fear of Madame de Bourgogne at this may be imagined, and also that of
Nangis. He was brave and cared for nobody; but to be mixed up in such an
affair as this made him quake with fright. He beheld his fortune and his
happiness in the hands of a furious madman. He shunned Maulevrier from
that time as much as possible, showed himself but little, and held his
peace.
For six weeks Madame de Bourgogne lived in the most measured manner, and
in mortal tremors of fear, without, however, anything happening. I know
not who warned Tesse of what was going on. But when he learnt it he
acted like a man of ability. He persuaded his son-in-law, Maulevrier, to
follow him to Spain, as to a place where his fortune was assured to him.
He spoke to Fagon, who saw all and knew all. He understood matters in a
moment, and at once said, that as so many remedies had been tried
ineffectually for Maulevrier, he must go to a warmer climate, as a winter
in France would inevitably kill him. It was then as a remedy, and as
people go to the waters, that he went to Spain. The King and all the
Court believed this, and neither the King nor Madame de Maintenon offered
any objections. As soon as Tesse knew this he hurried his son-in-law out
of the realm, and so put a stop to his follies and the mortal fear they
had caused. To finish this adventure at once, although it will lead me
far beyond the date of other matters to be spoken of after, let me say
what became of Maulevrier after this point of the narrative.
He went first to Spain with Tesse. On the way they had an interview with
Madame des Ursins, and succeeded in gaining her favour so completely,
that, upon arriving at Madrid, the King and Queen of Spain, informed of
this, welcomed them with much cordiality. Maulevrier soon became a great
favourite with the Queen of Spain. It has been said, that he wished to
please her, and that he succeeded. At all events he often had long
interviews with her in private, and these made people think and talk.
Maulevrier began to believe it time to reap after having so well sown.
He counted upon nothing less than being made grandee of Spain, and would
have obtained this favour but for his indiscretion. News of what was in
store for him was noised abroad. The Duc de Grammont, then our
ambassador at Madrid, wrote word to the King of the rumours that were in
circulation of Maulevrier's audacious conduct towards the Queen of Spain,
and of the reward it was to meet with. The King at once sent a very
strong letter to the King of Spain about Maulevrier, who, by the same
courier, was prohibited from accepting any favour that might be offered
him. He was ordered at the same time to join Tesse at Gibraltar. He had
already done so at the instance of Tesse himself; so the courier went
from Madrid to Gibraltar to find him. His rage and vexation upon seeing
himself deprived of the recompense he had considered certain were very
great. But they yielded in time to the hopes he formed of success, and
he determined to set off for Madrid and thence to Versailles. His
father-in-law tried to retain him at the siege, but in vain. His
representations and his authority were alike useless. Maulevrier hoped
to gain over the King and Queen of Spain so completely, that our King
would be forced, as it were, to range himself on their side; but the Duc
de Grammont at once wrote word that Maulevrier had left the siege of
Gibraltar and returned to Madrid. This disobedience was at once
chastised. A courier was immediately despatched to Maulevrier,
commanding him to set out for France. He took leave of the King and
Queen of Spain like a man without hope, and left Spain. The most
remarkable thing is, that upon arriving at Paris, and finding the Court
at Marly, and his wife there also, he asked permission to go too, the
husbands being allowed by right to accompany their wives there, and the
King, to avoid a disturbance, did not refuse him.
At first everything seemed to smile upon Maulervrier. He had, as I have
said, made friends with Madame des Ursins when he was on the road to
Spain. He had done so chiefly by vaunting his intimacy with Madame de
Bourgogne, and by showing to Madame des Ursins that he was in many of the
secrets of the Court. Accordingly, upon his return, she took him by the
hand and showed a disposition towards him which could not fail to
reinstate him in favour. She spoke well of him to Madame de Maintenon,
who, always much smitten with new friends, received him well, and often
had conversations with him which lasted more than three hours. Madame de
Maintenon mentioned him to the King, and Maulevrier, who had returned out
of all hope, now saw himself in a more favourable position than ever.
But the old cause of trouble still existed, and with fresh complications.
Nangis was still in favour, and his appearance made Maulevrier miserable.
There was a new rival too in the field, the Abbe de Polignac.
Pleasing, nay most fascinating in manner, the Abbe was a man to gain all
hearts. He stopped at no flattery to succeed in this. One day when
following the King through the gardens of Marly, it came on to rain.
The King considerately noticed the Abbe's dress, little calculated to
keep off rain. "It is no matter, Sire," said De Polignac, "the rain of
Marly does not wet." People laughed much at this, and these words were a
standing reproach to the soft-spoken Abbe.
One of the means by which the Abbe gained the favour of the King was by
being the lover of Madame du Maine. His success at length was great in
every direction. He even envied the situations of Nangis and Maulevrier;
and sought to participate in the same happiness. He took the same road.
Madame d'O and the Marechale de Coeuvres became his friends.
He sought to be heard, and was heard. At last he faced the danger of the
Swiss, and on fine nights was seen with the Duchess in the gardens.
Nangis diminished in favour. Maulevrier on his return increased in fury.
The Abbe met with the same fate as they: everything was perceived: people
talked about the matter in whispers, but silence was kept. This triumph,
in spite of his age, did not satisfy the Abbe: he aimed at something more
solid. He wished to arrive at the cardinalship, and to further his views
he thought it advisable to ingratiate himself into the favour of Monsieur
de Bourgogne. He sought introduction to them through friends of mine,
whom I warned against him as a man without scruple, and intent only upon
advancing himself. My warnings were in vain. My friends would not heed
me, and the Abbe de Polignac succeeded in gaining the confidence of
Monsieur de Bourgogne, as well as the favour of Madame de Bourgogne.
Maulevrier had thus two sources of annoyance--the Abbe de Polignac and
Nangis. Of the latter he showed himself so jealous, that Madame de
Maulevrier, out of pique, made advances to him. Nangis, to screen
himself the better, replied to her. Maulevrier perceived this. He knew
his wife to be sufficiently wicked to make him fear her. So many
troubles of heart and brain transported him. He lost his head.
One day the Marechale de Coeuvres came to see him, apparently on some
message of reconciliation. He shut the door upon her; barricaded her
within, and through the door quarrelled with her, even to abuse, for an
hour, during which she had the patience to remain there without being
able to see him. After this he went rarely to Court, but generally kept
himself shut up at home.
Sometimes he would go out all alone at the strangest hours, take a fiacre
and drive away to the back of the Chartreux or to other remote spots.
Alighting there, he would whistle, and a grey-headed old man would
advance and give him a packet, or one would be thrown to him from a
window, or he would pick up a box filled with despatches, hidden behind a
post. I heard of these mysterious doings from people to whom he was vain
and indiscreet enough to boast of them. He continually wrote letters to
Madame de Bourgogne, and to Madame de Maintenon, but more frequently to
the former. Madame Cantin was their agent; and I know people who have
seen letters of hers in which she assured Maulevrier, in the strongest
terms, that he might ever reckon on the Duchess.
He made a last journey to Versailles, where he saw his mistress in
private, and quarrelled with her cruelly. After dining with Torcy he
returned to Paris. There, torn by a thousand storms of love, of
jealousy, of ambition, his head was so troubled that doctors were obliged
to be called in, and he was forbidden to see any but the most
indispensable persons, and those at the hours when he was least ill.
A hundred visions passed through his brain. Now like a madman he would
speak only of Spain, of Madame de Bourgogne, of Nangis, whom he wished to
kill or to have assassinated; now full of remorse towards M. de
Bourgogne, he made reflections so curious to hear, that no one dared to
remain with him, and he was left alone. At other times, recalling his
early days, he had nothing but ideas of retreat and penitence. Then a
confession was necessary in order to banish his despair as to the mercy
of God. Often he thought himself very ill and upon the point of death.
The world, however, and even his nearest friends persuaded themselves
that he was only playing a part; and hoping to put an end to it, they
declared to him that he passed for mad in society, and that it behoved
him to rise out of such a strange state and show himself. This was the
last blow and it overwhelmed him. Furious at finding that this opinion
was ruining all the designs of his ambition, he delivered himself up to
despair. Although watched with extreme care by his wife, by particular
friends, and by his servants, he took his measures so well, that on the
Good Friday of the year 1706, at about eight o'clock in the morning, he
slipped away from them all, entered a passage behind his room, opened the
window, threw himself into the court below, and dashed out his brains
upon the pavement. Such was the end of an ambitious man, who, by his
wild and dangerous passions, lost his wits, and then his life, a tragic
victim of himself.
Madame de Bourgogne learnt the news at night. In public she showed no
emotion, but in private some tears escaped her. They might have been of
pity, but were not so charitably interpreted. Soon after, it was noticed
that Madame de Maintenon seemed embarrassed and harsh towards Madame de
Bourgogne. It was no longer doubted that Madame de Maintenon had heard
the whole story. She often had long interviews with Madame de Bourgogne,
who always left them in tears. Her sadness grew so much, and her eyes
were so often red, that Monsieur de Bourgogne at last became alarmed.
But he had no suspicion of the truth, and was easily satisfied with the
explanation he received. Madame de Bourgogne felt the necessity,
however, of appearing gayer, and showed herself so. As for the Abbe de
Polignac, it was felt that that dangerous person was best away. He
received therefore a post which called him away, as it were, into exile;
and though he delayed his departure as long as possible, was at length
obliged to go. Madame de Bourgogne took leave of him in a manner that
showed how much she was affected. Some rather insolent verses were
written upon this event; and were found written on a balustrade by
Madame, who was not discreet enough or good enough to forget them. But
they made little noise; everybody loved Madame de Bourgogne, and hid
these verses as much as possible.
CHAPTER XXXII
At the beginning of October, news reached the Court, which was at
Fontainebleau, that M. de Duras was at the point of death. Upon hearing
this, Madame de Saint-Simon and Madame de Lauzun, who were both related
to M. Duras, wished to absent themselves from the Court performances that
were to take place in the palace that evening. They expressed this wish
to Madame de Bourgogne, who approved of it, but said she was afraid the
King would not do the same. He had been very angry lately because the
ladies had neglected to go full dressed to the Court performances. A few
words he had spoken made everybody take good care not to rouse his anger
on this point again. He expected so much accordingly from everybody who
attended the Court, that Madame de Bourgogne was afraid he would not
consent to dispense with the attendance of Madame de Saint-Simon and
Madame de Lauzun on this occasion. They compromised the matter,
therefore, by dressing themselves, going to the room where the
performance was held, and, under pretext of not finding places, going
away; Madame de Bourgogne agreeing to explain their absence in this way
to the King. I notice this very insignificant bagatelle to show how the
King thought only of himself, and how much he wished to be obeyed; and
that that which would not have been pardoned to the nieces of a dying
man, except at the Court, was a duty there, and one which it needed great
address to escape from, without seriously infringing the etiquette
established.
After the return of the Court from Fontainebleau this year, Puysieux came
back from Switzerland, having been sent there as ambassador. Puysieux
was a little fat man, very agreeable, pleasant, and witty, one of the
best fellows in the world, in fact. As he had much wit, and thoroughly
knew the King, he bethought himself of making the best of his position;
and as his Majesty testified much friendship for him on his return, and
declared himself satisfied with his mission in Switzerland, Puysieux
asked if what he heard was not mere compliment, and whether he could
count upon it. As the King assured him that he might do so, Puysieux
assumed a brisk air, and said that he was not so sure of that, and that
he was not pleased with his Majesty.
"And why not?" said the King.
"Why not?" replied Puysieux; "why, because although the most honest man
in your realm, you have not kept to a promise you made me more than fifty
years ago."
"What promise?" asked the King.
"What promise, Sire?" said Puysieux; "you have a good memory, you cannot
have forgotten it. Does not your Majesty remember that one day, having
the honour to play at blindman's buff with you at my grandmother's, you
put your cordon bleu on my back, the better to hide yourself; and that
when, after the game, I restored it to you, you promised to give it me
when you became master; you have long been so, thoroughly master, and
nevertheless that cordon bleu is still to come."
The King, who recollected the circumstance, here burst out laughing, and
told Puysieux he was in the right, and that a chapter should be held on
the first day of the new year expressly for the purpose of receiving him
into the order. And so in fact it was, and Puysieux received the cordon
bleu on the day the King had named. This fact is not important, but it
is amusing. It is altogether singular in connection with a prince as
serious and as imposing as Louis XIV.; and it is one of those little
Court anecdotes which are curious.
Here is another more important fact, the consequences of which are still
felt by the State. Pontchartrain, Secretary of State for the Navy, was
the plague of it, as of all those who were under his cruel dependence.
He was a man who, with some-amount of ability, was disagreeable and
pedantic to an excess; who loved evil for its own sake; who was jealous
even of his father; who was a cruel tyrant towards his wife, a woman all
docility and goodness; who was in one word a monster, whom the King kept
in office only because he feared him. An admiral was the abhorrence of
Pontchartrain, and an admiral who was an illegitimate son of the King,
he loathed. There was nothing, therefore, that he had not done during
the war to thwart the Comte de Toulouse; he laid some obstacles
everywhere in his path; he had tried to keep him out of the command of
the fleet, and failing this, had done everything to render the fleet
useless.
These were bold strokes against a person the King so much loved, but
Pontchartrain knew the weak side of the King; he knew how to balance the
father against the master, to bring forward the admiral and set aside the
son. In this manner the Secretary of State was able to put obstacles in
the way of the Comte de Toulouse that threw him almost into despair, and
the Count could do little to defend himself. It was a well-known fact at
sea and in the ports where the ships touched, and it angered all the
fleet. Pontchartrain accordingly was abhorred there, while the Comte de
Toulouse, by his amiability and other good qualities, was adored.
At last, the annoyance he caused became so unendurable, that the Comte de
Toulouse, at the end of his cruise in the Mediterranean, returned to
Court and determined to expose the doings of Pontchartrain to the King.
The very day he had made up his mind to do this, and just before he
intended to have his interview with the King, Madame Pontchartrain,
casting aside her natural timidity and modesty, came to him, and with
tears in her eyes begged him not to bring about the ruin of her husband.
The Comte de Toulouse was softened. He admitted afterwards that he could
not resist the sweetness and sorrow of Madame de Pontchartrain, and that
all his resolutions, his weapons, fell from his hands at the thought of
the sorrow which the poor woman would undergo, after the fall of her
brutal husband, left entirely in the hands of such a furious Cyclops.
In this manner Pontchartrain was saved, but it cost dear to the State.
The fear he was in of succumbing under the glory or under the vengeance
of an admiral who was son of the King determined him to ruin the fleet
itself, so as to render it incapable of receiving the admiral again.
He determined to do this, and kept to his word, as was afterwards only
too clearly verified by the facts. The Comte de Toulouse saw no more
either ports or vessels, and from that time only very feeble squadrons
went out, and even those very seldom. Pontchartrain, had the impudence
to boast of this before my face.
When I last spoke of Madame des Ursins, I described her as living in the
midst of the Court, flattered and caressed by all, and on the highest
terms of favour with the King and Madame de Maintenon. She found her
position, indeed, so far above her hopes, that she began to waver in her
intention of returning to Spain. The age and the health of Madame de
Maintenon tempted her. She would have preferred to govern here rather
than in Spain. Flattered by the attentions paid her, she thought those
attentions, or, I may say, rather those servile adorations, would
continue for ever, and that in time she might arrive at the highest point
of power. The Archbishop of Aix and her brother divined her thoughts,
for she did not dare to avow them, and showed her in the clearest way
that those thoughts were calculated to lead her astray. They explained
to her that the only interest Madame de Maintenon had in favouring her
was on account of Spain. Madame des Ursins--once back in that country,
Madame de Maintenon looked forward to a recommencement of those relations
which had formerly existed between them, by which the government of Spain
in appearance, if not in reality, passed through her hands. They
therefore advised Madame des Ursins on no account to think of remaining
in France, at the same time suggesting that it would not be amiss to stop
there long enough to cause some inquietude to Madame de Maintenon, so as
to gain as much advantage as possible from it.
The solidity of these reasons persuaded Madame des Ursins to follow the
advice given her. She resolved to depart, but not until after a delay by
which she meant to profit to the utmost. We shall soon see what success
attended her schemes. The terms upon which I stood with her enabled me
to have knowledge of all the sentiments that had passed through her mind:
her extreme desire, upon arriving in Paris, to return to Spain; the
intoxication which seized her in consequence of the treatment she
received, and which made her balance this desire; and her final
resolution. It was not until afterwards, however, that I learnt all the
details I have just related.
It was not long before Madame de Maintenon began to feel impatient at the
long-delayed departure of Madame des Ursins. She spoke at last upon the
subject, and pressed Madame des Ursins to set out for Spain. This was
just what the other wanted. She said that as she had been driven out of
Spain like a criminal, she must go back with honour, if Madame de
Maintenon wished her to gain the confidence and esteem of the Spaniards.
That although she had been treated by the King with every consideration
and goodness, many people in Spain were, and would be, ignorant of it,
and that, therefore, her return to favour ought to be made known in as
public and convincing a manner as was her disgrace. This was said with
all that eloquence and persuasiveness for which Madame des Ursins was
remarkable. The effect of it exceeded her hopes.
The favours she obtained were prodigious. Twenty thousand livres by way
of annual pension, and thirty thousand for her journey. One of her
brothers, M. de Noirmoutiers, blind since the age of eighteen or twenty,
was made hereditary duke; another, the Abbe de la Tremoille, of exceeding
bad life, and much despised in Rome, where he lived, was made cardinal.
What a success was this! How many obstacles had to be overcome in order
to attain it! Yet this was what Madame des Ursins obtained, so anxious
was Madame de Maintenon to get rid of her and to send her to reign in
Spain, that she might reign there herself. Pleased and loaded with
favour as never subject was before, Madame des Ursins set out towards the
middle of July, and was nearly a month on the road. It may be imagined
what sort of a reception awaited her in Spain. The King and the Queen
went a day's journey out of Madrid to meet her. Here, then, we see again
at the height of power this woman, whose fall the King but a short time
since had so ardently desired, and whose separation from the King and
Queen of Spain he had applauded himself for bringing about with so much
tact. What a change in a few months!
The war continued this year, but without bringing any great success to
our arms. Villars, at Circk, outmanoeuvred Marlborough in a manner that
would have done credit to the greatest general. Marlborough, compelled
to change the plan of campaign he had determined on, returned into
Flanders, where the Marechal de Villeroy was stationed with his forces.
Nothing of importance occurred during the campaign, and the two armies
went into winter quarters at the end of October.
I cannot quit Flanders without relating another instance of the pleasant
malignity of M. de Lauzun. In marrying a daughter of the Marechal de
Lorges, he had hoped, as I have already said, to return into the
confidence of the King by means of the Marechal, and so be again
entrusted with military command. Finding these hopes frustrated, he
thought of another means of reinstating himself in favour. He determined
to go to the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle, not, as may be believed, for his
health, but in order to ingratiate himself with the important foreigners
whom he thought to find there, learn some of the enemy's plans, and come
back with an account of them to the King, who would, no doubt, reward him
for his zeal. But he was deceived in his calculation. Aix-la-Chapelle,
generally so full of foreigners of rank, was this year, owing to the war,
almost empty. M. de Lauzun found, therefore, nobody of consequence from
whom he could obtain any useful information. Before his return, he
visited the Marechal de Villeroy, who received him with all military
honours, and conducted him all over the army, pointing out to him the
enemy's post; for the two armies were then quite close to each other.
His extreme anxiety, however, to get information, and the multitude of
his questions, irritated the officers who were ordered to do the honours
to him; and, in going about, they actually, at their own risk, exposed
him often to be shot or taken. They did not know that his courage was
extreme; and were quite taken aback by his calmness, and, his evident
readiness to push on even farther than they chose to venture.
On returning to Court, M. de Lauzun was of course pressed by everybody to
relate all he knew of the position of the two armies. But he held
himself aloof from all questioners, and would not answer. On the day
after his arrival he went to pay his court to Monseigneur, who did not
like him, but who also was no friend to the Marechal de Villeroy.
Monseigneur put many questions to him upon the situation of the two
armies, and upon the reasons which had prevented them from engaging each
other. M. de Lauzun shirked reply, like a man who wished to be pressed;
did not deny that he had well inspected the position of the two armies,
but instead of answering Monseigneur, dwelt upon the beauty of our
troops, their gaiety at finding themselves so near an enemy, and their
eagerness to fight. Pushed at last to the point at which he wished to
arrive, "I will tell you, Monseigneur," said he, "since you absolutely
command me; I scanned most minutely the front of the two armies to the
right and to the left, and all the ground between them. It is true there
is no brook, and that I saw; neither are there any ravines, nor hollow
roads ascending or descending; but it is true that there were other
hindrances which I particularly remarked."
"But what hindrance could there be," said Monseigneur, "since there was
nothing between the two armies?"
M. de Lauzun allowed himself to be pressed upon this point, constantly
repeating the list of hindrances that did not exist, but keeping silent
upon the others. At last, driven into a corner, he took his snuff-box
from his pocket.
"You see," said he, to Monseigneur, "there is one thing which much
embarrasses the feet, the furze that grows upon the ground, where M. le
Marechal de Villeroy is encamped. The furze, it is true, is not mixed
with any other plant, either hard or thorny; but it is a high furze, as
high, as high, let me see, what shall I say?"--and he looked all around
to find some object of comparison--"as high, I assure you, as this
snuffbox!"
Monseigneur burst out laughing at this sally, and all the company
followed his example, in the midst of which M. de Lauzun turned on his
heel and left the room. His joke soon spread all over the Court and the
town, and in the evening was told to the King. This was all the thanks
M. de Villeroy obtained from M. de Lauzun for the honours he had paid
him; and this was M. de Lauzun's consolation for his ill-success at Aix-
la-Chapelle.
In Italy our armies were not more successful than elsewhere. From time
to time, M. de Vendome attacked some unimportant post, and, having
carried it, despatched couriers to the King, magnifying the importance
of the exploit. But the fact was, all these successes led to nothing.
On one occasion, at Cassano, M. de Vendome was so vigorously attacked by
Prince Louis of Baden that, in spite of his contempt and his audacity,
he gave himself up for lost. When danger was most imminent, instead of
remaining at his post, he retired from the field of battle to a distant
country-house, and began to consider how a retreat might be managed.
The Grand Prieur, his brother, was in command under him, and was ordered
to remain upon the field; but he was more intent upon saving his skin
than on obeying orders, and so, at the very outset of the fight, ran away
to a country-house hard by. M. de Vendome strangely enough had sat down
to eat at the country-house whither he had retired, and was in the midst
of his meal when news was brought him that, owing to the prodigies
performed by one of his officers, Le Guerchois, the fortunes of the day
had changed, and Prince Louis of Baden was retiring. M. Vendome had
great difficulty to believe this, but ordered his horse, mounted, and,
pushing on, concluded the combat gloriously. He did not fail, of course,
to claim all the honours of this victory, which in reality was a barren
one; and sent word of his triumph to the King. He dared to say that the
loss of the enemy was more than thirteen thousand; and our loss less than
three thousand--whereas, the loss was at least equal. This exploit,
nevertheless, resounded at the Court and through the town as an advantage
the most complete and the most decisive, and due entirely to the
vigilance, valour, and capacity of Vendome. Not a word was said of his
country-house, or the interrupted meal. These facts were only known
after the return of the general officers. As for the Grand Prieur, his
poltroonery had been so public, his flight so disgraceful--for he had
taken troops with him to protect the country-house in which he sought
shelter--that he could not be pardoned. The two brothers quarrelled upon
these points, and in the end the Grand Prieur was obliged to give up his
command. He retired to his house at Clichy, near Paris; but, tiring of
that place, he went to Rome, made the acquaintance there of the Marquise
de Richelieu, a wanderer like himself, and passed some time with her at
Genoa. Leaving that city, he went to Chalons-sur-Saone, which had been
fixed upon as the place of his a exile, and there gave himself up to the
debaucheries in which he usually lived. From this time until the Regency
we shall see nothing more of him. I shall only add, therefore, that he
never went sober to bed during thirty years, but was always carried
thither dead drunk: was a liar, swindler, and thief; a rogue to the
marrow of his bones, rotted with vile diseases; the most contemptible and
yet most dangerous fellow in the world.
One day-I am speaking of a time many years previous to the date of the
occurrences just related-one day there was a great hunting party at Saint
Germain. The chase was pursued so long, that the King gave up, and
returned to Saint Germain. A number of courtiers, among whom was M. de
Lauzun, who related this story to me, continued their sport; and just as
darkness was coming on, discovered that they had lost their way. After a
time, they espied a light, by which they guided their steps, and at
length reached the door of a kind of castle. They knocked, they called
aloud, they named themselves, and asked for hospitality. It was then
between ten and eleven at night, and towards the end of autumn. The door
was opened to them. The master of the house came forth. He made them
take their boots off, and warm themselves; he put their horses into his
stables; and at the same time had a supper prepared for his guests, who
stood much in need of it. They did not wait long for the meal; yet when
served it proved excellent; the wines served with it, too, were of
several kinds, and excellent likewise: as for the master of the house, he
was so polite and respectful, yet without being ceremonious or eager.
VOLUME 5.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Two very different persons died towards the latter part of this year.
The first was Lamoignon, Chief President; the second, Ninon, known by the
name of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos. Of Lamoignon I will relate a single
anecdote, curious and instructive, which will show the corruption of
which he was capable.
One day--I am speaking of a time many years previous to the date of the
occurrences just related--one day there was a great hunting party at
Saint Germain. The chase was pursued so long, that the King gave up,
and returned to Saint Germain. A number of courtiers, among whom was
M. de Lauzun, who related this story to me, continued their sport; and
just as darkness was coming on, discovered that they had lost their way.
After a time, they espied a light, by which they guided their steps, and
at length reached the door of a kind of castle. They knocked, they
called aloud, they named themselves, and asked for hospitality. It was
then between ten and eleven at night, and towards the end of autumn.
The door was opened to them. The master of the house came forth.
He made them take their boots off, and warm themselves; he put their
horses into his stables; and at the same time had a supper prepared for
his guests, who stood much in need of it. They did not wait long for the
meal; yet when served it proved excellent; the wines served with it, too,
were of several kinds, and excellent likewise: as for the master of the
house, he was so polite and respectful, yet without being ceremonious or
eager, that it was evident he had frequented the best company. The
courtiers soon learnt that his name vitas Fargues, that the place was
called Courson, and that he had lived there in retirement several years.
After having supped, Fargues showed each of them into a separate bedroom,
where they were waited upon by his valets with every proper attention.
In the morning, as soon as the courtiers had dressed themselves, they
found an excellent breakfast awaiting them; and upon leaving the table
they saw their horses ready for them, and as thoroughly attended to as
they had been themselves. Charmed with the politeness and with the
manners of Fargues, and touched by his hospitable reception of them, they
made him many offers of service, and made their way back to Saint
Germain. Their non-appearance on the previous night had been the common
talk, their return and the adventure they had met with was no less so.
These gentlemen were then the very flower of the Court, and all of them
very intimate with the King. They related to him, therefore, their
story, the manner of their reception, and highly praised the master of
the house and his good cheer. The King asked his name, and, as soon as
he heard it, exclaimed, "What, Fargues! is he so near here, then?"
The courtiers redoubled their praises, and the King said no more; but
soon after, went to the Queen-mother, and told her what had happened.
Fargues, indeed, was no stranger, either to her or to the King. He had
taken a prominent part in the movements of Paris against the Court and
Cardinal Mazarin. If he had not been hanged, it was because he was well
supported by his party, who had him included in the amnesty granted to
those who had been engaged in these troubles. Fearing, however, that the
hatred of his enemies might place his life in danger if he remained in
Paris, he retired from the capital to this country-house which has just
been mentioned, where he continued to live in strict privacy, even when
the death of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to render such seclusion no longer
necessary.
The King and the Queen-mother, who had pardoned Fargues in spite of
themselves, were much annoyed at finding that he was living in opulence
and tranquillity so near the Court; thought him extremely bold to do so;
and determined to punish him for this and for his former insolence. They
directed Lamoignon, therefore, to find out something in the past life of
Fargues for which punishment might be awarded; and Lamoignon, eager to
please, and make a profit out of his eagerness, was not long in
satisfying them. He made researches, and found means to implicate
Fargues in a murder that had been committed in Paris at the height of the
troubles. Officers were accordingly sent to Courson, and its owner was
arrested.
Fargues was much astonished when he learnt of what he was accused. He
exculpated himself, nevertheless, completely; alleging, moreover, that as
the murder of which he was accused had been committed during the
troubles, the amnesty in which he was included effaced all memory of the
deed, according to law and usage, which had never been contested until
this occasion. The courtiers who had been so well treated by the unhappy
man, did everything they could with the judges and the King to obtain the
release of the accused. It was all in vain. Fargues was decapitated at
once, and all his wealth was given by way of recompense to the Chief-
President Lamoignon, who had no scruple thus to enrich himself with the
blood of the innocent.
The other person who died at the same time was, as I have said, Ninon,
the famous courtesan, known, since age had compelled her to quit that
trade, as Mademoiselle de l'Enclos. She was a new example of the triumph
of vice carried on cleverly and repaired by some virtue. The stir that
she made, and still more the disorder that she caused among the highest
and most brilliant youth, overcame the extreme indulgence that, not
without cause, the Queen-mother entertained for persons whose conduct was
gallant, and more than gallant, and made her send her an order to retire
into a convent. But Ninon, observing that no especial convent was named,
said, with a great courtesy, to the officer who brought the order, that,
as the option was left to her, she would choose "the convent of the
Cordeliers at Paris;" which impudent joke so diverted the Queen that she
left her alone for the future. Ninon never had but one lover at a time--
but her admirers were numberless--so that when wearied of one incumbent
she told him so frankly, and took another: The abandoned one might groan
and complain; her decree was without appeal; and this creature had
acquired such an influence, that the deserted lovers never dared to take
revenge on the favoured one, and were too happy to remain on the footing
of friend of the house. She sometimes kept faithful to one, when he
pleased her very much, during an entire campaign.
Ninon had illustrious friends of all sorts, and had so much wit that she
preserved them all and kept them on good terms with each other; or, at
least, no quarrels ever came to light. There was an external respect and
decency about everything that passed in her house, such as princesses of
the highest rank have rarely been able to preserve in their intrigues.
In this way she had among her friends a selection of the best members of
the Court; so that it became the fashion to be received by her, and it
was useful to be so, on account of the connections that were thus formed.
There was never any gambling there, nor loud laughing, nor disputes, nor
talk about religion or politics; but much and elegant wit, ancient and
modern stories, news of gallantries, yet without scandal. All was
delicate, light, measured; and she herself maintained the conversation by
her wit and her great knowledge of facts. The respect which, strange to
say, she had acquired, and the number and distinction of her friends and
acquaintances, continued when her charms ceased to attract; and when
propriety and fashion compelled her to use only intellectual baits. She
knew all the intrigues of the old and the new Court, serious and
otherwise; her conversation was charming; she was disinterested,
faithful, secret, safe to the last degree; and, setting aside her
frailty, virtuous and full of probity. She frequently succoured her
friends with money and influence; constantly did them the most important
services, and very faithfully kept the secrets or the money deposits that
were confided to her.
She had been intimate with Madame de Maintenon during the whole of her
residence at Paris; but Madame de Maintenon, although not daring to
disavow this friendship, did not like to hear her spoken about.
She wrote to Ninon with amity from time to time, even until her death;
and Ninon in like manner, when she wanted to serve any friend in whom she
took great interest, wrote to Madame de Maintenon, who did her what
service she required efficaciously and with promptness.
But since Madame de Maintenon came to power, they had only seen each
other two or three times, and then in secret.
Ninon was remarkable for her repartees. One that she made to the last
Marechal de Choiseul is worth repeating. The Marechal was virtue itself,
but not fond of company or blessed with much wit. One day, after a long
visit he had paid her, Ninon gaped, looked at the Marechal, and cried:
"Oh, my lord! how many virtues you make me detest!"
A line from I know not what play. The laughter at this may be imagined.
L'Enclos lived, long beyond her eightieth year, always healthy, visited,
respected. She gave her last years to God, and her death was the news of
the day. The singularity of this personage has made me extend my
observations upon her.
A short time after the death of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, a terrible
adventure happened to Courtenvaux, eldest son of M. de Louvois.
Courtenvaux was commander of the Cent-Suisses, fond of obscure debauches;
with a ridiculous voice, miserly, quarrelsome, though modest and
respectful; and in fine a very stupid fellow. The King, more eager to
know all that was passing than most people believed, although they gave
him credit for not a little curiosity in this respect, had authorised
Bontems to engage a number of Swiss in addition to those posted at the
doors, and in the parks and gardens. These attendants had orders to
stroll morning, noon, and night, along the corridors, the passages, the
staircases, even into the private places, and, when it was fine, in the
court-yards and gardens; and in secret to watch people, to follow them,
to notice where they went, to notice who was there, to listen to all the
conversation they could hear, and to make reports of their discoveries.
This was assiduously done at Versailles, at Marly, at Trianon, at
Fontainebleau, and in all the places where the King was. These new
attendants vexed Courtenvaux considerably, for over such new-comers he
had no sort of authority. This season, at Fontainebleau, a room, which
had formerly been occupied by a party of the Cent-Suisses and of the
body-guard, was given up entirely to the new corps. The room was in a
public passage of communication indispensable to all in the chateau, and
in consequence, excellently well adapted for watching those who passed
through it. Courtenvaux, more than ever vexed by this new arrangement,
regarded it as a fresh encroachment upon his authority, and flew into a
violent rage with the new-comers, and railed at them in good set terms.
They allowed him to fume as he would; they had their orders, and were too
wise to be disturbed by his rage. The King, who heard of all this, sent
at once for Courtenvaux. As soon as he appeared in the cabinet, the King
called to him from the other end of the room, without giving him time to
approach, and in a rage so terrible, and for him so novel, that not only
Courtenvaux, but Princes, Princesses, and everybody in the chamber,
trembled. Menaces that his post should be taken away from him, terms the
most severe and the most unusual, rained upon Courtenvaux, who, fainting
with fright, and ready to sink under the ground, had neither the time nor
the means to prefer a word. The reprimand finished by the King saying,
"Get out." He had scarcely the strength to obey.
The cause of this strange scene was that Courtenvaux, by the fuss he had
made, had drawn the attention of the whole Court to the change effected
by the King, and that, when once seen, its object was clear to all eyes.
The King, who hid his spy system with the greatest care, had counted upon
this change passing unperceived, and was beside himself with anger when
he found it made apparent to everybody by Courtenvaux's noise. He never
regained the King's favour during the rest of his life; and but for his
family he would certainly have been driven away, and his office taken
from him.
Let me speak now of something of more moment.
The war, as I have said, still continued, but without bringing us any
advantages. On the contrary, our losses in Germany and Italy by
sickness, rather than by the sword, were so great that it was resolved to
augment each company by five men; and, at the same time, twenty-five
thousand militia were raised, thus causing great ruin and great
desolation in the provinces. The King was rocked into the belief that
the people were all anxious to enter this militia, and, from time to
time, at Marly, specimens of those enlisted were shown to him, and their
joy and eagerness to serve made much of. I have heard this often; while,
at the same time, I knew from my own tenantry, and from everything that
was said, that the raising of this militia carried despair everywhere,
and that many people mutilated themselves in order to exempt themselves
from serving. Nobody at the Court was ignorant of this. People lowered
their eyes when they saw the deceit practised upon the King, and the
credulity he displayed, and afterwards whispered one to another what they
thought of flattery so ruinous. Fresh regiments, too, were raised at
this time, and a crowd of new colonels and staffs created, instead of
giving a new battalion or a squadron additional to regiments already in
existence. I saw quite plainly towards what rock we were drifting. We
had met losses at Hochstedt, Gibraltar, and Barcelona; Catalonia and the
neighbouring countries were in revolt; Italy yielding us nothing but
miserable successes; Spain exhausted; France, failing in men and money,
and with incapable generals, protected by the Court against their faults.
I saw all these things so plainly that I could not avoid making
reflections, or reporting them to my friends in office. I thought that
it was time to finish the war before we sank still lower, and that it
might be finished by giving to the Archduke what we could not defend, and
making a division of the rest. My plan was to leave Philip V.
possession of all Italy, except those parts which belonged to the Grand
Duke, the republics of Venice and Genoa, and the ecclesiastical states of
Naples and Sicily; our King to have Lorraine and some other slight
additions of territory; and to place elsewhere the Dukes of Savoy, of
Lorraine, of Parma, and of Modem. I related this plan to the Chancellor
and to Chamillart, amongst others. The contrast between their replies
was striking. The Chancellor, after having listened to me very
attentively, said, if my plan were adopted, he would most willingly kiss
my toe for joy. Chamillart, with gravity replied, that the King would
not give up a single mill of all the Spanish succession. Then I felt the
blindness which had fallen upon us, and how much the results of it were
to be dreaded.
Nevertheless, the King, as if to mock at misfortune and to show his
enemies the little uneasiness he felt, determined, at the commencement of
the new year, 1706, that the Court should be gayer than ever. He
announced that there would be balls at Marly every time he was there this
winter, and he named those who were to dance there; and said he should be
very glad to see balls given to Madame de Bourgogne at Versailles.
Accordingly, many took place there, and also at Marly, and from time to
time there were masquerades. One day, the King wished that everybody,
even the most aged, who were at Marly, should go to the ball masked; and,
to avoid all distinction, he went there himself with a gauze robe above
his habit; but such a slight disguise was for himself alone; everybody
else was completely disguised. M. and Madame de Beauvilliers were there
perfectly disguised. When I say they were there, those who knew the
Court will admit that I have said more than enough. I had the pleasure
of seeing them, and of quietly laughing with them. At all these balls
the King made people dance who had long since passed the age for doing
so. As for the Comte de Brionne and the Chevalier de Sully, their
dancing was so perfect that there was no age for them.
CHAPTER XXXIV
In the midst of all this gaiety, that is to say on the 12th of February,
1706, one of our generals, of whom I have often spoken, I mean M. de
Vendome, arrived at Marly. He had not quitted Italy since succeeding to
Marechal de Villeroy, after the affair of Cremona. His battles, such as
they were, the places he had taken, the authority he had assumed, the
reputation he had usurped, his incomprehensible successes with the King,
the certainty of the support he leaned on,--all this inspired him with
the desire to come and enjoy at Court a situation so brilliant, and which
so far surpassed what he had a right to expect. But before speaking of
the reception which was given him, and of the incredible ascendancy he
took, let me paint him from the life a little more completely than I have
yet done.
Vendome was of ordinary height, rather stout, but vigorous and active:
with a very noble countenance and lofty mien. There was much natural
grace in his carriage and words; he had a good deal of innate wit, which
he had not cultivated, and spoke easily, supported by a natural boldness,
which afterwards turned to the wildest audacity; he knew the world and
the Court; was above all things an admirable courtier; was polite when
necessary, but insolent when he dared--familiar with common people--in
reality, full of the most ravenous pride. As his rank rose and his
favour increased, his obstinacy, and pig-headedness increased too, so
that at last he would listen to no advice whatever, and was inaccessible
to all, except a small number of familiars and valets. No one better
than he knew the subserviency of the French character, or took more
advantage of it. Little by little he accustomed his subalterns, and then
from one to the other all his army, to call him nothing but
"Monseigneur," and "Your Highness." In time the gangrene spread, and
even lieutenant-generals and the most distinguished people did not dare
to address him in any other manner.
The most wonderful thing to whoever knew the King--so gallant to the
ladies during a long part of his life, so devout the other, and often
importunate to make others do as he did--was that the said King had
always a singular horror of the inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain;
and yet M. de Vendome, though most odiously stained with that vice--so
publicly that he treated it as an ordinary gallantry--never found his
favour diminished on that account. The Court, Anet, the army, knew of
these abominations. Valets and subaltern officers soon found the way to
promotion. I have already mentioned how publicly he placed himself in
the doctor's hands, and how basely the Court acted, imitating the King,
who would never have pardoned a legitimate prince what he indulged so
strangely in Vendome.
The idleness of M. de Vendome was equally matter of notoriety. More than
once he ran the risk of being taken prisoner from mere indolence. He
rarely himself saw anything at the army, trusting to his familiars when
ready to trust anybody. The way he employed his day prevented any real
attention to business. He was filthy in the extreme, and proud of it.
Fools called it simplicity. His bed was always full of dogs and bitches,
who littered at his side, the pops rolling in the clothes. He himself
was under constraint in nothing. One of his theses was, that everybody
resembled him, but was not honest enough to confess it as he was. He
mentioned this once to the Princesse de Conti--the cleanest person in the
world, and the most delicate in her cleanliness.
He rose rather late when at the army. In this situation he wrote his
letters, and gave his morning orders. Whoever had business with him,
general officers and distinguished persons, could speak to him then. He
had accustomed the army to this infamy. At the same time he gobbled his
breakfast; and whilst he ate, listened, or gave orders, many spectators
always standing round.... (I must be excused these disgraceful details,
in order better to make him known).... On shaving days he used the same
vessel to lather his chin in. This, according to him, was a simplicity
of manner worthy of the ancient Romans, and which condemned the splendour
and superfluity of the others. When all was over, he dressed; then
played high at piquet or hombre; or rode out, if it was absolutely
necessary. All was now over for the day. He supped copiously with his
familiars: was a great eater, of wonderful gluttony; a connoisseur in no
dish, liked fish much, but the stale and stinking better than the good.
The meal prolonged itself in theses and disputes, and above all in praise
and flattery.
He would never have forgiven the slightest blame from any one. He wanted
to pass for the first captain of his age, and spoke with indecent
contempt of Prince Eugene and all the others. The faintest contradiction
would have been a crime. The soldier and the subaltern adored him for
his familiarity with them, and the licence he allowed in order to gain
their hearts; for all which he made up by excessive haughtiness towards
whoever was elevated by rank or birth.
On one occasion the Duke of Parma sent the bishop of that place to
negotiate some affair with him; but M. de Vendome took such disgusting
liberties in his presence, that the ecclesiastic, though without saying a
word, returned to Parma, and declared to his master that never would he
undertake such an embassy again. In his place another envoy was sent,
the famous Alberoni. He was the son of a gardener, who became an Abbe in
order to get on. He was full of buffoonery; and pleased M. de Parma as
might a valet who amused him, but he soon showed talent and capacity for
affairs. The Duke thought that the night-chair of M. de Vendome required
no other ambassador than Alberoni, who was accordingly sent to conclude
what the bishop had left undone. The Abbe determined to please, and was
not proud. M. de Vendome exhibited himself as before; and Alberoni, by
an infamous act of personal adoration, gained his heart. He was
thenceforth much with him, made cheese-soup and other odd messes for him;
and finally worked his way. It is true he was cudgelled by some one he
had offended, for a thousand paces, in sight of the whole army, but this
did not prevent his advancement. Vendome liked such an unscrupulous
flatterer; and yet as we have seen, he was not in want of praise. The
extraordinary favour shown him by the King--the credulity with which his
accounts of victories were received--showed to every one in what
direction their laudation was to be sent.
Such was the man whom the King and the whole Court hastened to caress and
flatter from the first moment of his arrival amongst us. There was a
terrible hubbub: boys, porters, and valets rallied round his postchaise
when he reached Marly. Scarcely had he ascended into his chamber, than
everybody, princes, bastards and all the rest, ran after him. The
ministers followed: so that in a short time nobody was left in the salon
but the ladies. M. de Beauvilliers was at Vaucresson. As for me, I
remained spectator, and did not go and adore this idol.
In a few minutes Vendome was sent for by the King and Monseigneur. As
soon as he could dress himself, surrounded as he was by such a crowd, he
went to the salon, carried by it rather than environed. Monseigneur
stopped the music that was playing, in order to embrace him. The King
left the cabinet where he was at work, and came out to meet him,
embracing him several times. Chamillart on the morrow gave a fete in his
honour at L'Etang, which lasted two days. Following his example,
Pontchartrain, Torcy, and the most distinguished lords of the Court, did
the same. People begged and entreated to give him fetes; people begged
and entreated to be invited to them. Never was triumph equal to his;
each step he took procured him a new one. It is not too much to say,
that everybody disappeared before him; Princes of the blood, ministers,
the grandest seigneurs, all appeared only to show how high he was above
them; even the King seemed only to remain King to elevate him more.
The people joined in this enthusiasm, both in Versailles and at Paris,
where he went under pretence of going to the opera. As he passed along
the streets crowds collected to cheer him; they billed him at the doors,
and every seat was taken in advance; people pushed and squeezed
everywhere, and the price of admission was doubled, as on the nights of
first performances. Vendome, who received all these homages with extreme
ease, was yet internally surprised by a folly so universal. He feared
that all this heat would not last out even the short stay he intended to
make. To keep himself more in reserve, he asked and obtained permission
to go to Anet, in the intervals between the journeys to Marly. All the
Court, however, followed him there, and the King was pleased rather than
otherwise, at seeing Versailles half deserted for Anet, actually asking
some if they had been, others, when they intended to go.
It was evident that every one had resolved to raise M. de Vendome to the
rank of a hero. He determined to profit by the resolution. If they made
him Mars, why should he not act as such? He claimed to be appointed
commander of the Marechals of France, and although the King refused him
this favour, he accorded him one which was but the stepping-stone to it.
M. de Vendome went away towards the middle of March to command the army
in Italy, with a letter signed by the King himself, promising him that if
a Marechal of France were sent to Italy, that Marechal was to take
commands from him. M. de Vendome was content, and determined to obtain
all he asked on a future day. The disposition of the armies had been
arranged just before. Tesse, for Catalonia and Spain; Berwick, for the
frontier of Portugal; Marechal Villars, for Alsace; Marsin, for the
Moselle; Marechal de Villeroy, for Flanders; and M. de Vendome, as I have
said, for Italy.
Now that I am speaking of the armies, let me give here an account of all
our military operations this year, so as to complete that subject at
once.
M. de Vendome commenced his Italian campaign by a victory. He attacked
the troops of Prince Eugene upon the heights of Calcinato, drove them
before him, killed three thousand men, took twenty standards, ten pieces
of cannon, and eight thousand prisoners. It was a rout rather than a
combat. The enemy was much inferior in force to us, and was without its
general, Prince Eugene, he not having returned to open the campaign. He
came back, however, the day after this engagement, soon re-established
order among his troops, and M. de Vendome from that time, far from being
able to recommence the attack, was obliged to keep strictly on the
defensive while he remained in Italy. He did not fail to make the most
of his victory, which, however, to say the truth, led to nothing.
Our armies just now were, it must be admitted, in by no means a good
condition. The generals owed their promotion to favour and fantasy.
The King thought he gave them capacity when he gave them their patents.
Under M. de Turenne the army had afforded, as in a school, opportunities
for young officers to learn the art of warfare, and to qualify themselves
step by step to take command. They were promoted as they showed signs of
their capacity, and gave proof of their talent. Now, however, it was
very different. Promotion was granted according to length of service,
thus rendering all application and diligence unnecessary, except when M.
de Louvois suggested to the King such officers as he had private reasons
for being favourable to, and whose actions he could control. He
persuaded the King that it was he himself who ought to direct the armies
from his cabinet. The King, flattered by this, swallowed the bait, and
Louvois himself was thus enabled to govern in the name of the King, to
keep the generals in leading-strings, and to fetter their every movement.
In consequence of the way in which promotions were made, the greatest
ignorance prevailed amongst all grades of officers. None knew scarcely
anything more than mere routine duties, and sometimes not even so much as
that. The luxury which had inundated the army, too, where everybody
wished to live as delicately as at Paris, hindered the general officers
from associating with the other officers, and in consequence from knowing
and appreciating them. As a matter of course, there were no longer any
deliberations upon the state of affairs, in which the young might profit
by the counsels of the old, and the army profit by the discussions of
all. The young officers talked only of pay and women; the old, of forage
and equipages; the generals spent half their time in writing costly
despatches, often useless, and sending them away by couriers. The luxury
of the Court and city had spread into the army, so that delicacies were
carried there unknown formerly. Nothing was spoken of but hot dishes in
the marches and in the detachments; and the repasts that were carried to
the trenches, during sieges, were not only well served, but ices and
fruits were partaken of as at a fete, and a profusion of all sorts of
liqueurs. Expense ruined the officers, who vied with one another in
their endeavours to appear magnificent; and the things to be carried, the
work to be done, quadrupled the number of domestics and grooms, who often
starved. For a long time, people had complained of all this; even those
who were put to the expenses, which ruined them; but none dared to spend
less. At last, that is to say, in the spring of the following year, the
King made severe rules, with the object of bringing about a reform in
this particular. There is no country in Europe where there are so many
fine laws, or where the observance of them is of shorter duration. It
often happens, that in the first year all are infringed, and in the
second, forgotten. Such was the army at this time, and we soon had
abundant opportunities to note its incapacity to overcome the enemies
with whom we had to contend.
The King wished to open this campaign with two battles; one in Italy, the
other in Flanders. His desire was to some extent gratified in the former
case; but in the other he met with a sad and cruel disappointment. Since
the departure of Marechal de Villeroy for Flanders, the King had more
than once pressed him to engage the enemy. The Marechal, piqued with
these reiterated orders, which he considered as reflections upon his
courage, determined to risk anything in order to satisfy the desire of
the King. But the King did not wish this. At the same time that he
wished for a battle in Flanders, he wished to place Villeroy in a state
to fight it. He sent orders, therefore, to Marsin to take eighteen
battalions and twenty squadrons of his army, to proceed to the Moselle,
where he would find twenty others, and then to march with the whole into
Flanders, and join Marechal de Villeroy. At the same time he prohibited
the latter from doing anything until this reinforcement reached him.
Four couriers, one after the other, carried this prohibition to the
Marechal; but he had determined to give battle without assistance, and he
did so, with what result will be seen.
On the 24th of May he posted himself between the villages of Taviers and
Ramillies. He was superior in force to the Duke of Marlborough, who was
opposed to him, and this fact gave him confidence. Yet the position
which he had taken up was one which was well known to be bad. The late
M. de Luxembourg had declared it so, and had avoided it. M. de Villeroy
had been a witness of this, but it was his destiny and that of France
that he should forget it. Before he took up this position he announced
that it was his intention to do so to M. d'Orleans. M. d'Orleans said
publicly to all who came to listen, that if M. de Villeroy did so he
would be beaten. M. d'Orleans proved to be only too good a prophet.
Just as M. de Villeroy had taken up his position and made his
arrangements, the Elector arrived in hot haste from Brussels. It was
too late now to blame what had been done. There was nothing for it but
to complete what had been already begun, and await the result.
It was about two hours after midday when the enemy arrived within range,
and came under our fire from Ramillies. It forced them to halt until
their cannon could be brought into play, which was soon done. The
cannonade lasted a good hour. At the end of that time they marched to
Taviers, where a part of our army was posted, found but little
resistance, and made themselves masters of that place. From that moment
they brought their cavalry to bear. They perceived that there was a
marsh which covered our left, but which hindered our two wings from
joining. They made good use of the advantage this gave them. We were
taken in the rear at more than one point, and Taviers being no longer
able to assist us, Ramillies itself fell, after a prodigious fire and an
obstinate resistance. The Comte de Guiche at the head of the regiment of
Guards defended it for four hours, and performed prodigies, but in the
end he was obliged to give way. All this time our left had been utterly
useless with its nose in the marsh, no enemy in front of it, and with
strict orders not to budge from its position.
[Illustration: Marlborough At Ramillies--Painted by R. Canton Woodville
--418]
Our retreat commenced in good order, but soon the night came and threw us
into confusion. The defile of Judoigne became so gorged with baggage and
with the wrecks of the artillery we had been able to save, that
everything was taken from us there. Nevertheless, we arrived at Louvain,
and then not feeling in safety, passed the canal of Wilworde without
being very closely followed by the enemy.
We lost in this battle four thousand men, and many prisoners of rank, all
of whom were treated with much politeness by Marlborough. Brussels was
one of the first-fruits he gathered of this victory, which had such grave
and important results.
The King did not learn this disaster until Wednesday, the 26th of May,
at his waking. I was at Versailles. Never was such trouble or such
consternation. The worst was, that only the broad fact was known; for
six days we were without a courier to give us details. Even the post was
stopped. Days seemed like years in the ignorance of everybody as to
details, and in the inquietude of everybody for relatives and friends.
The King was forced to ask one and another for news; but nobody could
tell him any. Worn out at last by the silence, he determined to despatch
Chamillart to Flanders to ascertain the real state of affairs.
Chamillart accordingly left Versailles on Sunday, the 30th of May, to the
astonishment of all the Court, at seeing a man charged with the war and
the finance department sent on such an errand. He astonished no less the
army when he arrived at Courtrai, where it had stationed itself. Having
gained all the information he sought, Chamillart returned to Versailles
on Friday, the 4th of June, at about eight o'clock in the evening, and at
once went to the King, who was in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon.
It was known then that the army, after several hasty marches, finding
itself at Ghent, the Elector of Bavaria had insisted that it ought at
least to remain there. A council of war was held, the Marechal de
Villeroy, who was quite discouraged by the loss he had sustained, opposed
the advice of the Elector. Ghent was abandoned, so was the open country.
The army was separated and distributed here and there, under the command
of the general officers. In this way, with the exception of Namur, Mons,
and a very few other places, all the Spanish Low Countries were lost, and
a part of ours, even. Never was rapidity equal to this. The enemies
were as much astonished as we.
However tranquilly the King sustained in appearance this misfortune, he
felt it to the quick. He was so affected by what was said of his body-
guards, that he spoke of them himself with bitterness. Court warriors
testified in their favour, but persuaded nobody. But the King seized
these testimonies with joy, and sent word to the Guards that he was well
contended with them. Others, however, were not so easily satisfied.
This sad reverse and the discontent of the Elector made the King feel at
last that his favourites must give way to those better able to fill their
places. Villeroy, who, since his defeat, had quite lost his head, and
who, if he had been a general of the Empire, would have lost it in
reality in another manner, received several strong hints from the King
that he ought to give up his command. But he either could not or would
not understand them, and so tired out the King's patience, at length.
But he was informed in language which admitted of no misapprehension that
he must return. Even then, the King was so kindly disposed towards him,
that he said the Marechal had begged to be recalled with such obstinacy
that he could not refuse him. But M. de Villeroy was absurd enough to
reject this salve for his honour; which led to his disgrace. M. de
Vendome had orders to leave Italy, and succeed to the command in
Flanders, where the enemies had very promptly taken Ostend and Nieuport.
CHAPTER XXXV
Meanwhile, as I have promised to relate, in a continuous narrative, all
our military operations of this year, let me say what passed in other
directions. The siege of Barcelona made no progress. Our engineers were
so slow and so ignorant, that they did next to nothing. They were so
venal, too, that they aided the enemy rather than us by their movements.
According to a new rule made by the King, whenever they changed the
position of their guns, they were entitled to a pecuniary recompense.
Accordingly, they passed all their time in uselessly changing about from
place to place, in order to receive the recompense which thus became due
to them.
Our fleet, too, hearing that a much superior naval force was coming to
the assistance of the enemy, and being, thanks to Pontchartrain, utterly
unable to meet it, was obliged to weigh anchor, and sailed away to
Toulon. The enemy's fleet arrived, and the besieged at once took new
courage. Tesse, who had joined the siege, saw at once that it was
useless to continue it. We had for some time depended upon the open sea
for supplies. Now that the English fleet had arrived, we could depend
upon the sea no longer. The King of Spain saw, at last, that there was
no help for it but to raise the siege.
It was raised accordingly on the night between the 10th and 11th of May,
after fourteen days' bombardment. We abandoned one hundred pieces of
artillery; one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of powder; thirty
thousand sacks of flour; twenty thousand sacks of sevade, a kind of oats;
and a great number of bombs, cannon-balls, and implements. As Catalonia
was in revolt, it was felt that retreat could not take place in that
direction; it was determined, therefore, to retire by the way of the
French frontier. For eight days, however, our troops were harassed in
flank and rear by Miquelets, who followed us from mountain to mountain.
It was not until the Duc de Noailles, whose father had done some service
to the chiefs of these Miquelets, had parleyed with them, and made terms
with them, that our troops were relieved from these cruel wasps. We
suffered much loss in our retreat, which, with the siege, cost us full
four thousand men. The army stopped at Roussillon, and the King of
Spain, escorted by two regiments of dragoons, made the best of his way to
Madrid. That city was itself in danger from the Portuguese, and, indeed,
fell into their hands soon after. The Queen, who, with her children, had
left it in time to avoid capture, felt matters to be in such extremity,
that she despatched all the jewels belonging to herself and her husband
to France. They were placed in the custody of the King. Among them was
that famous pear-shaped pearl called the Peregrine, which, for its
weight, its form, its size, and its water, is beyond all price and all
comparison.
The King of Spain effected a junction with the army of Berwick, and both
set to work to reconquer the places the Portuguese had taken from them.
In this they were successful. The Portuguese, much harassed by the
people of Castille, were forced to abandon all they had gained; and the
King of Spain was enabled to enter Madrid towards the end of September,
where he was received with much rejoicing.
In Italy we experienced the most disastrous misfortunes. M. de Vendome,
having been called from the command to go into Flanders, M. d'Orleans,
after some deliberation, was appointed to take his place. M. d'Orleans
set out from Paris on the 1st of July, with twenty-eight horses and five
chaises, to arrive in three days at Lyons, and then to hasten on into
Italy. La Feuillade was besieging Turin. M. d'Orleans went to the
siege. He was magnificently received by La Feuillade, and shown all over
the works. He found everything defective. La Feuillade was very young,
and very inexperienced. I have already related an adventure of his, that
of his seizing upon the coffers of his uncle, and so forestalling his
inheritance. To recover from the disgrace this occurrence brought upon
him, he had married a daughter of Chamillart. Favoured by this minister,
but coldly looked upon by the King, he had succeeded in obtaining command
in the army, and had been appointed to conduct this siege. Inflated by
the importance of his position, and by the support of Chamillart, he
would listen to no advice from any one. M. d'Orleans attempted to bring
about some changes, and gave orders to that effect, but as soon as he was
gone, La Feuillade countermanded those orders and had everything his own
way. The siege accordingly went on with the same ill-success as before.
M. d'Orleans joined M. de Vendome on the 17th of July, upon the Mincio.
The pretended hero had just made some irreparable faults. He had allowed
Prince Eugene to pass the Po, nearly in front of him, and nobody knew
what had become of twelve of our battalions posted near the place where
this passage had been made. Prince Eugene had taken all the boats that
we had upon the river. We could not cross it, therefore, and follow the
enemy without making a bridge. Vendome feared lest his faults should be
perceived. He wished that his successor should remain charged with them.
M. d'Orleans, indeed, soon saw all the faults that M. de Vendome had
committed, and tried hard to induce the latter to aid him to repair them.
But M. de Vendome would not listen to his representations, and started
away almost immediately to take the command of the army in Flanders,
leaving M. d'Orleans to get out of the difficulty as he might.
M. d'Orleans, abandoned to himself (except when interfered with by
Marechal de Marsin, under whose tutelage he was), could do nothing. He
found as much opposition to his plans from Marsin as he had found from M.
de Vendome. Marsin wished to keep in the good graces of La Feuillade,
son-in-law of the all-powerful minister, and would not adopt the views of
M. d'Orleans. This latter had proposed to dispute the passage of the
Tanaro, a confluent of the Po, with the enemy, or compel them to accept
battle. An intercepted letter, in cypher, from Prince Eugene to the
Emperor, which fell into our hands, proved, subsequently, that this
course would have been the right one to adopt; but the proof came too
late; the decyphering table having been forgotten at Versailles!
M. d'Orleans had in the mean time been forced to lead his army to Turin,
to assist the besiegers, instead of waiting to stop the passage of the
troops that were destined for the aid of the besieged. He arrived at
Turin on the 28th of August, in the evening. La Feuillade, now under two
masters, grew, it might be imagined, more docile. But no! He allied
himself with Marsin (without whom M. d'Orleans could do nothing), and so
gained him over that they acted completely in accord. When M. d'Orleans
was convinced, soon after his arrival, that the enemy was approaching to
succour Turin, he suggested that they should be opposed as they attempted
the passage of the Dora.
But his advice was not listened to. He was displeased with everything.
He found that all the orders he had given had been disregarded. He found
the siege works bad, imperfect, very wet, and very ill-guarded. He tried
to remedy all these defects, but he was opposed at every step. A council
of war was held. M. d'Orleans stated his views, but all the officers
present, with one honourable exception, servilely chimed in with the
views of Marsin and La Feuillade, and things remained as they were.
M. d'Orleans, thereupon, protested that he washed his hands of all the
misfortunes that might happen in consequence of his advice being
neglected. He declared that as he was no longer master over anything,
it was not just that he should bear any part of the blame which would
entail to those in command. He asked, therefore, for his post-chaise,
and wished immediately to quit the army. La Feuillade and Marsin,
however, begged him to remain, and upon second thoughts he thought it
better to do so. The simple reason of all this opposition was, that La
Feuillade, being very young and very vain, wished to have all the honours
of the siege. He was afraid that if the counsel of M. d'Orleans
prevailed, some of that honour would be taken from him. This was the
real reason, and to this France owes the disastrous failure of the siege
of Turin.
After the council of war, M. d'Orleans ceased to take any share in the
command, walked about or stopped at home, like a man who had nothing to
do with what was passing around him. On the night of the 6th to the 7th
of September, he rose from his bed alarmed by information sent to him in
a letter, that Prince Eugene was about to attack the castle of Pianezza,
in order to cross the Dora, and so proceed to attack the besiegers. He
hastened at once to Marsin, showed him the letter, and recommended that
troops should at once be sent to dispute the passage of a brook that the
enemies had yet to cross, even supposing them to be masters of Pianezza.
Even as he was speaking, confirmation of the intelligence he had received
was brought by one of our officers. But it was resolved, in the Eternal
decrees, that France should be struck to the heart that day.
Marsin would listen to none of the arguments of M. d'Orleans. He
maintained that it would be unsafe to leave the lines; that the news was
false; that Prince Eugene could not possibly arrive so promptly; he would
give no orders; and he counselled M. d'Orleans to go back to bed. The
Prince, more piqued and more disgusted than ever, retired to his quarters
fully resolved to abandon everything to the blind and deaf, who would
neither see nor hear.
Soon after entering his chamber the news spread from all parts of the
arrival of Prince Eugene. He did not stir. Some general officers came,
and forced him to mount his horse. He went forth negligently at a
walking pace. What had taken place during the previous days had made so
much noise that even the common soldiers were ashamed of it. They liked
him, and murmured because he would no longer command them. One of them
called him by his name, and asked him if he refused them his sword. This
question did more than all that the general officers had been able to do.
M. d'Orleans replied to the soldier, that he would not refuse to serve
them, and at once resolved to lend all his aid to Marsin and La
Feuillade.
But it was no longer possible to leave the lines. The enemy was in
sight, and advanced so diligently, that there was no time to make
arrangements. Marsin, more dead than alive, was incapable of giving any
order or any advice. But La Feuillade still persevered in his obstinacy.
He disputed the orders of the Duc d'Orleans, and prevented their
execution, possessed by I know not what demon.
The attack was commenced about ten o'clock in the morning, was pushed
with incredible vigour, and sustained, at first, in the same manner.
Prince Eugene poured his troops into those places which the smallness of
our forces had compelled us to leave open. Marsin, towards the middle of
the battle, received a wound which incapacitated him from further
service, end was taken prisoner immediately after. Le Feuillade ran
about like a madman, tearing his hair, and incapable of giving any order.
The Duc d'Orleans preserved his coolness, and did wonders to save the
day. Finding our men beginning to waver, he called the officers by their
names, aroused the soldiers by his voice, and himself led the squadrons
and battalions to the charge. Vanquished at last by pain, and weakened
by the blood he had lost, he was constrained to retire a little, to have
his wounds dressed. He scarcely gave himself time for this, however, but
returned at once where the fire was hottest. Three times the enemy had
been repulsed and their guns spiked by one of our officers, Le Guerchois,
with his brigade of the old marine, when, enfeebled by the losses he had
sustained, he called upon a neighbouring brigade to advance with him to
oppose a number of fresh battalions the enemy had sent against him. This
brigade and its brigadier refused bluntly to aid him. It was positively
known afterwards, that had Le Guerchois sustained this fourth charge,
Prince Eugene would have retreated.
This was the last moment of the little order that there had been at this
battle. All that followed was only trouble, confusion, disorder, flight,
discomfiture. The most terrible thing is, that the general officers,
with but few exceptions, more intent upon their equipage and upon what
they had saved by pillage, added to the confusion instead of diminishing
it, and were worse than useless.
M. d'Orleans, convinced at last that it was impossible to re-establish
the day, thought only how to retire as advantageously as possible. He
withdrew his light artillery, his ammunition, everything that was at the
siege, even at the most advanced of its works, and attended to everything
with a presence of mind that allowed nothing to escape him. Then,
gathering round him all the officers he could collect, he explained to
them that nothing but retreat was open to them, and that the road to
Italy was that which they ought to pursue. By this means they would
leave the victorious army of the enemy in a country entirely ruined and
desolate, and hinder it from returning into Italy, where the army of the
King, on the contrary, would have abundance, and where it would cut off
all succour from the others.
This proposition dismayed to the last degree our officers, who hoped at
least to reap the fruit of this disaster by returning to France with the
money with which they were gorged. La Feuillade opposed it with so much
impatience, that the Prince, exasperated by an effrontery so sustained,
told him to hold his peace and let others speak. Others did speak, but
only one was for following the counsel of M. d'Orleans. Feeling himself
now, however, the master, he stopped all further discussion, and gave
orders that the retreat to Italy should commence. This was all he could
do. His body and his brain were equally exhausted. After having waited
some little time, he was compelled to throw himself into a post-chaise,
and in that to continue the journey.
The officers obeyed his orders most unwillingly. They murmured amongst
each other so loudly that the Duc d'Orleans, justly irritated by so much
opposition to his will, made them hold their peace. The retreat
continued. But it was decreed that the spirit of error and vertigo
should ruin us and save the allies. As the army was about to cross the
bridge over the Ticino, and march into Italy, information was brought to
M. d'Orleans, that the enemy occupied the roads by which it was
indispensable to pass. M. d'Orleans, not believing this intelligence,
persisted in going forward. Our officers, thus foiled, for it was known
afterwards that the story was their invention, and that the passes were
entirely free, hit upon another expedient. They declared there were no
more provisions or ammunition, and that it was accordingly impossible to
go into Italy. M. d'Orleans, worn out by so much criminal disobedience,
and weakened by his wound, could hold out no longer. He threw himself
back in the chaise, and said they might go where they would. The army
therefore turned about, and directed itself towards Pignerol, losing many
equipages from our rear-guard during the night in the mountains, although
that rear-guard was protected by Albergotti, and was not annoyed by the
enemy.
The joy of the enemy at their success was unbounded. They could scarcely
believe in it. Their army was just at its last gasp. They had not more
than four days' supply of powder left in the place. After the victory,
M. de Savoie and Prince Eugene lost no time in idle rejoicings. They
thought only how to profit by a success so unheard of and so unexpected.
They retook rapidly all the places in Piedmont and Lombardy that we
occupied, and we had no power to prevent them.
Never battle cost fewer soldiers than that of Turin; never was retreat
more undisturbed than ours; yet never were results more frightful or more
rapid. Ramillies, with a light loss, cost the Spanish Low Countries and
part of ours: Turin cost all Italy by the ambition of La Feuillade, the
incapacity of Marsin, the avarice, the trickery, the disobedience of the
general officers opposed to M, d'Orleans. So complete was the rout of
our army, that it was found impossible to restore it sufficiently to send
it back to Italy, not at least before the following spring. M. d'Orleans
returned therefore to Versailles, on Monday, the 8th of November, and was
well received by the King. La Feuillade arrived on Monday, the 13th of
December, having remained several days at Paris without daring to go to
Versailles. He was taken to the King by Chamillart. As soon as the King
saw them enter he rose, went to the door, and without giving them time to
utter a word, said to La Feuillade, "Monsieur, we are both very
unfortunate!" and instantly turned his back upon him. La Feuillade, on
the threshold of the door that he had not had time to cross, left the
place immediately, without having dared to say a single word. The King
always afterwards turned his eye from La Feuillade, and would never speak
to him. Such was the fall of this Phaeton. He saw that he had no more
hope, and retired from the army; although there was no baseness that he
did not afterwards employ to return to command. I think there never was
a more wrong-headed man or a man more radically dishonest, even to the
marrow of his bones. As for Marsin, he died soon after his capture, from
the effect of his wounds.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Such was our military history of the year 1706--history of losses and
dishonour. It may be imagined in what condition was the exchequer with
so many demands upon its treasures. For the last two or three years the
King had been obliged, on account of the expenses of the war, and the
losses we had sustained, to cut down the presents that he made at the
commencement of the year. Thirty-five thousand louis in gold was the sum
he ordinarily spent in this manner. This year, 1707, he diminished it by
ten thousand Louis. It was upon Madame de Montespan that the blow fell.
Since she had quitted the Court the King gave her twelve thousand Louis
of gold each year. This year he sent word to her that he could only give
her eight. Madame de Montespan testified not the least surprise. She
replied, that she was only sorry for the poor, to whom indeed she gave
with profusion. A short time after the King had made this reduction,
that is, on the 8th of January, Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne gave
birth to a son. The joy was great, but the King prohibited all those
expenses which had been made at the birth of the first-born of Madame de
Bourgogne, and which had amounted to a large sum. The want of money
indeed made itself felt so much at this time, that the King was obliged
to seek for resources as a private person might have done. A mining
speculator, named Rodes, having pretended that he had discovered many
veins of gold in the Pyrenees, assistance was given him in order that he
might bring these treasures to light.
He declared that with eighteen hundred workmen he would furnish a million
(francs' worth of gold) each week. Fifty-two millions a-year would have
been a fine increase of revenue. However, after waiting some little
time, no gold was forthcoming, and the money that had been spent to
assist this enterprise was found to be pure loss.
The difficulty of finding money to carry on the affairs of the nation
continued to grow so irksome that Chamillart, who had both the finance
and the war departments under his control, was unable to stand against
the increased trouble and vexation which this state of things brought
him. More than once he had represented that this double work was too
much for him. But the King had in former times expressed so much
annoyance from the troubles that arose between the finance and war
departments, that he would not separate them, after having once joined
them together. At last, Chamillart could bear up against his heavy load
no longer. The vapours seized him: he had attacks of giddiness in the
head; his digestion was obstructed; he grew thin as a lath. He wrote
again to the King, begging to be released from his duties, and frankly
stated that, in the state he was, if some relief was not afforded him,
everything would go wrong and perish. He always left a large margin to
his letters, and upon this the King generally wrote his reply.
Chamillart showed me this letter when it came back to him, and I saw upon
it with great surprise, in the handwriting of the King, this short note:
"Well! let us perish together."
The necessity for money had now become so great, that all sorts of means
were adopted to obtain it. Amongst other things, a tax was established
upon baptisms and marriages. This tax was extremely onerous and odious.
The result of it was a strange confusion. Poor people, and many of
humble means, baptised their children themselves, without carrying them
to the church, and were married at home by reciprocal consent and before
witnesses, when they could find no priest who would marry them without
formality. In consequence of this there were no longer any baptismal
extracts; no longer any certainty as to baptisms or births; and the
children of the marriages solemnised in the way I have stated above were
illegitimate in the eyes of the law. Researches and rigours in respect
to abuses so prejudicial were redoubled therefore; that is to say, they
were redoubled for the purpose of collecting the tax.
From public cries and murmurs the people in some places passed to
sedition. Matters went so far at Cahors, that two battalions which were
there had great difficulty in holding the town against the armed
peasants; and troops intended for Spain were obliged to be sent there.
It was found necessary to suspend the operation of the tax, but it was
with great trouble that the movement of Quercy was put down, and the
peasants, who had armed and collected together, induced to retire into
their villages. In Perigord they rose, pillaged the bureaux, and
rendered themselves masters of a little town and some castles, and forced
some gentlemen to put themselves at their head. They declared publicly
that they would pay the old taxes to King, curate, and lord, but that
they would pay no more, or hear a word of any other taxes or vexation.
In the end it was found necessary to drop this tax upon baptism and
marriages, to the great regret of the tax-gatherers, who, by all manner
of vexations and rogueries, had enriched themselves cruelly.
It was at this time, and in consequence, to some extent, of these events,
that a man who had acquired the highest distinction in France was brought
to the tomb in bitterness and grief, for that which in any other country
would have covered him with honour. Vauban, for it is to him that I
allude, patriot as he was, had all his life been touched with the misery
of the people and the vexations they suffered. The knowledge that his
offices gave him of the necessity for expense, the little hope he had
that the King would retrench in matters of splendour and amusement, made
him groan to see no remedy to an oppression which increased in weight
from day to day. Feeling this, he made no journey that he did not
collect information upon the value and produce of the land, upon the
trade and industry of the towns and provinces, on the nature of the
imposts, and the manner of collecting them. Not content with this, he
secretly sent to such places as he could not visit himself, or even to
those he had visited, to instruct him in everything, and compare the
reports he received with those he had himself made. The last twenty
years of his life were spent in these researches, and at considerable
cost to himself. In, the end, he convinced himself that the land was the
only real wealth, and he set himself to work to form a new system.
He had already made much progress, when several little books appeared by
Boisguilbert, lieutenant-general at Rouen, who long since had had the
same views as Vauban, and had wanted to make them known. From this
labour had resulted a learned and profound book, in which a system was
explained by which the people could be relieved of all the expenses they
supported, and from every tax, and by which the revenue collected would
go at once into the treasury of the King, instead of enriching, first the
traitants, the intendants, and the finance ministers. These latter,
therefore, were opposed to the system, and their opposition, as will be
seen, was of no slight consequence.
Vauban read this book with much attention. He differed on some points
with the author, but agreed with him in the main. Boisguilbert wished to
preserve some imposts upon foreign commerce and upon provisions. Vauban
wished to abolish all imposts, and to substitute for them two taxes, one
upon the land, the other upon trade and industry. His book, in which he
put forth these ideas, was full of information and figures, all arranged
with the utmost clearness, simplicity, and exactitude.
But it had a grand fault. It described a course which, if followed,
would have ruined an army of financiers, of clerks, of functionaries of
all kinds; it would have forced them to live at their own expense,
instead of at the expense of the people; and it would have sapped the
foundations of those immense fortunes that are seen to grow up in such a
short time. This was enough to cause its failure.
All the people interested in opposing the work set up a cry. They saw
place, power, everything, about to fly from their grasp, if the counsels
of Vauban were acted upon. What wonder, then, that the King, who was
surrounded by these people, listened to their reasons, and received with
a very ill grace Marechal Vauban when he presented his book to him. The
ministers, it may well be believed, did not give him a better welcome.
From that moment his services, his military capacity (unique of its
kind), his virtues, the affection the King had had for him, all were
forgotten. The King saw only in Marechal Vauban a man led astray by love
for the people, a criminal who attacked the authority of the ministers,
and consequently that of the King. He explained himself to this effect
without scruple.
The unhappy Marechal could not survive the loss of his royal master's
favour, or stand up against the enmity the King's explanations had
created against him; he died a few months after consumed with grief, and
with an affliction nothing could soften, and to which the King was
insensible to such a point, that he made semblance of not perceiving that
he had lost a servitor so useful and so illustrious. Vauban, justly
celebrated over all Europe, was regretted in France by all who were not
financiers or their supporters.
Boisguilbert, whom this event ought to have rendered wise, could not
contain himself. One of the objections which had been urged against his
theories, was the difficulty of carrying out changes in the midst of a
great war. He now published a book refuting this point, and describing
such a number of abuses then existing, to abolish which, he asked, was it
necessary to wait for peace, that the ministers were outraged.
Boisguilbert was exiled to Auvergne. I did all in my power to revoke
this sentence, having known Boisguilbert at Rouen, but did not succeed
until the end of two months. He was then allowed to return to Rouen, but
was severely reprimanded, and stripped of his functions for some little
time. He was amply indemnified, however, for this by the crowd of
people, and the acclamations with which he was received.
It is due to Chamillart to say, that he was the only minister who had
listened with any attention to these new systems of Vauban and
Boisguilbert. He indeed made trial of the plans suggested by the former,
but the circumstances were not favourable to his success, and they of
course failed. Some time after, instead of following the system of
Vauban, and reducing the imposts, fresh ones were added. Who would have
said to the Marechal that all his labours for the relief of the people of
France would lead to new imposts, more harsh, more permanent, and more
heavy than he protested against? It is a terrible lesson against all
improvements in matters of taxation and finance.
But it is time, now, that I should retrace my steps to other matters,
which, if related in due order of time, should have found a place ere
this. And first, let me relate the particulars concerning a trial in
which I was engaged, and which I have deferred allusion to until now, so
as not to entangle the thread of my narrative.
My sister, as I have said in its proper place, had married the Duc de
Brissac, and the marriage had not been a happy one. After a time, in
fact, they separated. My sister at her death left me her universal
legatee; and shortly after this, M. de Brissac brought an action against
me on her account for five hundred thousand francs. After his death, his
representatives continued the action, which I resisted, not only
maintaining that I owed none of the five hundred thousand francs, but
claiming to have two hundred thousand owing to me, out of six hundred
thousand which had formed the dowry of my sister.
When M. de Brissac died, there seemed some probability that his peerage
would become extinct; for the Comte de Cosse, who claimed to succeed him,
was opposed by a number of peers, and but for me might have failed to
establish his pretensions. I, however, as his claim was just, interested
myself in him, supported him with all my influence, and gained for him
the support of several influential peers: so that in the end he was
recognised as Duc de Brissac, and received as such at the parliament on
the 6th of May, 1700.
Having succeeded thus to the titles and estates of his predecessor, he
succeeded also to his liabilities, debts, and engagements. Among these
was the trial against me for five hundred thousand francs. Cosse felt so
thoroughly that he owed his rank to me, that he offered to give me five
hundred thousand francs, so as to indemnify me against an adverse
decision in the cause. Now, as I have said, I not only resisted this
demand made upon me for five hundred thousand francs, but I, in my turn,
claimed two hundred thousand francs, and my claim, once admitted, all the
personal creditors of the late Duc de Brissac (creditors who, of course,
had to be paid by the new Duke) would have been forced to stand aside
until my debt was settled.
I, therefore, refused this offer of Cosse, lest other creditors should
hear of the arrangement, and force him to make a similar one with them.
He was overwhelmed with a generosity so little expected, and we became
more intimately connected from that day.
Cosse, once received as Duc de Brissac, I no longer feared to push
forward the action I had commenced for the recovery of the two hundred
thousand francs due to me, and which I had interrupted only on his
account. I had gained it twice running against the late Duc de Brissac,
at the parliament of Rouen; but the Duchesse d'Aumont, who in the last
years of his life had lent him money, and whose debt was in danger,
succeeded in getting this cause sent up for appeal to the parliament at
Paris, where she threw obstacle upon obstacle in its path, and caused
judgment to be delayed month after month. When I came to take active
steps in the matter, my surprise--to use no stronger word--was great, to
find Cosse, after all I had done for him, favouring the pretensions of
the Duchesse d'Aumont, and lending her his aid to establish them.
However, he and the Duchesse d'Aumont lost their cause, for when it was
submitted to the judges of the council at Paris, it was sent back to
Rouen, and they had to pay damages and expenses.
For years the affair had been ready to be judged at Rouen, but M.
d'Aumont every year, by means of his letters of state, obtained a
postponement. At last, however, M. d'Aumont died, and I was assured that
the letters of state should not be again produced, and that in
consequence no further adjournment should take place. I and Madame de
Saint-Simon at once set out, therefore, for Rouen, where we were
exceedingly well received, fetes and entertainments being continually
given in our honour.
After we had been there but eight or ten days, I received a letter from
Pontchartrain, who sent me word that the King had learnt with surprise I
was at Rouen, and had charged him to ask me why I was there: so attentive
was the King as to what became of the people of mark, he was accustomed
to see around him! My reply was not difficult.
Meanwhile our cause proceeded. The parliament, that is to say, the Grand
Chamber, suspended all other business in order to finish ours. The
affair was already far advanced, when it was interrupted by an obstacle,
of all obstacles the least possible to foresee. The letters of state had
again been put in, for the purpose of obtaining another adjournment.
My design is not to weary by recitals, which interest only myself; but I
must explain this matter fully. It was Monday evening. The parliament
of Rouen ended on the following Saturday. If we waited until the opening
of the next parliament, we should have to begin our cause from the
beginning, and with new presidents and judges, who would know nothing of
the facts. What was to be done? To appeal to the King seemed
impossible, for he was at Marly, and, while there, never listened to such
matters. By the time he left Marly, it would be too late to apply to
him.
Madame de Saint-Simon and others advised me, however, at all hazards, to
go straight to the King, instead of sending a courier, as I thought of
doing, and to keep my journey secret. I followed their advice, and
setting out at once, arrived at Marly on Tuesday morning, the 8th of
August, at eight of the clock. The Chancellor and Chamillart, to whom I
told my errand, pitied me, but gave me no hope of success. Nevertheless,
a council of state was to be held on the following morning, presided over
by the King, and my petition was laid before it. The letters of state
were thrown out by every voice. This information was brought to me at
mid-day. I partook of a hasty dinner, and turned back to Rouen, where I
arrived on Thursday, at eight o'clock in the morning, three hours after a
courier, by whom I had sent this unhoped-for news.
I brought with me, besides the order respecting the letters of state, an
order to the parliament to proceed to judgment at once. It was laid
before the judges very early on Saturday, the 11th of August, the last
day of the parliament. From four o'clock in the morning we had an
infinite number of visitors, wanting to accompany us to the palace. The
parliament had been much irritated against these letters of state, after
having suspended all other business for us. The withdrawal of these
letters was now announced. We gained our cause, with penalties and
expenses, amid acclamations which resounded through the court, and which
followed us into the streets. We could scarcely enter our street, so
full was it with the crowd, or our house, which was equally crowded. Our
kitchen chimney soon after took fire, and it was only a marvel that it
was extinguished, without damage, after having strongly warned us, and
turned our joy into bitterness. There was only the master of the house
who was unmoved. We dined, however, with a grand company; and after
stopping one or two days more to thank our friends, we went to see the
sea at Dieppe, and then to Cani, to a beautiful house belonging to our
host at Rouen.
As for Madame d'Aumont, she was furious at the ill-success of her affair.
It was she who had obtained the letters of state from the steward of her
son-in-law. Her son-in-law had promised me that they should not be used,
and wrote at once to say he had had no hand in their production. M. de
Brissac, who had been afraid to look me in the face ever since he had
taken part in this matter, and with whom I had openly broken, was now so
much ashamed that he avoided me everywhere.
CHAPTER XXXVII
It was just at the commencement of the year 1706, that I received a piece
of news which almost took away my breath by its suddenness, and by the
surprise it caused me. I was on very intimate terms with Gualterio, the
nuncio of the Pope. Just about this time we were without an ambassador
at Rome. The nuncio spoke to me about this post; but at my age--I was
but thirty--and knowing the unwillingness of the King to employ young men
in public affairs, I paid no attention to his words. Eight days
afterwards he entered my chamber-one Tuesday, about an hour after mid-
day-his arms open, joy painted upon his face, and embracing me, told me
to shut my door, and even that of my antechamber, so that he should not
be seen. I was to go to Rome as ambassador. I made him repeat this
twice over: it seemed so impossible. If one of the portraits in my
chamber had spoken to me, I could not have been more surprised.
Gualterio begged me to keep the matter secret, saying, that the
appointment would be officially announced to me ere long.
I went immediately and sought out Chamillart, reproaching him for not
having apprised me of this good news. He smiled at my anger, and said
that the King had ordered the news to be kept secret. I admit that I was
flattered at being chosen at my age for an embassy so important. I was
advised on every side to accept it, and this I determined to do. I could
not understand, however, how it was I had been selected. Torcy, years
afterwards, when the King was dead, related to me how it came about. At
this time I had no relations with Torcy; it was not until long afterwards
that friendship grew up between us.
He said, then, that the embassy being vacant, the King wished to fill up
that appointment, and wished also that a Duke should be ambassador. He
took an almanack and began reading the names of the Dukes, commencing
with M. de Uzes. He made no stop until he came to my name. Then he said
(to Torcy), "What do you think of him? He is young, but he is good," &c.
The King, after hearing a few opinions expressed by those around him,
shut up the almanack, and said it was not worth while to go farther,
determined that I should be ambassador, but ordered the appointment to be
kept secret. I learnt this, more than ten years after its occurrence,
from a true man, who had no longer any interest or reason to disguise
anything from me.
Advised on all sides by my friends to accept the post offered to me, I
did not long hesitate to do so. Madame de Saint-Simon gave me the same
advice, although she herself was pained at the idea of quitting her
family. I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of relating here what the
three ministers each said of my wife, a woman then of only twenty-seven
years of age. All three, unknown to each other, and without solicitation
on my part, counselled me to keep none of the affairs of my embassy
secret from her, but to give her a place at the end of the table when I
read or wrote my despatches, and to consult her with deference upon
everything. I have rarely so much relished advice as I did in this case.
Although, as things fell out, I could not follow it at Rome, I had
followed it long before, and continued to do so all my life. I kept
nothing secret from her, and I had good reason to be pleased that I did
not. Her counsel was always wise, judicious, and useful, and oftentimes
she warded off from me many inconveniences.
But to continue the narrative of this embassy. It was soon so generally
known that I was going to Rome, that as we danced at Marly, we heard
people say, "Look! M. l'Ambassadeur and Madame l'Ambassadrice are
dancing." After this I wished the announcement to be made public as soon
as possible, but the King was not to be hurried. Day after day passed
by, and still I was kept in suspense. At last, about the middle of
April, I had an interview with Chamillart one day, just after he came out
of the council at which I knew my fate had been decided. I learnt then
that the King had determined to send no ambassador to Rome. The Abbe de
La Tremoille was already there; he had been made Cardinal, and was to
remain and attend to the affairs of the embassy. I found out afterwards
that I had reason to attribute to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine the
change in the King's intention towards me. Madame de Saint-Simon was
delighted. It seemed as though she foresaw the strange discredit in
which the affairs of the King were going to fall in Italy, the
embarrassment and the disorder that public misfortunes would cause the
finances, and the cruel situation to which all things would have reduced
us at Rome. As for me, I had had so much leisure to console myself
beforehand, that I had need of no more. I felt, however, that I had now
lost all favour with the King, and, indeed, he estranged himself from me
more and more each day. By what means I recovered myself it is not yet
time to tell.
On the night between the 3rd and 4th of February, Cardinal Coislin,
Bishop of Orleans, died. He was a little man, very fat, who looked like
a village curate. His purity of manners and his virtues caused him to be
much loved. Two good actions of his life deserve to be remembered.
When, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the King determined to
convert the Huguenots by means of dragoons and torture, a regiment was
sent to Orleans, to be spread abroad in the diocese. As soon as it
arrived, M. d'Orleans sent word to the officers that they might make his
house their home; that their horses should be lodged in his stables. He
begged them not to allow a single one of their men to leave the town, to
make the slightest disorder; to say no word to the Huguenots, and not to
lodge in their houses. He resolved to be obeyed, and he was. The
regiment stayed a month; and cost him a good deal. At the end of that
time he so managed matters that the soldiers were sent away, and none
came again. This conduct, so full of charity, so opposed to that of
nearly all the other dioceses, gained as many Huguenots as were gained by
the barbarities they suffered elsewhere. It needed some courage, to say
nothing of generosity, to act thus, and to silently blame, as it were,
the conduct of the King.
The other action of M. d'Orleans was less public and less dangerous,
but was not less good. He secretly gave away many alms to the poor,
in addition to those he gave publicly. Among those whom he succoured
was a poor, broken-down gentleman, without wife or child, to whom he gave
four hundred livres of pension, and a place at his table whenever he was
at Orleans. One morning the servants of M. d'Orleans told their master
that ten pieces of plate were missing, and that suspicion fell upon the
gentleman. M. d'Orleans could not believe him guilty, but as he did not
make his appearance at the house for several days, was forced at last to
imagine he was so. Upon this he sent for the gentleman, who admitted
himself to be the offender.
M. d'Orleans said he must have been strangely pressed to commit an action
of this nature, and reproached him for not having mentioned his wants.
Then, drawing twenty Louis from his pocket, he gave them to the
gentleman, told him to forget what had occurred, and to use his table
as before. M. d'Orleans prohibited his servants to mention their
suspicions, and this anecdote would never have been known, had it not
been told by the gentleman himself, penetrated with confusion and
gratitude.
M. d'Orleans, after he became cardinal, was often pressed by his friends
to give up his bishopric. But this he would not listen to. The King had
for him a respect that was almost devotion. When Madame de Bourgogne was
about to be delivered of her first child, the King sent a courier to M.
d'Orleans requesting him to come to Court immediately, and to remain
there until after the delivery. When the child was born, the King would
not allow it to be sprinkled by any other hand than that of M. d'Orleans.
The poor man, very fat, as I have said, always sweated very much;--on
this occasion, wrapped up in his cloak and his lawn, his body ran with
sweat in such abundance, that in the antechamber the floor was wet all
round where he stood. All the Court was much afflicted at his death; the
King more than anybody spoke his praises. It was known after his death,
from his valet de chambre, that he mortified himself continually with
instruments of penitence, and that he rose every night and passed an hour
on his knees in prayer. He received the sacraments with great piety, and
died the night following as he had lived.
Heudicourt the younger, a species of very mischievous satyr, and much
mixed up in grand intrigues of gallantry, made, about this time, a song
upon the grand 'prevot' and his family. It was so simple, so true to
nature, withal so pleasant, that some one having whispered it in the ear
of the Marechal de Boufflers at chapel, he could not refrain from
bursting into laughter, although he was in attendance at the mass of the
King. The Marechal was the gravest and most serious man in all France;
the greatest slave to decorum. The King turned round therefore, in
surprise, which augmented considerably when he saw the Marechal de
Boufflers nigh to bursting with laughter, and the tears running down his
cheeks. On turning into his cabinet, he called the Marechal, and asked
what had got him in that state at the mass. The Marechal repeated the
song to him. Thereupon the King burst out louder than the Marechal had,
and for a whole fortnight afterwards could not help smiling whenever he
saw the grand 'prevot' or any of his family. The song soon spread about,
and much diverted the Court and the town.
I should particularly avoid soiling this page with an account of the
operation for fistula which Courcillon, only son of Dangeau, had
performed upon him, but for the extreme ridicule with which it was
accompanied. Courcillon was a dashing young fellow, much given to witty
sayings, to mischief, to impiety, and to the filthiest debauchery, of
which latter, indeed, this operation passed publicly as the fruit. His
mother, Madams Dangeau, was in the strictest intimacy with Madame de
Maintenon. They two alone, of all the Court, were ignorant of the life
Courcillon led. Madame was much afflicted; and quitted his bed-side,
even for a moment, with pain. Madame de Maintenon entered into her
sorrow, and went every day to bear her company at the pillow of
Courcillon. Madame d'Heudicourt, another intimate friend of Madame de
Maintenon, was admitted there also, but scarcely anybody else.
Courcillon listened to them, spoke devotionally to them, and uttered the
reflections suggested by his state. They, all admiration, published
everywhere that he was a saint. Madame d'Heudicourt and a few others who
listened to these discourses, and who knew the pilgrim well, and saw him
loll out his tongue at them on the sly, knew not what to do to prevent
their laughter, and as soon as they could get away went and related all
they had heard to their friends. Courcillon, who thought it a mighty
honour to have Madame de Maintenon every day for nurse, but who,
nevertheless, was dying of weariness, used to see his friends in the
evening (when Madame de Maintenon and his mother were gone), and would
relate to them, with burlesque exaggeration, all the miseries he had
suffered during the day, and ridicule the devotional discourses he had
listened to. All the time his illness lasted, Madame de Maintenon came
every day to see him, so that her credulity, which no one dared to
enlighten, was the laughing-stock of the Court. She conceived such a
high opinion of the virtue of Courcillon, that she cited him always as an
example, and the King also formed the same opinion. Courcillon took good
care not to try and cultivate it when he became cured; yet neither the
King nor Madame de Maintenon opened their eyes, or changed their conduct
towards him. Madame de Maintenon, it must be said, except in the sublime
intrigue of her government and with the King, was always the queen of
dupes.
It would seem that there are, at certain times, fashions in crimes as in
clothes. At the period of the Voysins and the Brinvilliers, there were
nothing but poisoners abroad; and against these, a court was expressly
instituted, called ardente, because it condemned them to the flames. At
the time of which I am now speaking, 1703, for I forgot to relate what
follows in its proper place, forgers of writings were in the ascendant,
and became so common, that a chamber was established composed of
councillors of state and others, solely to judge the accusations which
this sort of criminals gave rise to.
The Bouillons wished to be recognised as descended, by male issue, of the
Counts of Auvergne, and to claim all kinds of distinctions and honours in
consequence. They had, however, no proofs of this, but, on the contrary,
their genealogy proved it to be false. All on a sudden, an old document
that had been interred in the obscurity of ages in the church of Brioude,
was presented to Cardinal Bouillon. It had all the marks of antiquity,
and contained a triumphant proof of the descent of the house of La Tour,
to which the Bouillons belonged, from the ancient Counts of Auvergne.
The Cardinal was delighted to have in his hands this precious document.
But to avoid all suspicion, he affected modesty, and hesitated to give
faith to evidence so decisive. He spoke in confidence to all the learned
men he knew, and begged them to examine the document with care, so that
he might not be the dupe of a too easy belief in it.
Whether the examiners were deceived by the document, or whether they
allowed themselves to be seduced into believing it, as is more than
probable, from fear of giving offence to the Cardinal, need not be
discussed. It is enough to say that they pronounced in favour of the
deed, and that Father Mabillon, that Benedictine so well known throughout
all Europe by his sense and his candour, was led by the others to share
their opinion.
After this, Cardinal de Bouillon no longer affected any doubt about the
authenticity of the discovery. All his friends complimented him upon it,
the majority to see how he would receive their congratulations. It was a
chaos rather than a mixture, of vanity the most outrageous, modesty the
most affected, and joy the most immoderate which he could not restrain.
Unfortunately, De Bar, who had found the precious document, and who had
presented it to Cardinal de Bouillon, was arrested and put in prison a
short time after this, charged with many forgeries. This event made some
stir, and caused suspicion to fall upon the document, which was now
attentively examined through many new spectacles. Learned men
unacquainted with the Bouillons contested it, and De Bar was so pushed
upon this point, that he made many delicate admissions. Alarm at once
spread among the Bouillons. They did all in their power to ward off the
blow that was about to fall. Seeing the tribunal firm, and fully
resolved to follow the affair to the end, they openly solicited for De
Bar, and employed all their credit to gain his liberation. At last,
finding the tribunal inflexible, they were reduced to take an extreme
resolution. M. de Bouillon admitted to the King, that his brother,
Cardinal de Bouillon, might, unknown to all of them, have brought forward
facts he could not prove. He added, that putting himself in the King's
hands, he begged that the affair might be stopped at once, out of
consideration for those whose only guilt was too great credulity, and too
much confidence in a brother who had deceived them. The King, with more
of friendship for M. de Bouillon than of reflection as to what he owed by
way of reparation for a public offence, agreed to this course.
De Bar, convicted of having fabricated this document, by his own
admission before the public tribunal, was not condemned to death, but to
perpetual imprisonment. As may be believed, this adventure made a great
stir; but what cannot be believed so easily is, the conduct of the
Messieurs Bouillon about fifteen months afterwards.
At the time when the false document above referred to was discovered,
Cardinal de Bouillon had commissioned Baluze, a man much given to
genealogical studies, to write the history of the house of Auvergne.
In this history, the descent, by male issue; of the Bouillons from the
Counts of Auvergne, was established upon the evidence supplied by this
document. At least, nobody doubted that such was the case, and the world
was strangely scandalised to see the work appear after that document had
been pronounced to be a forgery. Many learned men and friends of Baluze
considered him so dishonoured by it, that they broke off all relations
with him, and this put the finishing touch to the confusion of this
affair.
On Thursday, the 7th of March, 1707, a strange event troubled the King,
and filled the Court and the town with rumours. Beringhen, first master
of the horse, left Versailles at seven o'clock in the evening of that
day, to go to Paris, alone in one of the King's coaches, two of the royal
footmen behind, and a groom carrying a torch before him on the seventh
horse. The carriage had reached the plain of Bissancourt, and was
passing between a farm on the road near Sevres bridge and a cabaret,
called the "Dawn of Day," when it was stopped by fifteen or sixteen men
on horseback, who seized on Beringhen, hurried him into a post-chaise in
waiting, and drove off with him. The King's carriage, with the coachman,
footmen, and groom, was allowed to go back to Versailles. As soon as it
reached Versailles the King was informed of what had taken place. He
sent immediately to his four Secretaries of State, ordering them to send
couriers everywhere to the frontiers, with instructions to the governors
to guard all the passages, so that if these horsemen were foreign
enemies, as was suspected, they would be caught in attempting to pass out
of the kingdom. It was known that a party of the enemy had entered
Artois, that they had committed no disorders, but that they were there
still. Although people found it difficult, at first, to believe that
Beringhen had been carried off by a party such as this, yet as it was
known that he had no enemies, that he was not reputed sufficiently rich
to afford hope of a large ransom, and that not one of our wealthiest
financiers had been seized in this manner, this explanation was at last
accepted as the right one.
So in fact it proved. A certain Guetem, a fiddler of the Elector of
Bavaria, had entered the service of Holland, had taken part in her war
against France, and had become a colonel. Chatting one evening with his
comrades, he laid a wager that he would carry off some one of mark
between Paris and Versailles. He obtained a passport, and thirty chosen
men, nearly all of whom were officers. They passed the rivers disguised
as traders, by which means they were enabled to post their relays [of
horses]. Several of them had remained seven or eight days at Sevres,
Saint Cloud, and Boulogne, from which they had the hardihood to go to
Versailles and see the King sup. One of these was caught on the day
after the disappearance of Beringhen, and when interrogated by
Chamillart, replied with a tolerable amount of impudence. Another was
caught in the forest of Chantilly by one of the servants of M. le Prince.
From him it became known that relays of horses and a post-chaise had been
provided at Morliere for the prisoner when he should arrive there, and
that he had already passed the Oise.
As I have said, couriers were despatched to the governors of the
frontiers; in addition to this, information of what had taken place was
sent to all the intendants of the frontier, to all the troops in quarters
there. Several of the King's guards, too, and the grooms of the stable,
went in pursuit of the captors of Beringhen. Notwithstanding the
diligence used, the horsemen had traversed the Somme and had gone four
leagues beyond Ham-Beringhen, guarded by the officers, and pledged to
offer no resistance--when the party was stopped by a quartermaster and
two detachments of the Livry regiment. Beringhen was at once set at
liberty. Guetem and his companion were made prisoners.
The grand fault they had committed was to allow the King's carriage and
the footmen to go back to Versailles so soon after the abduction. Had
they led away the coach under cover of the night, and so kept the King in
ignorance of their doings until the next day, they would have had more
time for their retreat. Instead of doing this they fatigued themselves
by too much haste. They had grown tired of waiting for a carriage that
seemed likely to contain somebody of mark. The Chancellor had passed,
but in broad daylight, and they were afraid in consequence to stop him.
M. le Duc d'Orleans had passed, but in a post-chaise, which they
mistrusted. At last Beringhen appeared in one of the King's coaches,
attended by servants in the King's livery, and wearing his cordon Neu, as
was his custom. They thought they had found a prize indeed. They soon
learnt with whom they had to deal, and told him also who they were.
Guetem bestowed upon Beringhen all kinds of attention, and testified a
great desire to spare him as much as possible all fatigue. He pushed his
attentions so far that they caused his failure. He allowed Beringhen to
stop and rest on two occasions. The party missed one of their relays,
and that delayed them very much.
Beringhen, delighted with his rescue, and very grateful for the good
treatment he had received, changed places with Guetem and his companions,
led them to Ham, and in his turn treated them well. He wrote to his wife
and to Charnillart announcing his release, and these letters were read
with much satisfaction by the King.
On Tuesday, the 29th of March, Beringhen arrived at Versailles, about
eight o'clock in the evening, and went at once to the King, who was in
the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and who received him well, and
made him relate all his adventures. But the King was not pleased when he
found the officers of the stable in a state of great delight, and
preparing fireworks to welcome Beringhen back. He prohibited all these
marks of rejoicing, and would not allow the fireworks to be let off. He
had these little jealousies. He wished that all should be devoted to him
alone, without reserve and without division. All the Court, however,
showed interest in this return, and Beringhen was consoled by the public
welcome he received for his fatigue.
Guetem and his officers, while waiting the pleasure of the King, were
lodged in Beringhen's house in Paris, where they were treated above their
deserts. Beringhen obtained permission for Guetem to see the King. He
did more; he presented Guetem to the King, who praised him for having so
well treated his prisoner, and said that war always ought to be conducted
properly. Guetem, who was not without wit, replied, that he was so
astonished to find himself before the greatest King in the world, and to
find that King doing him the honour of speaking to him, that he had not
power enough to answer. He remained ten or twelve days in Beringhen's
house to see Paris, the Opera and the Comedy, and became the talk of the
town. People ran after him everywhere, and the most distinguished were
not ashamed to do likewise. On all sides he was applauded for an act of
temerity, which might have passed for insolence. Beringhen regaled him,
furnished him with carriages and servants to accompany him, and, at
parting, with money and considerable presents. Guetem went on his parole
to Rheims to rejoin his comrades until exchanged, and had the town for
prison. Nearly all the others had escaped. The project was nothing less
than to carry off Monseigneur, or one of the princes, his sons.
This ridiculous adventure gave rise to precautions, excessive in the
first place, and which caused sad obstructions of bridges and gates. It
caused, too, a number of people to be arrested. The hunting parties of
the princes were for some time interfered with, until matters resumed
their usual course. But it was not bad fun to see, during some time, the
terror of ladies, and even of men, of the Court, who no longer dared go
abroad except in broad daylight, even then with little assurance, and
imagining themselves everywhere in marvellous danger of capture.
I have related in its proper place the adventure of Madame la Princesse
de Conti with Mademoiselle Choin and the attachment of Monseigneur for
the latter. This attachment was only augmented by the difficulty of
seeing each other.
Mademoiselle Choin retired to the house of Lacroix, one of her relatives
at Paris, where she lived quite hidden. She was informed of the rare
days when Monseigneur dined alone at Meudon, without sleeping there. She
went there the day before in a fiacre, passed through the courts on foot,
ill clad, like a common sort of woman going to see some officer at
Meudon, and, by a back staircase, was admitted to Monseigneur who passed
some hours with her in a little apartment on the first floor. In time
she came there with a lady's-maid, her parcel in her pocket, on the
evenings of the days that Monseigneur slept there.
She remained in this apartment without seeing anybody, attended by her
lady's-maid, and waited upon by a servant who alone was in the secret.
Little by little the friends of Monseigneur were allowed to see her;
and amongst these were M. le Prince de Conti, Monseigneur le Duc de
Bourgogne, Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and M. le Duc de Berry.
There was always, however, an air of mystery about the matter. The
parties that took place were kept secret, although frequent, and were
called parvulos.
Mademoiselle Choin remained in her little apartment only for the
convenience of Monseigneur. She slept in the bed and in the grand
apartment where Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne lodged when the King was
at Meudon. She always sat in an arm-chair before Monseigneur; Madame de
Bourgogne sat on a stool. Mademoiselle Choin never rose for her; in
speaking of her, even before Monseigneur and the company, she used to say
"the Duchesse de Bourgogne," and lived with her as Madame de Maintenon
did excepting that "darling" and "my aunt," were terms not exchanged
between them, and that Madame de Bourgogne was not nearly so free, or so
much at her ease, as with the King and Madame de Maintenon. Monsieur de
Bourgogne was much in restraint. His manners did not agree with those of
that world. Monseigneur le Duc de Berry, who was more free, was quite at
home.
Mademoiselle Choin went on fete-days to hear mass in the chapel at six
o'clock in the morning, well wrapped up, and took her meals alone, when
Monseigneur did not eat with her. When he was alone with her, the doors
were all guarded and barricaded to keep out intruders. People regarded
her as being to Monseigneur, what Madame de Maintenon was to the King.
All the batteries for the future were directed and pointed towards her.
People schemed to gain permission to visit her at Paris; people paid
court to her friends and acquaintances, Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne
sought to please her, was respectful to her, attentive to her friends,
not always with success. She acted towards Monseigneur le Duc de
Bourgogne like a mother-in-law, and sometimes spoke with such authority
and bluntness to Madame de Bourgogne as to make her cry.
The King and Madame de Maintenon were in no way ignorant of all this, but
they held their tongues, and all the Court who knew it, spoke only in
whispers of it. This is enough for the present; it will serve to explain
many things, of which I shall speak anon.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
On Wednesday, the 27th of May, 1707, at three o'clock in the morning,
Madame de Montespan, aged sixty, died very suddenly at the waters of
Bourbon. Her death made much stir, although she had long retired from
the Court and from the world, and preserved no trace of the commanding
influence she had so long possessed. I need not go back beyond my own
experience, and to the time of her reign as mistress of the King. I will
simply say, because the anecdote is little known, that her conduct was
more the fault of her husband than her own. She warned him as soon as
she suspected the King to be in love with her; and told him when there
was no longer any doubt upon her mind. She assured him that a great
entertainment that the King gave was in her honour. She pressed him,
she entreated him in the most eloquent manner, to take her away to his
estates of Guyenne, and leave her there until the King had forgotten her
or chosen another mistress. It was all to no purpose; and Montespan was
not long before repentance seized him; for his torment was that he loved
her all his life, and died still in love with her--although he would
never consent to see her again after the first scandal.
Nor will I speak of the divers degrees which the fear of the devil at
various times put to her separation from the Court; and I will elsewhere
speak of Madame de Maintenon, who owed her everything, who fed her on
serpents, and who at last ousted her from the Court. What no one dared
to say, what the King himself dared not, M. du Maine, her son, dared.
M. de Meaux (Bossuet) did the rest. She went in tears and fury, and
never forgave M. du Maine, who by his strange service gained over for
ever to his interests the heart and the mighty influence of Madame de
Maintenon.
The mistress, retired amongst the Community of Saint Joseph, which she
had built, was long in accustoming herself to it. She carried about her
idleness and unhappiness to Bourbon, to Fontevrault, to D'Antin; she was
many years without succeeding in obtaining mastery over herself. At last
God touched her. Her sin had never been accompanied by forgetfulness;
she used often to leave the King to go and pray in her cabinet; nothing
could ever make her evade any fast day or meagre day; her austerity in
fasting continued amidst all her dissipation. She gave alms, was
esteemed by good people, never gave way to doubt of impiety; but she was
imperious, haughty and overbearing, full of mockery, and of all the
qualities by which beauty with the power it bestows is naturally
accompanied. Being resolved at last to take advantage of an opportunity
which had been given her against her will, she put herself in the hands
of Pere de la Tour, that famous General of the Oratory. From that moment
to the time of her death her conversion continued steadily, and her
penitence augmented. She had first to get rid of the secret fondness she
still entertained for the Court, even of the hopes which, however
chimerical, had always flattered her. She was persuaded that nothing but
the fear of the devil had forced the King to separate himself from her,
that it was nothing but this fear that had raised Madame de Maintenon to
the height she had attained; that age and ill-health, which she was
pleased to imagine, would soon clear the way; that when the King was a
widower, she being a widow, nothing would oppose their reunion, which
might easily be brought about by their affection for their children.
These children entertained similar hopes, and were therefore assiduous in
their attention to her for some time.
Pere de la Tour made her perform a terrible act of penitence. It was to
ask pardon of her husband, and to submit herself to his commands. To all
who knew Madame de Montespan this will seem the most heroic sacrifice.
M. de Montespan, however, imposed no restraint upon his wife. He sent
word that he wished in no way to interfere with her, or even to see her.
She experienced no further trouble, therefore, on this score.
Little by little she gave almost all she had to the poor. She worked for
them several hours a day, making stout shirts and such things for them.
Her table, that she had loved to excess, became the most frugal; her
fasts multiplied; she would interrupt her meals in order to go and pray.
Her mortifications were continued; her chemises and her sheets were of
rough linen, of the hardest and thickest kind, but hidden under others of
ordinary kind. She unceasingly wore bracelets, garters, and a girdle,
all armed with iron points, which oftentimes inflicted wounds upon her;
and her tongue, formerly so dangerous, had also its peculiar penance
imposed on it. She was, moreover, so tormented with the fear of death,
that she employed several women, whose sole occupation was to watch her.
She went to sleep with all the curtains of her bed open, many lights in
her chamber, and her women around her. Whenever she awoke she wished to
find them chatting, playing, or enjoying themselves, so as to re-assure
herself against their drowsiness.
With all this she could never throw off the manners of a queen. She had
an arm-chair in her chamber with its back turned to the foot of the bed.
There was no other in the chamber, not even when her natural children
came to see her, not even for Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. She was
oftentimes visited by the most distinguished people of the Court, and she
spoke like a queen to all. She treated everybody with much respect, and
was treated so in turn. I have mentioned in its proper place, that a
short time before her death, the King gave her a hundred thousand francs
to buy an estate; but this present was not gratis, for she had to send
back a necklace worth a hundred and fifty thousand, to which the King
made additions, and bestowed it on the Duchesse de Bourgogne.
The last time Madame de Montespan went to Bourbon she paid all her
charitable pensions and gratuities two years in advance and doubled her
alms. Although in good health she had a presentiment that she should
return no more. This presentiment, in effect, proved correct. She felt
herself so ill one night, although she had been very well just before,
that she confessed herself, and received the sacrament. Previous to this
she called all her servants into her room and made a public confession of
her public sins, asking pardon for the scandal she had caused with a
humility so decent, so profound, so penitent, that nothing could be more
edifying. She received the last sacrament with an ardent piety. The
fear of death which all her life had so continually troubled her,
disappeared suddenly, and disturbed her no more. She died, without
regret, occupied only with thoughts of eternity, and with a sweetness and
tranquillity that accompanied all her actions.
Her only son by Monsieur de Montespan, whom she had treated like a
mother-in-law, until her separation from the King, but who had since
returned to her affection, D'Antin, arrived just before her death. She
looked at him, and only said that he saw her in a very different state to
what he had seen her at Bellegarde. As soon as she was dead he set out
for Paris, leaving orders for her obsequies, which were strange, or were
strangely executed. Her body, formerly so perfect, became the prey of
the unskilfulness and the ignorance of a surgeon. The obsequies were at
the discretion of the commonest valets, all the rest of the house having
suddenly deserted. The body remained a long time at the door of the
house, whilst the canons of the Sainte Chapelle and the priests of the
parish disputed about the order of precedence with more than indecency.
It was put in keeping under care of the parish, like the corpse of the
meanest citizen of the place, and not until a long time afterwards was it
sent to Poitiers to be placed in the family tomb, and then with an
unworthy parsimony. Madame de Montespan was bitterly regretted by all
the poor of the province, amongst whom she spread an infinity of alms, as
well as amongst others of different degree.
As for the King, his perfect insensibility at the death of a mistress he
had so passionately loved, and for so many years, was so extreme, that
Madame de Bourgogne could not keep her surprise from him. He replied,
tranquilly, that since he had dismissed her he had reckoned upon never
seeing her again, and that thus she was from that time dead to him. It
is easy to believe that the grief of the children he had had by her did
not please him. Those children did not dare to wear mourning for a
mother not recognised. Their appearance, therefore, contrasted with that
of the children of Madame de la Valliere, who had just died, and for whom
they were wearing mourning. Nothing could equal the grief which Madame
la Duchesse d'Orleans, Madame la Duchesse, and the Comte de Toulouse
exhibited. The grief of Madame la Duchesse especially was astonishing,
for she always prided herself on loving nobody; still more astonishing
was the grief of M. le Duc, so inaccessible to friendship. We must
remember, however, that this death put an end to many hopes. M. du
Maine, for his part, could scarcely repress his joy at the death of his
mother, and after having stopped away from Marly two days, returned and
caused the Comte de Toulouse to be recalled likewise. Madame de
Maintenon, delivered of a former rival, whose place she had taken, ought,
it might have been thought, to have felt relieved. It was otherwise;
remorse for the benefits she had received from Madame de Montespan, and
for the manner in which those benefits had been repaid, overwhelmed her.
Tears stole down her cheeks, and she went into a strange privacy to hide
them. Madame de Bourgogne, who followed, was speechless with
astonishment.
The life and conduct of so famous a mistress, subsequent to her forced
retirement, have appeared to me sufficiently curious to describe at
length; and what happened at her death was equally characteristic of the
Court.
The death of the Duchesse de Nemours, which followed quickly upon that of
Madame de Montespart, made still more stir in the world, but of another
kind. Madame de Nemours was daughter, by a first marriage, of the last
Duc de Longueville. She was extremely rich, and lived in great
splendour. She had a strange look, and a droll way of dressing, big
eyes, with which she could scarcely see, a shoulder that constantly
twitched, grey hairs that she wore flowing, and a very imposing air.
She had a very bad temper, and could not forgive. When somebody asked
her if she said the Pater, she replied, yes, but that she passed by
without saying it the clause respecting pardon for our enemies. She did
not like her kinsfolk, the Matignons, and would never see nor speak to
any of them. One day talking to the King at a window of his cabinet,
she saw Matignon passing in the court below. Whereupon she set to
spitting five or six times running, and then turned to the King and
begged his pardon, saying, that she could never see a Matignon without
spitting in that manner. It may be imagined that devotion did not
incommode her. She herself used to tell a story, that having entered one
day a confessional, without being followed into the church, neither her
appearance nor her dress gave her confessor an idea of her rank. She
spoke of her great wealth, and said much about the Princes de Conde and
de Conti. The confessor told her to pass by all that. She, feeling that
the case was a serious one, insisted upon explaining and made allusion to
her large estates and her millions. The good priest believed her mad,
and told her to calm herself; to get rid of such ideas; to think no more
of them; and above all to eat good soups, if she had the means to procure
them. Seized with anger she rose and left the place. The confessor out
of curiosity followed her to the door. When he saw the good lady, whom
he thought mad, received by grooms, waiting women, and so on, he had like
to have fallen backwards; but he ran to the coach door and asked her
pardon. It was now her turn to laugh at him, and she got off scot-free
that day from the confessional.
Madame de Nemours had amongst other possessions the sovereignty of
Neufchatel. As soon as she was dead, various claimants arose to dispute
the succession. Madame de Mailly laid claim to it, as to the succession
to the principality of Orange, upon the strength of a very doubtful
alliance with the house of Chalons, and hoped to be supported by Madame
de Maintenon. But Madame de Maintenon laughed at her chimeras, as they
were laughed at in Switzerland.
M. le Prince de Conti was another claimant. He based his right upon the
will of the last Duc de Longueville, by which he had been called to all
the Duke's wealth, after the Comte de Saint Paul, his brother, and his
posterity. In addition to these, there were Matignon and the dowager
Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who claimed Neufchatel by right of their
relationship to Madame de Nemours.
Matignon was an intimate friend of Chamillart, who did not like the
Prince de Conti, and was the declared enemy of the Marechal de Villeroy,
the representative of Madame de Lesdiguieres, in this affair.
Chamillart, therefore, persuaded the King to remain neutral, and aided
Matignon by money and influence to get the start of the other claimants.
The haughty citizens of Neufchatel saw then all these suitors begging for
their suffrages, when a minister of the Elector of Brandenbourg appeared
amongst them, and disputed the pretensions of the Prince de Conti in
favour of his master, the Elector of Brandenbourg (King of Prussia), who
drew his claim from the family of Chalons. It was more distant; more
entangled if possible, than that of Madame de Mailly. He only made use
of it, therefore, as a pretext. His reasons were his religion, in
conformity with that of the country; the support of the neighbouring
Protestant cantons, allies, and protectors of Neufchatel; the pressing
reflection that the principality of Orange having fallen by the death of
William III. to M. le Prince de Conti, the King (Louis XIV.) had
appropriated it and recompensed him for it: and that he might act
similarly if Neufchatel fell to one of his subjects; lastly, a treaty
produced in good form, by which, in the event of the death of Madame de
Nemours, England and Holland agreed to declare for the Elector of
Brandenbourg, and to assist him by force in procuring this little state.
This minister of the Elector was in concert with the Protestant cantons,
who upon his declaration at once sided with him; and who, by the money
spent, the conformity of religion, the power of the Elector, the
reflection of what had happened at Orange, found nearly all the suffrages
favourable. So striking while the iron was hot, they obtained a
provisional judgment from Neufchatel, which adjudged their state to the
Elector until the peace; and in consequence of this, his minister was put
into actual possession, and M. le Prince de Conti saw himself constrained
to return more shamefully than he had returned once before, and was
followed by the other claimants.
Madame de Mailly made such an uproar at the news of this intrusion of the
Elector, that at last the attention of our ministers was awakened. They
found, with her, that it was the duty of the King not to allow this
morsel to be carried off from his subjects; and that there was danger in
leaving it in the hands of such a powerful Protestant prince, capable of
making a fortified place of it so close to the county of Burgundy, and on
a frontier so little protected. Thereupon, the King despatched a courier
to our minister in Switzerland, with orders to go to Neufchatel, and
employ every means, even menaces, to exclude the Elector, and to promise
that the neutrality of France should be maintained if one of her subjects
was selected, no matter which one. It was too late. The affair was
finished; the cantons were engaged, without means of withdrawing. They,
moreover, were piqued into resistance, by an appeal to their honour by
the electoral minister, who insisted on the menaces of Puysieux, our
representative, to whose memoir the ministers of England and Holland
printed a violent reply. The provisional judgment received no
alteration. Shame was felt; and resentment was testified during six
weeks; after which, for lack of being able to do better, this resentment
was appeased of itself. It may be imagined what hope remained to the
claimants of reversing at the peace this provisional judgment, and of
struggling against a prince so powerful and so solidly supported. No
mention of it was afterwards made, and Neufchatel has remained ever since
fully and peaceably to this prince, who was even expressly confirmed in
his possession at the peace by France.
The armies assembled this year towards the end of May, and the campaign
commenced. The Duc de Vendome was in command in Flanders, under the
Elector of Bavaria, and by his slothfulness and inattention, allowed
Marlborough to steal a march upon him, which, but for the failure of some
of the arrangements, might have caused serious loss to our troops. The
enemy was content to keep simply on the defensive after this, having
projects of attack in hand elsewhere to which I shall soon allude.
On the Rhine, the Marechal de Villars was in command, and was opposed by
the Marquis of Bayreuth, and afterwards by the Duke of Hanover, since
King of England. Villars was so far successful, that finding himself
feebly opposed by the Imperials, he penetrated into Germany, after having
made himself master of Heidelberg, Mannheim, and all the Palatinate, and
seized upon a number of cannons, provisions, and munitions of war. He
did not forget to tax the enemy wherever he went. He gathered immense
sums--treasures beyond all his hopes. Thus gorged, he could not hope
that his brigandage would remain unknown. He put on a bold face and
wrote to the King, that the army would cost him nothing this year.
Villars begged at the same time to be allowed to appropriate some of the
money he had acquired to the levelling of a hill on his estate which
displeased him. Another than he would have been dishonoured by such a
request. But it made no difference in his respect, except with the
public, with whom, however, he occupied himself but little. His booty
clutched, he thought of withdrawing from the enemy's country, and passing
the Rhine.
He crossed it tranquilly, with his army and his immense booty, despite
the attempts of the Duke of Hanover to prevent him, and as soon as he was
on this side, had no care but how to terminate the campaign in repose.
Thus finished a campaign tolerably brilliant, if the sordid and
prodigious gain of the general had not soiled it. Yet that general, on
his return, was not less well received by the King.
At sea we had successes. Frobin, with vessels more feeble than the four
English ones of seventy guns, which convoyed a fleet of eighteen ships
loaded with provisions and articles of war, took two of those vessels of
war and the eighteen merchantmen, after four hours' fighting, and set
fire to one of the two others. Three months after he took at the mouth
of the Dwiria seven richly-loaded Dutch merchant-ships, bound for
Muscovy. He took or sunk more than fifty during this campaign.
Afterwards he took three large English ships of war that he led to Brest,
and sank another of a hundred guns. The English of New England and of
New York were not more successful in Acadia; they attacked our colony
twelve days running, without success, and were obliged to retire with
much loss.
The maritime year finished by a terrible tempest upon the coast of
Holland, which caused many vessels to perish in the Texel, and submerged
a large number of districts and villages. France had also its share of
these catastrophes. The Loire overflowed in a manner hitherto unheard
of, broke down the embankments, inundated and covered with sand many
parts of the country, carried away villages, drowned numbers of people
and a quantity of cattle, and caused damage to the amount of above eight
millions. This was another of our obligations to M. de la Feuillade--an
obligation which we have not yet escaped from. Nature, wiser than man,
had placed rocks in the Loire above Roanne, which prevented navigation to
that place, the principal in the duchy of M. de la Feuillade. His
father, tempted by the profit of this navigation, wished to get rid of
the rocks. Orleans, Blois, Tours, in one word, all the places on the
Loire, opposed this. They represented the danger of inundations; they
were listened to, and although the M. de la Feuillade of that day was a
favourite, and on good terms with M. Colbert, he was not allowed to carry
out his wishes with respect to these rocks. His son, the M. de la
Feuillade whom we have seen figuring with so little distinction at the
siege of Turin, had more credit. Without listening to anybody, he blew
up the rocks, and the navigation was rendered free in his favour; the
inundations that they used to prevent have overflowed since at immense
loss to the King and private individuals. The cause was clearly seen
afterwards, but then it was too late.
The little effort made by the enemy in Flanders and Germany, had a cause,
which began to be perceived towards the middle of July. We had been
forced to abandon Italy. By a shameful treaty that was made, all our
troops had retired from that country into Savoy. We had given up
everything. Prince Eugene, who had had the glory of driving us out of
Italy, remained there some time, and then entered the county of Nice.
Forty of the enemy's vessels arrived at Nice shortly afterwards, and
landed artillery. M. de Savoie arrived there also, with six or seven
thousand men. It was now no longer hidden that the siege of Toulon was
determined on. Every preparation was at once made to defend the place.
Tesse was in command. The delay of a day on the part of the enemy saved
Toulon, and it may be said, France. M. de Savoie had been promised money
by the English. They disputed a whole day about the payment, and so
retarded the departure of the fleet from Nice. In the end, seeing M. de
Savoie firm, they paid him a million, which he received himself. But in
the mean time twenty-one of our battalions had had time to arrive at
Toulon. They decided the fortune of the siege. After several
unsuccessful attempts to take the place, the enemy gave up the siege and
retired in the night, between the 22nd and 23rd of August, in good order,
and without being disturbed. Our troops could obtain no sort of
assistance from the people of Provence, so as to harass M. de Savoie in
his passage of the Var. They refused money, militia, and provisions
bluntly, saying that it was no matter to them who came, and that M. de
Savoie could not torment them more than they were tormented already.
The important news of a deliverance so desired arrived at Marly on
Friday, the 26th of August, and overwhelmed all the Court with joy. A
scandalous fuss arose, however, out of this event. The first courier who
brought the intelligence of it, had been despatched by the commander of
the fleet, and had been conducted to the King by Pontchartrain, who had
the affairs of the navy under his control. The courier sent by Tesse,
who commanded the land forces, did not arrive until some hours after the
other. Chamillart, who received this second courier, was piqued to
excess that Pontchartrain had outstripped him with the news. He declared
that the news did not belong to the navy, and consequently Pontchartrain
had no right to carry it to the King. The public, strangely enough,
sided with Chamillart, and on every side Pontchartrain was treated as a
greedy usurper. Nobody had sufficient sense to reflect upon the anger
which a master would feel against a servant who, having the information
by which that master could be relieved from extreme anxiety, should yet
withhold the information for six or eight hours, on the ground that to
tell it was the duty of another servant!
The strangest thing is, that the King, who was the most interested, had
not the force to declare himself on either side, but kept silent. The
torrent was so impetuous that Pontchartrain had only to lower his head,
keep silent, and let the waters pass. Such was the weakness of the King
for his ministers. I recollect that, in 1702, the Duc de Villeroy
brought to Marly the important news of the battle of Luzzara. But,
because Chamillart was not there, he hid himself, left the King and the
Court in the utmost anxiety, and did not announce his news until long
after, when Chamillart, hearing of his arrival, hastened to join him and
present him to the King. The King was so far from being displeased, that
he made the Duc de Villeroy Lieutenant-General before dismissing him.
There is another odd thing that I must relate before quitting this
affair. Tesse, as I have said, was charged with the defence of Toulon by
land. It was a charge of no slight importance. He was in a country
where nothing was prepared, and where everything was wanting; the fleet
of the enemy and their army were near at hand, commanded by two of the
most skilful captains of the day: if they succeeded, the kingdom itself
was in danger, and the road open to the enemy even to Paris. A general
thus situated would have been in no humour for jesting, it might have
been thought. But this was not the case with Tesse. He found time to
write to Pontchartrain all the details of the war and all that passed
amongst our troops in the style of Don Quixote, of whom he called himself
the wretched squire and the Sancho; and everything he wrote he adapted to
the adventures of that romance. Pontchartrain showed me these letters;
they made him die with laughing, he admired them so; and in truth they
were very comical, and he imitated that romance with more wit than I
believed him to possess. It appeared to me incredible, however, that a
man should write thus, at such a critical time, to curry, favour with a
secretary of state. I could not have believed it had I not seen it.
VOLUME 6.
CHAPTER XXXIX
I went this summer to Forges, to try, by means of the waters there, to
get rid of a tertian fever that quinquina only suspended. While there I
heard of a new enterprise on the part of the Princes of the blood, who,
in the discredit in which the King held them, profited without measure by
his desire for the grandeur of the illegitimate children, to acquire new
advantages which were suffered because the others shared them. This was
the case in question.
After the elevation of the mass--at the King's communion--a folding-chair
was pushed to the foot of the altar, was covered with a piece of stuff,
and then with a large cloth, which hung down before and behind. At the
Pater the chaplain rose and whispered in the King's ear the names of all
the Dukes who were in the chapel. The King named two, always the oldest,
to each of whom the chaplain advanced and made a reverence. During the
communion of the priest the King rose, and went and knelt down on the
bare floor behind this folding seat, and took hold of the cloth; at the
same time the two Dukes, the elder on the right, the other on the left,
each took hold of a corner of the cloth; the two chaplains took hold of
the other two corners of the same cloth, on the side of the altar, all
four kneeling, and the captain of the guards also kneeling and behind the
King. The communion received and the oblation taken some moments
afterwards, the King remained a little while in the same place, then
returned to his own, followed by the two Dukes and the captain of the
guards, who took theirs. If a son of France happened to be there alone,
he alone held the right corner of the cloth, and nobody the other; and
when M. le Duc d'Orleans was there, and no son of France was present, M.
le Duc d'Orleans held the cloth in like manner. If a Prince of the blood
were alone present, however, he held the cloth, but a Duke was called
forward to assist him. He was not privileged to act without the Duke.
The Princes of the blood wanted to change this; they were envious of the
distinction accorded to M. d'Orleans, and wished to put themselves on the
same footing. Accordingly, at the Assumption of this year, they managed
so well that M. le Duc served alone at the altar at the King's communion,
no Duke being called upon to come and join him. The surprise at this was
very great. The Duc de la Force and the Marechal de Boufflers, who ought
to have served, were both present. I wrote to this last to say that such
a thing had never happened before, and that it was contrary to all
precedent. I wrote, too, to M. d'Orleans, who was then in Spain,
informing him of the circumstance. When he returned he complained to the
King. But the King merely said that the Dukes ought to have presented
themselves and taken hold of the cloth. But how could they have done so,
without being requested, as was customary, to come forward? What would
the king have thought of them if they had? To conclude, nothing could be
made of the matter, and it remained thus. Never then, since that time,
did I go to the communions of the King.
An incident occurred at Marly about the same time, which made much stir.
The ladies who were invited to Marly had the privilege of dining with the
King. Tables were placed for them, and they took up positions according
to their rank. The non-titled ladies had also their special place. It
so happened one day; that Madame de Torcy (an untitled lady) placed
herself above the Duchesse de Duras, who arrived at table a moment after
her. Madame de Torcy offered to give up her place, but it was a little
late, and the offer passed away in compliments. The King entered, and
put himself at table. As soon as he sat down, he saw the place Madame de
Torcy had taken, and fixed such a serious and surprised look upon her,
that she again offered to give up her place to the Duchesse de Duras; but
the offer was again declined. All through the dinner the King scarcely
ever took his eyes off Madame de Torcy, said hardly a word, and bore a
look of anger that rendered everybody very attentive, and even troubled
the Duchesse de Duras.
Upon rising from the table, the King passed, according to custom, into
the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, followed by the Princesses of the
blood, who grouped themselves around him upon stools; the others who
entered, kept at a distance. Almost before he had seated himself in his
chair, he said to Madame de Maintenon, that he had just been witness of
an act of "incredible insolence" (that was the term he used) which had
thrown him into such a rage that he had been unable to eat: that such an
enterprise would have been insupportable in a woman of the highest
quality; but coming, as it did, from a mere bourgeoise, it had so
affected him, that ten times he had been upon the point of making her
leave the table, and that he was only restrained by consideration for her
husband. After this outbreak he made a long discourse upon the genealogy
of Madame de Torcy's family, and other matters; and then, to the
astonishment of all present, grew as angry as ever against Madame de
Torcy. He went off then into a discourse upon the dignity of the Dukes,
and in conclusion, he charged the Princesses to tell Madame de Torcy to
what extent he had found her conduct impertinent. The Princesses looked
at each other, and not one seemed to like this commission; whereupon the
King, growing more angry, said; that it must be undertaken however, and
left the robes; The news of what had taken place, and of the King's
choler, soon spread all over the Court. It was believed, however, that
all was over, and that no more would be heard of the matter. Yet the
very same evening the King broke out again with even more bitterness than
before. On the morrow, too, surprise was great indeed, when it was found
that the King, immediately after dinner, could talk of nothing but this
subject, and that, too, without any softening of tone. At last he was
assured that Madame de Torcy had been spoken to, and this appeased him a
little. Torcy was obliged to write him a letter, apologising for the
fault of Madame de Torcy; and the King at this grew content. It may be
imagined what a sensation this adventure produced all through the Court.
While upon the subject of the King, let me relate an anecdote of him,
which should have found a place ere this. When M. d'Orleans was about to
start for Spain, he named the officers who were to be of his suite.
Amongst others was Fontpertius. At that name the King put on a serious
look.
"What! my nephew," he said. "Fontpertius! the son of a Jansenist--of
that silly woman who ran everywhere after M. Arnould! I do not wish that
man to go with you."
"By my faith, Sire," replied the Duc d'Orleans, "I know not what the
mother has done; but as for the son, he is far enough from being a
Jansenist, I'll answer for it; for he does not believe in God."
"Is it possible, my nephew?" said the King, softening.
"Nothing more certain, Sire, I assure you."
"Well, since it is so," said the King, "there is no harm: you can take
him with you."
This scene--for it can be called by no other name--took place in the
morning. After dinner M. d'Orleans repeated it to me, bursting with
laughter, word for word, just as I have written it. When we had both
well laughed at this, we admired the profound instruction of a discreet
and religious King, who considered it better not to believe in God than
to be a Jansenist, and who thought there was less danger to his nephew
from the impiety of an unbeliever than from the doctrines of a sectarian.
M. d'Orleans could not contain himself while he told the story, and never
spoke of it without laughing until the tears came into his eyes. It ran
all through the Court and all over the town, and the marvellous thing
was, that the King was not angry at this. It was a testimony of his
attachment to the good doctrine which withdrew him further and further
from Jansenism. The majority of people laughed with all their heart.
Others, more wise, felt rather disposed to weep than to laugh, in
considering to what excess of blindness the King had reached.
For a long time a most important project had knocked at every door,
without being able to obtain a hearing anywhere. The project was this:--
Hough, an English gentleman full of talent and knowledge, and who, above
all, knew profoundly the laws of his country, had filled various posts in
England. As first a minister by profession, and furious against King
James; afterwards a Catholic and King James's spy, he had been delivered
up to King William, who pardoned him. He profited by this only to
continue his services to James. He was taken several times, and always
escaped from the Tower of London and other prisons. Being no longer able
to dwell in England he came to France, where he occupied himself always
with the same line of business, and was paid for that by the King (Louis
XIV.) and by King James, the latter of whom he unceasingly sought to re-
establish. The union of Scotland with England appeared to him a
favourable conjuncture, by the despair of that ancient kingdom at seeing
itself reduced into a province under the yoke of the English. The
Jacobite party remained there; the vexation caused by this forced union
had increased it, by the desire felt to break that union with the aid of
a King that they would have reestablished. Hough, who was aware of the
fermentation going on, made several secret journeys to Scotland, and
planned an invasion of that country; but, as I have said, for a long time
could get no one to listen to him.
The King, indeed, was so tired of such enterprises, that nobody dared to
speak to him upon this. All drew back. No one liked to bell the cat.
At last, however, Madame de Maintenon being gained over, the King was
induced to listen to the project. As soon as his consent was gained to
it, another scheme was added to the first. This was to profit by the
disorder in which the Spanish Low Countries were thrown, and to make them
revolt against the Imperialists at the very moment when the affair of
Scotland would bewilder the allies, and deprive them of all support from
England. Bergheyck, a man well acquainted with the state of those
countries, was consulted, and thought the scheme good. He and the Duc de
Vendome conferred upon it in presence of the King.
After talking over various matters, the discussion fell, upon the Meuse,
and its position with reference to Maastricht. Vendome held that the
Meuse flowed in a certain direction. Bergheyck opposed him. Vendome,
indignant that a civilian should dare to dispute military movements with
him, grew warm. The other remained respectful and cool, but firm.
Vendome laughed at Bergheyck, as at an ignorant fellow who did not know
the position of places. Bergheyck maintained his point. Vendome grew
more and more hot. If he was right, what he proposed was easy enough; if
wrong, it was impossible. It was in vain that Vendome pretended to treat
with disdain his opponent; Bergheyck was not to be put down, and the
King, tired out at last with a discussion upon a simple question of fact,
examined the maps. He found at once that Bergheyck was right. Any other
than the King would have felt by this what manner of man was this general
of his taste, of his heart, and of his confidence; any other than Vendome
would have been confounded; but it was Bergheyck in reality who was so,
to see the army in such hands and the blindness of the King for him! He
was immediately sent into Flanders to work up a revolt, and he did it so
well, that success seemed certain, dependent, of course, upon success in
Scotland.
The preparations for the invasion of that country were at once commenced.
Thirty vessels were armed at Dunkerque and in the neighbouring ports.
The Chevalier de Forbin was chosen to command the squadron. Four
thousand men were brought from Flanders to Dunkerque; and it was given
out that this movement was a mere change of garrison. The secret of the
expedition was well kept; but the misfortune was that things were done
too slowly. The fleet, which depended upon Pontchartrain, was not ready
in time, and that which depended upon Chamillart, was still more
behindhand. The two ministers threw the fault upon each other; but the
truth is, both were to blame. Pontchartrain was more than accused of
delaying matters from unwillingness; the other from powerlessness.
Great care was taken that no movement should be seen at Saint Germain.
The affair, however, began in time to get noised abroad. A prodigious
quantity of arms and clothing for the Scotch had been embarked; the
movements by sea and land became only too visible upon the coast. At
last, on Wednesday, the 6th of March, the King of England set out from
Saint Germain. He was attended by the Duke of Perth, who had been his
sub-preceptor; by the two Hamiltons, by Middleton, and a very few others.
But his departure had been postponed too long. At the moment when all
were ready to start, people learned with surprise that the English fleet
had appeared in sight, and was blockading Dunkerque. Our troops, who
were already on board ship, were at once landed. The King of England
cried out so loudly against this, and proposed so eagerly that an attempt
should be made to pass the enemy at all risks, that a fleet was sent out
to reconnoitre the enemy, and the troops were re-embarked. But then a
fresh mischance happened. The Princess of England had had the measles,
and was barely growing convalescent at the time of the departure of the
King, her brother. She had been prevented from seeing him, lest he
should be attacked by the same complaint. In spite of this precaution,
however, it declared itself upon him at Dunkerque, just as the troops
were re-embarked. He was in despair, and wished to be wrapped up in
blankets and carried on board. The doctors said that it would kill him;
and he was obliged to remain. The worst of it was, that two of five
Scotch deputies who had been hidden at Montrouge near Paris, had been
sent into Scotland a fortnight before, to announce the immediate arrival
of the King with arms and troops. The movement which it was felt this
announcement would create, increased the impatience for departure. At
last, on Saturday, the 19th of March, the King of England, half cured and
very weak, determined to embark in spite of his physicians, and did so.
The enemy's vessels hats retired; so, at six o'clock in the morning, our
ships set sail with a good breeze, and in the midst of a mist, which hid
them from view in about an hour.
Forty-eight hours after the departure of our squadron, twenty-seven
English ships of war appeared before Dunkerque. But our fleet was away.
The very first night it experienced a furious tempest. The ship in which
was the King of England took shelter afterwards behind the works of
Ostend. During the storm, another ship was separated from the squadron,
and was obliged to take refuge on the coast of Picardy. This vessel, a
frigate, was commanded by Rambure, a lieutenant. As, soon as he was able
he sailed after the squadron that he believed already in Scotland. He
directed his course towards Edinburgh, and found no vessel during all the
voyage. As he approached the mouth of the river, he saw around him a
number of barques and small vessels that he could not avoid, and that he
determined in consequence to approach with as good a grace as possible.
The masters of these ships' told him that the King was expected with
impatience, but that they had no news of him, that they had come out to
meet him, and that they would send pilots to Rambure, to conduct him up
the river to Edinburgh, where all was hope and joy. Rambure, equally
surprised that the squadron which bore the King of England had not
appeared, and by the publicity of his forthcoming arrival, went up
towards Edinburgh more and more surrounded by barques, which addressed to
him the same language. A gentleman of the country passed from one of
these barques upon the frigate. He told Rambure that the principal
noblemen of Scotland had resolved to act together, that these noblemen
could count upon more than twenty thousand men ready to take up arms, and
that all the towns awaited only the arrival of the King to proclaim him.
More and more troubled that the squadron did not appear, Rambure, after a
time, turned back and went in search of it. As he approached the mouth
of the river, which he had so lately entered, he heard a great noise of
cannon out at sea, and a short time afterwards he saw many vessels of war
there. Approaching more and more, and quitting the river, he
distinguished our squadron, chased by twenty-six large ships of war and a
number of other vessels, all of which he soon lost sight of, so much was
our squadron in advance. He continued on his course in order to join
them; but he could not do so until all had passed by the mouth of the
river. Then steering clear of the rear-guard of the English ships, he
remarked that the English fleet was hotly chasing the ship of the King of
England, which ran along the coast, however, amid the fire of cannon and
oftentimes of musketry. Rambure tried, for a long time, to profit by the
lightness of his frigate to get ahead; but, always cut off by the enemy's
vessels, and continually in danger of being taken, he returned to
Dunkerque, where he immediately despatched to the Court this sad and
disturbing news. He was followed, five or six days after, by the King of
England, who returned to Dunkerque on the 7th of April, with his vessels
badly knocked about.
It seems that the ship in which was the Prince, after experiencing the
storm I have already alluded to, set sail again with its squadron, but
twice got out of its reckoning within forty-eight hours; a fact not easy
to understand in a voyage from Ostend to Edinburgh. This circumstance
gave time to the English to join them; thereupon the King held a council,
and much time was lost in deliberations. When the squadron drew near the
river, the enemy was so close upon us, that to enter, without fighting
either inside or out, seemed impossible. In this emergency it was
suggested that our ships should go on to Inverness, about eighteen or
twenty leagues further off. But this was objected to by Middleton and
the Chevalier Forbin, who declared that the King of England was expected
only at Edinburgh, and that it was useless to go elsewhere; and
accordingly the project was given up, and the ships returned to France.
This return, however, was not accomplished without some difficulty. The
enemy's fleet attacked the rear guard of ours, and after an obstinate
combat, took two vessels of war and some other vessels. Among the
prisoners made by the English were the Marquis de Levi, Lord Griffin, and
the two sons of Middleton; who all, after suffering some little bad
treatment, were conducted to London.
Lord Griffin was an old Englishman, who deserves a word of special
mention. A firm Protestant, but much attached to the King of England, he
knew nothing of this expedition until after the King's departure. He
went immediately in quest of the Queen. With English freedom he
reproached her for the little confidence she had had in him, in spite of
his services and his constant fidelity, and finished by assuring her that
neither his age nor his religion would hinder him from serving the King
to the last drop of his blood. He spoke so feelingly that the Queen was
ashamed. After this he went to Versailles, asked M. de Toulouse for a
hundred Louis and a horse, and without delay rode off to Dunkerque, where
he embarked with the others. In London he was condemned to death; but
he showed so much firmness and such disdain of death, that his judges
were too much ashamed to avow the execution to be carried out. The Queen
sent him one respite, then another, although he had never asked for
either, and finally he was allowed to remain at liberty in London on
parole. He always received fresh respites, and lived in London as if it
his own country, well received everywhere. Being informed that these
respites would never cease, he lived thus several years, and died very
old, a natural death. The other prisoners were equally well treated. It
was in this expedition that the King of England first assumed the title
of the Chevalier de Saint George, and that his enemies gave him that of
the Pretender; both of which have remained to him. He showed much will
and firmness, which he spoiled by a docility, the result of a bad
education, austere and confined, that devotion, ill understood, together
with the desire of maintaining him in fear and dependence, caused the
Queen (who, with all her sanctity, always wished to dominate) to give
him. He asked to serve in the next campaign in Flanders, and wished to
go there at once, or remain near Dunkerque. Service was promised him,
but he was made to return to Saint Germain. Hough, who had been made a
peer of Ireland before starting, preceded him with the journals of the
voyage, and that of Forbin, to whom the King gave a thousand crowns
pension and ten thousand as a recompense.
The King of England arrived at Saint Germain on Friday, the 20th of
April, and came with the Queen, the following Sunday, to Marly, where our
King was. The two Kings embraced each other several times, in the
presence of the two Courts. But the visit altogether was a sad one. The
Courts, which met in the garden, returned towards the Chateau, exchanging
indifferent words in an indifferent way.
Middleton was strongly suspected of having acquainted the English with
our project. They acted, at all events, as if they had been informed of
everything, and wished to appear to know nothing. They made a semblance
of sending their fleet to escort a convoy to Portugal; they got in
readiness the few troops they had in England and sent them towards
Scotland; and the Queen, under various pretexts, detained in London,
until the affair had failed, the Duke of Hamilton, the most powerful
Scotch lord; and the life and soul of the expedition. When all was over,
she made no arrests, and wisely avoided throwing Scotland into despair.
This conduct much augmented her authority in England, attached all hearts
to her, and took away all desire of stirring again by taking away all
hope of success. Thus failed a project so well and so secretly conducted
until the end, which was pitiable; and with this project failed that of
the Low Countries, which was no longer thought of.
The allies uttered loud cries against this attempt on the part of a power
they believed at its last gasp, and which, while pretending to seek
peace, thought of nothing less than the invasion of Great Britain. The
effect of our failure was to bind closer, and to irritate more and more
this formidable alliance.
CHAPTER XL
Brissac, Major of the Body-guards, died of age and ennui about this time,
more than eighty years old, at his country-house, to which he had not
long retired. The King had made use of him to put the Guards upon that
grand military footing they have reached. He had acquired the confidence
of the King by his inexorable exactitude, his honesty, and his aptitude.
He was a sort of wild boar, who had all the appearance of a bad man,
without being so in reality; but his manners were, it must be admitted,
harsh and disagreeable. The King, speaking one day of the majors of the
troops, said that if they were good, they were sure to be hated.
"If it is necessary to be perfectly hated in order to be a good major,"
replied M. de Duras, who was behind the King with the baton, "behold,
Sire, the best major in France!" and he took Brissac, all confusion, by
the arm. The King laughed, though he would have thought such a sally
very bad in any other; but M. de Duras had put himself on such a free
footing, that he stopped at nothing before the King, and often said the
sharpest things. This major had very robust health, and laughed at the
doctors--very often, even before the King, at Fagon, whom nobody else
would have dared to attack. Fagon replied by disdain, often by anger,
and with all his wit was embarrassed. These short scenes were sometimes
very amusing.
Brissac, a few years before his retirement, served the Court ladies a
nice turn. All through the winter they attended evening prayers on
Thursdays and Sundays, because the King went there; and, under the
pretence of reading their prayer-books, had little tapers before them,
which cast a light on their faces, and enabled the King to recognise them
as he passed. On the evenings when they knew he would not go, scarcely
one of them went. One evening, when the King was expected, all the
ladies had arrived, and were in their places, and the guards were at
their doors. Suddenly, Brissac appeared in the King's place, lifted his
baton, and cried aloud, "Guards of the King, withdraw, return to your
quarters; the King is not coming this evening." The guards withdrew; but
after they had proceeded a short distance, were stopped by brigadiers
posted for the purpose, and told to return in a few minutes. What
Brissac had said was a joke. The ladies at once began to murmur one to
another. In a moment or two all the candles were put out, and the
ladies, with but few exceptions, left the chapel. Soon after the King
arrived, and, much astonished to see so few ladies present, asked how it
was that nobody was there. At the conclusion of the prayers Brissac
related what he had done, not without dwelling on the piety of the Court
ladies. The King and all who accompanied him laughed heartily. The
story soon spread, and these ladies would have strangled Brissac if they
had been able.
The Duchesse de Bourgogne being in the family way this spring, was much
inconvenienced. The King wished to go to Fontainebleau at the
commencement of the fine season, contrary to his usual custom; and had
declared this wish. In the mean time he desired to pay visits to Marly.
Madame de Bourgogne much amused him; he could not do without her, yet so
much movement was not suitable to her state. Madame de Maintenon was
uneasy, and Fagon gently intimated his opinion. This annoyed the King,
accustomed to restrain himself for nothing, and spoiled by having seen
his mistresses travel when big with child, or when just recovering from
their confinement, and always in full dress. The hints against going to
Marly bothered him, but did not make him give them up. All he would
consent to was, that the journey should put off from the day after
Quasimodo to the Wednesday of the following week; but nothing could make
him delay his amusement, beyond that time, or induce him to allow the
Princess to remain at Versailles.
[Illustration: The King's Walk At Versailles--Painted by J. L. Jerome--484]
On the following Saturday, as the King was taking a walk after mass, and
amusing himself at the carp basin between the Chateau and the
Perspective, we saw the Duchesse de Lude coming towards him on foot and
all alone, which, as no lady was with the King, was a rarity in the
morning. We understood that she had something important to say to him,
and when he was a short distance from her, we stopped so as to allow him
to join her alone. The interview was not long. She went away again, and
the King came back towards us and near the carps without saying a word.
Each saw clearly what was in the wind, and nobody was eager to speak. At
last the King, when quite close to the basin, looked at the principal
people around, and without addressing anybody, said, with an air of
vexation, these few words:
"The Duchesse de Bourgogne is hurt."
M. de la Rochefoucauld at once uttered an exclamation. M. de Bouillon,
the Duc de Tresmes, and Marechal de Boufflers repeated in a low tone the
words I have named; and M. de la Rochefoucauld returning to the charge,
declared emphatically that it was the greatest misfortune in the world,
and that as she had already wounded herself on other occasions, she might
never, perhaps, have any more children.
"And if so," interrupted the King all on a sudden, with anger, "what is
that to me? Has she not already a son; and if he should die, is not the
Duc de Berry old enough to marry and have one? What matters it to the
who succeeds me,--the one or the other? Are the not all equally my
grandchildren?" And immediately, with impetuosity he added, "Thank God,
she is wounded, since she was to be so; and I shall no longer be annoyed
in my journeys and in everything I wish to do, by the representations of
doctors, and the reasonings of matrons. I shall go and come at my
pleasure, and shall be left in peace."
A silence so deep that an ant might be heard to walk, succeeded this
strange outburst. All eyes were lowered; no one hardly dared to breathe.
All remained stupefied. Even the domestics and the gardeners stood
motionless.
This silence lasted more than a quarter of an hour. The King broke it as
he leaned upon a balustrade to speak of a carp. Nobody replied. He
addressed himself afterwards on the subject of these carps to domestics,
who did not ordinarily join in the conversation. Nothing but carps was
spoken of with them. All was languishing, and the King went away some
time after. As soon as we dared look at each other--out of his sight,
our eyes met and told all. Everybody there was for the moment the
confidant of his neighbour. We admired--we marvelled--we grieved, we
shrugged our shoulders. However distant may be that scene, it is always
equally present to me. M. de la Rochefoucauld was in a fury, and this
time without being wrong. The chief ecuyer was ready to faint with
affright; I myself examined everybody with my eyes and ears, and was
satisfied with myself for having long since thought that the King loved
and cared for himself alone, and was himself his only object in life.
This strange discourse sounded far and wide-much beyond Marly.
Let me here relate another anecdote of the King--a trifle I was witness
of. It was on the 7th of May, of this year, and at Marly. The King
walking round the gardens, showing them to Bergheyck, and talking with
him upon the approaching campaign in Flanders, stopped before one of the
pavilions. It was that occupied by Desmarets, who had recently succeeded
Chamillart in the direction of the finances, and who was at work within
with Samuel Bernard, the famous banker, the richest man in Europe, and
whose money dealings were the largest. The King observed to Desmarets
that he was very glad to see him with M. Bernard; then immediately said
to this latter:
"You are just the man never to have seen Marly--come and see it now; I
will give you up afterwards to Desmarets."
Bernard followed, and while the walk lasted the King spoke only to
Bergheyck and to Bernard, leading them everywhere, and showing them
everything with the grace he so well knew how to employ when he desired
to overwhelm. I admired, and I was not the only one, this species of
prostitution of the King, so niggard of his words, to a man of Bernard's
degree. I was not long in learning the cause of it, and I admired to see
how low the greatest kings sometimes find themselves reduced.
Our finances just then were exhausted. Desmarets no longer knew of what
wood to make a crutch. He had been to Paris knocking at every door. But
the most exact engagements had been so often broken that he found nothing
but excuses and closed doors. Bernard, like the rest, would advance
nothing. Much was due to him. In vain Desmarets represented to him the
pressing necessity for money, and the enormous gains he had made out of
the King. Bernard remained unshakeable. The King and the minister were
cruelly embarrassed. Desmarets said to the King that, after all was said
and done, only Samuel Bernard could draw them out of the mess, because it
was not doubtful that he had plenty of money everywhere; that the only
thing needed was to vanquish his determination and the obstinacy--even
insolence--he had shown; that he was a man crazy with vanity, and capable
of opening his purse if the King deigned to flatter him.
It was agreed, therefore, that Desmarets should invite Bernard to dinner
--should walk with him--and that the King should come and disturb them as
I have related. Bernard was the dupe of this scheme; he returned from
his walk with the King enchanted to such an extent that he said he would
prefer ruining himself rather than leave in embarrassment a Prince who
had just treated him so graciously, and whose eulogiums he uttered with
enthusiasm! Desmarets profited by this trick immediately, and drew much
more from it than he had proposed to himself..
The Prince de Leon had an adventure just about this time, which made much
noise. He was a great, ugly, idle, mischievous fellow, son of the Duc de
Rohan, who had given him the title I have just named. He had served in
one campaign very indolently, and then quitted the army, under pretence
of ill-health, to serve no more. Glib in speech, and with the manners of
the great world, he was full of caprices and fancies; although a great
gambler and spendthrift, he was miserly, and cared only for himself. He
had been enamoured of Florence, an actress, whom M. d'Orleans had for a
long time kept, and by whom he had children, one of whom is now
Archbishop of Cambrai. M. de Leon also had several children by this
creature, and spent large sums upon her. When he went in place of his
father to open the States of Brittany, she accompanied him in a coach and
six horses, with a ridiculous scandal. His father was in agony lest he
should marry her. He offered to insure her five thousand francs a-year
pension, and to take care of their children, if M. de Leon would quit
her. But M. de Leon would not hear of this, and his father accordingly
complained to the King. The King summoned M. de Leon into his cabinet;
but the young man pleaded his cause so well there, that he gained pity
rather than condemnation. Nevertheless, La Florence was carried away
from a pretty little house at the Ternes, near Paris, where M. de Leon
kept her, and was put in a convent. M. de Leon became furious; for some
time he would neither see nor speak of his father or mother, and repulsed
all idea of marriage.
At last, however, no longer hoping to see his actress, he not only
consented, but wished to marry. His parents were delighted at this, and
at once looked about for a wife for him. Their choice, fell upon the
eldest daughter of the Duc de Roquelaure, who, although humpbacked and
extremely ugly, she was to be very rich some day, and was, in fact, a
very good match. The affair had been arranged and concluded up to a
certain point, when all was broken off, in consequence of the haughty
obstinacy with which the Duchesse de Roquelaure demanded a larger sum
with M. de Leon than M. de Rohan chose to give.
The young couple were in despair: M. de Leon, lest his father should
always act in this way, as an excuse for giving him nothing; the young
lady, because she, feared she should rot in a convent, through the
avarice of her mother, and never marry. She was more than twenty-four
years, of age; he was more than eight-and-twenty. She was in the convent
of the Daughters of the Cross in the Faubourg Saint Antoine.
As soon as M. de Leon learnt that the marriage was broken off, he
hastened to the convent; and told all to Mademoiselle de Roquelaure;
played the passionate, the despairing; said that if they waited for their
parents' consent they would never marry; and that she would rot in her
convent. He proposed, therefore, that, in spite of their parents, they
should marry and be their own guardians. She agreed to this project; and
he went away in order to execute it.
One of the most intimate friends of Madame de Roquelaure was Madame de la
Vieuville, and she was the only person (excepting Madame de Roquelaure
herself) to whom the Superior of the convent had permission to confide
Mademoiselle de Roquelaure. Madame de la Vieuville often came to see
Mademoiselle de Roquelaure to take her out, and sometimes sent for her.
M. de Leon was made acquainted with this, and took his measures
accordingly. He procured a coach of the same size, shape, and fittings
as that of Madame de la Vieuville, with her arms upon it, and with three
servants in her livery; he counterfeited a letter in her handwriting and
with her seal, and sent this coach with a lackey well instructed to carry
the letter to the convent, on Tuesday morning, the 29th of May, at the
hour Madame de la Vieuville was accustomed to send for her.
Mademoiselle de Roquelaure, who had been let into the scheme, carried the
letter to the Superior of the convent, and said Madame de la Vieuville
had sent for her. Had the Superior any message to send?
The Superior, accustomed to these invitations; did not even look at the
letter, but gave her consent at once. Mademoiselle de Roquelaure,
accompanied solely by her governess, left the convent immediately, and
entered the coach, which drove off directly. At the first turning it
stopped, and the Prince de Leon, who had been in waiting, jumped-in. The
governess at this began to cry out with all her might; but at the very
first sound M. de Leon thrust a handkerchief into her mouth and stifled
the noise. The coachman meanwhile lashed his horses, and the vehicle
went off at full speed to Bruyeres near Menilmontant, the country-house
of the Duc de Lorges, my brother-in-law, and friend of the Prince de
Leon, and who, with the Comte de Rieux, awaited the runaway pair.
An interdicted and wandering priest was in waiting, and as soon as they
arrived married them. My brother-in-law then led these nice young people
into a fine chamber, where they were undressed, put to bed, and left
alone for two or three hours. A good meal was then given to them, after
which the bride was put into the coach, with her attendant, who was in
despair, and driven back to the convent.
Mademoiselle de Roquelaure at once went deliberately to the Superior,
told her all that happened, and then calmly went into her chamber, and
wrote a fine letter to her mother, giving her an account of her marriage,
and asking for pardon; the Superior of the convent, the attendants, and
all the household being, meanwhile, in the utmost emotion at what had
occurred.
The rage of the Duchesse de Roquelaure at this incident may be imagined.
In her first unreasoning fury, she went to Madame de la Vieuville, who,
all in ignorance of what had happened, was utterly at a loss to
understand her stormy and insulting reproaches. At last Madame de
Roquelaure saw that her friend was innocent of all connection with the
matter; and turned the current of her wrath upon M. de Leon, against whom
she felt the more indignant, inasmuch as he had treated her with much
respect and attention since the rupture, and had thus, to some extent,
gained her heart. Against her daughter she was also indignant, not only
for what she had done, but because she had exhibited much gaiety and
freedom of spirit at the marriage repast, and had diverted the company by
some songs.
The Duc and Duchesse de Rohan were on their side equally furious,
although less to be pitied, and made a strange uproar. Their son,
troubled to know how to extricate himself from this affair, had recourse
to his aunt, Soubise, so as to assure himself of the King. She sent him
to Pontchartrain to see the chancellor. M. de Leon saw him the day after
this fine marriage, at five o'clock in the morning, as he was dressing.
The chancellor advised him to do all he could to gain the pardon of his
father and of Madame de Roquelaure. But he had scarcely begun to speak,
when Madame de Roquelaure sent word to say, that she was close at hand,
and wished the chancellor to come and see her. He did so, and she
immediately poured out all her griefs to him, saying that she came not to
ask, his advice, but to state her complaint as to a friend (they were
very intimate), and as to the chief officer of justice to demand justice
of him. When he attempted to put in a word on behalf of M. de Leon, her
fury burst out anew; she would not listen to his words, but drove off to
Marly, where she had an interview with Madame de Maintenon, and by her
was presented to the King.
As soon as she was in his presence, she fell down on her knees before
him, and demanded justice in its fullest extent against M. de Leon. The
King raised her with the gallantry of a prince to whom she had not been
indifferent, and sought to console her; but as she still insisted upon
justice, he asked her if she knew fully what she asked for, which was
nothing less than the head of M. de Leon. She redoubled her entreaties
notwithstanding this information, so that the King at last promised her
that she should have complete justice. With that, and many compliments,
he quitted her, and passed into his own rooms with a very serious air,
and without stopping for anybody.
The news of this interview, and of what had taken place, soon spread
through the chamber. Scarcely had people begun to pity Madame de
Roquelaure, than some, by aversion for the grand imperial airs of this
poor mother,--the majority, seized by mirth at the idea of a creature,
well known to be very ugly and humpbacked, being carried off by such an
ugly gallant,--burst out laughing, even to tears, and with an uproar
completely scandalous. Madame de Maintenon abandoned herself to mirth,
like the rest, and corrected the others at last, by saying it was not
very charitable, in a tone that could impose upon no one.
Madame de Saint-Simon and I were at Paris. We knew with all Paris of
this affair, but were ignorant of the place of the marriage and the part
M. de Lorges had had in it, when the third day after the adventure I was
startled out of my sleep at five o'clock in the morning, and saw my
curtains and my windows open at the same time, and Madame de Saint-Simon
and her brother (M. de Lorges) before me. They related to me all that
had occurred, and then went away to consult with a skilful person what
course to adopt, leaving me to dress. I never saw a man so crestfallen
as M. de Lorges. He had confessed what he had done to a clever lawyer,
who had much frightened him. After quitting him, he had hastened to us
to make us go and see Pontchartrain. The most serious things are
sometimes accompanied with the most ridiculous. M. de Lorges upon
arriving knocked at the door of a little room which preceded the chamber
of Madame de Saint-Simon. My daughter was rather unwell. Madame de
Saint-Simon thought she was worse, and supposing it was I who had
knocked, ran and opened the door. At the sight of her brother she ran
back to her bed, to which he followed her, in order to relate his
disaster. She rang for the windows to be opened, in order that she might
see better. It so happened that she had taken the evening before a new
servant, a country girl of sixteen, who slept in the little room. M. de
Lorges, in a hurry to be off, told this girl to make haste in opening the
windows, and then to go away and close the door. At this, the simple
girl, all amazed, took her robe and her cotillon, and went upstairs to an
old chambermaid, awoke her, and with much hesitation told her what had
just happened, and that she had left by the bedside of Madame de Saint
Simon a fine gentleman, very young, all powdered, curled, and decorated,
who had driven her very quickly out of the chamber. She was all of a
tremble, and much astonished. She soon learnt who he was. The story was
told to us, and in spite of our disquietude, much diverted us.
We hurried away to the chancellor, and he advised the priest, the
witnesses to the signatures of the marriage, and, in fact, all concerned,
to keep out of the way, except M. de Lorges, who he assured us had
nothing to fear. We went afterwards to Chamillart, whom we found much
displeased, but in little alarm. The King had ordered an account to be
drawn up of the whole affair. Nevertheless, in spite of the uproar made
on all sides, people began to see that the King would not abandon to
public dishonour the daughter of Madame de Roquelaure, nor doom to the
scaffold or to civil death in foreign countries the nephew of Madame de
Soubise.
Friends of M. and Madame de Roquelaure tried to arrange matters. They
represented that it would be better to accept the marriage as it was than
to expose a daughter to cruel dishonour. Strange enough, the Duc and
Duchesse de Rohan were the most stormy. They wished to drive a very hard
bargain in the matter, and made proposals so out of the way, that nothing
could have been arranged but for the King. He did what he had never done
before in all his life; he entered into all the details; he begged, then
commanded as master; he had separate interviews with the parties
concerned; and finally appointed the Duc d'Aumont and the chancellor to
draw up the conditions of the marriage.
As Madame de Rohan, even after this, still refused to give her consent,
the King sent for her, and said that if she and her husband did not at
once give in, he would make the marriage valid by his own sovereign
authority. Finally, after so much noise, anguish, and trouble, the
contract was signed by the two families, assembled at the house of the
Duchesse de Roquelaure. The banns were published, and the marriage took
place at the church of the Convent of the Cross, where Mademoiselle de
Roquelaure had been confined since her beautiful marriage, guarded night
and day by five or six nuns. She entered the church by one door, Prince
de Leon by another; not a compliment or a word passed between them; the
curate said mass; married them; they mounted a coach, and drove off to
the house of a friend some leagues from Paris. They paid for their folly
by a cruel indigence which lasted all their lives, neither of them having
survived the Duc de Rohan, Monsieur de Roquelaure, or Madame de
Roquelaure. They left several children.
CHAPTER XLI
The war this year proceeded much as before. M. d'Orleans went to Spain
again. Before taking the field he stopped at Madrid to arrange matters.
There he found nothing prepared, and every thing in disorder. He was
compelled to work day after day, for many hours, in order to obtain the
most necessary supplies. This is what accounted for a delay which was
maliciously interpreted at Paris into love for the Queen. M. le Duc was
angry at the idleness in which he was kept; even Madame la Duchesse, who
hated him, because she had formerly loved him too well, industriously
circulated this report, which was believed at Court, in the city, even in
foreign countries, everywhere, save in Spain, where the truth was too
well known. It was while he was thus engaged that he gave utterance to a
pleasantry that made Madame de Maintenon and Madame des Ursins his two
most bitter enemies for ever afterwards.
One evening he was at table with several French and Spanish gentlemen,
all occupied with his vexation against Madame des Ursins, who governed
everything, and who had not thought of even the smallest thing for the
campaign. The supper and the wine somewhat affected M. d'Orleans. Still
full of his vexation, he took a glass, and, looking at the company, made
an allusion in a toast to the two women, one the captain, the other the
lieutenant, who governed France and Spain, and that in so coarse and yet
humorous a manner, that it struck at once the imagination of the guests.
No comment was made, but everybody burst out laughing, sense of drollery
overcoming prudence, for it was well known that the she-captain was
Madame de Maintenon, and the she-lieutenant Madame des Ursins. The
health was drunk, although the words were not repeated, and the scandal
was strange.
Half an hour at most after this, Madame des Ursins was informed of what
had taken place. She knew well who were meant by the toast, and was
transported with rage. She at once wrote an account of the circumstance
to Madame de Maintenon, who, for her part, was quite as furious. 'Inde
ira'. They never pardoned M. d'Orleans, and we shall see how very nearly
they succeeded in compassing his death. Until then, Madame de Maintenon
had neither liked nor disliked M. d'Orleans. Madame des Ursins had
omitted nothing in order to please him. From that moment they swore the
ruin of this prince. All the rest of the King's life M. d'Orleans did
not fail to find that Madame de Maintenon was an implacable and cruel
enemy. The sad state to which she succeeded in reducing him influenced
him during all the rest of his life. As for Madame des Ursins, he soon
found a change in her manner. She endeavoured that everything should
fail that passed through his hands. There are some wounds that can never
be healed; and it must be admitted that the Duke's toast inflicted one
especially of that sort. He felt this; did not attempt any
reconciliation; and followed his usual course. I know not if he ever,
repented of what he had said, whatever cause he may have had, so droll
did it seem to him, but he has many times spoken of it since to me,
laughing with all his might. I saw all the sad results which might arise
from his speech, and nevertheless, while reproaching M. d'Orleans, I
could not help laughing myself, so well, so simply; and so wittily
expressed was his ridicule of the government on this and the other side
of the Pyrenees.
At last, M. le Duc d'Orleans found means to enter upon his campaign, but
was so ill-provided, that he never was supplied with more than a
fortnight's subsistence in advance. He obtained several small successes;
but these were more than swallowed up by a fatal loss in another
direction. The island of Sardinia, which was then under the Spanish
Crown, was lost through the misconduct of the viceroy, the Duke of
Veragua, and taken possession of by the troops of the Archduke. In the
month of October, the island of Minorca also fell into the hands of the
Archduke. Port Mahon made but little resistance; so that with this
conquest and Gibraltar, the English found themselves able to rule in the
Mediterranean, to winter entire fleets there, and to blockade all the
ports of Spain upon that sea. Leaving Spain in this situation, let us
turn to Flanders.
Early in July, we took Ghent and Bruges by surprise, and the news of
these successes was received with the most unbridled joy at
Fontainebleau. It appeared easy to profit by these two conquests,
obtained without difficulty, by passing the Escaut, burning Oudenarde,
closing the country to the enemies, and cutting them off from all
supplies. Ours were very abundant, and came by water, with a camp that
could not be attacked. M. de Vendome agreed to all this; and alleged
nothing against it. There was only one difficulty in the way; his
idleness and unwillingness to move from quarters where he was
comfortable. He wished to enjoy those quarters as long as possible, and
maintained, therefore, that these movements would be just as good if
delayed. Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne maintained on the contrary,
with all the army--even the favourites of M. de Vendome--that it would be
better to execute the operation at once, that there was no reason for
delay, and that delay might prove disastrous. He argued in vain.
Vendome disliked fatigue and change of quarters. They interfered with
the daily life he was accustomed to lead, and which I have elsewhere
described. He would not move.
Marlborough clearly seeing that M. de Vendome did not at once take
advantage of his position, determined to put it out of his power to do
so. To reach Oudenarde, Marlborough had a journey to make of twenty-five
leagues. Vendome was so placed that he could have gained it in six
leagues at the most. Marlborough put himself in motion with so much
diligence that he stole three forced marches before Vendome had the
slightest suspicion or information of them. The news reached him in
time, but he treated it with contempt according to his custom, assuring
himself that he should outstrip the enemy by setting out the next
morning. Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne pressed him to start that
evening; such as dared represented to him the necessity and the
importance of doing so. All was vain--in spite of repeated information
of the enemy's march. The neglect was such that bridges had not been
thought of for a little brook at the head of the camp, which it was
necessary to cross.
On the next day, Wednesday, the 11th of July, a party of our troops,
under the command of Biron, which had been sent on in advance to the
Escaut, discovered, after passing it as they could, for the bridges were
not yet made, all the army of the enemy bending round towards them, the
rear of their columns touching at Oudenarde, where they also had crossed.
Biron at once despatched a messenger to the Princes and to M. de Vendome
to inform them of this, and to ask for orders. Vendome, annoyed by
information so different to what he expected, maintained that it could
not be true. As he was disputing, an officer arrived from Biron to
confirm the news; but this only irritated Vendome anew, and made him more
obstinate. A third messenger arrived, and then M. de Vendome, still
affecting disbelief of the news sent him, flew in a passion, but
nevertheless mounted his horse, saying that all this was the work of the
devil, and that such diligence was impossible. He sent orders to Biron
to attack the enemy, promising to support him immediately. He told the
Princes, at the same time, to gently follow with the whole of the army,
while he placed himself at the head of his columns, and pushed on briskly
to Biron.
Biron meanwhile placed his troops as well as he could, on ground very
unequal and much cut up. He wished to execute the order he had received,
less from any hopes of success in a combat so vastly disproportioned than
to secure himself from the blame of a general so ready to censure those
who did not follow his instructions. But he was advised so strongly not
to take so hazardous a step, that he refrained. Marechal Matignon, who
arrived soon after, indeed specially prohibited him from acting.
While this was passing, Biron heard sharp firing on his left, beyond the
village. He hastened there, and found an encounter of infantry going on.
He sustained it as well as he could, whilst the enemy were gaining ground
on the left, and, the ground being difficult (there was a ravine there),
the enemy were kept at bay until M. de Vendome came up. The troops he
brought were all out of breath. As soon as they arrived, they threw
themselves amidst the hedges, nearly all in columns, and sustained thus
the attacks of the enemies, and an engagement which every moment grew
hotter, without having the means to arranging themselves in any order.
The columns that arrived from time to time to the relief of these were as
out of breath as the others; and were at once sharply charged by the
enemies; who, being extended in lines and in order, knew well how to
profit by our disorder. The confusion was very great: the new-comers had
no time to rally; there was a long interval between the platoons engaged
and those meant to sustain them; the cavalry and the household troops
were mixed up pell-mell with the infantry, which increased the disorder
to such a point that our troops no longer recognised each other. This
enabled the enemy to fill up the ravine with fascines sufficient to
enable them to pass it, and allowed the rear of their army to make a
grand tour by our right to gain the head of the ravine, and take us in
flank there.
Towards this same right were the Princes, who for some time had been
looking from a mill at so strange a combat, so disadvantageously
commenced. As soon as our troops saw pouring down upon them others much
more numerous, they gave way towards their left with so much promptitude
that the attendants of the Princes became mixed up with their masters,--
and all were hurried away towards the thick of the fight, with a rapidity
and confusion that were indecent. The Princes showed themselves
everywhere, and in places the most exposed, displaying much valour and
coolness, encouraging the men, praising the officers, asking the
principal officers what was to be done, and telling M. de Vendome what
they thought.
The inequality of the ground that the enemies found in advancing, after
having driven in our right, enabled our them to rally and to resist. But
this resistance was of short duration. Every one had been engaged in
hand-to-hand combats; every one was worn out with lassitude and despair
of success, and a confusion so general and so unheard-of. The household
troops owed their escape to the mistake of one of the enemy's officers,
who carried an order to the red coats, thinking them his own men. He was
taken, and seeing that he was about to share the peril with our troops,
warned them that they were going to be surrounded. They retired in some
disorder, and so avoided this.
The disorder increased, however, every moment. Nobody recognised his
troop. All were pell-mell, cavalry, infantry, dragoons; not a battalion,
not a squadron together, and all in confusion, one upon the other.
Night came. We had lost much ground, one-half of the army had not
finished arriving. In this sad situation the Princes consulted with M.
de Vendome as to what was to be done. He, furious at being so terribly
out of his reckoning, affronted everybody. Monseigneur le Duc de
Bourgogne wished to speak; but Vendome intoxicated with choler and
authority; closed his mouth, by saying to him in an imperious voice
before everybody, "That he came to the army only on condition of obeying
him." These enormous words, pronounced at a moment in which everybody
felt so terribly the weight of the obedience rendered to his idleness and
obstinacy, made everybody tremble with indignation. The young Prince to
whom they were addressed, hesitated, mastered himself, and kept silence.
Vendome went on declaring that the battle was not lost--that it could be
recommenced the next morning, when the rest of the army had arrived, and
so on. No one of consequence cared to reply.
From every side soon came information, however, that the disorder was
extreme. Pursegur, Matignon, Sousternon, Cheladet, Purguyon, all brought
the same news. Vendome, seeing that it was useless to resist, all this
testimony, and beside himself with rage, cried, "Oh, very well,
gentlemen! I see clearly what you wish. We must retire, then;" and
looking at Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne, he added, "I know you have
long wished to do so, Monseigneur."
These words, which could not fail to be taken in a double sense, were
pronounced exactly as I relate them, and were emphasized in a manner to
leave no doubt as to their signification. Monseigneur le Duc de
Bourgogne remained silent as before, and for some time the silence was
unbroken. At last, Pursegur interrupted it, by asking how the retreat
was to be executed. Each, then, spoke confusedly. Vendome, in his turn,
kept silence from vexation or embarrassment; then he said they must march
to Ghent, without adding how, or anything else.
The day had been very fatiguing; the retreat was long and perilous. The
Princes mounted their horses, and took the road to Ghent. Vendome set
out without giving any orders, or seeing to anything. The general
officers returned to their posts, and of themselves gave the order to
retreat. Yet so great was the confusion, that the Chevalier Rosel,
lieutenant-general, at the head of a hundred squadrons, received no
orders. In the morning he found himself with his hundred squadrons,
which had been utterly forgotten. He at once commenced his march; but to
retreat in full daylight was very difficult, as he soon found. He had to
sustain the attacks of the enemy during several hours of his march.
Elsewhere, also, the difficulty of retreating was great. Fighting went
on at various points all night, and the enemy were on the alert. Some of
the troops of our right, while debating as to the means of retreat, found
they were about to be surrounded by the enemy. The Vidame of Amiens saw
that not a moment was to be lost. He cried to the light horse, of which
he was captain, "Follow me," and pierced his way through a line of the
enemy's cavalry. He then found himself in front of a line of infantry,
which fired upon him, but opened to give him passage. At the same
moment, the household troops and others, profiting by a movement so bold,
followed the Vidame and his men, and all escaped together to Ghent, led
on by the Vidame, to whose sense and courage the safety of these troops
was owing.
M. de Vendome arrived at Ghent, between seven and eight o'clock in the
morning. Even at this moment he did not forget his disgusting habits,
and as soon as he set foot to ground.... in sight of all the troops as
they came by,--then at once went to bed, without giving any orders, or
seeing to anything, and remained more than thirty hours without rising,
in order to repose himself after his fatigues. He learnt that
Monseigneur de Bourgogne and the army had pushed on to Lawendeghem; but
he paid no attention to it, and continued to sup and to sleep at Ghent
several days running, without attending to anything.
CHAPTER XLII
As soon as Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne arrived at Lawendeghem, he
wrote a short letter to the King, and referred him for details to M. de
Vendome. But at the same time he wrote to the Duchess, very clearly
expressing to her where the fault lay. M. de Vendome, on his side, wrote
to the King, and tried to persuade him that the battle had not been
disadvantageous to us. A short time afterwards, he wrote again, telling
the King that he could have beaten the enemies had he been sustained; and
that, if, contrary to his advice, retreat had not been determined on, he
would certainly have beaten them the next day. For the details he
referred to Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne.
I had always feared that some ill-fortune would fall to the lot of
Monseigneur, le Duc de Bourgogne if he served under M. de Vendome at the
army. When I first learned that he was going to Flanders with M. de
Vendome, I expressed my apprehensions to M. de Beauvilliers, who treated
them as unreasonable and ridiculous. He soon had good cause to admit
that I had not spoken without justice. Our disasters at Oudenarde were
very great. We had many men and officers killed and wounded, four
thousand men and seven hundred officers taken prisoners, and a prodigious
quantity missing and dispersed. All these losses were, as I have shown,
entirely due to the laziness and inattention of M. de Vendome. Yet the
friends of that general--and he had many at the Court and in the army--
actually had the audacity to lay the blame upon Monseigneur le Duc de
Bourgogne. This was what I had foreseen, viz., M. de Vendome, in case
any misfortune occurred, would be sure to throw the burden of it upon
Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne.
Alberoni, who, as I have said, was one of M. de Vendome's creatures,
published a deceitful and impudent letter, in which he endeavoured to
prove that M. de Vendome had acted throughout like a good general, but
that he had been thwarted by Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne. This
letter was distributed everywhere, and well served the purpose for which
it was intended. Another writer, Campistron---a poor, starving poet,
ready to do anything to live--went further. He wrote a letter, in which
Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne was personally attacked in the tenderest
points, and in which Marechal Matignon was said to merit a court-martial
for having counselled retreat. This letter, like the other, although
circulated with more precaution, was shown even in the cafes and in the
theatres; in the public places of gambling and debauchery; on the
promenades, and amongst the news-vendors. Copies of it were even shown
in the provinces, and in foreign countries; but always with much
circumspection. Another letter soon afterwards appeared, apologising for
M. de Vendome. This was written by Comte d'Evreux, and was of much the
same tone as the two others.
A powerful cabal was in fact got up against Monseigneur de Bourgogne.
Vaudeville, verses, atrocious songs against him, ran all over Paris and
the provinces with a licence and a rapidity that no one checked; while at
the Court, the libertines and the fashionables applauded; so that in six
days it was thought disgraceful to speak with any measure of this Prince,
even in his father's house.
Madame de Bourgogne could not witness all this uproar against her
husband, without feeling sensibly affected by it. She had been made
acquainted by Monseigneur de Bourgogne with the true state of the case.
She saw her own happiness and reputation at stake. Though very gentle,
and still more timid, the grandeur of the occasion raised her above
herself. She was cruelly wounded by the insults of Vendome to her
husband, and by all the atrocities and falsehoods his emissaries
published. She gained Madame de Maintenon, and the first result of this
step was, that the King censured Chamillart for not speaking of the
letters in circulation, and ordered him to write to Alberoni and D'Evreux
(Campistron, strangely enough, was forgotten), commanding them to keep
silence for the future.
The cabal was amazed to see Madame de Maintenon on the side of Madame de
Bourgogne, while M. du Maine (who was generally in accord with Madame de
Maintenon) was for M. de Vendome. They concluded that the King had been
led away, but that if they held firm, his partiality for M. de Vendome,
for M. du Maine, and for bastardy in general, would bring him round to
them. In point of fact, the King was led now one way, and now another,
with a leaning always towards M. de Vendome.
Soon after this, Chamillart, who was completely of the party of M. de
Vendome, thought fit to write a letter to Monseigneur le Duc de
Bourgogne, in which he counselled him to live on good terms with his
general. Madame de Bourgogne never forgave Chamillart this letter, and
was always annoyed with her husband that he acted upon it. His religious
sentiments induced him to do so. Vendome so profited by the advances
made to him by the young Prince, that he audaciously brought Alberoni
with him when he visited Monseigneur de Bourgogne. This weakness of
Monseigneur de Bourgogne lost him many friends, and made his enemies more
bold than ever: Madame de Bourgogne, however, did not despair. She wrote
to her husband that for M. de Vendome she had more aversion and contempt
than for any one else in the world, and that nothing would make her
forget what he had done. We shall see with what courage she knew how to
keep her word.
While the discussions upon the battle of Oudenarde were yet proceeding,
a league was formed with France against the Emperor by all the states of
Italy. The King (Louis XIV.) accepted, however, too late, a project he
himself ought to have proposed and executed. He lost perhaps the most
precious opportunity he had had during all his reign. The step he at
last took was so apparent that it alarmed the allies, and put them on
their guard. Except Flanders, they did nothing in any other spot, and
turned all their attention to Italy.
Let us return, however, to Flanders.
Prince Eugene, with a large booty gathered in Artois and elsewhere, had
fixed himself at Brussels. He wished to bear off his spoils, which
required more than five thousand waggons to carry it, and which consisted
in great part of provisions, worth three million five hundred thousand
francs, and set out with them to join the army of the Duke of
Marlborough. Our troops could not, of course, be in ignorance of this.
M. de Vendome wished to attack the convoy with half his troops. The
project seemed good, and, in case of success, would have brought results
equally honourable and useful. Monseigneur de Bourgogne, however,
opposed the attack, I know not why; and M. de Vendome, so obstinate until
then, gave in to him in this case. His object was to ruin the Prince
utterly, for allowing such a good chance to escape, the blame resting
entirely upon him. Obstinacy and audacity had served M. de Vendome at
Oudenarde: he expected no less a success now from his deference.
Some anxiety was felt just about this time for Lille, which it was feared
the enemy would lay siege to. Boufflers went to command there, at his
own request, end found the place very ill-garrisoned with raw troops,
many of whom had never smelt powder. M. de Vendome, however, laughed at
the idea of the siege of Lille, as something mad and ridiculous.
Nevertheless, the town was invested on the 12th of August, as the King
duly learned on the 14th. Even then, flattery did its work. The friends
of Vendome declared that such an enterprise was the best, thing that
could happen to France, as the besiegers, inferior in numbers to our
army, were sure to be miserably beaten. M. de Vendome, in the mean time,
did not budge from the post he had taken up near Ghent. The King wrote
to him to go with his army to the relief of Lille. M. de Vendome still
delayed; another courier was sent, with the same result. At this, the
King, losing temper, despatched another courier, with orders to
Monseigneur de Bourgogne, to lead the army to Lille, if M. de Vendome
refused to do so. At this, M. de Vendome awoke from his lethargy. He
set out for Lille, but took the longest road, and dawdled as long as he
could on the way, stopping five days at Mons Puenelle, amongst other
places.
The agitation, meanwhile, in Paris, was extreme. The King demanded news
of the siege from his courtiers, and could not understand why no couriers
arrived. It was generally expected that some decisive battle had been
fought. Each day increased the uneasiness. The Princes and the
principal noblemen of the Court were at the army. Every one at
Versailles feared for the safety of a relative or friend. Prayers were
offered everywhere. Madame de Bourgogne passed whole nights in the
chapel, when people thought her in bed, and drove her women to despair.
Following her example, ladies who had husbands at the army stirred not
from the churches. Gaming, conversation ceased. Fear was painted upon
every face, and seen in every speech, without shame. If a horse passed a
little quickly, everybody ran without knowing where. The apartments of
Chamillart were crowded with lackeys, even into the street, sent by
people desiring to be informed of the moment that a courier arrived; and
this terror and uncertainty lasted nearly a month. The provinces were
even more troubled than Paris. The King wrote to the Bishop, in order
that they should offer up prayers in terms which suited with the danger
of the time. It may be judged what was the general impression and alarm.
It is true, that in the midst of this trepidation, the partisans of M. de
Vendome affected to pity that poor Prince Eugene, and to declare that he
must inevitably fail in his undertaking; but these discourses did not
impose upon me. I knew what kind of enemies we had to deal with, and I
foresaw the worst results from the idleness and inattention of M. de
Vendome. One evening, in the presence of Chamillart and five or six
others, annoyed by the conversation which passed, I offered to bet four
pistoles that there would be no general battle, and that Lille would be
taken without being relieved. This strange proposition excited much
surprise, and caused many questions to be addressed to me. I would
explain nothing at all; but sustained my proposal in the English manner,
and my bet was taken; Cani, who accepted it, thanking me for the present
of four pistoles I was making him, as he said. The stakes were placed in
the hand of Chamillart.
By the next day, the news of my bet had spread a frightful uproar. The
partisans of M. de Vendome, knowing I was no friend to them, took this
opportunity to damage me in the eyes of the King. They so far succeeded
that I entirely lost favour with him, without however suspecting it, for
more than two months. All that I could do then, was to let the storm
pass over my head and keep silent, so as not to make matters worse.
Meanwhile, M. de Vendome continued the inactive policy he had hitherto
followed. In despite of reiterated advice from the King, he took no
steps to attack the enemy. Monseigneur de Bourgogne was for doing so,
but Vendome would make no movement. As before, too, he contrived to
throw all the blame of his inactivity upon Monseigneur de Bourgogne. He
succeeded so well in making this believed, that his followers in the army
cried out against the followers of Monseigneur de Bourgogne wherever they
appeared. Chamillart was sent by the King to report upon the state and
position of our troops, and if a battle had taken place and proved
unfavourable to us, to prevent such sad results as had taken place after
Ramillies. Chamillart came back on the 18th of September. No battle had
been fought, but M. de Vendome felt sure, he said, of cutting off all
supplies from the enemy, and thus compelling them to raise the siege.
The King had need of these intervals of consolation and hope. Master as
he might be of his words and of his features, he profoundly felt the
powerlessness to resist his enemies that he fell into day by day. What I
have related, about Samuel Bernard, the banker, to whom he almost did the
honours of his gardens at Marly, in order to draw from him the assistance
he had refused, is a great proof of this. It was much remarked at
Fontainebleau, just as Lille was invested, that, the city of Paris coming
to harangue him on the occasion of the oath taken by Bignon, new Prevot
des Marchand, he replied, not only with kindness, but that he made use of
the term "gratitude for his good city," and that in doing so he lost
countenance,--two things which during all his reign had never escaped
him. On the other hand, he sometimes had intervals of firmness which
edificed less than they surprised. When everybody at the Court was in
the anxiety I have already described, he offended them by going out every
day hunting or walking, so that they could not know, until after his
return, the news which might arrive when he was out.
As for Monseigneur, he seemed altogether exempt from anxiety. After
Ramillies, when everybody was waiting for the return of Chamillart, to
learn the truth, Monseigneur went away to dine at Meudon, saying he
should learn the news soon enough. From this time he showed no more
interest in what was passing. When news was brought that Lille was
invested, he turned on his heel before the letter announcing it had been
read to the end. The King called him back to hear the rest. He returned
and heard it. The reading finished, he went away, without offering a
word. Entering the apartments of the Princesse de Conti, he found there
Madame d'Espinoy, who had much property in Flanders, and who had wished
to take a trip there.
"Madame," said he, smiling, as he arrived, "how would you do just now to
get to Lille?" And at once made them acquainted with the investment.
These things really wounded the Princesse de Conti. Arriving at
Fontainebleau one day, during the movements of the army, Monseigneur set
to work reciting, for amusement, a long list of strange names of places
in the forest.
"Dear me, Monseigneur," cried she, "what a good memory you have. What a
pity it is loaded with such things only!" If he felt the reproach, he
did not profit by it.
As for Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne, Monseigneur (his father) was ill-
disposed towards him, and readily swallowed all that was said in his
dispraise. Monseigneur had no sympathy with the piety of his son; it
constrained and bothered him. The cabal well profited by this. They
succeeded to such an extent in alienating the father from the son, that
it is only strict truth to say that no one dared to speak well of
Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne in the presence of Monseigneur. From
this it may be imagined what was the licence and freedom of speech
elsewhere against this Prince. They reached such a point, indeed, that
the King, not daring to complain publicly against the Prince de Conti,
who hated Vendome, for speaking in favour of Monseigneur de Bourgogne,
reprimanded him sharply in reality for having done so, but ostensibly
because he had talked about the affairs of Flanders at his sister's.
Madame de Bourgogne did all she could to turn the current that was
setting in against her husband; and in this she was assisted by Madame de
Maintenon, who was annoyed to the last degree to see that other people
had more influence over the King than she had.
The siege of Lille meanwhile continued, and at last it began to be seen
that, instead of attempting to fight a grand battle, the wisest course
would be to throw assistance into the place. An attempt was made to do
so, but it was now too late.
The besieged, under the guidance of Marechal Boufflers, who watched over
all, and attended to all, in a manner that gained him all hearts, made a
gallant and determined resistance. A volume would be necessary in order
to relate all the marvels of capacity and valour displayed in this
defence. Our troops disputed the ground inch by inch. They repulsed,
three times running, the enemy from a mill, took it the third time, and
burnt it. They sustained an attack, in three places at once, of ten
thousand men, from nine o'clock in the evening to three o'clock in the
morning, without giving way. They re-captured the sole traverse the
enemy had been able to take from them. They drove out the besiegers from
the projecting angles of the counterscarp, which they had kept possession
of for eight days. They twice repulsed seven thousand men who attacked
their covered way and an outwork; at the third attack they lost an angle
of the outwork; but remained masters of all the rest.
So many attacks and engagements terribly weakened the garrison. On the
28th of September some assistance was sent to the besieged by the daring
of the Chevalier de Luxembourg. It enabled them to sustain with vigour
the fresh attacks that were directed against them, to repulse the enemy,
and, by a grand sortie, to damage some of their works, and kill many of
their men. But all was in vain. The enemy returned again and again to
the attack. Every attempt to cut off their supplies failed. Finally, on
the 23rd of October, a capitulation was signed. The place had become
untenable; three new breaches had been made on the 20th and 21st; powder
and ammunition were failing; the provisions were almost all eaten up
there was nothing for it but to give in.
Marechal Boufflers obtained all he asked, and retired into the citadel
with all the prisoners of war, after two months of resistance. He
offered discharge to all the soldiers who did not wish to enter the
citadel. But not one of the six thousand he had left to him accepted it.
They were all ready for a new resistance, and when their chief appeared
among them their joy burst out in the most flattering praises of him. It
was on Friday, the 26th of October, that they shut themselves up in the
citadel.
The enemy opened their trenches before the citadel on the 29th of
October. On the 7th of November they made a grand attack, but were
repulsed with considerable loss. But they did not flinch from their
work, and Boufflers began to see that he could not long hold out. By the
commencement of December he had only twenty thousand pounds of powder
left; very little of other munitions, and still less food. In the town
and the citadel they had eaten eight hundred horses. Boufflers, as soon
as the others were reduced to this food, had it served upon his own
table, and ate of it like the rest. The King, learning in what state
these soldiers were, personally sent word to Boufflers to surrender, but
the Marechal, even after he had received this order, delayed many days to
obey it.
At last, in want of the commonest necessaries, and able to protract his
defence no longer, he beat a parley, signed a capitulation on the 9th of
December, obtaining all he asked, and retired from Lille. Prince Eugene,
to whom he surrendered, treated him with much distinction and friendship,
invited him to dinner several times,--overwhelmed him, in fact, with
attention and civilities. The Prince was glad indeed to have brought to
a successful issue such a difficult siege.
CHAPTER XLIII
The position of Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne at the army continued to
be equivocal. He was constantly in collision with M. de Vendome. The
latter, after the loss of Lille, wished to defend the Escaut, without any
regard to its extent of forty miles. The Duc de Bourgogne, as far as he
dared, took the part of Berwick, who maintained that the defence was
impossible. The King, hearing of all these disputes, actually sent
Chamillart to the army to compose them; and it was a curious sight to
behold this penman, this financier, acting as arbiter between generals on
the most delicate operations of war. Chamillart continued to admire
Vendome, and treated the Duc de Bourgogne with little respect, both at
the army, and, after his return, in conversation with the King. His
report was given in presence of Madame de Maintenon, who listened without
daring to say a word, and repeated everything to the Duchesse de
Bourgogne. We may imagine what passed between them, and the anger of the
Princess against the minister. For the present, however, nothing could
be done. Berwick was soon afterwards almost disgraced. As soon as he
was gone, M. de Vendome wrote to the King, saying, that he was sure of
preventing the enemy from passing the Escaut--that he answered for it on
his head. With such a guarantee from a man in such favour at Court, who
could doubt? Yet, shortly after, Marlborough crossed the Escaut in four
places, and Vendome actually wrote to the King, begging him to remember
that he had always declared the defence of the Escaut to be, impossible!
The cabal made a great noise to cover this monstrous audacity, and
endeavoured to renew the attack against the Duc de Bourgogne. We shall
see what success attended their efforts. The army was at Soissons, near
Tournai, in a profound tranquillity, the opium of which had gained the
Duc de Bourgogne when news of the approach of the enemy was brought.
M. de Vendome advanced in that direction, and sent word to the Duke, that
he thought he ought to advance on the morrow with all his army. The Duke
was going to bed when he received the letter; and although it was too
late to repulse the enemy, was much blamed for continuing to undress
himself, and putting off action till the morrow.
To this fault he added another. He had eaten; it was very early; and it
was no longer proper to march. It was necessary to wait fresh orders
from M. de Vendome. Tournai was near. The Duc de Bourgogne went there
to have a game at tennis. This sudden party of pleasure strongly
scandalized the army, and raised all manner of unpleasant talk.
Advantage was taken of the young Prince's imprudence to throw upon him
the blame of what was caused by the negligence of M. de Vendome.
A serious and disastrous action that took place during these operations
was actually kept a secret from the King, until the Duc de la Tremoille,
whose son was engaged there, let out the truth. Annoyed that the King
said nothing to him on the way in which his son had distinguished
himself, he took the opportunity, whilst he was serving the King, to talk
of the passage of the Escaut, and said that his son's regiment had much
suffered. "How, suffered?" cried the King; "nothing has happened."
Whereupon the Duke related all to him. The King listened with the
greatest attention, and questioned him, and admitted before everybody
that he knew nothing of all this. His surprise, and the surprise it
occasioned, may be imagined. It happened that when the King left table,
Chamillart unexpectedly came into his cabinet. He was soon asked about
the action of the Escaut, and why it had not been reported. The
minister, embarrassed, said that it was a thing of no consequence. The
king continued to press him, mentioned details, and talked of the
regiment of the Prince of Tarento. Chamillart then admitted that what
happened at the passage was so disagreeable, and the combat so
disagreeable, but so little important, that Madame de Maintenon, to whom
he had reported all, had thought it best not to trouble the King upon the
matter, and it had accordingly been agreed not to trouble him. Upon this
singular answer the King stopped short in his questions, and said not a
word more.
The Escaut being forced, the citadel of Lille on the point of being
taken, our army exhausted with fatigue was at last dispersed, to the
scandal of everybody; for it was known that Ghent was about to be
besieged. The Princes received orders to return to Court, but they
insisted on the propriety of remaining with the army. M. de Vendome, who
began to fear the effect of his rashness and insolence, tried to obtain
permission to pass the winter with the army on the frontier.
He was not listened to. The Princes received orders most positively to
return to Court, and accordingly set out.
The Duchesse de Bourgogne was very anxious about the way in which the
Duke was to be received, and eager to talk to him and explain how matters
stood, before he saw the King or anybody else. I sent a message to him
that he ought to contrive to arrive after midnight, in order to pass two
or three hours with the Duchess, and perhaps see Madame de Maintenon
early in the morning. My message was not received; at any rate not
followed. The Duc de Bourgogne arrived on the 11th of December, a little
after seven o'clock in the evening, just as Monseigneur had gone to the
play, whither the Duchess had not gone, in order to wait for her husband.
I know not why he alighted in the Cour des Princes, instead of the Great
Court. I was put then in the apartments of the Comtesse de Roncy, from
which I could see all that passed. I came down, and saw the Prince
ascending the steps between the Ducs de Beauvilliers and De la
Rocheguyon, who happened to be there. He looked quite satisfied, was
gay, and laughing, and spoke right and left. I bowed to him. He did me
the honour to embrace me in a way that showed me he knew better what was
going on than how to maintain his dignity. He then talked only to me,
and whispered that he knew what I had said. A troop of courtiers met
him. In their midst he passed the Great Hall of the Guards, and instead
of going to Madame de Maintenon's by the private door, though the nearest
way, went to the great public entrance. There was no one there but the
King and Madame de Maintenon, with Pontchartrain; for I do not count the
Duchesse de Bourgogne. Pontchartrain noted well what passed at the
interview, and related it all to me that very evening.
As soon as in Madame de Maintenon's apartment was heard the rumour which
usually precedes such an arrival, the King became sufficiently
embarrassed to change countenance several times. The Duchesse de
Bourgogne appeared somewhat tremulous, and fluttered about the room to
hide her trouble, pretending not to know exactly by which door the Prince
would arrive. Madame de Maintenon was thoughtful. Suddenly all the
doors flew open: the young Prince advanced towards the King, who, master
of himself, more than any one ever was, lost at once all embarrassment,
took two or three steps towards his grandson, embraced him with some
demonstration of tenderness, spoke of his voyage, and then pointing to
the Princess, said, with a smiling countenance: "Do you say nothing to
her?" The Prince turned a moment towards her, and answered respectfully,
as if he dared not turn away from the King, and did not move. He then
saluted Madame de Maintenon, who received him well. Talk of travel,
beds, roads, and so forth, lasted, all standing, some half-quarter of an
hour; then the King said it would not be fair to deprive him any longer
of the pleasure of being alone with Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and
that they would have time enough to see each other. The Prince made a
bow to the King, another to Madame de Maintenon, passed before the few
ladies of the palace who had taken courage to put their heads into the
room, entered the neighbouring cabinet, where he embraced the Duchess,
saluted the ladies who were there, that is, kissed them; remained a few
moments, and then went into his apartment, where he shut himself up with
the Duchesse de Bourgogne.
Their tete-a-tete lasted two hours and more: just towards the end, Madame
d'O was let in; soon after the Marechal d'Estrees entered, and soon after
that the Duchesse de Bourgogne came out with them, and returned into the
great cabinet of Madame de Maintenon. Monseigneur came there as usual,
on returning from the comedy. Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, troubled
that the Duke did not hurry himself to come and salute his father, went
to fetch him, and came back saying that he was putting on his powder; but
observing that Monseigneur was little satisfied with this want of
eagerness, sent again to hurry him. Just then the Marechale d'Estrees,
hair-brained and light, and free to say just what came into her head,
began to attack Monseigneur for waiting so tranquilly for his son,
instead of going himself to embrace him. This random expression did not
succeed. Monseigneur replied stiffly that it was not for him to seek the
Duc de Bourgogne; but the duty of the Duc de Bourgogne to seek him. He
came at last. The reception was pretty good, but did not by any means
equal that of the King. Almost immediately the King rang, and everybody
went to the supper-room.
During the supper, M. le Duc de Berry arrived, and came to salute the
King at table. To greet him all hearts opened. The King embraced him
very tenderly. Monseigneur only looked at him tenderly, not daring to
embrace his (youngest) son in presence of the King. All present courted
him. He remained standing near the King all the rest of the supper, and
there was no talk save of post-horses, of roads, and such like trifles.
The King spoke sufficiently at table to Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne;
but to the Duc de Berry, he assumed a very different air. Afterwards,
there was a supper for the Duc de Berry in the apartments of the Duchesse
de Bourgogne; but the conjugal impatience of the Duc de Bourgogne cut it
rather too short.
I expressed to the Duc de Beauvilliers, with my accustomed freedom, that
the Duc de Bourgogne seemed to me very gay on returning from so sad a
campaign. He could not deny this, and made up his mind to give a hint on
the subject. Everybody indeed blamed so misplaced a gaiety. Two or
three days after his arrival the Duc de Bourgogne passed three hours with
the King in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon. I was afraid that,
his piety would withhold him from letting out on the subject of M. de
Vendome, but I heard that he spoke on that subject without restraint,
impelled by the advice of the Duchesse de Bourgogne, and also by the Duc
de Beauvilliers, who set his conscience at ease. His account of the
campaign, of affairs, of things, of advices, of proceedings, was
complete. Another, perhaps, less virtuous, might have used weightier
terms; but at any rate everything was said with a completeness beyond all
hope, if we consider who spoke and who listened. The Duke concluded with
an eager prayer to be given an army in the next campaign, and with the
promise of the King to that effect. Soon after an explanation took place
with Monseigneur at Meudon, Mademoiselle Choin being present. With the
latter he spoke much more in private: she had taken his part with
Monseigneur. The Duchesse de Bourgogne had gained her over. The
connection of this girl with Madame de Maintenon was beginning to grow
very close indeed.
Gamaches had been to the army with the Duc do Bourgogne, and being a
free-tongued man had often spoken out very sharply on the puerilities in
which he indulged in company with the Duc de Berry, influenced by his
example. One day returning from mass, in company with the Duke on a
critical day, when he would rather have seen him on horseback; he said
aloud, "You will certainly win the kingdom of heaven; but as for the
kingdom of the earth, Prince Eugene and Marlborough know how to seek it
better than you." What he said quite as publicly to the two Princes on
their treatment of the King of England, was admirable. That Prince
(known as the Chevalier de Saint George) served incognito, with a modesty
that the Princes took advantage of to treat him with the greatest
indifference and contempt. Towards the end of the campaign, Gamaches,
exasperated with their conduct, exclaimed to them in the presence of
everybody: "Is this a wager? speak frankly; if so, you have won, there
can be no doubt of that; but now, speak a little to the Chevalier de
Saint George, and treat him more politely." These sallies, however, were
too public to produce any good effect. They were suffered, but not
attended to.
The citadel of Lille capitulated as we have seen, with the consent of the
King, who was obliged to acknowledge that the Marechal de Boufflers had
done all he could, and that further defence was impossible. Prince
Eugene treated Boufflers with the greatest possible consideration. The
enemy at this time made no secret of their intention to invest Ghent,
which made the dispersal of our army the more shameful; but necessity
commanded, for no more provisions were to be got.
M. de Vendome arrived at Versailles on the morning of December 15th, and
saluted the King as he left table. The King embraced him with a sort of
enthusiasm that made his cabal triumph. He monopolised all conversation
during the dinner, but only trifles were talked of. The King said he
would talk to him next day at Madame de Maintenon's. This delay, which
was new to him, did not seem of good augury. He went to pay his respects
to M. de Bourgogne, who received him well in spite of all that had
passed. Then Vendome went to wait on Monseigneur at the Princesse de
Coriti's: here he thought himself in his stronghold. He was received
excellently, and the conversation turned on nothings. He wished to take
advantage of this, and proposed a visit to Anet. His surprise and that
of those present were great at the uncertain reply of Monseigneur, who
caused it to be understood, and rather stiffly too, that he would not go.
Vendome appeared embarrassed, and abridged his visit. I met him at the
end of the gallery of the new wing, as I was coming from M. de
Beauvilliers, turning towards the steps in the middle of the gallery. He
was alone, without torches or valets, with Alberoni, followed by a man I
did not know. I saw him by the light of my torches; we saluted each
other politely, though we had not much acquaintance one with the other.
He seemed chagrined, and was going to M. du Maine, his counsel and
principal support.
Next day he passed an hour with the King at Madame de Maintenon's. He
remained eight or ten days at Versailles or at Meudon, and never went to
the Duchesse de Bourgogne's. This was nothing new for him. The mixture
of grandeur and irregularity which he had long affected seemed to him to
have freed him from the most indispensable duties. His Abbe Alberoni
showed himself at the King's mass in the character of a courtier with
unparalleled effrontery. At last they went to Anet. Even before he went
he perceived some diminution in his position, since he lowered himself so
far as to invite people to come and see him, he, who in former years made
it a favour to receive the most distinguished persons. He soon perceived
the falling-off in the number of his visitors. Some excused themselves
from going; others promised to go and did not. Every one made a
difficulty about a journey of fifteen leagues, which, the year before,
was considered as easy and as necessary as that of Marly. Vendome
remained at Anet until the first voyage to Marly, when he came; and he
always came to Marly and Meudon, never to Versailles, until the change of
which I shall soon have occasion to speak.
The Marechal de Boufflers returned to Court from his first but
unsuccessful defence of Lille, and was received in a triumphant manner,
and overwhelmed with honours and rewards. This contrast with Vendome was
remarkable: the one raised by force of trickery, heaping up mountains
like the giants, leaning on vice, lies, audacity, on a cabal inimical to
the state and its heirs, a factitious hero, made such by will in despite
of truth;--the other, without cabal, with no support but virtue and
modesty, was inundated with favours, and the applause of enemies was
followed by the acclamations of the public, so that the nature of even
courtiers changed, and they were happy in the recompenses showered upon
him!
Some days after the return of the Duc de Bourgogne Cheverny had an
interview with him, on leaving which he told me what I cannot refrain
from relating here, though it is necessarily with confusion that I write
it. He said that, speaking freely with him on what had been circulated
during the campaign, the Prince observed that he knew how and with what
vivacity I had expressed myself, and that he was informed of the manner
in which the Prince de Conti had given his opinion, and added that with
the approval of two such men, that of others might be dispensed with.
Cheverny, a very truthful man, came full of this to tell it to me at
once. I was filled with confusion at being placed beside a man as
superior to me in knowledge of war as he was in rank and birth; but I
felt with gratitude how well M. de Beauvilliers had kept his word and
spoken in my favour.
The last evening of this year (1708) was very remarkable, because there
had not yet been an example of any such thing. The King having retired
after supper to his cabinet with his family, as usual, Chamillart came
without being sent for. He whispered in the King's ear that he had a
long despatch from the Marechal de Boufflers. Immediately the King said
good-night to Monseigneur and the Princesses, who went out with every one
else; and the King actually worked for an hour with his minister before
going to bed, so excited was he by the great project for retaking Lille!
Since the fall of Lille, in fact, Chamillart, impressed with the
importance of the place being in our possession, had laid out a plan by
which he were to lay siege to it and recapture it. One part of his plan
was, that the King should conduct the siege in person. Another was that,
as money was so difficult to obtain, the ladies of the Court should not
accompany the King, as their presence caused a large increase of expense
for carriages, servants, and so on. He confided his project to the King,
under a strict promise that it would be kept secret from Madame de
Maintenon. He feared, and with reason, that if she heard of it she would
object to being separated from the King for such a long time as would be
necessary for the siege: Chamillart was warned that if he acted thus,
hiding his plant from Madame de Maintenon, to whom he owed everything,
she would assuredly ruin him, but he paid no attention to the warning.
He felt all the danger he ran, but he was courageous; he loved the State,
and, if I may say so, he loved the King as a mistress. He followed his
own counsels then, and made the King acquainted with his project.
The King was at once delighted with it. He entered into the details
submitted to him by Chamillart with the liveliest interest, and promised
to carry out all that was proposed. He sent for Boufflers, who had
returned from Lille, and having, as I have said, recompensed him for his
brave defence of that place with a peerage and other marks of favour,
despatched him privately into Flanders to make preparations for the
siege. The abandonment of Ghent by our troop, after a short and
miserable defence, made him more than ever anxious to carry out this
scheme.
But the King had been so unused to keep a secret from Madame de
Maintenon, that he felt himself constrained in attempting to do so now.
He confided to her, therefore, the admirable plan of Chamillart. She had
the address to hide her surprise, and the strength to dissimulate
perfectly her vexation; she praised the project; she appeared charmed
with it; she entered into the details; she spoke of them to Chamillart;
admired his zeal, his labour, his diligence, and, above all, his ability,
in having conceived and rendered possible so fine and grand a project.
From that moment, however, she forgot nothing in order to ensure its
failure. The first sight of it had made her tremble. To be separated
from the King during a long siege; to abandon him to a minister to whom
he would be grateful for all the success of that siege; a minister, too,
who, although her creature, had dared to submit this project to the King
without informing her; who, moreover, had recently offended her by
marrying his son into a family she considered inimical to her, and by
supporting M. de Vendome against Monseigneur de Bourgogne! These were
considerations that determined her to bring about the failure of
Chamillart's project and the disgrace of Chamillart himself.
She employed her art so well, that after a time the project upon Lille
did not appear so easy to the King as at first. Soon after, it seemed
difficult; then too hazardous and ruinous; so that at last it was
abandoned, and Boufflers had orders to cease his preparations and return
to France! She succeeded thus in an affair she considered the most
important she had undertaken during all her life. Chamillart was much
touched, but little surprised: As soon as he knew his secret had been
confided to Madame de Maintenon he had feeble hope for it. Now he began
to fear for himself.
CHAPTER XLIV.
One of the reasons Madame de Maintenon had brought forward, which much
assisted her in opposing the siege of Lille, was the excessive cold of
this winter. The winter was, in fact, terrible; the memory of man could
find no parallel to it. The frost came suddenly on Twelfth Night, and
lasted nearly two months, beyond all recollection. In four days the
Seine and all the other rivers were frozen, and,--what had never been
seen before,--the sea froze all along the coasts, so as to bear carts,
even heavily laden, upon it. Curious observers pretended that this cold
surpassed what had ever been felt in Sweden and Denmark. The tribunals
were closed a considerable time. The worst thing was, that it completely
thawed for seven or eight days, and then froze again as rudely as before.
This caused the complete destruction of all kinds of vegetation--even
fruit-trees; and others of the most hardy kind, were destroyed. The
violence of the cold was such, that the strongest elixirs and the most
spirituous liquors broke their bottles in cupboards of rooms with fires
in them, and surrounded by chimneys, in several parts of the chateau of
Versailles. As I myself was one evening supping with the Duc de
Villeroy, in his little bedroom, I saw bottles that had come from a well-
heated kitchen, and that had been put on the chimney-piece of this bed-
room (which was close to the kitchen), so frozen, that pieces of ice fell
into our glasses as we poured out from them. The second frost ruined
everything. There were no walnut-trees, no olive-trees, no apple-trees,
no vines left, none worth speaking of, at least. The other trees died in
great numbers; the gardens perished, and all the grain in the earth. It
is impossible to imagine the desolation of this general ruin. Everybody
held tight his old grain. The price of bread increased in proportion to
the despair for the next harvest. The most knowing resowed barley where
there had been wheat, and were imitated by the majority. They were the
most successful, and saved all; but the police bethought themselves of
prohibiting this, and repented too late! Divers edicts were published
respecting grain, researches were made and granaries filled;
commissioners were appointed to scour the provinces, and all these steps
contributed to increase the general dearness and poverty, and that, too,
at a time when, as was afterwards proved, there was enough corn in the
country to feed all France for two years, without a fresh ear being
reaped.
Many people believed that the finance gentlemen had clutched at this
occasion to seize upon all the corn in the kingdom, by emissaries they
sent about, in order to sell it at whatever price they wished for the
profit of the King, not forgetting their own. The fact that a large
quantity of corn that the King had bought, and that had spoiled upon the
Loire, was thrown into the water in consequence, did not shake this
opinion, as the accident could not be hidden. It is certain that the
price of corn was equal in all the markets of the realm; that at Paris,
commissioners fixed the price by force, and often obliged the vendors to
raise it in spite of themselves; that when people cried out, "How long
will this scarcity last?" some commissioners in a market, close to my
house, near Saint Germain-des-Pres, replied openly, "As long as you
please," moved by compassion and indignation, meaning thereby, as long as
the people chose to submit to the regulation, according to which no corn
entered Paris, except on an order of D'Argenson. D'Argenson was the
lieutenant of police. The bakers were treated with the utmost rigour in
order to keep up the price of bread all over France. In the provinces,
officers called intendents did what D'Argenson did at Paris. On all the
markets, the corn that was not sold at the hour fixed for closing was
forcibly carried off; those who, from pity, sold their corn lower than
the fixed rate were punished with cruelty!
Marechal, the King's surgeon, had the courage and the probity to tell all
these things to the King, and to state the sinister opinions it gave rise
to among all classes, even the most enlightened. The King appeared
touched, was not offended with Marechal, but did nothing.
In several places large stores of corn were collected; by the government
authorities, but with the greatest possible secrecy. Private people were
expressly forbidden to do this, and informers were encouraged to; betray
them. A poor fellow, having bethought himself of informing against one
of the stores alluded to above, was severely punished for his pains. The
Parliament assembled to debate upon these disorders. It came to the
resolution of submitting various proposals to the King, which it deemed
likely to improve the condition of the country, and offered to send its
Conseillers to examine into the conduct of the monopolists. As soon as
the King heard of this, he flew into a strange passion, and his first
intention was to send a harsh message to the Parliament to attend to law
trials, and not to mix with matters that did not concern it. The
chancellor did not dare to represent to, the King that what the
Parliament wished to do belonged to its province, but calmed him by
representing the respect and affection with which the Parliament regarded
him, and that he was master either to accept or refuse its offers. No
reprimand was given, therefore, to the Parliament, but it was informed
that the King prohibited it from meddling with the corn question.
However accustomed the Parliament, as well as all the other public
bodies, might be to humiliations, it was exceedingly vexed by this
treatment, and obeyed with the greatest grief. The public was,
nevertheless, much affected by the conduct of the Parliament, and felt
that if the Finance Ministry had been innocent in the matter, the King
would have been pleased with what had taken place, which was in no
respect an attack on the absolute and unbounded authority of which he was
so vilely jealous.
In the country a somewhat similar incident occurred. The Parliament of
Burgundy, seeing the province in the direst necessity, wrote to the
Intendant, who did not bestir himself the least in the world. In this
pressing danger of a murderous famine, the members assembled to debate
upon the course to adopt. Nothing was said or done more than was
necessary, and all with infinite discretion, yet the King was no sooner
informed of it than he grew extremely irritated. He sent a severe
reprimand to this Parliament; prohibited it from meddling again in the
matter; and ordered the President, who had conducted the assembly, to
come at once to Court to explain his conduct. He came, and but for the
intervention of M. le Duc would have been deprived of his post,
irreproachable as his conduct had been. He received a sharp scolding
from the King, and was then allowed to depart. At the end of a few weeks
he returned to Dijon, where it had been resolved to receive him in
triumph; but, like a wise and experienced man, he shunned these
attentions, arranging so that he arrived at Dijon at four o'clock in the
morning. The other Parliaments, with these examples before them, were
afraid to act, and allowed the Intendants and their emissaries to have it
all their own way. It was at this time that those commissioners were
appointed, to whom I have already alluded, who acted under the authority
of the Intendants, and without dependence of any kind upon the
Parliaments. True, a court of appeal against their decisions was
established, but it was a mere mockery. The members who composed it did
not set out to fulfil their duties until three months after having been
appointed.
Then, matters had been so arranged that they received no appeals, and
found no cases to judge. All this dark work remained, therefore, in the
hands of D'Argenson and the Intendants, and it continued to be done with
the same harshness as ever.
Without passing a more definite judgment on those who invented and
profited by this scheme, it may be said that there has scarcely been a
century which has produced one more mysterious, more daring, better
arranged, and resulting in an oppression so enduring, so sure, so cruel.
The sums it produced were innumerable; and innumerable were the people
who died literally of hunger, and those who perished afterwards of the
maladies caused by the extremity of misery; innumerable also were the
families who were ruined, whose ruin brought down a torrent of other
ills.
Despite all this, payments hitherto most strictly made began to cease.
Those of the customs, those of the divers loans, the dividends upon the
Hotel de Ville--in all times so sacred--all were suspended; these last
alone continued, but with delays, then with retrenchments, which
desolated nearly all the families of Paris and many others. At the same
time the taxes--increased, multiplied, and exacted with the most extreme
rigour--completed the devastation of France.
Everything rose incredibly in price, while nothing was left to buy with,
even at the cheapest rate; and although--the majority of the cattle had
perished for want of food, and by the misery of those who kept them, a
new monopoly was established upon, horned beasts. A great number of
people who, in preceding years, used to relieve the poor, found,
themselves so reduced as to be able to subsist only with great
difficulty, and many of them received alms in secret. It is impossible
to say how many others laid siege to the hospitals, until then the
shame and punishment of the poor; how many ruined hospitals revomited
forth their inmates to the public charge--that is to say, sent them away
to die actually of hunger; and how many decent families shut themselves
up in garrets to die of want.
It is impossible to say, moreover, how all this misery warmed up zeal and
charity, or how immense were the alms distributed. But want increasing
each instant, an indiscreet and tyrannical charity imagined new taxes for
the benefit of the poor. They were imposed, and, added to so many
others, vexed numbers of people, who were annoyed at being compelled to
pay, who would have preferred giving voluntarily. Thus, these new taxes,
instead of helping the poor, really took away assistance from them, and
left them worse off than before. The strangest thing of all is, that
these taxes in favour of the poor were, perpetuated and appropriated by
the King, and are received by the financiers on his account to this day
as a branch of the revenue, the name of them not having even been
changed. The same thing has happened with respect to the annual tax for
keeping up the highways and thoroughfares of the kingdom. The majority
of the bridges were broken, and the high roads had become impracticable.
Trade, which suffered by this, awakened attention. The Intendant of
Champagne determined to mend the roads by parties of men, whom he
compelled to work for nothing, not even giving them bread. He was
imitated everywhere, and was made Counsellor of State. The people died
of hunger and misery at this work, while those who overlooked them made
fortunes. In the end the thing was found to be impracticable, and was
abandoned, and so were the roads. But the impost for making them and
keeping them up did not in the least stop during this experiment or
since, nor has it ceased to be appropriated as a branch of the King's
revenue.
But to return to the year 1709. People never ceased wondering what had
become of all the money of the realm. Nobody could any longer pay,
because nobody was paid: the country-people, overwhelmed with exactions
and with valueless property, had become insolvent: trade no longer
yielded anything--good faith and confidence were at an end. Thus the
King had no resources, except in terror and in his unlimited power,
which, boundless as it was, failed also for want of having something to
take and to exercise itself upon. There was no more circulation, no
means of re-establishing it. All was perishing step by step; the realm
was entirely exhausted; the troops, even, were not paid, although no one
could imagine what was done with the millions that came into the King's
coffers. The unfed soldiers, disheartened too at being so badly
commanded, were always unsuccessful; there was no capacity in generals or
ministers; no appointment except by whim or intrigue; nothing was
punished, nothing examined, nothing weighed: there was equal impotence to
sustain the war and bring about peace: all suffered, yet none dared to
put the hand to this arch, tottering as it was and ready to fall.
This was the frightful state to which we were reduced, when envoys were
sent into Holland to try and bring about peace. The picture is exact,
faithful, and not overcharged. It was necessary to present it as it was,
in order to explain the extremity to which we were reduced, the enormity
of the concessions which the King made to obtain peace, and the visible
miracle of Him who sets bounds to the seas, by which France was allowed
to escape from the hands of Europe, resolved and ready to destroy her.
Meanwhile the money was re-coined; and its increase to a third more than
its intrinsic value, brought some profit to the King, but ruin to private
people, and a disorder to trade which completed its annihilation.
Samuel Bernard, the banker, overthrew all Lyons by his prodigious
bankruptcy, which caused the most terrible results. Desmarets assisted
him as much as possible. The discredit into which paper money had
fallen, was the cause of his failure. He had issued notes to the amount
of twenty millions, and owed almost as much at Lyons. Fourteen millions
were given to him in assignats, in order to draw him out of his
difficulties. It is pretended that he found means to gain much by his
bankruptcy, but this seems doubtful.
The winter at length passed away. In the spring so many disorders took
place in the market of Paris, that more guards than usual were kept in
the city. At Saint Roch there was a disturbance, on account of a poor
fellow who had fallen, and been trampled under foot; and the crowd, which
was very large, was very insolent to D'Argenson, Lieutenant of Police,
who had hastened there. M. de la Rochefoucauld, who had retired from the
Court to Chenil, on account of his loss of sight, received an atrocious
letter against the King, in which it was plainly intimated that there
were still Ravaillacs left in the world; and to this madness was added an
eulogy of Brutus. M. de la Rochefoucauld at once went in all haste to
the King with this letter. His sudden appearance showed that something
important had occurred, and the object of his visit, of course, soon
became known. He was very ill received for coming so publicly on such an
errand. The Ducs de Beauvilliers and de Bouillon, it seems, had received
similar letters, but had given them to the King privately. The King for
some days was much troubled, but after due reflection, he came to the
conclusion that people who menace and warn have less intention of
committing a crime than of causing alarm.
What annoyed the King more was, the inundation of placards, the most
daring and the most unmeasured, against his person, his conduct, and his
government--placards, which for a long time were found pasted upon the
gates of Paris, the churches, the public places; above all upon the
statues; which during the night were insulted in various fashions, the
marks being seen the next morning, and the inscriptions erased. There
were also, multitudes of verses and songs, in which nothing was spared.
We were in this state until the 16th of May. The procession of Saint
Genevieve took place. This procession never takes place except in times
of the direst necessity; and then, only in virtue of orders from the
King, the Parliament, or the Archbishop of Paris. On the one hand, it
was hoped that it would bring succour to the country; on the other, that
it would amuse the people.
It was shortly after this, when the news of the arrogant demands of the
allies, and the vain attempts of the King to obtain an honourable peace
became known, that the Duchesse de Grammont conceived the idea of
offering her plate to the King, to replenish his impoverished exchequer,
and to afford him means carry on the war. She hoped that her example
would be followed by all the Court, and that she alone would have the
merit and the profit of suggesting the idea. Unfortunately for this
hope, the Duke, her husband, spoke of the project to Marechal Boufflers,
who thought it so good, that he noised it abroad, and made such a stir,
exhorting everybody to adopt it, that he passed for the inventor, and; no
mention was made of the Duke or the old Duchesse de Grammont, the latter
of whom was much enraged at this.
The project made a great hubbub at the Court. Nobody dared to refuse to
offer his plate, yet each offered it with much regret. Some had been
keeping it as a last resource, which they; were very sorry to deprive
themselves of; others feared the dirtiness of copper and earthenware;
others again were annoyed at being obliged to imitate an ungrateful
fashion, all the merit of which would go to the inventor. It was in vain
that Pontchartrain objected to the project, as one from which only
trifling benefit could be derived, and which would do great injury to
France by acting as a proclamation of its embarrassed state to all the
world, at home and abroad. The King would not listen to his reasonings,
but declared himself willing to receive all the plate that was sent to
him as a free-will offering. He announced this; and two means were
indicated at the same time, which all good citizens might follow. One
was, to send their plate to the King's goldsmith; the other, to send it
to the Mint. Those who made an unconditional gift of their plate, sent
it to the former, who kept a register of the names and of the number of
marks he received. The King regularly looked over this list; at least at
first, and promised in general terms to restore to everybody the weight
of metal they gave when his affairs permitted--a promise nobody believed
in or hoped to see executed. Those who wished to be paid for their plate
sent it to the Mint. It was weighed on arrival; the names were written,
the marks and the date; payment was made according as money could be
found. Many people were not sorry thus to sell, their plate without
shame. But the loss and the damage were inestimable in admirable
ornaments of all kinds, with which much of the plate of the rich was
embellished. When an account came to be drawn up, it was found that not
a hundred people were upon the list of Launay, the goldsmith; and the
total product of the gift did not amount to three millions. I confess
that I was very late in sending any plate. When I found that I was
almost the only one of my rank using silver, I sent plate to the value of
a thousand pistoles to the Mint, and locked up the rest. All the great
people turned to earthenware, exhausted the shops where it was sold, and
set the trade in it on fire, while common folks continued to use their
silver. Even the King thought of using earthenware, having sent his gold
vessels to the Mint, but afterwards decided upon plated metal and silver;
the Princes and Princesses of the blood used crockery.
Ere three months were over his head the King felt all the shame and the
weakness of having consented to this surrendering of plate, and avowed
that he repented of it. The inundations of the Loire, which happened at
the same time, and caused the utmost disorder, did not restore the Court
or the public to good humour. The losses they caused, and the damage
they did, were very considerable, and ruined many private people, and
desolated home trade.
Summer came. The dearness of all things, and of bread in particular,
continued to cause frequent commotions all over the realm. Although, as
I have said, the guards of Paris were much increased, above all in the
markets and the suspected places, they were unable to hinder disturbances
from breaking out. In many of these D'Argenson nearly lost his life.
Monseigneur arriving and returning from the Opera, was assailed by the
populace and by women in great numbers crying, "Bread! Bread!" so that
he was afraid, even in the midst of his guards, who did not dare to
disperse the crowd for fear of worse happening. He got away by throwing
money to the people, and promising wonders; but as the wonders did not
follow, he no longer dared to go to Paris.
The King himself from his windows heard the people of Versailles crying
aloud in the street. The discourses they held were daring and continual
in the streets and public places; they uttered complaints, sharp, and but
little measured, against the government, and even against the King's
person; and even exhorted each other no longer to be so enduring, saying
that nothing worse could happen to them than what they suffered, dying as
they were of starvation.
To amuse the people, the idle and the poor were employed to level a
rather large hillock which remained upon the Boulevard, between the
Portes Saint Denis and Saint Martin; and for all salary, bad bread in
small quantities was distributed to these workers. If happened that on
Tuesday morning, the 20th of August, there was no bread for a large
number of these people. A woman amongst others cried out at this, which
excited the rest to do likewise. The archers appointed to watch over
these labourers, threatened the woman; she only cried the louder;
thereupon the archers seized her and indiscreetly put her in an adjoining
pillory. In a moment all her companions ran to her aid, pulled down the
pillory, and scoured the streets, pillaging the bakers and pastrycooks.
One by one the shops closed. The disorder increased and spread through
the neighbouring streets; no harm was done anybody, but the cry was
"Bread! Bread!" and bread was seized everywhere.
It so fell out that Marechal Boufflers, who little thought what was
happening, was in the neighbourhood, calling upon his notary. Surprised
at the fright he saw everywhere, and learning, the cause, he wished of
himself to appease it. Accompanied by the Duc de Gramont, he directed
himself towards the scene of the disturbance, although advised not to do
so. When he arrived at the top of the Rue Saint Denis, the crowd and the
tumult made him judge that it would be best to alight from his coach. He
advanced, therefore, on foot with the Duc de Grammont among the furious
and infinite crowd of people, of whom he asked the cause of this uproar,
promised them bread, spoke his best with gentleness but firmness, and
remonstrated with them. He was listened to. Cries, several times
repeated, of "Vive M. le Marechal de Boufflers!" burst from the crowd.
M. de Boufflers walked thus with M. de Grammont all along the Rue aux
Ours and the neighbouring streets, into the very centre of the sedition,
in fact. The people begged him to represent their misery to the King,
and to obtain for them some food. He promised this, and upon his word
being given all were appeased and all dispersed with thanks and fresh
acclamations of "Vive M. le Marechal de Boufflers!" He did a real service
that day. D'Argenson had marched to the spot with troops; and had it not
been for the Marechal, blood would have been spilt, and things might have
gone very far.
The Marechal had scarcely reached his own house in the Place Royale than
he was informed that the sedition had broken out with even greater force
in the Faubourg Saint Antoine. He ran there immediately, with the Duc de
Grammont, and appeased it as he had appeased the other. He returned to
his own home to eat a mouthful or two, and then set out for Versailles.
Scarcely had he left the Place Royale than the people in the streets and
the shopkeepers cried to him to have pity on them, and to get them some
bread, always with "Vive M. le Marechal de Boufflers!" He was conducted
thus as far as the quay of the Louvre.
On arriving at Versailles he went straight to the King, told him what had
occurred, and was much thanked. He was even offered by the King the
command of Paris,--troops, citizens, police, and all; but this he
declined, Paris, as he said, having already a governor and proper
officers to conduct its affairs. He afterwards, however, willingly lent
his aid to them in office, and the modesty with which he acted brought
him new glory.
Immediately after, the supply of bread was carefully looked to. Paris
was filled with patrols, perhaps with too many, but they succeeded so
well that no fresh disturbances took place.
CHAPTER XLV
After his return from the campaign, M. de Vendome continued to be paid
like a general serving in winter, and to enjoy many other advantages.
From all this, people inferred that he would serve during the following
campaign; nobody dared to doubt as much, and the cabal derived new
strength therefrom. But their little triumph was not of long
continuance. M. de Vendome came to Versailles for the ceremony of the
Order on Candlemas-Day. He then learned that he was not to serve, and
that he was no longer to receive general's pay. The blow was violent,
and he felt it to its fullest extent; but, with a prudence that equalled
his former imprudence, he swallowed the pill without making a face,
because he feared other more bitter ones, which he felt he had deserved.
This it was that, for the first time in his life, made him moderate. He
did not affect to conceal what had taken place, but did not say whether
it was in consequence of any request of his, or whether he was glad or
sorry,--giving it out as an indifferent piece of news; and changed
nothing but his language, the audacity of which he diminished as no
longer suited to the times. He sold his equipages.
M. le Prince de Conti died February 22, aged not quite forty-five. His
face had been charming; even the defects of his body and mind had
infinite graces. His shoulders were too high; his head was a little on
one side; his laugh would have seemed a bray in any one else; his mind
was strangely absent. He was gallant with the women, in love with many,
well treated by several; he was even coquettish with men. He endeavoured
to please the cobbler, the lackey, the porter, as well as the Minister of
State, the Grand Seigneur, the General, all so naturally that success was
certain. He was consequently the constant delight of every one, of the
Court, the armies; the divinity of the people, the idol of the soldiers,
the hero of the officers, the hope of whatever was most distinguished,
the love of the Parliament, the friend of the learned, and often the
admiration of the historian, of jurisconsults, of astronomers, and
mathematicians, the most profound. He was especially learned in
genealogies, and knew their chimeras and their realities. With him the
useful and the polite, the agreeable and the deep, all was distinct and
in its place. He had friends, knew how to choose them, cultivate them,
visit them, live with them, put himself on their level without
haughtiness or baseness. But this man, so amiable, so charming, so
delicious, loved nothing. He had and desired friends, as other people
have and desire articles of furniture. Although with much self-respect
he was a humble courtier, and showed too much how greatly he was in want
of support and assistance from all sides; he was avaricious, greedy of
fortune, ardent and unjust. The King could not bear him, and was grieved
with the respect he was obliged to show him, and which he was careful
never to trespass over by a single jot. Certain intercepted letters had
excited a hatred against him in Madame de Maintenon, and an indignation
in the King which nothing could efface. The riches, the talents, the
agreeable qualities, the great reputation which this Prince had acquired,
the general love of all, became crimes in him. The contrast with M. du
Maine excited daily irritation and jealousy. The very purity of his
blood was a reproach to him. Even his friends were odious, and felt that
this was so. At last, however, various causes made him to be chosen, in
the midst of a very marked disgrace, to command the army in Flanders. He
was delighted, and gave himself up to the most agreeable hopes. But it
was no longer time: he had sought to drown his sorrow at wearing out his
life unoccupied in wine and other pleasures, for which his age and his
already enfeebled body were no longer suited. His health gave way. He
felt it soon. The tardy return to favour which he had enjoyed made him
regret life more. He perished slowly, regretting to have been brought to
death's door by disgrace, and the impossibility of being restored by the
unexpected opening of a brilliant career.
The Prince, against the custom of those of his rank, had been very well
educated. He was full of instruction. The disorders of his life had
clouded his knowledge but not extinguished it, and he often read to brush
up his learning. He chose M. de la Tour to prepare him, and help him to
die well. He was so attached to life that all his courage was required.
For three months crowds of visitors filled his palace, and the people
even collected in the place before it. The churches echoed with prayers
for his life. The members of his family often went to pay for masses for
him; and found that others had already done so. All questions were about
his health. People stopped each other in the street to inquire; passers-
by were called to by shopmen, anxious to know whether the Prince de Conti
was to live or to die. Amidst all this, Monseigneur never visited him;
and, to the indignation of all Paris, passed along the quay near the
Louvre going to the Opera, whilst the sacraments were being carried to
the Prince on the other side. He was compelled by public opinion to make
a short visit after this. The Prince died at last in his arm-chair,
surrounded by a few worthy people. Regrets were universal; but perhaps
he gained by his disgrace. His heart was firmer than his head. He might
have been timid at the head of an army or in the Council of the King if
he had entered it. The King was much relieved by his death; Madame de
Maintenon also; M. le Duc much more; for M. du Maine it was a
deliverance, and for M. de Vendome a consolation. Monseigneur learned it
at Meudon as he was going out to hunt, and showed no feeling of any kind.
The death of M. le Prince de Conti seemed to the Duc de Vendome a
considerable advantage, because he was thus delivered from a rival most
embarrassing by the superiority of his birth, just when he was about to
be placed in a high military position. I have already mentioned
Vendome's exclusion from command. The fall of this Prince of the Proud
had been begun we have now reached the second step, between which and the
third there was a space of between two and three months; but as the third
had no connection with any other event, I will relate it at once.
Whatever reasons existed to induce the King to take from M. de Vendome
the command of his armies, I know not if all the art and credit of Madame
de Maintenon would not have been employed in vain, together with the
intrigues of M. du Maine, without an adventure, which I must at once
explain, to set before the reader's eyes the issue of the terrible
struggle, pushed to such extremes, between Vendome, seconded by his
formidable cabal, and the necessary, heir of the Crown, supported by his
wife, the favourite of the King, and Madame de Maintenon, which last; to
speak clearly, as all the Court saw, for thirty years governed him
completely.
When M. de Vendome returned from Flanders, he had a short interview with
the King, in which he made many bitter complaints against Pursegur, one
of his lieutenant-generals, whose sole offence was that he was much
attached to M. de Bourgogne. Pursegur was a great favourite with the
King, and often, on account of the business of the infantry regiment, of
which the thought himself the private colonel, had private interviews
with him, and was held in high estimation for his capacity and virtue.
He, in his turn, came back from Flanders, and had a private audience of
the King. The complaints that had been made against him by M. de Vendome
were repeated to him by the King, who, however, did not mention from whom
they came. Pursegur defended himself so well, that the King in his
surprise mentioned this latter fact. At the name of Vendome, Pursegur
lost all patience. He described, to the King all the faults, the
impertinences; the obstinacy, the insolence of M. de Vendome, with a
precision and clearness which made his listener very attentive and very
fruitful in questions. Pursegur, seeing that he might go on, gave
himself rein, unmasked M. de Vendome from top to toe, described his
ordinary life at the army, the incapacity of his body, the incapacity of
his judgment, the prejudice of his mind, the absurdity and crudity of his
maxims, his utter ignorance of the art of war, and showed to
demonstration, that it was only by a profusion of miracles France had not
been ruined by him--lost a hundred times over.
The conversation lasted more than two hours. The' King, long since
convinced of the capacity, fidelity, and truthfulness of Pursegur, at
last opened his eyes to the truth respecting this Vendome, hidden with so
much art until then, and regarded as a hero and the tutelary genius of
France. He was vexed and ashamed of his credulity, and from the date of
this conversation Vendome fell at once from his favour.
Pursegur, naturally humble, gentle, and modest, but truthful, and on this
occasion piqued, went out into the gallery after his conversation, and
made a general report of it to all, virtuously, braving Vendome and all
his cabal. This cabal trembled with rage; Vendome still more so. They
answered by miserable reasonings, which nobody cared for. This was what
led to the suppression of his pay, and his retirement to Anet, where he
affected a philosophical indifference.
Crestfallen as he was, he continued to sustain at Meudon and Marly the
grand manners he had usurped at the time of his prosperity. After having
got over the first embarrassment, he put on again his haughty air, and
ruled the roast. To see him at Meudon you would have said he was
certainly the master of the saloon, and by his free and easy manner to
Monseigneur, and, when he dared, to the King, he would have been thought
the principal person there. Monseigneur de Bourgogne supported this--his
piety made him do so--but Madame de Bourgogne was grievously offended,
and watched her opportunity to get rid of M. de Vendome altogether.
It came, the first journey the King made to Marly after Easter. 'Brelan'
was then the fashion. Monseigneur, playing at it one day with Madame de
Bourgogne and others, and being in want of a fifth player, sent for M. de
Vendome from the other end of the saloon, to come and join the party.
That instant Madame de Bourgogne said modestly, but very intelligibly, to
Monseigneur, that the presence of M. de Vendome at Marly was sufficiently
painful to her, without having him at play with her, and that she begged
he might be dispensed with. Monseigneur, who had sent for Vendome
without the slightest reflection, looked round the room, and sent for
somebody else. When Vendome arrived, his place was taken, and he had to
suffer this annoyance before all the company. It may be imagined to what
an extent this superb gentleman was stung by the affront. He served no
longer; he commanded no longer; he was no longer the adored idol; he
found himself in the paternal mansion of the Prince he had so cruelly
offended, and the outraged wife of that Prince was more than a match for
him. He turned upon his heel, absented himself from the room as soon as
he could, and retired to his own chamber, there to storm at his leisure.
Other and more cruel annoyances were yet in store for him, however.
Madame de Bourgogne reflected on what had just taken place. The facility
with which she had succeeded in one respect encouraged her, but she was a
little troubled to know how the King would take what she had done, and
accordingly, whilst playing, she resolved to push matters still further,
both to ruin her guest utterly and to get out of her embarrassment; for,
despite her extreme familiarity, she was easily embarrassed, being gentle
and timid. The 'brelan' over, she ran to Madame de Maintenon; told her
what had just occurred; said that the presence of M. de Vendome at Marly
was a continual insult to her; and begged her to solicit the King to
forbid M. de Vendome to come there. Madame de Maintenon, only too glad.
to have an opportunity of revenging herself upon an enemy who had set her
at defiance, and against whom all her batteries had at one time failed,
consented to this request. She spoke out to the King, who, completely
weary of M. de Vendome, and troubled to have under his eyes a man whom he
could not doubt was discontented, at once granted what was asked. Before
going to bed, he charged one of his valets to tell M. de Vendome the next
morning, that henceforth he was to absent himself from Marly, his
presence there being disagreeable to Madame de Bourgogne.
It may be imagined into what an excess of despair M. de Vendome fell, at
a message so unexpected, and which sapped the foundations of all his
hopes. He kept silent, however, for fear of making matters worse, did
not venture attempting, to speak to the King, and hastily retired to
Clichy to hide his rage and shame. The news of his banishment from Marly
soon spread abroad, and made so much stir, that to show it was not worth
attention, he returned two days before the end of the visit, and stopped
until the end in a continual shame and embarrassment. He set out for
Anet at the same time that the King set out for Versailles, and has never
since put his foot in Marly.
But another bitter draught was to be mixed for him. Banished from Marly,
he had yet the privilege of going to Meudon. He did not fail to avail
himself of this every time Monseigneur was there, and stopped as long as
he stopped, although in the times of his splendour he had never stayed
more than one or two days. It was seldom that Monseigneur visited Meudon
without Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne going to see him. And yet M. de
Vendome never failed audaciously to present himself before her, as if to
make her feel that at all events in Monseigneur's house he was a match
for her. Guided by former experience, the Princess gently suffered this
in silence, and watched her opportunity. It soon came.
Two months afterwards it happened that, while Monseigneur was at Meudon,
the King, Madame de Maintenon; and Madame de Bourgogne, came to dine with
him. Madame de Maintenon wished to talk with Mademoiselle Choin without
sending for her to Versailles, and the King, as may be believed, was in
the secret. I mention this to account for the King's visit.
M. de Vendome, who was at Meudon as usual, was stupid enough to present
himself at the coach door as the King and his companions descended.
Madame de Bourgogne was much offended, constrained herself less than
usual, and turned away her head with affectation, after a sort of sham
salute. He felt the sting, but had the folly to approach her again after
dinner, while she was playing. He experienced the same treatment, but
this time in a still more marked manner. Stung to the quick and out of
countenance, he went up to his chamber, and did not descend until very
late. During this time Madame de Bourgogne spoke to Monseigneur of the
conduct of M. de Vendorne, and the same evening she addressed herself to
Madame de Maintenon, and openly complained to the King. She represented
to him how hard it was to her to be treated by Monseigneur with less
respect than by the King: for while the latter had banished M. de Vendome
from Marly, the former continued to grant him an asylum at Meudon.
M. de Vendome, on his side, complained bitterly to Monseigneur of the
strange persecution that he suffered everywhere from Madame de Bourgogne;
but Monseigneur replied to him so coldly that he withdrew with tears in
his eyes, determined, however, not to give up until he had obtained some
sort of satisfaction. He set his friends to work to speak to
Monseigneur; all they could draw from him was, that M. de Vendome must
avoid Madame de Bourgogne whenever she came to Meudon, and that it was
the smallest respect he owed her until she was reconciled to him. A
reply so dry and so precise was cruelly felt; but M. de Vendome was not
at the end of the chastisement he had more than merited. The next day
put an end to all discussion upon the matter.
He was card-playing after dinner in a private cabinet, when D'Antin
arrived from Versailles. He approached the players, and asked what was
the position of the game, with an eagerness which made M. de Vendome
inquire the reason. D'Antin said he had to render an account to him of
the matter he had entrusted him with.
"I!" exclaimed Vendome, with surprise, "I have entrusted you with
nothing."
"Pardon me," replied D'Antin; "you do not recollect, then, that I have an
answer to make to you?"
From this perseverance M. de Vendome comprehended that something was
amiss, quitted his game, and went into an obscure wardrobe with D'Antin,
who told him that he had been ordered by the King to beg Monseigneur not
to invite M. de Vendome to Meudon any more; that his presence there was
as unpleasant to Madame de Bourgogne as it had been at Marly. Upon this,
Vendome, transported with fury, vomited forth all that his rage inspired
him with. He spoke to Monseigneur in the evening, but was listened to as
coldly as before. Vendome passed the rest of his visit in a rage and
embarrassment easy to conceive, and on the day Monseigneur returned to
Versailles he hurried straight to Anet.
But he was unable to remain quiet anywhere; so went off with his dogs,
under pretence of going a hunting, to pass a month in his estate of La
Ferme-Aleps, where he had no proper lodging and no society, and gave
there free vent to his rage. Thence he returned again to Anet, where he
remained abandoned by every one. Into this solitude, into this startling
and public seclusion, incapable of sustaining a fall so complete, after a
long habit of attaining everything, and doing everything he pleased, of
being the idol of the world, of the Court, of the armies, of making his
very vices adored, and his greatest faults admired, his defects
commended, so that he dared to conceive the prodigious design of ruining
and destroying the necessary heir of the Crown, though he had never
received anything but evidences of tenderness from him, and triumphed
over him for eight months with the most scandalous success; it was, I
say, thus that this Colossus was overthrown by the breath of a prudent
and courageous princess, who earned by this act merited applause. All
who were concerned with her, were charmed to see of what she was capable;
and all who were opposed to her and her husband trembled. The cabal, so
formidable, so lofty, so accredited, so closely united to overthrow them,
and reign, after the King, under Monseigneur in their place--these
chiefs, male and female, so enterprising and audacious, fell now into
mortal discouragement and fear. It was a pleasure to see them work their
way back with art and extreme humility, and turn round those of the
opposite party who remained influential, and whom they had hitherto
despised; and especially to see with what embarrassment, what fear, what
terror, they began to crawl before the young Princess, and wretchedly
court the Duc de Bourgogne and his friends, and bend to them in the most
extraordinary manner.
As for M. de Vendome, without any resource, save what he found in his
vices and his valets, he did not refrain from bragging among them of the
friendship of Monseigneur for him, of which he said he was well assured.
Violence had been done to Monseigneur's feelings. He was reduced to this
misery of hoping that his words would be spread about by these valets,
and would procure him some consideration from those who thought of the
future. But the present was insupportable to him. To escape from it, he
thought of serving in Spain, and wrote to Madame des Ursins asking
employment. The King was annoyed at this step, and flatly refused to let
him go to Spain. His intrigue, therefore, came to an end at once.
Nobody gained more by the fall of M. de Vendome than Madame de Maintenon.
Besides the joy she felt in overthrowing a man who, through M. du Maine,
owed everything to her, and yet dared to resist her so long and
successfully, she felt, also, that her credit became still more the
terror of the Court; for no one doubted that what had occurred was a
great example of her power. We shall presently see how she furnished
another, which startled no less.
CHAPTER XLVI.
It is time now to retrace my steps to the point from which I have been
led away in relating all the incidents which arose out of the terrible
winter and the scarcity it caused.
The Court at that time beheld the renewal of a ministry; which from the
time it had lasted was worn down to its very roots, and which was on
that account only the more agreeable to the King. On the 20th of
January, the Pere La Chaise, the confessor of the King, died at a very
advanced age. He was of good family, and his father would have been rich
had he not had a dozen children. Pere La Chaise succeeded in 1675 to
Pere Ferrier as confessor of the King, and occupied that post thirty-two
years. The festival of Easter often caused him politic absences during
the attachment of the King for Madame de Montespan. On one occasion he
sent in his place the Pere Deschamps, who bravely refused absolution.
The Pere La Chaise was of mediocre mind but of good character, just,
upright, sensible, prudent, gentle, and moderate, an enemy of informers,
and of violence of every kind. He kept clear of many scandalous
transactions, befriended the Archbishop of Cambrai as much as he could,
refused to push the Port Royal des Champs to its destruction, and always
had on his table a copy of the New Testament of Pere Quesnel, saying that
he liked what was good wherever he found it. When near his eightieth
year, with his head and his health still good, he wished to retire, but
the King would not hear of it. Soon after, his faculties became worn
out, and feeling this, he repeated his wish. The Jesuits, who perceived
his failing more than he did himself, and felt the diminution of his
credit, exhorted him to make way for another who should have the grace
and zeal of novelty. For his part he sincerely desired repose, and he
pressed the King to allow him to take it, but all in vain. He was
obliged to bear his burthen to the very end. Even the infirmities and
the decrepitude that afflicted could not deliver him. Decaying legs,
memory extinguished, judgment collapsed, all his faculties confused,
strange inconveniences for a confessor--nothing could disgust the King,
and he persisted in having this corpse brought to him and carrying on
customary business with it. At last, two days after a return from
Versailles, he grew much weaker, received the sacrament, wrote with his
own hand a long letter to the King, received a very rapid and hurried one
in reply, and soon after died at five o'clock in the morning very
peaceably. His confessor asked him two things, whether he had acted
according to his conscience, and whether he had thought of the interests
and honour of the company of Jesuits; and to both these questions he
answered satisfactorily.
The news was brought to the King as he came out of his cabinet. He
received it like a Prince accustomed to losses, praised the Pere La
Chaise for his goodness, and then said smilingly, before all the
courtiers, and quite aloud, to the two fathers who had come to announce
the death: "He was so good that I sometimes reproached him for it, and he
used to reply to me: 'It is not I who am good; it is you who are hard.'"
Truly the fathers and all the auditors were so surprised at this that
they lowered their eyes. The remark spread directly; nobody was able to
blame the Pere La Chaise. He was generally regretted, for he had done
much good and never harm except in self-defence. Marechal, first surgeon
of the King, and possessed of his confidence, related once to me and
Madame de Saint-Simon, a very important anecdote referring to this time.
He said that the King, talking to him privately of the Pere La Chaise,
and praising him for his attachment, related one of the great proofs he
had given of it. A few years before his death the Pere said that he felt
getting old, and that the King might soon have to choose a new confessor;
he begged that that confessor might be chosen from among the Jesuits,
that he knew them well, that they were far from deserving all that had
been said against them, but still--he knew them well--and that attachment
for the King and desire for his safety induced him to conjure him to act
as he requested; because the company contained many sorts of minds and
characters which could not be answered for, and must not be reduced to
despair, and that the King must not incur a risk--that in fact an unlucky
blow is soon given, and had been given before then. Marechal turned pale
at this recital of the King, and concealed as well as he could the
disorder it caused in him. We must remember that Henry IV. recalled the
Jesuits, and loaded them with gifts merely from fear of them. The King
was not superior to Henry IV. He took care not to forget the
communication of the Pere La Chaise, or expose himself to the vengeance
of the company by choosing a confessor out of their limits. He wanted to
live, and to live in safety. He requested the Ducs de Chevreuse and de
Beauvilliers to make secret inquiries for a proper person. They fell
into a trap made, were dupes themselves, and the Church and State the
victims.
The Pere Tellier, in fact, was chosen as successor of Pere La Chaise, and
a terrible successor he made. Harsh, exact, laborious, enemy of all
dissipation, of all amusement, of all society, incapable of associating
even with his colleagues, he demanded no leniency for himself and
accorded none to others. His brain and his health were of iron; his
conduct was so also; his nature was savage and cruel. He was profoundly
false, deceitful, hidden under a thousand folds; and when he could show
himself and make himself feared, he yielded nothing, laughed at the most
express promises when he no longer cared to keep to them, and pursued
with fury those who had trusted to them. He was the terror even of the
Jesuits, and was so violent to them that they scarcely dared approach
him. His exterior kept faith with his interior. He would have been
terrible to meet in a dark lane. His physiognomy was cloudy, false,
terrible; his eyes were burning, evil, extremely squinting; his aspect
struck all with dismay. The whole aim of his life was to advance the
interests of his Society; that was his god; his life had been absorbed in
that study: surprisingly ignorant, insolent, impudent, impetuous, without
measure and without discretion, all means were good that furthered his
designs.
The first time Pere Tellier saw the King in his cabinet, after having
been presented to him, there was nobody but Bloin and Fagon in a corner.
Fagon, bent double and leaning on his stick, watched the interview and
studied the physiognomy of this new personage his duckings, and
scrapings, and his words. The King asked him if he were a relation of
MM. le Tellier. The good father humbled himself in the dust. "I, Sire!"
answered he, "a relative of MM. le Tellier! I am very different from
that. I am a poor peasant of Lower Normandy, where my father was a
farmer." Fagon, who watched him in every movement, twisted himself up to
look at Bloin, and said, pointing to the Jesuit: "Monsieur, what a cursed
--------!" Then shrugging his shoulders, he curved over his stick again.
It turned out that he was not mistaken in his strange judgment of a
confessor. This Tellier made all the grimaces, not to say the
hypocritical monkey-tricks of a man who was afraid of his place, and only
took it out of, deference to his company.
I have dwelt thus upon this new confessor, because from him have come the
incredible tempests under, which the Church, the State, knowledge, and
doctrine, and many good people of all kinds, are still groaning; and,
because I had a more intimate acquaintance with this terrible personage
than had any man at the Court. He introduced himself to me in fact, to
my surprise; and although I did all in my power to shun his acquaintance,
I could not succeed. He was too dangerous a man to be treated with
anything but great prudence.
During the autumn of this year, he gave a sample of his quality in the
part he took in the destruction of the celebrated monastery of Port Royal
des Champs. I need not dwell at any great length upon the origin and
progress of the two religious parties, the Jansenists and the Molinists;
enough has been written on both sides to form a whole library. It is
enough for me to say that the Molinists were so called because they
adopted the views expounded by, the Pere Molina in a book he wrote
against the doctrines of St. Augustine and of the Church of Rome, upon
the subject of spiritual grace. The Pere Molina was a Jesuit, and it was
by the Jesuits his book was brought forward and supported. Finding,
however, that the views it expounded met with general opposition, not
only throughout France, but at Rome, they had recourse to their usual
artifices on feeling themselves embarrassed, turned themselves into
accusers instead of defendants, and invented a heresy that had neither
author nor follower, which they attributed to Cornelius Jansenius, Bishop
of Ypres. Many and long were the discussions at Rome upon this ideal
heresy, invented by the Jesuits solely for the purpose of weakening the
adversaries of Molina. To oppose his doctrines was to be a Jansenist.
That in substance was what was meant by Jansenism.
At the monastery of Port Royal des Champs, a number of holy and learned
personages lived in retirement. Some wrote, some gathered youths around
them, and instructed them in science and piety. The finest moral works,
works which have thrown the most light upon the science and practice, of
religion, and have been found so by everybody, issued from their hands.
These men entered into the quarrel against Molinism. This was enough to
excite against them the hatred of the Jesuits and to determine that body
to attempt their destruction.
They were accused of Jansenism, and defended themselves perfectly; but at
the same time they carried the war into the enemy's camp, especially by
the ingenious "Provincial Letters" of the famous Pascal.
The quarrel grew more hot between the Jesuits and Port Royal, and was
telling against the former, when the Pere Tellier brought all his
influence to bear, to change the current of success. He was, as I have
said, an ardent man, whose divinity was his Molinism, and the company to
which he belonged. Confessor to the King, he saw himself in a good
position to exercise unlimited authority. He saw that the King was very
ignorant, and prejudiced upon all religious matters; that he was
surrounded by people as ignorant and as prejudiced as himself, Madame de
Maintenon, M. de Beauvilliers, M. de Chevreuse, and others, and he
determined to take good advantage of this state of things.
Step by step he gained over the King to his views, and convinced him that
the destruction of the monastery of Port Royal des Champs was a duty
which he owed to his conscience, and the cause of religion. This point
gained, the means to destroy the establishment were soon resolved on.
There was another monastery called Port Royal, at Paws, in addition to
the one in question. It was now pretended that the latter had only been
allowed to exist by tolerance, and that it was necessary one should cease
to exist. Of the two, it was alleged that it was better to preserve the
one, at Paris. A decree in council was, therefore, rendered, in virtue
of which, on the night from the 28th to the 29th of October, the abbey of
Port Royal des Champs was secretly invested by troops, and, on the next
morning, the officer in command made all the inmates assemble, showed
them a 'lettre de cachet', and, without giving them more than a quarter
of an hour's warning, carried off everybody and everything. He had
brought with him many coaches, with an elderly woman in each; he put the
nuns in these coaches, and sent them away to their destinations, which
were different monasteries, at ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and even fifty
leagues distant, each coach accompanied by mounted archers, just as
public women are carried away from a house of ill-fame! I pass in
silence all the accompaniments of this scene, so touching and so
strangely new. There have been entire volumes written upon it.
The treatment that these nuns received in their various prisons, in order
to force them to sign a condemnation of themselves, is the matter of
other volumes, which, in spite of the vigilance of the oppressors, were
soon in everybody's hands; public indignation so burst out, that the
Court and the Jesuits even were embarrassed with it. But the Pere
Tellier was not a man to stop half-way anywhere. He finished this matter
directly; decree followed decree, 'Lettres de cachet' followed 'lettres
de cachet'. The families who had relatives buried in the cemetery of
Port Royal des Champs were ordered to exhume and carry them elsewhere.
All the others were thrown into the cemetery of an adjoining parish, with
the indecency that may: be imagined. Afterwards, the house, the church,
and all the buildings were razed to the ground, so that not one stone was
left upon another. All the materials were sold, the ground was ploughed
up, and sown--not with salt, it is true, but that was all the favour it
received! The scandal at this reached even to Rome. I have restricted
myself to this simple and short recital of an expedition so military and
so odious.
VOLUME 7.
CHAPTER XLVII
The death of D'Avaux, who had formerly been our ambassador in Holland,
occurred in the early part of this year (1709). D'Avaux was one of the
first to hear of the project of William of Orange upon England, when that
project was still only in embryo, and kept profoundly secret. He
apprised the King (Louis XIV.) of it, but was laughed at. Barillon, then
our ambassador in England, was listened to in preference. He, deceived
by Sunderland and the other perfidious ministers of James II.; assured
our Court that D'Avaux's reports were mere chimeras. It was not until it
was impossible any longer to doubt that credit was given to them. The
steps that we then took, instead of disconcerting all the measures of the
conspirators, as we could have done, did not interfere with the working
out of any one of their plans. All liberty was left, in fact, to William
to carry out his scheme. The anecdote which explains how this happened
is so curious, that it deserves to be mentioned here.
Louvois, who was then Minister of War, was also superintendent of the
buildings. The King, who liked building, and who had cast off all his
mistresses, had pulled down the little porcelain Trianon he had made for
Madame de Montespan, and was rebuilding it in the form it still retains.
One day he perceived, for his glance was most searching, that one window
was a trifle narrower than the others. He showed it to Louvois, in order
that it might be altered, which, as it was not then finished, was easy to
do. Louvois sustained that the window was all right. The King insisted
then, and on the morrow also, but Louvois, pigheaded and inflated with
his authority, would not yield.
The next day the King saw Le Notre in the gallery. Although his trade
was gardens rather than houses, the King did not fail to consult him upon
the latter. He asked him if he had been to Trianon. Le Notre replied
that he had not. The King ordered him to go. On the morrow he saw Le
Notre again; same question, same answer. The King comprehended the
reason of this, and a little annoyed, commanded him to be there that
afternoon at a given time. Le Notre did not dare to disobey this time.
The King arrived, and Louvois being present, they returned to the subject
of the window, which Louvois obstinately said was as broad as the rest.
The King wished Le Notre to measure it, for he knew that, upright and
true, he would openly say what he found. Louvois, piqued, grew angry.
The King, who was not less so, allowed him to say his say. Le Notre,
meanwhile, did not stir. At last, the King made him go, Louvois still
grumbling, and maintaining his assertion with audacity and little
measure. Le Notre measured the window, and said that the King was right
by several inches. Louvois still wished to argue, but the King silenced
him, and commanded him to see that the window was altered at once,
contrary to custom abusing him most harshly.
What annoyed Louvois most was, that this scene passed not only before all
the officers of the buildings, but in presence of all who followed the
King in his promenades, nobles, courtiers, officers of the guard, and
others, even all the rolete. The dressing given to Louvois was smart and
long, mixed with reflections upon the fault of this window, which, not
noticed so soon, might have spoiled all the facade, and compelled it to
be re-built.
Louvois, who was not accustomed to be thus treated, returned home in
fury, and like a man in despair. His familiars were frightened, and in
their disquietude angled to learn what had happened. At last he told
them, said he was lost, and that for a few inches the King forgot all his
services, which had led to so many conquests; he declared that henceforth
he would leave the trowel to the King, bring about a war, and so arrange
matters that the King should have good need of him!
He soon kept his word. He caused a war to grow out of the affair of the
double election of Cologne, of the Prince of Bavaria, and of the Cardinal
of Furstenberg; he confirmed it in carrying the flames into the
Palatinate, and in leaving, as I have said, all liberty to the project
upon England; he put the finishing touch to his work by forcing the Duke
of Savoy into the arms of his enemies, and making him become, by the
position of his country, our enemy, the most difficult and the most
ruinous. All that I have here related was clearly brought to light in
due time.
Boisseuil died shortly after D'Avaux. He was a tall, big man, warm and
violent, a great gambler, bad tempered,--who often treated M. le Grand
and Madame d'Armagnac, great people as they were, so that the company
were ashamed,--and who swore in the saloon of Marly as if he had been in
a tap-room. He was feared; and he said to women whatever came uppermost
when the fury of a cut-throat seized him. During a journey the King and
Court made to Nancy, Boisseuil one evening sat down to play in the house
of one of the courtiers. A player happened to be there who played very
high. Boisseuil lost a good deal, and was very angry. He thought he
perceived that this gentleman, who was only permitted on account of his
play, was cheating, and made such good use of his eyes that he soon found
this was the case, and all on a sudden stretched across the table and
seized the gambler's hand, which he held upon the table, with the cards
he was going to deal. The gentleman, very much astonished, wished to
withdraw his hand, and was angry. Boisseuil, stronger than he, said that
he was a rogue, and that the company should see it, and immediately
shaking his hand with fury put in evidence his deceit. The player,
confounded, rose and went away. The game went on, and lasted long into
the night. When finished, Boisseuil went away. As he was leaving the
door he found a man stuck against the wall--it was the player--who called
him to account for the insult he had received. Boisseuil replied that he
should give him no satisfaction, and that he was a rogue.
"That may be," said the player, "but I don't like to be told so."
They went away directly and fought. Boisseuil received two wounds, from
one of which he was like to die. The other escaped without injury.
I have said, that after the affair of M. de Cambrai, Madame de Maintenon
had taken a rooted dislike to M. de Beauvilliers. She had become
reconciled to him in appearance during the time that Monseigneur de
Bourgogne was a victim to the calumnies of M. de Vendome, because she had
need of him. Now that Monseigneur de Bourgogne was brought back to
favour, and M. de Vendome was disgraced, her antipathy for M, de
Beauvilliers burst out anew, and she set her wits to work to get rid of
him from the Council of State, of which he was a member. The witch
wished to introduce her favourite Harcourt there in his place, and worked
so well to bring about this result that the King promised he should be
received.
His word given, or rather snatched from him, the King was embarrassed as
to how, to keep it, for he did not wish openly to proclaim Harcourt
minister. It was agreed, therefore, that at the next Council Harcourt
should be present, as though by accident, in the King's ante-chamber;
that, Spanish matters being brought up, the King should propose to
consult Harcourt, and immediately after should direct search to be made
far him, to see if, by chance, he was close at hand; that upon finding
him, he should be conducted to the Council, made to enter and seat
himself, and ever afterwards be regarded as a Minister of State.
This arrangement was kept extremely secret, according to the express
commands of the King: I knew it, however, just before it was to be
executed, and I saw at once that the day of Harcourt's entry into the
Council would be the day of M. de Beauvilliers' disgrace. I sent,
therefore, at once for M. de Beauvilliers, begging him to come to my
house immediately, and that I would then tell him why I could not come to
him. Without great precaution everything becomes known at Court.
In less than half an hour M. de Beauvilliers arrived, tolerably disturbed
at my message. I asked him if he knew anything, and I turned him about,
less to pump him than to make him ashamed of his ignorance, and to
persuade him the better afterwards to do what I wished. When I had well
trotted out his ignorance, I apprised him of what I had just learnt. He
was astounded; he so little expected it! I had not much trouble to
persuade him that, although his expulsion might not yet be determined on,
the intrusion of Harcourt must pave the way for it. He admitted to me
that for some days he had found, the King cold and embarrassed with him,
but that he had paid little attention to the circumstance, the reason of
which was now clear. There was no time to lose. In twenty-four hours
all would be over. I therefore took the liberty in the first instance of
scolding him for his profound ignorance of what passed at the Court, and
was bold enough to say to him that he had only to thank himself for the
situation he found himself in. He let me say to the end without growing
angry, then smiled, and said, "Well! what do you think I ought to do?"
That was just what I wanted. I replied that there was only one course
open to him, and that was to have an interview with the King early the
next morning; to say to him, that he had been informed Harcourt was about
to enter the Council; that he thought the affairs of State would suffer
rather than otherwise if Harcourt did so; and finally, to allude to the
change that had taken place in the King's manner towards him lately, and
to say, with all respect, affection, and submission, that he was equally
ready to continue serving the King or to give up his appointments, as his
Majesty might desire.
M. de Beauvilliers took pleasure in listening to me. He embraced me
closely, and promised to follow the course I had marked out.
The next morning I went straight to him, and learned that he had
perfectly succeeded. He had spoken exactly as I had suggested. The King
appeared astonished and piqued that the secret of Harcourt's entry into
the Council was discovered. He would not hear a word as to resignation
of office on the part of M. de Beauvilliers, and appeared more satisfied
with him than ever. Whether, without this interview, he would have been
lost, I know not, but by the coldness and embarrassment of the King
before that interview, and during the first part of it, I am nearly
persuaded that he would. M. de Beauvilliers embraced me again very
tenderly--more than once.
As for Harcourt, sure of his good fortune, and scarcely able to contain
his joy, he arrived at the meeting place. Time ran on. During the
Council there are only the most subaltern people in the antechambers and
a few courtiers who pass that way to go from one wing to another. Each
of these subalterns eagerly asked M. d'Harcourt what he wanted, if he
wished for anything, and importuned him strongly. He was obliged to
remain there, although he had no pretext. He went and came, limping with
his stick, not knowing what to reply to the passers-by, or the attendants
by whom he was remarked. At last, after waiting long, he returned as he
came, much disturbed at not having been called. He sent word so to
Madame de Maintenon, who, in her turn, was as much disturbed, the King
not having said a word to her, and she not having dared to say a word to
him. She consoled Harcourt, hoping that at the next Council he would be
called. At her wish he waited again, as before, during another Council,
but with as little success. He was very much annoyed, comprehending that
the affair had fallen through.
Madame de Maintenon did not, however, like to be defeated in this way.
After waiting some time she spoke to the King, reminding him what he had
promised to do. The King replied in confusion that he had thought better
of it; that Harcourt was on bad terms with all the Ministers, and might,
if admitted to the Council, cause them much embarrassment; he preferred,
therefore, things to remain as they were. This was said in a manner that
admitted of no reply.
Madame de Maintenon felt herself beaten; Harcourt was in despair. M. de
Beauvilliers was quite reestablished in the favour of the King. I
pretended to have known nothing of this affair, and innocent asked many
questions about it when all was over. I was happy to the last degree
that everything had turned out so well.
M. le Prince, who for more than two years had not appeared at the Court,
died at Paris a little after midnight on the night between Easter Sunday
and Monday, the last of March and first of April, and in his seventy-
sixth year. No man had ever more ability of all kinds, extending even to
the arts and mechanics more valour, and, when it pleased him, more
discernment, grace, politeness, and nobility. But then no man had ever
before so many useless talents, so much genius of no avail, or an
imagination so calculated to be a bugbear to itself and a plague to
others. Abjectly and vilely servile even to lackeys, he scrupled not to
use the lowest and paltriest means to gain his ends. Unnatural son,
cruel father, terrible husband, detestable master, pernicious neighbour;
without friendship, without friends--incapable of having any jealous,
suspicious, ever restless, full of slyness and artifices to discover and
to scrutinise all, (in which he was unceasingly occupied, aided by an
extreme vivacity and a surprising penetration,) choleric and headstrong
to excess even for trifles, difficult of access, never in accord with
himself, and keeping all around him in a tremble; to conclude,
impetuosity and avarice were his masters, which monopolised him always.
With all this he was a man difficult to be proof against when he put in
play the pleasing qualities he possessed.
Madame la Princesse, his wife, was his continual victim. She was
disgustingly ugly, virtuous, and foolish, a little humpbacked, and stunk
like a skunk, even from a distance. All these things did not hinder M.
le Prince from being jealous of her even to fury up to the very last.
The piety, the indefatigable attention of Madame la Princesse, her
sweetness, her novice-like submission, could not guarantee her from
frequent injuries, or from kicks, and blows with the fist, which were not
rare. She was not mistress even of the most trifling things; she did not
dare to propose or ask anything. He made her set out from one place to
another the moment the fancy took him. Often when seated in their coach
he made her descend, or return from the end of the street, then
recommence the journey after dinner, or the next day. This see-sawing
lasted once fifteen days running, before a trip to Fontainebleau. At
other times he sent for her from church, made her quit high mass, and
sometimes sent for her the moment she was going to receive the sacrament;
she was obliged to return at once and put off her communion to another
occasion. It was not that he wanted her, but it was merely to gratify
his whim that he thus troubled her.
He was always of, uncertain habits, and had four dinners ready for him
every day; one at Paris, one at Ecouen, one at Chantilly, and one where
the Court was. But the expense of this arrangement was not great; he
dined on soup, and the half of a fowl roasted upon a crust of bread; the
other half serving for the next day. He rarely invited anybody to
dinner, but when he did, no man could be more polite or attentive to his
guests.
Formerly he had been in love with several ladies of the Court; then,
nothing cost too much. He was grace, magnificence, gallantry in person--
a Jupiter transformed into a shower of gold. Now he disguised himself as
a lackey, another time as a female broker in articles for the toilette;
and now in another fashion. He was the most ingenious man in the world.
He once gave a grand fete solely for the purpose of retarding the journey
into Italy of a lady with whom he was enamoured, with whom he was on good
terms, and whose husband he amused by making verses. He hired all the
houses on one side of a street near Saint Sulpice, furnished them, and
pierced the connecting walls, in order to be able thus to reach the place
of rendezvous without being suspected.
Jealous and cruel to his mistresses, he had, amongst others, the Marquise
de Richelieu; whom I name, because she is not worth the trouble of being
silent upon. He was hopelessly smitten and spent millions upon her and
to learn her movements. He knew that the Comte de Roucy shared her
favours (it was for her that sagacious Count proposed to put straw before
the house in order to guarantee her against the sound of the church
bells, of which she complained). M. le Prince reproached her for
favouring the Count. She defended herself; but he watched her so
closely, that he brought home the offence to her without her being able
to deny it. The fear of losing a lover so rich as was M. le Prince
furnished her on the spot with an excellent suggestion for putting him at
ease. She proposed to make an appointment at her own house with the
Comte de Roucy, M. le Prince's people to lie in wait, and when the Count
appeared, to make away with him. Instead of the success she expected
from a proposition so humane and ingenious, M. le Prince was so horror-
struck, that he warned the Comte de Roucy, and never saw the Marquise de
Richelieu again all his life.
The most surprising thing was, that with so much ability, penetration,
activity, and valour, as had M. le Prince, with the desire to be as great
a warrior as the Great Conde, his father, he could never succeed in
understanding even the first elements of the military art. Instructed as
he was by his father, he never acquired the least aptitude in war. It
was a profession was not born for, and for which he could not qualify
himself by study. During the last fifteen or twenty years of his life,
he was accused of something more than fierceness and ferocity.
Wanderings were noticed in his conduct, which were not exhibited in his
own house alone. Entering one morning into the apartment of the
Marechale de Noailles (she herself has related this to me) as her bed was
being made, and there being only the counterpane to put on, he stopped
short at the door, crying with transport, "Oh, the nice bed, the nice
bed!" took a spring, leaped upon the bed, rolled himself upon it seven
or eight times, then descended and made his excuses to the Marechale,
saying that her bed was so clean and so well-made, that he could not
hinder himself from jumping upon it; and this, although there had never
been anything between them; and when the Marechale, who all her life had
been above suspicion, was at an age at which she could not give birth to
any. Her servants remained stupefied, and she as much as they. She got
out of the difficulty by laughing and treating it as a joke. It was
whispered that there were times when M. le Prince believed himself a dog,
or some other beast, whose manners he imitated; and I have known people
very worthy of faith who have assured me they have seen him at the going
to bed of the King suddenly throw his head into the air several times
running, and open his mouth quite wide, like a dog while barking, yet
without making a noise. It is certain, that for a long time nobody saw
him except a single valet, who had control over him, and who did not
annoy him.
In the latter part of his life he attended in a ridiculously minute
manner to his diet and its results, and entered into discussions which
drove his doctors to despair. Fever and gout at last attacked him, and
he augmented them by the course he pursued. Finot, our physician and
his, at times knew not what to do with him. What embarrassed Finot most,
as he related to us more than once, was that M. le Prince would eat
nothing, for the simple reason, as he alleged, that he was dead, and that
dead men did not eat! It was necessary, however, that he should take
something, or he would have really died. Finot, and another doctor who
attended him, determined to agree with him that he was dead, but to
maintain that dead men sometimes eat. They offered to produce dead men
of this kind; and, in point of fact, led to M. le Prince some persons
unknown to him, who pretended to be dead, but who ate nevertheless. This
trick succeeded, but he would never eat except with these men and Finot.
On that condition he ate well, and this jealousy lasted a long time, and
drove Finot to despair by its duration; who, nevertheless, sometimes
nearly died of laughter in relating to us what passed at these repasts,
and the conversation from the other world heard there.
M. le Prince's malady augmenting, Madame la Princesse grew bold enough to
ask him if he did not wish to think of his conscience, and to see a
confessor. He amused himself tolerably long in refusing to do so. Some
months before he had seen in secret Pere de la Tour. He had sent to the
reverend father asking him to, come by night and disguised. Pere de la
Tour, surprised to the last degree at so wild a proposition, replied that
the respect he owed to the cloth would prevent him visiting M. le Prince
in disguise; but that he would come in his ordinary attire. M. le Prince
agreed to this last imposed condition. He made the Pere de la Tour enter
at night by a little back door, at which an attendant was in waiting to
receive him. He was led by this attendant, who had a lantern in one hand
and a key in the other, through many long and obscure passages; and
through many doors, which were opened and closed upon him as he passed.
Having arrived at last at the sick-chamber, he confessed M. le Prince,
and was conducted out of the house in the same manner and by the same way
as before. These visits were repeated during several months.
The Prince's malady rapidly increased and became extreme. The doctors
found him so ill on the night of Easter Sunday that they proposed to him
the sacrament for the next day. He disputed with them, and said that if
he was so very bad it would be better to take the sacraments at once, and
have done with them. They in their turn opposed this, saying there was
no need of so much hurry. At last, for fear of incensing him, they
consented, and he received all hurriedly the last sacraments. A little
while after he called M. le Duc to him, and spoke of the honours he
wished at his funeral, mentioning those which had been omitted at the
funeral of his father, but which he did not wish to be omitted from his.
He talked of nothing but this and of the sums he had spent at Chantilly,
until his reason began to wander.
Not a soul regretted him; neither servants, nor friends, neither child
nor wife. Indeed the Princess was so ashamed of her tears that she made
excuses for them. This was scarcely to be wondered at.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
It is time now that I should speak of our military operations this year
and of the progress of the war. Let me commence by stating the
disposition of our armies at the beginning of the campaign.
Marechal Boufflers, having become dangerously ill, was unable to take
command in Flanders. Marechal de Villars was accordingly appointed in
his stead under Monseigneur, and with him served the King of England,
under his incognito of the previous year, and M. le Duc de Berry, as
volunteers. The Marechal d'Harcourt was appointed to command upon the
Rhine under Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne. M. d'Orleans commanded in
Spain; Marechal Berwick in Dauphiny; and the Duc de Noailles in
Roussillon, as usual. The generals went to their destinations, but the
Princes remained at the Court.
Before I relate what we did in war, let me here state the strange
opposition of our ministers in their attempts to bring about peace.
Since Villars had introduced Chamillart to Court, he had heard it said
that M. de Louvois did everybody's business as much as he could; and took
it into his head that having succeeded to M. de Louvois he ought to act
exactly like him. For some time past, accordingly, Chamillart, with the
knowledge of the King, had sent people to Holland and elsewhere to
negotiate for peace, although he had no right to do so, Torcy being the
minister to whose department this business belonged. Torcy likewise sent
people to Holland and elsewhere with a similar object, and these
ambassadors of the two ministers, instead of working in common, did all
in their power thwart each other. They succeeded so well that it was
said they seemed in foreign countries ministers of different powers,
whose interests were quite opposed. This manner of conducting business
gave a most injurious idea of our government, and tended very much to
bring it into ridicule. Those who sincerely wished to treat with us,
found themselves so embarrassed between the rival factions, that they did
not know what to do; and others made our disagreements a plausible
pretext for not listening to our propositions.
At last Torcy was so annoyed with the interference of Chamillart, that he
called the latter to account for it, and made him sign an agreement by
which he bound himself to enter into no negotiations for peace and to mix
himself in no foreign affairs; and so this absurdity came to an end.
In Italy, early this year, we received a check of no small importance. I
have mentioned that we were invited to join in an Italian league, having
for its object to oppose the Emperor. We joined this league, but not
before its existence had been noised abroad, and put the allies on their
guard as to the danger they ran of losing Italy. Therefore the
Imperialists entered the Papal States, laid them under contribution,
ravaged them, lived there in true Tartar style, and snapped their fingers
at the Pope, who cried aloud as he could obtain no redress and no
assistance. Pushed at last to extremity by the military occupation which
desolated his States, he yielded to all the rashes of the Emperor, and
recognised the Archduke as King of Spain. Philip V. immediately ceased
all intercourse with Rome, and dismissed the nuncio from Madrid. The
Imperialists, even after the Pope had ceded to their wishes, treated him
with the utmost disdain, and continued to ravage, his territories. The
Imperialist minister at Rome actually gave a comedy and a ball in his
palace there, contrary to the express orders of the Pope, who had
forbidden all kinds of amusement in this period of calamity. When
remonstrated with by the Pope, this minister said that he had promised a
fete to the ladies, and could not break his word, The strangest thing is,
that after this public instance of contempt the nephews of the Pope went
to the fete, and the Pope had the weakness to suffer it.
In Spain, everything went wrong, and people began to think it would be
best to give up that country to the house of Austria, under the hope that
by this means the war would be terminated. It was therefore seriously
resolved to recall all our troops from Spain, and to give orders to
Madame des Ursins to quit the country. Instructions were accordingly
sent to this effect. The King and Queen of Spain, in the greatest alarm
at such a violent determination, cried aloud against it, and begged that
the execution of it might at least be suspended for a while.
At this, our King paused and called a Council to discuss the subject.
It was ultimately agreed to leave sixty-six battalions of our troops to
the King of Spain, but to withdraw all the rest. This compromise
satisfied nobody. Those who wished to support Spain said this assistance
was not enough. The other party said it was too much.
This determination being arrived at, it seemed as though the only thing
to be done was to send M. d'Orleans to Spain to take command there. But
now will be seen the effect of that mischievous pleasantry of his upon
Madame de Maintenon and Madame des Ursins, the "she-captain," and the
"she-lieutenant"--as he called them, in the gross language to which I
have before alluded. Those two ladies had not forgiven him his
witticism, and had determined to accomplish his disgrace. His own
thoughtless conduct assisted them it bringing about this result.
The King one day asked him if he had much desire to return into Spain.
He replied in a manner evidencing his willingness to serve, marking no
eagerness. He did not notice that there might be a secret meaning,
hidden under this question. When he related to me what had passed
between him and the King, I blamed the feebleness of his reply, and
represented to him the ill effect it would create if at such a time he
evinced any desire to keep out of the campaign. He appeared convinced by
my arguments, and to wish with more eagerness than before to return to
Spain.
A few days after, the King asked him, on what terms he believed himself
with the Princesse des Ursins; and when M. d'Orleans replied that he
believed himself to be on good terms with her, as he had done all in his
power to be so, the King said that he feared it was not thus, since she
had asked that he should not be again sent to Spain, saying that he had
leagued himself with all her enemies there, and that a secretary of his,
named Renaut, whom he had left behind him, kept up such strict and secret
intercourse with those enemies, that she was obliged to demand his recall
lest he might do wrong to the name of his master.
Upon this, M. d'Orleans replied that he was infinitely surprised at these
complaints of Madame des Ursins, since he had done nothing to deserve
them. The King, after reflecting for a moment, said he thought, all
things considered, that M. d'Orleans had better not return to Spain.
In a few days it was publicly known that he would not go. The withdrawal
of so many of our troops from Spain was the reason alleged. At the same
time the King gave orders to M. d'Orleans to send for his equipages from
Spain, and added in his ear, that he had better send some one of sense
for them, who might be the bearer of a protest, if Philip V. quitted his
throne. At least this is what M. d'Orleans told me, although few people
believed him in the end.
M. d'Orleans chose for this errand a man named Flotte, very skilful in
intrigue, in which he had, so to speak, been always brought up. He went
straight to Madrid, and one of his first employments when he arrived
there was to look for Renaut, the secretary just alluded to. But Renaut
was nowhere to be found, nor could any news be heard of him. Flotte
stayed some time in Madrid, and then went to the army, which was still in
quarters. He remained there three weeks, idling from quarter to quarter,
saluting the Marechal in command, who was much surprised at his long
stay, and who pressed him to return into France. At last Flotte took
leave of the Marechal, asking him for an escort for himself and a
commissary, with whom he meant to go in company across the Pyrenees.
Twenty dragoons were given him as escort, and he and the commissary set
out in a chaise.
They had not proceeded far before Flotte perceived that they were
followed by other troops besides those guarding them. Flotte fearing
that something was meant by this, slipped a pocket-book into the hands of
the commissary, requesting him to take care of it. Shortly afterwards
the chaise was surrounded by troops, and stopped; the two travellers were
made to alight. The commissary was ordered to give up the pocket-book,
an order that he complied with very rapidly, and Flotte was made
prisoner, and escorted back to the spot he had just left.
The news of this occurrence reached the King on the 12th of July, by the
ordinary courier from Madrid.
The King informed M. d'Orleans of it, who, having learnt it by a private
courier six days before, affected nevertheless surprise, and said it was
strange that one of his people should have been thus arrested, and that
as his Majesty was concerned, it was for him to demand the reason. The
King replied, that in fact the injury regarded him more than M.
d'Orleans, and that he would give orders to Torcy to write as was
necessary to Spain.
It is not difficult to believe that such an explosion made a great noise,
both in France and Spain; but the noise it made at first was nothing to
that which followed. A cabal was formed against Monsieur le Duc
d'Orleans. It was said that he had plotted to place himself upon the
Spanish throne, by driving out Philip V., under pretext of his
incapacity, of the domination of Madame des Ursins, and of the
abandonment of the country by France; that he had treated with Stanhope,
commander of the English troops in Spain, and with whom he was known to
be on friendly terms, in order to be protected by the Archduke. This was
the report most widely spread. Others went further. In these M.
d'Orleans was accused of nothing less than of intending to divorce
himself from Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, as having been married to her
by force; of intending to marry the sister of the Empress (widow of
Charles II.), and of mounting with her upon the Spanish throne; to marry
Madame d'Argenton, as the Queen Dowager was sure to have no children, and
finally, to poison Madame d'Orleans.
Meanwhile the reply from Spain came not. The King and Monseigneur
treated M. d'Orleans with a coldness which made him sorely ill at ease;
the majority of the courtiers, following this example, withdrew from him.
He was left almost alone.
I learnt at last from M. d'Orleans how far he was deserving of public
censure, and what had given colouring to the reports spread against him.
He admitted to me, that several of the Spanish grandees had persuaded him
that it was not possible the King of Spain could stand, and had proposed
to him to hasten his fall, and take his place; that he had rejected this
proposition with indignation, but had been induced to promise, that if
Philip V. fell of himself, without hope of rising, he would not object to
mounting the vacant throne, believing that by so doing he would be doing
good to our King, by preserving Spain to his house.
As soon as I heard this, I advised him to make a clean breast of it to
the King, and to ask his pardon for having acted in this matter without
his orders and without his knowledge. He thought my advice good, and
acted upon it. But the King was too much under the influence of the
enemies of M. d'Orleans, to listen favourably to what was said to him.
The facts of the case, too, were much against M. d'Orleans. Both Renaut
and Flotte had been entrusted with his secret. The former had openly
leagued himself with the enemies of Madame des Ursins, and acted with the
utmost imprudence. He had been privately arrested just before the
arrival of Flotte. When this latter was arrested, papers were found upon
him which brought everything to light. The views of M. d'Orleans and of
those who supported him were clearly shown. The King would not listen to
anything in favour of his nephew.
The whole Court cried out against M. d'Orleans; never was such an uproar
heard. He was accused of plotting to overthrow the King of Spain, he, a
Prince of the blood, and so closely allied to the two crowns!
Monseigneur, usually so plunged in apathy, roused himself to fury against
M. d'Orleans, and insisted upon nothing less than a criminal prosecution.
He insisted so strongly upon this, that the King at last consented that
it should take place, and gave orders to the chancellor to examine the
forms requisite in such a case. While the chancellor was about this
work, I went to see him one day, and represented to him so strongly, that
M. d'Orleans' misdemeanour did not concern us at all, and could only be
judged before a Spanish tribunal, that the idea of a criminal trial was
altogether abandoned almost immediately after. M. d'Orleans was allowed
to remain in peace.
Madame des Ursins and Madame de Maintenon had so far triumphed, however,
that M. d'Orleans found himself plunged in the deepest disgrace. He was
universally shunned. Whenever he appeared, people flew away, so that
they might not be seen in communication with him. His solitude was so
great, that for a whole month only one friend entered his house. In the
midst of this desertion, he had no resource but debauchery, and the
society of his mistress, Madame d'Argenton. The disorder and scandal of
his life had for a long time offended the King, the Court, and the
public. They now unhappily confirmed everybody in the bad opinion they
had formed of him. That the long disgrace he suffered continued to
confirm him in his bad habits, and that it explains to some extent his
after-conduct, there can be no doubt. But I must leave him now, and
return to other matters.
CHAPTER XLIX
But, meanwhile, a great change had taken place at Court. Chamillart had
committed the mistake of allowing the advancement of D'Harcourt to the
head of an army. The poor man did not see the danger; and when warned of
it, thought his cleverness would preserve him. Reports of his fall had
already begun to circulate, and D'Antin had been spoken of in his place.
I warned his daughter Dreux, the only one of the family to whom it was
possible to speak with profit. The mother, with little wit and knowledge
of the Court, full of apparent confidence and sham cunning, received all
advice ill. The brothers were imbecile, the son was a child and a
simpleton, the two other daughters too light-headed. I had often warned
Madame de Dreux of the enmity of the Duchesse de Bourgogne; and she had
spoken to her on the subject. The Princess had answered very coldly that
she was mistaken, that she had no such enmity. At last I succeeded, in
this indirect way, in forcing Chamillart to speak to the King on the
reports that were abroad; but he did so in a half-and-half way, and
committed the capital mistake of not naming the successor which public
rumour mentioned. The King appeared touched, and gave him all sorts of
assurances of friendship, and made as if he liked him better than ever.
I do not know if Chamillart was then near his destruction, and whether
this conversation set him up again; but from the day it took place all
reports died away, and the Court thought him perfectly re-established.
But his enemies continued to work against him. Madame de Maintenon and
the Duchesse de Bourgogne abated not a jot in their enmity. The Marechal
d'Harcourt lost no opportunity of pulling him to pieces. One day, among
others, he was declaiming violently against him at Madame de Maintenon's,
whom he knew he should thus please. She asked him whom he would put in
his place. "M. Fagon, Madame," he replied coldly. She laughed, but said
this was not a thing to joke about; but he maintained seriously that the
old doctor would make a much better minister than Chamillart, for he had
some intelligence, which would make up for his ignorance of many matters;
but what could be expected of a man who was ignorant and stupid too? The
cunning Norman knew well the effect this strange parallel would have; and
it is indeed inconceivable how damaging his sarcasm proved. A short time
afterwards, D'Antin, wishing also to please, but more imprudent, insulted
the son of Chamillart so grossly, and abused the father so publicly, that
he was obliged afterwards to excuse himself.
The King held, for the first time in his life, a real council of war.
He told the Duc de Bourgogne of it, saying rather sharply: "Come, unless
you prefer going to vespers." The council lasted nearly three hours; and
was stormy. The Marechals were freer in their language than usual, and
complained of the ministers. All fell upon Chamillart, who was accused,
among other things, of matters that concerned Desmarets, on whom, he
finished by turning off the King's anger. Chamillart defended himself
with so much anger that his voice was heard by people outside.
But he had of late heaped fault on fault. Besides setting Madame de
Maintenon and the Duchesse de Bourgogne against him, he rather wantonly
irritated Monseigneur, at that time more than ever under the government
of Mademoiselle Choin. The latter had asked him a favour, and had been
refused even with contempt. Various advances at reconciliation she made
were also repulsed with contumely. Yet every one, even the Duchesse de
Bourgogne, crawled before this creature--the favourite of the heir to the
throne. Madame de Maintenon actually caused the King to offer her
apartments at Versailles, which she refused, for fear of losing the
liberty she enjoyed at Meudon. D'Antin, who saw all that was going on,
became the soul of a conspiracy against Chamillart. It was infinitely
well managed. Everything moved in order and harmony--always prudently,
always knowingly.
The King, quietly attacked on all hands, was shaken; but he had many
reasons for sticking to Chamillart. He was his own choice. No minister
had stood aside so completely, and allowed the King to receive all the
praise of whatever was done. Though the King's reason way, therefore,
soon influenced, his heart was not so easily. But Madame de Maintenon
was not discouraged. Monseigneur, urged by Mademoiselle Choin, had
already spoken out to the King. She laboured to make him speak again;
for, on the previous occasion, he had been listened to attentively.
So many machines could not be set in motion without some noise being
heard abroad. There rose in the Court, I know not what confused murmurs,
the origin of which could not be pointed out, publishing that either the
State or Chamillart must perish; that already his ignorance had brought
the kingdom within an ace of destruction; that it was a miracle this
destruction had not yet come to pass; and that it would be madness to
tempt Providence any longer. Some did not blush to abuse him; others
praised his intentions, and spoke with moderation of faults that many
people reproached him bitterly with. All admitted his rectitude, but
maintained that a successor of some kind or other was absolutely
necessary. Some, believing or trying to persuade others that they
carried friendship to as far a point as was possible, protested that they
should ever preserve this friendship, and would never forget the pleasure
and the services that they had received from Chamillart; but delicately
confessed that they preferred the interests of the State to their own
personal advantage and the support they would lose; that, even if
Chamillart were their brother, they would sorrowfully admit the necessity
of removing him! At last, nobody could understand either how such a man
could ever have been chosen, or how he could have remained so long in his
place! All his faults and all his ridicules formed the staple of Court
conversation. If anybody referred to the great things he had done, to
the rapid gathering of armies after our disasters, people turned on their
heels and walked away. Such were the presages of the fall of Chamillart.
The Marechal de Boufflers, who had never forgiven the causes that led to
the loss of Lille, joined in the attack on Chamillart; and assisted in
exciting the King against him. Chamillart has since related to me that
up to the last moment he had always been received equally graciously by
the King--that is, up to two days before his fall. Then, indeed, he
noticed that the King's countenance was embarrassed; and felt inclined to
ask if he was displeasing to him, and to offer to retire. Had he done
so, he might, if we may judge from what transpired subsequently, have
remained in office. But now Madame de Maintenon had come personally into
the field, and, believing herself sure of success, only attacked
Chamillart. What passed between her and the King was quite private and
never related; but there seems reason to believe that she did not succeed
without difficulty.
On Sunday morning, November 9, the King, on entering the Council of
State, called the Duc de Beauvilliers to him, and requested him to go in
the afternoon and tell Chamillart that he was obliged, for motives of
public interest, to ask him to resign his office; but that, in order to
give him a mark of his esteem and satisfaction with his services, he
continued his pension of Minister--that is to say, twenty thousand
francs--and added as much more, with one to his son of twenty thousand
francs likewise. He added that he should have liked to see Chamillart,
but that at first it would grieve him too much: he was not to come till
sent for; he might live in Paris, and go where he liked. The Duc de
Beauvilliers did all he could to escape from carrying so harsh a message,
but could only obtain permission to let the Duc de Chevreuse accompany
him.
They went to Chamillart, and found him alone, working in his cabinet.
The air of consternation with which they entered, told the unfortunate
Minister that something disagreeable had happened; and without giving
them time to speak, he said, with a serene and tranquil countenance,
"What is the matter, gentlemen? If what you have to say concerns only
me, you may speak: I have long been prepared for everything." This
gentle firmness touched them still more. They could scarcely explain
what they came about. Chamillart listened without any change of
countenance, and said, with the same air and tone as at first: "The King
is the master. I have endeavoured to serve him to the best of my
ability. I hope some one else will please him better, and be more
lucky." He then asked if he had been forbidden to write to the King, and
being told not, he wrote a letter of respect and thanks, and sent it by
the two Dukes, with a memoir which he had just finished. He also wrote
to Madame de Maintenon. He sent a verbal message to his wife; and,
without complaint, murmur, or sighs, got into his carriage, and drove to
L'Etang. Both then and afterwards he showed the greatest magnanimity.
Every one went, from a sort of fashion, to visit him. When I went, the
house looked as if a death had taken place; and it was frightful to see,
in the midst of cries and tears, the dead man walking, speaking with a
quiet, gentle air, and serene brow,--unconstrained, unaffected, attentive
to every one, not at all or scarcely different from what he was
accustomed to be.
Chamillart, as I have said, had received permission to live at Paris, if
he liked; but soon afterwards he innocently gave umbrage to Madame de
Maintenon, who was annoyed that his disgrace was not followed by general
abandonment. She caused him to be threatened secretly, and he prudently
left Paris, and went far away, under pretence of seeking for an estate to
buy.
Next day after the fall of Chamillart, it became known that the triumph
of Madame de Maintenon was completed, and that Voysin, her creature, was
the succeeding Secretary of State. This Voysin had the one indispensable
quality for admission into the counsels of Louis XIV.--not a drop of
noble blood in his veins. He had married, in 1683, the daughter of
Trudaine. She had a very agreeable countenance, without any affectation.
She appeared simple and modest, and occupied with her household and good
works; but in reality, had sense, wit, cleverness, above all, a natural
insinuation, and the art of bringing things to pass without being
perceived. She kept with great tact a magnificent house. It was she who
received Madame de Maintenon at Dinan, when the King was besieging Namur;
and, as she had been instructed by M. de Luxembourg in the way to please
that lady, succeeded most effectually. Among her arts was her modesty,
which led her prudently to avoid pressing herself on Madame de Maintenon,
or showing herself more than was absolutely necessary. She was sometimes
two whole days without seeing her. A trifle, luckily contrived, finished
the conquest of Madame de Maintenon. It happened that the weather passed
suddenly from excessive heat to a damp cold, which lasted a long time.
Immediately, an excellent dressing-gown, simple, and well lined, appeared
in the corner of the chamber. This present, by so much the more
agreeable, as Madame de Maintenon had not brought any warm clothing,
touched her also by its suddenness, and by its simple appearance, as if
of its own accord.
In this way, the taste of Madame de Maintenon for Madame Voysin was
formed and increased. Madame Voysin obtained an appointment for her
husband, and coming to Paris, at last grew extremely familiar with Madame
de Maintenon. Voysin himself had much need of the wife that Providence
had given him. He was perfectly ignorant of everything but the duties of
an Intendant. He was, moreover, rough and uncivil, as the courtiers soon
found. He was never unjust for the sake of being so, nor was he bad
naturally; but he knew nothing but authority, the King and Madame de
Maintenon, whose will was unanswerable--his sovereign law and reason.
The choice was settled between the King and Madame de Maintenon after
supper, the day of Chamillart's fall. Voysin was conducted to the King
by Bloin, after having received the orders and instructions of his
benefactress. In the evening of that day, the King found Madame Voysin
with Madame de Maintenon, and kissed her several times to please his
lady.
Voysin's first experience of the duties of his office was unpleasant.
He was foolish enough, feeling his ignorance, to tell the King, that at
the outset he should be obliged to leave everything to his Majesty, but
that when he knew better, he would take more on himself. The King, to
whom Chamillart used himself to leave everything, was much offended by
this language; and drawing himself up, in the tone of a master, told
Voysin to learn, once for all, that his duties were to receive, and
expedite orders, nothing else. He then took the projects brought to him,
examined them, prescribed the measures he thought fit, and very stiffly
sent away Voysin, who did not know where he was, and had great want of
his wife to set his head to rights, and of Madame de Maintenon to give
him completer lessons than she had yet been able to do. Shortly
afterwards he was forbidden to send any orders without submitting them to
the Marechal de Boufflers. He was supple, and sure of Madame de
Maintenon, and through her of the Marechal, waited for time to release
him from this state of tutelage and showed nothing of his annoyance,
especially to Boufflers himself.
Events soon happened to alter the position of the Marechal de Boufflers.
Flanders, ever since the opening of the campaign, had been the principal
object of attention. Prince Eugene and Marlborough, joined together,
continued their vast designs, and disdained to hide them. Their
prodigious preparations spoke of sieges. Shall I say that we desired
them, and that we thought of nothing but how to preserve, not use our
army?
Tournai was the first place towards which the enemies directed their
arms. After a short resistance it fell into their hands. Villars, as I
have said, was coriander in Flanders. Boufflers feeling that, in the
position of affairs, such a post must weigh very heavily upon one man,
and that in case of his death there was no one to take his place, offered
to go to assist him. The King, after some little hesitation, accepted
this magnanimous offer, and Boufflers set out. I say magnanimous offer,
because Boufflers, loaded with honours and glory, might well have hoped
to pass the rest of his life in repose. It was hardly possible, do what
he might, that he could add to his reputation; while, on the other hand,
it was not unlikely that he might be made answerable for the faults or
shortcomings of others, and return to Paris stripped of some of the
laurels that adorned his brow. But he thought only of the welfare of the
State, and pressed the King to allow him to depart to Flanders. The
King, as I have said, at last consented.
The surprise was great in the army when he arrived there. The general
impression was that he was the bearer of news of peace. Villars received
him with an air of joy and respect, and at once showed every willingness
to act in concert with him. The two generals accordingly worked
harmoniously together, taking no steps without consulting each other, and
showing great deference for each other's opinions. They were like one
man.
[Illustration: Marlborough At Malplaquet--Painted by R. Canton
Woodville--596]
After the fall of Tournai, our army took up position at Malplaquet, the
right and the left supported by two woods, with hedges and woods before
the centre, so that the plain was, as it were, cut in two. Marlborough
and Prince Eugene marched in their turn, fearing lest Villars should
embarrass them as they went towards Mons, which place they had resolved
to besiege. They sent on a large detachment of their army, under the
command of the Prince of Hesse, to watch ours. He arrived in sight of
the camp at Malpladuet at the same time that we entered it, and was
quickly warned of our existence by, three cannon shots that Villars, out
of braggadocio, fired by way of appeal to Marlborough and Prince Eugene.
Some little firing took place this day and the next, the 10th of
September, but without doing much harm on either side.
Marlborough and Prince Eugene, warned of the perilous state in which the
Prince of Hesse was placed--he would have been lost if attacked hastened
at once to join him, and arrived in the middle of the morning of the
10th. Their first care was to examine the position of our army, and to
do so, while waiting for their rear-guard, they employed a stratagem
which succeeded admirably.
They sent several officers, who had the look of subalterns, to our lines,
and asked to be allowed to speak to our officers. Their request was
granted. Albergotti came down to them, and discoursed with them a long
time. They pretended they came to see whether peace could not be
arranged, but they, in reality, spoke of little but compliments, which
signified nothing. They stayed so long, under various pretexts, that at
last we were obliged to threaten them in order to get rid of them. All
this time a few of their best general officers on horseback, and a larger
number of engineers and designers on foot, profited by these ridiculous
colloquies to put upon paper drawings of our position, thus being able to
see the best positions for their cannon, and the best mode, in fact, in
which all their disposition might be made. We learnt this artifice
afterwards from the prisoners.
It was decided that evening to give us battle on the morrow, although the
deputies of the States-General, content with the advantages that had been
already gained, and not liking to run the risk of failure, were, opposed
to an action taking place. They were, however, persuaded to agree, and
on the following morning the battle began.
The struggle lasted many hours. But our position had been badly chosen,
and, in spite of every effort, we were unable to maintain it. Villars,
in the early part of the action, received a wound which incapacitated him
from duty. All the burden of command fell upon Boufflers. He bore it
well; but after a time finding his army dispersed, his infantry
overwhelmed, the ground slipping from under his feet, he thought only of
beating a good and honourable retreat. He led away his army in such good
order, that the enemy were unable to interfere with it in the slightest
degree. During all the march, which lasted until night, we did not lose
a hundred stragglers, and carried off all the cannon with the exception
of a few pieces. The enemy passed the night upon the battle-field, in
the midst of twenty-five thousand dead, and marched towards Mons the next
evening. They frankly admitted that in men killed and wounded, in
general officers and privates, in flags and standards, they had lost more
than we. The battle cost them, in fact, seven lieutenant-generals, five
other generals, about eighteen hundred officers killed or wounded, and
more than fifteen thousand men killed or rendered unfit for service.
They openly avowed, also, how much they had been surprised by the valour
of the majority of our troops, above all of the cavalry, and did not
dissimulate that we should have gained the day, had we been better led.
Why the Marechal Villars waited ten days to be attacked in a position so
disadvantageous, instead of at once marching upon the enemies and
overcoming, as he might at first easily have done, it is difficult to
understand. He threw all the blame upon his wound, although it was well
known that the fate of the day was decided long before he was hurt.
Although forced to retire, our men burned with eagerness to engage the
enemies again. Mons had been laid siege to. Boufflers tried to make the
besiegers give up the undertaking. But his men were without bread and
without pay: the subaltern officers were compelled to eat the regulation
bread, the general-officers were reduced to the most miserable shifts,
and were like the privates, without pay, oftentimes for seven or eight
days running. There was no meat and no bread for the army. The common
soldiers were reduced to herbs and roots for all sustenance. Under
these circumstances it was found impossible to persevere in trying to
save Mons. Nothing but subsistence could be thought of.
The Court had now become so accustomed to defeats that a battle lost as
was Malplaquet seemed half a victory. Boufflers sent a courier to the
King with an account of the event, and spoke so favourably of Villars,
that all the blame of the defeat fell upon himself. Villars was
everywhere pitied and applauded, although he had lost an important
battle: when it was in his power to beat the enemies in detail, and
render them unable to undertake the siege of Mons, or any other siege.
If Boufflers was indignant at this, he was still more indignant at what
happened afterwards. In the first dispatch he sent to the King he
promised to send another as soon as possible giving full details, with
propositions as to how the vacancies which had occurred in the army might
be filled up. On the very evening he sent off his second dispatch, he
received intelligence that the King had already taken his dispositions
with respect to these vacancies, without having consulted him upon a
single point. This was the first reward Boufflers received for the
services he had just rendered, and that, too, from a King who had said in
public that without Boufflers all was lost, and that assuredly it was God
who had inspired him with the idea of going to the army. From that time
Boufflers fell into a disgrace from which he never recovered. He had the
courage to appear as usual at the Court; but a worm was gnawing him
within and destroyed him. Oftentimes he opened his heart to me without
rashness, and without passing the strict limits of his virtue; but the
poniard was in his heart, and neither time nor reflection could dull its
edge. He did nothing but languish afterwards, yet without being confined
to his bed or to his chamber, but did not live more than two years.
Villars, on the contrary, was in greater favour than ever. He arrived at
Court triumphant. The King made him occupy an apartment at Versailles,
so that his wound might be well attended to.
What a contrast! What a difference between the services, the merit, the
condition, the virtue, the situation of these two men! What
inexhaustible funds of reflection.
CHAPTER L
I have described in its proper place the profound fall of M. le Duc
d'Orleans and the neglect in which he lived, out of all favour with the
King, hated by Madame de Maintenon and Monseigneur, and regarded with an
unfavourable eye by the public, on account of the scandals of his private
life. I had long seen that the only way in which he could hope to
recover his position would be to give up his mistress, Madame d'Argenton,
with whom he had been on terms of intimacy for many years past, to the
knowledge and the scandal of all the world. I knew it would be a bold
and dangerous game to play, to try to persuade him to separate himself
from a woman he had known and loved so long; but I determined to engage
in it, nevertheless, and I looked about for some one to assist me in this
enterprise. At once I cast my eyes upon the Marechal de Besons, who for
many long years had been the bosom friend of M. d'Orleans. He applauded
the undertaking, but doubted, he said, its success; nevertheless he
promised to aid me to the utmost of his power, and, it will be seen, was
as good as his word. For some time I had no opportunity of accosting M.
d'Orleans, and was obliged to keep my project in abeyance, but I did not
lose sight of it; and when I saw my way clear, I took the matter in hand,
determined to strain every nerve in order to succeed.
It was just at the commencement of the year 1710, that I first spoke to
M. d'Orleans. I began by extracting from him an admission of the neglect
into which he had fallen--the dislike of the King, the hatred of
Monseigneur, who accused him of wishing to replace his son in Spain; that
of Madame de Maintenon, whom he had offended by his bon mot; the
suspicions of the public, who talked of his chemical experiments--and
then, throwing off all fear of consequences, I said that before he could
hope to draw back his friends and the world to him, he must reinstate
himself in the favour of the King. He appeared struck with what I had
said, rose after a profound silence, paced to and fro, and then asked,
"But how?" Seeing the opportunity so good, I replied in a firm and
significant tone, "How? I know well enough, but I will never tell you;
and yet it is the only thing to do."--"Ah, I understand you," said he, as
though struck with a thunderbolt; "I understand you perfectly;" and he
threw himself upon the chair at the end of the room. There he remained
some time, without speaking a word, yet agitated and sighing, and with
his eyes lowered. I broke silence at last, by saying that the state
which he was in had touched me to the quick, and that I had determined in
conjunction with the Marechal de Besons to speak to him upon the subject,
and to propose the only means by which he could hope to bring about a
change in his position. He considered some time, and then giving me
encouragement to proceed, I entered at some length upon the proposal I
had to make to him and left him evidently affected by what I had said,
when I thought I had for the time gone far enough.
The next day, Thursday, January 2nd, Besons, to whom I had written,
joined me; and after I had communicated to him what had passed the
previous evening, we hastened to M. d'Orleans. He received us well, and
we at once commenced an attack. In order to aid my purpose as much as
possible, I repeated to M. d'Orleans, at this meeting, the odious reports
that were in circulation against him, viz., that he intended to repudiate
his wife forced upon him by the King, in order to marry the Queen Dowager
of Spain, and by means of her gold to open up a path for himself to the
Spanish throne; that he intended to wait for his new wife's death, and
then marry Madame D'ARGENSON, to whom the genii had promised a throne;
and I added, that it was very fortunate that the Duchesse d'Orleans had
safely passed through the dangers of her confinement, for already some
wretches had begun to spread the saying, that he was not the son of
Monsieur for nothing. (An allusion to the death of Henriette
d'Angleterre.)
On hearing these words, the Duke was seized with a terror that cannot be
described, and at the same time with a grief that is above expression.
I took advantage of the effect my discourse had had upon him to show how
necessary it was he should make a great effort in order to win back the
favour of the King and of the public. I represented to him that the only
way to do this was to give up Madame d'Argenton, at once and for ever,
and to announce to the King that he had done so. At first he would not
hear of such a step, and I was obliged to employ all my eloquence, and
all my firmness too, to make him listen to reason. One great obstacle in
our way was the repugnance of M. d'Orleans for his wife. He had been
married, as I have described in the early part of these memoirs, against
his will, and with no sort of affection for the woman he was given to.
It was natural that he should look upon her with dislike ever since she
had become his wife. I did what I could to speak in praise of Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans, and Besons aided me; but we did little else than
waste our breath for sometime. Our praises in fact irritated
M. d'Orleans, and to such a point, that no longer screening things or
names, he told us what we should have wished not to hear, but what it was
very lucky we did hear. He had suspicions, in fact, of his wife's
honour; but fortunately I was able to prove clearly and decisively that
those suspicions were unfounded, and I did so. The joy of M. d'Orleans
upon finding he had been deceived was great indeed; and when we separated
from him after mid-day, in order to go to dinner, I saw that a point was
gained.
A little before three o'clock I returned to M. d'Orleans, whom I found
alone in his cabinet with Besons. He received me with pleasure, and made
me seat myself between him and the Marechal, whom he complimented upon
his diligence. Our conversation recommenced. I returned to the attack
with all the arguments I could muster, and the Marechal supported me; but
I saw with affright that M. d'Orleans was less reduced than when we had
quitted him in the morning, and that he had sadly taken breath during our
short absence. I saw that, if we were to succeed, we must make the best
use we could of our time, and accordingly I brought all my powers into
play in order to gain over M. d'Orleans.
Feeling that everything was now to be lost or gained, I spoke out with
all the force of which I was capable, surprising and terrifying Marechal
Besons to such a point, with my hardihood, that he had not a word to say
in order to aid me. When I had finished, M. d'Orleans thanked me in a
piteous tone, by which I knew the profound impression I had made upon his
mind. I proposed, while he was still shaken, that he should at once send
to Madame de Maintenon, to know when she, would grant him an audience;
for he had determined to speak to her first of his intention to give up
Madame d'Argenton. Besons seconded me; and while we were talking
together, not daring to push our point farther, M. d'Orleans much
astonished us by rising, running with impetuosity to the door, and
calling aloud for his servants. One ran to him, whom he ordered in a
whisper to go to Madame de Maintenon, to ask at what hour she would see
him on the morrow. He returned immediately, and threw himself into a
chair like a man whose strength fails him and who is at his last gasp.
Uncertain as to what he had just done, I asked him if he had sent to
Madame de Maintenon. "Yes, Monsieur," said he, in a tone of despair.
Instantly I started towards him, and thanked him with all the contentment
and all the joy imaginable. This terrible interview, for the struggle we
had all gone through was very great, was soon after brought to a close,
and Besons and myself went our way, congratulating each other on the
success of this day's labour.
On the next day, Friday, the 3rd of January, I saw M. d'Orleans as he
preceded the King to mass, and in my impatience I approached him, and
speaking in a low tone, asked him if he had seen "that woman." I did not
dare to mention names just then. He replied "yes," but in so
lackadaisical a tone that I feared he had seen her to effect, and I asked
him if he had spoken to her. Upon receiving another "yes," like the
other, my emotion redoubled. "But have you told her all?" I said.
"Yes," he replied, "I have told her all."--"And are you content?" said
I. "Nobody could be more so," he replied; "I was nearly an hour with
her, she was very much surprised and ravished."
I saw M. d'Orleans under better circumstances at another period of the
day, and then I learnt from him that since meeting me he had spoken to
the King also, and told him all. "Ah, Monsieur," cried I with transport,
"how I love you!" and advancing warmly toward him, I added, "How glad I
am to see you at last delivered; how did you bring this to pass?"--
"I mistrusted myself so much," replied he, "and was so violently
agitated after speaking to Madame de Maintenon, that I feared to run the
risk of pausing all the morning; so, immediately after mass I spoke to
the King, and--" here, overcome by his grief, his voice faltered, and he
burst into sighs, into tears, and into sobs. I retired into a corner. A
moment after Besons entered: the spectacle and the profound silence
astonished him. He lowered his eyes, and advanced but little. At last
we gently approached each other. I told him that M. d'Orleans had
conquered himself, and had spoken to the King. The Marechal was so
bewildered with surprise and joy that he remained for some moments
speechless and motionless: then running towards M. d'Orleans, he thanked
him, felicitated him, and wept for very joy. M. d'Orleans was cruelly
agitated, now maintaining a ferocious silence, and now bursting into a
torrent of sighs, sobs, and tears. He said at last that Madame de
Maintenon had been extremely surprised with the resolution he had taken,
and at the same time delighted. She assured him that it would put him on
better terms than ever with the King, and that Madame d'Argenton should
be treated with every consideration. I pressed M. d'Orleans to let us
know how the King had received him. He replied that the King had
appeared very much surprised, but had spoken coldly. I comforted him for
this disappointment by assuring him that the King's coldness arose only
from his astonishment, and that in the end all would be well.
It would be impossible to describe the joy felt by Besons and myself at
seeing our labours brought to this satisfactory point. I knew I should
make many enemies when the part I had taken in influencing M. d'Orleans
to give up Madame d'Argenton came to be known, as it necessarily would;
but I felt I had done rightly, and left the consequences to Providence.
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans showed me the utmost gratitude for what I
had done. She exhibited, too, so much intelligence, good sense, and
ability, in the conversation I had with her, that I determined to spare
no pains to unite her husband to her more closely; being firmly persuaded
that he would nowhere find a better counsellor than in her. The surprise
of the whole Court, when it became known that M. d'Orleans had at last
separated himself from Madame d'Argenton, was great indeed. It was only
equalled by the vexation of those who were opposed to him. Of course in
this matter I was not spared. For several days nothing was spoken of but
this rupture, and everywhere I was pointed out as the author of it.
Besons being scarcely alluded to. I parried the thrust made at me as
well as I could, as much for the purpose of leaving all the honour to
M. d'Orleans, as for the purpose of avoiding the anger of those who
were annoyed with me; and also from a just fear of showing that I had too
much influence over the mind of a Prince not without faults, and who
could not always be led.
As for Madame d'Argenton, she received the news that her reign was over
with all the consternation, rage, and despair that might have been
expected. Mademoiselle de Chausseraye was sent by Madame de Maintenon to
announce the ill news to her. When Mademoiselle de Chausseraye arrived
at Madame l'Argenton's house, Madame d'Argenton was out she had gone to
supper with the Princesse de Rohan. Mademoiselle de Chausseraye waited
until she returned, and then broke the matter to her gently, and after
much preamble and circumlocution, as though she were about to announce
the death of some one.
The tears, the cries, the howlings of Madame d'Argenton filled the house,
and announced to all the domestics that the reign of felicity was at an
end there. After a long silence on the part of Mademoiselle de
Chausseraye, she spoke her best in order to appease the poor lady. She
represented to her the delicacy and liberality of the arrangements M.
d'Orleans had made in her behalf. In the first place she was free to
live in any part of the realm except Paris and its appanages. In the
next place he assured to her forty-five thousand livres a year, nearly
all the capital of which would belong to the son he had had by her, whom
he had recognised and made legitimate, and who has since become Grandee
of Spain, Grand Prieur of France, and General of the Galleys (for the
best of all conditions in France is to have none at all, and to be a
bastard). Lastly he undertook to pay all her debts up to the day of the
rupture, so that she should not be importuned by any creditor, and
allowed her to retain her jewellery, her plate, her furniture--worth
altogether about four hundred thousand livres. His liberality amounted
to a total of about two million livres, which I thought prodigious.
Madame d'Argenton, in despair at first, became more tractable as she
learnt the provisions which had been made for her, and the delicacy with
which she was treated. She remained four days in Paris, and then
returned to her father's house near Port-Sainte-Maxence, the Chevalier
d'Orleans, her son, remaining at the Palais Royal. The King after his
first surprise had worn away, was in the greatest joy at the rupture; and
testified his gratification to M. d'Orleans, whom he treated better and
better every day. Madame de Maintenon did not dare not to contribute a
little at first; and in this the Prince felt the friendship of the
Jesuits, whom he had contrived to attach to him.
The Duchesse de Bourgogne did marvels of her own accord; and the Duc de
Bourgogne, also, being urged by M. de Beauvilliers. Monseigneur alone
remained irritated, on account of the Spanish affair.
I must here mention the death of M. le Duc. He was engaged in a trial
which was just about to be pleaded. He had for some time suffered from a
strange disease, a mixture of apoplexy and epilepsy, which he concealed
so carefully, that he drove away one of his servants for speaking of it
to his fellows.
For some time he had had a continual headache. This state troubled the
gladness he felt at being delivered from his troublesome father and
brother-in-law. One evening he was riding in his carriage, returning
from a visit to the Hotel de Coislin, without torches, and with only one
servant behind, when he felt so ill that he drew the string, and made his
lackey get up to tell him whether his mouth was not all on one side.
This was not the case, but he soon lost speech and consciousness after
having requested to be taken in privately to the Hotel de Conde. They
there put him in bed. Priests and doctors came. But he only made
horrible faces, and died about four o'clock in the morning.
Madame la Duchesse did not lose her presence of mind, and, whilst her
husband was dying, took steps to secure her future fortune. Meanwhile
she managed to cry a little, but nobody believed in her grief. As for M.
le Duc, I have already mentioned some anecdotes of him that exhibit his
cruel character. He was a marvellously little man, short, without being
fat. A dwarf of Madame la Princesse was said to be the cause. He was of
a livid yellow, nearly always looked furious, and was ever so proud, so
audacious, that it was difficult to get used to him. His cruelty and
ferocity were so extreme that people avoided him, and his pretended
friends would not invite him to join in any merriment. They avoided him:
he ran after them to escape from solitude, and would sometimes burst upon
them during their jovial repasts, reproach them with turning a cold
shoulder to him, and change their merriment to desolation.
After the death of M. le Duc, a grand discussion on precedence at the
After-suppers, set on foot by the proud Duchesse d'Orleans, was,--after
an elaborate examination by the King, brought to a close. The King
ordered his determination to be kept secret until he formally declared
it. It is necessary to set forth in a few words the mechanism of the
After-suppers every day. The King, on leaving table, stopped less than a
half-quarter of an hour with his back leaning against the balustrade of
his chamber. He there found in a circle all the ladies who had been at
his supper, and who came there to wait for him a little before he left
table, except the ladies who sat, who came out after him, and who, in the
suite of the Princes and the Princesses who had supped with him, advanced
one by one and made him a courtesy, and filled up the remainder of the
standing circle; for a space was always left for them by the other
ladies. The men stood behind. The King amused himself by observing the
dresses, the countenances, and the gracefulness of the ladies courtesies,
said a word to the Princes and Princesses who had supped with him, and
who closed the circle near him an either hand, then bowed to the ladies
on right and left, bowed once or twice more as he went away, with a grace
and majesty unparalleled, spoke sometimes, but very rarely, to some lady
in passing, entered the first cabinet, where he gave the order, and then
advanced to the second cabinet, the doors from the first to the second
always remaining open. There he placed himself in a fauteuil, Monsieur,
while he was there, in another; the Duchesse de Bourgogne, Madame (but
only after the death of Monsieur), the Duchesse de Berry (after her
marriage), the three bastard-daughters, and Madame du Maine (when she was
at Versailles), on stools on each side. Monseigneur, the Duc de
Bourgogne, the Duc de Berry, the Duc d'Orleans, the two bastards, M. le
Duc (as the husband of Madame la Duchesse), and afterwards the two sons
of M. du Maine, when they had grown a little, and D'Antin, came
afterwards, all standing. It was the object of the Duchesse d'Orleans to
change this order, and make her daughters take precedence of the wives of
the Princes of the blood; but the King declared against her. When he
made the public announcement of his decision, the Duc d'Orleans took the
opportunity of alluding to a marriage which would console him for
everything. "I should think so," replied the King, dryly, and with a
bitter and mocking smile.
CHAPTER LI
It was the desire of the Duc and Duchesse d'Orleans to marry Mademoiselle
(their daughter) to the Duc de Berry (third son of Monseigneur, and
consequently brother of the Duc de Bourgogne and of the King of Spain).
There were many obstacles in the way--partly the state of public affairs
--partly the fact that the King, though seemingly, was not really quite
reconciled--partly the recollection of that cruel 'bon mot' in Spain--
partly the fact that Monseigneur would naturally object to marry his
favourite son with the daughter of a man toward whom he always testified
hatred in the most indecent manner. The recent union between Madame de
Maintenon, Mademoiselle Choin, and Monseigneur was also a great obstacle.
In fact after what M. le Duc d'Or leans had been accused of in Spain,
with his abilities and talents it seemed dangerous to make him the
father-in-law of M. le Duc de Berry.
For my part I passionately desired the marriage of Mademoiselle, although
I saw that all tended to the marriage of Mademoiselle de Bourbon,
daughter of Madame la Duchesse, in her place. I had many reasons,
private and public, for acting against the latter marriage; but it was
clear that unless very vigorous steps were taken it would fall like a
mill-stone upon my head, crush me, and wound the persons to whom I was
attached. M. le Duc d'Orleans and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans were
immersed in the deepest indolence. They desired, but did not act. I
went to them and explained the state of the case--pointed out the danger
of Madame la Duchesse--excited their pride, their jealousy, their spite.
Will it be believed that it was necessary to put all this machinery in
motion? At last, by working on them by the most powerful motives, I made
them attend to their own interests. The natural but extreme laziness of
the Duchesse d'Orleans gave way this time, but less to ambition than to
the desire of defeating a sister who was so inimical to her. We next
concerted how we should make use of M. d'Orleans himself.
That Prince, with all his wit and his passion for Mademoiselle--which had
never weakened since her birth--was like a motionless beam, which stirred
only in obedience to our redoubled efforts, and who remained so to the
conclusion of this great business. I often reflected on the causes of
this incredible conduct, and was led to suppose that the knowledge of the
irremediable nature of what had taken place in Spain was the rein that
restrained him. However this may have been, I was throughout obliged to
use main force to bring him to activity. I determined to form and direct
a powerful cabal in order to bring my views to pass. The first person of
whom it was necessary to make sure was the Duchesse de Bourgogne. That
Princess had many reasons for the preference of Mademoiselle over
Mademoiselle de Bourbon (daughter of Madame la Duchesse). She knew the
King perfectly; and could not be ignorant of the power of novelty over
his mind, of which power she had herself made a happy experiment. What
she had to fear was another herself--I mean a Princess on the same terms
with the King as she was, who, being younger than she, would amuse him by
new childish playfulness no longer suited to her age, and yet which she
(the Duchess) was still obliged to employ. The very contrast of her own
untimely childishness, with a childishness so much more natural, would
injure her. The new favourite would, moreover, not have a husband to
support; for the Duc de Berry was already well liked. The Duc de
Bourgogne, on the contrary, since the affair of Flanders, had fallen into
disgrace with his father, Monseigneur; and his scruples, his preciseness,
his retired life, devoted to literal compliance with the rules of
devotion, contrasted unfavourably with the free life of his younger
brother.
The present and the future--whatever was important in life--were
therefore at stake with Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne; and yet her
great duty to herself was perpetually in danger of being stifled by the
fictitious and petty duties of daily life. It was necessary to stimulate
her. She felt these things in general; and that it was necessary that
her sister-in-law should be a Princess, neither able nor willing to give
her umbrage, and over whom she should be mistress. But in spite of her
wit and sense, she was not capable of feeling in a sufficiently lively
manner of herself all the importance of these things, amidst the
effervescence of her youth, the occupation of her successive duties,
the private and general favour she seemed to enjoy, the greatness of a
rank in expectation of a throne, the round of amusements which dissipated
her mind and her days: gentle, light, easy--perhaps too easy. I felt,
however, that from the effect of these considerations upon her I should
derive the greatest assistance, on account of the influence she could
exert upon the King, and still more on Madame de Maintenon, both of whom
loved her exceedingly; and I felt also that the Duchesse d'Orleans would
have neither the grace nor the fire necessary to stick it in deep enough
--on account of her great interest in the matter.
I influenced the Duchesse de Villeroy and Madame de Levi, who could work
on the Duchess, and also Madame d'O; obtained the indirect assistance of
M. du Maine--and by representing to the Ducs de Chevreuse, and de
Beauvilliers, that if M. de Berry married Mademoiselle de Bourbon, hatred
would arise between him and his brother, and great danger to the state,
enlisted them also on my side. I knew that the Joie de Berry was a fort
that could only be carried by mine and assault. Working still further,
I obtained the concurrence of the Jesuits; and made the Pere de Trevoux
our partisan. Nothing is indifferent to the Jesuits. They became a
powerful instrument. As a last ally I obtained the co-operation of the
Marechal de Boufflers. Such were the machines that my friendship for
those to whom I was attached, my hatred for Madame la Duchesse, my care
of my present and future situation, enabled me to discover, to set going,
with an exact and compassed movement, a precise agreement, and the
strength of a lever--which the space of one Lent commenced and perfected
--all whose movements, embarrassments, and progress in their divers lines
I knew; and which I regularly wound up in reciprocal cadence every day!
Towards the end of the Lent, the Duchesse de Bourgogne, having sounded
the King and Madame de Maintenon, had found the latter well disposed, and
the former without any particular objection. One day that Mademoiselle
had been taken to see the King at the apartments of Madame de Maintenon,
where Monseigneur happened to be, the Duchesse de Bourgogne praised her,
and when she had gone away, ventured, with that freedom and that
predetermined impulsiveness and gaiety which she sometimes made use of,
to say: "What an excellent wife for M. le Duc de Berry!" This expression
made Monseigneur redden with anger, and exclaim, "that would be an
excellent method of recompensing the Duc d'Orleans for his conduct in
Spain!" When he had said these words he hastily left the company, all
very much astonished; for no one expected a person seemingly so
indifferent and so measured to come out so strongly. The Duchesse de
Bourgogne, who had only spoken so to feel the way with Monseigneur in
presence of the King, was bold and clever to the end. Turning with a
bewildered look towards Madame de Maintenon, "My Aunt," quoth she to her,
"have I said something foolish?" the King, piqued, answered for Madame
de Maintenon, and said, warmly, that if Madame la Duchesse was working
upon Monseigneur she would have to deal with him. Madame de Maintenon
adroitly envenomed the matter by wondering at a vivacity so uncommon with
Monseigneur, and said that if Madame la Duchesse had that much of
influence, she would soon make him do other things of more consequence.
The conversation, interrupted in various ways and renewed, advanced with
emotion, and in the midst of reflections that did more injury to
Mademoiselle de Bourbon than the friendship of Monseigneur for Madame la
Duchesse could serve her.
When I learned this adventure, I saw that it was necessary to attack
Monseigneur by piquing the King against Madame la Duchesse, and making
him fear the influence of that Princess on Monseigneur and through
Monseigneur on himself; that no opportunity should be lost to impress on
the King the fear of being governed and kept in pupilage by his children;
that it was equally important to frighten Madame de Maintenon, and show
her the danger she was in from the influence of Monseigneur. I worked on
the fears of the Duchesse de Bourgogne, by Madame de Villeroy and de
Levi; on the Duc de Bourgogne, by M. de Beauvilliers; on Madame de
Maintenon, by the Marechal de Boufflers; on the King himself, by the Pere
Tellier; and all these batteries succeeded.
In order not to hurry matters too much, I took a turn to La Ferme, and
then came back to Marly just as the King arrived. Here I had a little
alarm, which did not, however, discourage me. I learned, in fact, that
one day the Duchesse de Bourgogne, urged perhaps rather too much on the
subject of Mademoiselle by Madame d'O, and somewhat annoyed, had shown an
inclination for a foreign marriage. Would to God that such a marriage
could have been brought about! I should always have preferred it, but
there were many reasons to render it impossible.
On my arrival at Marly, I found everything in trouble there: the King so
chagrined that he could not hide it--although usually a master of himself
and of his face: the Court believing that some new disaster had happened
which would unwillingly be declared. Four or five days passed in this
way: at last it became known what was in the wind. The King, informed
that Paris and all the public were murmuring loudly about the expenses of
Marly--at a time when it was impossible to meet the most indispensable
claims of a necessary and unfortunate war--was more annoyed this time
than on any other occasion, although he had often received the same
warnings. Madame de Maintenon had the greatest difficulty to hinder him
from returning straight to Versailles. The upshot was that the King
declared with a sort of bitter joy, that he would no longer feed the
ladies at Marly; that for the future he would dine alone, simply, as at
Versailles; that he would sup every day at a table for sixteen with his
family, and that the spare places should be occupied by ladies invited in
the morning; that the Princesses of his family should each have a table
for the ladies they brought with them; and that Mesdames Voysin and
Desmarets should each have one for the ladies who did not choose to eat
in their own rooms. He added bitterly, that by making retrenchments at
Marly he should not spend more there than at Versailles, so that he could
go there when he pleased without being exposed to the blame of any one.
He deceived himself from one end of this business to the other, but
nobody but himself was deceived, if indeed he was in any other way but in
expecting to deceive the world. The truth is, that no change was made at
Marly, except in name. The same expenses went on. The enemies
insultingly ridiculed these retrenchments. The King's subjects did not
cease to complain.
About this time an invitation to Marly having been obtained by Madame la
Duchesse for her daughters, Mademoiselles de Bourbon and de Charolois,
the King offered one to Mademoiselle. This offer was discussed before
the Duc and Duchesse d'Orleans and me. We at last resolved to leave
Mademoiselle at Versailles; and not to be troubled by seeing Mademoiselle
de Bourbon passing her days in the same salon, often at the same play-
table with the Duc de Berry, making herself admired by the Court,
fluttering round Monseigneur, and accustoming the eye of the King to her.
We knew that these trifles would not bring about a marriage; and it was
still more important not to give up Mademoiselle to the malignity of the
Court, to exposure, and complaints, from which it might not always be
possible to protect her.
But I had felt that it was necessary to act vigorously, and pressed the
Duc d'Orleans to speak to the King. To my surprise he suddenly heaped up
objections, derived from the public disasters, with which a princely
marriage would contrast disagreeably. The Duchesse d'Orleans was
strangely staggered by this admission; it only angered me. I answered by
repeating all my arguments. At last he gave way, and agreed to write to
the King. Here, again, I had many difficulties to overcome, and was
obliged, in fact, to write the letter myself, and dictate it to him. He
made one or two changes; and at last signed and sealed it. But I had the
greatest difficulty yet in inciting him to give it to the King. I had to
follow him, to urge him, to pique him, almost to push him into the
presence. The King received the letter very graciously; it had its
effect; and the marriage was resolved on.
When the preliminaries were settled, the Duc and Duchesse d'Orleans began
to show their desire that Madame de Saint-Simon should be lady of honour
to their daughter when she had become the Duchesse de Berry. I was far
from flattered by this distinction and refused as best I might. Madame
de Saint-Simon went to have an audience of the Duchesse de Bourgogne, and
asked not to be appointed; but her objections were not listened to, or
listened to with astonishment. Meanwhile I endeavoured to bring about a
reconciliation of the Duc d'Orleans with La Choin; but utterly failed.
La Choin positively refused to have anything to do with the Duke and
Duchess. I was much embarrassed to communicate this news to them, to
whom I was attached. It was necessary; however, to do so. I hastened to
Saint-Cloud, and found the Duc and Duchesse d'Orleans at table with
Mademoiselle and some ladies in a most delightful menagerie, adjoining
the railing of the avenue near the village, with a charming pleasure-
garden attached to it. All this belonged, under the name of
Mademoiselle, to Madame de Mare, her governess. I sat down and chatted
with them; but the impatience of the Duc d'Orleans to learn the news
could not be checked. He asked me if I was very satisfied. "Middling,"
I replied, not to spoil his dinner; but he rose at once and took me into
the garden. He was much affected to hear of the ill-success of my
negotiation; and returned downcast to table. I took the first
opportunity to blame his impatience, and the facility with which he
allowed the impressions he received to appear. Always in extreme, he
said he cared not; and talked wildly of planting cabbages--talk in which
he indulged often without meaning anything.
Soon after, M. le Duc d'Orleans went aside with Mademoiselle, and I found
myself placed accidentally near Madame de Fontaine-Martel. She was a
great friend of mine, and much attached to M. d'Orleans; and it was by
her means that I had become friendly with the Duke. She felt at once
that something was going on; and did not doubt that the marriage of
Mademoiselle was on the carpet. She said so, but I did not answer, yet
without assuming an air of reserve that would have convinced her. Taking
her text from the presence of M. le Duc d'Orleans with Mademoiselle, she
said to me confidentially, that it would be well to hasten this marriage
if it was possible, because all sorts of horrible things were invented to
prevent it; and without waiting to be too much pressed, she told me that
the most abominable stories were in circulation as to the friendship of
father and daughter. The hair of my head stood on end. I now felt more
heavily than ever with what demons we had to do; and how necessary it was
to hurry on matters. For this reason, after we had walked about a good
deal after dark, I again spoke with M. d'Orleans, and told him that if,
before the end of this voyage to Marly, he did not carry the declaration
of his daughter's marriage, it would never take place.
I persuaded him; and left him more animated and encouraged than I had
seen him. He amused himself I know not in what other part of the house.
I then talked a little with Madame de Mare, my relation and friend, until
I was told that Madame de Fontaine-Martel wished to speak to me in the
chateau. When I went there I was taken to the cabinet of the Duchesse
d'Orleans, when I learnt that she had just been made acquainted with the
abominable reports spread against her husband and daughter. We deplored
together the misfortune of having to do with such furies. The Duchess
protested that there was not even any seeming in favour of these
calumnies. The Duke had ever tenderly loved his daughter from the age of
two years, when he was nearly driven to despair by a serious illness she
had, during which he watched her night and day; and this tenderness had
gone on increasing day by day, so that he loved her more than his son.
We agreed that it would be cruel, wicked, and dangerous to tell M.
d'Orleans what was said.
At length the decisive blow was struck. The King had an interview with
Monseigneur; and told him he had determined on the marriage, begging him
to make up his mind as soon as possible. The declaration was soon made.
What must have been the state of Madame la Duchesse! I never knew what
took place in her house at this strange moment; and would have dearly
paid for a hiding-place behind the tapestry. As for Monseigneur, as soon
as his original repugnance was overcome, and he saw that it was necessary
to comply, he behaved very well. He received the Duc and Duchesse
d'Orleans very well, and kissed her and drank their health and that of
all the family cheerfully. They were extremely delighted and surprised.
My next visit to Saint-Cloud was very different from that in which I
reported the failure of my endeavours with Mademoiselle Choin. I was
received in triumph before a large company. To my surprise,
Mademoiselle, as soon as I appeared, ran towards me, kissed me on both
cheeks, took me by the hand, and led me into the orangery. Then she
thanked me, and admitted that her father had constantly kept her
acquainted with all the negotiations as they went on. I could not help
blaming his easiness and imprudence. She mingled all with testimonies of
the most lively joy; and I was surprised by her grace, her eloquence, the
dignity and the propriety of the terms she used. I learned an immense
number of things in this half-hour's conversation. Afterwards
Mademoiselle took the opportunity to say and do all manner of graceful
things to Madame de Saint-Simon.
The Duchesse d'Orleans now returned once more to the charge, in order to
persuade my wife to be dame d'honneur to her daughter. I refused as
firmly as I could. But soon after the King himself named Madame de
Saint-Simon; and when the Duchesse de Bourgogne suggested a doubt of her
acceptance, exclaimed, almost piqued: "Refuse! O, no! not when she
learns that it is my desire." In fact, I soon received so many menacing
warnings that I was obliged to give in; and Madame de Saint-Simon
received the appointment. This was made publicly known by the King, who
up to that very morning remained doubtful whether he would be met by a
refusal or not; and who, as he was about to speak, looked at me with a
smile that was meant to please and warn me to be silent. Madame de
Saint-Simon learned the news with tears. She was excellently well
received by the King, and complimented agreeably by Madame de Maintenon.
The marriage took place with the usual ceremonies. The Duc de
Beauvilliers and Madame de Saint-Simon drew the curtains of the couple
when they went to bed; and laughed together at being thus employed. The
King, who had given a very mediocre present of diamonds to the new
Duchesse de Berry, gave nothing to the Duc de Berry. The latter had so
little money that he could not play during the first days of the voyage
to Marly. The Duchesse de Bourgogne told this to the King, who, feeling
the state in which he himself was, said that he had only five hundred
pistoles to give him. He gave them with an excuse on the misfortunes of
the time, because the Duchesse de Bourgogne thought with reason that a
little was better than nothing, and that it was insufferable not to be
able to play.
Madame de Mare was now set at liberty. The place of Dame d'Atours was
offered to her; but she advanced many reasons for not accepting it, and
on being pressed, refused with an obstinacy that surprised every one.
We were not long in finding out the cause of her obstinate unwillingness
to remain with Madame la Duchesse de Berry. The more that Princess
allowed people to see what she was--and she never concealed herself--the
more we saw that Madame de Mare was in the right; and the more we admired
the miracle of care and prudence which had prevented anything from coming
to light; and the more we felt how blindly people act in what they desire
with the most eagerness, and achieve with much trouble and much joy; and
the more we deplored having succeeded in an affair which, so far from
having undertaken and carried out as I did, I should have traversed with
still greater zeal, even if Mademoiselle de Bourbon had profited thereby
without knowing it, if I had known half a quarter--what do I say? the
thousandth part--of what we unhappily witnessed! I shall say no more for
the present; and as I go on, I shall only say what cannot be concealed;
and I say thus much so soon merely because the strange things that soon
happened began to develop themselves a little during this first voyage to
Marly.
CHAPTER LII
On Saturday, the 15th of February, the King was waked up at seven o'clock
in the morning, an hour earlier than usual, because Madame la Duchesse de
Bourgogne was in the pains of labour. He dressed himself diligently in
order to go to her. She did not keep him waiting long. At three minutes
and three seconds after eight o'clock, she brought into the world a Duc
d'Anjou, who is the King Louis XV., at present reigning, which caused a
great joy. This Prince was soon after sprinkled by Cardinal de Janson in
the chamber where he was born, and then carried upon the knees of the
Duchesse de Ventadour in the sedan chair of the King into the King's
apartments, accompanied by the Marechal de Boufflers and by the body-
guards with officers. A little while after La Villiere carried to him
the cordon bleu, and all the Court went to see him, two things which much
displeased his brother, who did not scruple to show it. Madame de Saint-
Simon, who was in the chamber of Madame la Dauphine, was by chance one of
the first who saw this new-born Prince. The accouchement passed over
very well.
About this time died the Marechale de la Meilleraye, aged eighty-eight
years. She was the paternal aunt of the Marechal de Villeroy and the Duc
de Brissac, his brother-in-law. It was she who unwittingly put the cap
on MM. de Brissac, which they have ever since worn in their arms, and
which has been imitated. She was walking in a picture gallery of her
ancestors one day with her niece, a lively, merry person, whom she
obliged to salute and be polite to each portrait, and who in pleasant
revenge persuaded her that one of the said portraits wore a cap which
proved him to be an Italian Prince. She swallowed this, and had the cap
introduced into her, arms, despite her family, who are now obliged to
keep it, but who always call it, "My Aunt's cap." On another occasion,
people were speaking in her presence of the death of the Chevalier de
Savoie, brother of the Comte de Soissons, and of the famous Prince
Eugene, who died very young, very suddenly, very debauched; and full of
benefices. The talk became religious. She listened some time, and then,
with a profound look of conviction, said: "For my part, I am persuaded
that God will think twice about damning a man of such high birth as
that!" This caused a burst of laughter, but nothing could make her
change her opinion. Her vanity was cruelly punished. She used to affect
to apologise for having married the Marechal de la Meilleraye. After his
death, being in love with Saint-Ruth, her page, she married him; but took
care not to disclose her marriage for fear of losing her distinction at
Court. Saint-Ruth was a very honourable gentleman, very poor, tall, and
well made, whom everybody knew; extremely ugly--I don't know whether he
became so after his marriage. He was a worthy man and a good soldier.
But he was also a rough customer, and when his distinguished wife annoyed
him he twirled his cudgel and belaboured her soundly. This went so far
that the Marechale, not being able to stand it any longer, demanded an
audience of the King, admitted her weakness and her shame, and implored
his protection. The King kindly promised to set matters to rights. He
soundly rated Saint-Ruth in his cabinet, and forbade him to ill-treat the
Marechale. But what is bred in the bone will never get out of the flesh.
The Marechale came to make fresh complaints. The King grew angry in
earnest, and threatened Saint-Ruth. This kept him quiet for some time.
But the habit of the stick was too powerful; and he flourished it again.
The Marechale flew as usual to the King, who, seeing that Saint-Ruth was
incorrigible, was good enough to send him to Guyenne under pretence, of
employment. Afterwards he was sent to Ireland; where he was killed.
The Marechale de la Meilleraye had been perfectly beautiful, and was full
of wit. She so turned the head of the Cardinal de Retz, that he wanted
to turn everything topsy-turvy in France, in order to make himself, a
necessary man and force the King to use his influence at Rome in order to
obtain a dispensation by which he (the Cardinal) should be allowed,
though a priest--and a consecrated bishop, to marry the Marechale de la
Meilleraye while her husband was alive and she on very good terms with
him! This madness is inconceivable and yet existed.
I have described in its place the disgrace of Cardinal de Bouillon, and
the banishment to which he was sentenced. Exile did not improve him.
He languished in weariness and rage, and saw no hope that his position
would ever change. Incapable of repose, he had passed all his long
enforced leisure in a monastic war. The monks of Cluni were his
antagonists. He was constantly bringing actions against them, which they
as constantly defended. He accused them of revolt--they accused him of
scheming. They profited by his disgrace, and omitted nothing to shake
off the yoke which, when in favour, he had imposed on them. These broils
went on, until at last a suit, which Cardinal de Bouillon had commenced
against the refractory monks, and which had been carried into Grand
Council of Paris, was decided against him, notwithstanding all the
efforts he made to obtain a contrary verdict. This was the last drop
which made the too full cup overflow, and which consummated the
resolution that Cardinal had long since had in his head, and which he now
executed.
By the terms of his exile, he was allowed to visit, without restraint,
his various abbeys, situated in different parts of the realm. He took
advantage of this privilege, gave out that he was going to Normandy, but
instead of doing so, posted away to Picardy, stopped briefly at
Abbeville, gained Arras, where he had the Abbey of Saint-Waast, thence
feigning to go and see his abbey of Vigogne, he passed over into the camp
of the enemy, and threw himself into the arms of the Duke of Marlborough
and Prince Eugene. The Prince d'Auvergne, his nephew, had deserted from
France in a similar manner some time before, as I have related in its
place, and was in waiting to receive the Cardinal, who was also very
graciously welcomed by Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough, who
introduced him to the heads of the army, and lavished upon him the
greatest honours.
Such a change of condition appeared very sweet to this spirit so haughty
and so ulcerated, and marvellously inflated the Cardinal's courage. He
recompensed his dear hosts by discourses, which were the most agreeable
to them, upon the misery of France (which his frequent journeys through
the provinces had placed before his eyes), upon its powerlessness to
sustain the war; upon the discontent which reigned among the people; upon
the exhaustion of the finances; in fine, he spared nothing that perfidy
or ingratitude could suggest to flatter them and gain their favour.
No sooner had the Cardinal had time to turn round among his new friends
than he wrote a letter to the King announcing his flight--a letter which
was such a monstrous production of insolence, of madness, of felony, and
which was written in a style so extravagant and confused that it deserves
to be thus specially alluded to. In this letter, as full of absurdities,
impudence, and of madness, as of words, the Cardinal, while pretending
much devotion for the King, and much submission to the Church, plainly
intimated that he cared for neither. Although this was as the sting of a
gnat upon an elephant, the King was horribly piqued at it. He received
the letter on the 24th of May, gave it the next day to D'Aguesseau,
attorney-general, and ordered him to commence a suit against Cardinal de
Bouillon, as guilty of felony. At the same time the King wrote to Rome,
enclosing a copy of Bouillon's letter, so that it might be laid before
the Pope. This letter received little approbation. People considered
that the King had forgotten his dignity in writing it, it seemed so much
like a justification and so little worthy, of a great monarch. As for
the Cardinal de Bouillon, he grew more haughty than ever. He wrote a
letter upon the subject of this trial with which he was threatened, even
more violent than his previous letter, and proclaimed that cardinals were
not in any way amenable to secular justice, and could not be judged
except by the Pope and all the sacred college.
So in fact it seemed to, be; for although the Parliament commenced the
trial, and issued an order of arrest against the Cardinal, they soon
found themselves stopped by difficulties which arose, and by this
immunity of the cardinals, which was supported by many examples. After
all the fuss made, therefore, this cause fell by its own weakness, and
exhaled itself, so to speak, in insensible perspiration. A fine lesson
this for the most powerful princes, and calculated to teach them that if
they want to be served by Rome they should favour those that are there,
instead of raising their own subjects, who, out of Rome, can be of no
service to the State; and who are good only to seize three or four
hundred thousand livres a year in benefices, with the quarter of which an
Italian would be more than recompensed. A French cardinal in France is
the friend of the Pope, but the enemy of the King, the Church, and the
State; a tyrant very often to the clergy and the ministers, at liberty to
do what he likes without ever being punished for anything.
As nothing could be done in this way against the Cardinal, other steps
were taken. The fraudulent "Genealogical History of the House of
Auvergne," which I have previously alluded to, was suppressed by royal
edict, and orders given that all the copies of it should be seized.
Baluze, who had written it, was deprived of his chair of Professor of the
Royal College, and driven out of the realm. A large quantity of copies
of this edict were printed and publicly distributed. The little
patrimony that Cardinal de Bouillon had not been able to carry away, was
immediately confiscated: the temporality of his benefices had been
already seized, and on the 7th of July appeared a declaration from the
King, which, depriving the Cardinal of all his advowsons, distributed
them to the bishops of the dioceses in which those advowsons were
situated.
These blows were very sensibly felt by the other Bouillons, but it was no
time for complaint. The Cardinal himself became more enraged than ever.
Even up to this time he had kept so little within bounds that he had
pontifically officiated in the church of Tournai at the Te Deum for the
taking of Douai (by the enemies); and from that town (Tournai), where he
had fixed his residence, he wrote a long letter to M. de Beauvais,--
bishop of the place, when it yielded, and who would not sing the Te Deum,
exhorting him to return to Tournai and submit to the new rule. Some time
after this, that is to say, towards the end of the year, he was guilty of
even greater presumption. The Abbey of Saint-Arnaud, in Flanders, had
just been given by the King to Cardinal La Tremoille, who had been
confirmed in his possession by bulls from the Pope. Since then the abbey
had fallen into the power of the enemy. Upon this, Cardinal de Bouillon
caused himself to be elected Abbot by a minority of the monks and in
spite of the opposition of the others. It was curious to see this
dutiful son of Rome, who had declared in his letter to the King, that he
thought of nothing except the dignity of the King, and how he could best.
serve God and the Church, thus elect him self in spite of the bull of the
Pope, in spite of the orders of the King, and enjoy by force the revenues
of the abbey, protected solely by heretics!
But I have in the above recital alluded to the taking of Douai: this
reminds me that I have got to speak of our military movements, our
losses, and our victories, of this year. In Flanders and in Spain they
were of some importance, and had better, perhaps, have a chapter or more
to themselves.
CHAPTER LIII
The King, who had made numberless promotions, appointed this year the
same generals to the same armies. Villars was chosen for Flanders, as
before. Having, arrived at the very summit of favour, he thought he
might venture, for the first time in his life, to bring a few truths
before the King. He did nothing then but represent to the ministers,
nay, even to the King and Madame de Maintenon themselves, the wretched
state of our magazines and our garrisons; the utter absence of all
provision for the campaign, and the piteous condition of the troops and
their officers, without money and without pay. This was new language in
the mouth of Villars, who hitherto had owed all his success to the
smiling, rose-tinted account he had given of everything. It was the
frequency and the hardihood of his falsehoods in this respect that made
the King and Madame de Maintenon look upon him as their sole resource;
for he never said anything disagreeable, and never found difficulties
anywhere. Now that he had raised this fatal curtain, the aspect appeared
so hideous to them, that they found it easier to fly into a rage than to
reply. From that moment they began to regard Villars with other eyes.
Finding that he spoke now the language which everybody spoke, they began
to look upon him as the world had always looked upon him, to find him
ridiculous, silly, impudent, lying, insupportable; to reproach themselves
with having elevated him from nothing, so rapidly and so enormously; they
began to shun him, to put him aside, to make him perceive what they
thought, and to let others perceive it also.
Villars in his turn was frightened. He saw the prospect of losing what
he had gained, and of sinking into hopeless disgrace. With the
effrontery that was natural to him, he returned therefore to his usual
flatteries, artifices, and deceits; laughed at all dangers and
inconveniences, as having resources in himself against everything!
The coarseness of this variation was as plain as possible; but the
difficulty of choosing another general was equally plain, and Villars
thus got out of the quagmire. He set forth for the frontier, therefore,
in his coach, and travelling easy stages, on account of his wound,
arrived in due time at the army.
Neither Prince Eugene nor the Duke of Marlborough wished for peace; their
object was, the first, from personal vengeance against the King, and a
desire to obtain a still greater reputation; the second, to get rich, for
ambition was the prominent passion of one, and avarice of the other--
their object was, I say, to enter France, and, profiting by the extreme
weakness and straitened state of our troops and of our places, to push
their conquests as far as possible.
As for the King, stung by his continual losses, he wished passionately
for nothing so much as a victory, which should disturb the plans of the
enemies, and deliver him from the necessity of continuing the sad and
shameful negotiations for peace he had set an foot at Gertruydemberg.
But the enemies were well posted, end Villars had imprudently lost a good
opportunity of engaging them. All the army had noticed this fault; he
had been warned in time by several general officers, and by the Marechal
de Montesquiou, but he would not believe them. He did not dare to attack
the enemies, now, after having left them leisure to make all their
dispositions. The army cried aloud against so capital a fault. Villars
answered with his usual effrontery. He had quarrelled with his second in
command, the Marechal de Montesquiou, and now knew not what to do.
In this crisis, no engagement taking place, the King thought it fitting
to send Berwick into Flanders to act as mediator, even, to some extent,
as dictator to the army. He was ordered to bring back an account of all
things, so that it might be seen whether a battle could or could not be
fought.
I think I have already stated who Berwick was; but I will here add a few
more words about him to signalise his prodigious and rapid advancement.
We were in the golden age of bastards, and Berwick was a man who had
reason to think so. Bastard of James II., of England, he had arrived in
France, at the age of eighteen, with that monarch, after the Revolution
of 1688. At twenty-two he was made lieutenant-general, and served as
such in Flanders, without having passed through any other rank. At
thirty-three he commanded in chief in Spain with a patent of general.
At thirty-four he was made, on account of his victory at Almanza, Grandee
of Spain, and Chevalier of the Golden Fleece. He continued to command in
chief until February, 1706, when he was made Marshal of France, being
then not more than thirty-six years old. He was an English Duke, and
although as such he had no rank in France, the King had awarded it to
him, as to all who came over with James. This was making a rapid fortune
with a vengeance, under a King who regarded people of thirty-odd as
children, but who thought no more of the ages of bastards than of those
of the gods.
For more than a year past Berwick had coveted to be made Duke and Peer;
But he could not obtain his wish. Now, however, that he was to be sent
into Flanders for the purpose I have just described, it seemed a good
opportunity to try again. He did try, and was successful. He was made
Duke and Peer. He had been twice married. By his first wife he had had
a son. By his second several sons and daughters. Will it be believed,
that he was hardy enough to propose, and that we were weak enough to
accord to him, that his son of the first bed should be formally excluded
from the letters-patent of Duke and Peer, and that those of the second
bed should alone be entered there? Yet so it was. Berwick was, in
respect to England, like the Jews, who await the Messiah. He coaxed
himself always with the hope of a revolution in England, which should put
the Stuarts on the throne again, and reinstate him in his wealth and
honours. He was son of the sister of the Duke of Marlborough, by which
general he was much loved, and with whom, by permission of the King, and
of King James, he kept up a secret intercourse, of which all three were
the dupes, but which enabled Berwick to maintain other intercourses in
England, and to establish his batteries there, hoping thus for his
reinstatement even under the government established. This explains his
motive for the arrangement he made in the letters-patent. He wished his
eldest son to succeed to his English dukedom and his English estates; to
make the second Duke and Peer of France, and the third Grandee of Spain.
Three sons hereditarily elevated to the three chief dignities of the
three, chief realms in Europe, it must be agreed was not bad work for a
man to have achieved at fifty years of age! But Berwick failed in his
English projects. Do what he could all his life to court the various
ministers who came from England, he never could succeed in reestablishing
himself.
The scandal was great at the complaisance of the King in consenting to a
family arrangement, by which a cadet was put over the head of his elder
brother; but the time of the monsters had arrived. Berwick bought an
estate that he created under the name of Fitz-James. The King, who
allowed him to do so, was shocked by the name; and, in my presence, asked
Berwick the meaning of it; he, without any embarrassment, thus explained
it.
The Kings of England, in legitimatising their children gave them a name
and arms, which pass to their posterity. The name varies. Thus the Duke
of Richmond, bastard of Charles II., had the name of "Lennox;" the Dukes
of Cleveland and of Grafton, by the same king, that of "Fitz-Roi," which
means "son of the king;" in fine, the Duke of Berwick had the name of
"Fitz-James;" so that his family name for his posterity is thus "Son of
James;" as a name, it is so ridiculous in French, that nobody could help
laughing at it, or being astonished at the scandal of imposing it in
English upon France.
Berwick having thus obtained his recompense beforehand, started off for
Flanders, but not until he had seen everything signed and sealed and
delivered in due form. He found the enemy so advantageously placed, and
so well prepared, that he had no difficulty in subscribing to the common
opinion of the general officers, that an attack could no longer be
thought of. He gathered up all the opinions he could, and then returned
to Court, having been only about three weeks absent. His report dismayed
the King, and those who penetrated it. Letters from the army soon showed
the fault of which Villars had been guilty, and everybody revolted
against this wordy bully.
He soon after was the subject of common talk at the Court, and in the
army, in consequence of a ridiculous adventure, in which he was the hero.
His wound, or the airs that he gave himself in consequence of it, often
forced him to hold his leg upon the neck of his horse, almost in the same
manner as ladies do. One day, he let slip the remark that he was sick to
death of mounting on horseback like those "harlots" in the suite of
Madame de Bourgogne. Those "harlots," I will observe parenthetically,
were all the young ladies of the Court, and the daughters of Madame la
Duchesse! Such a remark uttered by a general not much loved, speedily
flew from one end of the camp to the other, and was not long in making
its way to the Court and to Paris. The young horsewomen alluded to were
offended; their friends took up arms for them, and Madame la Duchesse de
Bourgogne could not help showing irritation, or avoid complaining.
Villars was apprised of all, and was much troubled by this increase of
enemies so redoubtable, of whom just then he assuredly had no need. He
took it into his head to try and discover who had blabbed; and found it
was Heudicourt, whom Villars, to advance his own interests, by means of
Heudicourt's mother (who was the evil genius of Madame de Maintenon,) had
protected; and to whom even, much against his custom, he had actually not
lent, but given money.
This Heudicourt (whom I have previously allluded to, 'a propos' of a song
he wrote) was a merry wag who excelled in making fun of people, in
highly-seasoned pleasantry, and in comic songs. Spoiled by the favour
which had always sustained him, he gave full licence to his tongue, and
by this audacity had rendered himself redoubtable. He was a scurrilous
wretch, a great drunkard, and a debauchee; not at all cowardly, and with
a face hideous as that of an ugly satyr. He was not insensible to this;
and so, unfitted for intrigues himself, he assisted others in them, and,
by this honest trade, had acquired many friends amongst the flower of the
courtiers of both sexes--above all with the ladies. By way of contrast
to his wickedness, he was called "the good little fellow" and "the good
little fellow" was mixed up in all intrigues; the ladies of the Court
positively struggled for him; and not one of them, even of the highest
ranks, would have dared to fall out with him. Thus protected, he was
rather an embarrassing customer for Marechal de Villars, who,
nevertheless, falling back as usual upon his effrontery, hit upon a
bright project to bring home to Heudicourt the expedient he had against
him.
He collected together about fifteen general officers, and Heudicourt with
them. When they had all arrived, he left his chamber, and went to them.
A number of loiterers had gathered round. This was just what Villars
wanted. He asked all the officers in turn, if they remembered hearing
him utter the expression attributed to him. Albergotti said he
remembered to have heard Villars apply the term "harlots" to the sutlers
and the camp creatures, but never to any other woman. All the rest
followed in the same track. Then Villars, after letting out against this
frightful calumny, and against the impostor who had written and sent it
to the Court, addressed himself to Heudicourt, whom he treated in the
most cruel fashion. "The good little fellow" was strangely taken aback,
and wished to defend himself; but Villars produced proofs that could not
be contradicted. Thereupon the ill-favoured dog avowed his turpitude,
and had the audacity to approach Villars in order to speak low to him;
but the Marechal, drawing back, and repelling him with an air of
indignation, said to him, aloud, that with scoundrels like him he wished
for no privacy. Gathering up, his pluck at this, Heudicourt gave rein to
all his impudence, and declared that they who had been questioned had not
dared to own the truth for fear of offending a Marechal; that as for
himself he might have been wrong in speaking and writing about it, but he
had not imagined that words said before such a numerous company; and in
such a public place, could remain secret, or that he had done more harm
in writing about them that so, many others who had acted likewise.
The Marechal, outraged upon hearing so bold and so truthful a reply, let
out with, greater violence than ever against Heudicourt, accused him of
ingratitude and villainy, drove him away, and a few minutes after had him
arrested and conducted as a prisoner to the chateau at Calais. This
violent scene made as much stir at the Court and in the army as that
which had caused it. The consistent and public conduct of Villars was
much approved. The King declared that he left Heudicourt in his hands:
Madame de Maintenon and, Madame de Bourgogne, that they abandoned him;
and his friends avowed that his fault was inexcusable. But the tide soon
turned. After the first hubbub, the excuse of "the good little fellow"
appeared excellent to the ladies who had their reasons for liking him and
for fearing to irritate him; and also to the army, where the Marechal was
not liked. Several of the officers who had been publicly interrogated by
Villars, now admitted that they had been taken by surprise, and had not
wished to compromise themselves. It was even, going into base details,
argued that the Marechal's expression could not apply to the vivandieres
and the other camp women, as they always rode astride, one leg on this
side one leg on the other, like men, a manner very different from that of
the ladies of Madame de Bourgogne. People contested the power of a
general to deal out justice upon his inferiors for personal matters in
which the service was in nowise concerned; in a word, Heudicourt was soon
let out of Calais, and remained "the good little fellow" in fashion in
spite of the Marechal, who, tormented by so many things this campaign,
sought for and obtained permission to go and take the waters; and did so.
He was succeeded by Harcourt, who was himself in weak health. Thus one
cripple replaced another. One began, the other ended, at Bourbonne.
Douai, Saint-Venant, and Aire fell into the hands of the enemy during
this 'campaign, who thus gained upon us more and more, while we did
little or nothing. This was the last campaign in Flanders of the Duke of
Marlborough. On the Rhine our troops observed and subsisted: nothing
more; but in Spain there was more movement, and I will therefore turn my
glances towards that country, and relate what took place there.
CHAPTER LIV
Before I commence speaking of the affairs of Spain, let me pass lightly
over an event which, engrafted upon some others, made much noise,
notwithstanding the care taken to stifle it.
Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne supped at Saint-Cloud one evening with
Madame la Duchesse de Berry and others--Madame de Saint-Simon absenting
herself from the party. Madame la Duchesse de Berry and M. d'Orleans--
but she more than he--got so drunk, that Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and the rest of the numerous company
there assembled, knew not what to do. M. le Duc de Berry was there, and
him they talked over as well as they could; and the numerous company was
amused by the Grand Duchess as well as she was able. The effect of the
wine, in more ways than one, was such, that people were troubled. In
spite of all, the Duchesse de Berry could not be sobered, so that it
became necessary to carry her, drunk as she was; to Versailles. All the
servants saw her state, and did not keep it to themselves; nevertheless,
it was hidden from the King, from Monseigneur, and from Madame de
Maintenon.
And now, having related this incident, let me turn to Spain.
The events which took place in that country were so important, that I
have thought it best to relate them in a continuous narrative without
interruption. We must go back to the commencement of the year, and
remember the dangerous state which Spain was thrown into, delivered up to
her own weakness, France being too feeble to defend her; finding it
difficult enough, in fact, to defend herself, and willing to abandon her
ally entirely in the hope by this means to obtain peace.
Towards the end of March the King of Spain set out from Madrid to put
himself at the head of his army in Aragon. Villadatias, one of his best
and oldest general officers, was chosen to command under him. The King
of Spain went from Saragossa to Lerida, where he was received with
acclamations by the people and his army. He crossed the Segre on the
14th of May, and advanced towards Balaguier; designing to lay siege to
it. But heavy rains falling and causing the waters to rise, he was
obliged to abandon his project. Joined a month afterwards by troops
arrived from Flanders, he sought to attack the enemy, but was obliged to
content himself for the moment by scouring the country, and taking some
little towns where the Archduke had established stores. All this time
the Count of Staremberg, who commanded the forces of the Archduke, was
ill; this circumstance the King of Spain was profiting by. But the Count
grew well again quicker than was expected; promptly assembled his forces;
marched against the army of the King of Spain; engaged it, and obliged
it, all astonished, to retire under Saragossa. This ill-success fell
entirely on Villadarias, who was accused of imprudence and negligence.
The King of Spain was desperately in want of generals, and M. de Vendome,
knowing this, and sick to death of banishment, had asked some little time
before to be allowed to offer his services. At first he was snubbed.
But the King of Spain, who eagerly wished for M. de Vendome, despatched a
courier, after this defeat, begging the King to allow him to come and
take command. The King held out no longer.
The Duc de Vendome had prepared everything in advance; and having got
over a slight attack of gout, hastened to Versailles. M. du Maine had
negotiated with Madame de Maintenon to obtain permission to take Vendome
to the Duchesse de Bourgogne. The opportunity seemed favourable to them.
Vendome was going to Spain to serve the brother and sister of the
Duchess; and his departure without seeing her would have had a very
disagreeable effect. The Duc du Maine, followed by Vendome, came then
that day to the toilette of the Duchesse de Bourgogne. There happened
that there was a very large company of men and ladies. The Duchess rose
for them, as she always did for the Princes of the blood and others, and
for all the Dukes and Duchesses, and sat down again as usual; but after
this first glance, which could not be refused, she, though usually very
talkative and accustomed to look round, became for once attentive to her
adornment, fixed her eyes on her mirror, and spoke no more to any one.
M. du Maine, with M. de Vendome stuck by his side, remained very
disconcerted; and M. du Maine, usually so free and easy, dared not utter
a single word. Nobody went near them or spoke to them. They remained
thus about half a quarter of an hour, with an universal silence
throughout the chamber--all eyes being fixed on them; and not being able
to stand this any longer, slunk away. This reception was not
sufficiently agreeable to induce Vendome to pay his respects at parting;
for it would have been more embarrassing still if, when according to
custom he advanced to kiss the Duchesse de Bourgogne, she had given him
the unheard-of affront of a refusal. As for the Duc de Bourgogne, he
received Vendome tolerably politely, that is to say, much too well.
Staremberg meanwhile profited by the advantage he had gained; he attacked
the Spanish army under Saragossa and totally defeated it. Artillery,
baggage, all was lost; and the rout was complete. This misfortune
happened on the 20th of August. The King, who had witnessed it from
Saragossa, immediately afterwards took the road for Madrid. Bay, one of
his generals, gathered together eighteen thousand men, with whom he
retired to Tudela, without any impediment on the part of the enemy.
M. de Vendome learnt the news of this defeat while on his way to Spain.
Like a prudent man as he was, for his own interests, he stopped at once
so as to see what turn affairs were taking, and to know how to act.
He waited at Bayonne, gaining time there by sending a courier to the King
for instructions how to act, and remaining until the reply came. After
its arrival he set out to continue his journey, and joined the King of
Spain at Valladolid.
Staremberg, after his victory, was joined by the Archduke, and a debate
soon took place as to the steps next to be taken. Staremberg was for
giving battle to the army of eighteen thousand men under Bay, which I
have just alluded to, beating it, and then advancing little by little
into Spain, to make head against the vanquished army of the King. Had
this advice been acted on, it could scarcely have failed to ruin the King
of Spain, and the whole country must have fallen into the hands of the
enemy. But it was not acted on. Stanhope, who commanded the English and
Dutch troops, said that his Queen had ordered him to march upon Madrid
when possible, in preference to every other place. He therefore proposed
that they should go straight to Madrid with the Archduke, proclaim him
King there, and thus terrify all Spain by seizing the capital.
Staremberg, who admitted that the project was dazzling, sustained,
however, that it was of little use, and of great danger. He tried all in
his power to shake the inflexibility of Stanhope, but in vain, and at
last was obliged to yield as being the feebler of the two. The time lost
in this dispute saved the wreck of the army which had just been defeated.
What was afterwards done saved the King of Spain.
When the plan of the allies became known, however, the consternation at
Madrid, which was already great, was extreme. The King resolved to
withdraw from a place which could not defend itself, and to carry away
with him the Queen, the Prince, and the Councils. The grandees declared
that they would follow the King and his fortune everywhere, and very few
failed to do so; the departure succeeded the declaration in twenty-four
hours. The Queen, holding the Prince in her arms, at a balcony of the
palace, spoke to the people assembled beneath, with so much grace, force,
and courage, that the success she had is incredible. The impression that
the people received was communicated everywhere, and soon gained all the
provinces. The Court thus left Madrid for the second time in the midst
of the most lamentable cries, uttered from the bottom of their hearts, by
people who came from town and country, and who so wished to follow the
King and Queen that considerable effort was required in order to induce
them to return, each one to his home.
Valladolid was the retreat of this wretched Court, which in the most
terrible trouble it had yet experienced, lost neither judgment nor
courage. Meanwhile the grandest and rarest example of attachment and of
courage that had ever been heard of or seen was seen in Spain. Prelates
and the humblest of the clergy, noblemen and the poorest people, lawyers
and artisans all bled themselves of the last drop of their substance,
in order to form new troops and magazines, and to provide all kinds of
provisions for the Court, and those who had followed it. Never nation
made more efforts so surprising, with a unanimity and a concert which
acted everywhere at once. The Queen sold off all she possessed, received
with her own hands sometimes even as little as ten pistoles, in order to
content the zeal of those; who brought, and thanked them with as much
affection as they themselves displayed. She would continually say that
she should like to put herself at the head of her troops, with her son in
her arms. With this language and her conduct, she gained all hearts, and
was very useful in such a strange extremity.
The Archduke meanwhile arrived in Madrid with his army. He entered there
in triumph, and caused himself to be proclaimed King of Spain, by the
violence of his troops, who dragged the trembling Corregidor through the
streets, which for the most part were deserted, whilst the majority of
the houses were without inhabitants, the few who remained having
barricaded their doors and windows, and shut themselves up in the most
remote places, where the troops did not dare to break in upon them, for
fear of increasing the visible and general despair, and in the hope of
gaining by gentleness. The entry of the Archduke was not less sad than
his proclamation. A few scarcely audible and feeble acclamations were
heard, but were so forced that the Archduke, sensibly astonished, made
them cease of himself. He did not dare to lodge in the palace, or in the
centre of Madrid, but slept at the extremity of the city, and even there
only for two or three nights. Scarcely any damage was inflicted upon the
town. Staremberg was careful to gain over the inhabitants by
conciliation and clemency; yet his army perished of all kinds of misery.
Not a single person could be found to supply it with subsistence for man
or beast--not even when offered money. Prayers, menaces, executions, all
were perfectly useless. There was not a Castilian who would not have
believed himself dishonourable in selling the least thing to the enemies,
or in allowing them to take it. It is thus that this magnanimous people,
without any other help than their courage and their fidelity, sustained
themselves in the midst of their enemies, whose army they caused to
perish; while at the same time; by inconceivable prodigies, they formed a
new army for themselves, perfectly equipped and furnished, and put thus,
by themselves; alone, and for the second time, the crown upon the head of
their King; with a glory for ever an example to all the people of Europe;
so true it is that nothing approaches the strength which is found in the
heart of a nation for the succour and re-establishment of kings!
Stanhope, who had not failed to see the excellence of Staremberg's advice
from the first moment of their dispute, now said insolently, that having
executed the orders of his Queen, it was for Staremberg to draw the army
out of its embarrassment. As for himself, he had nothing more to do in
the matter! When ten or twelve days had elapsed, it was resolved to
remove from Madrid towards Toledo. From the former place nothing was
taken away, except same of the king's tapestry; which Stanhope was not
ashamed to carry off, but which he did not long keep. This act of
meanness was blamed even by his own countrymen. Staremberg did not make
a long stay at Toledo, but in quitting the town, burnt the superb palace
in the Moorish style that Charles Quint had built there, and that, was
called the Alcazar. This was an irreparable damage, which he made
believe happened accidentally.
As nothing now hindered the King of Spain from going to see his faithful
subjects at Madrid, he entered that city on the 2nd of December, in the
midst of an infinite crowd and incredible acclamations. He descended at
the church of Notre Dame d'Atocha, and was three hours in arriving at the
palace, so prodigious was the crowd. The city made a present to him of
twenty thousand pistoles. On the fourth day after his arrival at Madrid,
the King left, in order to join M. de Vendeme and his army.
But a little while before, this monarch was a fugitive wanderer, almost
entirely destroyed, without troops, without money, and without
subsistence. Now he found himself at the head of ten or fifteen thousand
men well armed, well clad, well paid, with provisions, money, and
ammunition in abundance; and this magical change was brought about by the
sudden universal conspiracy of the unshakable fidelity and attachment--
without example, of all the orders of his subjects; by their efforts and
their industry, as prodigious the one as the other.
Vendome, in the utmost surprise at a change so little to be hoped for,
wished to profit by it by joining the army under Bay, which was too weak
itself to appear before Staremberg. Vendome accordingly set about making
this junction, which Staremberg thought only how to hinder. He knew well
the Duc de Vendome. In Savoy he had gained many a march upon him; had
passed five rivers in front of him; and in spite of him had led his
troops to M. de Savoie. Staremberg thought only therefore in what manner
he could lay a trap for M. de Vendome, in which he, with his army, might
fall and break his neck without hope of escape. With this view he put
his army into quarters access to which was easy everywhere, which were
near each other, and which could assist each other in case of need. He
then placed all his English and Dutch, Stanhope at their head, in
Brighuega, a little fortified town in good condition for defence. It was
at the head of all the quarters of Staremberg's army, and at the entrance
of a plain over which M. de Vendome had to pass to join Bay.
Staremberg was on the point of being joined by his army of Estremadura,
so that in the event of M. de Vendeme attacking Brighuega, as he hoped,
he had a large number of troops to depend upon.
Vendome, meanwhile, set out on his march. He was informed of
Staremberg's position, but in a manner just such as Staremberg wished;
that is to say, he was led to believe that Stanhope had made a wrong move
in occupying Brighuega, that he was too far removed from Staremberg to
receive any assistance from him, and that he could be easily overpowered.
That is how matters appeared to Vendome. He hastened his march,
therefore, made his dispositions, and on the 8th of December, after mid-
day, approached Brighuega, called upon it to surrender, and upon its
refusal, prepared to attack it.
Immediately afterwards his surprise was great, upon discovering that
there were so many troops in the town, and that instead of having to do
with a mere outpost, he was engaged against a place of some consequence.
He did not wish to retire, and could not have done so with impunity. He
set to therefore, storming in his usual manner, and did what he could to
excite his troops to make short work, of a conquest so different from
what he had imagined, and so dangerous to delay.
Nevertheless, the weight of his mistake pressed upon him as the hours
passed and he saw fresh enemies arrive. Two of his assaults had failed:
he determined to play at double or quits, and ordered a third assault.
While the dispositions were being made, on the 9th of December he learnt
that Staremberg was marching against him with four or five thousand men,
that is to say, with just about half of what he really led. In this
anguish, Vendome did not hesitate to stake even the Crown of Spain upon
the hazard of the die. His third attack was made with all the force of
which he was capable. Every one of the assailants knew the extremity of
the danger, and behaved with so much valour and impetuosity, that the
town was carried in spite of an obstinate resistance. The besieged were
obliged to yield, and to the number of eight battalions and eight
squadrons, surrendered themselves prisoners of war, and with them,
Stanhope, their general, who, so triumphant in Madrid, was here obliged
to disgorge the King's tapestries that he had taken from the palace.
While the capitulation was being made, various information came to
Vendome of Staremberg's march, which it was necessary, above all, to hide
from the prisoners, who, had they known their liberator was only a league
and a half distant from them, as he was then, would have broken the
capitulation; and defended themselves. M. de Vendome's embarrassment was
great. He had, at the same time, to march out and meet Staremberg and to
get rid of, his numerous prisoners. All was done, however, very
successfully. Sufficient troops were left in Brighuega to attend to the
evacuation, and when it was at an end, those troops left the place
themselves and joined their comrades, who, with M. de Vendome, were
waiting for Staremberg outside the town, at Villaviciosa, a little place
that afterwards gave its name to the battle. Only four hundred men were
left in Brighuega.
M. de Vendome arranged his army in order of battle in a tolerably open
plain, but embarrassed by little knolls in several places; very
disadvantageous for the cavalry. Immediately afterwards the cannon began
to fire on both sides, and almost immediately the two links of the King
of Spain prepared to charge. After the battle had proceeded some time,
M. de Vendome perceived that his centre began to give way, and that the
left of his cavalry could not break the right of the enemies. He thought
all was lost, and gave orders accordingly to his men to retire towards
Torija. Straightway, too, he directed himself in that direction, with
the King of Spain and a good part of his troops. While thus retreating,
he learnt that two of his officers had charged the enemy's infantry with
the cavalry they had at their orders, had much knocked it about and had
rendered themselves masters, on the field of battle, of a large number
of-prisoners, and of the artillery that the enemy had abandoned. News so
agreeable and so little expected determined the Duc de Vendome and the
King of Spain to return to the battle with the troops that had followed
them. The day was, in fact, won just as night came on. The enemies
abandoned twenty pieces of cannon, two mortars, their wounded and their
equipages; and numbers of them were taken prisoners. But Staremberg,
having all the night to himself, succeeded in retiring in good order with
seven or eight thousand men. His baggage and the majority of his waggons
fell a prey to the vanquisher. Counting the garrison of Brighuega, the
loss to the enemy was eleven thousand men killed or taken, their
ammunition, artillery, baggage, and a great number of flags and
standards.
When we consider the extreme peril the Crown of Spain ran in these
engagements, and that this time, if things had gone ill there was no
resource, we tremble still. Had a catastrophe happened, there was
nothing to hope from France. Its exhaustion and its losses would not
have enabled it to lend aid. In its desire for peace, in fact, it would
have hailed the loss of the Spanish Crown as a relief. The imprudence,
therefore, of M. de Vendome in so readily falling into the snare laid for
him, is all the more to be blamed. He takes no trouble to inform himself
of the dispositions of the enemy; he comes upon a place which he believes
a mere post, but soon sees it contains a numerous garrison, and finds
that the principal part of the enemy's army is ready to fall upon him as
he makes the attack. Then he begins to see in what ship he has embarked;
he sees the double peril of a double action to sustain against Stanhope,
whom he must overwhelm by furious assault, and against Staremberg, whom
he must meet and defeat; or, leave to the enemies the Crown of Spain, and
perhaps the person of Philip V., as price of his folly. Brighuega is
gained, but it is without him. Villaviciosa is gained, but it is also
without him. This hero is not sharp-sighted enough to see success when
it comes. He thinks it defeat, and gives orders for retreat. When
informed that the battle is gained, he returns to the field, and as
daylight comes perceives the fact to be so. He is quite without shame
for his stupid mistake, and cries out that he has vanquished, with an
impudence to which the Spaniards were not accustomed; and, to conclude,
he allows Staremberg's army to get clean off, instead of destroying it at
once, as he might have done, and so finished the war. Such were the
exploits of this great warrior, so desired in Spain to resuscitate it,
and such, were the first proofs of his capacity upon arriving in that
country!
At the moment that the King of Spain was led back to the battle-field by
Vendome, and that they could no longer doubt their good fortune, he sent
a courier to the Queen. Her mortal anguish was on the instant changed
into so great a joy, that she went out immediately on foot into the
streets of Vittoria, where all was delight; as it soon was over all
Spain. The news of the victory was brought to the King (of France) by
Don Gaspard de Zuniga, who gave an exact account of all that had
occurred, hiding nothing respecting M. de Vendome, who was thus unmasked
and disgraced, in spite of every effort on the part of his cabal to
defend him.
Among the allies, all the blame, of this defeat fell upon Stanhope.
Seven or eight hours more of resistance on his part at Brighuega would
have enabled Staremberg to come up to his assistance, and all the
resources of Spain would then have been annihilated. Staremberg,
outraged at the ill-success of his undertaking, cried out loudly against
Stanhope. Some of the principal officers who had been at Brighuega
seconded these complaints. Stanhope even did not dare to deny his fault.
He was allowed to demand leave of absence to go home and defend himself.
He was badly received, stripped of all military rank in England and
Holland, and (as well as the officers under him) was not without fear of
his degradation, and was even in danger of his life.
This recital of the events that took place in Spain has led me away from
other matters of earlier date. It is time now that I should return to
them.
VOLUME 8.
CHAPTER LV
Although, as we have just seen, matters were beginning to brighten a
little in Spain, they remained as dull and overcast as ever in France.
The impossibility of obtaining peace, and the exhaustion of the realm,
threw, the King into the most cruel anguish, and Desmarets into the
saddest embarrassment. The paper of all kinds with which trade was
inundated, and which had all more or less lost credit, made a chaos for
which no remedy could be perceived. State-bills, bank-bills, receiver-
general's-bills, title-bills, utensil-bills, were the ruin of private
people, who were forced by the King to take them in payment, and who lost
half, two-thirds, and sometimes more, by the transaction. This
depreciation enriched the money people, at the expense of the public; and
the circulation of money ceased, because there was no longer any money;
because the King no longer paid anybody, but drew his revenues still; and
because all the specie out of his control was locked up in the coffers of
the possessors.
The capitation tax was doubled and trebled, at the will of the Intendants
of the Provinces; merchandise and all kinds of provision were taxed to
the amount of four times their value; new taxes of all kinds and upon all
sorts of things were exacted; all this crushed nobles and roturiers,
lords and clergy, and yet did not bring enough to the King, who drew the
blood of all his subjects, squeezed out their very marrow, without
distinction, and who enriched an army of tax-gatherers and officials of
all kinds, in whose hands the best part of what was collected remained.
Desmarets, in whom the King had been forced to put all his confidence in
finance matters, conceived the idea of establishing, in addition to so
many taxes, that Royal Tithe upon all the property of each community and
of each private person of the realm, that the Marechal de Vauban, on the
one hand, and Boisguilbert on the other, had formerly proposed; but, as I
have already described, as a simple and stile tax which would suffice for
all, which would all enter the coffers of the King, and by means of which
every other impost would be abolished.
We have seen what success this proposition met with; how the fanciers
trembled at it; how the ministers blushed at it, with what anathemas it
was rejected, and to what extent these two excellent and skilful citizens
were disgraced. All this must be recollected here, since Desmarets, who
had not lost sight of this system (not as relief and remedy--unpardonable
crimes in the financial doctrine), now had recourse to it.
He imparted his project to three friends, Councillors of State, who
examined it well, and worked hard to see how to overcome the obstacles
which arose in the way of its execution. In the first place, it was
necessary, in order to collect this tax, to draw from each person a clear
statement of his wealth, of his debts, and so on. It was necessary to
demand sure proofs on these points so as not to be deceived. Here was
all the difficulty. Nothing was thought of the desolation this extra
impost must cause to a prodigious number of men, or of their despair upon
finding themselves obliged to disclose their family secrets; to hate a
lamp thrown, as it were, upon their most delicate parts; all these
things, I say, went for nothing. Less than a month sufficed these humane
commissioners to render an account of this gentle project to the Cyclops
who had charged them with it. Desmarets thereupon proposed it to the
King, who, accustomed as he was to the most ruinous imposts, could not
avoid being terrified at this. For a long while he had heard nothing
talked of but the most extreme misery; this increase saddened him in a
manner so evident, that his valets perceived it several days running, and
were so disturbed at it, that Marechal (who related all this curious
anecdote to me) made bold to speak to the King upon this sadness, fearing
for his health. The King avowed to him that he felt infinite trouble,
and threw himself vaguely upon the state of affairs. Eight or ten days.
after (during which he continued to feel the same melancholy), the King
regained his usual calmness, and called Marechal to explain the cause of
his trouble.
The King related to Marechal that the extremity of his affairs had forced
him to put on furious imposts; that setting aside compassion, scruples
had much tormented him for taking thus the wealth of his subjects; that
at last he had unbosomed himself to the Pere Tellier, who had asked for a
few days to think upon the matter, and that he had returned after having
had a consultation with some of the most skilful doctors of the Sorbonne,
who had decided that all the wealth of his subjects was his, and that
when he took it he only took what belonged to him! The King added, that
this decision had taken away all his scruples, and had restored to him
the calm and tranquillity he had lost. Marechal was so astonished, so
bewildered to hear, this recital, that he could not offer one word.
Happily for him, the King quitted him almost immediately, and Marechal
remained some time in the same place, scarcely knowing where he was.
After the King had been thus satisfied by his confessor, no time was lost
in establishing the tax. On Tuesday, the 30th of September, Desmarets
entered the Finance Council with the necessary edict in his bag.
For some days everybody had known of this bombshell in the air, and had
trembled with that remnant of hope which is founded only upon desire; all
the Court as well as all Paris waited in a dejected sadness to see what
would happen. People whispered to each other, and even when the project
was rendered public, no one dared to talk of it aloud.
On the day above-named, the King brought forward this measure in the
Council, by saying, that the impossibility of obtaining peace, and the
extreme difficulty of sustaining the war, had caused Desmarets to look
about in order to discover some means, which should appear good, of
raising money; that he had pitched upon this tax; that he (the King),
although sorry to adopt such a resource, approved it, and had no doubt
the Council would do so likewise, when it was explained to them.
Desmarets, in a pathetic discourse, then dwelt upon the reasons which had
induced him to propose this tax, and afterwards read the edict through
from beginning to end without interruption.
No one spoke, moreover, when it was over, until the King asked
D'Aguesseau his opinion. D'Aguesseau replied, that it would be necessary
for him to take home the edict and read it through very carefully before
expressing an opinion. The King said that D'Aguesseau was right--it
would take a long time to examine the edict--but after all, examination
was unnecessary, and would only be loss of time. All remained silent
again, except the Duc de Beauvilliers, who, seduced by the nephew of
Colbert, whom he thought an oracle in finance, said a few words in favour
of the project.
Thus was settled this bloody business, and immediately after signed,
sealed, and registered, among stifled sobs, and published amidst the most
gentle but most piteous complaints. The product of this tax was nothing
like so much as had been imagined in this bureau of Cannibals; and the
King did not pay a single farthing more to any one than he had previously
done. Thus all the fine relief expected by this tax ended in smoke.
The Marechal de Vauban had died of grief at the ill-success of his task
and his zeal, as I have related in its place. Poor Boisguilbert, in the
exile his zeal had brought him, was terribly afflicted, to find he had
innocently given advice which he intended for the relief of the State,
but which had been made use of in this frightful manner. Every man,
without exception, saw himself a prey to the tax-gatherers: reduced to
calculate and discuss with them his own patrimony, to receive their
signature and their protection under the most terrible pains; to show in
public all the secrets of his family; to bring into the broad open
daylight domestic turpitudes enveloped until then in the folds of
precautions the wisest and the most multiplied. Many had to convince the
tax agents, but vainly, that although proprietors, they did not enjoy the
tenth part of them property. All Languedoc offered to give up its entire
wealth, if allowed to enjoy, free from every impost, the tenth part of
it. The proposition not only was not listened to, but was reputed an
insult and severely blamed.
Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne spoke openly against this tax; and
against the finance people, who lived upon the very marrow of the people;
spoke with a just and holy anger that recalled the memory of Saint-Louis,
of Louis XII., Father of the People, and of Louis the Just. Monseigneur,
too, moved by this indignation, so unusual, of his son, sided with him,
and showed anger at so many exactions as injurious as barbarous, and at
so many insignificant men so monstrously enriched with the nation's
blood. Both father and son infinitely surprised those who heard them,
and made themselves looked upon, in some sort as resources from which
something might hereafter be hoped for. But the edict was issued, and
though there might be some hope in the future, there was none in the
present. And no one knew who was to be the real successor of Louis XIV.,
and how under the next government we were to be still more overwhelmed
than under this one.
One result of this tax was, that it enabled the King to augment all his
infantry with five men per company.
A tax was also levied upon the usurers, who had much gained by
trafficking in the paper of the King, that is to say, had taken advantage
of the need of those to whom the King gave this paper in payment. These
usurers are called 'agioteurs'. Their mode was, ordinarily, to give, for
example, according as the holder of paper was more or less pressed, three
or four hundred francs (the greater part often in provisions), for a bill
of a thousand francs! This game was called 'agio'. It was said that
thirty millions were obtained from this tax. Many people gained much by
it; I know not if the King was the better treated.
Soon after this the coin was re-coined, by which much profit was made for
the King, and much wrong done to private people and to trade. In all
times it has, been regarded as a very great misfortune to meddle with
corn and money. Desmarets has accustomed us to tricks with the money;
M. le Duc and Cardinal Fleury to interfere with corn and to fictitious
famine.
At the commencement of December, the King declared that he wished there
should be, contrary to custom, plays and "apartments" at Versailles even
when Monseigneur should be at Meudon. He thought apparently he must keep
his Court full of amusements, to hide, if it was possible, abroad and at
home, the disorder and the extremity of affairs. For the same reason,
the carnival was opened early this season, and all through the winter
there were many balls of all kinds at the Court, where the wives of the
ministers gave very magnificent displays, like fetes, to Madame la
Duchesse de Bourgogne and to all the Court.
But Paris did not remain less wretched or the provinces less desolated.
And thus I have arrived at the end of 1710.
At the commencement of the following year, 1711, that is to say, a few
days after the middle of March, a cruel misfortune happened to the
Marechal de Boufflers. His eldest son was fourteen years of age,
handsome, well made, of much promise, and who succeeded marvellously at
the Court, when his father presented him there to the King to thank his
Majesty for the reversion of the government of Flow and of Lille. He
returned afterwards to the College of the Jesuits, where he was being
educated. I know not what youthful folly he was guilty of with the two
sons of D'Argenson; but the Jesuits, wishing to show that they made no
distinction of persons, whipped the little lad, because, to say the
truth, they had nothing to fear from the Marechal de Boufflers; but they
took good care to left the others off, although equally guilty, because
they had to reckon with D'Argenson, lieutenant of the police, of much
credit in book matters, Jansenism, and all sorts of things and affairs in
which they were interested.
Little Boufflers, who was full of courage, and who had done no more than
the two Argensons, and with them, was seized with such despair, that he
fell ill that same day. He was carried to the Marechal's house, but it
was impossible to save him. The heart was seized, the blood diseased,
the purples appeared; in four days all was over. The state of the father
and mother may be imagined! The King, who was much touched by it, did
not let them ask or wait for him. He sent one of his gentlemen to
testify to them the share he had in their loss, and announced that he
would give to their remaining son 'what he had already given to the
other. As for the Jesuits, the universal cry against them was
prodigious; but that was all. This would be the place, now that I am
speaking of the Jesuits, to speak of another affair in which they were
concerned. But I pass over, for the present, the dissensions that broke
out at about this time, and that ultimately led to the famous Papal Bull
Unigenitus, so fatal to the Church and to the State, so shameful far
Rome, and so injurious to religion; and I proceed to speak of the great
event of this year which led to others so memorable and so unexpected.
CHAPTER LVI
But in Order to understand the part I played in the event I have alluded
to and the interest I took in it, it is necessary for me to relate some
personal matters that occurred in the previous year. Du Mont was one of
the confidants of Monseigneur; but also had never forgotten what his
father owed to mine. Some days after the commencement of the second
voyage to Marly, subsequently to the marriage of the Duchesse de Berry,
as I was coming back from the King's mass, the said Du Mont, in the crush
at the door of the little salon of the chapel, took an opportunity when
he was not perceived, to pull me by my coat, and when I turned round put
a finger to his lips, and pointed towards the gardens which are at the
bottom of the river, that is to say, of that superb cascade which the
Cardinal Fleury has destroyed, and which faced the rear of the chateau.
At the same time du Mont whispered in my car: "To the arbours!" That part
of the garden was surrounded with arbours palisaded so as to conceal what
was inside. It was the least frequented place at Marly, leading to
nothing; and in the afternoon even, and the evening, few people within
them.
Uneasy to know what Du Mont wished to communicate with so much mystery,
I gently went towards the arbours where, without being seen, I looked
through one of the openings until I saw him appear. He slipped in by the
corner of the chapel, and I went towards him. As he joined me he begged
me to return towards the river, so as to be still more out of the way;
and then we set ourselves against the thickest palisades, as far as
possible from all openings, so as to be still more concealed. All this
surprised and frightened me: I was still more so when I learned what was
the matter.
Du Mont then told me, on condition that I promised not to show that I
knew it, and not to make use of my knowledge in any way without his
consent, that two days after the marriage of the Duc de Berry, having
entered towards the end of the morning the cabinet of Monseigneur, he
found him alone, looking very serious. He followed Monseigneur, through
the gardens alone, until he entered by the window the apartments of the
Princesse de Conti, who was also alone. As he entered Monseigneur said
with an air not natural to him, and very inflamed--as if by way of
interrogation--that she "sat very quietly there." This frightened her
so, that she asked if there was any news from Flanders, and what had
happened. Monseigneur answered, in a tone of great annoyance, that there
was no news except that the Duc de Saint-Simon had said, that now that
the marriage of the Duc de Berry was brought about, it would be proper to
drive away Madame la Duchesse and the Princesse de Conti, after which it
would be easy to govern "the great imbecile," meaning himself. This was
why he thought she ought not to be so much at her ease. Then, suddenly,
as if lashing his sides to get into a greater rage, he spoke in a way
such a speech would have deserved, added menaces, said that he would have
the Duc de Bourgogne to fear me, to put me aside, and separate himself
entirely from me. This sort of soliloquy lasted a long time, and I was
not told what the Princesse de Conti said to it; but from the silence of
Du Mont, her annoyance at the marriage, I had brought about, and other
reasons, it seems to me unlikely that she tried to soften Monseigneur.
Du Mont begged me not, for a long time at least, to show that I knew what
had taken place, and to behave with the utmost prudence. Then he fled
away by the path he had come by, fearing to be seen. I remained walking
up and down in the arbour all the time, reflecting on the wickedness of
my enemies, and the gross credulity of Monseigneur. Then I ran away, and
escaped to Madame de Saint-Simon, who, as astonished and frightened as I,
said not a word of the communication I had received.
I never knew who had served me this ill-turn with Monseigneur, but I
always suspected Mademoiselle de Lillebonne. After a long time, having
obtained with difficulty the consent of the timid Du Mont, I made Madame
de Saint-Simon speak to the Duchesse de Bourgogne, who undertook to
arrange the affair as well as it could be arranged. The Duchesse spoke
indeed to Monseigneur, and showed him how ridiculously he had been
deceived, when he was persuaded that I could ever have entertained the
ideas attributed to me. Monseigneur admitted that he had been carried
away by anger; and that there was no likelihood that I should have
thought of anything so wicked and incredible.
About this time the household of the Duc and Duchesse de Berry was
constituted. Racilly obtained the splendid appointment of first surgeon,
and was worthy of it; but the Duchesse de Berry wept bitterly, because
she did not consider him of high family enough. She was not so delicate
about La Haye, whose appointment she rapidly secured. The fellow looked
in the glass more complaisantly than ever. He was well made, but stiff,
and with a face not at all handsome, and looking as if it had been
skinned. He was happy in more ways than one, and was far more attached
to his new mistress than to his master. The King was very angry when he
learned that the Duc de Berry had supplied himself with such an
assistant.
Meantime, I continued on very uneasy terms with Monseigneur, since I had
learned his strange credulity with respect to me. I began to feel my
position very irksome, not to say painful, on this account. Meudon I
would not go to--for me it was a place infested with demons--yet by
stopping away I ran great risks of losing the favour and consideration I
enjoyed at Court. Monseigneur was a man so easily imposed upon, as I had
already experienced, and his intimate friends were so unscrupulous that
there was no saying what might be invented on the one side and swallowed
on the other, to my discredit. Those friends, too, were, I knew, enraged
against me for divers weighty reasons, and would stop at nothing, I was
satisfied, to procure my downfall. For want of better support I
sustained myself with courage. I said to myself, "We never experience
all the evil or all the good that we have apparently the most reason to
expect." I hoped, therefore, against hope, terribly troubled it must be
confessed on the score of Meudon. At Easter, this year, I went away to
La Ferme, far from the Court and the world, to solace myself as I could;
but this thorn in my side was cruelly sharp! At the moment the most
unlooked-for it pleased God to deliver me from it.
At La Ferme I had but few guests: M. de Saint-Louis, an old brigadier of
cavalry, and a Normandy gentleman, who had been in my regiment, and who
was much attached to me. On Saturday, the 11th of the month, and the day
before Quasimodo, I had been walking with them all the morning, and I had
entered all-alone into my cabinet a little before dinner, when a courier
sent by Madame de Saint-Simon, gave me a letter from her, in which I was
informed that Monseigneur was ill!
I learnt afterwards that this Prince, while on his way to Meudon for the
Easter fetes, met at Chaville a priest, who was carrying Our Lord to a
sick person. Monseigneur, and Madame de Bourgogne, who was with him,
knelt down to adore the Host, and then Monseigneur inquired what was the
malady of the patient. "The small-pox," he was told. That disease was
very prevalent just then. Monseigneur had had it, but very lightly, and
when young. He feared it very much, and was struck with the answer he
now received. In the evening he said to Boudin, his chief doctor, "I
should not be surprised if I were to have the small-pox." The day,
however, passed over as usual.
On the morrow, Thursday, the 9th, Monseigneur rose, and meant to go out
wolf-hunting; but as he was dressing, such a fit of weakness seized him,
that he fell into his chair. Boudin made him get into bed again; but all
the day his pulse was in an alarming state. The King, only half informed
by Fagon of what had taken place, believed there was nothing the matter,
and went out walking at Marly after dinner, receiving news from time to
time. Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne and Madame de Bourgogne dined at
Meudon, and they would not quit Monseigneur for one moment. The Princess
added to the strict duties of a daughter-in-law all that her gracefulness
could suggest, and gave everything to Monseigneur with her own hand. Her
heart could not have been troubled by what her reason foresaw; but,
nevertheless, her care and attention were extreme, without any airs of
affectation or acting. The Duc de Bourgogne, simple and holy as he was,
and full of the idea of his duty, exaggerated his attention; and although
there was a strong suspicion of the small-pox, neither quitted
Monseigneur, except for the King's supper.
The next day, Friday, the 10th, in reply to his express demands, the King
was informed of the extremely dangerous state of Monseigneur. He had
said on the previous evening that he would go on the following morning to
Meudon, and remain there during all the illness of Monseigneur whatever
its nature might be. He was now as good as his word. Immediately after
mass he set out for Meudon. Before doing so, he forbade his children,
and all who had not had the small-pox, to go there, which was suggested
by a motive of kindness. With Madame de Maintenon and a small suite, he
had just taken up his abode in Meudon, when Madame de Saint-Simon sent me
the letter of which I have just made mention.
I will continue to speak of myself with the same truthfulness I speak of
others, and with as much exactness as possible. According to the terms
on which I was with Monseigneur and his intimates, may be imagined the
impression made upon me by this news. I felt that one way or other, well
or ill, the malady of Monseigneur would soon terminate. I was quite at
my ease at La Ferme. I resolved therefore to wait there until I received
fresh particulars. I despatched a courier to Madame de Saint-Simon,
requesting her to send me another the next day, and I passed the rest of
this day, in an ebb and flow of feelings; the man and the Christian
struggling against the man and the courtier, and in the midst of a crowd
of vague fancies catching glimpses of the future, painted in the most
agreeable colours.
The courier I expected so impatiently arrived the next day, Sunday, after
dinner. The small-pox had declared itself, I learnt, and was going on as
well as could be wished. I believed Monseigneur saved, and wished to
remain at my own house; nevertheless I took advice, as I have done all my
life, and with great regret set out the next morning. At La queue, about
six leagues from Versailles, I met a financier of the name of La
Fontaine, whom I knew well. He was coming from Paris and Versailles, and
came up to me as I changed horses. Monseigneur, he said, was going on
admirably; and he added details which convinced me he was out of all
danger. I arrived at Versailles, full of this opinion, which was
confirmed by Madame de Saint-Simon and everybody I met, so that nobody
any longer feared, except on account of the treacherous nature of this
disease in a very fat man of fifty.
The King held his Council, and worked in the evening with his ministers
as usual. He saw Monseigneur morning and evening, oftentimes in the
afternoon, and always remained long by the bedside. On the Monday I
arrived he had dined early, and had driven to Marly, where the Duchesse
de Bourgogne joined him. He saw in passing on the outskirts of the
garden of Versailles his grandchildren, who had come out to meet him, but
he would not let them come near, and said, "good day" from a distance.
The Duchesse de Bourgogne had had the small-pox, but no trace was left.
The King only liked his own houses, and could not bear to be anywhere
else. This was why his visits to Meudon were few and short, and only
made from complaisance. Madame de Maintenon was still more out of her
element there. Although her chamber was everywhere a sanctuary, where
only ladies entitled to the most extreme familiarity entered, she always
wanted another retreat near at hand entirely inaccessible except to the
Duchesse de Bourgogne alone, and that only for a few instants at a time.
Thus she had Saint-Cyr for Versailles and for Marly; and at Marly also a
particular retiring place; at Fontainebleau she had her town house.
Seeing therefore that Monseigneur was getting on well, and that a long
sojourn it Meudon would be necessary, the upholsterers of the King were
ordered to furnish a house in the park which once belonged to the
Chancellor le Tellier, but which Monseigneur had bought.
When I arrived at Versailles, I wrote to M. de Beauvilliers at Meudon
praying him to apprise the King that I had returned on account of the
illness of Monseigneur, and that I would have gone to see him, but that,
never having had the small-pox, I was included in the prohibition. M. de
Beauvilliers did as I asked, and sent word back to me that my return had
been very well timed, and that the King still forbade me as well as
Madame de Saint-Simon to go to Meudon. This fresh prohibition did not
distress me in the least. I was informed of all that was passing there;
and that satisfied me.
There were yet contrasts at Meudon worth noticing. Mademoiselle Choin
never appeared while the King was with Monseigneur, but kept close in her
loft. When the coast was clear she came out, and took up her position at
the sick man's bedside. All sorts of compliments passed between her and
Madame de Maintenon, yet the two ladies never met. The King asked Madame
de Maintenon if she had seen Mademoiselle Choin, and upon learning that
she had not, was but ill-pleased. Therefore Madame de Maintenon sent
excuses and apologies to Mademoiselle Choin, and hoped she said to see
her soon,--strange compliments from one chamber to another under the same
roof. They never saw each other afterwards.
It should be observed, that Pere Tellier was also incognito at Meudon,
and dwelt in a retired room from which he issued to see the King, but
never approached the apartments of Monseigneur.
Versailles presented another scene. Monseigneur le Duc and Madame la
Duchesse de Bourgogne held their Court openly there; and this Court
resembled the first gleamings of the dawn. All the Court assembled
there; all Paris also; and as discretion and precaution were never French
virtues, all Meudon came as well. People were believed on their word
when they declared that they had not entered the apartments of
Monseigneur that day, and consequently could not bring the infection.
When the Prince and Princess rose, when they weft to bed, when they dined
and supped with the ladies,--all public conversations--all meals--all
assembled--were opportunities of paying court to them. The apartments
could not contain the crowd. The characteristic features of the room
were many. Couriers arrived every quarter of an hour, and reminded
people of the illness of Monseigneur--he was going on as well as could be
expected; confidence and hope were easily felt; but there was an extreme
desire to please at the new Court. The young Prince and the Princess
exhibited majesty and gravity, mixed with gaiety; obligingly received
all, continually spoke to every one; the crowd wore an air of
complaisance; reciprocal satisfaction showed in every face; the Duc and
Duchesse de Berry ware treated almost as nobody. Thus five days fled
away in increasing thought of future events--in preparation to be ready
for whatever might happen.
On Tuesday, the 14th of April, I went to see the chancellor, and asked
for information upon the state of Monseigneur. He assured me it was
good, and repeated to me the words Fagon had spoken to him, "that things
were going an according to their wishes, and beyond their hopes." The
Chancellor appeared to me very confident, and I had faith in him, so much
the more, because he was on extremely good footing with Monseigneur. The
Prince, indeed, had so much recovered, that the fish-women came in a body
the self-same day to congratulate him, as they did after his attack of
indigestion. They threw the themselves at the foot of his bed, which
they kissed several times, and in their joy said they would go back to
Paris and have a Te Deum sung. But Monseigneur, who was not insensible
to these marks of popular affection, told them it was not yet time,
thanked them, and gave them a dinner and some money.
As I was going home, I saw the Duchesse d'Orleans walking on a terrace.
She called to me; but I pretended not to notice her, because La Montauban
was with her, and hastened home, my mind filled with this news, and
withdrew to my cabinet. Almost immediately afterwards Madame la Duchesse
d'Orleans joined me there. We were bursting to speak to each other
alone, upon a point on which our thoughts were alike. She had left
Meudon not an hour before, and she had the same tale to tell as the
Chancellor. Everybody was at ease there she said; and then she extolled
the care and capacities of the doctors, exaggerating their success; and,
to speak frankly and to our shame, she and I lamented together to see
Monseigneur, in spite of his age and his fat, escape from so dangerous an
illness. She reflected seriously but wittily, that after an illness of
this sort, apoplexy was not to be looked for; that an attack of
indigestion was equally unlikely to arise, considering the care
Monseigneur had taken not to over-gorge himself since his recent danger;
and we concluded more than dolefully, that henceforth we must make up our
minds that the Prince would live and reign for a long time. In a word,
we let ourselves loose in this rare conversation, although not without an
occasional scruple of conscience which disturbed it. Madame de Saint-
Simon all devoutly tried what she could to put a drag upon our tongues,
but the drag broke, so to speak, and we continued our free discourse,
humanly speaking very reasonable on our parts, but which we felt,
nevertheless, was not according to religion. Thus two hours passed,
seemingly very short. Madame d'Orleans went away, and I repaired with
Madame de Saint-Simon to receive a numerous company.
While thus all was tranquillity at Versailles, and even at Meudon,
everything had changed its aspect at the chateau. The King had seen
Monseigneur several times during the day; but in his after-dinner visit
he was so much struck with the extraordinary swelling of the face and of
the head, that he shortened his stay, and on leaving the chateau, shed
tears. He was reassured as much as possible, and after the council he
took a walk in the garden.
Nevertheless Monseigneur had already mistaken Madame la Princesse de
Conti for some one else; and Boudin, the doctor, was alarmed.
Monseigneur himself had been so from the first, and he admitted, that for
a long time before being attacked, he had been very unwell, and so much
on Good Friday, that he had been unable to read his prayer-book at
chapel.
Towards four o'clock he grew worse, so much so that Boudin proposed to
Fagon to call in other doctors, more familiar with the disease than they
were. But Fagon flew into a rage at this, and would call in nobody. He
declared that it would be better to act for themselves, and to keep
Monseigneur's state secret, although it was hourly growing worse, and
towards seven o'clock was perceived by several valets and courtiers. But
nobody dared to open his mouth before Fagon, and the King was actually
allowed to go to supper and to finish it without interruption, believing
on the faith of Fagon that Monseigneur was going on well.
While the King supped thus tranquilly, all those who were in the sick-
chamber began to lose their wits. Fagon and the others poured down
physic on physic, without leaving time for any to work. The Cure, who
was accustomed to go and learn the news every evening, found, against all
custom, the doors thrown wide open, and the valets in confusion. He
entered the chamber, and perceiving what was the matter, ran to the
bedside, took the hand of Monseigneur, spoke to him of God, and seeing
him full of consciousness, but scarcely able to speak, drew from him a
sort of confession, of which nobody had hitherto thought, and suggested
some acts of contrition. The poor Prince repeated distinctly several
words suggested to him, and confusedly answered others, struck his
breast, squeezed the Cure's hand, appeared penetrated with the best
sentiments, and received with a contrite and willing air the absolution
of the Cure.
As the King rose from the supper-table, he well-nigh fell backward when
Fagon, coming forward, cried in great trouble that all was lost. It may
be imagined what terror seized all the company at this abrupt passage
from perfect security to hopeless despair. The King, scarcely master of
himself, at once began to go towards the apartment of Monseigneur, and
repelled very stiffly the indiscreet eagerness of some courtiers who
wished to prevent him, saying that he would see his son again, and be
quite certain that nothing could be done. As he was about to enter the
chamber, Madame la Princesse de Conti presented herself before him, and
prevented him from going in. She pushed him back with her hands, and
said that henceforth he had only to think of himself. Then the King,
nearly fainting from a shock so complete and so sudden, fell upon a sofa
that stood near. He asked unceasingly for news of all who passed, but
scarce anybody dared to reply to him. He had sent for here Tellier, who
went into Monseigneur's room; but it was no longer time. It is true the
Jesuit, perhaps to console the King, said that he gave him a well-founded
absolution. Madame de Maintenon hastened after the King, and sitting
down beside him on the same sofa, tried to cry. She endeavoured to lead
away the King into the carriage already waiting for him in the
courtyard, but he would not go, and sat thus outside the door until
Monseigneur had expired.
The agony, without consciousness, of Monseigneur lasted more than an hour
after the King had come into the cabinet. Madame la Duchesse and Madame
la Princesse de Conti divided their cares between the dying man and the
King, to whom they constantly came back; whilst the faculty confounded,
the valets bewildered, the courtiers hurrying and murmuring, hustled
against each other, and moved unceasingly to and fro, backwards and
forwards, in the same narrow space. At last the fatal moment arrived.
Fagon came out, and allowed so much to be understood.
The King, much afflicted, and very grieved that Monseigneur's confession
had been so tardily made, abused Fagon a little; and went away led by
Madame de Maintenon and the two Princesses. He was somewhat struck by
finding the vehicle of Monseigneur outside; and made a sign that he would
have another coach, for that one made him suffer, and left the chateau.
He was not, however, so much occupied with his grief that he could not
call Pontchartrain to arrange the hour of the council on the next day.
I will not comment on this coolness, and shall merely say it surprised
extremely all present; and that if Pontchartrain had not said the council
could be put off, no interruption to business would have taken place.
The King got into his coach with difficulty, supported on both sides.
Madame de Maintenon seated herself beside him. A crowd of officers of
Monseigneur lined both sides of the court on their knees, as he passed
out, crying to him with strange howlings to have compassion on them, for
they had lost all, and must die of hunger.
CHAPTER LVII
While Meudon was filled with horror, all was tranquil at Versailles,
without the least suspicion. We had supped. The company some time after
had retired, and I was talking with Madame de Saint-Simon, who had nearly
finished undressing herself to go to bed, when a servant of Madame la
Duchesse de Berry, who had formerly belonged to us, entered, all
terrified. He said that there must be some bad news from Meudon, since
Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne had just whispered in the ear of M. le
Duc de Berry, whose eyes had at once become red, that he left the table,
and that all the company shortly after him rose with precipitation. So
sudden a change rendered my surprise extreme. I ran in hot haste to
Madame la Duchesse de Berry's. Nobody was there. Everybody had gone to
Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne. I followed on with all speed.
I found all Versailles assembled on arriving, all the ladies hastily
dressed--the majority having been on the point of going to bed--all the
doors open, and all in trouble. I learnt that Monseigneur had received
the extreme unction, that he was without consciousness and beyond hope,
and that the King had sent word to Madame de Bourgogne that he was going
to Marly, and that she was to meet him as he passed through the avenue
between the two stables.
The spectacle before me attracted all the attention I could bestow. The
two Princes and the two Princesses were in the little cabinet behind the
bed.
The bed toilette was as usual in the chamber of the Duchesse de
Bourgogne, which was filled with all the Court in confusion. She came
and went from the cabinet to the chamber, waiting for the moment when she
was to meet the King; and her demeanour, always distinguished by the same
graces, was one of trouble and compassion, which the trouble and
compassion of others induced them to take for grief. Now and then, in
passing, she said a few rare words. All present were in truth expressive
personages. Whoever had eyes, without any knowledge of the Court, could
see the interests of all interested painted on their faces, and the
indifference of the indifferent; these tranquil, the former penetrated
with grief, or gravely attentive to themselves to, hide their
emancipation and their joy.
For my part, my first care was to inform myself thoroughly of the state
of affairs, fearing lest there might be too much alarm for too trifling a
cause; then, recovering myself, I reflected upon the misery common to all
men, and that I myself should find myself some day at the gates of death.
Joy, nevertheless, found its way through the momentary reflections of
religion and of humanity, by which I tried to master myself. My own
private deliverance seemed so great and so unhoped for, that it appeared
to me that the State must gain everything by such a loss. And with these
thoughts I felt, in spite of myself, a lingering fear lest the sick man
should recover, and was extremely ashamed of it.
Wrapped up thus in myself, I did not fail, nevertheless, to cast
clandestine looks upon each face, to see what was passing there. I saw
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans arrive, but her countenance, majestic and
constrained, said nothing. She went into the little cabinet, whence she
presently issued with the Duc d'Orleans, whose activity and turbulent air
marked his emotion at the spectacle more than any other sentiment. They
went away, and I notice this expressly, on account of what happened
afterwards in my presence.
Soon afterwards I caught a distant glimpse of the Duc de Bourgogne, who
seemed much moved and troubled; but the glance with which I probed him
rapidly, revealed nothing tender, and told merely of a mind profoundly
occupied with the bearings of what had taken place.
Valets and chamber-women were already indiscreetly crying out; and their
grief showed well that they were about to lose something!
Towards half-past twelve we had news of the King, and immediately after
Madame de Bourgogne came out of the little cabinet with the Duke, who
seemed more touched than when I first saw him. The Princess took her
scarf and her coifs from the toilette, standing with a deliberate air,
her eyes scarcely wet--a fact betrayed by inquisitive glances cast
rapidly to the right and left--and, followed only by her ladies, went to
her coach by the great staircase.
I took the opportunity to go to the Duchesse d'Orleans, where I found
many people. Their presence made me very impatient; the Duchess, who was
equally impatient, took a light and went in. I whispered in the ear of
the Duchesse de Villeroy, who thought as I thought of this event. She
nudged me, and said in a very low voice that I must contain myself.
I was smothered with silence, amidst the complaints and the narrative
surprises of these ladies; but at last M. le Duc d'Orleans appeared at
the door of his cabinet, and beckoned me to come to him.
I followed him into the cabinet, where we were alone. What was my
surprise, remembering the terms on which he was with Monseigneur, to see
the tears streaming from his eyes.
"Sir!" exclaimed I, rising: He understood me at once; and answered in a
broken voice, really crying: "You are right to be surprised--I am
surprised myself; but such a spectacle touches. He was a man with whom I
passed much of my life, and who treated me well when he was uninfluenced.
I feel very well that my grief won't last long; in a few days I shall
discover motives of joy; at present, blood, relationship, humanity,--all
work; and my entrails are moved." I praised his sentiments, but repeated
my surprise. He rose, thrust his head into a corner, and with his nose
there, wept bitterly and sobbed, which if I had not seen I could not have
believed.
After a little silence, however, I exhorted him to calm himself. I
represented to him that, everybody knowing on what terms he had been with
Monseigneur, he would be laughed at, as playing a part, if his eyes
showed that he had been weeping. He did what he could to remove the
marks of his tears, and we then went back into the other room.
The interview of the Duchesse de Bourgogne with the King had not been
long. She met him in the avenue between the two stables, got down, and
went to the door of the carriage. Madame de Maintenon cried out, "Where
are you going? We bear the plague about with us." I do not know what
the King said or did. The Princess returned to her carriage, and came
back to Versailles, bringing in reality the first news of the actual
death of Monseigneur.
Acting upon the advice of M. de Beauvilliers, all the company had gone
into the salon. The two Princes, Monseigneur de Bourgogne and M. de
Berry, were there, seated on one sofa, their Princesses at their sides;
all the rest of the company were scattered about in confusion, seated or
standing, some of the ladies being on the floor, near the sofa. There
could be no doubt of what had happened. It was plainly written on every
face in the chamber and throughout the apartment. Monseigneur was no
more: it was known: it was spoken of: constraint with respect to him no
longer existed. Amidst the surprise, the confusion, and the movements
that prevailed, the sentiments of all were painted to the life in looks
and gestures.
In the outside rooms were heard the constrained groans and sighs of the
valets--grieving for the master they had lost as well as for the master
that had succeeded. Farther on began the crowd of courtiers of all
kinds. The greater number--that is to say the fools--pumped up sighs as
well as they could, and with wandering but dry eyes, sung the praises of
Monseigneur--insisting especially on his goodness. They pitied the King
for the loss of so good a son. The keener began already to be uneasy
about the health of the King; and admired themselves for preserving so
much judgment amidst so much trouble, which could be perceived by the
frequency of their repetitions. Others, really afflicted--the
discomfited cabal--wept bitterly, and kept themselves under with an
effort as easy to notice as sobs. The most strong-minded or the wisest,
with eyes fixed on the ground, in corners, meditated on the consequences
of such an event--and especially on their own interests. Few words
passed in conversation--here and there an exclamation wrung from grief
was answered by some neighbouring grief--a word every quarter of an hour
--sombre and haggard eyes--movements quite involuntary of the hands--
immobility of all other parts of the body. Those who already looked upon
the event as favourable in vain exaggerated their gravity so as to make
it resemble chagrin and severity; the veil over their faces was
transparent and hid not a single feature. They remained as motionless as
those who grieved most, fearing opinion, curiosity, their own
satisfaction, their every movement; but their eyes made up for their
immobility. Indeed they could not refrain from repeatedly changing their
attitude like people ill at ease, sitting or standing, from avoiding each
other too carefully, even from allowing their eyes to meet--nor repress a
manifest air of liberty--nor conceal their increased liveliness--nor put
out a sort of brilliancy which distinguished them in spite of themselves.
The two Princes, and the two Princesses who sat by their sides, were more
exposed to view than any other. The Duc de Bourgogne wept with
tenderness, sincerity, and gentleness, the tears of nature, of religion,
and patience. M. le Duc de Berry also sincerely shed abundance of tears,
but bloody tears, so to speak, so great appeared their bitterness; and he
uttered not only sobs, but cries, nay, even yells. He was silent
sometimes, but from suffocation, and then would burst out again with such
a noise, such a trumpet sound of despair, that the majority present burst
out also at these dolorous repetitions, either impelled by affliction or
decorum. He became so bad, in fact, that his people were forced to
undress him then and there, put him to bed, and call in the doctor,
Madame la Duchesse de Berry was beside herself, and we shall soon see
why. The most bitter despair was painted with horror on her face. There
was seen written, as it were, a sort of furious grief, based on interest,
not affection; now and then came dry lulls deep and sullen, then a
torrent of tears and involuntary gestures, yet restrained, which showed
extreme bitterness of mind, fruit of the profound meditation that had
preceded. Often aroused by the cries of her husband, prompt to assist
him, to support him, to embrace him, to give her smelling-bottle, her
care for him was evident; but soon came another profound reverie--then a
gush of tears assisted to suppress her cries. As for Madame la Duchesse
de Bourgogne she consoled her husband with less trouble than she had to
appear herself in want of consolation. Without attempting to play a
part, it was evident that she did her best to acquit herself of a
pressing duty of decorum. But she found extreme difficulty in keeping up
appearances. When the Prince her brother-in-law howled, she blew her
nose. She had brought some tears along with her and kept them up with
care; and these, combined with the art of the handkerchief, enabled her
to redden her eyes, and make them swell, and smudge her face; but her
glances often wandered on the sly to the countenances of all present.
Madame arrived, in full dress she knew not why, and howling she knew not
why, inundated everybody with her tears in embracing them, making the
chateau echo with renewed cries, and furnished the odd spectacle of a
Princess putting on her robes of ceremony in the dead of night to come
and cry among a crowd of women with but little on except their night-
dresses,--almost as masqueraders.
In the gallery several ladies, Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, Madame de
Castries, and Madame de Saint-Simon among the rest, finding no one close
by, drew near each other by the side of a tent-bedstead, and began to
open their hearts to each other, which they did with the more freedom,
inasmuch as they had but one sentiment in common upon what had occurred.
In this gallery, and in the salon, there were always during the night
several beds, in which, for security's sake, certain Swiss guards and
servants slept. These beds had been put in their usual place this
evening before the bad news came from Meudon. In the midst of the
conversation of the ladies, Madame de Castries touched the bed, felt
something move, and was much terrified. A moment after they saw a sturdy
arm, nearly naked, raise on a sudden the curtains, and thus show them a
great brawny Swiss under the sheets, half awake, and wholly amazed. The
fellow was a long time in making out his position, fixing his eyes upon
every face one after the other; but at last, not judging it advisable to
get up in the midst of such a grand company, he reburied himself in his
bed, and closed the curtains. Apparently the good man had gone to bed
before anything had transpired, and had slept so soundly ever since that
he had not been aroused until then. The saddest sights have often the
most ridiculous contrasts. This caused some of the ladies to laugh, and
Madame d'Orleans to fear lest the conversation should have been
overheard. But after reflection, the sleep and the stupidity of the
sleeper reassured her.
I had some doubts yet as to the event that had taken place; for I did not
like to abandon myself to belief, until the word was pronounced by some
one in whom I could have faith. By chance I met D'O, and I asked him.
He answered me clearly that Monseigneur was no more. Thus answered, I
tried not to be glad. I know not if I succeeded well, but at least it is
certain, that neither joy nor sorrow blunted my curiosity, and that while
taking due care to preserve all decorum, I did not consider myself in any
way forced to play the doleful. I no longer feared any fresh attack from
the citadel of Meudon, nor any cruel charges from its implacable
garrison. I felt, therefore, under no constraint, and followed every
face with my glances, and tried to scrutinise them unobserved.
It must be admitted, that for him who is well acquainted with the
privacies of a Court, the first sight of rare events of this nature, so
interesting in so many different respects, is extremely satisfactory.
Every countenance recalls the cares, the intrigues, the labours employed
in the advancement of fortunes--in the overthrow of rivals: the
relations, the coldness, the hatreds, the evil offices done, the baseness
of all; hope, despair, rage, satisfaction, express themselves in the
features. See how all eyes wander to and fro examining what passes
around--how some are astonished to find others more mean, or less mean
than was expected! Thus this spectacle produced a pleasure, which,
hollow as it may be, is one of the greatest a Court can bestow.
The turmoil in this vast apartment lasted about an hour, at the end of
which M. de Beauvilliers thought it was high time to deliver the Princes
of their company. The rooms were cleared. M. le Duc de Berry went away
to his rooms, partly supported by his wife. All through the night he
asked, amid tears and cries, for news from Meudon; he would not
understand the cause of the King's departure to Marly. When at length
the mournful curtain was drawn from before his eyes, the state he fell
into cannot be described. The night of Monseigneur and Madame de
Bourgogne was more tranquil. Some one having said to the Princess, that
having--no real cause to be affected, it would be terrible to play a
part, she replied, quite naturally, that without feigning, pity touched
her and decorum controlled her; and indeed she kept herself within these
bounds with truth and decency. Their chamber, in which they invited
several ladies to pass the night in armchairs, became immediately a
palace of Morpheus. All quietly fell asleep. The curtains were left
open, so that the Prince and Princess could be seen sleeping profoundly.
They woke up once or twice for a moment. In the morning the Duke and
Duchess rose early, their tears quite dried up. They shed no more for
this cause, except on special and rare occasions. The ladies who had
watched and slept in their chamber, told their friends how tranquil the
night had been. But nobody was surprised, and as there was no longer a
Monseigneur, nobody was scandalised. Madame de Saint-Simon and I
remained up two hours before going to bed, and then went there without
feeling any want of rest. In fact, I slept so little that at seven in
the morning I was up; but it must be admitted that such restlessness is
sweet, and such re-awakenings are savoury.
Horror reigned at Meudon. As soon as the King left, all the courtiers
left also, crowding into the first carriages that came. In an instant
Meudon was empty. Mademoiselle Choin remained alone in her garret, and
unaware of what had taken place. She learned it only by the cry raised.
Nobody thought of telling her. At last some friends went up to her,
hurried her into a hired coach, and took her to Paris. The dispersion
was general. One or two valets, at the most, remained near the body.
La Villiere, to his praise be it said, was the only courtier who, not
having abandoned Monseigneur during life, did not abandon him after his
death. He had some difficulty to find somebody to go in search of
Capuchins to pray over the corpse. The decomposition became so rapid and
so great, that the opening of the windows was not enough; the Capuchins,
La Vrilliere, and the valets, were compelled to pass the night outside.
At Marly everybody had felt so confident that the King's return there was
not dreamt of. Nothing was ready, no keys of the rooms, no fires,
scarcely an end of candle. The King was more than an hour thus with
Madame de Maintenon and other ladies in one of the ante-chambers. The
King retired into a corner, seated between Madame de Maintenon and two
other ladies, and wept at long intervals. At last the chamber of Madame
de Maintenon was ready. The King entered, remained there an hour, and
then 'went to bed at nearly four o'clock in the morning.
Monseigneur was rather tall than short; very fat, but without being
bloated; with a very lofty and noble aspect without any harshness; and he
would have had a very agreeable face if M. le Prince de Conti had not
unfortunately broken his nose in playing while they were both young. He
was of a very beautiful fair complexion; he had a face everywhere covered
with a healthy red, but without expression; the most beautiful legs in
the world; his feet singularly small and delicate. He wavered always in
walking, and felt his way with his feet; he was always afraid of falling,
and if the path was not perfectly even and straight, he called for
assistance. He was a good horseman, and looked well when mounted; but he
was not a bold rider. When hunting--they had persuaded him that he liked
this amusement--a servant rode before him; if he lost sight of this
servant he gave himself up for lost, slicked his pace to a gentle trot,
and oftentimes waited under a tree for the hunting party, and returned to
it slowly. He was very fond of the table, but always without indecency.
Ever since that great attack of indigestion, which was taken at first for
apoplexy, he made but one real meal a day, and was content,--although a
great eater, like the rest of the royal family. Nearly all his portraits
well resemble him.
As for his character he had none; he was without enlightenment or
knowledge of any kind, radically incapable of acquiring any; very idle,
without imagination or productiveness; without taste, without choice,
without discernment; neither seeing the weariness he caused others, nor
that he was as a ball moving at hap-hazard by the impulsion of others;
obstinate and little to excess in everything; amazingly credulous and
accessible to prejudice, keeping himself, always, in the most pernicious
hands, yet incapable of seeing his position or of changing it; absorbed
in his fat and his ignorance; so that without any desire to do ill he
would have made a pernicious King.
His avariciousness, except in certain things, passed all belief. He kept
an account of his personal expenditure, and knew to a penny what his
smallest and his largest expenses amounted to. He spent large sums in
building, in furniture, in jewels, and in hunting, which he made himself
believe he was fond of.
It is inconceivable the little he gave to La Choin, whom he so much
loved. It never exceeded four hundred Louis a quarter in gold, or
sixteen hundred Louis a year, whatever the Louis might be worth. He gave
them to her with his own hand, without adding or subtracting a pistole,
and, at the most, made her but one present a year, and that he looked at
twice before giving. It was said that they were married, and certain
circumstances seemed to justify this rumour. As for instance, during the
illness of Monseigneur, the King, as I have said, asked Madame de
Maintenon if she had seen Mademoiselle Choin, and upon receiving negative
reply, was displeased. Instead of driving her away from the chateau he
inquired particularly after her! This, to say the least, looked as
though Mademoiselle Choin was Monseigneur's Maintenon--but the matter
remained incomprehensible to the last. Mademoiselle Choin threw no light
upon it, although she spoke on many other things concerning Monseigneur.
In the modest home at Paris, to which she had retired for the rest of her
days. The King gave her a pension of twelve thousand livres.
Monseigneur was, I have said, ignorant to the last degree, and had a
thorough aversion for learning; so that, according to his own admission,
ever since he had been released from the hands of teachers he had never
read anything except the article in the "Gazette de France," in which
deaths and marriages are recorded. His timidity, especially before the
King, was equal to his ignorance, which indeed contributed not a little
to cause it. The King took advantage of it, and never treated him as a
son, but as a subject. He was the monarch always, never the father.
Monseigneur had not the slightest influence with the King. If he showed
any preference for a person it was enough! That person was sure to be
kept back by the King. The King was so anxious to show that Monseigneur
could do nothing, that Monseigneur after a time did not even try. He
contented himself by complaining occasionally in monosyllables, and by
hoping for better times.
The body of Monseigneur so soon grew decomposed; that immediate burial
was necessary. At midnight on Wednesday he was carried, with but little
ceremony, to Saint-Denis, and deposited in the royal vaults. His funeral
services were said at Saint-Denis on the 18th of the following June, and
at Notre Dame on the 3rd of July. As the procession passed through Paris
nothing but cries, acclamations, and eulogiums of the defunct were heard.
Monseigneur had, I know not how, much endeared himself to the common
people of Paris, and this sentiment soon gained the provinces; so true it
is, that in France it costs little to its Princes to make themselves
almost adored!
The King soon got over his affliction for the loss of this son of fifty.
Never was a man so ready with tears, so backward with grief, or so
promptly restored to his ordinary state. The morning after the death of
Monseigneur he rose late, called M. de Beauvilliers into his cabinet,
shed some more tears, and then said that from that time Monseigneur le
Duc de Bourgogne and Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne were to enjoy the
honours, the rank, and the name of Dauphin and of Dauphine. Henceforth I
shall call them by no other names.
My joy at this change may be imagined. In a few days all my causes of
disquietude had been removed, and I saw a future opening before me full
of light and promise. Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne become Dauphin,
heir to the throne of France; what favour might I not hope for? I could
not conceal or control my satisfaction.
But alas! it was soon followed by sad disappointment and grievous
sorrow.
CHAPTER LVIII
The death of Monseigneur, as we have seen, made a great change in the
aspect of the Court and in the relative positions of its members. But
the two persons to whom I must chiefly direct attention are the Duchesse
de Bourgogne and the Duchesse de Berry. The former, on account of her
husband's fall in the opinion of his father, had long been out of favour
likewise. Although Monseigneur had begun to treat her less well for a
long time, and most harshly during the campaign of Lille, and above all
after the expulsion of the Duc de Vendome from Marly and Meudon; yet
after the marriage of the Duc de Berry his coldness had still further
increased. The adroit Princess, it is true, had rowed against the current
with a steadiness and grace capable of disarming even a well-founded
resentment; but the persons who surrounded him looked upon the meeting of
them as dangerous for their projects. The Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne
were every day still further removed in comparative disgrace.
Things even went so far that apropos of an engagement broken off, the
Duchesse resolved to exert her power instead of her persuasion, and
threatened the two Lillebonnes. A sort of reconciliation was then
patched up, but it was neither sincere nor apparently so.
The cabal which laboured to destroy the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne was
equally assiduous in augmenting the influence of the Duc de Berry, whose
wife had at once been admitted without having asked into the sanctuary of
the Parvulo. The object was to disunite the two brothers and excite
jealousy between then. In this they did not succeed even in the
slightest degree. But they found a formidable ally in the Duchesse de
Berry, who proved as full of wickedness and ambition as any among them.
The Duc d'Orleans often called his Duchess Madame Lucifer, at which she
used to smile with complacency. He was right, for she would have been a
prodigy of pride had she not, had a daughter who far surpassed her. This
is not yet the time to paint their portraits; but I must give a word or
two of explanation on the Duchesse de Berry.
That princess was a marvel of wit, of pride, of ingratitude and folly--
nay, of debauchery and obstinacy.
Scarcely had she been married a week when she began to exhibit herself in
all these lights,--not too manifestly it is true, for one of the
qualities of which she was most vain was her falsity and power of
concealment, but sufficiently to make an impression on those around her.
People soon perceived how annoyed she was to be the daughter of an
illegitimate mother, and to have lived under her restraint however mild;
how she despised the weakness of her father, the Duc d'Orleans, and how
confident she was of her influence over him; and how she had hated all
who had interfered in her marriage--merely because she could not bear to
be under obligations to any one--a reason she was absurd enough publicly
to avow and boast of. Her conduct was now based on those motives. This
is an example of how in this world people work with their heads in a
sack, and how human prudence and wisdom are sometimes confounded by
successes which have been reasonably desired and which turn out to be
detestable! We had brought about this marriage to avoid a marriage with
Mademoiselle de Bourbon and to cement the union of the two brothers. We
now discovered that there was little danger of Mademoiselle de Bourbon,
and then instead of her we had a Fury who had no thought but how to ruin
those who had established her, to injure her benefactors, to make her
husband and her brother quarrel; and to put herself in the power of her
enemies because they were the enemies of her natural friends. It never
occurred to her that the cabal would not be likely to abandon to her the
fruit of so much labour and so many crimes.
It may easily be imagined that she was neither gentle nor docile when
Madame la Duchesse began to give her advice. Certain that her father
would support her, she played the stranger and the daughter of France
with her mother. Estrangement, however, soon came on. She behaved
differently in form, but in effect the same with the Duchesse de
Bourgogne, who wished to guide her as a daughter, but who soon gave up
the attempt. The Duchesse de Berry's object could only be gained by
bringing about disunion between the two brothers, and for this purpose
she employed as a spring the passion of her husband for herself.
The first night at Versailles after the death of Monseigneur was
sleepless. The Dauphin and Dauphine heard mass early next morning.
I went to see them. Few persons were present on account of the hour.
The Princess wished to be at Marly at the King's waking. Their eyes were
wonderfully dry, but carefully managed; and it was easy to see they were
more occupied with their new position than with the death of Monseigneur.
A smile which they exchanged as they spoke, in whispers convinced me of
this. One of their first cares was to endeavour to increase their good
relations with the Duc and Duchesse de Berry. They were to see them
before they were up. The Duc de Berry showed himself very sensible to
this act, and the Duchess was eloquent, clever, and full of tears. But
her heart was wrung by these advances of pure generosity. The separation
she had planned soon followed: and the two princesses felt relieved at no
longer being obliged to dine together.
Thus never was change greater or more marked than that brought about by
the death of Monseigneur. That prince had become the centre of all hope
and of all fear, a formidable cabal had seized upon him, yet without
awakening the jealousy of the King, before whom all trembled, but whose
anxieties did not extend beyond his own lifetime, during which, and very
reasonably, he feared nothing.
Before I go any further, let me note a circumstance characteristic of the
King. Madame la Dauphine went every day to Marly to see him. On the day
after the death of Monseigneur she received, not without surprise, easily
understood, a hint from Madame de Maintenon. It was to the effect that
she should dress herself with some little care, inasmuch as the
negligence of her attire displeased the King! The Princess did not think
that dress ought to occupy her then; and even if she had thought so, she
would have believed, and with good reason, that she was committing a
grave fault against decorum, a fault which would have been less readily
pardoned, since in every way she had gained too much by what had just
occurred not to be very guarded in her behaviour. On the next day she
took more pains with her toilette; but what she did not being found
sufficient, the day following she carried with her some things and
dressed herself secretly in Madame de Maintenon's rooms; and resumed
there her ordinary apparel before returning to Versailles. Thus she
avoided offence both to the King and to society. The latter certainly
would with difficulty have been persuaded that in this ill-timed
adornment of her person, her own tastes went for nothing. The Comtesse
de Mailly, who invented the scheme, and Madame de Nogaret, who both liked
Monseigneur, related this to me and were piqued by it. From this fact
and from the circumstance that all the ordinary pleasures and occupations
were resumed immediately after the death of Monseigneur, the King passing
his days without any constraint,--it may be assumed that if the royal
grief was bitter its evidences were of a kind to promise that it would
not be of long duration.
M. le Dauphin, for, as I have said, it is by that title I shall now name
Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne--M. le Dauphin, I say, soon gained all
hearts. In the first days of solitude following upon the death of
Monseigneur, the King intimated to M. de Beauvilliers that he should not
care to see the new Dauphin go very often to Meudon. This was enough.
M. le Dauphin at once declared that he would never set his foot in that
palace, and that he would never quit the King. He was as good as his
word, and not one single visit did he ever afterwards pay to Meudon. The
King wished to give him fifty thousand livres a month, Monseigneur having
had that sum. M. le Dauphin would not accept them. He had only six
thousand livres per month. He was satisfied with double that amount and
would not receive more. This disinterestedness much pleased the public.
M. le Dauphin wished for nothing special on his account, and persisted in
remaining in nearly everything as he was during the life of Monseigneur.
These auguries of a prudent and measured reign, suggested the brightest
of hopes.
Aided by his adroit spouse, who already had full possession of the King's
heart and of that of Madame de Maintenon, M. le Dauphin redoubled his
attentions in order to possess them also. These attentions, addressed to
Madame de Maintenon, produced their fruit. She was transported with
pleasure at finding a Dauphin upon whom she could rely, instead of one
whom she did not like, gave herself up to him accordingly, and by that
means secured to him the King's favour. The first fortnight made evident
to everybody at Marly the extraordinary change that had come over the
King with respect to the Dauphin. His Majesty, generally severe beyond
measure with his legitimate children, showed the most marked graciousness
for this prince. The effects of this, and of the change that had taken
place in his state, were soon most clearly visible in the Dauphin.
Instead of being timid and retiring, diffident in speech, and more fond
of his study than of the salon, he became on a sudden easy and frank,
showing himself in public on all occasions, conversing right and left in
a gay, agreeable, and dignified manner; presiding, in fact, over the
Salon of Marly, and over the groups gathered round him, like the divinity
of a temple, who receives with goodness the homage to which he is
accustomed, and recompenses the mortals who offer it with gentle regard.
In a short time hunting became a less usual topic of conversation.
History, and even science, were touched upon lightly, pleasantly, and
discreetly, in a manner that charmed while it instructed. The Dauphin
spoke with an eloquent freedom that opened all eyes, ears and hearts.
People sometimes, in gathering near him, were less anxious to make their
court than to listen to his natural eloquence, and to draw from it
delicious instruction. It is astonishing with what rapidity he gained
universal esteem and admiration. The public joy could not keep silent.
People asked each other if this was really the same man they had known as
the Duc de Bourgogne, whether he was a vision or a reality? One of M. le
Dauphin's friends, to whom this question was addressed, gave a keen
reply. He answered, that the cause of all this surprise was, that
previously the people did not, and would not, know this prince, who,
nevertheless, to those who had known him, was the same now as he had ever
been; and that this justice would be rendered to him when time had shown
how much it was deserved.
From the Court to Paris, and from Paris to the provinces, the reputation
of the Dauphin flew on rapid wings. However founded might be this
prodigious success, we need not believe it was entirely due to the
marvellous qualities of the young prince. It was in a great measure a
reaction against the hostile feeling towards him which had been excited
by the cabal, whose efforts I have previously spoken of. Now that people
saw how unjust was this feeling, their astonishment added to their
admiration. Everybody was filled with a sentiment of joy at seeing the
first dawn of a new state of things, which promised so much order and
happiness after such a long confusion and so much obscurity.
Gracious as the King showed himself to M. le Dauphin, and accustomed as
the people grew to his graciousness, all the Court was strangely
surprised at a fresh mark of favour that was bestowed one morning by his
Majesty on this virtuous prince. The King, after having been closeted
alone with him for some time, ordered his ministers to work with the
Dauphin whenever sent for, and, whether sent for or not, to make him
acquainted with all public affairs; this command being given once for
all.
It is not easy to describe the prodigious movement caused at the Court by
this order, so directly opposed to the tastes, to the disposition, to the
maxims, to the usage of the King, who thus showed a confidence in the
Dauphin which was nothing less than tacitly transferring to him a large
part of the disposition of public affairs. This was a thunderbolt for
the ministers; who, accustomed to have almost everything their own way,
to rule over everybody and browbeat everybody at will, to govern the
state abroad and at home, in fact, fixing all punishments, all
recompenses, and always sheltering themselves behind the royal authority
"the King wills it so" being the phrase ever on their lips,--to these
officers, I say, it was a thunderbolt which so bewildered them, that they
could not hide their astonishment or their confusion. The public joy at
an order which reduced these ministers, or rather these kings, to the
condition of subjects, which put a curb upon their power, and provided
against the abuses they committed, was great indeed! The ministers were
compelled to bend their necks, though stiff as iron, to the yoke. They
all went, with a hang-dog look, to show the Dauphin a feigned joy and a
forced obedience to the order they had received.
Here, perhaps, I may as well speak of the situation in which I soon
afterwards found myself with the Dauphin, the confidence as to the
present and the future that I enjoyed with him, and the many
deliberations we had upon public affairs. The matter is curious and
interesting, and need no longer be deferred.
The Court being changed by the death of Monseigneur, I soon began indeed
to think of changing my conduct with regard to the new Dauphin. M. de
Beauvilliers spoke to me about this matter first, but he judged, and I
shared his opinion, that slandered as I had been on previous occasions,
and remaining still, as it were, half in disgrace, I must approach the
Dauphin only by slow degrees, and not endeavour to shelter myself under
him until his authority with the King had become strong enough to afford
me a safe asylum. I believed, nevertheless, that it would be well to
sound him immediately; and one evening, when he was but thinly
accompanied, I joined him in the gardens at Marly and profited by his
gracious welcome to say to him, on the sly, that many reasons, of which
he was not ignorant, had necessarily kept me until then removed from him,
but that now I hoped to be able to follow with less constraint my
attachment and my inclination, and that I flattered myself this would be
agreeable to him. He replied in a low tone, that there were sometimes
reasons which fettered people, but in our case such no longer existed;
that he knew of my regard for him, and reckoned with pleasure that we
should soon see each other more frequently than before. I am writing the
exact words of his reply, on account of the singular politeness of the
concluding ones. I regarded that reply as the successful result of a
bait that had been taken as I wished. Little by little I became more
assiduous at his promenades, but without following them when the crowd or
any dangerous people do so; and I spoke more freely. I remained content
with seeing the Dauphin in public, and I approached him in the Salon only
when if I saw a good opportunity.
Some days after, being in the Salon, I saw the Dauphin and the Dauphine
enter together and converse. I approached and heard their last words;
they stimulated me to ask the prince what was in debate, not in a
straightforward manner, but in a sort of respectful insinuating way which
I already adopted. He explained to me that he was going to Saint-Germain
to pay an ordinary visit; that on this occasion there would be some
change in the ceremonial; explained the matter, and enlarged with
eagerness on the necessity of not abandoning legitimate rights.
"How glad I am to see you think thus," I replied, "and how well you act
in advocating these forms, the neglect of which tarnishes everything."
He responded with warmth; and I seized the moment to say, that if he,
whose rank was so great and so derided, was right to pay attention to
these things, how such we dukes had reason to complain of our losses, and
to try to sustain ourselves! Thereupon he entered into the question so
far as to become the advocate of our cause, and finished by saying that
he regarded our restoration as an act of justice important to the state;
that he knew I was well instructed in these things, and that I should
give him pleasure by talking of them some day. He rejoined at that,
moment the Dauphine, and they set off for Saint-Germain.
A few days after this the Dauphin sent for me. I entered by the
wardrobe, where a sure and trusty valet was in waiting; he conducted me
to a cabinet in which the Dauphin was sitting alone. Our conversation at
once commenced. For a full hour we talked upon the state of affairs, the
Dauphin listening with much attention to all I said, and expressing
himself with infinite modesty, sense, and judgment. His view, I found,
were almost entirely in harmony with mine. He was sorry, and touchingly
said so, for the ignorance of all things in which the King was kept by
his ministers; he was anxious to see the power of those ministers
restricted; he looked with dislike upon the incredible elevation of the
illegitimate children; he wished to see the order to which I belonged
restored to the position it deserved to occupy.
It is difficult to express what I felt in quitting the Dauphin. A
magnificent and near future opened out before me. I saw a prince, pious,
just, debonnaire, enlightened, and seeking to become more so; with
principles completely in accord with my own, and capacity to carry out
those principles when the time for doing so arrived. I relished
deliciously a confident so precious and so full upon the most momentous
matters and at a first interview. I felt all the sweetness of this
perspective, and of my deliverance from a servitude which, in spite of
myself, I sometimes could not help showing myself impatient of. I felt,
too, that I now had an opportunity of elevating myself, and of
contributing to those grand works, for the happiness and advantage of the
state I so much wished to see accomplished.
A few days after this I had another interview with the Dauphin. I was
introduced secretly as before, so that no one perceived either my coming
or my departure. The same subjects we had previously touched upon we now
entered into again, and more amply than on the former occasion. The
Dauphin, in taking leave of me, gave me full permission to see him in
private as often as I desired, though in public I was still to be
circumspect.
Indeed there was need of great circumspection in carrying on even private
intercourse with the Dauphin. From this time I continually saw him in
his cabinet, talking with him in all liberty upon the various persons of
the Court, and upon the various subjects relating to the state; but
always with the same secrecy as at first. This was absolutely necessary;
as I have just said, I was still in a sort of half disgrace the King did
not regard me with the eyes of favour; Madame de Maintenon was resolutely
averse to me. If they two had suspected my strict intimacy with the heir
to the throne, I should have been assuredly lost.
To show what need there was of precaution in my private interviews with
the Dauphin, let me here recall an incident which one day occurred when
we were closeted together, and which might have led to the greatest
results. The Prince lodged then in one of the four grand suites of
apartments, on the same level as the Salon, the suite that was broken up
during an illness of Madame la Princesse de Conti, to make way for a
grand stair case, the narrow and crooked one in use annoying the King
when he ascended it. The chamber of the Dauphine was there; the bed had
its foot towards the window; by the chimney was the door of the obscure
wardrobe by which I entered; between the chimney and one of the two
windows was a little portable bureau; in front of the ordinary entrance
door of the chamber and behind the bureau was the door of one of the
Dauphine's rooms; between the two windows was a chest of drawers which
was used for papers only.
There were always some moments of conversation before the Dauphin set
himself down at his bureau, and ordered me to place myself opposite him.
Having become more free with him, I took the liberty to say one day in
these first moments of our discourse, that he would do well to bolt the
door behind him, the door I mean of the Dauphine's chamber. He said that
the Dauphine would not come, it not being her hour. I replied that I did
not fear that princess herself, but the crowd that always accompanied
her. He was obstinate, and would not bolt the door. I did not dare to
press him more. He sat down before his bureau, and ordered me to sit
also. Our deliberation was long; afterwards we sorted our papers. Here
let me say this--Every time I went to see the Dauphin I garnished all my
pockets with papers, and I often smiled within myself passing through the
Salon, at seeing there many people who at that moment were in my pockets,
and who were far indeed from suspecting the important discussion that was
going to take place. To return: the Dauphin gave, me his papers to put
in my pockets, and kept mine. He locked up some in his cupboard, and
instead of locking up the others in his bureau, kept them out, and began
talking to me, his back to the chimney, his papers in one hand, his keys
in the other. I was standing at the bureau looking for some other
papers, when on a sudden the door in front of me opened, and the Dauphine
entered!
The first appearance of all three--for, thank God! she was alone--the
astonishment, the countenance of all have never left my memory. Our
fixed eyes, our statue-like immobility, and our embarrassment were all
alike, and lasted longer than a slow Pater-poster. The Princess spoke
first. She said to the Prince in a very ill-assured voice, that she had
not imagined him in such good company; smiling upon him and upon me. I
had scarce time to smile also and to lower my eyes, before the Dauphin
replied.
"Since you find me so," said he, smiling in turn, "leave me so."
For an instant she looked on him, he and she both smiling at each other
more; then she looked on me, still smiling with greater liberty than at
first, made a pirouette, went away and closed the door, beyond the
threshold of which she had not come.
Never have I seen woman so astonished; never man so taken aback, as the
Prince after the Dauphine's departure; and never man, to say truth, was
so afraid as I was at first, though I quickly reassured myself when I
found that our intruder was alone. As soon as she had closed the door,
"Well, Monsieur," said I to the Dauphin, "if you had drawn the bolt?"
"You were right," he replied, "and I was wrong. But no harm is done.
She was alone fortunately, and I guarantee to you her secrecy."
"I am not troubled," said I to him, (yet I was so mightily) "but it is a
miracle she was alone. With her suite you would have escaped with a
scolding perhaps but for me, I should have been utterly lost."
He admitted again he had, been wrong, and assure me more and more that
our secret was safe. The Dauphine had caught us, not only tete-a-tete--
of which no one had the least suspicion--she had caught us in the fact,
so to say, our crimes in out hands. I felt that she would not expose the
Dauphin, but I feared an after-revelation through some over-easy
confidant. Nevertheless our secret was so well kept if confided that it
never transpired. We finished, I to pocket, the Prince to lock up, the
papers. The rest of the conversation was short, and I withdrew by the
wardrobe as usual. M. de Beauvilliers, to whom I related this adventure
shortly afterwards, grew pale at first, but recovered when I said the
Dauphine was alone. He blamed the imprudence of the Dauphin, but assured
me my secret was safe. Ever since that adventure the Dauphine often
smiled upon me when we met, as if to remind me of it, and showed marked
attention to me.
No sooner did I feel myself pretty firmly established on this footing of
delicious intimacy with the Dauphin than I conceived the desire to unite
him with M. le Duc d'Orleans through the means of M. de Beauvilliers. At
the very outset, however, an obstacle arose in my path.
I have already said, that the friendship of M. d'Orleans for his
daughter, Madame la Duchesse de Berry, had given employment to the
tongues of Satan, set in Motion by hatred and jealousy. Evil reports
even reached M. le Duc de Berry, who on his part, wishing to enjoy the
society of his wife in full liberty, was importuned by the continual
presence near her, of her father. To ward off a quarrel between son-in-
law and father-in-law, based upon so false and so odious a foundation,
appeared to Madame de Saint-Simon and myself a pressing duty.
I had already tried to divert M. le Duc d'Orleans from an assiduity which
wearied M. le Duc de Berry; but I had not succeeded. I believed it my
duty then to return to the charge more hotly; and remembering my previous
ill-success, I prefaced properly, and then said what I had to say. M.
d'Orleans was astonished; he cried out against the horror of such a vile
imputation and the villainy that had carried it to M. le Duc de Berry.
He thanked me for having warned him of it, a service few besides myself
would have rendered him. I left him to draw the proper and natural
conclusion on the conduct he should pursue. This conversation passed one
day at Versailles about four o'clock in the afternoon.
On the morrow Madame de Saint-Simon related to me, that returning home
the previous evening, from the supper and the cabinet of the King with
Madame la Duchesse de Berry, the Duchess had passed straight into the
wardrobe and called her there; and then with a cold and angry air, said
she was very much astonished that I wished to get up a quarrel between
her and M. le Duc d'Orleans. Madame Saint-Simon exhibited surprise, but
Madame la Duchesse de Berry declared that nothing was so true; that I
wished to estrange M. d'Orleans from her, but that I should not succeed;
and immediately related all that I had just said to her father. He had
had the goodness to repeat it to her an hour afterwards! Madame de
Saint-Simon, still more surprised, listened attentively to the end, and
replied that this horrible report was public, that she herself could see
what consequences it would have, false and abominable as it might be, and
feel whether it was not important that M. le Duc d'Orleans should be
informed of it. She added, that I had shown such proofs of my attachment
for them and of my desire for their happiness, that I was above all
suspicion. Then she curtsied and leaving the Princess went to bed. This
scene appeared to me enormous.
For some time after this I ceased entirely to see Duc d'Orleans and
Madame la Duchesse de Berry. They cajoled me with all sorts of excuses,
apologies, and so forth, but I remained frozen. They redoubled their
excuses and their prayers. Friendship, I dare not say compassion,
seduced me, and I allowed myself to be led away. In a word, we were
reconciled. I kept aloof, however, from Madame la Duchesse de Berry as
much as possible, visiting her only for form's sake; and as long as she
lived never changed in this respect.
Being reconciled with M. d'Orleans, I again thought of my project of
uniting him to the Dauphin through M. de Beauvilliers. He had need of
some support, for on all sides he was sadly out of favour. His
debauchery and his impiety, which he had quitted for a time after
separating himself from Madame d'Argenton, his mistress, had now seized
on him again as firmly as ever. It seemed as though there were a wager
between him and his daughter, Madame la Duchesse de Berry, which should
cast most contempt on religion and good manners.
The King was nothing ignorant of the conduct of his nephew. He had been
much shocked with the return to debauchery and low company. The enemies
of M. d'Orleans, foremost among whom was M. du Maine, had therefore
everything in their favour. As I have said, without some support M.
d'Orleans seemed in danger of being utterly lost.
It was no easy matter to persuade M. de Beauvilliers to, fall in with the
plan I had concocted, and lend his aid to it. But I worked him hard. I
dwelt upon the taste of the Dauphin for history, science, and the arts,
and showed what a ripe knowledge of those subjects M. d'Orleans had, and
what agreeable conversation thereon they both might enjoy together. In
brief I won over M. de Beauvilliers to my scheme. M. D'Orleans, on his
side, saw without difficulty the advantage to him of union with the
Dauphin. To bring it about I laid before him two conditions. One, that
when in the presence of the Prince he should suppress that detestable
heroism of impiety he affected more than he felt, and allow no licentious
expressions to escape him. The second was to go less often into evil
company at Paris, and if he must continue his debauchery, to do so at the
least within closed doors, and avoid all public scandal. He promised
obedience, and was faithful to his promise. The Dauphin perceived and
approved the change; little by little the object of my desire was gained.
As I have already said, it would be impossible for me to express all the
joy I felt at my deliverance from the dangers I was threatened with
during the lifetime of Monseigneur. My respect, esteem, and admiration
for the Dauphin grew more and more day by day, as I saw his noble
qualities blossom out in richer luxuriance. My hopes, too, took a
brighter colour from the rising dawn of prosperity that was breaking
around me. Alas! that I should be compelled to relate the cruel manner
in which envious fortune took from me the cup of gladness just as I was
raising it to my lips.
CHAPTER LIX
On Monday, the 18th of January, 1712, after a visit to Versailles, the
King went to Marly. I mark expressly this journey. No sooner were we
settled there than Boudin, chief doctor of the Dauphine, warned her to
take care of herself, as he had received sure information that there was
a plot to poison her and the Dauphin, to whom he made a similar
communication. Not content with this he repeated it with a terrified
manner to everybody in the salon, and frightened all who listened to him.
The King spoke to him about it in private. Boudin declared that this
information was good, and yet that he did not know whence it came; and he
stuck to this contradiction. For, if he did not know where the
information came from how could he be assured it was trustworthy?
The most singular thing is, that twenty-four hours after Boudin had
uttered this warning, the Dauphin received a similar one from the King of
Spain, vague, and without mentioning whence obtained, and yet also
declared to be of good source. In this only the Dauphin was named
distinctly--the Dauphine obscurely and by implication--at least, so the
Dauphin explained the matter, and I never heard that he said otherwise.
People pretended to despise these stories of origin unknown, but they
were struck by them nevertheless, and in the midst of the amusements and
occupations of the Court, seriousness, silence, and consternation were
spread.
The King, as I have said, went to Marly on Monday, the 18th of January,
1712. The Dauphine came there early with a face very much swelled, and
went to bed at once; yet she rose at seven o'clock in the evening because
the King wished her to preside in the salon. She played there, in
morning-dress, with her head wrapped up, visited the King m the apartment
of Madame de Maintenon just before his supper, and then again went to
bed, where she supped. On the morrow, the 19th, she rose only to play in
the salon, and see the King, returning to her bed and supping there. On
the 20th, her swelling diminished, and she was better. She was subject
to this complaint, which was caused by her teeth. She passed the
following days as usual. On Monday, the 1st of February, the Court
returned to Versailles.
On Friday, the 5th of February, the Duc de Noailles gave a very fine box
full of excellent Spanish snuff to the Dauphine, who took some, and liked
it. This was towards the end of the morning. Upon entering her cabinet
(closed to everybody else), she put this box upon the table, and left it
there. Towards the evening she was seized with trembling fits of fever.
She went to bed, and could not rise again even to go to the King's
cabinet after the supper. On Saturday, the 6th of February, the
Dauphine, who had had fever all night, did not fail to rise at her
ordinary hour, and to pass the day as usual; but in the evening the fever
returned. She was but middling all that night, a little worse the next
day; but towards ten o'clock at night she was suddenly seized by a sharp
pain under the temple. It did not extend to the dimensions of a ten sous
piece, but was so violent that she begged the King, who was coming to see
her, not to enter. This kind of madness of suffering lasted without
intermission until Monday, the 8th, and was proof against tobacco chewed
and smoked, a quantity of opium, and two bleedings in the arms. Fever
showed itself more then this pain was a little calmed; the Dauphine said
she had suffered more than in child-birth.
Such a violent illness filled the chamber with rumours concerning the
snuff-box given to the Dauphine by the Duc de Noailles. In going to bed
the day she had received it and was seized by fever, she spoke of the
snuff to her ladies, highly praising it and the box, which she told one
of them to go and look for upon the table in the cabinet, where, as I
have said, it had been left. The box could not be found, although looked
for high and low. This disappearance had seemed very extraordinary from
the first moment it became known. Now, joined to the grave illness with
which the Dauphine was so cruelly assailed, it aroused the most sombre
suspicions. Nothing, however, was breathed of these suspicions, beyond a
very restricted circle; for the Princess took snuff with the knowledge of
Madame de Maintenon, but without that of the King, who would have made a
fine scene if he had discovered it. This was what was feared, if the
singular loss of the box became divulged.
Let me here say, that although one of my friends, the Archbishop of
Rheims, believed to his dying day that the Duc de Noailles had poisoned
the Dauphine by means of this box of Spanish snuff, I never could induce
myself to believe so too. The Archbishop declared that in the manner of
the Duc de Noailles, after quitting the chamber of the Princess, there
was something which suggested both confusion and contentment. He brought
forward other proofs of guilt, but they made no impression upon me. I
endeavoured, on the contrary, to shake his belief, but my labour was in
vain. I entreated him, however, at least to maintain the most profound
silence upon this horrible thought, and he did so.
Those who afterwards knew the history of the box--and they were in good
number--were as inaccessible to suspicion as I; and nobody thought of
charging the Duc de Noailles with the offence it was said he had
committed. As for me, I believed in his guilt so little that our
intimacy remained the same; and although that intimacy grew even up to
the death of the King, we never spoke of this fatal snuff-box.
During the night, from Monday to Tuesday, the 9th of February, the
lethargy was great. During the day the King approached the bed many
times: the fever was strong, the awakenings were short; the head was
confused, and some marks upon the skin gave tokens of measles, because
they extended quickly, and because many people at Versailles and at Paris
were known to be, at this time, attacked with that disease. The night
from Tuesday to Wednesday passed so much the more badly, because the hope
of measles had already vanished. The King came in the morning to see
Madame la Dauphine, to whom an emetic had been given. It operated well,
but produced no relief. The Dauphin, who scarcely ever left the bedside
of his wife, was forced into the garden to take the air, of which he had
much need; but his disquiet led him back immediately into the chamber.
The malady increased towards the evening, and at eleven o'clock there was
a considerable augmentation of fever. The night was very bad.
On Thursday, the 11th of February, at nine o'clock in the morning, the
King entered the Dauphine's chamber, which Madame de Maintenon scarcely
ever left, except when he was in her apartments. The Princess was so ill
that it was resolved to speak to her of receiving the sacrament.
Prostrated though she was she was surprised at this. She put some
questions as to her state; replies as little terrifying as possible were
given to her, and little by little she was warned against delay.
Grateful for this advice, she said she would prepare herself.
After some time, accidents being feared, Father la Rue, her (Jesuit)
confessor, whom she had always appeared to like, approached her to exhort
her not to delay confession. She looked at him, replied that she
understood him, and then remained silent. Like a sensible man he saw
what was the matter, and at once said that if she had any objection to
confess to him to have no hesitation in admitting it. Thereupon she
indicated that she should like to have M. Bailly, priest of the mission
of the parish of Versailles. He was a man much esteemed, but not
altogether free from the suspicion of Jansenism. Bailly, as it happened,
had gone to Paris. This being told her, the Dauphine asked for Father
Noel, who was instantly sent for.
The excitement that this change of confessor made at a moment so critical
may be imagined. All the cruelty of the tyranny that the King never
ceased to exercise over every member of his family was now apparent.
They could not have a confessor not of his choosing! What was his
surprise and the surprise of all the Court, to find that in these last
terrible moments of life the Dauphine wished to change her confessor,
whose order even she repudiated!
Meanwhile the Dauphin had given way. He had hidden his own illness as
long as he could, so as not to leave the pillow of his Dauphine. Now the
fever he had was too strong to be dissimulated; and the doctors, who
wished to spare him the sight of the horrors they foresaw, forgot nothing
to induce him to stay in his chamber, where, to sustain him, false news
was, from time to time, brought him of the state of his spouse.
The confession of the Dauphine was long. Extreme unction was
administered immediately afterwards; and the holy viaticum directly.
An hour afterwards the Dauphine desired the prayers for the dying to be
said. They told her she was not yet in that state, and with words of
consolation exhorted her to try and get to sleep. Seven doctors of the
Court and of Paris were sent for. They consulted together in the
presence of the King and Madame de Maintenon. All with one voice were in
favour of bleeding at the foot; and in case it did not have the effect
desired, to give an emetic at the end of the night. The bleeding was
executed at seven o'clock in the evening. The return of the fever came
and was found less violent than the preceding. The night was cruel. The
King came early next morning to see the Dauphine. The emetic she took at
about nine o'clock had little effect. The day passed in symptoms each
more sad than the other; consciousness only at rare intervals. All at
once towards evening, the whole chamber fell into dismay. A number of
people were allowed to enter although the King was there. Just before
she expired he left, mounted into his coach at the foot of the grand
staircase, and with Madame de Maintenon and Madame de Caylus went away to
Marly. They were both in the most bitter grief, and had not the courage
to go to the Dauphin. Upon arriving at Marly the King supped in his own
room; and passed a short time with M. d'Orleans and his natural children.
M. le Duc de Berry, entirely occupied with his affliction, which was
great and real, had remained at Versailles with Madame la Duchesse de
Berry, who, transported with joy upon seeing herself delivered from a
powerful rival, to whom, however, she owed all, made her face do duty for
her heart.
Monseigneur le Dauphin, ill and agitated by the most bitter grief, kept
his chamber; but on Saturday morning the 13th, being pressed to go to
Marly to avoid the horror of the noise overhead where the Dauphine was
lying dead, he set out for that place at seven o'clock in the morning.
Shortly after arriving he heard mass in the chapel, and thence was
carried in a chair to the window of one of his rooms. Madame de
Maintenon came to see him there afterwards; the anguish of the interview
was speedily too much for her, and she went away. Early in the morning I
went uninvited to see M. le Dauphin. He showed me that he perceived this
with an air of gentleness and of affection which penetrated me. But I
was terrified with his looks, constrained, fixed and with something wild
about them, with the change in his face and with the marks there, livid
rather than red, that I observed in good number and large; marks observed
by the others also. The Dauphin was standing. In a few minutes he was
apprised that the King had awaked. The tears that he had restrained, now
rolled from his eyes; he turned round at the news but said nothing,
remaining stock still. His three attendants proposed to him, once or
twice, that he should go to the King. He neither spoke nor stirred. I
approached and made signs to him to go, then softly spoke to the same
effect. Seeing that he still remained speechless and motionless, I made
bold to take his arm, representing to him that sooner or later he must
see the King, who expected him, and assuredly with the desire to see and
embrace him; and pressing him in this manner, I took the liberty to
gently push him. He cast upon me a look that pierced my soul and went
away: I followed him some few steps and then withdrew to recover breath;
I never saw him again. May I, by the mercy of God, see him eternally
where God's goodness doubtless has placed him!
The Dauphin reached the chamber of the King, full just then of company.
As soon as, he appeared the King called him and embraced him tenderly
again and again. These first moments, so touching, passed in words
broken by sobs and tears.
Shortly afterwards the King looking at the Dauphin was terrified by the
same things that had previously struck me with affright. Everybody
around was so, also the doctors more than the others. The King ordered
them to feel his pulse; that they found bad, so they said afterwards; for
the time they contented themselves with saying it was not regular, and
that the Dauphin would do wisely to go to bed. The King embraced him
again, recommended him very tenderly to take care of himself, and ordered
him to go to bed. He obeyed and rose no more!
It was now late in the morning. The King had passed a cruel night and
had a bad headache; he saw at his dinner, the few courtiers who presented
themselves, and after dinner went to the Dauphin. The fever had
augmented: the pulse was worse than before. The King passed into the
apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and the Dauphin was left with his
attendants and his doctors. He spent the day in prayers and holy
reading.
On the morrow, Sunday, the uneasiness felt on account of the Dauphin
augmented. He himself did not conceal his belief that he should never
rise again, and that the plot Boudin had warned him of, had been
executed. He explained himself to this effect more than once, and always
with a disdain of earthly grandeur and an incomparable submission and
love of God. It is impossible to describe the general consternation. On
Monday the 15th, the King was bled. The Dauphin was no better than
before. The King and Madame de Maintenon saw him separately several
times during the day, which was passed in prayers and reading.
On Tuesday, the 16th, the Dauphin was worse. He felt himself devoured by
a consuming fire, which the external fever did not seem to justify; but
the pulse was very extraordinary and exceedingly menacing. This was a
deceptive day. The marks on the Dauphin's face extended over all the
body. They were regarded as the marks of measles. Hope arose thereon,
but the doctors and the most clear-sighted of the Court could not forget
that these same marks had shown themselves on the body of the Dauphine; a
fact unknown out of her chamber until after death.
On Wednesday, the 17th, the malady considerably increased. I had news at
all moments of the Dauphin's state from Cheverny, an excellent apothecary
of the King and of my family. He hid nothing from us. He had told us
what he thought of the Dauphine's illness; he told us now what he thought
of the Dauphin's. I no longer hoped therefore, or rather I hoped to the
end, against all hope.
On Wednesday the pains increased. They were like a devouring fire, but
more violent than ever. Very late into the evening the Dauphin sent to
the King for permission to receive the communion early the next morning,
without ceremony and without display, at the mass performed in his
chamber. Nobody heard of this, that evening; it was not known until the
following morning. I was in extreme desolation; I scarcely saw the King
once a day. I did nothing but go in quest of news several times a day,
and to the house of M. de Chevreuse, where I was completely free. M. de
Chevreuse--always calm, always sanguine--endeavoured to prove to us by
his medical reasonings that there was more reason to hope than to fear,
but he did so with a tranquillity that roused my impatience. I returned
home to pass a cruel night.
On Thursday morning, the 18th of February, I learned that the Dauphin,
who had waited for midnight with impatience, had heard mass immediately
after the communion, had passed two hours in devout communication with
God, and that his reason then became embarrassed. Madame de Saint-Simon
told me afterwards that he had received extreme unction: in fine, that he
died at half-past eight. These memoirs are not written to describe my
private sentiments. But in reading them,--if, long after me, they shall
ever appear, my state and that of Madame de Saint-Simon will only too
keenly be felt. I will content myself with saying, that the first days
after the Dauphin's death scarcely appeared to us more than moments; that
I wished to quit all, to withdraw from the Court and the world, and that
I was only hindered by the wisdom, conduct, and power over me of Madame
de Saint-Simon, who yet had much trouble to subdue my sorrowful desires.
Let me say something now of the young prince and his spouse, whom we thus
lost in such quick succession.
Never did princess arrive amongst us so young with so much instruction,
or with such capacity to profit by instruction. Her skilful father, who
thoroughly knew our Court, had painted it to her, and had made her
acquainted with the only manner of making herself happy there. From the
first moment of her arrival she had acted upon his lessons. Gentle,
timid, but adroit, fearing to give the slightest pain to anybody, and
though all lightness and vivacity, very capable of far-stretching views;
constraint, even to annoyance, cost her nothing, though she felt all its
weight. Complacency was natural to her, flowed from her, and was
exhibited towards every member of the Court.
Regularly plain, with cheeks hanging, a forehead too prominent, a nose
without meaning, thick biting lips, hair and eye-brows of dark chestnut,
and well planted; the most speaking and most beautiful eyes in the world;
few teeth, and those all rotten, about which she was the first to talk
and jest; the most beautiful complexion and skin; not much bosom, but
what there was admirable; the throat long, with the suspicion of a
goitre, which did not ill become her; her head carried gallantly,
majestically, gracefully; her mien noble; her smile most expressive; her
figure long, round, slender, easy, perfectly-shaped; her walk that of a
goddess upon the clouds: with such qualifications she pleased supremely.
Grace accompanied her every step, and shone through her manners and her
most ordinary conversation. An air always simple and natural, often
naive, but seasoned with wit-this with the ease peculiar to her, charmed
all who approached her, and communicated itself to them. She wished to
please even the most useless and the most ordinary persons, and yet
without making an effort to do so. You were tempted to believe her
wholly and solely devoted to those with whom she found herself. Her
gaiety--young, quick, and active--animated all; and her nymph-like
lightness carried her everywhere, like a whirlwind which fills several
places at once, and gives them movement and life. She was the ornament
of all diversions, the life and soul of all pleasure, and at balls
ravished everybody by the justness and perfection of her dancing. She
could be amused by playing for small sums but liked high gambling better,
and was an excellent, good-tempered, and bold gamester.
She spared nothing, not even her health, to gain Madame de Maintenon, and
through her the King. Her suppleness towards them was without example,
and never for a moment was at fault. She accompanied it with all the
discretion that her knowledge of them, acquired by study and experience,
had given her, and could measure their dispositions to an inch. In this
way she had acquired a familiarity with them such as none of the King's
children, not even the bastards, had approached.
In public, serious, measured, with the King, and in timid decorum with
Madame de Maintenon, whom she never addressed except as my aunt, thus
prettily confounding friendship and rank. In private, prattling,
skipping, flying around them, now perched upon the sides of their arm-
chairs, now playing upon their knees, she clasped them round the neck,
embraced them, kissed them, caressed them, rumpled them, tickled them
under the chin, tormented them, rummaged their tables, their papers,
their letters, broke open the seals, and read the contents in spite of
opposition, if she saw that her waggeries were likely to be received in
good part. When the King was with his ministers, when he received
couriers, when the most important affairs were under discussion, she was
present, and with such liberty, that, hearing the King and Madame de
Maintenon speak one evening with affection of the Court of England, at
the time when peace was hoped for from Queen Anne, "My aunt," she said,
"you must admit that in England the queens govern better than the kings,
and do you know why, my aunt?" asked she, running about and gambolling
all the time, "because under kings it is women who govern, and men under
queens." The joke is that they both laughed, and said she was right.
The King really could not do without her. Everything went wrong with him
if she was not by; even at his public supper, if she were away an
additional cloud of seriousness and silence settled around him. She took
great care to see him every day upon arriving and departing; and if some
ball in winter, or some pleasure party in summer, made her lose half the
night, she nevertheless adjusted things so well that she went and
embraced the King the moment he was up, and amused him with a description
of the fete.
She was so far removed from the thoughts of death, that on Candlemas-day
she talked with Madame de Saint-Simon of people who had died since she
had been at Court, and of what she would herself do in old age, of the
life she would lead, and of such like matters. Alas! it pleased God,
for our misfortune, to dispose of her differently.
With all her coquetry--and she was not wanting in it--never woman seemed
to take less heed of her appearance; her toilette was finished in a
moment, she cared nothing for finery except at balls and fetes; if she
displayed a little at other times it was simply in order to please the
king. If the Court subsisted after her it was only to languish. Never
was princess so regretted, never one so worthy of it: regrets have not
yet passed away, the involuntary and secret bitterness they caused still
remain, with a frightful blank not yet filled up.
Let me now turn to the Dauphin.
The youth of this prince made every one tremble. Stern and choleric to
the last degree, and even against inanimate objects; impetuous with
frenzy, incapable of suffering the slightest resistance even from the
hours and the elements, without flying into a passion that threatened to
destroy his body; obstinate to excess; passionately fond of all kind of
voluptuousness, of women, with even a worse passion strongly developed at
the same time; fond not less of wine, good living, hunting, music, and
gaming, in which last he could not endure to be beaten; in fine,
abandoned to every passion, and transported by every pleasure; oftentimes
wild, naturally disposed towards cruelty; barbarous in raillery, and with
an all-powerful capacity for ridicule.
He looked down upon all men as from the sky, as atoms with whom he had
nothing in common; even his brothers scarcely appeared connecting links
between himself and human nature, although all had been educated together
in perfect equality. His sense and penetration shone through everything.
His replies, even in anger, astonished everybody. He amused himself with
the most abstract knowledge. The extent and vivacity of his intellect
were prodigious, and rendered him incapable of applying himself to one
study at a time.
So much intelligence and of such a kind, joined to such vivacity,
sensibility, and passion, rendered his education difficult. But God, who
is the master of all hearts, and whose divine spirit breathes where he
wishes, worked a miracle on this prince between his eighteenth and
twentieth years. From this abyss he came out affable, gentle, humane,
moderate, patient, modest, penitent, and humble; and austere, even more
than harmonised with his position. Devoted to his duties, feeling them
to be immense, he thought only how to unite the duties of son and subject
with those he saw to be destined for himself. The shortness of each day
was his only sorrow. All his force, all his consolation, was in prayer
and pious reading. He clung with joy to the cross of his Saviour,
repenting sincerely of his past pride. The King, with his outside
devotion, soon saw with secret displeasure his own life censured by that
of a prince so young, who refused himself a new desk in order to give the
money it would cost to the poor, and who did not care to accept some new
gilding with which it was proposed to furnish his little room.
Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, alarmed at so austere a spouse, left
nothing undone in order to soften him. Her charms, with which he was
smitten, the cunning and the unbridled importunities of the young ladies
of her suite, disguised in a hundred different forms--the attraction of
parties and pleasures to which he was far from insensible, all were
displayed every day.. But for a long time he behaved not like a prince
but like a novice. On one occasion he refused to be present at a ball on
Twelfth Night, and in various ways made himself ridiculous at Court.
In due time, however, he comprehended that the faithful performance of
the duties proper to the state in which he had been placed, would be the
conduct most agreeable to God. The bark of the tree, little by little,
grew softer without affecting the solidity of the trunk. He applied
himself to the studies which were necessary, in order to instruct himself
in public affairs, and at the same time he lent himself more to the
world, doing so with so much grace, with such a natural air, that
everybody soon began to grow reconciled to him.
The discernment of this prince was such, that, like the bee, he gathered
the most perfect substance from the best and most beautiful flowers. He
tried to fathom men, to draw from them the instruction and the light that
he could hope for. He conferred sometimes, but rarely, with others
besides his chosen few. I was the only one, not of that number, who had
complete access to him; with me he opened his heart upon the present and
the future with confidence, with sageness, with discretion. A volume
would not describe sufficiently my private interviews with this prince,
what love of good! what forgetfulness of self! what researches! what
fruit! what purity of purpose!--May I say it? what reflection of the
divinity in that mind, candid, simple, strong, which as much as is
possible here below had preserved the image of its maker!
If you had business, and thought of opening it to him, say for a quarter
of an hour or half an hour, he gave you oftentimes two hours or more,
according as he found himself at liberty. Yet he was without verbiage,
compliments, prefaces, pleasantries, or other hindrances; went straight
to the point, and allowed you to go also.
His undue scruples of devotion diminished every day, as he found himself
face to face with the world; above all, he was well cured of the
inclination for piety in preference to talent, that is to say, for making
a man ambassador, minister, or general, rather on account of his
devotedness than of his capacity or experience. He saw the danger of
inducing hypocrisy by placing devotion too high as a qualification for
employ.
It was he who was not afraid to say publicly, in the Salon of Marly, that
"a king is made for his subjects, and not the subjects for him;" a remark
that, except under his own reign, which God did not permit, would have
been the most frightful blasphemy.
Great God! what a spectacle you gave to us in him. What tender but
tranquil views he had! What submission and love of God! What a
consciousness of his own nothingness, and of his sins! What a
magnificent idea of the infinite mercy! What religious and humble fear!
What tempered confidence! What patience!
What constant goodness for all who approached him! France fell, in fine,
under this last chastisement. God showed to her a prince she merited
not. The earth was not worthy of him; he was ripe already for the
blessed eternity!
CHAPTER LX
The consternation at the event that had taken place was real and general;
it penetrated to foreign lands and courts. Whilst the people wept for
him who thought only of their relief, and all France lamented a prince
who only wished to reign in order to render it flourishing and happy,
the sovereigns of Europe publicly lamented him whom they regarded as
their example, and whose virtues were preparing him to be their
arbitrator, and the peaceful and revered moderator of nations. The Pope
was so touched that he resolved of himself to set aside all rule and hold
expressly a consistory; deplored there the infinite loss the church and
all Christianity had sustained, and pronounced a complete eulogium of the
prince who caused the just regrets of all Europe.
On Saturday, the 13th, the corpse of the Dauphine was left in its bed
with uncovered face, and opened the same evening at eleven in presence of
all the faculty. On the 15th it was placed in the grand cabinet, where
masses were continually said.
On Friday, the 19th, the corpse of Monseigneur le Dauphin was opened, a
little more than twenty-four hours after his death, also in presence of
all the faculty. His heart was immediately carried to Versailles, and
placed by the side of that of Madame la Dauphine. Both were afterwards
taken to the Val de Grace. They arrived at midnight with a numerous
cortege. All was finished in two hours. The corpse of Monseigneur le
Dauphin was afterwards carried from Marly to Versailles, and placed by
the side of Madame la Dauphine on the same estrade.
On Tuesday, the 23rd February, the two bodies were taken from Versailles
to Saint-Denis in the same chariot. The procession began to enter Paris
by the Porte Saint-Honore at two o'clock in the morning, and arrived
between seven and eight o'clock in the morning at Saint-Denis. There was
great order in Paris, and no confusion.
On Tuesday, the 8th March, Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne, eldest son of
Monsieur le Dauphin, who had succeeded to the name and rank of his
father, being then only five years and some months old, and who had been
seized with measles within a few days, expired, in spite of all the
remedies given him. His brother, M. le Duc d'Anjou, who still sucked,
was taken ill at the same time, but thanks to the care of the Duchesse de
Ventadour, whom in after life he never forgot, and who administered an
antidote, escaped, and is now King.
Thus three Dauphins died in less than a year, and father, mother, and
eldest son in twenty-four days! On Wednesday, the 9th of March, the
corpse of the little Dauphin was opened at night, and without any
ceremony his heart was taken to the Val de Grace, his body to Saint-
Denis, and placed by the side of those of his father and mother. M. le
Duc d'Anjou, now, sole remaining child, succeeded to the title and to the
rank of Dauphin.
I have said that the bodies of the Dauphin and the Dauphine were opened
in presence of all the faculty. The report made upon the opening of the
latter was not consolatory. Only one of the doctors declared there were
no signs of poison; the rest were of the opposite opinion. When the body
of the Dauphin was opened, everybody was terrified. His viscera were
all dissolved; his heart had no consistency; its substance flowed through
the hands of those who tried to hold it; an intolerable odour, too,
filled the apartment. The majority of the doctors declared they saw in
all this the effect of a very subtle and very violent poison, which had
consumed all the interior of the body, like a burning fire. As before,
there was one of their number who held different views, but this was
Marechal, who declared that to persuade the King of the existence of
secret enemies of his family would be to kill him by degrees.
This medical opinion that the cause of the Dauphin's and the Dauphine's
death was poison, soon spread like wildfire over the Court and the city.
Public indignation fell upon M. d'Orleans, who was at once pointed out as
the poisoner. The rapidity with which this rumour filled the Court,
Paris, the provinces, the least frequented places, the most isolated
monasteries, the most deserted solitudes, all foreign countries and all
the peoples of Europe, recalled to me the efforts of the cabal, which had
previously spread such black reports against the honour of him whom all
the world now wept, and showed that the cabal, though dispersed, was not
dissolved.
In effect M. du Maine, now the head of the cabal, who had all to gain and
nothing to lose by the death of the Dauphin and Dauphine, from both of
whom he had studiously held aloof, and who thoroughly disliked M.
d'Orleans, did all in his power to circulate this odious report. He
communicated it to Madame de Maintenon, by whom it reached the King. In
a short time all the Court, down to the meanest valets, publicly cried
vengeance upon M. d'Orleans, with an air of the most unbridled
indignation and of perfect security.
M. d'Orleans, with respect to the two losses that afflicted the public,
had an interest the most directly opposite to that of M. du Maine; he had
everything to gain by the life of the Dauphin and Dauphine, and unless he
had been a monster vomited forth from hell he could not have been guilty
of the crime with which he was charged. Nevertheless, the odious
accusation flew from mouth to mouth, and took refuge in every breast.
Let us compare the interest M. d'Orleans had in the life of the Dauphin
with the interest M. du Maine had in his death, and then look about for
the poisoner. But this is not all. Let us remember how M. le Duc
d'Orleans was treated by Monseigneur, and yet what genuine grief he
displayed at the death of that prince. What a contrast was this conduct
with that of M. du Maine at another time, who, after leaving the King
(Louis XIV.) at the point of death, delivered over to an ignorant
peasant, imitated that peasant so naturally and so pleasantly, that
bursts of laughter extended to the gallery, and scandalized the passers-
by. This is a celebrated and very characteristic fact, which will find
its proper place if I live long enough to carry these memoirs up to the
death of the King.
M. d'Orleans was, however, already in such bad odour, that people were
ready to believe anything to his discredit. They drank in this new
report so rapidly, that on the 17th of February, as he went with Madame
to give the holy water to the corpse of the Dauphine, the crowd of the
people threw out all sorts of accusations against him, which both he and
Madame very distinctly heard, without daring to show it, and were in
trouble, embarrassment, and indignation, as may be imagined. There was
even ground for fearing worse from an excited and credulous populace when
M. d'Orleans went alone to give the holy water to the corpse of the
Dauphin. For he had to endure on his passage atrocious insults from a
populace which uttered aloud the most frightful observations, which
pointed the finger at him with the coarsest epithets, and which believed
it was doing him a favour in not falling upon him and tearing him to
pieces!
Similar circumstances took place at the funeral procession. The streets
resounded more with cries of indignation against M. d'Orleans and abuse
of him than with grief. Silent precautions were not forgotten in Paris
in order to check the public fury, the boiling over of which was feared
at different moments. The people recompensed themselves by gestures,
cries, and other atrocities, vomited against M. d'Orleans. Near the
Palais Royal, before which the procession passed, the increase of shouts,
of cries, of abuse, was so great, that for some minutes everything was to
be feared.
It may be imagined what use M. du Maine contrived to make of the public
folly, the rumours of the Paris cafes, the feeling of the salon of Marly,
that of the Parliament, the reports that arrived from the provinces and
foreign countries. In a short time so overpowered was M. d'Orleans by
the feeling against him everywhere exhibited, that acting upon very ill-
judged advice he spoke to the King upon the subject, and begged to be
allowed to surrender himself as a prisoner at the Bastille, until his
character was cleared from stain.
I was terribly annoyed when I heard that M. d'Orleans had taken this
step, which could not possibly lead to good. I had quite another sort of
scheme in my head which I should have proposed to him had I known of his
resolve. Fortunately, however, the King was persuaded not to grant M.
d'Orleans' request, out of which therefore nothing came. The Duke
meanwhile lived more abandoned by everybody than ever; if in the salon he
approached a group of courtiers, each, without the least hesitation,
turned to the right or to the left and went elsewhere, so that it was
impossible for him to accost anybody except by surprise, and if he did
so, he was left alone directly after with the most marked indecency.
In a word, I was the only person, I say distinctly, the only person,
who spoke to M. d'Orleans as before. Whether in his own house or in the
palace I conversed with him, seated myself by his side in a corner of the
salon, where assuredly we had no third person to fear, and walked with
him in the gardens under the very windows of the King and of Madame de
Maintenon.
Nevertheless, all my friends warned me that if I pursued this conduct so
opposite to that in vogue, I should assuredly fall into disgrace. I held
firm. I thought that when we did not believe our friends guilty we ought
not to desert them, but, on the contrary, to draw closer to them, as by
honour bound, give them the consolation due from us, and show thus to the
world our hatred for calumny. My friends insisted; gave me to understand
that the King disapproved my conduct, that Madame de Maintenon was
annoyed at it: they forgot nothing to awaken my fears. But I was
insensible to all they said to me, and did not omit seeing M. d'Orleans a
single day; often stopping with him two and three hours at a time.
A few weeks had passed over thus, when one morning M. de Beauvilliers
called upon me, and urged me to plead business, and at once withdraw to
La Ferme; intimating that if I did not do so of my own accord, I should
be compelled by an order from the King. He never explained himself more
fully, but I have always remained persuaded that the King or Madame de
Maintenon had sent him to me, and had told him that I should be banished
if I did not banish myself. Neither my absence nor my departure made any
stir; nobody suspected anything. I was carefully informed, without
knowing by whom, when my exile was likely to end: and I returned, after a
month or five weeks, straight to the Court, where I kept up the same
intimacy with M. d'Orleans as before.
But he was not yet at the end of his misfortunes. The Princesse des
Ursins had not forgiven him his pleasantry at her expense. Chalais, one
of her most useful agents, was despatched by her on a journey so
mysterious that its obscurity has never been illuminated. He was
eighteen days on the road, unknown, concealing his name, and passing
within two leagues of Chalais, where his father and mother lived, without
giving them any signs of life, although all were on very good terms. He
loitered secretly in Poitou, and at last arrested there a Cordelier monk,
of middle age, in the convent of Bressuire, who cried, "Ah! I am lost!"
upon being caught. Chalais conducted him to the prison of Poitiers,
whence he despatched to Madrid an officer of dragoons he had brought with
him, and who knew this Cordelier, whose name has never transpired,
although it is certain he was really a Cordelier, and that he was
returning from as journey in Italy and Germany that had extended as far
as Vienna. Chalais pushed on to Paris, and came to Marly on the 27th of
April, a day on which the King had taken medicine. After dinner he was
taken by Torcy to the King, with whom he remained half an hour, delaying
thus the Council of State for the same time, and then returned
immediately to Paris. So much trouble had not been taken for no purpose:
and Chalais had not prostituted himself to play the part of prevot to a
miserable monk without expecting good winnings from the game.
Immediately afterwards the most dreadful rumours were everywhere in
circulation against M. d'Orleans, who, it was said, had poisoned the
Dauphin and Dauphine by means of this monk, who, nevertheless, was far
enough away from our Prince and Princess at the time of their death. In
an instant Paris resounded with these horrors; the provinces were
inundated with them, and immediately afterwards foreign countries--this
too with an incredible rapidity, which plainly showed how well the plot
had been prepared--and a publicity that reached the very caverns of the
earth. Madame des Ursins was not less served in Spain than M. du Maine
and Madame de Maintenon in France. The anger of the public was doubled.
The Cordelier was brought, bound hand and foot, to the Bastille, and
delivered up to D'Argenson, Lieutenant of Police.
This D'Argenson rendered an account to the King of many things which
Pontchartrain, as Secretary of State, considered to belong to his
department. Pontchartrain was vexed beyond measure at this, and could
not see without despair his subaltern become a kind of minister more
feared, more valued, more in consideration than he, and conduct himself
always in such manner that he gained many powerful friends, and made but
few enemies, and those of but little moment. M. d'Orleans bowed before
the storm that he could not avert; it could not increase the general
desertion; he had accustomed himself to his solitude, and, as he had
never heard this monk spoken of, had not the slightest fear on his
account. D'Argenson, who questioned the Cordelier several times, and
carried his replies daily to the King, was sufficiently adroit to pay his
court to M. d'Orleans, by telling him that the prisoner had uttered
nothing which concerned him, and by representing the services he did M.
d'Orleans with the King. Like a sagacious man, D'Argenson saw the
madness of popular anger devoid of all foundation, and which could not
hinder M. d'Orleans from being a very considerable person in France,
during a minority that--the age of the King showed to be pretty near.
He took care, therefore, to avail himself of the mystery which surrounded
his office, to ingratiate himself more and more with M. d'Orleans, whom
he had always carefully though secretly served; and his conduct, as will
be seen in due time, procured him a large fortune.
But I have gone too far. I must retrace my steps, to speak of things I
have omitted to notice in their proper place.
The two Dauphins and the Dauphine were interred at Saint-Denis, on
Monday, the 18th of April. The funeral oration was pronounced by Maboul,
Bishop of Aleth, and pleased; M. de Metz, chief chaplain, officiated; the
service commenced at about eleven o'clock. As it was very long, it was
thought well to have at hand a large vase of vinegar, in case anybody
should be ill. M. de Metz having taken the first oblation, and observing
that very little wine was left for the second, asked for more. This
large vase of vinegar was supposed to be wine, and M. de Metz, who wished
to strengthen himself, said, washing his fingers over the chalice, "fill
right up." He swallowed all at a draught, and did not perceive until the
end that he had drunk vinegar; his grimace and his complaint caused some
little laughter round him; and he often related this adventure, which
much soured him. On Monday, the 20th of May, the funeral service for the
Dauphin and Dauphine was performed at Notre Dame.
Let me here say, that before the Prince and his spouse were buried, that
is to say, the 6th of April, the King gave orders for the recommencement
of the usual play at Marly; and that M. le Duc de Berry and Madame la
Duchesse de Berry presided in the salon at the public lansquenet and
brelan; and the different gaming tables for all the Court. In a short
time the King dined in Madame de Maintenon's apartments once or twice a
week, and had music there. And all this, as I have remarked, with the
corpse of the Dauphin and that of the Dauphine still above ground.
The gap left by the death of the Dauphine could not, however, be easily
filled up. Some months after her loss, the King began to feel great
ennui steal upon him in the hours when he had no work with his ministers.
The few ladies admitted into the apartments of Madame de Maintenon when
he was there, were unable to entertain him. Music, frequently
introduced, languished from that cause. Detached scenes from the
comedies of Moliere were thought of, and were played by the King's
musicians, comedians for the nonce. Madame de Maintenon introduced, too,
the Marechal de Villeroy, to amuse the King by relating their youthful
adventures.
Evening amusements became more and more frequent in Madame de Maintenon's
apartments, where, however, nothing could fill up the void left by the
poor Dauphine.
I have said little of the grief I felt at the loss of the prince whom
everybody so deeply regretted. As will be believed, it was bitter and
profound. The day of his death, I barricaded myself in my own house, and
only left it for one instant in order to join the King at his promenade
in the gardens. The vexation I felt upon seeing him followed almost as
usual, did not permit me to stop more than an instant. All the rest of
the stay at Versailles, I scarcely left my room, except to visit M. de
Beauvilliers. I will admit that, to reach M. de Beauvilliers' house, I
made a circuit between the canal and the gardens of Versailles, so as to
spare myself the sight of the chamber of death, which I had not force
enough to approach. I admit that I was weak. I was sustained neither by
the piety, superior to all things, of M. de Beauvilliers, nor by that of
Madame de Saint-Simon, who nevertheless not the less suffered. The truth
is, I was in despair. To those who know my position, this will appear
less strange than my being able to support at all so complete a
misfortune. I experienced this sadness precisely at the same age as that
of my father when he lost Louis XIII.; but he at least had enjoyed the
results of favour, whilst I, 'Gustavi paululum mellis, et ecce morior.'
Yet this was not all.
In the casket of the Dauphin there were several papers he had asked me
for. I had drawn them up in all confidence; he had preserved them in the
same manner. There was one, very large, in my hand, which if seen by the
King, would have robbed me of his favour for ever; ruined me without hope
of return. We do not think in time of such catastrophes. The King knew
my handwriting; he did not know my mode of thought, but might pretty well
have guessed it. I had sometimes supplied him with means to do so; my
good friends of the Court had done the rest. The King when he discovered
my paper would also discover on what close terms of intimacy I had been
with the Dauphin, of which he had no suspicion. My anguish was then
cruel, and there seemed every reason to believe that if my secret was
found out, I should be disgraced and exiled during all the rest of the
King's reign.
What a contrast between the bright heaven I had so recently gazed upon
and the abyss now yawning at my feet! But so it is in the Court and the
world! I felt then the nothingness of even the most desirable future, by
an inward sentiment, which, nevertheless, indicates how we cling to it.
Fear on account of the contents of the casket had scarcely any power over
me. I was obliged to reflect in order to return to it from time to time.
Regret for this incomparable Dauphin pierced my heart, and suspended all
the faculties of my soul. For a long time I wished to fly from the
Court, so that I might never again see the deceitful face of the world;
and it was some time before prudence and honour got the upper hand.
It so happened that the Duc de Beauvilliers himself was able to carry
this casket to the King, who had the key of it. M. de Beauvilliers in
fact resolved not to trust it out of his own hands, but to wait until he
was well enough to take it to the King, so that he might then try to hide
my papers from view. This task was difficult, for he did not know the
position in the casket of these dangerous documents, and yet it was our
only resource. This terrible uncertainty lasted more than a fortnight.
On Tuesday, the 1st of March, M. de Beauvilliers carried the casket to
the King. He came to me shortly after, and before sitting down,
indicated by signs that there was no further occasion for fear. He then
related to me that he had found the casket full of a mass of documents,
finance projects, reports from the provinces, papers of all kinds, that
he had read some of them to the King on purpose to weary him, and had
succeeded so well that the King soon was satisfied by hearing only the
titles; and, at last, tired out by not finding anything important, said
it was not worth while to read more, and that there was nothing to do but
to throw everything into the fire. The Duke assured me that he did not
wait to be told twice, being all the more anxious to comply, because at
the bottom of the casket he had seen some of my handwriting, which he had
promptly covered up in taking other papers to read their titles to the
King; and that immediately the word "fire" was uttered, he confusedly
threw all the papers into the casket, and then emptied it near the fire,
between the King and Madame de Maintenon, taking good care as he did so
that my documents should not be seen,--even cautiously using the tongs in
order to prevent any piece flying away, and not quitting the fireplace
until he had seen every page consumed. We embraced each other, in the
relief we reciprocally felt, relief proportioned to the danger we had
run.
VOLUME 9.
CHAPTER LXI
Let me here relate an incident which should have found a place earlier,
but which has been omitted in order that what has gone before might be
uninterrupted. On the 16th of the previous July the King made a journey
to Fontainebleau, where he remained until the 14th of September. I
should suppress the bagatelle which happened on the occasion of this
journey, if it did not serve more and more to characterize the King.
Madame la Duchesse de Berry was in the family way for the first time,
had been so for nearly three months, was much inconvenienced, and had a
pretty strong fever. M. Fagon, the doctor, thought it would be imprudent
for her not to put off travelling for a day or two. Neither she nor M,
d'Orleans dared to speak about it. M. le Duc de Berry timidly hazarded a
word, and was ill received. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans more timid
still, addressed herself to Madame, and to Madame de Maintenon, who,
indifferent as they might be respecting Madame la Duchesse de Berry,
thought her departure so hazardous that, supported by Fagon, they spoke
of it to the King. It was useless. They were not daunted, however, and
this dispute lasted three or four days. The end of it was, that the King
grew thoroughly angry and agreed, by way of capitulation, that the
journey should be performed in a boat instead of a coach.
It was arranged that Madame la Duchesse de Berry should leave Marly,
where the King then was, on the 13th, sleep at the Palais Royal that
night and repose herself there all the next day and night, that on the
15th she should set out for Petit-Bourg, where the King was to halt for
the night, and arrive like him, on the 16th, at Fontainebleau, the whole
journey to be by the river. M. le Duc de Berry had permission to
accompany his wife; but during the two nights they were to rest in Paris
the King angrily forbade them to go anywhere, even to the Opera, although
that building joined the Palais Royal, and M. d'Orleans' box could be
reached without going out of the palace.
On the 14th the King, under pretence of inquiry after them, repeated this
prohibition to M. le Duc de Berry and Madame his wife, and also to M.
d'Orleans and Madame d'Orleans, who had been included in it. He carried
his caution so far as to enjoin Madame de Saint-Simon to see that Madame
la Duchesse de Berry obeyed the instructions she had received. As may be
believed, his orders were punctually obeyed. Madame de Saint-Simon could
not refuse to remain and sleep in the Palais Royal, where the apartment
of the queen-mother was given to her. All the while the party was shut
up there was a good deal of gaming in order to console M. le Duc de Berry
for his confinement.
The provost of the merchants had orders to prepare boats for the trip to
Fontainebleau. He had so little time that they were ill chosen. Madame
la Duchesse de Berry embarked, however, on the 15th, and arrived, with
fever, at ten o'clock at night at Petit-Bourg, where the King appeared
rejoiced by an obedience so exact.
On the morrow the journey recommenced. In passing Melun, the boat of
Madame la Duchesse de Berry struck against the bridge, was nearly
capsized, and almost swamped, so that they were all in great danger.
They got off, however, with fear and a delay. Disembarking in great
disorder at Valvin, where their equipages were waiting for there, they
arrived at Fontainebleau two hours after midnight. The King, pleased
beyond measure, went the next morning to see Madame la Duchesse de Berry
in the beautiful apartment of the queen-mother that had been given to
her. From the moment of her arrival she had been forced to keep her bed,
and at six o'clock in the morning of the 21st of July she miscarried and
was delivered of a daughter, still-born. Madame de Saint-Simon ran to
tell the King; he did not appear much moved; he had been obeyed! The
Duchesse de Beauvilliers and the Marquise de Chatillon were named by the
King to carry the embryo to Saint-Denis. As it was only a girl, and as
the miscarriage had no ill effect, consolation soon came.
It was some little time after this occurrence, that we heard of the
defeat of the Czar by the Grand Vizier upon the Pruth. The Czar, annoyed
by the protection the Porte had accorded to the King of Sweden (in
retirement at Bender), made an appeal to arms, and fell into the same
error as that which had occasioned the defeat of the King of Sweden by
him. The Turks drew him to the Pruth across deserts supplied with
nothing; if he did not risk all, by a very unequal battle, he must
perish. The Czar was at the head of sixty thousand men: he lost more
than thirty thousand on the Pruth, the rest were dying of hunger and
misery; and he, without any resources, could scarcely avoid surrendering
himself and his forces to the Turks. In this pressing extremity, a
common woman whom he had taken away from her husband, a drummer in the
army, and whom he had publicly espoused after having repudiated and
confined his own wife in a convent,--proposed that he should try by
bribery to induce the Grand Vizier to allow him and the wreck of his
forces to retreat The Czar approved of the proposition, without hoping
for success from it. He sent to the Grand Vizier and ordered him to be
spoken to in secret. The Vizier was dazzled by the gold, the precious
stones, and several valuable things that were offered to him. He
accepted and received them; and signed a treaty by which the Czar was
permitted to retire, with all who accompanied him, into his own states by
the shortest road, the Turks to furnish him with provisions, with which
he was entirely unprovided. The Czar, on his side, agreed to give up
Azof as soon as he returned; destroy all the forts and burn all the
vessels that he had upon the Black Sea; allow the King of Sweden to
return by Pomerania; and to pay the Turks and their Prince all the
expenses of the war.
The Grand Vizier found such an opposition in the Divan to this treaty,
and such boldness in the minister of the King of Sweden, who accompanied
him, in exciting against him all the chiefs of the army, that it was
within an ace of being broken; and the Czar, with every one left to him,
of being made prisoner. The latter was in no condition to make even the
least resistance. The Grand Vizier had only to will it, in order to
execute it on the spot. In addition to the glory of leading captive to
Constantinople the Czar, his Court, and his troops, there would have been
his ransom, which must have cost not a little. But if he had been thus
stripped of his riches, they would have been for the Sultan, and the
Grand Vizier preferred having them for himself. He braved it then with
authority and menaces, and hastened the Czar's departure and his own.
The Swedish minister, charged with protests from the principal Turkish
chiefs, hurried to Constantinople, where the Grand Vizier was strangled
upon arriving.
The Czar never forgot this service of his wife, by whose courage and
presence of mind he had been saved. The esteem he conceived for her,
joined to his friendship, induced him to crown her Czarina, and to
consult her upon all his affairs and all his schemes. Escaped from
danger, he was a long time without giving up Azof, or demolishing his
forts on the Black Sea. As for his vessels, he kept them nearly all, and
would not allow the King of Sweden to return into Germany, as he had
agreed, thus almost lighting up a fresh war with the Turk.
On the 6th of November, 1711, at about eight o'clock in the evening, the
shock of an earthquake was felt in Paris and at Versailles; but it was so
slight that few people perceived it. In several places towards Touraine
and Poitou, in Saxony, and in some of the German towns near, it was very
perceptible at the same day and hour. At this date a new tontine was
established in Paris.
I have so often spoken of Marshal Catinat, of his virtue, wisdom,
modesty, and disinterestedness; of the rare superiority of his
sentiments, and of his great qualities as captain, that nothing remains
for me to say except that he died at this time very advanced in years,
at his little house of Saint-Gratien, near Saint-Denis, where he had
retired, and which he seldom quitted, although receiving there but few
friends. By his simplicity and frugality, his contempt for worldly
distinction, and his uniformity of conduct, he recalled the memory of
those great men who, after the best-merited triumphs, peacefully returned
to the plough, still loving their country and but little offended by the
ingratitude of the Rome they had so well served. Catinat placed his
philosophy at the service of his piety. He had intelligence, good sense,
ripe reflection; and he never forgot his origin; his dress, his
equipages, his furniture, all were of the greatest simplicity. His air
and his deportment were so also. He was tall, dark, and thin; had an
aspect pensive, slow, and somewhat mean; with very fine and expressive
eyes. He deplored the signal faults that he saw succeed each other
unceasingly; the gradual extinction of all emulation; the luxury, the
emptiness, the ignorance, the confusion of ranks; the inquisition in the
place of the police: he saw all the signs of destruction, and he used to
say it was only a climax of dangerous disorder that could restore order
to the realm.
Vendome was one of the few to whom the death of the Dauphin and the
Dauphine brought hope and joy. He had deemed himself expatriated for the
rest of his life. He saw, now, good chances before him of returning to
our Court, and of playing a part there again. He had obtained some
honour in Spain; he aimed at others even higher, and hoped to return to
France with all the honours of a Prince of the Blood. His idleness, his
free living, his debauchery, had prolonged his stay upon the frontier,
where he had more facilities for gratifying his tastes than at Madrid.
In that city, it is true, he did not much constrain himself, but he was
forced to do so to some extent by courtly usages. He was, then, quite at
home on the frontier; there was nothing to do; for the Austrians,
weakened by the departure of the English, were quite unable to attack;
and Vendome, floating upon the delights of his new dignities, thought
only of enjoying himself in the midst of profound idleness, under pretext
that operations could not at once be commenced.
In order to be more at liberty he separated from the general officers,
and established himself with his valets and two or three of his most
familiar friends, cherished companions everywhere, at Vignarez, a little
isolated hamlet, almost deserted, on the sea-shore and in the kingdom of
Valencia. His object was to eat fish there to his heart's content. He
carried out that object, and filled himself to repletion for nearly a
month. He became unwell--his diet, as may be believed, was enough to
cause this--but his illness increased so rapidly, and in so strange a
manner, after having for a long time seemed nothing that the few around
him suspected poison, and sent on all sides for assistance. But the
malady would not wait; it augmented rapidly with strange symptoms.
Vendome could not sign a will that was presented to him; nor a letter to
the King, its which he asked that his brother might be permitted to
return to Court. Everybody near flew from him and abandoned him, so that
he remained in the hands of three or four of the meanest valets, whilst
the rest robbed him of everything and decamped. He passed thus the last
two or three days of his life, without a priest,--no mention even had
been made of one,--without other help than that of a single surgeon.
The three or four valets who remained near him, seeing him at his last
extremity, seized hold of the few things he still possessed, and for want
of better plunder, dragged off his bedclothes and the mattress from under
him. He piteously cried to them at least not to leave him to die naked
upon the bare bed. I know not whether they listened to him.
Thus died on Friday, the 10th of June, 1712, the haughtiest of men; and
the happiest, except in the later years of his life. After having been
obliged to speak of him so often, I get rid of him now, once and for
ever. He was fifty-eight years old; but in spite of the blind and
prodigious favour he had enjoyed, that favour had never been able to make
ought but a cabal hero out of a captain who was a very bad general, and a
man whose vices were the shame of humanity. His death restored life and
joy to all Spain.
Aguilar, a friend of the Duc de Noailles, was accused of having poisoned
him; but took little pains to defend himself, inasmuch as little pains
were taken to substantiate the accusation. The Princesse des Ursins, who
had so well profited by his life in order to increase her own greatness,
did not profit less by his death. She felt her deliverance from a new
Don Juan of Spain who had ceased to be supple in her hands, and who might
have revived, in the course of time, all the power and authority he had
formerly enjoyed in France. She was not shocked them by the joy which
burst out without constraint; nor by the free talk of the Court, the
city, the army, of all Spain. But in order to sustain what she had done,
and cheaply pay her court to M. du Maine, Madame de Maintenon, and even
to the King, she ordered that the corpse of this hideous monster of
greatness and of fortune should be carried to the Escurial. This was
crowning the glory of M. de Vendome in good earnest; for no private
persons are buried in the Escurial, although several are to be found in
Saint-Denis. But meanwhile, until I speak of the visit I made to the
Escurial--I shall do so if I live long enough to carry these memoirs up
to the death of M. d'Orleans,--let me say something of that illustrious
sepulchre.
The Pantheon is the place where only the bodies of kings and queens who
have had posterity are admitted. In a separate place, near, though not
on the same floor, and resembling a library, the bodies of children, and
of queens who have had no posterity, are ranged. A third place, a sort
of antechamber to the last named, is rightly called "the rotting room;"
whilst the other improperly bears the same name. In whilst third room,
there is nothing to be seen but four bare walls and a table in the
middle. The walls being very thick, openings are made in them in which
the bodies are placed. Each body has an opening to itself, which is
afterwards walled up, so that nothing is seen. When it is thought that
the corpse has been closed up sufficiently long to be free from odour the
wall is opened, the body taken out, and put in a coffin which allows a
portion of it to be seen towards the feet. This coffin is covered with a
rich stuff and carried into an adjoining room.
The body of the Duc de Vendome had been walled up nine years when I
entered the Escurial. I was shown the place it occupied, smooth like
every part of the four walls and without mark. I gently asked the monks
who did me the honours of the place, when the body would be removed to
the other chamber. They would not satisfy my curiosity, showed some
indignation, and plainly intimated that this removal was not dreamt of,
and that as M. de Vendome had been so carefully walled up he might remain
so!
Harlay, formerly chief-president, of whom I have so often had occasion to
speak, died a short time after M. de Vendome. I have already made him
known. I will simply add an account of the humiliation to which this
haughty cynic was reduced. He hired a house in the Rue de l'Universite
with a partition wall between his garden and that of the Jacobins of the
Faubourg Saint-Germain. The house did not belong to the Jacobins, like
the houses of the Rue Saint-Dominique, and the Rue du Bac, which, in
order that they might command higher rents, were put in connection with
the convent garden. These mendicant Jacobins thus derive fifty thousand
livres a-year. Harlay, accustomed to exercise authority, asked them for
a door into their garden. He was refused. He insisted, had them spoken
to, and succeeded no better. Nevertheless the Jacobins comprehended that
although this magistrate, recently so powerful, was now nothing by
himself, he had a son and a cousin, Councillors of State, whom they might
some day have to do with, and who for pride's sake might make themselves
very disagreeable. The argument of interest is the best of all with
monks. The Jacobins changed their mind. The Prior, accompanied by some
of the notabilities of the convent, went to Harlay with excuses, and said
he was at liberty, if he liked, to make the door. Harlay, true to his
character, looked at them askance, and replied, that he had changed his
mind and would do without it. The monks, much troubled by his refusal,
insisted; he interrupted them and said, "Look you, my fathers, I am
grandson of Achille du Harlay, Chief-President of the Parliament, who so
well served the State and the Kingdom, and who for his support of the
public cause was dragged to the Bastille, where he expected to be hanged
by those rascally Leaguers; it would ill become me, therefore, to enter
the house, or pray to God there, of folks of the same stamp as that
Jacques Clement." And he immediately turned his back upon them, leaving
them confounded. This was his last act of vigour. He took it into his
head afterwards to go out visiting a good deal, and as he preserved all
his old unpleasant manners, he afflicted all he visited; he went even to
persons who had often cooled their heels in his antechambers. By
degrees, slight but frequent attacks of apoplexy troubled his speech, so
that people had great difficulty in understanding him, and he in
speaking. In this state he did not cease his visits and could not
perceive that many doors were closed to him. He died in this misery, and
this neglect, to the great relief of the few who by relationship were
obliged to see him, above all of his son and his domestic.
On the 17th July, a truce between France and England was published in
Flanders, at the head of the troops of the two crowns. The Emperor,
however, was not yet inclined for peace and his forces under Prince
Eugene continued to oppose us in Flanders, where, however, the tide at
last turned in our favour. The King was so flattered by the overflow of
joy that took place at Fontainebleau on account of our successes, that he
thanked the country for it, for the first time in his life. Prince
Eugene, in want of bread and of everything, raised the siege of
Landrecies, which he had been conducting, and terrible desertion took
place among his troops.
About this time, there was an irruption of wolves, which caused great
disorders in the Orleannais; the King's wolf-hunters were sent there, and
the people were authorised to take arms and make a number of grand
battues.
CHAPTER LXII.
Peace was now all but concluded between France and England. There was,
however, one great obstacle still in its way. Queen Anne and her Council
were stopped by the consideration that the king of Spain would claim to
succeed to the Crown of France, if the little Dauphin should die.
Neither England nor any of the other powers at war would consent to see
the two principal crowns of Europe upon the same head. It was necessary,
then, above all things to get rid of this difficulty, and so arrange the
order of succession to our throne, that the case to be provided against
could never happen. Treaties, renunciations, and oaths, all of which the
King had already broken, appeared feeble guarantees in the eyes of
Europe. Something stronger was sought for. It could not be found;
because there is nothing more sacred among men than engagements which
they consider binding on each other. What was wanting then in mere forms
it was now thought could be supplied by giving to those forms the
greatest possible solemnity.
It was a long time before we could get over the difficulty. The King
would accord nothing except promises in order to guarantee to Europe that
the two crowns should never be united upon the same head. His authority
was wounded at the idea of being called upon to admit, as it were, a
rival near it. Absolute without reply, as he had become, he had
extinguished and absorbed even the minutest trace, idea, and recollection
of all other authority, all other power in France except that which
emanated from himself alone. The English, little accustomed to such
maxims, proposed that the States-General should assemble in order to give
weight to the renunciations to be made. They said, and with reason, that
it was not enough that the King of Spain should renounce France unless
France renounced Spain; and that this formality was necessary in order to
break the double bonds which attached Spain to France, as France was
attached to Spain. Accustomed to their parliaments, which are in effect
their States-General, they believed ours preserved the same authority,
and they thought such authority the greatest to be obtained and the best
capable of solidly supporting that of the King.
The effect of this upon the mind of a Prince almost deified in his own
eyes, and habituated to the most unlimited despotism, cannot be
expressed. To show him that the authority of his subjects was thought
necessary in order to confirm his own, wounded him in his most delicate
part. The English were made to understand the weakness and the
uselessness of what they asked; for the powerlessness of our States-
General was explained to them, and they saw at once how vain their help
would be, even if accorded.
For a long time nothing was done; France saying that a treaty of
renunciation and an express confirmatory declaration of the King,
registered in the Parliament, were sufficient; the English replying by
reference to the fate of past treaties. Peace meanwhile was arranged
with the English, and much beyond our hopes remained undisturbed.
In due time matters were so far advanced in spite of obstacles thrown in
the way by the allies, that the Duc d'Aumont was sent as ambassador into
England; and the Duke of Hamilton was named as ambassador for France.
This last, however, losing his life in a duel with Lord Mohun, the Duke
of Shrewsbury was appointed in his stead.
At the commencement of the new year [1713] the Duke and Duchess of
Shrewsbury arrived in Paris. The Duchess was a great fat masculine
creature, more than past the meridian, who had been beautiful and who
affected to be so still; bare bosomed; her hair behind her ears; covered
with rouge and patches, and full of finicking ways. All her manners were
that of a mad thing, but her play, her taste, her magnificence, even her
general familiarity, made her the fashion. She soon declared the women's
head-dresses ridiculous, as indeed they were. They were edifices of
brass wire, ribbons, hair, and all sorts of tawdry rubbish more than two
feet high, making women's faces seem in the middle of their bodies. The
old ladies wore the same, but made of black gauze. If they moved ever so
lightly the edifice trembled and the inconvenience was extreme. The King
could not endure them, but master as he was of everything was unable to
banish them. They lasted for ten years and more, despite all he could
say and do. What this monarch had been unable to perform, the taste and
example of a silly foreigner accomplished with the most surprising
rapidity. From extreme height, the ladies descended to extreme lowness,
and these head-dresses, more simple; more convenient, and more becoming,
last even now. Reasonable people wait with impatience for some other mad
stranger who will strip our dames of these immense baskets, thoroughly
insupportable to themselves and to others.
Shortly after the Duke of Shrewsbury arrived in Paris, the Hotel de Powis
in London, occupied by our ambassador the Duc d'Aumont, was burnt to the
ground. A neighbouring house was pulled down to prevent others catching
fire. The plate of M. d'Aumont was saved. He pretended to have lost
everything else. He pretended also to have received several warnings
that his house was to be burnt and himself assassinated, and that the
Queen, to whom he had mentioned these warnings, offered to give him a
guard. People judged otherwise in London and Paris, and felt persuaded
he himself had been the incendiary in order to draw money from the King
and also to conceal some monstrous smuggling operations, by which he
gained enormously, and which the English had complained of ever since his
arrival. This is at least what was publicly said in the two courts and
cities, and nearly everybody believed it.
But to return to the peace. The renunciations were ready, towards the
middle of March, and were agreed upon. The King was invited to sign them
by his own most pressing interest; and the Court of England, to which we
owed all, was not less interested in consummating this grand work, so as
to enjoy, with the glory of having imposed it upon all the powers, that
domestic repose which was unceasingly disturbed by the party opposed to
the government, which party, excited by the enemies of peace abroad,
could not cease to cause disquiet to the Queen's minister, while, by
delay in signing, vain hopes of disturbing the peace or hindering its
ratification existed in people's minds. The King of Spain had made his
renunciations with all the solidity and solemnity which could be desired
from the laws, customs, and usages of Spain. It only remained for France
to imitate him.
For the ceremony that was to take place, all that could be obtained in
order to render it more solemn was the presence of the peers. But the
King was so jealous of his authority, and so little inclined to pay
attention to that of others, that he wished to content himself with
merely saying in a general way that he hoped to find all the peers at the
Parliament when the renunciations were made. I told M. d'Orleans that if
the King thought such an announcement as this was enough he might rely
upon finding not a single peer at the Parliament. I added, that if the
King did not himself invite each peer, the master of the ceremonies ought
to do so for him, according to the custom always followed. This warning
had its effect. We all received written invitations, immediately.
Wednesday, the 18th of May, was fixed for the ceremony.
At six o'clock on the morning of that day I went to the apartments of M.
le Duc de Berry, in parliamentary dress, and shortly afterwards M.
d'Orleans came there also, with a grand suite. It had been arranged that
the ceremony was to commence by a compliment from the Chief-President de
Mesmes to M. le Duc de Berry, who was to reply to it. He was much
troubled at this. Madame de Saint-Simon, to whom he unbosomed himself;
found means, through a subaltern, to obtain the discourse of the Chief-
President, and gave it to M. le Duc de Berry, to regulate his reply by.
This, however, seemed too much for him; he admitted so to Madame de
Saint-Simon, and that he knew not what to do. She proposed that I should
take the work off his hands; and he was delighted with the expedient.
I wrote, therefore, a page and a half full of common-sized paper in an
ordinary handwriting. M. le Duc de Berry liked it, but thought it too
long to be learnt. I abridged it; he wished it to be still shorter, so
that at last there was not more than three-quarters of a page. He had
learned it by heart, and repeated it in his cabinet the night before the
ceremony to Madame de Saint-Simon, who encouraged him as much as she
could.
At about half-past six o'clock we set out--M. le Duc d'Orleans, M. le Duc
de Berry, myself, and M. le Duc de Saint-Aignan, in one coach, several
other coaches following. M. le Duc de Berry was very silent all the
journey, appearing to be much occupied with the speech he had learned by
heart. M. d'Orleans, on the contrary, was full of gaiety, and related
some of his youthful adventures, and his wild doings by night in the
streets of Paris. We arrived gently at the Porte de la Conference, that
is to say--for it is now pulled down--at the end of the terrace, and of
the Quai of the Tuileries.
We found there the trumpeters and drummers of M. le Duc de Berry's guard,
who made a great noise all the rest of our journey, which ended at the
Palais de justice. Thence we went to the Sainte-Chapelle to hear mass.
The Chapelle was filled with company, among which were many people of
quality. The crowd of people from this building to the grand chamber was
so great that a pin could not have fallen to the ground. On all sides,
too, folks had climbed up to see what passed.
All the Princes of the blood, the bastards, the peers and the parliament,
were assembled in the palace. When M. le Duc de Berry entered,
everything was ready. Silence having with difficulty been obtained, the
Chief-President paid his compliment to the Prince. When he had finished,
it was for M. le Duc de Berry to reply. He half took off his hat,
immediately put it back again, looked at the Chief-President, and said,
"Monsieur;" after a moment's pause he repeated "Monsieur." Then he
looked at the assembly, and again said, "Monsieur." Afterwards he
turned towards M. d'Orleans, who, like himself, was as red as fire, next
to the Chief-President, and finally stopped short, nothing else than
"Monsieur" having been able to issue from his mouth.
I saw distinctly the confusion of M. le Duc de Berry, and sweated at it;
but what could be done? The Duke turned again towards M. d'Orleans, who
lowered his head. Both were dismayed. At last the Chief-President,
seeing there was no other resource, finished this cruel scene by taking
off his cap to M. le Duc de Berry, and inclining himself very low, as if
the response was finished. Immediately afterwards he told the King's
people to begin. The embarrassment of all the courtiers and the surprise
of the magistracy may be imagined.
The renunciations were then read; and by these the King of Spain and his
posterity gave up all claim to the throne of France, and M. le Duc
d'Orleans, and M. le Duc de Berry to succeed to that of Spain. These and
other forms occupied a long time. The chamber was all the while crowded
to excess. There was not room for a single other person to enter. It
was very late when all was over.
When everything was at an end M. de Saint-Aignan and I accompanied M. le
Duc de Berry and M. le Duc d'Orleans in a coach to the Palais Royal. On
the way the conversation was very quiet. M. le Duc de Berry appeared
dispirited, embarrassed, and vexed. Even after we had partaken of a
splendid and delicate dinner, to which an immense number of other guests
sat down, he did not improve. We were conducted to the Porte Saint-
Honore with the same pomp as that in the midst, of which we had entered
Paris. During the rest of the journey to Versailles M. le Duc de Berry
was as silent as ever.
To add to his vexation, as soon as he arrived at Versailles the Princesse
de Montauban, without knowing a word of what had passed, set herself to
exclaim, with her usual flattery, that she was charmed with the grace and
the appropriate eloquence with which he had spoken at the Parliament, and
paraphrased this theme with all the praises of which it was susceptible.
M. le Duc de Berry blushed with vexation without saying a word; she
recommenced extolling his modesty, he blushing the more, and saying
nothing. When at last he had got rid of her, he went to his own
apartments, said not, a word to the persons he found there, scarcely one
to Madame his wife, but taking Madame de Saint-Simon with him, went into
his library, and shut himself up alone there with her.
Throwing himself into an armchair he cried out that he was dishonoured,
and wept scalding tears. Then he related to Madame de Saint-Simon, in
the midst of sobs, how he had stuck fast at the Parliament, without being
able to utter a word, said that he should everywhere be regarded as an
ass and a blockhead, and repeated the compliments he had received from
Madame de Montauban, who, he said, had laughed at and insulted him,
knowing well what had happened; then, infuriated against her to the last
degree, he called her by all sots of names. Madame de Saint-Simon spared
no exertion in order to calm M. de Berry, assuring him that it was
impossible Madame de Montauban could know what had taken place at the
Parliament, the news not having then reached Versailles, and that she had
had no other object than flattery in addressing him. Nothing availed.
Complaints and silence succeeded each other in the midst of tears. Then,
suddenly falling upon the Duc de Beauvilliers and the King, and accusing
the defects of his education: "They thought only;" he exclaimed,
"of making me stupid, and of stifling all my powers. I was a younger
son. I coped with my brother. They feared the consequences; they
annihilated me. I was taught only to play and to hunt, and they have
succeeded in making me a fool and an ass, incapable of anything, the
laughing-stock and disdain of everybody." Madame de Saint-Simon was
overpowered with compassion, and did everything to calm M. de Berry.
Their strange tete-a-tete lasted nearly two hours, and resumed the next
day but with less violence. By degrees M. le Duc de Berry became
consoled, but never afterwards did any one dare to speak to him of his
misadventure at the peace ceremony.
Let me here say that, the ceremony over, peace was signed at Utrecht on
the 20th April, 1713, at a late hour of the night. It was published in
Paris with great solemnity on the 22nd. Monsieur and Madame du Maine,
who wished to render themselves popular, came from Sceaux to see the
ceremony in the Place Royale, showed themselves on a balcony to the
people, to whom they threw some money--a liberality that the King would
not have permitted in anybody else. At night fires were lighted before
the houses, several of which were illuminated: On the 25th a Te Deum was
sung at Notre Dame, and in the evening there was a grand display of
fireworks at the Grave, which was followed by a superb banquet given at
the Hotel de Ville by the Duc de Tresmes, the Governor of Paris, to a
large number of distinguished persons of both sexes of the Court and the
city, twenty-four violins playing during the repast.
I have omitted to mention the death of M. de Chevreise, which took place
between seven and eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday, the 5th of
November; of the previous year (1712). I have so often alluded to M. de
Chevreuse in the course of these pages, that I will content myself with
relating here two anecdotes of him, which serve to paint a part of his
character.
He was very forgetful, and adventures often happened to him in
consequence, which diverted us amazingly. Sometimes his horses were put
to and kept waiting for him twelve or fifteen hours at a time. Upon one
occasion in summer this happened at Vaucresson, whence he was going to
dine at Dampierre. The coachman, first, then the postilion, grew tired
of looking after the horses, and left them. Towards six o'clock at night
the horses themselves were in their turn worn out, bolted, and a din was
heard which shook the house. Everybody ran out, the coach was found
smashed, the large door shivered in pieces; the garden railings, which
enclosed both sides of the court, broken down; the gates in pieces; in
short, damage was done that took a long time to repair. M. de Chevreuse,
who had not been disturbed by this uproar even for an instant, was quite
astonished when he heard of it. M. de Beauvilliers amused himself for a
long time by reproaching him with it, and by asking the expense.
Another adventure happened to him also at Vaucresson, and covered him
with real confusion, comical to see, every time it was mentioned. About
ten o'clock one morning a M. Sconin, who had formerly been his steward,
was announced. "Let him take a turn in the garden," said M. de
Chevreuse, "and come back in half an hour." He continued what he was
doing, and completely forgot his man. Towards seven o'clock in the
evening Sconin was again announced. "In a moment," replied M. de
Chevreuse, without disturbing himself. A quarter of an hour afterwards
he called Sconin, and admitted him. "Ah, my poor Sconin!" said he,
"I must offer you a thousand excuses for having caused you to lose your
day."
"Not at all, Monseigneur," replied Sconin. "As I have had the honour of
knowing you for many years, I comprehended this morning that the half-
hour might be long, so I went to Paris, did some business there, before
and after dinner, and here I am again."
M. de Chevreuse was confounded. Sconin did not keep silence, nor did the
servants of the house. M. de Beauvilliers made merry with the adventure
when he heard of it, and accustomed as M. de Chevreuse might be to his
raillery, he could not bear to have this subject alluded to. I have
selected two anecdotes out of a hundred others of the same kind, because
they characterise the man.
The liberality of M. du Maine which we have related on the occasion of
the proclamation of peace at Paris, and which was so popular, and so
surprising when viewed in connection with the disposition of the King,
soon took new development. The Jesuits, so skilful in detecting the
foibles of monarchs, and so clever in seizing hold of everything which
can protect themselves and answer their ends, showed to what extent they
were masters of these arts. A new and assuredly a very original History
of France, in three large folio volumes, appeared under the name of
Father Daniel, who lived at Paris in the establishment of the Jesuits.
The paper and the printing of the work were excellent; the style was
admirable. Never was French so clear, so pure, so flowing, with such
happy transitions; in a word, everything to charm and entice the reader;
admirable preface, magnificent promises, short, learned dissertations, a
pomp, an authority of the most seductive kind. As for the history, there
was much romance in the first race, much in the second, and much.
mistiness in the early times of the third. In a word, all the work
evidently appeared composed in order to persuade people--under the simple
air of a man who set aside prejudices with discernment, and who only
seeks the truth--that the majority of the Kings of the first race,
several of the second, some even of the third, were, bastards, whom this
defect did not exclude from the throne, or affect in any way.
I say bluntly here what was very delicately veiled in the work, and yet
plainly seen. The effect of the book was great; its vogue such, that
everybody, even women, asked for it. The King spoke of it to several of
his Court, asked if they had read it; the most sagacious early saw how
much it was protected; it was the sole historical book the King and
Madame de Maintenon had ever spoken of. Thus the work appeared at
Versailles upon every table, nothing else was talked about, marvellous
eulogies were lavished upon it, which were sometimes comical in the
mouths of persons either very ignorant, or who, incapable of reading,
pretended to read and relish this book.
But this surprising success did not last. People perceived that this
history, which so cleverly unravelled the remote part, gave but a meagre
account of modern days, except in so far as their military operations
were concerned; of which even the minutest details were recorded. Of
negotiations, cabals, Court intrigues, portraits, elevations, falls, and
the main springs of events, there was not a word in all the work, except
briefly, dryly, and with precision as in the gazettes, often more
superficially. Upon legal matters, public ceremonies, fetes of different
times, there was also silence at the best, the same laconism; and when we
come to the affairs of Rome and of the League, it is a pleasure to see
the author glide over that dangerous ice on his Jesuit skates!
In due time critics condemned the work which, after so much applause, was
recognised as a very wretched history, which had very industriously and
very fraudulently answered the purpose for which it was written. It fell
to the ground then; learned men wrote against it; but the principal and
delicate point of the work was scarcely touched in France with the pen,
so great was the danger.
Father Daniel obtained two thousand francs' pension for his history,--
a prodigious recompense,--with a title of Historiographer of France. He
enjoyed the fruits of his falsehood, and laughed at those who attacked
him. Foreign countries did not swallow quite so readily these stories
that declared such a number of our early kings bastards; but great care
was taken not to let France be infected by the disagreeable truths
therein published.
CHAPTER LXIII
It is now time that I should say something of the infamous bull
'Unigenitus', which by the unsurpassed audacity and scheming of Father Le
Tellier and his friends was forced upon the Pope and the world.
I need not enter into a very lengthy account of the celebrated Papal
decree which has made so many martyrs, depopulated our schools,
introduced ignorance, fanaticism, and misrule, rewarded vice, thrown the
whole community into the greatest confusion, caused disorder everywhere,
and established the most arbitrary and the most barbarous inquisition;
evils which have doubled within the last thirty years. I will content
myself with a word or two, and will not blacken further the pages of my
Memoirs. Many pens have been occupied, and will be occupied, with this
subject. It is not the apostleship of Jesus Christ that is in question,
but that of the reverend fathers and their ambitious clients.
It is enough to say that the new bull condemned in set terms the
doctrines of Saint-Paul (respected like oracles of the Holy Spirit ever
since the time of our Saviour), and also those of Saint-Augustin, and of
other fathers; doctrines which have always been adopted by the Popes, by
the Councils, and by the Church itself. The bull, as soon as published,
met with a violent opposition in Rome from the cardinals there, who went
by sixes, by eights, and by tens, to complain of it to the Pope. They
might well do so, for they had not been consulted in any way upon this
new constitution. Father Tellier and his friends had had the art and the
audacity to obtain the publication of it without submitting it to them.
The Pope, as I have said, had been forced into acquiescence, and now, all
confused, knew not what to say. He protested, however, that the
publication had been made without his knowledge, and put off the
cardinals with compliments, excuses, and tears, which last he could
always command.
The constitution had the same fate in France as in Rome. The cry against
it was universal. The cardinals protested that it would never be
received. They were shocked by its condemnation of the doctrines of
Saint-Augustin and of the other fathers; terrified at its condemnation of
Saint-Paul. There were not two opinions upon this terrible constitution.
The Court, the city, and the provinces, as soon as they knew the nature
of it, rose against it like one man.
In addition to the articles of this constitution which I have already
named, there was one which excited infinite alarm and indignation, for it
rendered the Pope master of every crown! As is well known, there is a
doctrine of the Church, which says:
"An unjust excommunication ought got to hinder [us] from doing our duty."
The new constitution condemned this doctrine, and consequently proclaimed
that:
"An unjust excommunication ought to hinder [us] from doing our duty."
The enormity of this last is more striking than the simple truth of the
proposition condemned. The second is a shadow which better throws up the
light of the first. The results and the frightful consequences of the
condemnation are as clear as day.
I think I have before said that Father Tellier, without any advances on
my part, without, in fact, encouragement of any kind, insisted upon
keeping up an intimacy with me, which I could not well repel, for it came
from a man whom it would have been very dangerous indeed to have for an-
enemy. As soon as this matter of the constitution was in the wind, he
came to me to talk about it. I did not disguise my opinion from him, nor
did he disguise in any way from me the unscrupulous means he meant to
employ in order to get this bull accepted by the clergy. Indeed, he was
so free with me, showed me so plainly his knavery and cunning, that I
was, as it were, transformed with astonishment and fright. I never could
comprehend this openness in a man so false, so artificial, so profound,
or see in what manner it could be useful to him.
One day he came to me by appointment, with a copy of the constitution in
his hand in order that we might thoroughly discuss it. I was at
Versailles. In order to understand what I am going to relate, I must
give some account of my apartments there. Let me say, then, that I had a
little back cabinet, leading out of another cabinet, but so arranged that
you would not have thought it was there. It received no light except
from the outer cabinet, its own windows being boarded up. In this back
cabinet I had a bureau, some chairs, books, and all I needed; my friends
called it my "shop," and in truth it did not ill resemble one.
Father Tellier came at the hour he had fixed. As chance would have it,
M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de Berry had invited themselves to a
collation with Madame de Saint-Simon that morning. I knew that when they
arrived I should no longer be master of my chamber or of my cabinet. I
told Father Tellier this, and he was much vexed. He begged me so hard to
find some place where we might be inaccessible to the company, that at
last, pressed by him to excess, I said I knew of only one expedient by
which we might become free: and I told him that he must dismiss his
'vatble' (as the brother who always accompanies a monk is called), and
that then, furnished with candles, we would go and shut ourselves up in
my back cabinet, where we could neither be seen nor heard, if we took
care not to speak loud when anybody approached. He thought the expedient
admirable, dismissed his companion, and we sat down opposite each other,
the bureau between us, with two candles alight upon it.
He immediately began to sing the praises of the Constitution Unigenitus,
a copy of which he placed on the table. I interrupted him so as to come
at once to the excommunication proposition. We discussed it with much
politeness, but with little accord. I shall not pretend to report our
dispute. It was warm and long. I pointed out to Father Tellier, that
supposing the King and the little Dauphin were both to die, and this was
a misfortune which might happen, the crown of France would by right of
birth belong to the King of Spain; but according to the renunciation just
made, it would belong to M. le Duc de Berry and his branch, or in default
to M. le Duc d'Orleans. "Now," said I, "if the two brothers dispute the
crown, and the Pope favouring the one should excommunicate the other, it
follows, according to our new constitution, that the excommunicated must
abandon all his claims, all his partisans, all his forces, and go over to
the other side. For you say, an unjust excommunication ought to hinder
us from doing our duty. So that in one fashion or another the Pope is
master of all the crowns in his communion, is at liberty to take them
away or to give them as he pleases, a liberty so many Popes have claimed
and so many have tried to put in action."
My argument was simple, applicable, natural, and pressing: it offered
itself, of itself. Wherefore, the confessor was amazed by it; he
blushed, he beat about the bush, he could not collect himself. By
degrees he did so, and replied to me in a manner that he doubtless
thought would convince me at once. "If the case you suggest were to
happen," he said, "and the Pope declaring for one disputant were to
excommunicate the other and all his followers, such excommunication would
not merely be unjust, it would be false; and it has never been decided
that a false excommunication should hinder us from doing our duty."
"Ah! my father," I said, "your distinction is subtle and clever, I admit.
I admit, too, I did not expect it, but permit me some few more
objections, I beseech you. Will the Ultramontanes admit the nullity of
the excommunication? Is it not null as soon as it is unjust? If the
Pope has the power to excommunicate unjustly, and to enforce obedience to
his excommunication, who can limit power so unlimited, and why should not
his false (or nullified) excommunication be as much obeyed and respected
as his unjust excommunication? Suppose the case I have imagined were to
happen. Suppose the Pope were to excommunicate one of the two brothers.
Do you think it would be easy to make your subtle distinction between a
false and an unjust excommunication understood by the people, the
soldiers, the bourgeois, the officers, the lords, the women, at the very
moment when they would be preparing to act and to take up arms? You see
I point out great inconveniences that may arise if the new doctrine be
accepted, and if the Pope should claim the power of deposing kings,
disposing of their crowns, and releasing their subjects from the oath of
fidelity in opposition to the formal words of Jesus Christ and of all the
Scripture."
My words transported the Jesuit, for I had touched the right spring in
spite of his effort to hide it. He said nothing personal to me, but he
fumed. The more he restrained himself for me the less he did so for the
matter in hand. As though to indemnify himself for his moderation on my
account, he launched out the more, upon the subject we were discussing.
In his heat, no longer master of himself, many things escaped him,
silence upon which I am sure he would afterwards have bought very dearly.
He told me so many things of the violence that would be used to make his
constitution accepted, things so monstrous, so atrocious, so terrible,
and with such extreme passion that I fell into a veritable syncope. I
saw him right in front of me between two candles, only the width of the
table between us (I have described elsewhere his horrible physiognomy).
My hearing and my sight became bewildered. I was seized, while he was
speaking, with the full idea of what a Jesuit was. Here was a man who,
by his state and his vows, could hope for nothing for his family or for
himself; who could not expect an apple or a glass of wine more than his
brethren; who was approaching an age when he would have to render account
of all things to God, and who, with studied deliberation and mighty
artifice, was going to throw the state and religion into the most
terrible flames, and commence a most frightful persecution for questions
which affected him in nothing, nor touched in any way the honour of the
School of Molina!
His profundities, the violence he spoke of--all this together, threw me
into such an ecstasy, that suddenly I interrupted him by saying:
"My father, how old are you?"
The extreme surprise which painted itself upon his face as I looked at
him with all my eyes, fetched back my senses, and his reply brought me
completely to myself. "Why do you ask?" he replied, smiling. The effort
that I made over myself to escape such a unique 'proposito', the terrible
value of which I fully appreciated, furnished me an issue. "Because,"
said I, "never have I looked at you so long as I have now, you in front
of me, these two candles between us, and your face is so fresh and so
healthy, with all your labours, that I am surprised at it."
He swallowed the answer, or so well pretended to do so, that he said
nothing of it then nor since, never ceasing when he met me to speak to me
as openly, and as frequently as before, I seeking him as little as ever.
He replied at that time that he was seventy-four years old; that in truth
he was very well; that he had accustomed himself, from his earliest
years, to a hard life and to labour; and then went back to the point at
which I had interrupted him. We were compelled, however, to be silent
for a time, because people came into my cabinet, and Madame de Saint-
Simon, who knew of our interview, had some difficulty to keep the coast
clear.
For more than two hours we continued our discussion, he trying to put me
off with his subtleties and authoritativeness, I offering but little
opposition to him, feeling that opposition was of no use, all his plans
being already decided. We separated without having persuaded each other,
he with many flatteries upon my intelligence, praying me to reflect well
upon the matter; I replying that my reflections were all made, and that
my capacity could not go farther. I let him out by the little back door
of my cabinet, so that nobody perceived him, and as soon as I had closed
it, I threw myself into a chair like a man out of breath, and I remained
there a long time alone, reflecting upon the strange kind of ecstasy I
had been in, and the horror it had caused me.
The results of this constitution were, as I have said, terrible to the
last degree; every artifice, every cruelty was used, in order to force it
down the throats of the clergy; and hence the confusion and sore trouble
which arose all over the realm. But it is time now for me to touch upon
other matters.
Towards the close of this year, 1713, peace with the Emperor seemed so
certain, that the King disbanded sixty Battalions and eighteen men per
company of the regiment of the guards, and one hundred and six squadrons;
of which squadrons twenty-seven were dragoons. At peace now with the
rest of Europe he had no need of so many troops, even although the war
Against the Empire had continued; fortunately, however it did not.
Negotiations were set on foot, and on the 6th of March of the following
year, 1714, after much debate, they ended successfully. On that day, in
fact, peace was signed at Rastadt. It was shortly afterwards published
at Paris, a Te Deum sung, and bonfires lighted at night; a grand
collation was given at the Hotel de Ville by the Duc de Tresmes, who at
midnight also gave, in his own house, a splendid banquet, at which were
present many ladies, foreigners, and courtiers.
This winter was fertile in balls at the Court; there were several, fancy-
dress and masked, given by M. le Duc de Berry, by Madame la Duchesse de
Berry, M. le Duc, and others. There were some also at Paris, and at
Sceaux, where Madame du Maine gave many fetes and played many comedies,
everybody going there from Paris and the Court--M. du Maine doing the
Honours. Madame la Duchesse de Berry was in the family way, and went to
no dances out of her own house. The King permitted her, on account of
her condition, to sup with him in a robe de chambre, as under similar
circumstances he had permitted the two Dauphines to do.
At the opera, one night this winter, the Abbe Servien, not liking certain
praises of the King contained in a Prologue, let slip a bitter joke in
ridicule of them. The pit took it up, repeated it, and applauded it.
Two days afterwards, the Abbe Servien was arrested and taken to
Vincennes, forbidden to speak to anybody and allowed no servant to wait
upon him. For form's sake seals were put upon his papers, but he was not
a man likely to have any fit for aught else than to light the fire.
Though more than sixty-five years old, he was strangely debauched.
The Duc de la Rochefoucauld died on Thursday, the 11th of January, at
Versailles, seventy-nine years of age, and blind. I have spoken of him
so frequently in the course of these memoirs, that I will do nothing more
now than relate a few particulars respecting him, which will serve in
some sort to form his portrait.
He had much honour, worth, and probity. He was noble, good, magnificent,
ever willing to serve his friends; a little too much so, for he
oftentimes wearied the King with importunities on their behalf. Without
any intellect or discernment he was proud to excess, coarse and rough in
his manners--disagreeable even, and embarrassed with all except his
flatterers; like a man who does not know how to receive a visit, enter or
leave a room. He scarcely went anywhere except to pay the indispensable
compliments demanded by marriage, death, etc., and even then as little as
he could. He lived in his own house so shut up that no, one went to see
him except on these same occasions. He gave himself up almost entirely
to his valets, who mixed themselves in the conversation; and you were
obliged to treat them with all sorts of attentions if you wished to
become a frequenter of the house.
I shall never forget what happened to us at the death of the Prince of
Vaudemont's son, by which M. de la Rochefoucauld's family came in for a
good inheritance. We were at Marly. The King had been stag-hunting.
M. de Chevreuse, whom I found when the King was being unbooted, proposed
that we should go and pay our compliments to M. de la Rochefoucauld.
We went. Upon entering, what was our surprise, nay, our shame, to find
M. de la Rochefoucauld playing at chess with one of his servants in
livery, seated opposite to him! Speech failed us. M. de la
Rochefoucauld perceived it, and remained confounded himself. He
stammered, he grew confused, he tried to excuse what we had seen, saying
that this lackey played very well, and that chess-players played with
everybody. M. de Chevreuse had not come to contradict him; neither had
I; we turned the conversation, therefore, and left as soon as possible.
As soon as we were outside we opened our minds to each other, and said
what we thought of this rare meeting, which, however, we did not make
public.
M. de Rochefoucauld, towards the end of his career at Court, became so
importunate, as I have said, for his friends, that the King was much
relieved by his death. Such have been his sentiments at the death of
nearly all those whom he had liked and favoured.
Of the courage of M. de la Rochefoucauld, courtier as he was, in speaking
to the King, I will relate an instance. It was during one of the visits
at Marly, in the gardens of which the King was amusing himself with a
fountain that he set at work. I know not what led to it, but the King,
usually so reserved, spoke with him of the bishop of Saint-Pons, then in
disgrace on account of the affairs of Port Royal. M. de la Rochefoucauld
let him speak on to the end, and then began to praise the bishop. The
discouraging silence of the King warned him; he persisted, however, and
related how the bishop, mounted upon a mule, and visiting one day his
diocese, found himself in a path which grew narrower at every step; and
which ended in a precipice. There were no means of getting out of it
except by going back, but this was impossible, there not being enough
space to turn round or to alight. The holy bishop (for such was his term
as I well remarked) lifted his eyes to Heaven, let go the bridle, and
abandoned himself to Providence. Immediately his mule rose up upon its
hind legs, and thus upright, the bishop still astride, turned round until
its head was where its tail had been. The beast thereupon returned along
the path until it found an opening into a good road. Everybody around
the King imitated his silence, which excited the Duke to comment upon
what he had just related. This generosity charmed me, and surprised all
who were witness of it.
The day after the death of M. de la Rochefoucauld, the Chancellor took
part in a very tragic scene. A Vice-bailli of Alencon had just lost a
trial, in which, apparently, his honour, or his property, was much
interested. He came to Pontchartrain's, where the Chancellor was at the
moment, and waited until he came out into the court to get into his
carriage. The Vice-bailli then asked him for a revision of the verdict.
The Chancellor, with much gentleness and goodness represented to the man
that the law courts were open to him if he insisted to appeal, but that
as to a revision of the verdict; it was contrary to usage; and turned to
get into his coach. While he was getting in; the unhappy bailli said
there was a shorter way of escaping from trouble, and stabbed himself
twice with a poniard. At the dies of the domestics the Chancellor
descended from the coach, had the man carried into a room, and sent for a
doctor, and a confessor. The bailli made confession very peacefully, and
died an hour afterwards.
I have spoken in its time of the exile of Charmel and its causes, of
which the chief was his obstinate refusal to present himself before the
King. The vexation of the King against people who withdrew from him was
always very great. In this case, it never passed away, but hardened into
a strange cruelty, to speak within limits. Charmel, attacked with the
stone, asked permission to come to Paris to undergo an operation. The
permission was positively refused. Time pressed. The operation was
obliged to be done in the country. It was so severe, and perhaps so
badly done, that Charmel died three days afterwards full of penitence and
piety. He had led a life remarkable for its goodness, was without
education, but had religious fervour that supplied the want of it. He
was sixty-eight years of age.
The Marechale de la Ferme died at Paris, at the same time, more than
eighty years old. She was sister of the Comtesse d'Olonne, very rich and
a widow. The beauty of the two sisters, and the excesses of their lives,
made a great stir. No women, not even those most stigmatized for their
gallantry, dared to see them, or to be seen anywhere with them. That was
the way then; the fashion has changed since. When they were old and
nobody cared for them, they tried to become devout. They lodged
together, and one Ash Wednesday went and heard a sermon. This sermon,
which was upon fasting and penitence, terrified them.
"My sister," they said to each other on their return, "it was all true;
there was no joke about it; we must do penance, or we are lost. But, my
sister, what shall we do?" After having well turned it over: "My
sister," said Madame d'Olonne, "this is what we must do; we must make our
servants fast." Madame d'Olonne thought she had very well met the
difficulty. However, at last she set herself to work in earnest, at
piety and penitence, and died three months after her sister, the
Marechale de la Ferme. It will not be forgotten, that it was under cover
of the Marechale that a natural child was first legitimated without
naming the mother, in order that by this example, the King's natural
children might be similarly honoured, without naming Madame de Montespan,
as I have related in its place.
CHAPTER LXIV
The Queen of Spain, for a long time violently attacked with the king's
evil around the face and neck, was just now at the point of death.
Obtaining no relief from the Spanish doctors, she wished to have
Helvetius, and begged the King by an express command to send him to her.
Helvetius, much inconvenienced, and knowing besides the condition of the
Princess, did not wish to go, but the King expressly commanded him.
He set out then in a postchaise, followed by another in case his own
should break down, and arrived thus at Madrid on the 11th of February,
1714. As soon as he had seen the Queen, he said there was nothing but
a miracle could save her. The King of Spain did not discontinue sleeping
with her until the 9th. On the 14th she died, with much courage,
consciousness, and piety.
Despair was general in Spain, where this Queen was universally adored.
There was not a family which did not lament her, not a person who has
since been consoled. The King of Spain was extremely touched, but
somewhat in a royal manner. Thus, when out shooting one day, he came
close to the convoy by which the body of his queen was being conveyed to
the Escurial; he looked at it, followed it with his eyes, and continued
his sport! Are these princes made like other human beings?
The death of the Queen led to amazing changes, such as the most prophetic
could not have foreseen. Let me here, then, relate the events that
followed this misfortune.
I must commence by saying, that the principal cause which had so long and
scandalously hindered us from making peace with the Emperor, was a
condition, which Madame des Ursins wished to insert in the treaty, (and
which the King of Spain supported through thick and thin) to the effect
that she should be invested with a bona fide sovereignty. She had set
her heart upon this, and the king of Spain was a long time before he
would consent to any terms of peace that did not concede it to her. It
was not until the King had uttered threats against him that he would give
way. As for Madame des Ursins, she had counted upon this sovereignty
with as much certainty as though it were already between her fingers.
She had counted, too, with equal certainty upon exchanging it with our
King, for the sovereignty of Touraine and the Amboise country; and had
actually charged her faithful Aubigny to buy her some land near Amboise
to build her there a vast palace, with courts and outbuildings; to
furnish it with magnificence, to spare neither gilding nor paintings, and
to surround the whole with the most beautiful gardens. She meant to live
there as sovereign lady of the country. Aubigny had at once set about
the work to the surprise of everybody: for no one could imagine for whom
such a grand building could be designed. He kept the secret, pretended
he was building a house for himself and pushed on the work so rapidly
that just as peace was concluded without the stipulation respecting
Madame des Ursins being inserted in the treaty, nearly all was finished.
Her sovereignty scheme thoroughly failed; and to finish at once with that
mad idea, I may as well state that, ashamed of her failure, she gave this
palace to Aubigny, who lived there all the rest of his life: Chanteloup,
for so it was called, has since passed into the hands of Madame
d'Armantieres, his daughter. It is one of the most beautiful and most
singular places in all France, and the most superbly furnished.
This sovereignty, coveted by Madame des Ursins, exceedingly offended
Madame de Maintenon and wounded her pride. She felt, with jealousy, that
the grand airs Madame des Ursins gave herself were solely the effect of
the protection she had accorded her. She could not bear to be
outstripped in importance by the woman she herself had elevated. The
King, too, was much vexed with Madame des Ursins; vexed also to see peace
delayed; and to be obliged to speak with authority and menace to the King
of Spain, in order to compel him to give up the idea of this precious
sovereignty. The King of Spain did not yield until he was threatened
with abandonment by France. It may be imagined what was the rage of
Madame des Ursins upon missing her mark after having, before the eyes
of all Europe, fired at it with so much perseverance; nay, with such
unmeasured obstinacy. From this time there was no longer the same
concert between Madame de Maintenon and Madame des Ursins that had
formerly existed. But the latter had reached such a point in Spain,
that she thought this was of no consequence.
It has been seen with what art Madame des Ursins had unceasingly isolated
the King of Spain; in what manner she had shut him up with the Queen, and
rendered him inaccessible, not only to his Court but to his grand
officers, his ministers, even his valets, so that he was served by only
three or four attendants, all French, and entirely under her thumb. At
the death of the Queen this solitude continued. Under the pretext that
his grief demanded privacy, she persuaded the King to leave his palace
and to instal himself in a quiet retreat, the Palace of Medina-Celi, near
the Buen-Retiro, at the other end of the city. She preferred this
because it was infinitely smaller than the Royal Palace, and because few
people, in consequence, could approach the King. She herself took the
Queen's place; and in order to have a sort of pretext for being near the
King, in the same solitude, she caused herself to be named governess of
his children. But in order to be always there, and so that nobody should
know when they were together, she had a large wooden corridor made from
the cabinet of the King to the apartment of his children, in which she
lodged. By this means they could pass from one to the other without
being perceived, and without traversing the long suite of rooms, filled
with courtiers, that were between the two apartments. In this manner it
was never known whether the King was alone or with Madame des Ursins;
or which of the two was in the apartments of the other. When they were
together or how long is equally unknown. This corridor, roofed and
glazed, was proceeded with in so much haste, that the work went on, in
spite of the King's devotion, on fete days and Sundays. The whole Court,
which perfectly well knew for what use this corridor was intended, was
much displeased. Those who directed the work were the same. Of this
good proof was given. One day, the Comptroller of the royal buildings,
who had been ordered to keep the men hard at it, Sundays and fete days,
asked the Pere Robinet, the King's confessor, and the only good one he
ever had; he asked, I say, in one of those rooms Madame des Ursins was so
anxious to avoid, and in the presence of various courtiers, if the work
was to be continued on the morrow, a Sunday, and the next day, the Fete
of the Virgin. Robinet replied, that the King had said nothing to the
contrary; and met a second appeal with the same answer. At the third, he
added, that before saying anything he would wait till the King spoke on
the subject. At the fourth appeal, he lost patience, and said that if
for the purpose of destroying what had been commenced, he believed work
might be done even on Easter-day itself; but if for the purpose of
continuing the corridor, he did not think a Sunday or a fete day was a
fitting time. All the Court applauded; but Madame des Ursins, to whom
this sally was soon carried, was much irritated.
It was suspected that she thought of becoming something more than the
mere companion of the King. There were several princes. Reports were
spread which appeared equivocal and which terrified. It was said that
the King had no need of posterity, with all the children it had pleased
God to bless him with; but now he only needed a wife who could take
charge of those children. Not content with passing all her days with the
King, and allowing him, like the deceased Queen, to work with his
ministers only in her presence, the Princesse des Ursins felt that to
render this habit lasting she must assure herself of him at all moments.
He was accustomed to take the air, and he was in want of it all the more
now because he had been much shut up during the last days of the Queen's
illness, and the first which followed her death. Madame des Ursins chose
four or five gentlemen to accompany him, to the exclusion of all others,
even his chief officers, and people still more necessary. These
gentlemen charged with the amusement of the King, were called
recreadores. With so much circumspection, importunity, preparation, and
rumour carefully circulated, it was not doubted that Madame des Ursins
intended to marry him; and the opinion, as well as the fear, became
general. The King (Louis XIV.), was infinitely alarmed; and Madame de
Maintenon, who had twice tried to be proclaimed Queen and twice failed,
was distracted with jealousy. However, if Madame des Ursins flattered
herself then, it was not for long.
The King of Spain, always curious to learn the news from France, often
demanded them of his confessor, the only man to whom he could speak who
was not under the thumb of Madame des Ursins. The clever and courageous
Robinet, as disturbed as others at the progress of the design, which
nobody in the two Courts of France and Spain doubted was in execution,
allowed himself to be pressed by questions--in an embrasure where the
King had drawn him--played the reserved and the mysterious in order to
excite curiosity more. When he saw it was sufficiently excited, he said
that since he was forced to speak, his news from France was the same as
that at Madrid, where no one doubted that the King would do the Princesse
des Ursins the honour to espouse her. The King blushed and hastily
replied, "Marry her! oh no! not that!" and quitted him.
Whether the Princesse des Ursins was informed of this sharp repartee, or
whether she despaired already of success, she changed about; and judging
that this interregnum in the Palace of Medina-Celi could not last for
ever, resolved to assure herself of the King by a Queen who should owe to
her such a grand marriage, and who, having no other support, would throw
herself into her arms by gratitude and necessity. With this view she
explained herself to Alberoni, who, since the death of the Duc de
Vendome, had remained at Madrid charged with the affairs of Parma; and
proposed to him the marriage of the Princess of Parma, daughter of the
Duchess and of the late Duke of Parma, who had married the widow of his
brother.
Alberoni could with difficulty believe his ears. An alliance so
disproportioned appeared to him so much the more incredible, because he
thought the Court of France would never consent to it, and that without
its consent the marriage could not be concluded. The Princess in
question was the issue of double illegitimacy; by her father descended
from a pope, by her mother from a natural daughter of Charles Quint. She
was daughter of a petty Duke of Parma, and of a mother, entirely
Austrian, sister of the Dowager Empress and of the Dowager Queen of Spain
(whose acts had excited such disapproval that she was sent from her exile
at Toledo to Bayonne), sister too of the Queen of Portugal, who had
induced the King, her husband, to receive the Archduke at Lisbon, and to
carry the war into Spain. It did not seem reasonable, therefore, that
such a Princess would be accepted as a wife for the King of Spain.
Nothing of all this, however, stopped the Princesse des Ursins; her own
interest was the most pressing consideration with her; the will of the
King of Spain was entirely subject to her; she felt all the change
towards her of our King and of Madame de Maintenon; she no longer hoped
for a return of their favour; she believed that she must look around for
support against the very authority which had established her so
powerfully, and which could destroy her; and occupied herself solely in
pushing forward a marriage from which she expected everything by making
the same use of the new queen as she had made of the one just dead. The
King of Spain was devout, he absolutely wanted a wife, the Princesse des
Ursins was of an age when her charms were but the charms, of art; in a
word, she set Alberoni to work, and it may be believed she was not
scrupulous as to her means as soon as they were persuaded at Parma that
she was serious and not joking. Orry, always united with Madame des
Ursins, and all-powerful, by her means, was her sole confidant in this
important affair.
At that time the Marquis de Brancas was French ambassador at Madrid. He
had flattered himself that Madame des Ursins would make him one of the
grandees of Spain. Instead of doing so she simply bestowed upon him the
order of the Golden Fleece. He had never pardoned her for this.
Entirely devoted to Madame de Maintenon, he became on that very account
an object of suspicion to Madame des Ursins, who did not doubt that he
cherished a grudge against her, on account of the favour he had missed.
She allowed him no access to her, and had her eyes open upon all he did.
Brancas in like manner watched all her doings. The confessor, Robinet,
confided to him his fears respecting Madame des Ursins, and the chiefs of
a court universally discontented went and opened their hearts to him,
thinking it was France alone which could set to rights the situation of
Spain.
Brancas appreciated all the importance of what was told him, but warned
by the fate of the Abbe d'Estrees, fearing even for his couriers, he took
the precaution of sending word to the King that he had pressing business
to acquaint him with, which he could not trust to paper, and that he
wished to be allowed to come to Versailles for a fortnight. The reply
was the permission asked for, accompanied, however, with an order to
communicate en route with the Duc de Berwick, who was about to pass to
Barcelona.
Madame des Ursins, who always found means to be informed of everything,
immediately knew of Brancas's projected journey, and determined to get
the start of him. At once she had sixteen relays of mules provided upon
the Bayonne road, and suddenly sent off to France, on Holy Thursday,
Cardinal del Giudice, grand inquisitor and minister of state, who had
this mean complaisance for her. She thus struck two blows at once; she
got rid, at least for a time, of a Cardinal minister who troubled her,
and anticipated Brancas, which in our Court was no small point.
Brancas, who felt all the importance of arriving first, followed the
Cardinal on Good Friday, and moved so well that he overtook him at
Bayonne, at night while he was asleep; Brancas passed straight on,
charging the Commandant to amuse and to delay the Cardinal as long as
possible on the morrow; gained ground, and arrived at Bordeaux with
twenty-eight post-horses that he had carried off with him from various
stations, to keep them from the Cardinal. He arrived in Paris in this
manner two days before the other, and went straight to Marly where the
King was, to explain the business that had led him there. He had a long
audience with the King, and received a lodging for the rest of the visit.
The Cardinal del Giudice rested four or five days at Paris, and then came
to Marly, where he was introduced to the King. The Cardinal was somewhat
embarrassed; he was charged with no business; all his mission was to
praise Madame des Ursins, and complain of the Marquis de Brancas. These
praises of Madame des Ursins were but vague; she had not sufficient
confidence in the Cardinal to admit to him her real position in our
Court, and to give him instructions accordingly, so that what he had to
say was soon all said; against the Marquis de Brancas he had really no
fact to allege, his sole crime that he was too sharp-sighted and not
sufficiently devoted to the Princess.
The Cardinal was a courtier, a man of talent, of business, of intrigue,
who felt, with annoyance, that for a person of his condition and weight,
such a commission as he bore was very empty. He appeared exceedingly
agreeable in conversation, of pleasant manners, and was much liked in
good society. He was assiduous in his attentions to the King, without
importuning him for audiences that were unnecessary; and by all his
conduct, he gave reason for believing that he suspected Madame des
Ursins' decadence in our Court, and sought to gain esteem and confidence,
so as to become by the support of the King, prime minister in Spain; but
as we shall soon see, his ultramontane hobbies hindered the
accomplishment of his measures. All the success of his journey consisted
in hindering Brancas from returning to Spain. This was no great
punishment, for Brancas had nothing more to hope for from Madame des
Ursins, and was not a man to lose his time for nothing.
Up to this period not a word had been said to the King (Louis XIV.) by
the King of Spain upon the subject of his marriage; not a hint had been
given that he meant to remarry, much less with a Parma princess. This
proceeding, grafted upon the sovereignty claimed by the Princesse des
Ursine, and all her conduct with the King of Spain since the death of the
Queen, resolved our King to disgrace her without appeal.
A remark upon Madame des Ursins, accompanied by a smile, escaped from the
King, generally so complete a master of himself, and appeared enigmatical
to such an extent, although striking, that Torcy, to wham it was
addressed, understood nothing. In his surprise, he related to Castries
what the King had said; Castries told it to Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
who reported it to M. d'Orleans and to me. We racked our brains to
comprehend it, but in vain; nevertheless such an unintelligible remark
upon a person like Madame des Ursins, who up to this time had been on
such good terms with the King and Madame de Maintenon, did not appear to
me to be favourable. I was confirmed in this view by what had just
happened with regard to her sovereignty; but I was a thousand leagues
from the thunderbolt which this lightning announced, and which only
declared itself to us by its fall.
It wits not until the 27th of June that the King was made acquainted by
the King of Spain with his approaching marriage. Of course, through
other channels, he had not failed to hear of it long before. He passed
in the lightest and gentlest manner in the world over this project, and
the mystery so long and so complete! with which it had been kept from
him, stranger, if possible, than the marriage itself. He could not
hinder it; but from this moment he was sure of his vengeance against her
who had arranged and brought it about in this manner. The disgrace of
Madame des Ursine was in fact determined on between the King and Madame
de Maintenon, but in a manner a secret before and since, that I know
nobody who has found out by whom or how it was carried out. It is good
to admit our ignorance, and not to give fictions and inventions in place
of what we are unacquainted with.
I know not why, but a short time after this, the Princesse des Ursine
conceived such strong suspicion of the lofty and enterprising spirit of
the Princess of Parma that she repented having made this marriage; and
wished to break it off. She brought forward; therefore, I know not what
difficulties, and despatched a courier to Rome to Cardinal Acquaviva, who
did the King of Spain's business there, ordering him to delay his journey
to Parma, where he had been commanded to ask the hand of the Princess,
and to see her provisionally espoused. But Madame des Ursins
had changed her mind too late. The courier did not find Acquaviva at
Rome. That Cardinal was already far away on the road to Parma, so that
there were no means of retreat.
Acquaviva was received with great honour and much magnificence; he made
his demand, but delayed the espousals as long as he could, and this
caused much remark. The marriage, which was to have been celebrated on
the 25th of August, did not take place until the 15th of September.
Immediately after the ceremony the new Queen set out for Spain.
An envoy from Parma, with news of the marriage of the Princess, arrived
at Fontainebleau on the 11th October, and had an audience with the King.
This was rather late in the day: For dowry she had one hundred thousand
pistoles, and three hundred thousand livres' worth of jewels. She had
embarked for Alicante at Sestri di Levante. A violent tempest sickened
her of the sea. She landed, therefore, at Monaco, in order to traverse
by land Provence, Languedoc, and Guienne, so as to reach Bayonne, and see
there the Queen Dowager of Spain; sister of her mother, and widow of
Charles II. Desgranges, master of the ceremonies, was to meet her in
Provence, with orders to follow her, and to command the governors,
lieutenants-general, and intendants to follow her also, and serve her,
though she travelled incognito.
The new Queen of Spain, on arriving at Pau, found the Queen Dowager, her
aunt, had come expressly from Bayonne to meet her. As they approached
each other, they both descended at the same time, and after saluting,
mounted alone into a beautiful caleche that the Queen Dowager had brought
with her, and that she presented to her niece. They supped together
alone. The Queen Dowager conducted her to Saint-Jean Pied-de-Port (for
in that country, as in Spain, the entrances to mountain passes are called
ports). They separated there, the Queen Dowager making the Queen many
presents, among others a garniture of diamonds. The Duc de Saint-Aignan
joined the Queen of Spain at Pau, and accompanied her by command of the
King to Madrid. She sent Grillo, a Genoese noble, whom she has since
made grandee of Spain, to thank the King for sending her the Duc de
Saint-Aignan, and for the present he brought with him. The officers of
her household had been named by Madame des Ursins.
The Queen of Spain advanced towards Madrid with the attendants sent to
accompany her. She was to be met by the King of Spain at Guadalaxara,
which is about the same distance from Madrid as Paris is from
Fontainebleau. He arrived there, accompanied by the attendants that the
Princesse des Ursins had placed near him, to keep him company, and to
allow no one else to approach him. She followed in her coach, so as to
arrive at the same time, and immediately afterwards he shut himself up
alone with her, and saw nobody until he went to bed. This was on the
22nd of December. The next day the Princesse des Ursins set out with a
small suite for a little place, seven leagues further, called Quadraque,
where the Queen was to sleep that night. Madame des Ursins counted upon
enjoying all the gratitude that the queen would feel for the unhoped-for
grandeur she had obtained by her means; counted upon passing the evening
with her, and upon accompanying her next day to Guadalaxara. She found,
upon arriving at Quadraque, that the Queen had already reached there.
She at once entered into a lodging that had been prepared for her,
opposite that of the Queen. She was in a full Court dress. After
adjusting it in a hurried manner, she went to the Queen. The coldness
and stiffness of her reception surprised her extremely. She attributed
it in the first place to the embarrassment of the Queen, and tried to
melt this ice. Everybody withdrew, in order to leave the two alone.
Then the conversation commenced. The Queen would not long allow Madame
des Ursins to continue it; but burst out into reproaches against her for
her manners, and for appearing there in a dress that showed want of
respect for the company she was in. Madame des Ursins, whose dress was
proper, and who, on account of her respectful manners and her discourse,
calculated to win the Queen, believed herself to be far from meriting
this treatment, was strangely surprised, and wished to excuse herself;
but the Queen immediately began to utter offensive words, to cry out, to
call aloud, to demand the officers of the guard, and sharply to; command
Madame des Ursins to leave her presence. The latter wished to speak and
defend herself against the reproaches she heard; but the Queen,
increasing her fury and her menaces, cried out to her people to drive
this mad woman from her presence and from the house; and absolutely had
her turned out by the shoulders. Immediately afterwards, she called
Amenzaga, lieutenant of the body-guard, and at the same time the ecuyer
who had the control of her equipages. She ordered the first to arrest
Madame des Ursins, and not quit her until he had placed her in a coach,
with two sure officers of the guard and fifteen soldiers as sentinels
over her; the second she commanded to provide instantly a coach and six,
with two or three footmen, and send off in it the Princesse des Ursins
towards Burgos and Bayonne, without once stopping on the road. Amenzago
tried to represent to the Queen that the King of Spain alone had the
power to give such commands; but she haughtily asked him if he had not
received an order from the King of Spain to obey her in everything,
without reserve and without comment. It was true he had received such an
order, though nobody knew a word about it.
Madame des Ursins was then immediately arrested, and put into a coach
with one of her waiting-women, without having had time to change her
costume or her head-dress, to take any precaution against the cold, to
provide herself with any money or other things, and without any kind of
refreshment in the coach, or a chemise; nothing, in fact, to change or to
sleep in! She was shipped off thus (with two officers of the guard; who
were ready as soon as the coach), in full Court dress, just as she left
the Queen. In the very short and tumultuous interval which elapsed, she
sent a message to the Queen, who flew into a fresh passion upon not being
obeyed, and made her set out immediately.
It was then nearly seven o'clock in the evening, two days before
Christmas, the ground all covered with snow and ice, and the cold extreme
and very sharp and bitter, as it always is in Spain. As soon as the
Queen learned that the Princesse des Ursins was out of Quadraque, she
wrote to the King of Spain, by an officer of the guards whom she
despatched to Guadalaxara. The night was so dark that it was only by
means of the snow that anything could be seen.
It is not easy to represent the state of Madame des Ursins in the coach.
An excess of astonishment and bewilderment prevailed at first, and
suspended all other sentiment; but grief, vexation, rage, and despair,
soon followed. In their turn succeeded sad and profound reflections upon
a step so violent, so unheard-of, and so unjustifiable as she thought.
Then she hoped everything from the friendship of the King of Spain and
his confidence in her; pictured his anger and surprise, and those of the
group of attached servitors, by whom she had surrounded him, and who
would be so interested in exciting the King in her favour. The long
winter's night pissed thus; the cold was, terrible, there was nothing to
ward it off; the coachman actually lost the use of one hand. The morning
advanced; a halt was necessary in order to bait the horses; as for the
travellers there is nothing for them ever in the Spanish inns. You are
simply told where each thing you want is sold. The meat is ordinarily
alive; the wine, thick, flat, and strong; the bread bad; the water is
often worthless; as to beds, there are some, but only for the mule-
drivers, so that you must carry everything with you, and neither Madame
des Ursins nor those with her had anything whatever. Eggs, where they
could find any, were their sole resource; and these, fresh or not, simply
boiled, supported them during all the journey.
Until this halt for the horses, silence had been profound and
uninterrupted; now it was broken. During all this long night the
Princesse des Ursins had had leisure to think upon the course she should
adopt, and to compose her face. She spoke of her extreme surprise, and
of the little that had passed between her and the Queen. In like manner
the two officers of the guard accustomed, as was all Spain, to fear and
respect her more than their King, replied to her from the bottom of that
abyss of astonishment from which they had not yet arisen. The horses
being put to, the coach soon started again. Soon, too, the Princesse des
Ursins found that the assistance she expected from the King did not
arrive. No rest, no provisions, nothing to put on, until Saint-Jean de
Luz was reached. As she went further on, as time passed and no news
came, she felt she had nothing more to hope for. It may be imagined what
rage succeeded in a woman so ambitious, so accustomed to publicly reign,
so rapidly and shamefully precipitated from the summit of power by the
hand that she herself had chosen as the most solid support of her
grandeur. The Queen had not replied to the last two letters Madame des
Ursins had written to her. This studied negligence was of bad augury,
but who would have imagined treatment so strange and so unheard of?
Her nephews, Lanti and Chalais, who had permission to join her, completed
her dejection. Yet she was faithful to herself. Neither tears nor
regrets, neither reproaches nor the slightest weakness escaped her; not a
complaint even of the excessive cold, of the deprivation of all things,
or of the extreme fatigue of such a journey. The two officers who
guarded her could not contain their admiration.
At Saint-Jean de Luz, where she arrived on the 14th of January, 1715, she
found at last her corporeal ills at an end. She obtained a bed, change
of dress, food, and her liberty. The guards, their officers, and the
coach which had brought her, returned; she remained with her waiting-maid
and her nephews. She had leisure to think what she might expect from
Versailles. In spite of her mad sovereignty scheme so long maintained,
and her hardihood in arranging the King of Spain's marriage without
consulting our King, she flattered herself she should find resources in a
Court she had so long governed. It was from Saint-Jean de Luz that she
despatched a courier charged with letters for the King, for Madame de
Maintenon, and for her friends. She briefly gave us an account in those
letters of the thunderbolt which had fallen on her, and asked permission
to come to the Court to explain herself more in detail. She waited for
the return of her courier in this her first place of liberty and repose,
which of itself is very agreeable. But this first courier despatched,
she sent off Lanti with letters written less hastily, and with
instructions. Lanti saw the King in his cabinet on the last of January,
and remained there some moments. From him it was known that as soon as
Madame des Ursins despatched her first courier, she had sent her
compliments to the Queen Dowager of Spain at Bayonne, who would not
receive them. What cruel mortifications attend a fall from a throne!
Let us now return to Guadalaxara.
CHAPTER LXV
The officer of the guards, whom the Queen despatched with a letter for
the King of Spain as soon as Madame des Ursins was out of Quadraque,
found the King upon the point of going to bed. He appeared moved, sent a
short reply to the Queen, and gave no orders. The officer returned
immediately. What is singular is, that the secret was so well kept that
it did not transpire until the next morning at ten o'clock. It may be
imagined what emotion seized the whole Court, and what divers movements
there were among all at Guadalaxara. However, nobody dared to speak to
the King, and much expectation was built upon the reply he had sent to
the Queen. The morning passed and nothing was said; the fate of Madame
des Ursins then became pretty evident.
Chalais and Lanti made bold to ask the King for permission to go and join
the Princess in her isolation. Not only he allowed them to do so, but
charged them with a letter of simple civility, in which he told her he
was very sorry for what had happened; that he had not been able to oppose
the Queen's will; that he should continue to her her pensions, and see
that they were punctually paid. He was as good as his word: as long as
she lived she regularly received them.
The Queen arrived at Guadalaxara on the afternoon of the day before
Christmas day, at the hour fixed, and as though nothing had occurred.
The King received her in the same manner on the staircase, gave her his
hand, and immediately led her to the chapel, where the marriage was at
once celebrated; for in Spain the custom is to marry after dinner. After
that he led her to her chamber, and straightway went to bed; it was
before six o'clock in the evening, and both got up again for the midnight
mass. What passed between them upon the event of the previous evening
was entirely unknown, and has always remained so. The day after
Christmas day the King and Queen alone together in a coach, and followed
by all the Court, took the road for Madrid, where there was no more talk
of Madame des Ursins than if the King had never known her. Our King
showed not the least surprise at the news brought to him by a courier
despatched from Guadalaxara by the Duc de Saint-Aignan, though all the
Court was filled with emotion and affright after having seen Madame des
Ursins so triumphant.
Let us now look about for some explanations that will enable us to pierce
this mystery--that remark to Torcy which escaped the King, which Torcy
could not comprehend, and which he related to Castries, who told it to
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, from whom I learned it! Can we imagine
that a Parma princess brought up in a garret by an imperious mother,
would have dared to take upon herself, while six leagues from the King of
Spain whom she had never seen, a step so bold and unheard-of, when we
consider against whom directed, a person possessing the entire confidence
of that King and reigning openly? The thing is explained by the order,
so unusual and so secret, that Amenzago had from the King of Spain to
obey the Queen in everything, without reserve and without comment; an
order that became known only at the moment when she gave orders to arrest
Madame des Ursins and take her away.
Let us remark, too, the tranquillity with which our King and the King of
Spain received the first intelligence of this event; the inactivity of
the latter, the coldness of his letters to Madame des Ursins, and his
perfect indifference what became of a person who was so cherished the day
before, and who yet was forced to travel deprived of everything, by roads
full of ice and snow. We must recollect that when the King banished
Madame des Ursins before, for opening the letter of the Abbe d'Estrees,
and for the note she sent upon it, he did not dare to have his orders
executed in the presence of the King of Spain. It was on the frontier of
Portugal, where our King wished him to go for the express purpose, that
the King of Spain signed the order by which the Princesse des Ursins was
forced to withdraw from the country. Now we had a second edition of the
same volume. Let me add what I learnt from the Marechal de Brancas, to
whom Alberoni related, a long while after this disgrace, that one evening
as the Queen was travelling from Parma to Spain, he found her pacing her
chamber, with rapid step and in agitation muttering to herself, letting
escape the name of the Princesse des Ursins, and then saying with heat,
"I will drive her away, the first thing." He cried out to the Queen and
sought to represent to her the danger, the madness, the inutility of the
enterprise which overwhelmed him: "Keep all this quiet," said the Queen,
"and never let what you have heard escape you. Not a word! I know what
I am about."
All these things together threw much light upon a catastrophe equally
astonishing in itself and in its execution, and clearly show our King to
have been the author of it; the King of Spain a consenting party and
assisting by the extraordinary order given to Amenzago; and the Queen the
actress, charged in some mariner by the two Kings to bring it about. The
sequel in France confirmed this opinion.
The fall of the Princesse des Ursins caused great changes in Spain. The
Comtesse d'Altamire was named Camarera Mayor, in her place. She was one
of the greatest ladies in all Spain, and was hereditary Duchess of
Cardonne. Cellamare, nephew of Cardinal del Giudice, was named her grand
ecuyer; and the Cardinal himself soon returned to Madrid and to
consideration. As a natural consequence, Macanas was disgraced. He and
Orry had orders to leave Spain, the latter without seeing the King. He
carried with him the maledictions of the public. Pompadour, who had been
named Ambassador in Spain only to amuse Madame des Ursins, was dismissed,
and the Duc de Saint-Aignan invested with that character, just as he was
about to return after having conducted the Queen to Madrid.
In due time the Princesse des Ursins arrived in Paris, and took up her
quarters in the house of the Duc de Noirmoutiers, her brother, in the Rue
Saint-Dominique, close to mine. This journey must have appeared to her
very different from the last she had made in France, when she was Queen
of the Court. Few people, except her former friends and those of her
formal cabal, came to see her; yet, nevertheless, some curious folks
appeared, so that for the first few days there was company enough; but
after that, solitude followed when the ill-success of her journey to
Versailles became known. M. d'Orleans, reunited now with the King of
Spain, felt that it was due to his interest even more than to his
vengeance to show in a striking manner, that it was solely owing to the
hatred and artifice of Madame des Ursins that he had fallen into such
disfavour on account of Spain, and had been in danger of losing his head.
Times had changed. Monseigneur was dead, the Meudon cabal annihilated;
Madame de Maintenon had turned her back upon Madame des Ursins; thus M.
d'Orleans was free to act as he pleased. Incited by Madame la Duchesse
d'Orleans, and more still by Madame, he begged the King to prohibit
Madame des Ursins from appearing anywhere (Versailles not even excepted)
where she might meet Madame la Duchesse de Berry, Madame, Monsieur le
Duc, and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, who at the same time strictly
forbade their households to see her, and asked the persons to whom they
were particularly attached to hold no intercourse with her. This made a
great stir, openly showed that Madame des Ursins had utterly lost the
support of Madame de Maintenon and the King, and much embarrassed her.
I could not feel that M. d'Orleans was acting wrong, in thus paying off
his wrongs for the injuries she had heaped upon him, but I represented to
him, that as I had always been an intimate friend of Madame des Ursins,
putting aside her conduct towards him and making no comparison between my
attachment for him and my friendship for her, I could not forget the
marks of consideration she had always given me, particularly in her last
triumphant journey (as I have already explained), and that it would be
hard if I could not see her. We capitulated then, and M. le Duc and
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans permitted me to see her twice--once
immediately; once when she left--giving my word that I would not see her
three times, and that Madame de Saint-Simon should not see her at all;
which latter clause we agreed to very unwillingly, but there was no
remedy. As I wished at least to profit by my chance, I sent word to
Madame des Ursins, explaining the fetters that bound me, and saying that
as I wished to see her at all events at my ease since I should see her so
little, I would let pass the first few days and her first journey to
Court, before asking her for an audience.
My message was very well received; she had known for many years the terms
on which I was with M. d'Orleans; she was not surprised with these
fetters, and was grateful to me for what I had obtained. Some days after
she had been to Versailles, I went to her at two o'clock in the day. She
at once closed the door to all comers, and I was tete-a-tete with her
until ten o'clock at night.
It may be imagined what a number of things were passed in review during
this long discourse. Our eight hours of conversation appeared to me like
eight moments. She related to me her catastrophe, without mixing up the
King or the King of Spain, of whom she spoke well; but, without violently
attacking the Queen, she predicted what since has occurred. We separated
at supper time, with a thousand reciprocal protestations and regret that
Madame de Saint-Simon could not see her. She promised to inform me of
her departure early enough to allow us to pass another day together.
Her journey to Versailles did not pass off very pleasantly. She dined
with the Duchesse de Luders, and then visited Madame de Maintenon; waited
with her for the King, but when he came did not stop long, withdrawing to
Madame Adam's, where she passed the night. The next day she dined with
the Duchesse de Ventadour, and returned to Paris. She was allowed to
give up the pension she received from the King, and in exchange to have
her Hotel de Ville stock increased, so that it yielded forty thousand
livres a-year. Her income, besides being doubled, was thus much more
sure than would have been a pension from the King, which she doubted not
M. d'Orleans, as soon as he became master, would take from her. She
thought of retiring into Holland, but the States-General would have
nothing to do with her, either at the Hague, or at Amsterdam. She had
reckoned upon the Hague. She next thought of Utrecht, but was soon out
of conceit with it, and turned her regards towards Italy.
The health of the King, meanwhile, visibly declining, Madame des Ursins
feared lest she should entirely fall into the clutches of M. d'Orleans.
She fully resolved, therefore, to make off, without knowing, however,
where to fix herself; and asked permission of the King to come and take
leave of him at Marly. She came there from Paris on Tuesday, the 6th of
August, so as to arrive as he left dinner, that is, about ten o'clock.
She was immediately admitted into the cabinet of the King, with whom she
remained tete-a-tete full half an hour. She passed immediately to the
apartments of Madame de Maintenon, with whom she remained an hour; and
then got into her coach and returned to Paris. I only knew of this
leave-taking by her arrival at Marly, where I had some trouble in meeting
her. As chance would have it, I went in search of her coach to ask her
people what had become of her, and was speaking to them when, to and
behold! she herself arrived. She seemed very glad to see me, and made me
mount with her into her coach, where for little less than an hour we
discoursed very freely. She did not dissimulate from me her fears; the
coldness the King and Madame de Maintenon had testified for her through
all their politeness; the isolation she found herself in at the Court,
even in Paris; and the uncertainty in which she was as to the choice of a
retreat; all this in detail, and nevertheless without complaint, without
regret, without weakness; always reassured and superior to events, as
though some one else were in question. She touched lightly upon Spain,
upon the ascendency the Queen was acquiring already over the King, giving
me to understand that it could not be otherwise; running lightly and
modestly over the Queen, and always praising the goodness of the King of
Spain. Fear, on account of the passers-by, put an end to our
conversation. She was very gracious to me; expressed regret that we must
part; proceeded to tell me when she should start in time for us to have
another day together; sent many compliments to Madame de Saint-Simon; and
declared herself sensible of the mark of friendship I had given her, in
spite of my engagement with M. d'Orleans. As soon as I had seen her off,
I went to M. d'Orleans, to whom I related what I had just done; said I
had not paid a visit, but had had simply a meeting; that it was true I
could not hinder myself from seeking it, without prejudice to the final
visit he had allowed me. Neither he nor Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans
complained. They had fully triumphed over their enemy, and were on the
point of seeing her leave France for ever, without hope in Spain.
Until now, Madame des Ursins amused by a residue of friends, increased by
those of M. de Noirmoutiers with whom she lodged and who had money, had
gently occupied herself with the arrangement of her affairs, changed as
they were, and in withdrawing her effects from Spain. The fear lest she
should find herself in the power of a Prince whom she had so cruelly
offended, and who showed, since her arrival in France, that he felt it,
hurried all her measures. Her terror augmented by the change in the King
that she found at this last audience had taken place since her first.
She no longer doubted that his end was very near; and all her attention
was directed to the means by which she might anticipate it, and be well
informed of his health; this she believed her sole security in France.
Terrified anew by the accounts she received of it, she no longer gave
herself time for anything, but precipitately set out on the 14th August,
accompanied as far as Essonne by her two nephews. She had no time to
inform me, so that I have never seen her since the day of our
conversation at Marly in her coach. She did not breathe until she
arrived at Lyons.
She had abandoned the project of retiring into Holland, where the States-
General would not have her. She herself, too, was disgusted with the
equality of a republic, which counterbalanced in her mind the pleasure of
the liberty enjoyed there. But she could not resolve to return to Rome,
the theatre of her former reign, and appear there proscribed and old, as
in an asylum. She feared, too, a bad reception, remembering the quarrels
that had taken place between the Courts of Rome and Spain. She had lost
many friends and acquaintances; in fifteen years of absence all had
passed away, and she felt the trouble she might be subjected to by the
ministers of the Emperor, and by those of the two Crowns, with their
partisans. Turin was not a Court worthy of her; the King of Sardinia had
not always been pleased with her, and they knew too much for each other.
At Venice she would have been out of her element.
Whilst agitated in this manner, without being able to make up her mind,
she learned that the King was in extreme danger, a danger exaggerated by
rumour. Fear seized her lest he should die whilst she was in his realm.
She set off immediately, therefore, without knowing where to go; and
solely to leave France went to Chambery, as the nearest place of safety,
arriving there out of breath, so to say.
Every place being well examined, she preferred Genoa; its liberty pleased
her; there was intercourse there with a rich and numerous nobility; the
climate and the city were beautiful; the place was in some sort a centre
and halting-point between Madrid, Paris, and Rome, with which places she
was always in communication, and always hungered after all that passed
there. Genoa determined on, she went there. She was well received,
hoped to fix her tabernacle there, and indeed stayed some years. But at
last ennui seized her; perhaps vexation at not being made enough of. She
could not exist without meddling, and what is there for a superannuated
woman to meddle with at Genoa? She turned her thoughts, therefore,
towards Rome. Then, on sounding, found her course clear, quitted Genoa,
and returned to her nest.
She was not long there before she attached herself to the King and Queen
of England (the Pretender and his wife), and soon governed them openly.
What a poor resource! But it was courtly and had a flavour of occupation
for a woman who could not exist without movement. She finished her life
there remarkably healthy in mind and body, and in a prodigious opulence,
which was not without its use in that deplorable Court. For the rest,
Madame des Ursins was in mediocre estimation at Rome, was deserted by the
Spanish, little visited by the French, but always faithfully paid by
France and Spain, and unmolested by the Regent. She was always occupied
with the world, and with what she had been, but was no longer; yet
without meanness, nay, with courage and dignity.
The loss she experienced in January, 1720, of the Cardinal de la
Tremoille, although there was no real friendship between them, did not
fail, to create a void in her. She survived him three years, preserved
all her health, her strength, her mind until death, and was carried off,
more than eighty years of age, at Rome, on the 5th of December, 1722,
after a very short illness.
She had the pleasure of seeing Madame de Maintenon forgotten and
annihilated in Saint-Cyr, of surviving her, of seeing at Rome her two
enemies, Giudice and Alberoni, as profoundly disgraced as she,--one
falling from the same height, and of relishing the forgetfulness, not to
say contempt, into which they both sank. Her death, which, a few years
before, would have resounded throughout all Europe, made not the least
sensation. The little English Court regretted her, and some private
friends also, of whom I was one. I did not hide this, although,--on
account of M. le Duc d'Orleans, I had kept up no intercourse with her;
for the rest, nobody seemed to perceive she had disappeared. She was,
nevertheless, so extraordinary a person, during all the course of her
long life, everywhere, and had so grandly figured, although in various
ways; had such rare intellect, courage, industry, and resources; reigned
so publicly and so absolutely in Spain; and had a character so sustained
and so unique, that her life deserves to be written, and would take a
place among the most curious fragments of the history of the times in
which she lived.
CHAPTER LVI
But I must return somewhat now, in order to make way for a crowd of
events which have been pressing forward all this time, but which I have
passed by, in going straightforward at once to the end of Madame des
Ursins' history.
On Monday, the 30th April, 1714., the King took medicine, and worked
after dinner with Pontchartrain. This was at Marly. About six o'clock,
he went to M. le Duc de Berry, who had had fever all night. M. le Duc de
Berry had risen without saying anything, had been with the King at the
medicine-hour, and intended to go stag-hunting; but on leaving the King's
chamber shivering seized him, and forced him to go back again. He was
bled while the King was in his chamber, and the blood was found very bad;
when the King went to bed the doctors told him the illness was of a
nature to make them hope that it might be a case of contagion. M. le Duc
de Berry had vomited a good deal--a black vomit. Fagon said,
confidently, that it was from the blood; the other doctors fastened upon
some chocolate he had taken on the Sunday. From this day forward I knew
what was the matter. Boulduc, apothecary of the King, and extremely
attached to Madame de Saint-Simon and to me, whispered in my ear that M.
le Duc de Berry would not recover, and that, with some little difference,
his malady was the same as that of which the Dauphin and Dauphine died.
He repeated this the next day, and never once varied afterwards; saying
to me on the third day, that none of the doctors who attended the Prince
were of a different opinion, or hid from him what they thought.
On Tuesday, the 1st of May, the Prince was bled in the foot at seven
o'clock in the morning, after a very bad night; took emetics twice, which
had a good effect; then some manna; but still there were two accesses.
The King went to the sick-room afterwards, held a finance council, would
not go shooting, as he had arranged, but walked in his gardens. The
doctors, contrary to their custom, never reassured him. The night was
cruel. On Wednesday; the 2nd of May, the King went, after mass, to M. le
Duc de Berry, who had been again bled in the foot. The King held the
Council of State, as usual, dined in Madame de Maintenon's rooms, and
afterwards reviewed his Guards. Coettenfao, chevalier d'honneur of
Madame la Duchesse de Berry, came during the morning to beg the King, in
her name, that Chirac, a famous doctor of M. d'Orleans, should be allowed
to see M. le Duc de Berry. The King refused, on the ground that all the
other doctors were in accord, and that Chirac, who might differ with
them, would embarrass them. After dinner Mesdames de Pompadour and La
Vieuville arrived, on the part of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, to beg the
King that she might be allowed to come and see her husband, saying that
she would come on foot rather than stay away. It would have been better,
surely, for her to come in a coach, if she so much wished, and, before
alighting, to send to the King for permission so to do. But the fact is,
she had no more desire to come than M. de Berry had to see her. He never
once mentioned her name, or spoke of her, even indirectly. The King
replied to those ladies by saying that he would not close the door
against Madame la Duchesse de Berry, but, considering the state she was
in, he thought it would be very imprudent on her part to come. He
afterwards told M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans to go to
Versailles and hinder her from coming. Upon returning from the review
the King went again to see M. le Duc de Berry. He had been once more
bled in the arm, had vomited all day much blood too--and had taken some
Robel water three times, in order to stop his sickness. This vomiting
put off the communion. Pere de la Rue had been by his side ever since
Tuesday morning, and found him very patient and resigned.
On Thursday, the 3rd, after a night worse than ever, the doctors said
they did not doubt that a vein had been broken in the stomach. It was
reported that this accident had happened by an effort M. de Berry made
when out hunting on the previous Thursday, the day the Elector of Bavaria
arrived. His horse slipped; in drawing the animal up, his body struck
against the pommel of the saddle, so it was said, and ever since he had
spit blood every day. The vomiting ceased at nine o'clock in the
morning, but the patient was no better. The King, who was going stag-
hunting, put it off. At six o'clock at night M. de Berry was so choked
that he could no longer remain in bed; about eight o'clock he found
himself so relieved that he said to Madame, he hoped he should not die;
but soon after, the malady increased so much that Pere de la Rue said it
was no longer time to think of anything but God, and of receiving the
sacrament. The poor Prince himself seemed to desire it.
A little after ten o'clock at night the King went to the chapel, where a
consecrated Host had been kept prepared ever since the commencement of
the illness. M. le Duc de Berry received it, with extreme unction, in
presence of the King, with much devotion and respect. The King remained
nearly an hour in the chamber, supped alone in his own, did not receive
the Princesses afterwards, but went to bed. M. le Duc d'Orleans, at ten
o'clock in the morning, went again to Versailles, as Madame la Duchesse
de Berry wished still to come to Marly. M. le Duc de Berry related to
Pere de la Rue, who at least said so, the accident just spoken of; but,
it was added, "his head was then beginning to wander." After losing the
power of speech, he took the crucifix Pere de la Rue held, kissed it, and
placed it upon his heart. He expired on Friday, the 4th of May, 1714, at
four o'clock in the morning, in his twenty-eighth year, having been born
at Versailles, the last day of August, 1686.
M. le Duc de Berry was of ordinary height, rather fat, of a beautiful
blonde complexion, with a fresh, handsome face, indicating excellent
health. He was made for society, and for pleasure, which he loved; the
best, gentlest, most compassionate and accessible of men, without pride,
and without vanity, but not without dignity or self-appreciation. He was
of medium intellect, without ambition or desire, but had very good sense,
and was capable of listening, of understanding, and of always taking the
right side in preference to the wrong, however speciously put. He loved
truth, justice, and reason; all that was contrary to religion pained him
to excess, although he was not of marked piety. He was not without
firmness, and hated constraint. This caused it to be feared that he was
not supple enough for a younger son, and, indeed, in his early youth he
could not understand that there was any difference between him and his
eldest brother, and his boyish quarrels often caused alarm.
He was the most gay, the most frank, and consequently the most loved of
the three brothers; in his youth nothing was spoken of but his smart
replies to Madame and M. de la Rochefoucauld. He laughed at preceptors
and at masters--often at punishment. He scarcely knew anything except
how to read and write; and learned nothing after being freed from the
necessity of learning. This ignorance so intimidated him, that he could
scarcely open his mouth before strangers, or perform the most ordinary
duties of his rank; he had persuaded himself that he was an ass and a
fool; fit for nothing. He was so afraid of the King that he dared not
approach him, and was so confused if the King looked hard at him, or
spoke of other things than hunting, or gaming, that he scarcely
understood a word, or could collect his thoughts. As may be imagined,
such fear does not go hand in hand with deep affection.
He commenced life with Madame la Duchesse de Berry as do almost all those
who marry very young and green. He became extremely amorous of her;
this, joined to his gentleness and natural complaisance, had the usual
effect, which was to thoroughly spoil her. He was not long in perceiving
it; but love was too strong for him. He found a woman proud, haughty,
passionate, incapable of forgiveness, who despised him, and who allowed
him to see it, because he had infinitely less head than she; and because,
moreover, she was supremely false and strongly determined. She piqued
herself upon both these qualities, and on her contempt for religion,
ridiculing M. le Duc de Berry for being devout; and all these things
became insupportable to him. Her gallantries were so prompt, so rapid,
so unmeasured, that he could not help seeing them. Her endless private
interviews with M. le Duc d'Orleans, in which everything languished if he
was present, made him furious. Violent scenes frequently took place
between them; the last, which occurred at Rambouillet, went so far that
Madame la Duchesse de Berry received a kick * * * * , and a menace that
she should be shut up in a convent for the rest of her life; and when M.
le Duc de Berry fell ill, he was thumbing his hat, like a child, before
the King, relating all his grievances, and asking to be delivered from
Madame la Duchesse de Berry. Hitherto I have only alluded to Madame la
Duchesse de Berry, but, as will be seen, she became so singular a person
when her father was Regent, that I will here make her known more
completely than I have yet done.
She was tall, handsome, well made, with, however, but little grace, and
had something in her, eyes which made you fear what she was. Like her
father and mother, she spoke well and with facility. Timid in trifles,
yet in other things terrifyingly bold,--foolishly haughty sometimes, and
sometimes mean to the lowest degree,--it may be said that she was a model
of all the vices, avarice excepted; and was all the more dangerous
because she had art and talent. I am not accustomed to over-colour the
picture I am obliged to present to render things understood, and it will
easily be perceived how strictly I am reserved upon the ladies, and upon
all gallantries, not intimately associated with what may be called
important matters. I should be so here, more than in any other case,
from self-love, if not from respect for the sex and dignity of the
person. The considerable part I played in bringing about Madame la
Duchesse de Berry's marriage, and the place that Madame de Saint-Simon,
in spite of herself and of me, occupied in connection with her, would be
for me reasons more than enough for silence, if I did not feel that
silence would throw obscurity over all the sequel of this history. It is
then to the truth that I sacrifice my self-love, and with the same
truthfulness I will say that if I had known or merely suspected, that the
Princess was so bad as she showed herself directly after her marriage,
and always more and more since, she would never have become Duchesse de
Berry.
I have already told how she annoyed M. le Duc de Berry by ridiculing his
devotion. In other ways she put his patience to severe trials, and more
than once was in danger of public exposure. She partook of few meals in
private, at which she did not get so drunk as to lose consciousness, and
to bring up all she had taken on every side. The presence of M. le Duc
de Berry, of M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, of ladies with
whom she was not on familiar terms, in no way restrained her. She
complained even of M. le Duc de Berry for not doing as she did. She
often treated her father with a haughtiness which was terrifying on all
accounts.
In her gallantries she was as unrestrained as in other things. After
having had several favourites, she fixed herself upon La Haye, who from
King's page had become private ecuyer of M. le Duc de Berry. The oglings
in the Salon of Marly were perceived by everybody; nothing restrained
them. At last, it must be said, for this fact encloses all the rest, she
wished La Haye to run away with her from Versailles to the Low Countries,
whilst M. le Duc de Berry and the King were both living. La Haye almost
died with fright at this proposition, which she herself made to him. His
refusal made her furious. From the most pressing entreaties she came to
all the invectives that rage could suggest, and that torrents of tears
allowed her to pronounce. La Haye had to suffer her attacks--now tender,
now furious; he was in the most mortal embarrassment. It was a long time
before she could be cured of her mad idea, and in the meanwhile she
subjected the poor fellow to the most frightful persecution. Her passion
for La Haye continued until the death of M. le Duc de Berry, and some
time after.
M. le Duc de Berry was buried at Saint-Denis on Wednesday, the 16th of
May; M. le Duc d'Orleans was to have headed the procession, but the same
odious reports against him that had circulated at the death of the
Dauphin had again appeared, and he begged to be let off. M. le Duc
filled his place. Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who was in the family
way, kept her bed; and in order that she should not be seen there when
people came to pay her the usual visits of condolence, the room was kept
quite dark. Many ridiculous scenes and much indecent laughter, that
could not be restrained, thus arose. Persons accustomed to the room
could see their way, but those unaccustomed stumbled at every step, and
had need of guidance. For want of this, Pere du Trevoux, and Pere
Tellier after him, both addressed their compliments to the wall; others
to the foot of the bed. This became a secret amusement, but happily did
not last long.
As may be imagined, the death of M. le Duc de Berry was a deliverance for
Madame la Duchesse de Berry. She was, as I have said, in the family way;
she hoped for a boy, and counted upon enjoying as a widow more liberty
than she had been able to take as a wife. She had a miscarriage,
however, on Saturday, the 16th of June, and was delivered of a daughter
which lived only twelve hours. The little corpse was buried at Saint-
Denis, Madame de Saint-Simon at the head of the procession. Madame la
Duchesse de Berry, shortly before this event, received two hundred
thousand livres income of pension; but the establishment she would have
had if the child had been a boy was not allowed her.
CHAPTER LXVII.
It is time now that I should say something about an event that caused an
immense stir throughout the land, and was much talked of even in foreign
parts. I must first introduce, however, a sort of a personage whose
intimacy was forced upon me at this period; for the two incidents are in
a certain degree associated together.
M. d'Orleans for some little time had continually represented to me, how
desirous one of his acquaintances was to secure my friendship. This
acquaintance was Maisons, president in the parliament, grandson of that
superintendent of the finances who built the superb chateau of Maisons,
and son of the man who had presided so unworthily at the judgment of our
trial with M. de Luxembourg, which I have related in its place. Maisons
was a person of much ambition, exceedingly anxious to make a name,
gracious and flattering in manners to gain his ends, and amazingly fond
of grand society.
The position of Maisons, where he lived, close to Marly, afforded him
many opportunities of drawing there the principal people of the Court.
It became quite the fashion to go from Marly to his chateau. The King
grew accustomed to hear the place spoken of, and was in no way
displeased. Maisons had managed to become very intimate with M. le Duc
and M. le Prince de Conti. These two princes being dead, he turned his
thoughts towards M, d'Orleans. He addressed himself to Canillac, who had
always been an intimate friend of M. d'Orleans, and by him soon gained
the intimacy of that prince. But he was not yet satisfied. He wished to
circumvent M. d'Orleans more completely than he could by means of
Canillac. He cast his eye, therefore, upon me. I think he was afraid of
me on account of what I have related concerning his father. He had an
only son about the same age as my children. For a long time he had made
all kinds of advances, and visited them often. The son's intimacy did
not, however, assist the father; so that at last Maisons made M. le Duc
d'Orleans speak to me himself.
I was cold; tried to get out of the matter with compliments and excuses.
M. d'Orleans, who believed he had found a treasure in his new
acquaintance, returned to the charge; but I was not more docile. A few
days after, I was surprised by an attack of the same kind from M. de
Beauvilliers. How or when he had formed an intimacy with Maisons, I have
never been able to unravel; but formed it, he had; and he importuned me
so much, nay exerted his authority over me, that at last I found I must
give way. Not to offend M. d'Orleans by yielding to another after having
refused to yield to him, I waited until he should again speak to me on
the subject, so that he might give himself the credit of vanquishing me.
I did not wait long. The Prince attacked me anew, maintained that
nothing would be more useful to him than an intimacy between myself and
Maisons, who scarcely dared to see him, except in secret, and with whom
he had not the same leisure or liberty for discussing many things that
might present themselves. I had replied to all this before; but as I had
resolved to surrender to the Prince (after the authority of the Duc de
Beauvilliers had vanquished me), I complied with his wish.
Maisons was soon informed of it, and did not let my resolution grow,
cold. M. le Duc d'Orleans urged me to go and sleep a night in Paris.
Upon arriving there, I found a note from Maisons, who had already sent an
ocean of compliments to me by the Prince and the Duke. This note, for
reasons to be told me afterwards, appointed a meeting at eleven o'clock
this night, in the plain behind the Invalides, in a very mysterious
manner. I went there with an old coachman of my mother's and a lackey to
put my people off the scent. There was a little moonlight. Maisons in a
small carriage awaited me. We soon met. He mounted into my coach. I
never could comprehend the mystery of this meeting. There was nothing on
his part but advances, compliments, protestations, allusions to the
former interview of our fathers; only such things, in fact, as a man of
cleverness and breeding says when he wishes to form a close intimacy with
any one. Not a word that he said was of importance or of a private
nature.
I replied in the civillest manner possible to the abundance he bestowed
upon me. I expected afterwards something that would justify the hour,
the place, the mystery, in a word, of our interview. What was my
surprise to hear no syllable upon these points. The only reason Maisons
gave for our secret interview was that from that time he should be able
to come and see me at Versailles with less inconvenience, and gradually
increase the number and the length of his visits until people grew
accustomed to see him there! He then begged me not to visit him in
Paris, because his house was always too full of people. This interview
lasted little less than half an hour. It was long indeed, considering
what passed. We separated with much politeness, and the first time he
went to Versailles he called upon me towards the middle of the day.
In a short time he visited me every Sunday. Our conversation by degrees
became more serious. I did not fail to be on my guard, but drew him out
upon various subjects; he being very willing.
We were on this footing when, returning to my room at Marly about midday-
on Sunday, the 29th of July, I found a lackey of Maisons with a note from
him, in which he conjured me to quit all business and come immediately to
his house at Paris, where he would wait for me alone, and where I should
find that something was in question, that could not suffer the slightest
delay, that could not even be named in writing, and which was of the most
extreme importance. This lackey had long since arrived, and had sent my
people everywhere in search of me. I was engaged that day to dine with
M. and Madame de Lauzun. To have broken my engagement would have been to
set the curiosity and the malignity of M. de Lauzun at work. I dared not
disappear; therefore I gave orders to my coachman, and as soon as I had
dined I vanished. Nobody saw me get into my chaise; and I quickly
arrived at Paris, and immediately hastened to Maisons' with eagerness
easy to imagine.
I found him alone with the Duc de Noailles. At the first glance I saw
two dismayed men, who said to me in an exhausted manner, but after a
heated though short preface, that the King had declared his two bastards
and their male posterity to all eternity, real princes of the blood, with
full liberty to assume all their dignities, honours, and rank, and
capacity to succeed to the throne in default of the others.
At this news, which I did not expect, and the secret of which had
hitherto been preserved, without a particle of it transpiring, my arms
fell. I lowered my head and remained profoundly silent, absorbed in my
reflections. They were soon disturbed by cries which aroused me. These
two men commenced pacing the chamber; stamped with their feet; pushed and
struck the furniture; raged as though each wished to be louder than the
other, and made the house echo with their noise. I avow that so much
hubbub seemed suspicious to me on the part of two men, one so sage and so
measured, and to whom this rank was of no consequence; the other always
so tranquil, so crafty, so master of himself. I knew not why this sudden
fury succeeded to such dejected oppression; and I was not without
suspicion that their passion was put on merely to excite mine. If this
was their design, it succeeded ill. I remained in my chair, and coldly
asked them what was the matter. My tranquillity sharpened their fury.
Never in my life have I seen anything so surprising.
I asked them if they had gone mad, and if instead of this tempest it
would not be better to reason, and see whether something could not be
done. They declared it was precisely because nothing could be done
against a thing not only resolved on, but executed, declared, and sent to
the Parliament, that they were so furious; that M. le Duc d'Orleans, on
the terms he was with the King, would not dare even to whisper
objections; that the Princes of the blood, mere children as they were,
could only tremble; that the Dukes had no means of opposition, and that
the Parliament was reduced to silence and slavery. Thereupon they set to
work to see who could cry the louder and reviled again, sparing neither
things nor persons.
I, also, was in anger, but this racket kept me cool and made me smile.
I argued with them and said, that after all I preferred to see the
bastards princes of the blood, capable of succeeding to the throne, than
to see them in the intermediary rank they occupied. And it is true that
as soon as I had cooled myself, I felt thus.
At last the storm grew calm, and they told me that the Chief-President
and the Attorney-General--who, I knew, had been at Marly very early in
the morning at the Chancellor's--had seen the King in his cabinet soon
after he rose, and had brought back the declaration, all prepared.
Maisons must, however, have known this earlier; because when the lackey
he sent to me set out from Paris, those gentlemen could not have returned
there. Our talk led to nothing, and I regained Marly in all haste, in
order that my absence might not be remarked.
Nevertheless it was towards the King's supper hour when I arrived. I
went straight to the salon, and found it very dejected. People looked,
but scarcely dared to approach each other; at the most, a sign or a
whisper in the ear, as the courtiers brushed by one another, was ventured
out. I saw the King sit down to table; he seemed to me more haughty than
usual, and continually looked all around. The news had only been known
one hour; everybody was still congealed and upon his guard.
As soon as the King was seated (he had looked very hard at me in passing)
I went straight to M. du Maine's. Although the hour was unusual, the
doors fell before me; I saw a man, who received me with joyful surprise,
and who, as it were, moved through the air towards me, all lame that he
was. I said that I came to offer him a sincere compliment, that we (the
Dukes) claimed no precedence over the Princes of the blood; but what we
claimed was, that there should be nobody between the Princes of the blood
and us; that as this intermediary rank no longer existed, we had nothing
more to say, but to rejoice that we had no longer to support what was
insupportable. The joy of M. du Maine burst forth at my compliments, and
he startled me with a politeness inspired by the transport of triumph.
But if he was delighted at the declaration of the King, it was far
otherwise with the world. Foreign dukes and princes fumed, but
uselessly. The Court uttered dull murmurs more than could have been
expected. Paris and the provinces broke out; the Parliament did not keep
silent. Madame de Maintenon, delighted with her work, received the
adoration of her familiars.
As for me, I will content myself with but few reflections upon this most
monstrous, astounding, and frightful determination of the King. I will
simply say, that it is impossible not to see in it an attack upon the
Crown; contempt for the entire nation, whose rights are trodden under
foot by it; insult to all the Princes of the blood; in fact the crime of
high treason in its most rash and most criminal extent. Yes! however
venerable God may have rendered in the eyes of men the majesty of Kings
and their sacred persons, which are his anointed; however execrable may
be the crime known as high treason, of attempting their lives; however
terrible and singular may be the punishments justly invented to prevent
that crime, and to remove by their horror the most infamous from the
infernal resolution of committing it, we cannot help finding in the crime
in question a plenitude not in the other, however abominable it may be:
Yes! to overthrow the most holy laws, that have existed ever since the
establishment of monarchy; to extinguish a right the most sacred--the
most important--the most inherent in the nation: to make succession to
the throne, purely, supremely, and despotically arbitrary; in a word, to
make of a bastard a crown prince, is a crime more black, more vast, more
terrible, than that of high treason against the chief of the State.
CHAPTER LXVIII
But let me now explain by what means the King was induced to arrive at,
and publish this terrible determination.
He was growing old, and though no external change in him was visible,
those near him had for some time begun to fear that he could not live
long. This is not the place to descant upon a health hitherto so good
and so even: suffice it to mention, that it silently began to give way.
Overwhelmed by the most violent reverses of fortune after being so long
accustomed to success, the King was even more overwhelmed by domestic
misfortunes. All his children had disappeared before him, and left him
abandoned to the most fatal reflections. At every moment he himself
expected the same kind of death. Instead of finding relief from his
anguish among those who surrounded him, and whom he saw most frequently,
he met with nothing but fresh trouble there. Excepting Marechal, his
chief surgeon, who laboured unceasingly to cure him of his suspicions,
Madame de Maintenon, M. du Maine, Fagon, Bloin, the other principal
valets sold to the bastard and his former governors,--all sought to
augment these suspicions; and in truth it was not difficult to do so.
Nobody doubted that poison had been used, nobody could seriously doubt
it; and Marechal, who was as persuaded as the rest, held a different
opinion before the King only to deliver him from a useless torment which
could not but do him injury. But M. du Maine, and Madame de Maintenon
also, had too much interest to maintain him in this fear, and by their
art filled him with horror against M. d'Orleans, whom they named as the
author of these crimes, so that the King with this prince before his eyes
every day, was in a perpetual state of alarm.
With his children the King had lost, and by the same way, a princess, who
in addition to being the soul and ornament of his court, was, moreover,
all his amusement, all his joy, all his affection, in the hours when he
was not in public. Never, since he entered the world, had he become
really familiar with any one but her; it has been seen elsewhere to what
extent. Nothing could fill up this great void: The bitterness of being
deprived of her augmented, because he could find no diversion. This
unfortunate state made him seek relief everywhere in abandoning himself
more and more to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine.
They soon managed to obtain possession of him, as it were, entirely;
leaving no art unexhausted in order to flatter, to amuse, to please, and
to interest him. He was made to believe that M. du Maine was utterly
without ambition; like a good father of a family, solely occupied with
his children, touched with the grandeur of his nearness to the King,
simple, frank, upright, and one who after working at his duties all day,
and after giving himself time for prayer and piety, amused himself in
hunting, and drew upon his natural gaiety and cheerfulness, without
knowing anything of the Court, or of what was passing! Compare this
portrait with his real character, and we shall feel with terror what a
rattlesnake was introduced into the King's privacy.
Established thus in the mind and heart of the King, the opportunity
seemed ripe for profiting by precious time that could not last long.
Everybody smiled upon the project of M. du Maine and Madame de Maintenon.
They had rendered M. d'Orleans odious in the eyes of the King and of the
whole country, by the most execrable calumnies. How could he defend
himself? shut up as the King was, how oppose them? how interfere with
their dark designs? M. du Maine wished not only to be made prince of the
blood, but to be made guardian of the heir to the throne, so as to dwarf
the power of the Regent as much as possible. He flattered himself that
the feeling he had excited against M. d'Orleans in the Court, in Paris,
and in the provinces would be powerfully strengthened by dispositions so
dishonourable; that he should find himself received as the guardian and
protector of the life of the royal infant, to whom was attached the
salvation of France, of which he would then become the idol; that the
independent possession of the young King, and of his military and civil
households, would strengthen with the public applause the power with
which he would be invested in the state by this testament; that the
Regent, reviled and stripped in this manner, not only would be in no
condition to dispute anything, but would be unable to defend himself from
any attempts the bastard might afterwards make against him. M. du Maine
wished in fact to take from M. d'Orleans everything, except the name of
Regent, and to divide all the power between himself and his brother.
Such was his scheme, that the King by incredible art was induced to
sanction and approve.
But the schemers had tough work before they obtained this success.
They found that the King would not consent to their wishes without much
opposition. They hit upon a devilish plan to overpower his resistance.
Hitherto, they had only been occupied in pleasing him, in amusing him,
in anticipating his wishes, in praising him--let me say the word--
in adoring him. They had redoubled their attention, since, by the
Dauphine's death, they had become his sole resource.
Not being able now to lead him as they wished, but determined to do so at
all cost, they adopted another system, certain as they were that they
could do so with impunity. Both became serious, often times dejected,
silent, furnishing nothing to the conversation, letting pass what the
King forced himself to say, sometimes not even replying, if it was not a
direct interrogation. In this manner all the leisure hours of the King
were rendered dull and empty; his amusements and diversions were made
fatiguing and sad and a weight was cast upon him, which he was the more
unable to bear because it was quite new to him, and he was utterly
without means to remove it. The few ladies who were admitted to the
intimacy of the King knew not what to make of the change they saw in
Madame de Maintenon. They were duped at first by the plea of illness;
but seeing at last that its duration passed all bounds, that it had no
intermission, that her face announced no malady, that her daily life was
in no way deranged, that the King became as serious and as sad as she,
they sounded each other to find out the cause. Fear, lest it should be
something in which they, unknowingly, were concerned, troubled them; so
that they became even worse company to the King than Madame de Maintenon.
There was no relief for the King. All his resource was in the
commonplace talk of the Comte de Toulouse, who was not amusing, although
ignorant of the plot, and the stories of his valets, who lost tongue as
soon as they perceived that they were not seconded by the Duc du Maine in
his usual manner. Marechal and all the rest, astonished at the
mysterious dejection of the Duc du Maine, looked at each other without
being able to divine the cause. They saw that the King was sad and
bored; they trembled for his health, but not one of them dared to do
anything. Time ran on, and the dejection of M. du Maine and Madame de
Maintenon increased. This is as far as the most instructed have ever
been able to penetrate. To describe the interior scenes that doubtless
passed during the long time this state of things lasted, would be to
write romance. Truth demands that we should relate what we know, and
admit what we are ignorant of. I cannot go farther, therefore, or pierce
deeper into the density of these dark mysteries.
What is certain is, that cheerfulness came back all at once, with the
same surprise to the witnesses of it, as the long-continued dejection had
caused them, simply because they understood no more of the end than of
the commencement. The double knowledge did not come to them until they
heard the frightful crash of the thunderbolt which fell upon France, and
astonished all Europe.
To give some idea of the opposition from the King, M. du Maine and Madame
de Maintenon had to overcome, and to show how reluctantly he consented to
their wishes, more than one incident may be brought forward. Some days
before the news transpired, the King, full of the enormity of what he had
just done for his bastards, looked at them in his cabinet, in presence of
the valets, and of D'Antin and D'O, and in a sharp manner, that told of
vexation, and with a severe glance, suddenly thus addressed himself to M.
du Maine:
"You have wished it; but know that however great I may make you, and you
may be in my lifetime, you are nothing after me; and it will be for you
then to avail yourself of what I have done for you, if you can."
Everybody present trembled at a thunder-clap so sudden, so little
expected, so entirely removed from the character and custom of the King,
and which showed so clearly the extreme ambition of the Duc du Maine, and
the violence he had done to the weakness of the King, who seemed to
reproach himself for it, and to reproach the bastard for his ambition and
tyranny. The consternation of M. du Maine seemed extreme at this rough
sally, which no previous remark had led to. The King had made a clean
breast of it. Everybody fixed his eyes upon the floor and held his
breath. The silence was profound for a considerable time: it finished
only when the King passed into his wardrobe. In his absence everybody
breathed again. The King's heart was full to bursting with what he had
just been made to do; but like a woman who gives birth to two children,
he had at present brought but one into the world, and bore a second of
which he must be delivered, and of which he felt all the pangs without
any relief from the suffering the first had caused him.
Again, on Sunday, the 27th August, the Chief-President and the Attorney-
General were sent for by the King. He was at Versailles. As soon as
they were alone with him, he took from a drawer, which he unlocked, a
large and thick packet, sealed with seven seals (I know not if by this M.
du Maine wished to imitate the mysterious book with Seven Seals, of the
Apocalypse, and so sanctify the packet). In handing it to them, the King
said: "Gentlemen, this is my will. No one but myself knows its contents.
I commit it to you to keep in the Parliament, to which I cannot give a
greater testimony of my esteem and confidence than by rendering it the
depository of it. The example of the Kings my predecessors, and that of
the will of the King, my father, do not allow me to be ignorant of what
may become of this; but they would have it; they have tormented me; they
have left me no repose, whatever I might say. Very well! I have bought
my repose. Here is the will; take it away: come what may of it, at
least, I shall have rest, and shall hear no more about it."
At this last word, that he finished with a dry nod, he turned his back
upon them, passed into another cabinet, and left them both nearly turned
into statues. They looked at each other frozen by what they had just
heard, and still more by what they had just seen in the eyes and the
countenance of the King; and as soon as they had collected their senses,
they retired, and went to Paris. It was not known until after dinner
that the King had made a will and given it to them. In proportion as the
news spread, consternation filled the Court, while the flatterers, at
bottom as much alarmed as the rest, and as Paris was afterwards,
exhausted themselves in praises and eulogies.
The next day, Monday, the 28th, the Queen of England came from Chaillot,
where she almost always was, to Madame de Maintenon's. As soon as the
King perceived her, "Madame," said he to her, like a man full of
something and angry, "I have made my will; I have been tormented to do
it;" then casting his eyes upon Madame de Maintenon, "I have bought
repose; I know the powerlessness and inutility of it. We can do all we
wish while we live; afterwards we are less than the meanest. You have
only to see what became of my father's will immediately after his death,
and the wills of so many other Kings. I know it well; but nevertheless
they have wished it; they gave me no rest nor repose, no calm until it
was done; ah, well! then, Madame, it is done; come what may of it, I
shall be no longer tormented."
Words such as these so expressive of the extreme violence suffered by the
King, of his long and obstinate battle before surrendering, of his
vexation, and uneasiness, demand the clearest proofs. I had them from
people who heard them, and would not advance them unless I were perfectly
persuaded of their exactness.
As soon as the Chief-President and the Attorney-General returned to
Paris, they sent for some workmen, whom they led into a tower of the
Palace of justice, behind the Buvette, or drinking-place of the grand
chamber and the cabinet of the Chief-President. They had a big hole made
in the wall of this tower, which is very thick, deposited the testament
there, closed up the opening with an iron door, put an iron grating by
way of second door, and then walled all up together. The door and the
grating each had three locks, the same for both; and a different key for
each of the three, which consequently opened each of the two locks, the
one in the door and the one in the grating. The Chief-President kept one
key, the Attorney-General another, and the Chief-Greffier of the
Parliament the third. The Parliament was assembled and the Chief-
President flattered the members as best he might upon the confidence
shown them in entrusting them with this deposit.
At the same time was presented to the Parliament an edict that the Chief-
President and the Attorney-General had received from the hand of the
Chancellor at Versailles the same morning the King had given them his
will, and the edict was registered. It was very short. It declared that
the packet committed to the Chief-President and to the Attorney-General
contained the will of the King, by which he had provided for the
protection and guardianship of the young King, and had chosen a Regency
council, the dispositions of which--for good reasons he had not wished to
publish; that he wished this deposit should be preserved during his life
in the registry of the Parliament, and that at the moment when it should
please God to call him from the world, all the chambers of the
Parliament, all the princes of the royal house, and all the peers who
might be there, should assemble and open the will; and that after it was
read, all its dispositions should be made public and executed, nobody to
be permitted to oppose them in any way.
Notwithstanding all this secrecy, the terms of the will were pretty
generally guessed, and as I have said, the consternation was general.
It was the fate of M. du Maine to obtain what he wished; but always with
the maledictions of the public. This fate did not abandon him now, and
as soon as he felt it, he was overwhelmed, and Madame de Maintenon
exasperated, and their attentions and their care redoubled, to shut up
the King, so that the murmurs of the world should not reach him. They
occupied themselves more than ever to amuse and to please him, and to
fill the air around him with praises, joy, and public adoring at an act
so generous and so grand, and at the same time so wise and so necessary
to the maintenance of good order and tranquillity, which would cause him
to reign so gloriously even after his reign.
This consternation was very natural, and is precisely why the Duc du
Maine found himself deceived and troubled by it. He believed he had
prepared everything, smoothed everything, in rendering M. d'Orleans so
suspected and so odious; he had succeeded, but not so much as he
imagined. His desires and his emissaries had exaggerated everything;
and he found himself overwhelmed with astonishment, when instead of the
public acclamations with which he had flattered himself the will would be
accompanied, it was precisely the opposite.
It was seen very clearly that the will assuredly could not have been made
in favour of M. d'Orleans, and although public feeling against him had in
no way changed, no one was so blind as not to see that he must be Regent
by the incontestable right of his birth; that the dispositions of the
testament could not weaken that right, except by establishing a power
that should balance his; and that thus two parties would be formed in the
state the chief of each of which would be interested in vanquishing the
other, everybody being necessitated to join one side or other, thereby
running a thousand risks without any advantage. The rights of the two
disputants were compared. In the one they were found sacred, in the
other they could not be found at all. The two persons were compared.
Both were found odious, but M. d'Orleans was deemed superior to M. du
Maine. I speak only of the mass of uninstructed people, and of what
presented itself naturally and of itself. The better informed had even
more cause to arrive at the same decision.
M. d'Orleans was stunned by the blow; he felt that it fell directly upon
him, but during the lifetime of the King he saw no remedy for it.
Silence respectful and profound appeared to him the sole course open;
any other would only have led to an increase of precautions. The King
avoided all discourse with him upon this matter; M. du Maine the same.
M. d'Orleans was contented with a simple approving monosyllable to both,
like a courtier who ought not to meddle with anything; and he avoided
conversation upon this subject, even with Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
and with anybody else. I was the sole person to whom he dared to unbosom
himself; with the rest of the world he had an open, an ordinary manner,
was on his guard against any discontented sign, and against the curiosity
of all eyes. The inexpressible abandonment in which he was, in the midst
of the Court, guaranteed him at least from all remarks upon the will. It
was not until the health of the King grew more menacing that he began to
speak and be spoken to thereon.
As for M. du Maine, despite his good fortune, he was not to be envied At
Sceaux, where he lived, the Duchesse du Maine, his wife, ruined him by
her extravagance. Sceaux was more than ever the theatre of her follies,
and of the shame and embarrassment of her husband, by the crowd from the
Court and the town, which abounded there and laughed at them. She
herself played there Athalie (assisted by actors and actresses) and other
pieces several times a week. Whole nights were passed in coteries,
games, fetes, illuminations, fireworks, in a word, fancies and fripperies
of every kind and every day. She revelled in the joy of her new
greatness--redoubled her follies; and the Duc du Maine, who always
trembled before her, and who, moreover, feared that the slightest
contradiction would entirely turn her brain, suffered all this, even
piteously doing the honours as often as he could without ceasing in his
conduct to the King.
However great might be his joy, whatever the unimaginable greatness to
which he had arrived, he was not tranquil. Like those tyrants who have
usurped by their crimes the sovereign power, and who fear as so many
conspiring enemies all their fallen citizens they have enslaved--he felt
as though seated under that sword that Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,
suspended by a hair over his table, above the head of a man whom he
placed there because he believed him happy, and in this manner wished to
make him feel what passed unceasingly in himself. M. du Maine, who
willingly expressed in pleasantry the most serious things, frankly said
to his familiars, that he was "like a louse between two fingernails" (the
Princes of the blood and the peers), by which he could not fail to be
cracked if he did not take care! This reflection troubled the excess of
his pleasure, and that of the greatness and the power to which so many
artifices had elevated him. He feared the Princes of the blood as soon
as they should be of age to feel the infamy and the danger of the wound
he had given them; he feared the Parliament, which even under his eyes
had not been able to dissimulate its indignation at the violence he had
committed against the most holy and the most inviolable laws; he even
feared the Dukes so timid are injustice and tyranny!
CHAPTER LXIX
Let me return to Maisons. Five days after the King's will had been
walled up, in the manner I have described, he came to me and made a
pathetic discourse upon the injustice done to M. le Duc d'Orleans by this
testament, and did all he could to excite me by railing in good set terms
against dispositions intended to add to the power and grandeur of the
bastards.
When he had well harangued, I said he had told me nothing new; that I saw
the same truths as he with the same evidence; that the worst thing I
found was that there was no remedy.
"No remedy!" he exclaimed, interrupting me, with his sly and cunning
laugh; "courage and ability can always find one for everything, and I am
astonished that you, who have both, should have nothing to suggest while
everybody is going to confusion."
I asked him how it was possible to suppress a will registered by edict; a
document solemn and public deposited with ceremony in the very depths of
the palace, with precautions known to everybody--nature and art combining
to keep it in safety?
"You are at a loss to know!" replied Maisons to me. "Have ready at the
instant of the King's death sure troops and sensible officers, all ready
and well instructed; and with them, masons and lock-smiths--march to the
palace, break open the doors and the wall, carry off the will, and let it
never be seen."
In my extreme surprise I asked him, what he expected would be the fruit
of such violence? I pointed out that to seize by force of arms a public
and solemn document, in the midst of the capital, in despite of all--all
law and order, would be to put weapons into the hands of the enemies of
M. le Duc d'Orleans, who assuredly would be justified in crying out
against this outrage, and who would find the whole country disposed to
echo their cries. I said too, that if in the execution of such an odious
scheme a sedition occurred, and blood were shed, universal hatred and
opprobrium would fall upon the head of M, le Duc d'Orleans, and
deservedly so.
We carried on our discussion a long time, but Maisons would in no way
give up his scheme. After leaving me he went to M. le Duc d'Orleans and
communicated it to him. Happily it met with no success with the Duke,
indeed, he was extremely astonished at it; but what astonished us more
was, that Maisons persisted in it up to his death, which preceded by some
few days that of the King, and pressed it upon M. le Duc d'Orleans and
myself till his importunity became persecution.
It was certainly not his fault that I over and over again refused to go
to the Grand Chamber of the Parliament to examine the place, as Maisons
wished me to do; I who never went to the Parliament except for the
reception of the peers or when the King was there. Not being able to
vanquish what he called my obstinacy, Maisons begged me at the least to
go and fix myself upon the Quai de la Megisserie, where so much old iron
is sold, and examine from that spot the tower where the will was; he
pointed it out to me; it looked out upon the Quai des Morforidus, but was
behind the buildings on the quai. What information could be obtained
from such a point of view may be imagined. I promised to go there, not
to stop, and thus awake the attention of the passers-by, but to pass
along and see what was to be seen; adding, that it as simply out of
complaisance to him, and not because I meant to agree in any way to his
enterprise. What is incomprehensible is, that for a whole year Maisons
pressed his charming project upon us. The worst enemy of M. le Duc
d'Orleans could not have devised a more rash and ridiculous undertaking.
I doubt whether many people would have been found in all Paris
sufficiently deprived of sense to fall in with it. What are we to think
then of a Parliamentary President of such consideration as Maisons had
acquired at the Palace of justice, at the Court, in the town, where he
had always passed for a man of intellect, prudent, circumspect,
intelligent, capable, measured? Was he vile enough, in concert with M.
du Maine, to open this gulf beneath our feet, to push us to our ruin, and
by the fall of M. le Duc d'Orleans--the sole prince of the blood old
enough to be Regent--to put M. le Duc du Maine in his place, from which
to the crown there was only one step, as none are ignorant, left to be
taken? It seems by no means impossible: M. du Maine, that son of
darkness, was, judging him by what he had already done, quite capable of
adding this new crime to his long list.
The mystery was, however, never explained. Maisons died before its
darkness could be penetrated. His end was terrible. He had no religion;
his father had had none. He married a sister of the Marechal de Villars,
who was in the same case. Their only son they specially educated in
unbelief. Nevertheless, everything seemed to smile upon them. They had
wealth, consideration, distinguished friends. But mark the end.
Maisons is slightly unwell. He takes rhubarb twice or thrice,
unseasonably; more unseasonably comes Cardinal de Bissy to him, to talk
upon the constitution, and thus hinder the operation of the rhubarb; his
inside seems on fire, but he will not believe himself ill; the progress
of his disease is great in a few hours; the doctors, though soon at their
wits' ends, dare not say so; the malady visibly increases; his whole
household is in confusion; he dies, forty-eight years of age, midst of a
crowd of friends, of clients, without the power or leisure to think for a
moment what is going to happen to his soul!
His wife survives him ten or twelve years, opulent, and in consideration,
when suddenly she has an attack of apoplexy in her garden. Instead of
thinking of her state, and profiting by leisure, she makes light of her
illness, has another attack a few days after, and is carried off on the
5th of May, 1727, in her forty-sixth year, without having had a moment
free.
Her son, for a long time much afflicted, seeks to distinguish himself and
acquire friends. Taking no warning from what has occurred, he thinks
only of running after the fortune of this world, and is surprised at
Paris by the small-pox. He believes himself dead, thinks of what he has
neglected all his life, but fear suddenly seizes him, and he dies in the
midst of it, on the 13th of September, 1731, leaving an only son, who
dies a year after him, eighteen months old, all the great wealth of the
family going to collateral relatives.
These Memoirs are not essays on morality, therefore I have contented
myself with the most simple and the most naked recital of facts; but I
may, perhaps, be permitted to apply here those two verses of the 37th
Psalm, which appear so expressly made for the purpose: "I have seen the
impious exalted like the cedars of Lebanon: Yea, he passed away, and, lo,
he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found."
But let me leave this subject now, to treat of other matters. On Friday,
the last day of August, I lost one of the best and most revered of
friends, the Duc de Beavilliers. He died at Vaucresson after an illness
of about two months, his intellect clear to the last, aged sixty-six
years, having been born on the 24th of Oct 1648.
He was the son of M. de Saint-Aignan, who with honour and valour was
truly romantic in gallantry, in belles-lettres, and in arms. He was
Captain of the Guards of Gaston, and at the end of 1649 bought of the Duc
de Liancourt the post of first-gentleman of the King's chamber. He
commanded afterwards in Berry against the party of M. le Prince, and
served elsewhere subsequently. In 1661 he was made Chevalier of the
Order, and in 1661 Duke and Peer. His first wife he lost in 1679. At
the end of a year he married one of her chambermaids, who had been first
of all engaged to take care of her dogs. She was so modest, and he so
shamefaced, that in despite of repeated pressing on the part of the King,
she could not be induced to take her tabouret. She lived in much
retirement, and had so many virtues that she made herself respected all
her life, which was long. M. de Beauvilliers was one of the children of
the first marriage. I know not what care M. and Madame de Saint-Aignan
took of the others, but they left him, until he was six or seven years of
age, to the mercy of their lodge-keeper. Then he was confided to the
care of a canon of Notre Dame de Clery. The household of the canon
consisted of one maid-servant, with whom the little boy slept; and they
continued to sleep together until he was fourteen or fifteen years old,
without either of them thinking of evil, or the canon remarking that the
lad was growing into a man. The death of his eldest brother called
M. de Beauvilliers home. He entered the army, served with distinction at
the head of is regiment of cavalry, and was brigadier.
He was tall, thin, had a long and ruddy face, a large aquiline nose, a
sunken mouth, expressive, piercing eyes, an agreeable smile, a very
gentle manner but ordinarily retiring, serious, and concentrated. B
disposition he was hasty, hot, passionate, fond of pleasure. Ever since
God had touched him, which happened early in his life, he had become
gentle, mildest, humble, kind, enlightened, charitable, and always full
of real piety and goodness. In private, where he was free, he was gay,
joked, and bantered pleasantly, and laughed with good heart. He liked to
be made fun of there was only the story of his sleeping with the canon's
servant that wounded his modesty, and I have seen him embarrassed when
Madame de Beauvilliers has related it,--smiling, however, but praying her
sometimes not to tell it. His piety, which, as I have said, commenced
early in life, separated him from companions of his own age. At the army
one day, during a promenade of the King, he walked alone, a little in
front. Some one remarked it, and observed, sneeringly, that "he was
meditating." The King, who heard this, turned towards the speaker, and,
looking at him, said, "Yes, 'tis M. de Beauvilliers, one of the best men
of the Court, and of my realm." This sudden and short apology caused
silence, and food for reflection, so that the fault-finders remained in
respect before his merit.
The King must have entertained a high regard for him, to give him, in
1670, the very delicate commission he entrusted to him. Madame had just
been so openly poisoned, the conviction was so complete and so general
that it was very difficult to palliate it. Our King and the King of
England, between whom she had just become a stronger bond, by the journey
she had made into England, were penetrated by grief and indignation, and
the English could not contain themselves. The King chose the Duc de
Beauvilliers to carry his compliments of condolence to the King of
England, and under this pretext to try to prevent this misfortune
interfering with their friendship and their union, and to calm the fury
of London and the nation. The King was not deceived: the prudent
dexterity of the Duc de Beauvilliers brought round the King of England,
and even appeased London and the nation.
M. de Beauvilliers had expressed a wish to be buried at Montargis, in the
Benedictine monastery, where eight of his daughters had become nuns.
Madame de Beauvilliers went there, and by an act of religion, terrible to
think of, insisted upon being present at the interment. She retired to
her house at Paris, where during the rest of her life she lived in
complete solitude, without company or amusement of any kind. For nearly
twenty years she remained there, and died in 1733, seventy-five years of
age, infinitely rich in alms and all sorts of good works.
The King taxed the infantry regiments, which had risen to an excessive
price. This venality of the only path by which the superior grades can
be reached is a great blot upon the military system, and stops the career
of many a man who would become an excellent soldier. It is a gangrene
which for a long time has eaten into all the orders and all the parties
of the state, and under which it will be odd if all do not succumb.
Happily it is unknown, or little known, in all the other countries of
Europe!
Towards the end of this year Cardinal d'Estrees died in Paris at his
abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, nearly eighty-seven years of age, having
always enjoyed perfect health of body and mind until this illness, which
was very short, and which left his intellect clear to the last. It is
proper and curious to pause for a moment upon a personage, all his life
of importance, and who at his death was Cardinal, Bishop of Albano, Abbe
of Longpont, of Mount Saint-Eloi, of Saint-Nichoas-aux-Bois, of La
Staffarde in Piedmont (where Catinat gained a celebrated battle before
being Marechal of France), of Saint-Claude in Franche-Comte, of Anchin in
Flanders, and of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in Paris. He was also Commander
of the Order of the promotion of 1688.
Merit, aided by the chances of fortune, made out of an obscure family of
the Boulonais country, a singularly illustrious race in the fourth
generation, of which Mademoiselle de Tourbes alone remains. The
Cardinal, brother of the last Marechal d'Estrees, their uncle, used to
say; that he knew his fathers as far as the one who had been page of
Queen Anne, Duchess of Brittany; but beyond that he knew nothing, and it
was not worth while searching. Gabrielle d'Estrees, mistress of Henry
IV., whose beauty made her father's fortune, and whose history is too
well known to be here alluded to, was sister of the Cardinal's father,
but died thirty years before he was born. It was through her that the
family became elevated. The father of Cardinal d'Estrees was
distinguished all his life by his merit, his capacity, and the authority
and elevated posts he held. He was made Marshal of France in 1626, and
it is a thing unique that he, his son, and his grandson were not only
Marshals of France, but all three were in succession seniors of that
corps for a long time.
The Cardinal d'Estrees was born in 1627, and for forty years lived with
his father, profiting by his lessons and his consideration. He was of
the most agreeable manners, handsome, well made, full of humour, wit, and
ability; in society the pleasantest person in the world, and yet well
instructed; indeed, of rare erudition, generous, obliging, dignified,
incapable of meanness, he was with so much talent and so many great and
amiable qualities generally loved and respected, and deserved to be. He
was made Cardinal in 1671, but was not declared until after many delays
had occurred. These delays much disturbed him. It was customary, then,
to pay more visits. One evening the Abbe de la Victoire, one of his
friends, and very witty, arrived very late at a supper, in a house where
he was expected. The company inopportunely asked him where he had been,
and what had delayed him.
"Alas!" replied the Abbe, in a tone of sadness, "where have I been? I
have been all day accompanying the body of poor M. de Laon." [The
Cardinal d'Estrees was then Bishop and Duke of Laon.]
"M. de Laon!" cried everybody, "M. de Laon dead! Why, he was quite well
yesterday. 'Tis dreadful. Tell us what has happened."
"What has happened?" replied the Abbe, still with the same tone. "Why,
he took me with him when he paid his visits, and though his body was with
me, his spirit was at Rome, so that I quitted him very wearied." At this
recital grief changed into merriment.
That grand dinner at Fontainebleau for the Prince of Tuscany, at which
the Prince was to be the only guest, and yet never received his
invitation from the Cardinal, I have already mentioned. He was
oftentimes thus absent, but never when business or serious matters were
concerned, so that his forgetfulness was amusing. He never could bear to
hear of his domestic affairs. Pressed and tormented by his steward and
his maitre d'hotel to overlook their accounts, that he had not seen for
many years, he appointed a day to be devoted to them. The two financiers
demanded that he should close his door so as not to be interrupted; he
consented with difficulty, then changed his mind, and said that if
Cardinal Bonzi came he must be admitted, but that it was not likely he
would come on that particular day. Directly afterwards he sent a trusty
servant to Cardinal Bonzi, entreating him to come on such and such a day,
between three and four o'clock, conjuring him not to fail, and begging
him above all to come as of his own accord, the reason to be explained
afterwards. On the appointed day Cardinal d'Estrees told his porter to
let no one enter in the afternoon except Cardinal Bonzi, who assuredly
was not likely to come, but who was not to be sent away if he did. His
people, delighted at having their master to themselves all day without
interruption, arrived about three o'clock; the Cardinal quitted his
family and the few friends who had that day dined with him, and passed
into a cabinet where his business people laid out their papers. He said
a thousand absurdities to them upon his expenditure, of which he
understood nothing, and unceasingly looked towards the window, without
appearing to do so, secretly sighing for a prompt deliverance. A little
before four o'clock, a coach arrived in the court-yard; his business
people, enraged with the porter, exclaimed that there will then be no
more opportunity for working. The Cardinal in delight referred to the
orders he had given. "You will see," he added, "that it is Cardinal
Bonzi, the only man I excepted, and who, of all days in the world, comes
to-day."
Immediately afterwards, the Cardinal was announced, and the intendant and
maitre d'hotel were forced to make off with their papers and their table.
As soon as he was alone with Bonzi, he explained why he had requested
this visit, and both laughed heartily. Since then his business people
have never caught him again, never during the rest of his life would he
hear speak of them.
He must have had honest people about him; for every day his table was
magnificent, and filled at Paris and at the Court with the best company.
His equipages were so, also; he had numberless domestics, many gentlemen,
chaplains, and secretaries. He gave freely to the poor, and to his
brother the Marechal and his children (who were not well off), and yet
died without owing a crown to a living soul.
His death, for which he had been long prepared, was fine-edifying and
very Christian-like. He was universally regretted. A joke of his with
the King is still remembered. One day, at dinner, where he always paid
much attention to the Cardinal, the King complained of the inconvenience
he felt in no longer having teeth.
"Teeth, sire!" replied the Cardinal; "why, who has any teeth?"
The joke is that the Cardinal, though old, still had very white and very
beautiful teeth, and that his mouth, large, but agreeable, was so shaped
that it showed them plainly in speaking. Therefore the King burst out
laughing at this reply, and all present also, including the Cardinal, who
was not in the slightest degree embarrassed. I might go on forever
telling about him, but enough, perhaps, has been already said.
The commencement of the new year, 1715, was marked by the death of
Fenelon, at Cambrai, where he had lived in disgrace so many years. I
have already said something about him, so that I have now but little to
add. His life at Cambrai was remarkable for the assiduity with which he
attended to the spiritual and temporal wants of his flock. He was
indefatigable in the discharge of his functions, and in endeavouring to
gain all hearts. Cambrai is a place much frequented; through which many
people pass. During the war the number of wounded soldiers he had
received into his house or attended to in the hospitals passes all
belief. He spared nothing for them, neither physical comforts nor
spiritual consolations. Thus it is incredible to what an extent he
became the idol of the whole army. His manners, to high and low, were
most affable, yet everywhere he was the prelate, the gentleman, the
author of "Telemachus." He ruled his diocese with a gentle hand, in no
way meddled with the Jansenists; he left all untouched. Take him for all
in all, he had a bright genius and was a great man. His admiration true
or feigned for Madame Guyon remained to the last, yet always without
suspicion of impropriety. He had so exactly arranged his affairs that he
died without money, and yet without owing a sou to anybody.
VOLUME 10.
CHAPTER LXX
The reign of Louis XIV. was approaching its conclusion, so that there is
now nothing more to relate but what passed during the last month of his
life, and scarcely so much. These events, indeed, so curious and so
important, are so mixed up with those that immediately followed the
King's death, that they cannot be separated from them. It will be
interesting and is necessary to describe the projects, the thoughts, the
difficulties, the different resolutions, which occupied the brain of the
Prince, who, despite the efforts of Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine,
was of necessity about to be called to the head of affairs during the
minority of the young King. This is the place, therefore, to explain all
these things, after which we will resume the narrative of the last month
of the King's life, and go on to the events which followed his death.
But, as I have said, before entering upon this thorny path, it will be as
well to make known, if possible, the chief personage of the story, the
impediments interior and exterior in his path, and all that personally
belonged to him.
M. le Duc d'Orleans was, at the most, of mediocre stature, full-bodied
without being fat; his manner and his deportment were easy and very
noble; his face was broad and very agreeable, high in colour; his hair
black, and wig the same. Although he danced very badly, and had but ill
succeeded at the riding-school, he had in his face, in his gestures, in
all his movements, infinite grace, and so natural that it adorned even
his most ordinary commonplace actions. With much ease when nothing
constrained him, he was gentle, affable, open, of facile and charming
access; the tone of his voice was agreeable, and he had a surprisingly
easy flow of words upon all subjects which nothing ever disturbed, and
which never failed to surprise; his eloquence was natural and extended
even to his most familiar discourse, while it equally entered into his
observations upon the most abstract sciences, on which he talked most
perspicuously; the affairs of government, politics, finance, justice,
war, the court, ordinary conversation, the arts, and mechanics. He could
speak as well too upon history and memoirs, and was well acquainted with
pedigrees. The personages of former days were familiar to him; and the
intrigues of the ancient courts were to him as those of his own time.
To hear him, you would have thought him a great reader. Not so. He
skimmed; but his memory was so singular that he never forgot things,
names, or dates, cherishing remembrance of things with precision; and his
apprehension was so good, that in skimming thus it was, with him,
precisely as though he had read very laboriously. He excelled in
unpremeditated discourse, which, whether in the shape of repartee or
jest, was always appropriate and vivacious. He often reproached me, and
others more than he, with "not spoiling him;" but I often gave him praise
merited by few, and which belonged to nobody so justly as to him; it was,
that besides having infinite ability and of various kinds, the singular
perspicuity of his mind was joined to so much exactness, that he would
never have made a mistake in anything if he had allowed the first
suggestions of his judgment. He oftentimes took this my eulogy as a
reproach, and he was not always wrong, but it was not the less true.
With all this he had no presumption, no trace of superiority natural or
acquired; he reasoned with you as with his equal, and struck the most
able with surprise. Although he never forgot his own position, nor
allowed others to forget it, he carried no constraint with him, but put
everybody at his ease, and placed himself upon the level of all others.
He had the weakness to believe that he resembled Henry IV. in
everything, and strove to affect the manners, the gestures, the bearing,
of that monarch. Like Henry IV. he was naturally good, humane,
compassionate; and, indeed, this man, who has been so cruelly accused of
the blackest and most inhuman crimes, was more opposed to the destruction
of others than any one I have ever known, and had such a singular dislike
to causing anybody pain that it may be said, his gentleness, his
humanity, his easiness, had become faults; and I do not hesitate to
affirm that that supreme virtue which teaches us to pardon our enemies he
turned into vice, by the indiscriminate prodigality with which he applied
it; thereby causing himself many sad embarrassments and misfortunes,
examples and proofs of which will be seen in the sequel.
I remember that about a year, perhaps, before the death of the King,
having gone up early after dinner into the apartments of Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans at Marly, I found her in bed with the megrims,
and M. d'Orleans alone in the room, seated in an armchair at her pillow.
Scarcely had I sat down than Madame la Duchesse began to talk of some of
those execrable imputations concerning M. d'Orleans unceasingly
circulated by Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine; and of an incident
arising therefrom, in which the Prince and the Cardinal de Rohan had
played a part against M. d'Orleans. I sympathised with her all the more
because the Duke, I knew not why, had always distinguished and courted
those two brothers, and thought he could count upon them. "And what will
you say of M. d'Orleans," added the Duchesse, "when I tell you that since
he has known this, known it beyond doubt, he treats them exactly the same
as before?"
I looked at M. d'Orleans, who had uttered only a few words to confirm the
story, as it was being told, and who was negligently lolling in his
chair, and I said to him with warmth:
"Oh, as to that, Monsieur, the truth must be told; since Louis the
Debonnaire, never has there been such a Debonnaire as you."
At these words he rose in his chair, red with anger to the very whites of
his eyes, and blurted out his vexation against me for abusing him, as he
pretended, and against Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans for encouraging me
and laughing at him.
"Go on," said I, "treat your enemies well, and rail at your friends. I
am delighted to see you angry. It is a sign that I have touched the sore
point, when you press the finger on it the patient cries. I should like
to squeeze out all the matter, and after that you would be quite another
man, and differently esteemed."
He grumbled a little more, and then calmed down. This was one of two
occasions only, on which he was ever really angry with me.
Two or three years after the death of the King, I was chatting in one of
the grand rooms of the Tuileries, where the Council of the Regency was,
according to custom, soon to be held, and M. d'Orleans at the other end
was talking to some one in a window recess. I heard myself called from
mouth to mouth, and was told that M. d'Orleans wished to speak to me.
This often happened before the Council. I went therefore to the window
where he was standing. I found a serious bearing, a concentrated manner,
an angry face, and was much surprised.
"Monsieur," said he to me at once, "I have a serious complaint against
you; you, whom I have always regarded as my best of friends."
"Against me! Monsieur!" said I, still more surprised. "What is the
matter, then, may I ask?"
"The matter!" he replied with a mien still more angry; "something you
cannot deny; verses you have made against me."
"I--verses!" was my reply. "Why, who the devil has been telling you such
nonsense? You have been acquainted with me nearly forty years, and do
you not know, that never in my life have I been able to make a single
verse--much less verses?"
"No, no, by Heaven," replied he, "you cannot deny these;" and forthwith
he began to sing to me a street song in his praise, the chorus of which
was: 'Our Regent is debonnaire, la la, he is debonnaire,' with a burst of
laughter.
"What!" said I, "you remember it still!" and smiling, I added also,
"since you are revenged for it, remember it in good earnest." He kept on
laughing a long time before going to the Council, and could not hinder
himself. I have not been afraid to write this trifle, because it seems
to me that it paints the man.
M. d'Orleans loved liberty, and as much for others as for himself. He
extolled England to me one day on this account, as a country where there
are no banishments, no lettres de cachet, and where the King may close
the door of his palace to anybody, but can keep no one in prison; and
thereupon related to me with enjoyment, that besides the Duchess of
Portsmouth, Charles the Second had many subordinate mistresses; that the
Grand Prieur, young and amiable in those days, driven out of France for
some folly, had gone to England to pass his exile and had been well
received by the King. By way of thanks, he seduced one of those
mistresses, by whom the King was then so smitten, that he sued for mercy,
offered money to the Grand Prieur, and undertook to obtain his
reconciliation in France. The Grand Prieur held firm. Charles
prohibited him the palace. He laughed at this, and went every day to the
theatre, with his conquest, and placed himself opposite the King. At
last, Charles, not knowing what to do to deliver himself from his
tormentor, begged our King to recall him, and this was done. But the
Grand Prieur said he was very comfortable in England and continued his
game. Charles, outraged, confided to the King (Louis XIV.) the state he
was thrown into by the Grand Prieur, and obtained a command so absolute
and so prompt, that his tormentor was afterwards obliged to go back into
France.
M. d'Orleans admired this; and I know not if he would not have wished to
be the Grand Prieur. He always related this story with delight. Thus,
of ambition for reigning or governing, he had none. If he made a false
move in Spain it was because he had been misdirected. What he would have
liked best would have been to command armies while war lasted, and divert
himself the rest of the time without constraint to himself or to others.
He was, in fact, very fit for this. With much valour, he had also much
foresight, judgment, coolness, and vast capacity. It may be said that he
was captain, engineer, and army purveyor; that he knew the strength of
his troops, the names and the company of the officers, and the most
distinguished of each corps; that he knew how to make himself adored, at
the same time keeping up discipline, and could execute the most difficult
things, while unprovided with everything. Unfortunately there is another
side of this picture, which it will be as well now to describe.
M. d'Orleans, by disposition so adapted to become the honour and the
master-piece of an education, was not fortunate in his teachers. Saint-
Laurent, to whom he was first confided, was, it is true, the man in all
Europe best fitted to act as the instructor of kings, but he died before
his pupil was beyond the birch, and the young Prince, as I have related,
fell entirely into the hands of the Abbe Dubois. This person has played
such an important part in the state since the death of the King, that it
is fit that he should be made known. The Abbe Dubois was a little,
pitiful, wizened, herring-gutted man, in a flaxen wig, with a weazel's
face, brightened by some intellect. In familiar terms, he was a regular
scamp. All the vices unceasingly fought within him for supremacy, so
that a continual uproar filled his mind. Avarice, debauchery, ambition;
were his gods; perfidy, flattery, foot-licking his means of action;
complete impiety was his repose; and he held the opinion as a great
principle, that probity and honesty are chimeras, with which people deck
themselves, but which have no existence. In consequence, all means were
good to him. He excelled in low intrigues; he lived in them, and could
not do without them; but they always had an aim, and he followed them
with a patience terminated only by success, or by firm conviction that he
could not reach what he aimed at, or unless, as he wandered thus in deep
darkness, a glimmer of light came to him from some other cranny. He
passed thus his days in sapping and counter-sapping. The most impudent
deceit had become natural to him, and was concealed under an air that was
simple, upright, sincere, often bashful. He would have spoken with grace
and forcibly, if, fearful of saying more than he wished, he had not
accustomed himself to a fictitious hesitation, a stuttering--which
disfigured his speech, and which, redoubled when important things were in
question, became insupportable and sometimes unintelligible. He had wit,
learning, knowledge of the world; much desire to please and insinuate
himself, but all was spoiled by an odour of falsehood which escaped in
spite of him through every pore of his body--even in the midst of his
gaiety, which made whoever beheld it sad. Wicked besides, with
reflection, both by nature and by argument, treacherous and ungrateful,
expert in the blackest villainies, terribly brazen when detected; he
desired everything, envied everything, and wished to seize everything.
It was known afterwards, when he no longer could restrain himself, to
what an extent he was selfish, debauched, inconsistent, ignorant of
everything, passionate, headstrong, blasphemous and mad, and to what an
extent he publicly despised his master, the state, and all the world,
never hesitating to sacrifice everybody and everything to his credit, his
power, his absolute authority, his greatness, his avarice, his fears, and
his vengeance.
Such was the sage to whom M. le Duc d'Orleans was confided in early
youth!
Such a good master did not lose his pains with his new disciple, in whom
the excellent principles of Saint-Laurent had not had time to take deep
root, whatever esteem and affection he may have preserved through life
for that worthy man. I will admit here, with bitterness, for everything
should be sacrificed to the truth, that M. le Duc d'Orleans brought into
the world a failing--let us call things by their names--a weakness, which
unceasingly spoiled all his talents, and which were of marvellous use to
his preceptor all his life. Dubois led him into debauchery, made him
despise all duty and all decency, and persuaded him that he had too much
mind to be the dupe of religion, which he said was a politic invention to
frighten ordinary, intellects, and keep the people in subjection. He
filled him too with his favourite principle, that probity in man and
virtue in woman, are mere chimeras, without existence in anybody except a
few poor slaves of early training. This was the basis of the good
ecclesiatic's doctrines, whence arose the license of falsehood, deceit,
artifice, infidelity, perfidy; in a word, every villainy, every crime,
was turned into policy, capacity, greatness, liberty and depth of
intellect, enlightenment, good conduct, if it could be hidden, and if
suspicions and common prejudices could be avoided.
Unfortunately all conspired in M. d'Orleans to open his heart and his
mind to this execrable poison: a fresh and early youth, much strength and
health, joy at escaping from the yoke as well as vexation at his
marriage, the wearisomeness produced by idleness, the impulse of his
passions, the example of other young men, whose vanity and whose interest
it was to make him live like them. Thus he grew accustomed to
debauchery, above all to the uproar of it, so that he could not do
without it, and could only divert himself by dint of noise, tumult, and
excess. It is this which led him often into such strange and such
scandalous debauches, and as he wished to surpass all his companions, to
mix up with his parties of pleasure the most impious discourses, and as a
precious refinement, to hold the most outrageous orgies on the most holy
days, as he did several times during his Regency on Good Friday, by
choice, and on other similar days. The more debauched a man was, the
more he esteemed him; and I have unceasingly seen him in admiration, that
reached almost to veneration for the Grand Prieur,--because for forty
years he had always gone to bed drunk, and had never ceased to keep
mistresses in the most public manner, and to hold the most impious and
irreligious discourses. With these principles, and the conduct that
resulted from them, it is not surprising that M. le Duc d'Orleans was
false to such an extent, that he boasted of his falsehood, and plumed
himself upon being the most skilful deceiver in the world. He and Madame
la Duchesse de Berry sometimes disputed which was the cleverer of the
two; and this in public before M. le Duc de Berry, Madame de Saint-Simon,
and others!
M. le Duc d'Orleans, following out the traditions of the Palais Royal,
had acquired the detestable taste and habit of embroiling people one with
the other, so as to profit by their divisions. This was one of his
principal occupations during all the time he was at the head of affairs,
and one that he liked the best; but which, as soon as discovered,
rendered him odious, and caused him a thousand annoyances. He was not
wicked, far from it; but he could not quit the habits of impiety,
debauchery, and deceit into which Dubois had led him. A remarkable
feature in his character is, that he was suspicious and full of
confidence at the same time with reference to the very same people.
It is surprising that with all his talents he was totally without honest
resources for amusing himself. He was born bored; and he was so
accustomed to live out of himself, that it was insufferable to him to
return, incapable as he was of trying even to occupy himself. He could
only live in the midst of the movement and torrent of business; at the
head of an army for instance, or in the cares that arose out of the
execution of campaign projects, or in the excitement and uproar of
debauchery. He began to languish as soon as he was without noise,
excess, and tumult, the time painfully hanging upon his hands. He cast
himself upon painting, when his great fancy for chemistry had passed or
grown deadened, in consequence of what had been said upon it. He painted
nearly all the afternoon at Versailles and at Marly. He was a good judge
of pictures, liked them, and made a collection, which in number and
excellence was not surpassed by those of the Crown. He amused himself
afterwards in making composition stones and seals over charcoal, the
fumes of which often drove me away; and the strongest perfumes, which he
was fond of all his life, but from which I turned him because the King
was very much afraid of them, and soon sniffed them. In fact, never was
man born with so many talents of all kinds, so much readiness and
facility in making use of them, and yet never was man so idle, so given
up to vacuity and weariness. Thus Madame painted him very happily by an
illustration from fairy tales, of which she was full.
She said, that all the fairies had been invited to his birth; that all
came, and that each gave him some talent, so that he had them all. But,
unfortunately, an old fairy, who had disappeared so many years ago that
she was no longer remembered, had been omitted from the invitation lists.
Piqued at this neglect, she came supported upon her little wand, just at
the moment when all the rest had endowed the child with their gifts.
More and more vexed, she revenged herself by rendering useless all the
talents he had received from the other fairies, not one of which, though
possessing them all, in consequence of her malediction, was he able to
make use of. It must be admitted, that on the whole this is a speaking
portrait.
One of the misfortunes of this Prince was being incapable of following up
anything, and an inability to comprehend, even, how any one else could do
so. Another, was a sort of insensibility which rendered him indifferent
to the most mortal and the most dangerous offences; and as the nerve and
principle of hatred and friendship, of gratitude and vengeance, are the
same, and as they were wanting in him, the consequences were infinite and
pernicious. He was timid to excess, knew it, and was so ashamed that he
affected to be exactly the reverse, and plumed himself upon his daring.
But the truth is, as was afterwards seen, nothing could be obtained from
him, neither grace, nor justice, except by working upon his fears, to
which he was very susceptible; or by extreme importunity. He tried to
put people off by words, then by promises, of which he was monstrously
prodigal, but which he only kept when made to people who had good firm
claws. In this manner he broke so many engagements that the most
positive became counted as nothing; and he promised moreover to so many
different people, what could only be given to one, that he thus opened
out a copious source of discredit to himself and caused much discontent.
Nothing deceived or injured him more than the opinion he had formed, that
he could deceive all the world. He was no longer believed, even when he
spoke with the best faith, and his facility much diminished the value of
everything he did. To conclude, the obscure, and for the most part
blackguard company, which he ordinarily frequented in his debauches, and
which he did not scruple publicly to call his roues, drove away all
decent people, and did him infinite harm.
His constant mistrust of everything and everybody was disgusting, above
all when he was at the head of affairs. The fault sprang from his
timidity, which made him fear his most certain enemies, and treat them
with more distinction than his friends; from his natural easiness, from a
false imitation of Henry IV., in whom this quality was by no means the
finest; and from the unfortunate opinion which he held, that probity was
a sham. He was, nevertheless, persuaded of my probity; and would often
reproach me with it as a fault and prejudice of education which had
cramped my mind and obscured my understanding, and he said as much of
Madame de Saint-Simon, because he believed her virtuous.
I had given him so many proofs of my attachment that he could not very
well suspect me; and yet, this is what happened two or three years after
the establishment of the Regency. I give it as one of the most striking
of the touches that paint his portrait.
It was autumn. M. d'Orleans had dismissed the councils for a fortnight.
I profited by this to go and spend the time at La Ferme. I had just
passed an hour alone with the Duke, and had taken my leave of him and
gone home, where in order to be in repose I had closed my door to
everybody. In about an hour at most, I was told that Biron, with a
message from M. le Duc d'Orleans, was at the door, with orders to see me,
and that he would not go away without. I allowed Biron to enter, all the
more surprised because I had just quitted M. le Duc d'Orleans, and
eagerly asked him the news. Biron was embarrassed, and in his turn asked
where was the Marquis de Ruffec (my son). At this my surprise increased,
and I demanded what he meant. Biron, more and more confused, admitted
that M. le Duc d'Orleans wanted information on this point, and had sent
him for it. I replied, that my son was with his regiment at Besancon,
lodging with M. de Levi, who commanded in Franche-Comte.
"Oh," said Biron, "I know that very well; but have you any letter from
him?"
"What for?" I asked.
"Because, frankly, since I must tell you all," said he, "M. le Duc
d'Orleans wishes to see his handwriting."
He added, that soon after I had quitted M. le Duc d'Orleans, whilst he
was walking at Montmartre ma garden with his 'roues' and his harlots,
some letters had been brought to him by a post-office clerk, to whom he
had spoken in private; that afterwards he, Biron, had been called by the
Duke, who showed him a letter from the Marquis de Ruffec to his master,
dated "Madrid," and charged him, thereupon, with this present commission.
At this recital I felt a mixture of anger and compassion, and I did not
constrain myself with Biron. I had no letters from my son, because I
used to burn them, as I did all useless papers. I charged Biron to say
to M. le Duc d'Orleans a part of what I felt; that I had not the
slightest acquaintance with anybody in Spain; that I begged him at once
to despatch a courier there in order to satisfy himself that my son was
at Besancon.
Biron, shrugging his shoulders, said all that was very good, but that if
I could find a letter from the Marquis de Ruffec it would be much better;
adding, that if one turned up and I sent it to him, he would take care
that it reached M. le Duc d'Orleans, at table, in spite of the privacy of
his suppers. I did not wish to return to the Palais Royal to make a
scene there, and dismissed Biron. Fortunately, Madame de Saint-Simon
came in some time after. I related to her this adventure. She found the
last letter of the Marquis de Ruffec, and we sent it to Biron. It
reached the table as he had promised. M. le Duc d'Orleans seized it with
eagerness. The joke is that he did not know the handwriting. Not only
did he look at the letter, but he read it; and as he found it diverting,
regaled his company with it; it became the topic of their discourse, and
entirely removed his suspicions. Upon my return from La Ferme, I found
him ashamed of himself, and I rendered him still more so by what I said
to him on the subject.
I learnt afterwards that this Madrid letter, and others that followed,
came from a sham Marquis de Ruffec, that is to say, from the son of one
of Madame's porters, who passed himself off as my son. He pretended that
he had quarrelled with me, and wrote to Madame de Saint-Simon, begging
her to intercede for him; and all this that his letters might be seen,
and that he might reap substantial benefits from his imposture in the
shape of money and consideration. He was a well-made fellow, had much
address and effrontery, knew the Court very well, and had taken care to
learn all about our family, so as to speak within limits. He was
arrested at Bayonne, at the table of Dadoncourt, who commanded there, and
who suddenly formed the resolution, suspecting him not to be a gentleman,
upon seeing him eat olives with a fork! When in gaol he confessed who he
was. He was not new at the trade and was confined some little time.
CHAPTER LXXI
But to return to M. le Duc d'Orleans.
His curiosity, joined to a false idea of firmness and courage, had early
led him to try and raise the devil and make him speak. He left nothing
untried, even the wildest reading, to persuade himself there was no God;
and yet believed meanwhile in the devil, and hoped to see him and
converse with him! This inconsistency is hard to understand, and yet is
extremely common. He worked with all sorts of obscure people; and above
all with Mirepoix, sublieutenant of the Black Musketeers, to find out
Satan. They passed whole nights in the quarries of Vanvres and of
Vaugirard uttering invocations. M. le Duc d'Orleans, however, admitted
to me that he had never succeeded in hearing or seeing anything, and at
last had given up this folly.
At first it was only to please Madame d'Argenton, but afterwards from
curiosity, that he tried to see the present and the future in a glass of
water; so he said, and he was no liar. To be false and to be a liar are
not one and the same thing, though they closely resemble each other, and
if he told a lie it was only when hard pressed upon some promise or some
business, and in spite of himself, so as to escape from a dilemma.
Although we often spoke upon religion, to which I tried to lead him so
long as I had hope of success, I never could unravel the system he had
formed for himself, and I ended by becoming persuaded that he wavered
unceasingly without forming any religion at all.
His passionate desire, like that of his companions in morals, was this,
that it would turn out that there is no God; but he had too much
enlightenment to be an atheist; who is a particular kind of fool much
more rare than is thought. This enlightenment importuned him; he tried
to extinguish it and could not. A mortal soul would have been to him a
resource; but he could not convince himself of its existence. A God and
an immortal soul, threw him into sad straits, and yet he could not blind
himself to the truth of both the one and the other. I can say then this,
I know of what religion he was not; nothing more. I am sure, however,
that he was very ill at ease upon this point, and that if a dangerous
illness had overtaken him, and he had had the time, he would have thrown
himself into the hands of all the priests and all the Capuchins of the
town. His great foible was to pride himself upon his impiety and to wish
to surpass in that everybody else.
I recollect that one Christmas-time, at Versailles, when he accompanied
the King to morning prayers and to the three midnight masses, he
surprised the Court by his continued application in reading a volume he
had brought with him, and which appeared to be, a prayer book. The chief
femme de chambre of Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, much attached to the
family, and very free as all good old domestics are, transfixed with joy
at M. le Duc d'Orleans's application to his book, complimented him upon
it the next day, in the presence of others. M. le Duc d'Orleans allowed
her to go on some time, and then said, "You are very silly, Madame
Imbert. Do you know what I was reading? It was 'Rabelais,' that I
brought with me for fear of being bored."
The effect of this reply may be imagined. The thing was too true, and
was pure braggadocio; for, without comparison of the places, or of the
things, the music of the chapel was much superior to that of the opera,
and to all the music of Europe; and at Christmas it surpassed itself.
There was nothing so magnificent as the decoration of the chapel, or the
manner in which it was lighted. It was full of people; the arches of the
tribune were crowded with the Court ladies, in undress, but ready for
conquest. There was nothing so surprising as the beauty of the
spectacle. The ears were charmed also. M. le Duc d'Orleans loved music
extremely; he could compose, and had amused himself by composing a kind
of little opera, La Fare writing the words, which was performed before
the King. This music of the chapel, therefore, might well have occupied
him in the most agreeable manner, to say nothing of the brilliant scene,
without his having recourse to Rabelais. But he must needs play the
impious, and the wag.
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans was another kind of person. She was tall,
and in every way majestic; her complexion, her throat, her arms, were
admirable; she had a tolerable mouth, with beautiful teeth, somewhat
long; and cheeks too broad, and too hanging, which interfered with, but
did not spoil, her beauty. What disfigured her most was her eyebrows,
which were, as it were, peeled and red, with very little hair; she had,
however, fine eyelashes, and well-set chestnut-coloured hair. Without
being hump-backed or deformed, she had one side larger than the other,
and walked awry. This defect in her figure indicated another, which was
more troublesome in society, and which inconvenienced herself. She had a
good deal of intellect, and spoke with much ability. She said all she
wished, and often conveyed her meaning to you without directly expressing
it; saying, as it were, what she did not say. Her utterance was,
however, slow and embarrassed, so that unaccustomed ears with difficulty
followed her.
Every kind of decency and decorum centred themselves in her, and the most
exquisite pride was there upon its throne. Astonishment will be felt at
what I am going to say, and yet, however, nothing is more strictly true:
it is, that at the bottom of her soul she believed that she, bastard of
the King, had much honoured M. d'Orleans in marrying him! M. le Duc
d'Orleans often laughed at her pride, called her Madame Lucifer, in
speaking to her, and she admitted that the name did not displease her.
She always received his advances with coldness, and a sort of superiority
of greatness. She was a princess to the backbone, at all hours, and in
all places. Yet, at the same time, her timidity was extreme. The King
could have made her feel ill with a single severe look; and Madame de
Maintenon could have done likewise, perhaps. At all events, Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans trembled before her; and upon the most commonplace
matters never replied to either him or her without hesitation, fear
printed on her face.
M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans lived an idle, languishing,
shameful, indecent, and despised life, abandoned by all the Court. This,
I felt, was one of the first things that must be remedied. Accordingly,
I induced Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans to make an effort to attract
people to her table. She did so, persevering against the coldness and
aversion she met with, and in time succeeded in drawing a tolerably
numerous company to her dinners. They were of exquisite quality, and
people soon got over their first hesitation, when they found everything
orderly, free, and unobjectionable. At these dinners, M. d'Orleans kept
within bounds, not only in his discourse, but in his behaviour. But
oftentimes his ennui led him to Paris, to join in supper parties and
debauchery. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans tried to draw him from these
pleasures by arranging small parties at her pretty little villa, l'Etoile
(in the park of Versailles), which the King had given to her, and which
she had furnished in the most delightful manner. She loved good cheer,
the guests loved it also, and at table she was altogether another person
--free, gay, exciting, charming. M. le Duc d'Orleans cared for nothing
but noise, and as he threw off all restraint at these parties, there was
much difficulty in selecting guests, for the ears of many people would
have been much confused at his loose talk, and their eyes much astonished
to see him get drunk at the very commencement of the repast, in the midst
of those who thought only of amusing and recreating themselves in a
decent manner, and who never approached intoxication.
As the King became weaker in health, and evidently drew near his end, I
had continued interviews with Madame d'Orleans upon the subject of the
Regency, the plan of government to be adopted, and the policy she should
follow. Hundreds of times before we had reasoned together upon the
faults of the Government, and the misfortunes that resulted from them.
What we had to do was to avoid those faults, educate the young King in
good and rational maxims, so that when he succeeded to power he might
continue what the Regency had not had time to finish. This, at least,
was my idea; and I laboured hard to make it the idea of M. le Duc
d'Orleans. As the health of the King diminished I entered more into
details; as I will explain.
What I considered the most important thing to be done, was to overthrow
entirely the system of government in which Cardinal Mazarin had
imprisoned the King and the realm. A foreigner, risen from the dregs
of the people, who thinks of nothing but his own power and his own
greatness, cares nothing for the state, except in its relation to
himself. He despises its laws, its genius, its advantages: he is
ignorant of its rules and its forms; he thinks only of subjugating all,
of confounding all, of bringing all down to one level. Richelieu and his
successor, Mazarin, succeeded so well in this policy that the nobility,
by degrees, became annihilated, as we now see them. The pen and the robe
people, on the other hand, were exalted; so that now things have reached
such a pretty pass that the greatest lord is without power, and in a
thousand different manners is dependent upon the meanest plebeian. It is
in this manner that things hasten from one extreme to the other.
My design was to commence by introducing the nobility into the ministry,
with the dignity and authority due to them, and by degrees to dismiss the
pen and robe people from all employ not purely judicial. In this manner
the administration of public affairs would be entirely in the hands of
the aristocracy. I proposed to abolish the two offices of secretary of
state for the war department, and for foreign affairs, and to supply
their place by councils; also, that the offices of the navy should be
managed by a council. I insisted upon the distinct and perfect
separation of these councils, so that their authority should never be
confounded, and the public should never have the slightest trouble in
finding out where to address itself for any kind of business.
M. le Duc d'Orleans exceedingly relished my project, which we much
discussed. This point arrived at, it became necessary to debate upon the
persons who were to form these councils. I suggested names, which were
accepted or set aside, according as they met his approval or
disapprobation. "But," said M. le Duc d'Orleans, after we had been a
long time at this work, "you propose everybody and never say a word of
yourself. What do you wish to be?"
I replied, that it was not for me to propose, still less to choose any
office, but for him to see if he wished to employ me, believing me
capable, and in that case to determine the place he wished me to occupy.
This was at Marly, in his chamber, and I shall never forget it.
After some little debate, that between equals would have been called
complimentary, he proposed to me the Presidency of the Council of
Finance. But I had good reasons for shrinking from this office. I saw
that disordered as the finances had become there was only one remedy by
which improvement could be effected; and this was National Bankruptcy.
Had I occupied the office, I should have been too strongly tempted to
urge this view, and carry it out, but it was a responsibility I did not
wish to take upon myself before God and man. Yet, I felt as I said, that
to declare the State bankrupt would be the wisest course, and I am bold
enough to think, that there is not a man, having no personal interest in
the continuance of imposts, who of two evils, viz., vastly increased
taxation, and national failure, would not prefer the latter. We were in
the condition of a man who unfortunately must choose between passing
twelve or fifteen years in his bed, in continual pain, or having his leg
cut off. Who can doubt this? he would prefer the loss of his leg by a
painful operation, in order to find himself two months after quite well,
free from suffering and in the enjoyment of all his faculties.
I shrunk accordingly from the finances for the reason I have above given,
and made M. le Duc d'Orleans so angry by my refusal to accept the office
he had proposed to me, that for three weeks he sulked and would not speak
to me, except upon unimportant matters.
At the end of that time, in the midst of a languishing conversation, he
exclaimed, "Very well, then. You stick to your text, you won't have the
finances?"
I respectfully lowered my eyes and replied, in a gentle tone, that I
thought that question was settled. He could not restrain some
complaints, but they were not bitter, nor was he angry, and then rising
and taking a few turns in the room, without saying a word, and his head
bent, as was his custom when embarrassed, he suddenly spun round upon me,
and exclaimed, "But whom shall we put there?"
I suggested the Duc de Noailles, and although the suggestion at first met
with much warm opposition from M. le Duc d'Orleans, it was ultimately
accepted by him.
The moment after we had settled this point he said to me, "And you! what
will you be?" and he pressed me so much to explain myself that I said at
last if he would put me in the council of affairs of the interior, I
thought I should do better there than elsewhere.
"Chief, then," replied he with vivacity.
"No, no! not that," said I; "simply a place in the council."
We both insisted, he for, I against. "A place in that council," he said,
"would be ridiculous, and cannot be thought of. Since you will not be
chief, there is only one post which suits you, and which suits me also.
You must be in the council I shall be in the Supreme Council."
I accepted the post, and thanked him. From that moment this distinction
remained fixed.
I will not enter into all the suggestions I offered to M. le Duc
d'Orleans respecting the Regency, or give the details of all the projects
I submitted to him. Many of those projects and suggestions were either
acted upon only partially, or not acted upon at all, although nearly
every one met with his approval. But he was variable as the winds, and
as difficult to hold. In my dealings with him I had to do with a person
very different from that estimable Dauphin who was so rudely taken away
from us.
But let me, before going further, describe the last days of the King, his
illness, and death, adding to the narrative a review of his life and
character.
CHAPTER LXXII
LOUIS XIV. began, as I have before remarked, sensibly to decline, and
his appetite, which had always been good and uniform, very considerably
diminished. Even foreign countries became aware of this. Bets were laid
in London that his life would not last beyond the first of September,
that is to say, about three months, and although the King wished to know
everything, it may be imagined that nobody was very eager to make him
acquainted with the news. He used to have the Dutch papers read to him
in private by Torcy, often after the Council of State. One day as Torcy
was reading, coming unexpectedly--for he had not examined the paper--upon
the account of these bets, he stopped, stammered, and skipped it. The
King, who easily perceived this, asked him the cause of his
embarrassment; what he was passing over, and why? Torcy blushed to the
very whites of his eyes, and said it was a piece of impertinence unworthy
of being read. The King insisted; Torcy also: but at last thoroughly
confused, he could not resist the reiterated command he received, and
read the whole account of the bets. The King pretended not to be touched
by it, but he was, and profoundly, so that sitting down to table
immediately afterwards, he could not keep himself from speaking of it,
though without mentioning the gazette.
This was at Marly, and by chance I was there that day. The King looked
at me as at the others, but as though asking for a reply. I took good
care not to open my mouth, and lowered my eyes. Cheverny, (a discreet
man,) too, was not so prudent, but made a long and ill-timed rhapsody
upon similar reports that had come to Copenhagen from Vienna while he was
ambassador at the former place seventeen or eighteen years before. The
King allowed him to say on, but did not take the bait. He appeared
touched, but like a man who does not wish to seem so. It could be seen
that he did all he could to eat, and to show that he ate with appetite.
But it was also seen that the mouthfuls loitered on their way. This
trifle did not fail to augment the circumspection of the Court, above all
of those who by their position had reason to be more attentive than the
rest. It was reported that an aide-decamp of Lord Stair, who was then
English ambassador to our Court, and very much disliked for his insolent
bearing and his troublesome ways, had caused these bets by what he had
said in England respecting the health of the King. Stair, when told
this, was much grieved, and said 'twas a scoundrel he had dismissed.
As the King sensibly declined I noticed that although terror of him kept
people as much away from M. d'Orleans as ever, I was approached even by
the most considerable. I had often amused myself at the expense of these
prompt friends; I did so now, and diverted M. d'Orleans by warning him
beforehand what he had to expect.
On Friday, the 9th of August, 1715, the King hunted the stag after dinner
in his caleche, that he drove himself as usual. 'Twas for the last time.
Upon his return he appeared much knocked up. There was a grand concert
in the evening in Madame de Maintenon's apartment.
On Saturday, the 10th of August, he walked before dinner in his gardens
at Marly; he returned to Versailles about six o'clock in the evening, and
never again saw that strange work of his hands. In the evening he worked
with the Chancellor in Madame de Maintenon's rooms, and appeared to
everybody very ill. On Sunday, the eleventh of August, he held the
Council of State, walked, after dinner to Trianon, never more to go out
again during life.
On the morrow, the 12th of August, he took medicine as usual, and lived
as usual the following days. It was known that he complained of sciatica
in the leg and thigh. He had never before had sciatica, or rheumatism,
or a cold; and for a long time no touch of gout. In the evening there
was a little concert in Madame de Maintenon's rooms. This was the last
time in his life that he walked alone.
On Tuesday, the 13th of August, he made a violent effort, and gave a
farewell audience to a sham Persian ambassador, whom Pontchartrain had
imposed upon him; this was the last public action of his life. The
audience, which was long, fatigued the King. He resisted the desire for
sleep which came over him, held the Finance Council, dined, had himself
carried to Madame de Maintenon's, where a little concert was given, and
on leaving his cabinet stopped for the Duchesse de la Rochefoucauld, who
presented to him the Duchesse de la Rocheguyon, her daughter-in-law, who
was the last lady presented to him. She took her tabouret that evening
at the King's grand supper, which was the last he ever gave. On the
morrow he sent some precious stones to the Persian ambassador just
alluded to. It was on this day that the Princesse des Ursins set off for
Lyons, terrified at the state of the King as I have already related.
For more than a year the health of the King had diminished. His valets
noticed this first, and followed the progress of the malady, without one
of them daring to open his mouth. The bastards, or to speak exactly, M,
du Maine saw it; Madame de Maintenon also; but they did nothing. Fagon,
the chief physician, much fallen off in mind and body, was the only one
of the King's intimates who saw nothing. Marechal, also chief physician,
spoke to him (Fagon) several times, but was always harshly repulsed.
Pressed at last by his duty and his attachment, he made bold one morning
towards Whitsuntide to go to Madame de Maintenon. He told her what he
saw and how grossly Fagon was mistaken. He assured her that the King,
whose pulse he had often felt, had had for some time a slow internal
fever; that his constitution was so good that with remedies and attention
all would go well, but that if the malady were allowed to grow there
would no longer be any resource. Madame de Maintenon grew angry, and all
he obtained for his zeal was her anger. She said that only the personal
enemies of Fagon could find fault with his opinion upon the King's
health, concerning which the capacity, the application, the experience of
the chief physician could not be deceived. The best of it is that
Marechal, who had formerly operated upon Fagon for stone, had been
appointed chief surgeon by him, and they had always lived on the best of
terms. Marechal, annoyed as he related to me, could do nothing more, and
began from that time to lament the death of his master. Fagon was in
fact the first physician in Europe, but for a long time his health had
not permitted him to maintain his experience; and the high point of
authority to which his capacity and his favour had carried him, had at
last spoiled him. He would not hear reason, or submit to reply, and
continued to treat the King as he had treated him in early years; and
killed him by his obstinacy.
The gout of which the King had had long attacks, induced Fagon to swaddle
him, so to say, every evening in a heap of feather pillows, which made
him sweat all night to such an extent that it was necessary in the
morning to rub him down and change his linen before the grand chamberlain
and the first gentleman of the chamber could enter. For many years he
had drunk nothing but Burgundy wine, half mixed with water, and so old
that it was used up instead of the best champagne which he had used all
his life. He would pleasantly say sometimes that foreign lords who were
anxious to taste the wine he used, were often mightily deceived. At no
time had he ever drunk pure wine, or made use in any way of spirits, or
even tea, coffee, or chocolate. Upon rising, instead of a little bread
and wine and water, he had taken for a long time two glasses of sage and
veronica; often between his meals, and always on going to bed, glasses of
water with a little orange-flower water in them, and always iced. Even
on the days when he had medicine he drank this, and always also at his
meals, between which he never ate anything except some cinnamon lozenges
that he put into his pocket at his dessert, with a good many cracknels
for the bitches he kept in his cabinet.
As during the last year of his life the King became more and more
costive, Fagon made him eat at the commencement of his repasts many iced
fruits, that is to say, mulberries, melons, and figs rotten from
ripeness; and at his dessert many other fruits, finishing with a
surprising quantity of sweetmeats. All the year round he ate at supper a
prodigious quantity of salad. His soups, several of which he partook of
morning and evening, were full of gravy, and were of exceeding strength,
and everything that was served to him was full of spice, to double the
usual extent, and very strong also. This regimen and the sweetmeats
together Fagon did not like, and sometimes while seeing the King eat, he
would make most amusing grimaces, without daring however to say anything
except now and then to Livry and Benoist, who replied that it was their
business to feed the King, and his to doctor him. The King never ate any
kind of venison or water-fowl, but otherwise partook of everything, fete
days and fast days alike, except that during the last twenty years of his
life he observed some few days of Lent.
This summer he redoubled his regime of fruits and drinks. At last the
former clogged his stomach, taken after soup, weakened the digestive
organs and took away his appetite, which until then had never failed him
all his life, though however late dinner might be delayed he never was
hungry or wanted to eat. But after the first spoonfuls of soup, his
appetite came, as I have several times heard him say, and he ate so
prodigiously and so solidly morning and evening that no one could get
accustomed to see it. So much water and so much fruit unconnected by
anything spirituous, turned his blood into gangrene; while those forced
night sweats diminished its strength and impoverished it; and thus his
death was caused, as was seen by the opening of his body. The organs
were found in such good and healthy condition that there is reason to
believe he would have lived beyond his hundredth year. His stomach above
all astonished, and also his bowels by their volume and extent, double
that of the ordinary, whence it came that he was such a great yet uniform
eater. Remedies were not thought of until it was no longer time, because
Fagon would never believe him ill, or Madame de Maintenon either; though
at the same time she had taken good care to provide for her own retreat
in the case of his death. Amidst all this, the King felt his state
before they felt it, and said so sometimes to his valets: Fagon always
reassured him, but did nothing. The King was contented with what was
said to him without being persuaded: but his friendship for Fagon
restrained him, and Madame de Maintenon still more.
On Wednesday, the 14th of August, the King was carried to hear mass for
the last time; held the Council of State, ate a meat dinner, and had
music in Madame de Maintenon's rooms. He supped in his chamber, where
the Court saw him as at his dinner; was with his family a short time in
his cabinet, and went to bed a little after ten.
On Thursday, the Festival of the Assumption, he heard mass in his bed.
The night had been disturbed and bad. He dined in his bed, the courtiers
being present, rose at five and was carried to Madame de Maintenon's,
where music was played. He supped and went to bed as on the previous
evening. As long as he could sit up he did the same.
On Friday, the 16th of August, the night had been no better; much thirst
and drink. The King ordered no one to enter until ten. Mass and dinner
in his bed as before; then he was carried to Madame de Maintenon's; he
played with the ladies there, and afterwards there was a grand concert.
On Saturday, the 17th of August, the night as the preceding. He held the
Finance Council, he being in bed; saw people at his dinner, rose
immediately after; gave audience in his cabinet to the General of the
order of Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie; passed to Madame de Maintenon's,
where he worked with the Chancellor. At night, Fagon slept for the first
time in his chamber.
Sunday, the 18th of August, passed like the preceding days, Fagon
pretended there had been no fever. The King held a Council of State
before and after his dinner; worked afterwards upon the fortifications
with Pelletier; then passed to Madame de Maintenon's, where there was
music.
Monday, the 19th, and Tuesday, the 20th of August, passed much as the
previous days, excepting that on the latter the King supped in his
dressing-gown, seated in an armchair; and that after this evening he
never left his room or dressed himself again. That same day Madame de
Saint-Simon, whom I had pressed to return, came back from the waters of
Forges. The king, entering after supper into his cabinet, perceived her.
He ordered his chair to be stopped; spoke to her very kindly upon her
journey and her return; then had himself wheeled on by Bloin into the
other cabinet. She was the last Court lady to whom he spoke. I don't
count those who were always near him, and who came to him when he could
no longer leave his room. Madame de Saint-Simon said to me in the
evening that she should not have recognised the King if she had met him
anywhere else. Yet she had left Marly for Forges only on the 6th of
July.
On Wednesday, the 21st of August, four physicians saw the King, but took
care to do nothing except praise Fagon, who gave him cassia. For some
days it had been perceived that he ate meat and even bread with
difficulty, (though all his life he had eaten but little of the latter,
and for some time only the crumb, because he had no teeth). Soup in
larger quantity, hash very light, and eggs compensated him; but he ate
very sparingly.
On Thursday, the 22nd of August, the King was still worse. He saw four
other physicians, who, like the first four, did nothing but admire the
learned and admirable treatment of Fagon, who made him take towards
evening some Jesuit bark and water and intended to give him at night,
ass's milk. This same day, the King ordered the Duc de la Rochefoucauld
to bring him his clothes on the morrow, in order that he might choose
which he would wear upon leaving off the mourning he wore for a son of
Madame la Duchesse de Lorraine. He had not been able to quit his chamber
for some days; he could scarcely eat anything solid; his physician slept
in his chamber, and yet he reckoned upon being cured, upon dressing
himself again, and wished to choose his dress! In like manner there was
the same round of councils, of work, of amusements. So true it is, that
men do not wish to die, and dissimulate from themselves the approach of
death as long as possible. Meanwhile, let me say, that the state of the
King, which nobody was ignorant of, had already changed M. d'Orleans'
desert into a crowded city.
Friday, the 23rd of August, the night was as usual, the morning also.
The King worked with Pere Tellier, who tried, but in vain, to make him
fill up several benefices that were vacant; that is to say, Pere Tellier
wished to dispose of them himself, instead of leaving them to M. le Duc
d'Orleans. Let me state at once, that the feebler the King grew the more
Pere Tellier worried him; so as not to lose such a rich prey, or miss the
opportunity of securing fresh creatures for his service. But he could
not succeed. The King declared to him that he had enough to render
account of to God, without charging himself with this nomination, and
forbade him to speak again upon the subject.
On Saturday evening, the 24th of August, he supped in his dressing-gown,
in presence of the courtiers, for the last time. I noticed that he could
only swallow liquids, and that he was troubled if looked at. He could
not finish his supper, and begged the courtiers to pass on, that is to
say, go away. He went to bed, where his leg, on which were several black
marks, was examined. It had grown worse lately and had given him much
pain. He sent for Pere Tellier and made confession. Confusion spread
among the doctors at this. Milk, and Jesuit bark and water had been
tried and abandoned in turns; now, nobody knew what to try. The doctors
admitted that they believed he had had a slow fever ever since
Whitsuntide; and excused themselves for doing nothing on the ground that
he did not wish for remedies.
On Sunday, the 25th of August, no more mystery was made of the King's
danger. Nevertheless, he expressly commanded that nothing should be
changed in the usual order of this day (the fete of St. Louis), that is
to say, that the drums and the hautboys, assembled beneath his windows,
should play their accustomed music as soon as he awoke, and that the
twenty-four violins should play in the ante-chamber during his dinner.
He worked afterwards with the Chancellor, who wrote, under his dictation,
a codicil to his will, Madame de Maintenon being present. She and M. du
Maine, who thought incessantly of themselves, did not consider the King
had done enough for them by his will; they wished to remedy this by a
codicil, which equally showed how enormously they abused the King's
weakness in this extremity, and to what an excess ambition may carry us.
By this codicil the King submitted all the civil and military household
of the young King to the Duc du Maine, and under his orders to Marechal
de Villeroy, who, by this disposition became the sole masters of the
person and the dwelling place of the King, and of Paris, by the troops
placed in their hands; so that the Regent had not the slightest shadow of
authority and was at their mercy; certainly liable to be arrested or
worse, any time it should please M. du Maine.
Soon after the Chancellor left the King, Madame de Maintenon, who
remained, sent for the ladies; and the musicians came at seven o'clock in
the evening. But the King fell asleep during the conversation of the
ladies. He awoke; his brain confused, which frightened them and made
them call the doctors. They found his pulse so bad that they did not
hesitate to propose to him, his senses having returned, to take the
sacrament without delay. Pere Tellier was sent for; the musicians who
had just prepared their books and their instruments, were dismissed, the
ladies also; and in a quarter of an hour from that time, the King made
confession to Pere Tellier, the Cardinal de Rohan, meanwhile, bringing
the Holy Sacrament from the chapel, and sending for the Cure and holy
oils. Two of the King's chaplains, summoned by the Cardinal, came, and
seven or eight candlesticks were carried by valets. The Cardinal said a
word or two to the King upon this great and last action, during which the
King appeared very firm, but very penetrated with what he was doing. As
soon as he had received Our Saviour and the holy oils, everybody left the
chamber except Madame de Maintenon and the Chancellor. Immediately
afterwards, and this was rather strange, a kind of book or little tablet
was placed upon the bed, the codicil was presented to the King, and at
the bottom of it he wrote four or five lines, and restored the document
to the Chancellor.
After this, the King sent for M. le Duc d'Orleans, showed him much
esteem, friendship, and confidence; but what is terrible with Jesus
Christ still upon his lips--the Sacrament he had just received--he
assured him, he would find nothing in his will with which he would not
feel pleased. Then he recommended to him the state and the person of the
future King.
On Monday, the 26th of August, the King called to him the Cardinals de
Rohan and de Bissy, protested that he died in the faith, and in
submission to the Church, then added, looking at them, that he was sorry
to leave the affairs of the Church as they were; that they knew he had
done nothing except what they wished; that it was therefore for them to
answer before God for what he had done; that his own conscience was
clear, and that he was as an ignorant man who had abandoned himself
entirely to them. What a frightful thunderbolt was this to the two
Cardinals; for this was an allusion to the terrible constitution they had
assisted Pere Tellier in forcing upon him. But their calm was superior
to all trial. They praised him and said he had done well, and that he
might be at ease as to the result.
This same Monday, 26th of August, after the two Cardinals had left the
room, the King dined in his bed in the presence of those who were
privileged to enter. As the things were being cleared away, he made them
approach and addressed to them these words, which were stored up in their
memory:--"Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for the bad example I have given
you. I have much to thank you for the manner in which you have served
me, and for the attachment and fidelity you have always shown for me. I
am very sorry I have not done for you all I should have wished to do; bad
times have been the cause. I ask for my grandson the same application
and the same fidelity you have had for me. He is a child who may
experience many reverses. Let your example be one for all my other
subjects. Follow the orders my nephew will give you; he is to govern the
realm; I hope he will govern it well; I hope also that you will all
contribute to keep up union, and that if any one falls away you will aid
in bringing him back. I feel that I am moved, and that I move you also.
I ask your pardon. Adieu, gentlemen, I hope you will sometimes remember
me."
A short time after he called the Marechal de Villeroy to him, and said he
had made him governor of the Dauphin. He then called to him M. le Duc
and M. le Prince de Conti, and recommended to them the advantage of union
among princes. Then, hearing women in the cabinet, questioned who were
there, and immediately sent word they might enter. Madame la Duchesse de
Berry, Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, and the Princesses of the blood
forthwith appeared, crying. The King told them they must not cry thus,
and said a few friendly words to them, and dismissed them. They retired
by the cabinet, weeping and crying very loudly, which caused people to
believe outside that the King was dead; and, indeed, the rumour spread to
Paris, and even to the provinces.
Some time after the King requested the Duchesse de Ventadour to bring the
little Dauphin to him. He made the child approach, and then said to him,
before Madame de Maintenon and the few privileged people present, "My
child, you are going to be a great king; do not imitate me in the taste
I have had for building, or in that I have had for war; try, on the
contrary, to be at peace with your neighbours. Render to God what you
owe Him; recognise the obligations you are under to Him; make Him
honoured by your subjects. Always follow good counsels; try to comfort
your people, which I unhappily have not done. Never forget the
obligation you owe to Madame de Ventadour. Madame (addressing her), let
me embrace him (and while embracing him), my dear child, I give you my
benediction with my whole heart."
As the little Prince was about to be taken off the bed, the King
redemanded him, embraced him again, and raising hands and eyes to Heaven,
blessed him once more. This spectacle was extremely touching.
On Tuesday, the 27th of August, the King said to Madame de Maintenon,
that he had always heard, it was hard to resolve to die; but that as for
him, seeing himself upon the point of death, he did not find this
resolution so difficult to form. She replied that it was very hard when
we had attachments to creatures, hatred in our hearts, or restitutions to
make. "Ah," rejoined the King, "as for restitutions, to nobody in
particular do I owe any; but as for those I owe to the realm, I hope in
the mercy of God."
The night which followed was very agitated. The King was seen at all
moments joining his hands, striking his breast, and was heard repeating
the prayers he ordinarily employed.
On Wednesday morning, the 28th of August, he paid a compliment to Madame
de Maintenon, which pleased her but little, and to which she replied not
one word. He said, that what consoled him in quitting her was that,
considering the age she had reached, they must soon meet again!
About seven o'clock in the morning, he saw in the mirror two of his
valets at the foot of the bed weeping, and said to them, "Why do you
weep? Is it because you thought me immortal? As for me, I have not
thought myself so, and you ought, considering my age, to have been
prepared to lose me."
A very clownish Provencal rustic heard of the extremity of the King,
while on his way from Marseilles to Paris, and came this morning to
Versailles with a remedy, which he said would cure the gangrene. The
King was so ill, and the doctors so at their wits' ends, that they
consented to receive him. Fagon tried to say something, but this rustic,
who was named Le Brun, abused him very coarsely, and Fagon, accustomed to
abuse others, was confounded. Ten drops of Le Brun's mixture in Alicante
wine were therefore given to the King about eleven o'clock in the
morning. Some time after he became stronger, but the pulse falling again
and becoming bad, another dose was given to him about four o'clock, to
recall him to life, they told him. He replied, taking the mixture, "To
life or to death as it shall please God."
Le Brun's remedy was continued. Some one proposed that the King should
take some broth. The King replied that it was not broth he wanted, but a
confessor, and sent for him. One day, recovering from loss of
consciousness, he asked Pere Tellier to give him absolution for all his
sins. Pere Tellier asked him if he suffered much. "No," replied the
King, "that's what troubles me: I should like to suffer more for the
expiation of my sins."
On Thursday, the 29th of August, he grew a little better; he even ate two
little biscuits steeped in wine, with a certain appetite. The news
immediately spread abroad that the King was recovering. I went that day
to the apartments of M. le Duc d'Orleans, where, during the previous
eight days, there had been such a crowd that, speaking exactly, a pin
would not have fallen to the ground. Not a soul was there! As soon as
the Duke saw me he burst out laughing, and said, I was the first person
who had been to see him all the day! And until the evening he was
entirely deserted. Such is the world!
In the evening it was known that the King had only recovered for the
moment. In giving orders during the day, he called the young Dauphin
"the young King." He saw a movement amongst those around him. "Why
not?" said he, "that does not trouble me." Towards eight o'clock he
took the elixir of the rustic. His brain appeared confused; he himself
said he felt very ill. Towards eleven o'clock his leg was examined. The
gangrene was found to be in the foot and the knee; the thigh much
inflamed. He swooned during this examination. He had perceived with
much pain that Madame de Maintenon was no longer near him. She had in
fact gone off on the previous day with very dry eyes to Saint-Cyr, not
intending to return. He asked for her several times during the day. Her
departure could not be hidden. He sent for her to Saint-Cyr, and she
came back in the evening.
Friday, August the 30th, was a bad day preceded by a bad night. The King
continually lost his reason. About five o'clock in the evening Madame de
Maintenon left him, gave away her furniture to the domestics, and went to
Saint-Cyr never to leave it.
On Saturday, the 31st of August, everything went from bad to worse. The
gangrene had reached the knee and all the thigh. Towards eleven o'clock
at night the King was found to be so ill that the prayers for the dying
were said. This restored him to himself. He repeated the prayers in a
voice so strong that it rose above all the other voices. At the end he
recognised Cardinal de Rohan, and said to him, "These are the last
favours of the Church." This was the last man to whom he spoke. He
repeated several times, "Nunc et in hora mortis", then said, "Oh, my God,
come to my aid: hasten to succour me."
These were his last words. All the night he was without consciousness
and in a long agony, which finished on Sunday, the 1st September, 1715,
at a quarter past eight in the morning, three days before he had
accomplished his seventy-seventh year, and in the seventy-second of his
reign. He had survived all his sons and grandsons, except the King of
Spain. Europe never saw so long a reign or France a King so old.
CHAPTER LXXIII
I shall pass over the stormy period of Louis XIV.'s minority. At twenty-
three years of age he entered the great world as King, under the most
favourable auspices. His ministers were the most skilful in all Europe;
his generals the best; his Court was filled with illustrious and clever
men, formed during the troubles which had followed the death of Louis
XIII.
Louis XIV. was made for a brilliant Court. In the midst of other men,
his figure, his courage, his grace, his beauty, his grand mien, even the
tone of his voice and the majestic and natural charm of all his person,
distinguished him till his death as the King Bee, and showed that if he
had only been born a simple private gentlemen, he would equally have
excelled in fetes, pleasures, and gallantry, and would have had the
greatest success in love. The intrigues and adventures which early in
life he had been engaged in--when the Comtesse de Soissons lodged at the
Tuileries, as superintendent of the Queen's household, and was the centre
figure of the Court group--had exercised an unfortunate influence upon
him: he received those impressions with which he could never after
successfully struggle. From this time, intellect, education, nobility of
sentiment, and high principle, in others, became objects of suspicion to
him, and soon of hatred. The more he advanced in years the more this
sentiment was confirmed in him. He wished to reign by himself. His
jealousy on this point unceasingly became weakness. He reigned, indeed,
in little things; the great he could never reach: even in the former,
too, he was often governed. The superior ability of his early ministers
and his early generals soon wearied him. He liked nobody to be in any
way superior to him. Thus he chose his ministers, not for their
knowledge, but for their ignorance; not for their capacity, but for their
want of it. He liked to form them, as he said; liked to teach them even
the most trifling things. It was the same with his generals. He took
credit to himself for instructing them; wished it to be thought that from
his cabinet he commanded and directed all his armies. Naturally fond of
trifles, he unceasingly occupied himself with the most petty details of
his troops, his household, his mansions; would even instruct his cooks,
who received, like novices, lessons they had known by heart for years.
This vanity, this unmeasured and unreasonable love of admiration, was his
ruin. His ministers, his generals, his mistresses, his courtiers, soon
perceived his weakness. They praised him with emulation and spoiled him.
Praises, or to say truth, flattery, pleased him to such an extent, that
the coarsest was well received, the vilest even better relished. It was
the sole means by which you could approach him. Those whom he liked owed
his affection for them to their untiring flatteries. This is what gave
his ministers so much authority, and the opportunities they had for
adulating him, of attributing everything to him, and of pretending to
learn everything from him. Suppleness, meanness, an admiring, dependent,
cringing manner--above all, an air of nothingness--were the sole means of
pleasing him.
This poison spread. It spread, too, to an incredible extent, in a prince
who, although of intellect beneath mediocrity, was not utterly without
sense, and who had had some experience. Without voice or musical
knowledge, he used to sing, in private, the passages of the opera
prologues that were fullest of his praises.
He was drowned in vanity; and so deeply, that at his public suppers--all
the Court present, musicians also--he would hum these self-same praises
between his teeth, when the music they were set to was played!
And yet, it must be admitted, he might have done better. Though his
intellect, as I have said, was beneath mediocrity, it was capable of
being formed. He loved glory, was fond of order and regularity; was by
disposition prudent, moderate, discreet, master of his movements and his
tongue. Will it be believed? He was also by disposition good and just!
God had sufficiently gifted him to enable him to be a good King; perhaps
even a tolerably great King! All the evil came to him from elsewhere.
His early education was so neglected that nobody dared approach his
apartment. He has often been heard to speak of those times with
bitterness, and even to relate that, one evening he was found in the
basin of the Palais Royal garden fountain, into which he had fallen! He
was scarcely taught how to read or write, and remained so ignorant, that
the most familiar historical and other facts were utterly unknown to him!
He fell, accordingly, and sometimes even in public, into the grossest
absurdities.
It was his vanity, his desire for glory, that led him, soon after the
death of the King of Spain, to make that event the pretext for war; in
spite of the renunciations so recently made, so carefully stipulated, in
the marriage contract. He marched into Flanders; his conquests there
were rapid; the passage of the Rhine was admirable; the triple alliance
of England, Sweden, and Holland only animated him. In the midst of
winter he took Franche-Comte, by restoring which at the peace of Aix-la-
Chapelle, he preserved his conquests in Flanders. All was flourishing
then in the state. Riches everywhere. Colbert had placed the finances,
the navy, commerce, manufactures, letters even, upon the highest point;
and this age, like that of Augustus, produced in abundance illustrious
men of all kinds,-even those illustrious only in pleasures.
Le Tellier and Louvois, his son, who had the war department, trembled at
the success and at the credit of Colbert, and had no difficulty in
putting into the head of the King a new war, the success of which caused
such fear to all Europe that France never recovered from it, and after
having been upon the point of succumbing to this war, for a long time
felt the weight and misfortune of it. Such was the real cause of that
famous Dutch war, to which the King allowed himself to be pushed, and
which his love for Madame de Montespan rendered so unfortunate for his
glory and for his kingdom. Everything being conquered, everything taken,
and Amsterdam ready to give up her keys, the King yields to his
impatience, quits the army, flies to Versailles, and destroys in an
instant all the success of his arms! He repaired this disgrace by a
second conquest, in person, of Franche-Comte, which this time was
preserved by France.
In 1676, the King having returned into Flanders, took Conde; whilst
Monsieur took Bouchain. The armies of the King and of the Prince of
Orange approached each other so suddenly and so closely, that they found
themselves front to front near Heurtebise. According even to the
admission of the enemy, our forces were so superior to those of the
Prince of Orange, that we must have gained the victory if we had
attacked. But the King, after listening to the opinions of his generals,
some for, and some against giving battle, decided for the latter, turned
tail, and the engagement was talked of no more. The army was much
discontented. Everybody wished for battle. The fault therefore of the
King made much impression upon the troops, and excited cruel railleries
against us at home and in the foreign courts. The King stopped but
little longer afterwards in the army, although we were only in the month
of May. He returned to his mistress.
The following year he returned to Flanders, and took Cambrai; and
Monsieur besieged Saint-Omer. Monsieur got the start of the Prince of
Orange, who was about to assist the place, gave him battle near Corsel,
obtained a complete victory, immediately took Saint-Omer, and then joined
the King. This contrast so affected the monarch that never afterwards
did he give Monsieur command of an army! External appearances were
perfectly kept up, but from that moment the resolution was taken and
always well sustained.
The year afterwards the King led in person the siege of Ghent. The peace
of Nimeguen ended this year the war with Holland, Spain, &c.; and on the
commencement of the following year, that with the Emperor and the Empire.
America, Africa, the Archipelago, Sicily, acutely felt the power of
France, and in 1684 Luxembourg was the price of the delay of the
Spaniards in fulfilling all the conditions of the peace. Genoa,
bombarded, was forced to come in the persons of its doge and four of its
senators, to sue for peace at the commencement of the following year.
From this date, until 1688, the time passed in the cabinet less in fetes
than in devotion and constraint. Here finishes the apogeum of this
reign, and the fulness of glory and prosperity. The great captains, the
great ministers, were no more, but their pupils remained. The second
epoch of the reign was very different from the first; but the third was
even more sadly dissimilar.
I have related the adventure which led to the wars of this period; how an
ill-made window-frame was noticed at the Trianon, then building; how
Louvois was blamed for it; his alarm lest his disgrace should follow; his
determination to engage the King in a war which should turn him from his
building fancies. He carried out his resolve: with what result I have
already shown. France was ruined at home; and abroad, despite the
success of her arms, gained nothing. On the contrary, the withdrawal of
the King from Gembloux, when he might have utterly defeated the Prince of
Orange, did us infinite harm, as I have shown in its place. The peace
which followed this war was disgraceful. The King was obliged to
acknowledge the Prince of Orange as King of England, after having so long
shown hatred and contempt for him. Our precipitation, too, cost us
Luxembourg; and the ignorance of our plenipotentiaries gave our enemies
great advantages in forming their frontier. Such was the peace of
Ryswick, concluded in September, 1697.
This peace seemed as though it would allow France some breathing time.
The King was sixty years of age, and had, in his own opinion, acquired
all sorts of glory. But scarcely were we at peace, without having had
time to taste it, than the pride of the King made him wish to astonish
all Europe by the display of a power that it believed prostrated. And
truly he did astonish Europe. But at what a cost! The famous camp of
Compiegne--for 'tis to that I allude--was one of the most magnificent
spectacles ever seen; but its immense and misplaced prodigality was soon
regretted. Twenty years afterwards, some of the regiments who took part
in it were still in difficulties from this cause.
Shortly afterwards,--by one of the most surprising and unheard-of pieces
of good fortune, the crown of Spain fell into the hands of the Duc
d'Anjou, grandson of the King. It seemed as though golden days had come
back again to France. Only for a little time, however, did it seem so.
Nearly all Europe, as it has been seen, banded against France, to dispute
the Spanish crown. The King had lost all his good ministers, all his
able generals, and had taken good pains they should leave no successors.
When war came, then, we were utterly unable to prosecute it with success
or honour. We were driven out of Germany, of Italy, of the Low
Countries. We could not sustain the war, or resolve to make peace.
Every day led us nearer and nearer the brink of the precipice, the
terrible depths of which were for ever staring us in the face. A
misunderstanding amongst our enemies, whereby England became detached
from the grand alliance; the undue contempt of Prince Eugene for our
generals, out of which arose the battle of Denain; saved us from the
gulf. Peace came, and a peace, too, infinitely better than that we
should have ardently embraced if our enemies had agreed amongst
themselves beforehand. Nevertheless, this peace cost dear to France, and
cost Spain half its territory--Spain, of which the King had said not even
a windmill would he yield! But this was another piece of folly he soon
repented of.
Thus, we see this monarch, grand, rich, conquering, the arbiter of
Europe; feared and admired as long as the ministers and captains existed
who really deserved the name. When they were no more, the machine kept
moving some time by impulsion, and from their influence. But soon
afterwards we saw beneath the surface; faults and errors were multiplied,
and decay came on with giant strides; without, however, opening the eyes
of that despotic master, so anxious to do everything and direct
everything himself, and who seemed to indemnify himself for disdain
abroad by increasing fear and trembling at home.
So much for the reign of this vain-glorious monarch.
Let me touch now upon some other incidents in his career, and upon some
points in his character.
He early showed a disinclination for Paris. The troubles that had taken
place there during his minority made him regard the place as dangerous;
he wished, too, to render himself venerable by hiding himself from the
eyes of the multitude; all these considerations fixed him at Saint-
Germain soon after the death of the Queen, his mother. It was to that
place he began to attract the world by fetes and gallantries, and by
making it felt that he wished to be often seen.
His love for Madame de la Valliere, which was at first kept secret,
occasioned frequent excursions to Versailles, then a little card castle,
which had been built by Louis XIII.--annoyed, and his suite still more
so, at being frequently obliged to sleep in a wretched inn there, after
he had been out hunting in the forest of Saint Leger. That monarch
rarely slept at Versailles more than one night, and then from necessity;
the King, his son, slept there, so that he might be more in private with
his mistress, pleasures unknown to the hero and just man, worthy son of
Saint-Louis, who built the little chateau.
These excursions of Louis XIV. by degrees gave birth to those immense
buildings he erected at Versailles; and their convenience for a numerous
court, so different from the apartments at Saint-Germain, led him to take
up his abode there entirely shortly after the death of the Queen. He
built an infinite number of apartments, which were asked for by those who
wished to pay their court to him; whereas at Saint-Germain nearly
everybody was obliged to lodge in the town, and the few who found
accommodation at the chateau were strangely inconvenienced.
The frequent fetes, the private promenades at Versailles, the journeys,
were means on which the King seized in order to distinguish or mortify
the courtiers, and thus render them more assiduous in pleasing him.
He felt that of real favours he had not enough to bestow; in order to
keep up the spirit of devotion, he therefore unceasingly invented all
sorts of ideal ones, little preferences and petty distinctions, which
answered his purpose as well.
He was exceedingly jealous of the attention paid him. Not only did he
notice the presence of the most distinguished courtiers, but those of
inferior degree also. He looked to the right and to the left, not only
upon rising but upon going to bed, at his meals, in passing through his
apartments, or his gardens of Versailles, where alone the courtiers were
allowed to follow him; he saw and noticed everybody; not one escaped him,
not even those who hoped to remain unnoticed. He marked well all
absentees from the Court, found out the reason of their absence, and
never lost an opportunity of acting towards them as the occasion might
seem to justify. With some of the courtiers (the most distinguished), it
was a demerit not to make the Court their ordinary abode; with others
'twas a fault to come but rarely; for those who never or scarcely ever
came it was certain disgrace. When their names were in any way
mentioned, "I do not know them," the King would reply haughtily. Those
who presented themselves but seldom were thus Characterise: "They are
people I never see;" these decrees were irrevocable. He could not bear
people who liked Paris.
Louis XIV. took great pains to be well informed of all that passed
everywhere; in the public places, in the private houses, in society and
familiar intercourse. His spies and tell-tales were infinite. He had
them of all species; many who were ignorant that their information
reached him; others who knew it; others who wrote to him direct, sending
their letters through channels he indicated; and all these letters were
seen by him alone, and always before everything else; others who
sometimes spoke to him secretly in his cabinet, entering by the back
stairs. These unknown means ruined an infinite number of people of all
classes, who never could discover the cause; often ruined them very
unjustly; for the King, once prejudiced, never altered his opinion, or so
rarely, that nothing was more rare. He had, too, another fault, very
dangerous for others and often for himself, since it deprived him of good
subjects. He had an excellent memory; in this way, that if he saw a man
who, twenty years before, perhaps, had in some manner offended him, he
did not forget the man, though he might forget the offence. This was
enough, however, to exclude the person from all favour. The
representations of a minister, of a general, of his confessor even,
could not move the King. He would not yield.
The most cruel means by which the King was informed of what was passing--
for many years before anybody knew it--was that of opening letters. The
promptitude and dexterity with which they were opened passes
understanding. He saw extracts from all the letters in which there were
passages that the chiefs of the post-office, and then the minister who
governed it, thought ought to go before him; entire letters, too, were
sent to him, when their contents seemed to justify the sending. Thus the
chiefs of the post, nay, the principal clerks were in a position to
suppose what they pleased and against whom they pleased. A word of
contempt against the King or the government, a joke, a detached phrase,
was enough. It is incredible how many people, justly or unjustly, were
more or less ruined, always without resource, without trial, and without
knowing why. The secret was impenetrable; for nothing ever cost the King
less than profound silence and dissimulation.
This last talent he pushed almost to falsehood, but never to deceit,
pluming himself upon keeping his word,--therefore he scarcely ever gave
it. The secrets of others he kept as religiously as his own. He was
even flattered by certain confessions and certain confidences; and there
was no mistress, minister, or favourite, who could have wormed them out,
even though the secret regarded themselves.
We know, amongst many others, the famous story of a woman of quality,
who, after having been separated a year from her husband, found herself
in the family way just as he was on the point of returning from the army,
and who, not knowing what else to do, in the most urgent manner begged a
private interview of the King. She obtained it, and confined to him her
position, as to the worthiest man in his realm, as she said. The King
counselled her to profit by her distress, and live more wisely for the
future, and immediately promised to retain her husband on the frontier as
long as was necessary, and to forbid his return under any pretext, and in
fact he gave orders the same day to Louvois, and prohibited the husband
not only all leave of absence, but forbade him to quit for a single day
the post he was to command all the winter. The officer, who was
distinguished, and who had neither wished nor asked to be employed all
the winter upon the frontier, and Louvois, who had in no way thought of
it, were equally surprised and vexed. They were obliged, however, to
obey to the letter, and without asking why; and the King never mentioned
the circumstance until many years afterwards, when he was quite sure
nobody could find out either husband or wife, as in fact they never
could, or even obtain the most vague or the most uncertain suspicion.
CHAPTER LXXIV
Never did man give with better grace than Louis XIV., or augmented so
much, in this way, the price of his benefits. Never did man sell to
better profit his words, even his smiles,--nay, his looks. Never did
disobliging words escape him; and if he had to blame, to reprimand, or
correct, which was very rare, it was nearly always with goodness, never,
except on one occasion (the admonition of Courtenvaux, related in its
place), with anger or severity. Never was man so naturally polite, or of
a politeness so measured, so graduated, so adapted to person, time, and
place. Towards women his politeness was without parallel. Never did he
pass the humblest petticoat without raising his hat; even to chamber-
maids, that he knew to be such, as often happened at Marly. For ladies
he took his hat off completely, but to a greater or less extent; for
titled people, half off, holding it in his hand or against his ear some
instants, more or less marked. For the nobility he contented himself by
putting his hand to his hat. He took it off for the Princes of the
blood, as for the ladies. If he accosted ladies he did not cover himself
until he had quitted them. All this was out of doors, for in the house
he was never covered. His reverences, more or less marked, but always
light, were incomparable for their grace and manner; even his mode of
half raising himself at supper for each lady who arrived at table.
Though at last this fatigued him, yet he never ceased it; the ladies who
were to sit down, however, took care not to enter after supper had
commenced.
If he was made to wait for anything while dressing, it was always with
patience. He was exact to the hours that he gave for all his day, with a
precision clear and brief in his orders. If in the bad weather of
winter, when he could not go out, he went to Madame de Maintenon's a
quarter of an hour earlier than he had arranged (which seldom happened),
and the captain of the guards was not on duty, he did not fail afterwards
to say that it was his own fault for anticipating the hour, not that of
the captain of the guards for being absent. Thus, with this regularity
which he never deviated from, he was served with the utmost exactitude.
He treated his valets well, above all those of the household. It was
amongst them that he felt most at ease, and that he unbosomed himself the
most familiarly, especially to the chiefs. Their friendship and their
aversion have often had grand results. They were unceasingly in a
position to render good and bad offices: thus they recalled those
powerful enfranchised slaves of the Roman emperors, to whom the senate
and the great people paid court and basely truckled. These valets during
Louis XIV.'s reign were not less courted. The ministers, even the most
powerful, openly studied their caprices; and the Princes of the blood,
nay, the bastards,--not to mention people of lower grade, did the same.
The majority were accordingly insolent enough; and if you could not avoid
their insolence, you were forced to put up with it.
The King loved air and exercise very much, as long as he could make use
of them. He had excelled in dancing, and at tennis and mall. On
horseback he was admirable, even at a late age. He liked to see
everything done with grace and address. To acquit yourself well or ill
before him was a merit or a fault. He said that with things not
necessary it was best not to meddle, unless they were done well. He was
very fond of shooting, and there was not a better or more graceful shot
than he. He had always, in his cabinet seven or eight pointer bitches,
and was fond of feeding them, to make himself known to them. He was very
fond, too, of stag hunting; but in a caleche, since he broke his arm,
while hunting at Fontainebleau, immediately after the death of the Queen.
He rode alone in a species of "box," drawn by four little horses--with
five or six relays, and drove himself with an address and accuracy
unknown to the best coachmen. His postilions were children from ten to
fifteen years of age, and he directed them.
He liked splendour, magnificence, and profusion in everything: you
pleased him if you shone through the brilliancy of your houses, your
clothes, your table, your equipages. Thus a taste for extravagance and
luxury was disseminated through all classes of society; causing infinite
harm, and leading to general confusion of rank and to ruin.
As for the King himself, nobody ever approached his magnificence. His
buildings, who could number them? At the same time, who was there who
did not deplore the pride, the caprice, the bad taste seen in them? He
built nothing useful or ornamental in Paris, except the Pont Royal, and
that simply by necessity; so that despite its incomparable extent, Paris
is inferior to many cities of Europe. Saint-Germain, a lovely spot, with
a marvellous view, rich forest, terraces, gardens, and water he abandoned
for Versailles; the dullest and most ungrateful of all places, without
prospect, without wood, without water, without soil; for the ground is
all shifting sand or swamp, the air accordingly bad.
But he liked to subjugate nature by art and treasure.
He built at Versailles, on, on, without any general design, the beautiful
and the ugly, the vast and the mean, all jumbled together. His own
apartments and those of the Queen, are inconvenient to the last degree,
dull, close, stinking. The gardens astonish by their magnificence, but
cause regret by their bad taste. You are introduced to the freshness of
the shade only by a vast torrid zone, at the end of which there is
nothing for you but to mount or descend; and with the hill, which is very
short, terminate the gardens. The violence everywhere done to nature
repels and wearies us despite ourselves. The abundance of water, forced
up and gathered together from all parts, is rendered green, thick, muddy;
it disseminates humidity, unhealthy and evident; and an odour still more
so. I might never finish upon the monstrous defects of a palace so
immense and so immensely dear, with its accompaniments, which are still
more so.
But the supply of water for the fountains was all defective at all
moments, in spite of those seas of reservoirs which had cost so many
millions to establish and to form upon the shifting sand and marsh. Who
could have believed it? This defect became the ruin of the infantry
which was turned out to do the work. Madame de Maintenon reigned. M. de
Louvois was well with her, then. We were at peace. He conceived the
idea of turning the river Eure between Chartres and Maintenon, and of
making it come to Versailles. Who can say what gold and men this
obstinate attempt cost during several years, until it was prohibited by
the heaviest penalties, in the camp established there, and for a long
time kept up; not to speak of the sick,--above all, of the dead,--that
the hard labour and still more the much disturbed earth, caused? How
many men were years in recovering from the effects of the contagion! How
many never regained their health at all! And not only the sub-officers,
but the colonels, the brigadiers and general officers, were compelled to
be upon the spot, and were not at liberty to absent themselves a quarter
of an hour from the works. The war at last interrupted them in 1688, and
they have never since been undertaken; only unfinished portions of them
exist which will immortalise this cruel folly.
At last, the King, tired of the cost and bustle, persuaded himself that
he should like something little and solitary. He searched all around
Versailles for some place to satisfy this new taste. He examined several
neighbourhoods, he traversed the hills near Saint-Germain, and the vast
plain which is at the bottom, where the Seine winds and bathes the feet
of so many towns, and so many treasures in quitting Paris. He was
pressed to fix himself at Lucienne, where Cavoye afterwards had a house,
the view from which is enchanting; but he replied that, that fine
situation would ruin him, and that as he wished to go to no expense, so
he also wished a situation which would not urge him into any. He found
behind Lucienne a deep narrow valley, completely shut in, inaccessible
from its swamps, and with a wretched village called Marly upon the slope
of one of its hills. This closeness, without drain or the means of
having any, was the sole merit of the valley. The King was overjoyed at
his discovery. It was a great work, that of draining this sewer of all
the environs, which threw there their garbage, and of bringing soil
thither! The hermitage was made. At first, it was only for sleeping in
three nights, from Wednesday to Saturday, two or three times a-year, with
a dozen at the outside of courtiers, to fill the most indispensable
posts.
By degrees, the hermitage was augmented, the hills were pared and cut
down, to give at least the semblance of a prospect; in fine, what with
buildings, gardens, waters, aqueducts, the curious and well known
machine, statues, precious furniture, the park, the ornamental enclosed
forest,--Marly has become what it is to-day, though it has been stripped
since the death of the King. Great trees were unceasingly brought from
Compiegne or farther, three-fourths of which died and were immediately
after replaced; vast spaces covered with thick wood, or obscure alleys,
were suddenly changed into immense pieces of water, on which people were
rowed in gondolas; then they were changed again into forest (I speak of
what I have seen in six weeks); basins were changed a hundred times;
cascades the same; carp ponds adorned with the most exquisite painting,
scarcely finished, were changed and differently arranged by the same
hands; and this an infinite number of times; then there was that
prodigious machine just alluded to, with its immense aqueducts, the
conduit, its monstrous resources solely devoted to Marly, and no longer
to Versailles; so that I am under the mark in saying that Versailles,
even, did not cost so much as Marly.
Such was the fate of a place the abode of serpents, and of carrion, of
toads and frogs, solely chosen to avoid expense. Such was the bad taste
of the King in all things, and his proud haughty pleasure in forcing
nature; which neither the most mighty war, nor devotion could subdue!
CHAPTER LXXV
Let me now speak of the amours of the King in which were even more fatal
to the state than his building mania. Their scandal filled all Europe;
stupefied France, shook the state, and without doubt drew upon the King
those maledictions under the weight of which he was pushed so near the
very edge of the precipice, and had the misfortune of seeing his
legitimate posterity within an ace of extinction in France. These are
evils which became veritable catastrophes and which will be long felt.
Louis XIV., in his youth more made for love than any of his subjects--
being tired of gathering passing sweets, fixed himself at last upon La
Valliere. The progress and the result of his love are well known.
Madame de Montespan was she whose rare beauty touched him next, even
during the reign of Madame de La Valliere. She soon perceived it, and
vainly pressed her husband to carry her away into Guienne. With foolish
confidence he refused to listen to her. She spoke to him more in
earnest. In vain. At last the King was listened to, and carried her off
from her husband, with that frightful hubbub which resounded with horror
among all nations, and which gave to the world the new spectacle of two
mistresses at once! The King took them to the frontiers, to the camps,
to the armies, both of them in the Queen's coach. The people ran from
all parts to look at the three queens; and asked one another in their
simplicity if they had seen them. In the end, Madame de Montespan
triumphed, and disposed of the master and his Court with an eclat that
knew no veil; and in order that nothing should be wanting to complete the
licence of this life, M. de Montespan was sent to the Bastille; then
banished to Guienne, and his wife was appointed superintendent of the
Queen's household.
The accouchements of Madame de Montespan were public. Her circle became
the centre of the Court, of the amusements, of the hopes and of the fears
of ministers and the generals, and the humiliation of all France. It was
also the centre of wit, and of a kind so peculiar, so delicate, and so
subtle, but always so natural and so agreeable, that it made itself
distinguished by its special character.
Madame de Montespan was cross, capricious, ill-tempered, and of a
haughtiness in everything which, readied to the clouds, and from the
effects of which nobody, not even the King, was exempt. The courtiers
avoided passing under her windows, above all when the King was with her.
They used to say it was equivalent to being put to the sword, and this
phrase became proverbial at the Court. It is true that she spared
nobody, often without other design than to divert the King; and as she
had infinite wit and sharp pleasantry, nothing was more dangerous than
the ridicule she, better than anybody, could cast on all. With that she
loved her family and her relatives, and did not fail to serve people for
whom she conceived friendship. The Queen endured with difficulty her
haughtiness--very different from the respect and measure with which she
had been treated by the Duchesse de la Valliere, whom she always loved;
whereas of Madame de Montespan she would say, "That strumpet will cause
my death." The retirement, the austere penitence, and the pious end of
Madame de Montespan have been already described.
During her reign she did not fail to have causes for jealousy. There was
Mademoiselle de Fontange, who pleased the King sufficiently to become his
mistress. But she had no intellect, and without that it was impossible
to maintain supremacy over the King. Her early death quickly put an end
to this amour. Then there was Madame de Soubise, who, by the infamous
connivance of her husband, prostituted herself to the King, and thus
secured all sorts of advantages for that husband, for herself, and for
her children. The love of the King for her continued until her death,
although for many years before that he had ceased to see her in private.
Then there was the beautiful Ludre, demoiselle of Lorraine, and maid of
honour to Madame, who was openly loved for a moment. But this amour was
a flash of lightning, and Madame de Montespan remained triumphant.
Let us now pass to another kind of amour which astonished all the world
as much as the other had scandalised it, and which the King carried with
him to the tomb. Who does not already recognise the celebrated Francoise
d'Aubigne, Marquise de Maintenon, whose permanent reign did not last less
than thirty-two years?
Born in the American islands, where her father, perhaps a gentleman, had
gone to seek his bread, and where he was stifled by obscurity, she
returned alone and at haphazard into France. She landed at La Rochelle,
and was received in pity by Madame de Neuillant, mother of the Marechale
Duchesse de Navailles, and was reduced by that avaricious old woman to
keep the keys of her granary, and to see the hay measured out to her
horses, as I have already related elsewhere. She came afterwards to
Paris, young, clever, witty, and beautiful, without friends and without
money; and by lucky chance made acquaintance with the famous Scarron. He
found her amiable; his friends perhaps still more so. Marriage with this
joyous and learned cripple appeared to her the greatest and most
unlooked-for good fortune; and folks who were, perhaps, more in want of a
wife than he, persuaded him to marry her, and thus raise this charming
unfortunate from her misery.
The marriage being brought about, the new spouse pleased the company
which went to Scarron's house. It was the fashion to go there: people of
the Court and of the city, the best and most distinguished went. Scarron
was not in a state to leave his house, but the charm of his genius, of
his knowledge, of his imagination, of that incomparable and ever fresh
gaiety which he showed in the midst of his afflictions, that rare
fecundity, and that humour, tempered by so much good taste that is still
admired in his writings, drew everybody there.
Madame Scarron made at home all sorts of acquaintances, which, however,
at the death of her husband, did not keep her from being reduced to the
charity of the parish of Saint-Eustace. She took a chamber for herself
and for a servant, where she lived in a very pinched manner. Her
personal charms by degrees improved her condition. Villars, father of
the Marechal; Beuvron, father of D'Harcourt; the three Villarceaux, and
many others kept her.
This set her afloat again, and, step by step, introduced her to the Hotel
d'Albret, and thence to the Hotel de Richelieu, and elsewhere; so she
passed from one house to the other. In these houses Madame Scarron was
far from being on the footing of the rest of the company. She was more
like a servant than a guest. She was completely at the beck and call of
her hosts; now to ask for firewood; now if a meal was nearly ready;
another time if the coach of so-and-so or such a one had returned; and so
on, with a thousand little commissions which the use of bells, introduced
a long time after, differently disposes of.
It was in these houses, principally in the Hotel de Richelieu, much more
still in the Hotel d'Albret, where the Marechal d'Albret lived in great
state, that Madame Scarron made the majority of her acquaintances. The
Marechal was cousin-german of M. de Montespan, very intimate with him,
and with Madame de Montespan. When she became the King's mistress he
became her counsellor, and abandoned her husband.
To the intimacy between the Marechal d'Albret and Madame de Montespan,
Madame de Maintenon owed the good fortune she met with fourteen or
fifteen years later. Madame de Montespan continually visited the Hotel
d'Albret, and was much impressed with Madame Scarron. She conceived a
friendship for the obliging widow, and when she had her first children by
the King--M. du Maine and Madame la Duchesse, whom the King wished to
conceal--she proposed that they should be confided to Madame Scarron. A
house in the Marais was accordingly given to her, to lodge in with them,
and the means to bring them up, but in the utmost secrecy. Afterwards,
these children were taken to Madame de Montespan, then shown to the King,
and then by degrees drawn from secrecy and avowed. Their governess,
being established with them at the Court, more and more pleased Madame de
Montespan, who several times made the King give presents to her. He, on
the other hand, could not endure her; what he gave to her, always little,
was by excess of complaisance and with a regret that he did not hide.
The estate of Maintenon being for sale, Madame de Montespan did not let
the King rest until she had drawn from him enough to buy it for Madame
Scarron, who thenceforth assumed its name. She obtained enough also for
the repair of the chateau, and then attacked the King for means to
arrange the garden, which the former owners had allowed to go to ruin.
It was at the toilette of Madame de Montespan that these demands were
made. The captain of the guards alone followed the King there. M. le
Marechal de Lorges, the truest man that ever lived, held that post then,
and he has often related to me the scene he witnessed. The King at first
turned a deaf ear to the request of Madame de Montespan, and then
refused. Annoyed that she still insisted, he said he had already done
more than enough for this creature; that he could not understand the
fancy of Madame de Montespan for her, and her obstinacy in keeping her
after he had begged her so many times to dismiss her; that he admitted
Madame Scarron was insupportable to him, and provided he never saw her
more and never heard speak of her, he would open his purse again; though,
to say truth, he had already given too much to a creature of this kind!
Never did M. le Marechel de Lorges forget these words; and he has always
repeated them to me and others precisely as they are given here, so
struck was he with them, and much more after all that he saw since, so
astonishing and so contradictory. Madame de Montespan stopped short,
very much troubled by having too far pressed the King.
M. du Maine was extremely lame; this was caused, it was said, by a fall
he had from his nurse's arms. Nothing done for him succeeded; the
resolution was then taken to send him to various practicians in Flanders,
and elsewhere in the realm, then to the waters, among others to Bareges.
The letters that the governess wrote to Madame de Montespan, giving an
account of these journeys, were shown to the King. He thought them well
written, relished them, and the last ones made his aversion for the
writer diminish.
The ill-humour of Madame de Montespan finished the work. She had a good
deal of that quality, and had become accustomed to give it full swing.
The King was the object of it more frequently than anybody; he was still
amorous; but her ill-humour pained him. Madame de Maintenon reproached
Madame de Montespan for this, and thus advanced herself in the King's
favour. The King, by degrees, grew accustomed to speak sometimes to
Madame de Maintenon; to unbosom to her what he wished her to say to
Madame de Montespan; at last to relate to her the chagrin this latter
caused him, and to consult her thereupon.
Admitted thus into the intimate confidence of the lover and the mistress,
and this by the King's own doing, the adroit waiting-woman knew how to
cultivate it, and profited so well by her industry that by degrees she
supplanted Madame de Montespan, who perceived, too late, that her friend
had become necessary to the King. Arrived at this point, Madame de
Maintenon made, in her turn, complaints to the King of all she had to
suffer, from a mistress who spared even him so little; and by dint of
these mutual complaints about Madame de Montespan, Madame de Maintenon at
last took her place, and knew well how to keep it.
Fortune, I dare not say Providence, which was preparing for the
haughtiest of kings, humiliation the most profound, the most-public, the
most durable, the most unheard-of, strengthened more and more his taste
for this woman, so adroit and expert at her trade; while the continued
ill-humour and jealousy of Madame de Montespan rendered the new union
still more solid. It was this that Madame de Sevigne so prettily paints,
enigmatically, in her letters to Madame de Grignan, in which she
sometimes talks of these Court movements; for Madame de Maintenon had
been in Paris in the society of Madame de Sevigne, of Madame de Coulange,
of Madame de La Fayette, and had begun to make them feel her importance.
Charming touches are to be seen in the same style upon the favour, veiled
but brilliant enjoyed by Madame de Soubise.
It was while the King was in the midst of his partiality for Madame de
Maintenon that the Queen died. It was at the same time, too, that the
ill-humour of Madame de Montespan became more and more insupportable.
This imperious beauty, accustomed to domineer and to be adored, could not
struggle against the despair, which the prospect of her fall caused her.
What carried her beyond all bounds, was that she could no longer disguise
from herself, that she had an abject rival whom she had supported, who
owed everything to her; whom she had so much liked that she had several
times refused to dismiss her when pressed to do so by the King; a rival,
too, so beneath her in beauty, and older by several years; to feel that
it was this lady's-maid, not to say this servant, that the King most
frequently went to see; that he sought only her; that he could not
dissimulate his uneasiness if he did not find her; that he quitted all
for her; in fine, that at all moments she (Madame de Montespan) needed
the intervention of Madame de Maintenon, in order to attract the King to
reconcile her with him, or to obtain the favours she asked for. It was
then, in times so propitious to the enchantress, that the King became
free by the death of the Queen.
He passed the first few days at Saint-Cloud, at Monsieur's, whence he
went to Fontainebleau, where he spent all the autumn. It was there that
his liking, stimulated by absence, made him find that absence
insupportable. Upon his return it is pretended--for we must distinguish
the certain from that which is not so--it is pretended, I say, that the
King spoke more freely to Madame de Maintenon, and that she; venturing to
put forth her strength, intrenched herself behind devotion and prudery;
that the King did not cease, that she preached to him and made him afraid
of the devil, and that she balanced his love against his conscience with
so much art, that she succeeded in becoming what our eyes have seen her,
but what posterity will never believe she was.
But what is very certain and very true, is, that some time after the
return of the King from Fontainebleau, and in the midst of the winter
that followed the death of the Queen (posterity will with difficulty
believe it, although perfectly true and proved), Pere de la Chaise,
confessor of the King, said mass at the dead of night in one of the
King's cabinets at Versailles. Bontems, governor of Versailles, chief
valet on duty, and the most confidential of the four, was present at this
mass, at which the monarch and La Maintenon were married in presence of
Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, as diocesan, of Louvois (both of whom drew
from the King a promise that he would never declare this marriage), and
of Montchevreuil. This last was a relative and friend of Villarceaux, to
whom during the summer he lent his house at Montchevreuil, remaining
there himself, however, with his wife; and in that house Villarceaux kept
Madame Scarron, paying all the expenses because his relative was poor,
and because he (Villarceaux) was ashamed to take her to his own home, to
live in concubinage with her in the presence of his wife whose patience
and virtue he respected.
The satiety of the honeymoon, usually so fatal, and especially the
honeymoon of such marriages, only consolidated the favour of Madame de
Maintenon. Soon after, she astonished everybody by the apartments given
to her at Versailles, at the top of the grand staircase facing those of
the King and on the same floor. From that moment the King always passed
some hours with her every day of his life; wherever she might be she was
always lodged near him, and on the same floor if possible.
What manner of person she was,--this incredible enchantress,--and how she
governed all-powerfully for more than thirty years, it behoves me now to
explain!
CHAPTER LXXVI
Madame de Maintenon was a woman of much wit, which the good company, in
which she had at first been merely suffered, but in which she soon shone,
had much polished; and ornamented with knowledge of the world, and which
gallantry had rendered of the most agreeable kind. The various positions
she had held had rendered her flattering, insinuating, complaisant,
always seeking to please. The need she had of intrigues, those she had
seen of all kinds, and been mixed up in for herself and for others, had
given her the taste, the ability, and the habit of them. Incomparable
grace, an easy manner, and yet measured and respectful, which, in
consequence of her long obscurity, had become natural to her,
marvellously aided her talents; with language gentle, exact, well
expressed, and naturally eloquent and brief. Her best time, for she was
three or four years older than the King, had been the dainty phrase
period;--the superfine gallantry days,--in a word, the time of the
"ruelles," as it was called; and it had so influenced her that she always
retained evidences of it. She put on afterwards an air of importance,
but this gradually gave place to one of devoutness that she wore
admirably. She was not absolutely false by disposition, but necessity
had made her so, and her natural flightiness made her appear twice as
false as she was.
The distress and poverty in which she had so long lived had narrowed her
mind, and abased her heart and her sentiments. Her feelings and her
thoughts were so circumscribed, that she was in truth always less even
than Madame Scarron, and in everything and everywhere she found herself
such. Nothing was more repelling than this meanness, joined to a
situation so radiant.
Her flightiness or inconstancy was of the most dangerous kind. With the
exception of some of her old friends, to whom she had good reasons for
remaining faithful, she favoured people one moment only to cast them off
the next. You were admitted to an audience with her for instance, you
pleased her in some manner, and forthwith she unbosomed herself to you as
though you had known her from childhood. At the second audience you
found her dry, laconic, cold. You racked your brains to discover the
cause of this change. Mere loss of time!--Flightiness was the sole
reason of it.
Devoutness was her strong point; by that she governed and held her place.
She found a King who believed himself an apostle, because he had all his
life persecuted Jansenism, or what was presented to him as such. This
indicated to her with what grain she could sow the field most profitably.
The profound ignorance in which the King had been educated and kept all
his life, rendered him from the first an easy prey to the Jesuits. He
became even more so with years, when he grew devout, for he was devout
with the grossest ignorance. Religion became his weak point. In this
state it was easy to persuade him that a decisive and tremendous blow
struck against the Protestants would give his name more grandeur than any
of his ancestors had acquired, besides strengthening his power and
increasing his authority. Madame de Maintenon was one of those who did
most to make him believe this.
The revocation of the edict of Nantes, without the slightest pretext or
necessity, and the various proscriptions that followed it, were the
fruits of a frightful plot, in which the new spouse was one of the chief
conspirators, and which depopulated a quarter of the realm, ruined its
commerce, weakened it in every direction, gave it up for a long time to
the public and avowed pillage of the dragoons, authorised torments and
punishments by which so many innocent people of both sexes were killed by
thousands; ruined a numerous class; tore in pieces a world of families;
armed relatives against relatives, so as to seize their property and
leave them to die of hunger; banished our manufactures to foreign lands,
made those lands flourish and overflow at the expense of France, and
enabled them to build new cities; gave to the world the spectacle of a
prodigious population proscribed, stripped, fugitive, wandering, without
crime, and seeking shelter far from its country; sent to the galleys,
nobles, rich old men, people much esteemed for their piety, learning, and
virtue, people well off, weak, delicate, and solely on account of
religion; in fact, to heap up the measure of horror, filled all the realm
with perjury and sacrilege, in the midst of the echoed cries of these
unfortunate victims of error, while so many others sacrificed their
conscience to their wealth and their repose, and purchased both by
simulated abjuration, from which without pause they were dragged to adore
what they did not believe in, and to receive the divine body of the Saint
of Saints whilst remaining persuaded that they were only eating bread
which they ought to abhor! Such was the general abomination born of
flattery and cruelty. From torture to abjuration, and from that to the
communion, there was often only twenty-four hours' distance; and
executioners were the conductors of the converts and their witnesses.
Those who in the end appeared to have been reconciled, more at leisure
did not fail by their flight, or their behaviour, to contradict their
pretended conversion.
[Illustration: The Edict Of Nantes--Painted by Jules Girardet--front2]
The King received from all sides news and details of these persecutions
and of these conversions. It was by thousands that those who had abjured
and taken the communion were counted; ten thousand in one place; six
thousand in another--all at once and instantly. The King congratulated
himself on his power and his piety. He believed himself to have renewed
the days of the preaching of the Apostles, and attributed to himself all
the honour. The bishops wrote panegyrics of him, the Jesuits made the
pulpit resound with his praises. All France was filled with horror and
confusion; and yet there never was so much triumph and joy--never such
profusion of laudations! The monarch doubted not of the sincerity of
this crowd of conversions; the converters took good care to persuade him
of it and to beatify him beforehand. He swallowed their poison in long.
draughts. He had never yet believed himself so great in the eyes of man,
or so advanced in the eyes of God, in the reparation of his sins and of
the scandals of his life. He heard nothing but eulogies, while the good
and true Catholics and the true bishops, groaned in spirit to see the
orthodox act towards error and heretics as heretical tyrants and heathens
had acted against the truth, the confessors, and the martyrs. They could
not, above all, endure this immensity of perjury and sacrilege. They
bitterly lamented the durable and irremediable odium that detestable
measure cast upon the true religion, whilst our neighbours, exulting to
see us thus weaken and destroy ourselves, profited by our madness, and
built designs upon the hatred we should draw upon ourselves from all the
Protestant powers.
But to these spearing truths, the King was inaccessible. Even the
conduct of Rome in this matter, could not open his eyes. That Court
which formerly had not been ashamed to extol the Saint-Bartholomew, to
thank God for it by public processions, to employ the greatest masters to
paint this execrable action in the Vatican; Rome, I say, would not give
the slightest approbation to this onslaught on the Huguenots.
The magnificent establishment of Saint-Cyr, followed closely upon the
revocation of the edict of Nantes. Madame de Montespan had founded at
Paris an establishment for the instruction of young girls in all sorts of
fine and ornamental work. Emulation gave Madame de Maintenon higher and
vaster views which, whilst gratifying the poor nobility, would cause her
to be regarded as protectress in whom all the nobility would feel
interested. She hoped to smooth the way for a declaration of her
marriage, by rendering herself illustrious by a monument with which she
could amuse both the King and herself, and which might serve her as a
retreat if she had the misfortune to lose him, as in fact it happened.
This declaration of her marriage was always her most ardent desire. She
wished above all things to be proclaimed Queen; and never lost sight of
the idea. Once she was near indeed upon seeing it gratified. The King
had actually given her his word, that she should be declared; and the
ceremony was forthwith about to take place. But it was postponed, and
for ever, by the representations of Louvois to the King. To this
interference that minister owed his fall, and under circumstances so
surprising and so strange, that I cannot do better, I think, than
introduce an account of them here, by way of episode. They are all the
more interesting because they show what an unlimited power Madame de
Maintenon exercised by subterranean means, and with what patient
perseverance she undermined her enemies when once she had resolved to
destroy them.
Lauvois had gained the confidence of the King to such an extent, that he
was, as I have said, one of the two witnesses of the frightful marriage
of his Majesty with Madame de Maintenon. He had the courage to show he
was worthy of this confidence, by representing to the King the ignominy
of declaring that marriage, and drew from him his word, that never in his
life would he do so.
Several years afterwards, Louvois, who took care to be well informed of
all that passed in the palace, found out that Madame de Maintenon had
been again scheming in order to be declared Queen; that the King had had
the weakness to promise she should be, and that the declaration was about
to be made. He put some papers in his hand, and at once went straight to
the King, who was in a very private room. Seeing Louvois at an
unexpected hour, he asked him what brought him there. "Something
pressing and important," replied Louvois, with a sad manner that
astonished the King, and induced him to command the valets present to
quit the room. They went away in fact, but left the door open, so that
they could hear all, and see all, too, by the glass. This was the great
danger of the cabinets.
The valets being gone, Louvois did not dissimulate from the King his
mission. The monarch was often false, but incapable of rising above his
own falsehood. Surprised at being discovered, he tried to shuffle out of
the matter, and pressed by his minister, began to move so as to gain the
other cabinet where the valets were, and thus deliver himself from this
hobble. But Louvois, who perceived what he was about, threw himself on
his knees and stopped him, drew from his side a little sword he wore,
presented the handle to the King, and prayed him to kill him on the spot,
if he would persist in declaring his marriage, in breaking his word, and
covering himself in the eyes of Europe with infamy. The King stamped,
fumed, told Louvois to let him go. But Louvois squeezed him tighter by
the legs for fear he should escape; represented to him the shame of what
he had decided on doing; in a word, succeeded so well, that he drew for
the second time from the King, a promise that the marriage should never
be declared.
Madame de Maintenon meanwhile expected every moment to be proclaimed
Queen. At the end of some days disturbed by the silence of the King,
she ventured to touch upon the subject. The embarrassment she caused the
King much troubled her. He softened the affair as much as he could, but
finished by begging her to think no more of being declared, and never to
speak of it to him again! After the first shock that the loss of her
hopes caused her, she sought to find out to whom she was beholden for it.
She soon learned the truth; and it is not surprising that she swore to
obtain Louvois's disgrace, and never ceased to work at it until
successful. She waited her opportunity, and undermined her enemy at
leisure, availing herself of every occasion to make him odious to the
King.
Time passed. At length it happened that Louvois, not content with the
terrible executions in the Palatinate, which he had counselled, wished to
burn Treves. He proposed it to the King. A dispute arose between them,
but the King would not or could not be persuaded. It may be imagined
that Madame de Maintenon did not do much to convince him.
Some days afterwards Louvois, who had the fault of obstinacy, came as
usual to work with the King in Madame de Maintenon's rooms. At the end
of the sitting he said, that he felt convinced that it was scrupulousness
alone which had hindered the King from consenting to so necessary an act
as the burning, of Treves, and that he had, therefore, taken the
responsibility on himself by sending a courier with orders to set fire to
the place at once.
The King was immediately, and contrary to his nature, so transported with
anger that he seized the tongs, and was about to make a run at Louvois,
when Madame de Maintenon placed herself between them, crying, "Oh, Sire,
what are you going to do?" and took the tongs from his hands.
Louvois, meanwhile, gained the door. The King cried after him to recall
him, and said, with flashing eyes: "Despatch a courier instantly with a
counter order, and let him arrive in time; for, know this: if a single
house is burned your head shall answer for it." Louvois, more dead than
alive, hastened away at once.
Of course, he had sent off no courier. He said he had, believing that by
this trick the King, though he might be angry, would be led to give way.
He had reckoned wrongly, however, as we have seen.
From this time forward Louvois became day by day more distasteful to the
King. In the winter of 1690, he proposed that, in order to save expense,
the ladies should not accompany the King to the siege of Mons. Madame de
Maintenon, we may be sure, did not grow more kindly disposed towards him
after this. But as it is always the last drop of water that makes the
glass overflow, so a trifle that happened at this siege, completed the
disgrace of Louvois.
The King, who plumed himself upon knowing better than anybody the
minutest military details, walking one day about the camp, found an
ordinary cavalry guard ill-posted, and placed it differently. Later the
same day he again visited by chance the spot, and found the guard
replaced as at first. He was surprised and shocked. He asked the
captain who had done this, and was told it was Louvois.
"But," replied the King, "did you not tell him 'twas I who had placed
you?"
"Yes, Sire," replied the captain. The King piqued, turned towards his
suite, and said: "That's Louvois's trade, is it not? He thinks himself a
great captain, and that he knows everything," and forthwith he replaced
the guard as he had put it in the morning. It was, indeed, foolishness
and insolence on the part of Louvois, and the King had spoken truly of
him. The King was so wounded that he could not pardon him. After
Louvois's death, he related this incident to Pomponne, still annoyed at
it, as I knew by means of the Abbe de Pomponne.
After the return from Mons the dislike of the King for Louvois augmented
to such an extent, that this minister, who was so presumptuous, and who
thought himself so necessary, began to tremble. The Marechale de
Rochefort having gone with her daughter, Madame de Blansac, to dine with
him at Meudon, he took them out for a ride in a little 'calache', which
he himself drove. They heard him repeatedly say to himself, musing
profoundly, "Will he? Will he be made to? No--and yet--no, he will not
dare."
During this monologue Louvois was so absorbed that he was within an ace
of driving them all into the water, and would have done so, had they not
seized the reins, and cried out that he was going to drown them. At
their cries and movement, Louvois awoke as from a deep sleep, drew up,
and turned, saying that, indeed, he was musing, and not thinking of the
vehicle.
I was at Versailles at that time, and happened to call upon Louvois about
some business of my father's.
The same day I met him after dinner as he was going to work with the
King. About four o'clock in the afternoon I learned that he had been
taken rather unwell at Madame de Maintenon's, that the King had forced
him to go home, that he had done so on foot, that some trifling remedy
was administered to him there, and that during the operation of it he
died!
The surprise of all the Court may be imagined. Although I was little
more than fifteen years of age, I wished to see the countenance of the
King after the occurrence of an event of this kind. I went and waited
for him, and followed him during all his promenade. He appeared to me
with his accustomed majesty, but had a nimble manner, as though he felt
more free than usual. I remarked that, instead of going to see his
fountains, and diversifying his walk as usual, he did nothing but walk up
and down by the balustrade of the orangery, whence he could see, in
returning towards the chateau, the lodging in which Louvois had just
died, and towards which he unceasingly looked.
The name of Louvois was never afterwards pronounced; not a word was said
upon this death so surprising, and so sudden, until the arrival of an
officer, sent by the King of England from Saint-Germain, who came to the
King upon this terrace, and paid him a compliment of condolence upon the
loss he had received.
"Monsieur," replied the King, in a tone and with a manner more than easy,
"give my compliments and my thanks to the King and Queen of England, and
say to them in my name, that my affairs and theirs will go on none the
worse for what has happened."
The officer made a bow and retired, astonishment painted upon his face,
and expressed in all his bearing. I anxiously observed all this, and
also remarked, that all the principal people around the King looked at
each other, but said no word. The fact was, as I afterwards learned,
that Louvois, when he died, was so deeply in disgrace, that the very next
day he was to have been arrested and sent to the Bastille! The King told
Chamillart so, and Chamillart related it to me. This explains, I fancy,
the joy of the King at the death of his minister; for it saved him from
executing the plan he had resolved on.
The suddenness of the disease and death of Louvois caused much talk,
especially when, on the opening of the body, it was discovered that he
had been poisoned. A servant was arrested on the charge; but before the
trial took place he was liberated, at the express command of the King,
and the whole affair was hushed up. Five or six months afterwards Seron,
private physician of Louvois, barricaded himself in his apartment at
Versailles, and uttered dreadful cries. People came but he refused to
open; and as the door could not be forced, he went on shrieking all day,
without succour, spiritual or temporal, saying at last that he had got
what he deserved for what he had done to his master; that he was a wretch
unworthy of help; and so he died despairing, in eight or ten hours,
without having spoken of any ones or uttered a single name!
CHAPTER LXXVII
It must not be imagined that in order to maintain her position Madame de
Maintenon had need of no address. Her reign, on the contrary, was only
one continual intrigue; and that of the King a perpetual dupery.
Her mornings, which she commenced very early, were occupied with obscure
audiences for charitable or spiritual affairs. Pretty often, at eight
o'clock in the morning, or earlier, she went to some minister; the
ministers of war, above all those of finance, were those with whom she
had most business.
Ordinarily as soon as she rose, she went to Saint-Cyr, dined in her
apartment there alone, or with some favourite of the house, gave as few
audiences as possible, ruled over the arrangements of the establishment,
meddled with the affairs of convents, read and replied to letters,
directed the affairs of the house, received information and letters from
her spies, and returned to Versailles just as the King was ready to enter
her rooms. When older and more infirm, she would lie down in bed on
arriving between seven and eight o'clock in the morning at Saint-Cyr, or
take some remedy.
Towards nine o'clock in the evening two waiting-women came to undress
her. Immediately afterwards, her maitre d'hotel, or a valet de chambre
brought her her supper--soup, or something light. As soon as she had
finished her meal, her women put her to bed, and all this in the presence
of the King and his minister, who did not cease working or speak lower.
This done, ten o'clock had arrived; the curtains of Madame de Maintenon
were drawn, and the King went to supper, after saying good night to her.
When with the King in her own room, they each occupied an armchair, with
a table between them, at either side of the fireplace, hers towards the
bed, the King's with the back to the wall, where was the door of the
ante-chamber; two stools were before the table, one for the minister who
came to work, the other for his papers.
During the work Madame de Maintenon read or worked at tapestry. She
heard all that passed between the King and his minister, for they spoke
out loud. Rarely did she say anything, or, if so, it was of no moment.
The King often asked her opinion; then she replied with great discretion.
Never did she appear to lay stress on anything, still less to interest
herself for anybody, but she had an understanding with the minister, who
did not dare to oppose her in private, still less to trip in her
presence. When some favour or some post was to be granted, the matter
was arranged between them beforehand; and this it was that sometimes
delayed her, without the King or anybody knowing the cause.
She would send word to the minister that she wished to speak to him. He
did not dare to bring anything forward until he had received her orders;
until the revolving mechanism of each day had given them the leisure to
confer together. That done, the minister proposed and showed a list. If
by chance the King stopped at the name Madame de Maintenon wished, the
minister stopped too, and went no further. If the King stopped at some
other, the minister proposed that he should look at those which were also
fitting, allowed the King leisure to make his observations, and profited
by them, to exclude the people who were not wanted. Rarely did he
propose expressly the name to which he wished to come, but always
suggested several that he tried to balance against each other, so as to
embarrass the King in his choice. Then the King asked his opinion, and
the minister, after touching upon other names, fixed upon the one he had
selected.
The King nearly always hesitated, and asked Madame de Maintenon what she
thought. She smiled, shammed incapacity, said a word upon some other
name, then returned, if she had not fixed herself there at first, to that
which the minister had proposed; so that three-fourths of the favours and
opportunities which passed through the hands of the ministers in her
rooms--and three-fourths even of the remaining fourth-were disposed of by
her. Sometimes when she had nobody for whom she cared, it was the
minister, with her consent and her help, who decided, without the King
having the least suspicion. He thought he disposed of everything by
himself; whilst, in fact, he disposed only of the smallest part, and
always then by chance, except on the rare occasions when he specially
wished to favour some one.
As for state matters, if Madame de Maintenon wished to make them succeed,
fail, or turn in some particular fashion (which happened much less often
than where favours and appointments were in the wind), the same
intelligence and the same intrigue were carried on between herself and
the minister. By these particulars it will be seen that this clever
woman did nearly all she wished, but not when or how she wished.
There was another scheme if the King stood out; it was to avoid decision
by confusing and spinning out the matter in hand, or by substituting
another as though arising, opportunely out of it, and by which it was
turned aside, or by proposing that some explanations should be obtained.
The first ideas of the King were thus weakened, and the charge was
afterwards returned to, with the same address, oftentimes with success.
It is this which made the ministers so necessary to Madame de Maintenon,
and her so necessary to them: She rendered them, in fact, continual
services by means of the King, in return for the services they rendered
her. The mutual concerns, therefore, between her and them were infinite;
the King, all the while, not having the slightest suspicion of what was
going on!
The power of Madame de Maintenon was, as may be imagined, immense. She
had everybody in her hands, from the highest and most favoured minister
to the meanest subject of the realm. Many people have been ruined by
her, without having been able to discover the author of their ruin,
search as they might. All attempts to find a remedy were equally
unsuccessful.
Yet the King was constantly on his guard, not only against Madame de
Maintenon, but against his ministers also. Many a time it happened that
when sufficient care had not been taken, and he perceived that a minister
or a general wished to favour a relative or protege of Madame de
Maintenon, he firmly opposed the appointment on that account alone, and
the remarks he uttered thereupon made Madame de Maintenon very timid and
very measured when she wished openly to ask a favour.
Le Tellier, long before he was made Chancellor, well knew the mood of the
King. One of his friends asked him for some place that he much desired.
Le Tellier replied that he would do what he could. The friend did not
like this reply, and frankly said that it was not such as he expected
from a man with such authority. "You do not know the ground," replied Le
Tellier; "of twenty matters that we bring before the King, we are sure he
will pass nineteen according to our wishes; we are equally certain that
the twentieth will be decided against them. But which of the twenty will
be decided contrary to our desire we never know, although it may be the
one we have most at heart. The King reserves to himself this caprice, to
make us feel that he is the master, and that he governs; and if, by
chance, something is presented upon which he is obstinate, and which is
sufficiently important for us to be obstinate about also, either on
account of the thing itself, or for the desire we have that it should
succeed as we wish, we very often get a dressing; but, in truth, the
dressing over, and the affair fallen through, the King, content with
having showed that we can do nothing, and pained by having vexed us,
becomes afterwards supple and flexible, so that then is the time at which
we can do all we wish."
This is, in truth, how the King conducted himself with his ministers,
always completely governed by them, even by the youngest and most
mediocre, even by the least accredited and the least respected--yet
always on his guard against being governed, and always persuaded that he
succeeded fully in avoiding it.
He adopted the same conduct towards Madame de Maintenon, whom at times he
scolded terribly, and applauded himself for so doing. Sometimes she
threw herself on her knees before him, and for several days was really
upon thorns. When she had appointed Fagon physician of the King in place
of Daquin, whom she dismissed, she had a doctor upon whom she could
certainly rely, and she played the sick woman accordingly, after those
scenes with the King, and in this manner turned them to her own
advantage.
It was not that this artifice had any power in constraining the King, or
that a real illness would have had any. He was a man solely personal,
and who counted others only as they stood in relation to himself. His
hard-heartedness, therefore, was extreme. At the time when he was most
inclined towards his mistresses, whatever indisposition they might labour
under, even the most opposed to travelling and to appearing in full court
dress, could not save them from either. When enceinte, or ill, or just
risen from child birth, they must needs be squeezed into full dress, go
to Flanders or further, dance; sit up, attend fetes, eat, be merry and
good company; go from place to place; appear neither to fear, nor to be
inconvenienced by heat, cold, wind, or dust; and all this precisely to
the hour and day, without a minute's grace.
His daughters he treated in the same manner. It has been seen, in its
place, that he had no more consideration for Madame la Duchesse de Berry,
nor even for Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne--whatever Fagon, Madame de
Maintenon, and others might do or say. Yet he loved Madame la Duchesse
de Bourgogne as tenderly as he was capable of loving anybody: but both
she and Madame la Duchesse de Berry had miscarriages, which relieved him,
he said, though they then had no children.
When he travelled, his coach was always full of women; his mistresses,
afterwards his bastards, his daughters-in-law, sometimes Madame, and
other ladies when there was room. In the coach, during his journeys,
there were always all sorts of things to eat, as meat, pastry, fruit.
A quarter of a league was not passed over before the King asked if
somebody would not eat. He never ate anything between meals himself,
not even fruit; but he amused himself by seeing others do so, aye,
and to bursting. You were obliged to be hungry, merry, and to eat with
appetite, otherwise he was displeased, and even showed it. And yet after
this, if you supped with him at table the same day, you were compelled to
eat with as good a countenance as though you had tasted nothing since the
previous night. He was as inconsiderate in other and more delicate
matters; and ladies, in his long drives and stations, had often occasion
to curse him. The Duchesse de Chevreuse once rode all the way from
Versailles to Fontainebleau in such extremity, that several times she was
well-nigh losing consciousness.
The King, who was fond of air, liked all the windows to be lowered;
he would have been much displeased had any lady drawn a curtain for
protection against sun, wind, or cold. No inconvenience or incommodity
was allowed to be even perceived; and the King always went very quickly,
most frequently with relays. To faint was a fault past hope of pardon.
Madame de Maintenon, who feared the air and many other inconveniences,
could gain no privilege over the others. All she obtained, under
pretence of modesty and other reasons, was permission to journey apart;
but whatever condition she might be in, she was obliged to follow the
King, and be ready to receive him in her rooms by the time he was ready
to enter them. She made many journeys to Marly in a state such as would
have saved a servant from movement. She made one to Fontainebleau when
it seemed not unlikely that she would die on the road! In whatever
condition she might be, the King went to her at his ordinary hour and did
what he had projected; though several times she was in bed, profusely
sweating away a fever. The King, who as I have said, was fond of air,
and feared warm rooms, was astonished upon arriving to find everything
close shut, and ordered the windows to be opened; would not spare them an
inch; and up to ten o'clock, when he went to supper, kept them open,
utterly regardless of the cool night air, although he knew well what a
state she was in. If there was to be music, fever or headache availed
not; a hundred wax candles flashed all the same in her eyes. The King,
in fact, always followed his own inclination, without ever asking whether
she was inconvenienced.
The tranquillity and pious resignation of the King during the last days
of his illness, was a matter of some surprise to many people, as, indeed,
it deserved to be. By way of explanation, the doctors said that the
malady he died of, while it deadens and destroys all bodily pain, calms
and annihilates all heart pangs and agitation of the mind.
They who were in the sick-chamber, during the last days of his illness,
gave another reason.
The Jesuits constantly admit the laity, even married, into their company.
This fact is certain. There is no doubt that Des Noyers, Secretary of
State under Louis XIII., was of this number, or that many others have
been so too. These licentiates make the same vow as the Jesuits, as far
as their condition admits: that is, unrestricted obedience to the
General, and to the superiors of the company. They are obliged to supply
the place of the vows of poverty and chastity, by promising to give all
the service and all the protection in their power to the Company, above
all, to be entirely submissive to the superiors and to their confessor.
They are obliged to perform, with exactitude, such light exercises of
piety as their confessor may think adapted to the circumstances of their
lives, and that he simplifies as much as he likes. It answers the
purpose of the Company to ensure to itself those hidden auxiliaries whom
it lets off cheaply. But nothing must pass through their minds, nothing
must come to their knowledge that they do not reveal to their confessor;
and that which is not a secret of the conscience, to the superiors, if
the confessor thinks fit. In everything, too, they must obey without
comment, the superior and the confessors.
It has been pretended that Pere Tellier had inspired the King, long
before his death, with the desire to be admitted, on this footing, into
the Company; that he had vaunted to him the privileges and plenary
indulgences attached to it; that he had persuaded him that whatever
crimes had been committed, and whatever difficulty there might be in
making amends for them, this secret profession washed out all, and
infallibly assured salvation, provided that the vows were faithfully
kept; that the General of the Company was admitted into the secret with
the consent of the King; that the King pronounced the vows before Pere
Tellier; that in the last days of his life they were heard, the one
fortifying, the other resposing upon these promises; that, at last,
the King received from Pere Tellier the final benediction of the Company,
as one of its members; that Pere Tellier made the King offer up prayers,
partly heard, of a kind to leave no doubt of the matter; and that he had
given him the robe, or the almost imperceptible sign, as it were, a sort
of scapulary, which was found upon him. To conclude, the majority of
those who approached the King in his last moments attributed his
penitence to the artifices and persuasions of the Jesuits, who, for
temporal interests, deceive sinners even up to the edge of the tomb, and
conduct them to it in profound peace by a path strewn with flowers.
However it is but fair to say, that Marechal, who was very trustful,
assured me he had never perceived anything which justified this idea, and
that he was persuaded there was not the least truth in it; and I think,
that although he was not always in the chamber or near the bed, and
although Pere Tellier might mistrust and try to deceive him, still if the
King had been made a Jesuit as stated, Marechal must have had sore
knowledge or some suspicion of the circumstance.
VOLUME 11.
CHAPTER LXXVIII
After having thus described with truth and the most exact fidelity all
that has come to my knowledge through my own experience, or others
qualified to speak of Louis XIV. during the last twenty-two years of his
life: and after having shown him such as he was, without prejudice
(although I have permitted myself to use the arguments naturally
resulting from things), nothing remains but to describe the outside life
of this monarch, during my residence at the Court.
However insipid and perhaps superfluous details so well known may appear
after what has been already given, lessons will be found therein for
kings who may wish to make themselves respected, and who may wish to
respect themselves. What determines me still more is, that details
wearying, nay annoying, to instructed readers, who had been witnesses of
what I relate, soon escape the knowledge of posterity; and that
experience shows us how much we regret that no one takes upon himself a
labour, in his own time so ungrateful, but in future years so
interesting, and by which princes, who have made quite as much stir as
the one in question, are characterise. Although it may be difficult to
steer clear of repetitions, I will do my best to avoid them.
I will not speak much of the King's manner of living when with the army.
His hours were determined by what was to be done, though he held his
councils regularly; I will simply say, that morning and evening he ate
with people privileged to have that honour. When any one wished to claim
it, the first gentleman of the chamber on duty was appealed to. He gave
the answer, and if favourable you presented yourself the next day to the
King, who said to you, "Monsieur, seat yourself at table." That being
done, all was done. Ever afterwards you were at liberty to take a place
at the King's table, but with discretion. The number of the persons from
whom a choice was made was, however, very limited. Even very high
military rank did not suffice. M. de Vauban, at the siege of Namur, was
overwhelmed by the distinction. The King did the same honour at Namur to
the Abbe de Grancey, who exposed himself everywhere to confess the
wounded and encourage the troops. No other Abbe was ever so
distinguished. All the clergy were excluded save the cardinals, and the
bishops, piers, or the ecclesiastics who held the rank of foreign
princes.
At these repasts everybody was covered; it would have been a want of
respect, of which you would have been immediately informed, if you had
not kept your hat on your head. The King alone was uncovered. When the
King wished to speak to you, or you had occasion to speak to him, you
uncovered. You uncovered, also, when Monseigneur or Monsieur spoke to
you, or you to them. For Princes of the blood you merely put your hand
to your hat. The King alone had an armchair. All the rest of the
company, Monseigneur included, had seats, with backs of black morocco
leather, which could be folded up to be carried, and which were called
"parrots." Except at the army, the King never ate with any man, under
whatever circumstances; not even with the Princes of the Blood, save
sometimes at their wedding feasts.
Let us return now to the Court.
At eight o'clock the chief valet de chambre on duty, who alone had slept
in the royal chamber, and who had dressed himself, awoke the King. The
chief physician, the chief surgeon, and the nurse (as long as she lived),
entered at the same time; the latter kissed the King; the others rubbed
and often changed his shirt, because he was in the habit of sweating a
great deal. At the quarter, the grand chamberlain was called (or, in his
absence, the first gentleman of the chamber), and those who had what was
called the 'grandes entrees'. The chamberlain (or chief gentleman) drew
back the curtains which had been closed again; and presented the holy-
water from the vase, at the head of the bed. These gentlemen stayed but
a moment, and that was the time to speak to the King, if any one had
anything to ask of him; in which case the rest stood aside. When,
contrary to custom, nobody had ought to say, they were there but for a
few moments. He who had opened the curtains and presented the holy-
water, presented also a prayer-book. Then all passed into the cabinet of
the council. A very short religious service being over, the King called,
they re-entered, The same officer gave him his dressing-gown; immediately
after, other privileged courtiers entered, and then everybody, in time to
find the King putting on his shoes and stockings, for he did almost
everything himself and with address and grace. Every other day we saw
him shave himself; and he had a little short wig in which he always
appeared, even in bed, and on medicine days. He often spoke of the
chase, and sometimes said a-word to somebody. No toilette table was near
him; he had simply a mirror held before him.
As soon as he was dressed, he prayed to God, at the side of his bed,
where all the clergy present knelt, the cardinals without cushions, all
the laity remaining standing; and the captain of the guards came to the
balustrade during the prayer, after which the King passed into his
cabinet.
He found there, or was followed by all who had the entree, a very
numerous company, for it included everybody in any office. He gave
orders to each for the day; thus within a half a quarter of an hour it
was known what he meant to do; and then all this crowd left directly.
The bastards, a few favourites; and the valets alone were left. It was
then a good opportunity for talking with the King; for example, about
plans of gardens and buildings; and conversation lasted more or less
according to the person engaged in it.
All the Court meantime waited for the King in the gallery, the captain of
the guard being alone in the chamber seated at the door of the cabinet.
At morning the Court awaited in the saloon; at Trianon in the front rooms
as at Meudon; at Fontainebleau in the chamber and ante-chamber. During
this pause the King gave audiences when he wished to accord any; spoke
with whoever he might wish to speak secretly to, and gave secret
interviews to foreign ministers in presence of Torcy. They were called
"secret" simply to distinguish them from the uncommon ones by the
bedsides.
The King went to mass, where his musicians always sang an anthem. He did
not go below--except on grand fetes or at ceremonies. Whilst he was
going to and returning from mass, everybody spoke to him who wished,
after apprising the captain of the guard, if they were not distinguished;
and he came and went by the door of the cabinet into the gallery. During
the mass the ministers assembled in the King's chamber, where
distinguished people could go and speak or chat with them. The King
amused himself a little upon returning from mass and asked almost
immediately for the council. Then the morning was finished.
On Sunday, and often on Monday, there was a council of state; on Tuesday
a finance council; on Wednesday council of state; on Saturday finance
council: rarely were two held in one day or any on Thursday or Friday.
Once or twice a month there was a council of despatches on Monday
morning; but the order that the Secretaries of State took every morning
between the King's rising and his mass, much abridged this kind of
business. All the ministers were seated accordingly to rank, except at
the council of despatches, where all stood except the sons of France, the
Chancellor, and the Duc de Beauvilliers.
Thursday morning was almost always blank. It was the day for audiences
that the King wished to give--often unknown to any--back-stair audiences.
It was also the grand day taken advantage of by the bastards, the valets,
etc., because the King had nothing to do. On Friday after the mass the
King was with his confessor, and the length of their audiences was
limited by nothing, and might last until dinner. At Fontainebleau on the
mornings when there was no council, the King usually passed from mass to
Madame de Maintenon's, and so at Trianon and Marly. It was the time for
their tete-a-tete without interruption. Often on the days when there was
no council the dinner hour was advanced, more or less for the chase or
the promenade. The ordinary hour was one o'clock; if the council still
lasted, then the dinner waited and nothing was said to the King.
The dinner was always 'au petit couvert', that is, the King ate by
himself in his chamber upon a square table in front of the middle window.
It was more or less abundant, for he ordered in the morning whether it
was to be "a little," or "very little" service. But even at this last,
there were always many dishes, and three courses without counting the
fruit. The dinner being ready, the principal courtiers entered; then all
who were known; and the gentleman of the chamber on duty informed the
King.
I have seen, but very rarely, Monseigneur and his sons standing at their
dinners, the King not offering them a seat. I have continually seen
there the Princes of the blood and the cardinals. I have often seen
there also Monsieur, either on arriving from Saint-Cloud to see the King,
or arriving from the council of despatches (the only one he entered),
give the King his napkin and remain standing. A little while afterwards,
the King, seeing that he did not go away, asked him if he would not sit
down; he bowed, and the King ordered a seat to be brought for him. A
stool was put behind him. Some moments after the King said, "Nay then,
sit down, my brother." Monsieur bowed and seated himself until the end
of the dinner, when he presented the napkin.
At other times when he came from Saint-Cloud, the King, on arriving at
the table, asked for a plate for Monsieur, or asked him if he would dine.
If he refused, he went away a moment after, and there was no mention of a
seat; if he accepted, the King asked for a plate for him. The table was
square, he placed himself at one end, his back to the cabinet. Then the
Grand Chamberlain (or the first gentleman of the chamber) gave him drink
and plates, taking them from him as he finished with them, exactly as he
served the King; but Monsieur received all this attention with strongly
marked politeness. When he dined thus with the King he much enlivened
the conversation. The King ordinarily spoke little at table unless some
family favourite was near. It was the same at hid rising. Ladies
scarcely ever were seen at these little dinners.
I have, however, seen the Marechale de la Mothe, who came in because she
had been used to do so as governess to the children of France, and who
received a seat, because she was a Duchess. Grand dinners were very
rare, and only took place on grand occasions, and then ladies were
present.
Upon leaving the table the King immediately entered his cabinet. That
was the time for distinguished people to speak to him. He stopped at the
door a moment to listen, then entered; very rarely did any one follow
him, never without asking him for permission to do so; and for this few
had the courage. If followed he placed himself in the embrasure of the
window nearest to the door of the cabinet, which immediately closed of
itself, and which you were obliged to open yourself on quitting the King.
This also was the time for the bastards and the valets.
The King amused himself by feeding his dogs, and remained with them more
or less time, then asked for his wardrobe, changed before the very few
distinguished people it pleased the first gentleman of the chamber to
admit there, and immediately went out by the back stairs into the court
of marble to get into his coach. From the bottom of that staircase to
the coach, any one spoke to him who wished.
The King was fond of air, and when deprived of it his health suffered; he
had headaches and vapours caused by the undue use he had formerly made of
perfumes, so that for many years he could not endure any, except the
odour of orange flowers; therefore if you had to approach anywhere near
him you did well not to carry them.
As he was but little sensitive to heat or cold, or even to rain, the
weather was seldom sufficiently bad to prevent his going abroad. He went
out for three objects: stag-hunting, once or more each week; shooting in
his parks (and no man handled a gun with more grace or skill), once or
twice each week; and walking in his gardens for exercise, and to see his
workmen. Sometimes he made picnics with ladies, in the forest at Marly
or at Fontainebleau, and in this last place, promenades with all the
Court around the canal, which was a magnificent spectacle. Nobody
followed him in his other promenades but those who held principal
offices, except at Versailles or in the gardens of Trianon. Marly had a
privilege unknown to the other places. On going out from the chateau,
the King said aloud, "Your hats, gentlemen," and immediately courtiers,
officers of the guard, everybody, in fact, covered their heads, as he
would have been much displeased had they not done so; and this lasted all
the promenade, that is four or five hours in summer, or in other seasons,
when he dined early at Versailles to go and walk at Marly, and not sleep
there.
The stag-hunting parties were on an extensive scale. At Fontainebleau
every one went who wished; elsewhere only those were allowed to go who
had obtained the permission once for all, and those who had obtained
leave to wear the justau-corps, which was a blue uniform with silver and
gold lace, lined with red. The King did not like too many people at
these parties. He did not care for you to go if you were not fond of the
chase. He thought that ridiculous, and never bore ill-will to those who
stopped away altogether.
It was the same with the play-table, which he liked to see always well
frequented--with high stakes--in the saloon at Marly, for lansquenet and
other games. He amused himself at Fontainebleau during bad weather by
seeing good players at tennis, in which he had formerly excelled; and at
Marly by seeing mall played, in which he had also been skilful.
Sometimes when there was no council, he would make presents of stuff, or
of silverware, or jewels, to the ladies, by means of a lottery, for the
tickets of which they paid nothing. Madame de Maintenon drew lots with
the others, and almost always gave at once what she gained. The King
took no ticket.
Upon returning home from walks or drives, anybody, as I have said, might
speak to the King from the moment he left his coach till he reached the
foot of his staircase. He changed his dress again, and rested in his
cabinet an hour or more, then went to Madame de Maintenon's, and on the
way any one who wished might speak to him.
At ten o'clock his supper was served. The captain of the guard announced
this to him. A quarter of an hour after the King came to supper, and
from the antechamber of Madame de Maintenon to the table--again, any one
spoke to him who wished. This supper was always on a grand scale, the
royal household (that is, the sons and daughters of France) at table, and
a large number of courtiers and ladies present, sitting or standing, and
on the evening before the journey to Marly all those ladies who wished to
take part in it. That was called presenting yourself for Marly. Men
asked in the morning, simply saying to the King, "Sire, Marly." In later
years the King grew tired of this, and a valet wrote up in the gallery
the names of those who asked. The ladies continued to present
themselves.
After supper the King stood some moments, his back to the balustrade of
the foot of his bed, encircled by all his Court; then, with bows to the
ladies, passed into his cabinet, where, on arriving, he gave his orders.
He passed a little less than an hour there, seated in an armchair, with
his legitimate children and bastards, his grandchildren, legitimate and
otherwise, and their husbands or wives. Monsieur in another armchair;
the Princesses upon stools, Monseigneur and all the other Princes
standing.
The King, wishing to retire, went and fed his dogs; then said good night,
passed into his chamber to the 'ruelle' of his bed, where he said his
prayers, as in the morning, then undressed. He said good night with an
inclination of the head, and whilst everybody was leaving the room stood
at the corner of the mantelpiece, where he gave the order to the colonel
of the guards alone. Then commenced what was called the 'petit coucher',
at which only the specially privileged remained. That was short. They
did not leave until be got into bed. It was a moment to speak to him.
Then all left if they saw any one buckle to the King. For ten or twelve
years before he died the 'petit coucher' ceased, in consequence of a long
attack of gout be had had; so that the Court was finished at the rising
from supper.
On medicine days, which occurred about once a month, the King remained in
bed, then heard mass. The royal household came to see him for a moment,
and Madame de Maintenon seated herself in the armchair at the head of his
bed. The King dined in bed about three o'clock, everybody being allowed
to enter the room, then rose, and the privileged alone remained. He
passed afterwards into his cabinet, where he held a council, and
afterwards went, as usual, to Madame de Maintenon's and supped at ten
o'clock, according to custom.
During all his life, the King failed only once in his attendance at mass,
It was with the army, during a forced march; he missed no fast day,
unless really indisposed. Some days before Lent, he publicly declared
that he should be very much displeased if any one ate meat or gave it to
others, under any pretext. He ordered the grand prevot to look to this,
and report all cases of disobedience. But no one dared to disobey his
commands, for they would soon have found out the cost. They extended
even to Paris, where the lieutenant of police kept watch and reported.
For twelve or fifteen years he had himself not observed Lent, however.
At church he was very respectful. During his mass everybody was obliged
to kneel at the Sanctus, and to remain so until after the communion of
the priest; and if he heard the least noise, or saw anybody talking
during the mass, he was much displeased. He took the communion five
times a year, in the collar of the Order, band, and cloak. On Holy
Thursday, he served the poor at dinner; at the mass he said his chaplet
(he knew no more), always kneeling, except at the Gospel.
He was always clad in dresses more or less brown, lightly embroidered,
but never at the edges, sometimes with nothing but a gold button,
sometimes black velvet. He wore always a vest of cloth, or of red, blue,
or green satin, much embroidered. He used no ring; and no jewels, except
in the buckles of his shoes, garters, and hat, the latter always trimmed
with Spanish point, with a white feather. He had always the cordon bleu
outside, except at fetes, when he wore it inside, with eight or ten
millions of precious stones attached.
Rarely a fortnight passed that the King did not go to Saint-Germain, even
after the death of King James the Second. The Court of Saint-Germain
came also to Versailles, but oftener to Marly, and frequently to sup
there; and no fete or ceremony took place to which they were not invited,
and at which they were not received with all honours. Nothing could
compare with the politeness of the King for this Court, or with the air
of gallantry and of majesty with which he received it at any time. Birth
days, or the fete days of the King and his family, so observed in the
courts of Europe, were always unknown in that of the King; so that there
never was the slightest mention of them, or any difference made on their
account.
The King was but little regretted. His valets and a few other people
felt his loss, scarcely anybody else. His successor was not yet old
enough to feel anything. Madame entertained for him only fear and
considerate respect. Madame la Duchesse de Berry did not like him, and
counted now upon reigning undisturbed. M. le Duc d'Orleans could
scarcely be expected to feel much grief for him. And those who may have
been expected did not consider it necessary to do their duty. Madame de
Maintenon was wearied with him ever since the death of the Dauphine; she
knew not what to do, or with what to amuse him; her constraint was
tripled because he was much more with her than before. She had often,
too, experienced much ill-humour from him. She had attained all she
wished, so whatever she might lose in losing him, she felt herself
relieved, and was capable of no other sentiment at first. The ennui and
emptiness of her life afterwards made her feel regret. As for M. du
Maine, the barbarous indecency of his joy need not be dwelt upon. The
icy tranquillity of his brother, the Comte de Toulouse, neither increased
nor diminished. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans surprised me. I had
expected some grief, I perceived only a few tears, which upon all
occasions flowed very readily from her eyes, and which were soon dried
up. Her bed, which she was very fond of, supplied what was wanting
during several days, amidst obscurity which she by no means disliked.
But the window curtains were soon withdrawn and grief disappeared.
As for the Court, it was divided into two grand parties, the men hoping
to figure, to obtain employ, to introduce themselves: and they were
ravished to see the end of a reign under which they had nothing to hope
for; the others; fatigued with a heavy yoke, always overwhelming, and of
the ministers much more than of the King, were charmed to find themselves
at liberty. Thus all, generally speaking, were glad to be delivered from
continual restraint, and were eager for change.
Paris, tired of a dependence which had enslaved everything, breathed
again in the hope of liberty, and with joy at seeing at an end the
authority of so many people who abused it. The provinces in despair at
their ruin and their annihilation breathed again and leaped for joy; and
the Parliament and the robe destroyed by edicts and by revolutions,
flattered themselves the first that they should figure, the other that
they should find themselves free. The people ruined, overwhelmed,
desperate, gave thanks to God, with a scandalous eclat, for a
deliverance, their most ardent desires had not anticipated.
Foreigners delighted to be at last, after so many years, quit of a
monarch who had so long imposed his law upon them, and who had escaped
from them by a species of miracle at the very moment in which they
counted upon having subjugated him, contained themselves with much more
decency than the French. The marvels of the first three quarters of this
reign of more than seventy years, and the personal magnanimity of this
King until then so successful, and so abandoned afterwards by fortune
during the last quarter of his reign--had justly dazzled them. They made
it a point of honour to render to him after his death what they had
constantly refused him during life. No foreign Court exulted: all plumed
themselves upon praising and honouring his memory. The Emperor wore
mourning as for a father, and although four or five months elapsed
between the death of the King and the Carnival, all kinds of amusements
were prohibited at Vienna during the Carnival, and the prohibition was
strictly observed. A monstrous fact was, that towards the end of this
period there was a single ball and a kind of fete that the Comte du Luc
our own ambassador, was not ashamed to give to the ladies, who seduced
him by the ennui of so dull a Carnival. This complaisance did not raise
him in estimation at Vienna or elsewhere. In France people were
contented with ignoring it.
As for our ministry and the intendants of the provinces, the financiers
and what may be called the canaille, they felt all the extent of their
loss. We shall see if the realm was right or wrong in the sentiments it
held, and whether it found soon after that it had gained or lost.
To finish at once all that regards the King, let me here say, that his
entrails were taken to Notre Dame, on the 4th of September, without any
ceremony, by two almoners of the King, without accompaniment. On Friday,
the 6th of September, the Cardinal de Rohan carried the heart to the
Grand Jesuits, with very little accompaniment or pomp. Except the
persons necessary for the ceremony, not half a dozen courtiers were
present. It is not for me to comment upon this prompt ingratitude, I,
who for fifty-two years have never once missed going to Saint-Denis on
the anniversary of the death of Louis XIII., and have never seen a single
person there on the same errand. On the 9th of September, the body of
the late King was buried at Saint-Denis. The Bishop of Aleth pronounced
the oration. Very little expense was gone to; and nobody was found who
cared sufficiently for the late King to murmur at the economy. On
Friday, the 25th of October, his solemn obsequies took place at Saint-
Denis in a confusion, as to rank and precedence, without example. On
Thursday, the 28th of November, the solemn obsequies were again
performed, this time at Notre Dame, and with the usual ceremonies.
CHAPTER LXXIX
The death of the King surprised M. le Duc d'Orleans in the midst of his
idleness as though it had not been foreseen. He had made no progress in
numberless arrangements, which I had suggested he should carry out;
accordingly he was overwhelmed with orders to give, with things to
settle, each more petty than the other, but all so provisional and so
urgent that it happened as I had predicted, he had no time to think of
anything important.
I learnt the death of the King upon awaking. Immediately after, I went
to pay my respects to the new monarch. The first blood had already
passed. I found myself almost alone. I went thence to M. le Duc
d'Orleans, whom I found shut in, but all his apartments so full that a
pin could not have fallen to the ground. I talked of the Convocation of
the States-General, and reminded him of a promise he had given me, that
he would allow the Dukes to keep their hats on when their votes were
asked for; and I also mentioned various other promises he had made. All
I could obtain from him was another promise, that when the public affairs
of pressing moment awaiting attention were disposed of, we should have
all we required. Several of the Dukes who had been witnesses of the
engagement M. le Duc d'Orleans had made, were much vexed at this; but
ultimately it was agreed that for the moment we would sacrifice our own
particular interests to those of the State.
Between five and six the next morning a number of us met at the house of
the Archbishop of Rheims at the end of the Pont Royal, behind the Hotel
de Mailly, and there, in accordance with a resolution previously agreed
upon, it was arranged that I should make a protest to the Parliament
before the opening of the King's will there, against certain other
usurpations, and state that it was solely because M. le Duc d'Orleans had
given us his word that our complaints should be attended to as soon as
the public affairs of the government were settled, that we postponed
further measures upon this subject. It was past seven before our debate
ended, and then we went straight to the Parliament.
We found it already assembled, and a few Dukes who had not attended our
meeting, but had promised to be guided by us, were also present; and then
a quarter of an hour after we were seated the bastards arrived. M. du
Maine was bursting with joy; the term is strange, but his bearing cannot
otherwise be described. The smiling and satisfied air prevailed over
that of audacity and of confidence, which shone, nevertheless, and over
politeness which seemed to struggle with them. He saluted right and
left, and pierced everybody with his looks. His salutation to the
Presidents had an air of rejoicing. To the peers he was serious, nay,
respectful; the slowness, the lowness of his inclination, was eloquent.
His head remained lowered even when he rose, so heavy is the weight of
crime, even at the moment when nothing but triumph is expected. I
rigidly followed him everywhere with my eyes, and I remarked that his
salute was returned by the peers in a very dry and cold manner.
Scarcely were we re-seated than M. le Duc arrived, and the instant after
M. le Duc d'Orleans. I allowed the stir that accompanied his appearance
to subside a little, and then, seeing that the Chief-President was about
to speak, I forestalled him, uncovered my head, and then covered it, and
made my speech in the terms agreed upon. I concluded by appealing to M.
le Duc d'Orleans to verify the truth of what I had said, in so far as it
affected him.
The profound silence with which I was listened to showed the surprise of
all present. M. le Duc d'Orleans uncovered himself, and in a low tone,
and with an embarrassed manner, confirmed what I had said, then covered
himself again.
Immediately afterwards I looked at M. du Maine, who appeared, to be well
content at being let off so easily, and who, my neighbours said to me,
appeared much troubled at my commencement.
A very short silence followed my protest, after which I saw the Chief-
President say something in a low tone to M. le Duc d'Orleans, then
arrange a deputation of the Parliament to go in search of the King's
will, and its codicil, which had been put in the same place. Silence
continued during this great and short period of expectation; every one
looked at his neighbour without stirring. We were all upon the lower
seats, the doors were supposed to be closed, but the grand chamber was
filled with a large and inquisitive crowd. The regiment of guards had
secretly occupied all the avenues, commanded by the Duc de Guiche, who
got six hundred thousand francs out of the Duc d'Orleans for this
service, which was quite unnecessary.
The deputation was not long in returning. It placed the will and the
codicil in the hands of the Chief-President, who presented them, without
parting with them, to M. le Duc d'Orleans, then passed them from hand to
hand to Dreux, 'conseiller' of the Parliament, and father of the grand
master of the ceremonies, saying that he read well, and in a loud voice
that would he well heard by everybody. It may be imagined with what
silence he was listened to, and how all eyes? and ears were turned
towards him. Through all his; joy the Duc du Maine showed that his soul
was, troubled, as though about to undergo an operation that he must
submit to. M. le Duc d'Orleans showed only a tranquil attention.
I will not dwell upon these two documents, in which nothing is provided
but the grandeur and the power of the bastards, Madame de Maintenon and
Saint-Cyr, the choice of the King's education and of the council of the
regency, by which M. le Duc d'Orleans was to be shorn of all authority to
the advantage of M. le Duc du Maine.
I remarked a sadness and a kind of indignation which were painted upon
all cheeks, as the reading advanced, and which turned into a sort of
tranquil fermentation at the reading of the codicil, which was entrusted
to the Abbe Menguy, another conseiller. The Duc du Maine felt it and
grew pale, for he was solely occupied in looking at every face, and I in
following his looks, and in glancing occasionally at M. le Duc d'Orleans.
The reading being finished, that prince spoke, casting his eyes upon all
the assembly, uncovering himself, and then covering himself again, and
commencing by a word of praise and of regret for the late King;
afterwards raising his voice, he declared that he had only to approve
everything just read respecting the education of the King, and everything
respecting an establishment so fine and so useful as that of Saint-Cyr;
that with respect to the dispositions concerning the government of the
state, he would speak separately of those in the will and those in the
codicil; that he could with difficulty harmonise them with the assurances
the King, during the last days of his life, had given him; that the King
could not have understood the importance of what he had been made to do
for the Duc du Maine since the council of the regency was chosen, and M.
du Maine's authority so established by the will, that the Regent remained
almost without power; that this injury done to the rights of his birth,
to his attachment to the person of the King, to his love and fidelity for
the state, could not be endured if he was to preserve his honour; and
that he hoped sufficiently from the esteem of all present, to persuade
himself that his regency would be declared as it ought to be, that is to
say, complete, independent, and that he should be allowed to choose his
own council, with the members of which he would not discuss public
affairs, unless they were persons who, being approved by the public,
might also have his confidence. This short speech appeared to make a
great impression.
The Duc du Maine wished to speak. As he was about to do so, M. le Duc
d'Orleans put his head in front of M. le Duc and said, in a dry tone,
"Monsieur, you will speak in your turn." In one moment the affair turned
according to the desires of M. le Duc d'Orleans. The power of the
council of the regency and its composition fell. The choice of the
council was awarded to M. le Duc d'Orleans, with all the authority of the
regency, and to the plurality of the votes of the council, the decision
of affairs, the vote of the Regent to be counted as two in the event of
an equal division. Thus all favours and all punishments remained in the
hands of M. le Duc d'Orleans alone. The acclamation was such that the
Duc du Maine did not dare to say a word. He reserved himself for the
codicil, which, if adopted, would have annulled all that M. le Duc
d'Orleans had just obtained.
After some few moments of silence, M. le Duc d'Orleans spoke again. He
testified fresh surprise that the dispositions of the will had not been
sufficient for those who had suggested them, and that, not content with
having established themselves as masters of the state, they themselves
should have thought those dispositions so strange that in order to
reassure them, it had been thought necessary to make them masters of the
person of the King, of the Regent, of the Court, and of Paris. He added,
that if his honour and all law and rule had been wounded by the
dispositions of the will, still more violated were they by those of the
codicil, which left neither his life nor his liberty in safety, and
placed the person of the King in the absolute dependence of those who had
dared to profit by the feeble state of a dying monarch, to draw from him
conditions he did not understand. He concluded by declaring that the
regency was impossible under such conditions, and that he doubted not the
wisdom of the assembly would annul a codicil which could not be
sustained, and the regulations of which would plunge France into the
greatest and most troublesome misfortune. Whilst this prince spoke a
profound and sad silence applauded him without explaining itself.
The Duc du Maine became of all colours, and began to speak, this time
being allowed to do so. He said that the education of the King, and
consequently his person, being confided to him, as a natural result,
entire authority over his civil and military household followed, without
which he could not properly serve him or answer for his person. Then he
vaunted his well-known attachment to the deceased King, who had put all
confidence in him.
M. le Duc d'Orleans interrupted him at this word, and commented upon it.
M. du Maine wished to calm him by praising the Marechal de Villeroy, who
was to assist him in his charge. M. le Duc d'Orleans replied that it
would be strange if the chief and most complete confidence were not
placed in the Regent, and stranger still if he were obliged to live under
the protection and authority of those who had rendered themselves the
absolute masters within and without, and of Paris even, by the regiment
of guards.
The dispute grew warm, broken phrases were thrown from one to the other,
when, troubled about the end of an altercation which became indecent and
yielding to the proposal that the Duc de la Force had just made me in
front of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, who sat between us, I made a sign
with my hand to M. le Duc d'Orleans to go out and finish this discussion
in another room leading out of the grand chamber and where there was
nobody. What led me to this action was that I perceived M. du Maine grew
stronger, that confused murmurs for a division were heard, and that M. le
Duc d'Orleans did not shine to the best advantage since he descended to
plead his cause, so to speak, against that of the Duc du Maine.
M. le Duc d'Orleans was short-sighted. He was entirely absorbed in
attacking and repelling; so that he did not see the sign I made. Some
moments after I increased it, and meeting with no more success, rose,
advanced some steps, and said to him, though rather distant, "Monsieur,
if you passed into the fourth chamber with M. du Maine you could speak
there more easily," and advancing nearer at the same time I pressed him
by a sign of the head and the eyes that he could distinguish. He replied
to me with another sign, and scarcely was I reseated than I saw him
advance in front of M. le Duc to the Duc du Maine, and immediately after
both rose and went into the chamber I had indicated. I could not see who
of the scattered group around followed them, for all present rose at
their departure, and seated themselves again directly in complete
silence. Some time after, M. le Comte de Toulouse left his place and
went into the Chamber. M. le Duc followed him in a little while soon
again the Duc de la Force did the same.
He did not stay long. Returning to the assembly; he passed the Duc de la
Rochefoucauld and me, put his head between that of the Duc de Sully and
mine, because he did not wish to be heard by La Rochefoucauld, and said
to me, "In the name of God go there; things are getting on badly. M. le
Duc d'Orleans gives way; stop the dispute; make M. le Duc d'Orleans come
back; and, as soon as he is in his place, let him say that it is too late
to finish, that the company had better go to dinner, and return to finish
afterwards, and during this interval," added La Force, "send the King's
people to the Palais Royal, and let doubtful peers be spoken to, and the
chiefs among other magistrates."
The advice appeared to me good and important. I left the assembly and
went to the chamber. I found a large circle of spectators. M. le Duc
d'Orleans and the Duc du Maine stood before the fireplace, looking both
very excited. I looked at this spectacle some moments; then approached
the mantelpiece like a man who wishes to speak. "What is this,
Monsieur?" said M. le Duc d'Orleans to me, with an impatient manner.
"A pressing word, Monsieur, that I have to say to you," said I. He
continued speaking to the Duc du Maine, I being close by. I redoubled my
instances; he lent me his ear. "No, no," said I, "not like that, come
here," and I took him into a corner by the chimney. The Comte de
Toulouse, who was there, drew completely back, and all the circle on that
side. The Duc du Maine drew back also from where he was.
I said to M. le Duc d'Orleans, in his ear, that he could not hope to gain
anything from M. du Maine, who would not sacrifice the codicil to his
reasonings; that the length of their conference became indecent, useless,
dangerous; that he was making a sight of himself to all who entered; that
the only thing to be done was to return to the assembly, and, when there,
dissolve it. "You are right," said he, "I will do it."--"But," said I,
"do it immediately, and do not allow yourself to be amused. It is to M.
de la Force you owe this advice: he sent me to give it you." He quitted
me without another word, went to M. du Maine, told him in two words that
it was too late, and that the matter must be finished after dinner.
I had remained where he left me. I saw the Duc du Maine bow to him
immediately, and the two separated, and retired at the same moment into
the assembly.
The noise which always accompanies these entrances being appeased, M. le
Duc d'Orleans said it was too late to abuse the patience of the company
any longer; that dinner must be eaten, and the work finished afterwards.
He immediately added, he believed it fitting that M. le Duc should enter
the council of the regency as its chief; and that since the company had
rendered the justice due to his birth and his position as Regent, he
would explain what he thought upon the form to be given to the
government, and that meanwhile he profited by the power he had to avail
himself of the knowledge and the wisdom of the company, and restored to
them from that time their former liberty of remonstrance. These words
were followed by striking and general applause, and the assembly was
immediately adjourned.
I was invited this day to dine with the Cardinal de Noailles, but I felt
the importance of employing the time so precious and so short, of the
interval of dinner, and of not quitting M. le Duc d'Orleans, according to
a suggestion of M. le Duc de la Force. I approached M. le Duc d'Orleans,
and said in his ear, "The moments are precious: I will follow you to the
Palais Royal," and went back to my place among the peers. Jumping into
my coach, I sent a gentleman with my excuses to the Cardinal de Noailles,
saying, I would tell him the reason of my absence afterwards. Then I
went to the Palais Royal, where curiosity had gathered together all who
were not at the palace, and even some who had been there. All the
acquaintances I met asked me the news with eagerness. I contented myself
with replying that everything went well, and according to rule, but that
all was not yet finished.
M. le Duc d'Orleans had passed into a cabinet, where I found him alone
with Canillac, who had waited for him. We took our measures there, and
M. le Duc d'Orleans sent for the Attorney-General, D'Aguesseau,
afterwards Chancellor, and the chief Advocate-General, Joly de Fleury,
since Attorney-General. It was nearly two o'clock. A little dinner was
served, of which Canillac, Conflans, M. le Duc d'Orleans, and myself
partook; and I will say this, by the way, I never dined with him but once
since, namely, at Bagnolet.
We returned to the Parliament a little before four o'clock. I arrived
there alone in my carriage, a moment before M. le Duc d'Orleans, and
found everybody assembled. I was looked at with much curiosity, as it
seemed to me. I am not aware if it was known whence I came. I took care
that my bearing should say nothing. I simply said to the Duc de la Force
that his advice had been salutary, that I had reason to hope all success
from it, and that I had told M. le Duc d'Orleans whence it came. That
Prince arrived, and (the hubbub inseparable from such a numerous suite
being appeased) he said that matters must be recommenced from the point
where they had been broken off in the morning; that it was his duty to
say to the Court that in nothing had he agreed with M. du Maine and to
bring again before all eyes the monstrous clauses of a codicil, drawn
from a dying prince; clauses much more strange than the dispositions of
the testament that the Court had not deemed fit to be put in execution,
and that the Court could not allow M. du Maine to be master of the person
of the King, of the camp, of Paris, consequently of the State, of the
person, life, and liberty of the Regent, whom he would be in a position
to arrest at any moment as soon as he became the absolute and independent
master of the civil and military household of the King; that the Court
saw what must inevitably result from an unheard-of novelty, which placed
everything in the hands of M. du Maine; and that he left it to the
enlightenment, to the prudence, to the wisdom, to the equity of the
company, and its love for the State, to declare what they thought on this
subject.
M. du Maine appeared then as contemptible in the broad open daylight as
he had appeared redoubtable in the obscurity of the cabinets. He had the
look of one condemned, and his face, generally so fresh-coloured, was now
as pale as death. He replied in a very low and scarcely intelligible
voice, and with an air as respectful and as humble as it had been
audacious in the morning.
People opined without listening to him; and tumultuously, but with one
voice, the entire abrogation of the codicil was passed. This was
premature, as the abrogation of the testament had been in the morning--
both caused by sudden indignation. D'Aguesseauand Fleury both spoke, the
first in a few words, the other at greater length, making a very good
speech. As it exists, in the libraries, I will only say that the
conclusions of both orators were in everything favourable to M. le Duc
d'Orleans.
After they had spoken, the Duc du Maine, seeing himself totally shorn,
tried a last resource. He represented, with more force than could have
been expected from his demeanour at this second sitting, but yet with
measure, that since he had been stripped of the authority confided to him
by the codicil, he asked to be discharged from the responsibility of
answering for the person of the King, and to be allowed simply to
preserve the superintendence of his education. M, le Duc d'Orleans
replied, "With all my heart, Monsieur; nothing more is wanted."
Thereupon the Chief. President formally put the question to the vote.
A decree was passed by which all power was taken from the hands of M. du
Maine and placed in those of the Regent, with the right of placing whom
he pleased in the council; of dismissing anybody as it should seem good
to him; and of doing all he might think fit respecting the form to be
given to the government; authority over public affairs, nevertheless, to
remain with the council, and decision to be taken by the plurality of
votes, the vote of the Regent to count double in case of equal division;
M. le Duc to be chief of the council under him, with the right to enter
it at once and opine there.
During all this time, and until the end of the sitting, M. du Maine had
his eyes always cast down, looked more dead than alive, and appeared
motionless. His son and his brother gave no sign of taking interest in
anything.
The decree was followed by loud acclamations of the crowd scattered
outside, and that which filled the rest of the palace replied as soon as
they learnt what had been decided.
This noise, which lasted some time, being appeased, the Regent thanked
the company in brief, polished, and majestic terms; declared with what
care he would employ for the good of the state, the authority with which
he was invested; then said it was time he should inform them what he
judged ought to be established in order to aid him in the administration
of affairs. He added that he did so with the more confidence, because
what he proposed was exactly what M. le Duc de Bourgogne ('twas thus he
named him) had resolved, as shown by papers found in his bureau. He
passed a short and graceful eulogy upon the enlightenment and intentions
of that prince; then declared that, besides the council of the regency,
which would be the supreme centre from which all the affairs of the
government would spring, he proposed to establish a council for foreign
affairs, one for war, one for the navy, one for finance, one for
ecclesiastical matters, and one for home affairs and to choose some of
the magistrates of the company to enter these last two councils, and aid
them by their knowledge upon the police of the realm, the jurisprudence,
and what related to the liberties of the Gallican church.
The applause of the magistrates burst out at this, and all the crowd
replied to it. The Chief-President concluded the sitting by a very short
compliment to the Regent, who rose, and at the same time all the
assembly, which then broke up.
On Friday, the 6th of September, 1715, the Regent performed an action of
most exquisite merit, if it had been actuated by the love of God, but
which was of the utmost meanness, religion having no connection with it.
He went at eight o'clock in the morning to see Madame de Maintenon at
Saint-Cyr. He was nearly an hour with this enemy, who had wished to cut
off his head, and who quite recently had sought to deliver him, tied hand
and foot, to M. du Maine, by the monstrous dispositions of the King's
will and codicil.
The Regent assured her during this visit that the four thousand livres
the King had given her every month should be continued, and should be
brought to her the first day of every month by the Duc de Noailles, who
had apparently induced the Prince to pay this visit, and promise this
present. He said to Madame de Maintenon that if she wished for more she
had only to speak, and assured her he would protect Saint-Cyr. In leaving
he was shown the young girls, all together in classes.
It must be remembered, that besides the estate of Maintenon, and the
other property of this famous and fatal witch, the establishment of
Saint-Cyr, which had more than four hundred thousand livres yearly
income, and much money in reserve, was obliged by the rules which founded
it, to receive Madame de Maintenon, if she wished to retire there; to
obey her in all things, as the absolute and sole superior; to keep her
and everybody connected with her, her domestics, her equipages, as she
wished, her table, etc., at the expense of the house, all of which was
very punctually done until her death. Thus she needed not this generous
liberality, by which her pension of forty-eight thousand livres was
continued to her. It would have been quite enough if M. le Duc d'Orleans
had forgotten that she was in existence, and had simply left her
untroubled in Saint-Cyr.
The Regent took good care not to inform me of his visit, before or after;
and I took good care not to reproach him with it, or make him ashamed of
it. It made much noise, and was not approved of. The Spanish affair was
not yet forgotten, and the will and codicil furnished other matter for
all conversations.
CHAPTER LXXX
Saturday, the 7th of September, was the day fixed for the first Bed of
Justice of the King (Louis XV.); but he caught a cold during the night,
and suffered a good deal. The Regent came alone to Paris. The
Parliament had assembled, and I went to a door of the palace, where I was
informed of the countermand which had just arrived. The Chief-President
and the King's people were at once sent for to the Palais Royal, and the
Parliament, which was about to adjourn, was continued for all the rest of
the month for general business. On the morrow, the Regent, who was
wearied with Versailles,--for he liked to live in Paris, where all his
pleasures were within easy reach,--and who met with opposition from the
Court doctors, all comfortably lodged at Versailles, to the removal of
the person of the King to Vincennes, under pretext of a slight cold,
fetched other doctors from Paris, who had been sent for to see the
deceased King. These practitioners, who had nothing to gain by
recommending Versailles, laughed at the Court doctors, and upon their
opinion it was resolved to take the King to Vincennes, where all was
ready for him on the morrow.
He set out, then, that day from Versailles, at about two o'clock in the
day, in company with the Regent, the Duchesse de Ventadour, the Duc du
Maine, and the Marechal de Villeroy, passed round the ramparts of Paris,
without entering the city, and arrived at Vincennes about five o'clock,
many people and carriages having come out along the road to see him.
On the day after the arrival of the King at Vincennes, the Regent worked
all the morning with all the Secretaries of State separately, whom he had
charged to bring him the list of all the 'lettres de cachet' issued from
their bureaux, and a statement of the reasons for which they were
delivered, as such oftentimes were slight. The majority of the 'lettres
de cachet' of exile and of imprisonment had been drawn up against
Jansenists, and people who had opposed the constitution; numbers the
reasons of which were known only to the deceased King, and to those who
had induced him to grant them; others were of the time of previous
ministers, and among them were many which had been long forgotten and
unknown. The Regent restored everybody to liberty, exiles and prisoners,
except those whom he knew to have been arrested for grave crimes, or
affairs of State; and brought down infinite benedictions upon himself by
this act of justice and humanity.
Many very singular and strange stories were then circulated, which showed
the tyranny of the last reign, and of its ministers, and caused the
misfortunes of the prisoners to be deplored. Among those in the Bastille
was a man who had been imprisoned thirty-five years. Arrested the day he
arrived in Paris, on a journey from Italy, to which country he belonged.
It has never been known why he was arrested, and he had never been
examined, as was the case with the majority of the others: people were
persuaded a mistake had been made. When his liberty was announced to
him, he sadly asked what it was expected he could do with it. He said he
had not a farthing; that he did not know a soul in Paris, not even a
single street, or a person in all France; that his relatives in Italy
had, doubtless, died since he left; that his property, doubtless, had
been divided, so many years having elapsed during which no news had been
received from him; that he knew not what to do. He asked to be allowed
to remain in the Bastille for the rest of his days, with food and
lodging. This was granted, with as much liberty as he wished.
As for those who were taken from the dungeons where the hatred of the
ministers; of the Jesuits; and of the Constitution chiefs, had cast them,
the horrible state they appeared in terrified everybody, and rendered
credible all the cruel stories which, as soon as they were fully at
liberty, they revealed.
The same day on which this merciful decision was come to, died Madame de
la Vieuville, not old, of a cancer in the breast, the existence of which
she had concealed until two days before her death, and thus deprived
herself of help.
A few days after, the finances being in such a bad state, the Regent made
Crosat treasurer of the order, in return for which he obtained from him a
loan of a million, in bars of silver, and the promise of another two
million. Previous to this, the hunting establishments of the King had
been much reduced. Now another retrenchment was made. There were seven
intendants of the finances, who, for six hundred thousand livres, which
their places had cost them, enjoyed eighty thousand livres each per
annum. They were all suppressed, and simply the interest of their
purchase-money paid to them; that is to say, thirty thousand livres each,
until that purchase-money could be paid. It was found that there were
sixteen hundred thousand francs owing to our ambassadors, and to our
agents in foreign countries, the majority of whom literally had not
enough to pay the postage of their letters, having spent all they
possessed. This was a cruel discredit to us, all over Europe. I might
fill a volume in treating upon the state and the arrangements of our
finances. But this labour is above my strength, and contrary to my
taste. I will simply say that as soon as money could be spared it was
sent to our ambassadors abroad. They were dying of hunger, were over
head and ears in debt, had fallen into utter contempt, and our affairs
were suffering accordingly.
The council of the regency, let me say here, was composed of the
following persons: M. le Duc d'Orleans, M. le Duc, the Duc du Maine, the
Comte de Toulouse, Voysin the Chancellor, myself--since I must name
myself,--Marechal de Villeroy, Marechal d'Harcourt, Marechal de Besons,
the Late Bishop of Troyes, and Torcy, with a right to vote; with La
Vrilliere, who kept the register, and Pontchartrain, both without the
right to vote.
I have already alluded to the presence of Lord Stair at this time in our
Court, as ambassador from England. By means of intrigues he had
succeeded in ingratiating himself into the favour of the Regent, and in
convincing him that the interests of France and England were identical.
One of the reasons--the main one--which he brought forward to show this,
was that King George was an usurper; and that if anything happened to our
King, M. le Duc d'Orleans would become, in mounting the throne of France,
an usurper also, the King of Spain being the real heir to the French
monarchy; that, in consequence of this, France and England ought to march
together, protect each other; France assisting England against the
Pretender, and England assisting France, if need be, against the King of
Spain. M. le Duc d'Orleans had too much penetration not to see this
snare; but, marvellous as it may seem, the crookedness of this policy,
and not the desire of reigning, seduced him. I am quite prepared, if
ever these memoirs see the day, to find that this statement will be
laughed at; that it will throw discredit on others, and cause me to be
regarded as a great ass, if I think to make my readers, believe it; or
for an idiot, if I have believed it myself. Nevertheless, such is the
pure truth, to which I sacrifice all, in despite of what my readers may
think of me. However incredible it may be, it is, as I say, the exact
verity; and I do not hesitate to advance, that there are many such facts,
unknown to history, which would much surprise if known; and which are
unknown, only because scarcely any history has been written at first
hand.
Stair wished, above all, to hinder the Regent from giving any assistance
to the Pretender, and to prevent him passing through the realm in order
to reach a seaport. Now the Regent was between two stools, for he had
promised the Pretender to wink at his doings, and to favour his passage
through France, if it were made secretly, and at the same time he had
assented to the demand of Stair. Things had arrived at this pass when
the troubles increased in England, and the Earl of Mar obtained some
success in Scotland. Soon after news came that the Pretender had
departed from Bar, and was making his way to the coast. Thereupon Stair
ran in hot haste to M. le Duc d'Orleans to ask him to keep his promise,
and hinder the Pretender's journey. The Regent immediately sent off
Contade, major in the guards, very intelligent, and in whom he could
trust, with his brother, a lieutenant in the same regiment, and two
sergeants of their choice, to go to Chateau-Thierry, and wait for the
Pretender, Stair having sure information that he would pass there.
Contade set out at night on the 9th of November, well resolved and
instructed to miss the person he was to seek. Stair, who expected as
much, took also his measures, which were within an inch of succeeding;
for this is what happened.
The Pretender set out disguised from Bar, accompanied by only three or
four persons, and came to Chaillot, where M. de Lauzun had a little
house, which he never visited, and which he had kept for mere fancy,
although he had a house at Passy, of which he made much use. It was in
this, Chaillot's house, that the Pretender put up, and where he saw the
Queen, his mother, who often stopped at the Convent of the Filles de
Sainte Marie-Therese. Thence he set out in a post-chaise of Torcy's, by
way of Alencon, for Brittany, where he meant to embark.
Stair discovered this scheme, and resolved to leave nothing undone in
order to deliver his party of this, the last of the Stuarts. He quietly
despatched different people by different roads, especially by that from
Paris to Alencon. He charged with this duty Colonel Douglas (who
belonged to the Irish (regiments) in the pay of France), who, under the
protection of his name, and by his wit and his intrigues, had insinuated
himself into many places in Paris since the commencement of the regency;
had placed himself on a footing of consideration and of familiarity with
the Regent; and often came to my house. He was good company; had married
upon the frontier of Metz; was very poor; had politeness and much
experience of the world; the reputation of distinguished valour; and
nothing which could render him suspected of being capable of a crime.
Douglas got into a post-chaise, accompanied by two horsemen; all three
were well armed, and posted leisurely along this road. Nonancourt is a
kind of little village upon this route, at nineteen leagues from Paris;
between Dreux, three leagues further, and Verneuil au Perche, four
leagues this side. It was at Nonancourt that he alighted, ate a morsel
at the post-house, inquired with extreme solicitude after a post-chaise
which he described, as well as the manner in which it would be
accompanied, expressed fear lest it had already passed, and lest he had
not been answered truly. After infinite inquiries, he left a third
horseman, who had just reached him, on guard, with orders to inform him
when the chaise he was in search of appeared; and added menaces and
promises of recompense to the post people, so as not to be deceived by
their negligence.
The post-master was named L'Hospital; he was absent, but his wife was in
the house, and she fortunately was a very honest woman, who had wit,
sense, and courage. Nonancourt is only five leagues from La Ferme, and
when, to save distance, you do not pass there, they send you relays upon
the road. Thus I knew very well this post-mistress, who mixed herself
more in the business than her husband, and who has herself related to me
this adventure more than once. She did all she could, uselessly, to
obtain some explanation upon these alarms. All that she could unravel
was that the strangers were Englishmen, and in a violent excitement about
something, that something very important was at stake,--and that they
meditated mischief. She fancied thereupon that the Pretender was in
question; resolved to save him; mentally arranged her plans, and
fortunately enough executed them.
In order to succeed she devoted herself to the service of these
gentlemen, refused them nothing, appeared quite satisfied, and promised
that they should infallibly be informed. She persuaded them of this so
thoroughly, that Douglas went away without saying where, except to this
third horseman just arrived, but it was close at hand; so that he might
be warned in time. He took one of his valets with him; the other
remained with the horseman to wait and watch.
Another man much embarrassed the post-mistress; nevertheless, she laid
her plans. She proposed to the horseman to drink something, because when
he arrived Douglas had left the table. She served him in her best
manner, and with her best wine, and kept him at table as long as she
could, anticipating all his orders. She had placed a valet, in whom she
could trust, as guard, with orders simply to appear, without a word, if
he saw a chaise; and her resolution was to lock up the Englishman and his
servant, and to give their horses to the chaise if it came. But it came
not, and the Englishman grew tired of stopping at table. Then she
manoeuvred so well that she persuaded him to go and lie down, and to
count upon her, her people, and upon the valet Douglas had left. The
Englishman told this valet not to quit the threshold of the house, and to
inform him as soon as the chaise appeared. He then suffered himself to
be led to the back of the house, in order to lie down. The post-
mistress, immediately after, goes to one of her friends in a by-street,
relates her adventure and her suspicions, makes the friend agree to
receive and secrete in her dwelling the person she expected, sends for an
ecclesiastic, a relative of them both, and in whom she could repose
confidence, who came and lent an Abbe's dress and wig to match. This
done, Madame L'Hospital returns to her home, finds the English valet at
the door, talks with him, pities his ennui, says he is a good fellow to
be so particular, says that from the door to the house there is but one
step, promises him that he shall be as well informed as by his own eyes,
presses him to drink something, and tips the wink to a trusty postilion,
who makes him drink until he rolls dead drunk under the table. During
this performance, the wary mistress listens at the door of the English
gentleman's room, gently turns the key and locks him in, and then
establishes herself upon the threshold of her door.
Half an hour after comes the trusty valet whom she had put on guard: it
was the expected chaise, which, as well as the three men who accompanied
it, were made, without knowing why, to slacken speed. It was King James.
Madame L'Hospital accosts him, says he is expected, and lost if he does
not take care; but that he may trust in her and follow her. At once they
both go to her friends. There he learns all that has happened, and they
hide him, and the three men of his suite as well as they could. Madame
L'Hospital returns home, sends for the officers of justice, and in
consequence of her suspicions she causes the English gentleman and the
English valet, the one drunk, the other asleep, locked in the room where
she had left him, to be arrested, and immediately after despatches a
postilion to Torcy. The officers of justice act, and send their
deposition to the Court.
The rage of the English gentleman on finding himself arrested, and unable
to execute the duty which led him there, and his fury against the valet
who had allowed himself to be intoxicated, cannot be expressed. As for
Madame L'Hospital he would have strangled her if he could; and she for a
long time was afraid of her life.
The Englishman could not be induced to confess what brought him there, or
where was Douglas, whom he named in order to show his importance. He
declared he had been sent by the English ambassador, though Stair had not
yet officially assumed that title, and exclaimed that that minister would
never suffer the affront he had received. They civilly replied to him,
that there were no proofs he came from the English ambassador,--none that
he was connected with the minister: that very suspicious designs against
public safety on the highway alone were visible; that no harm or
annoyance should be caused him, but that he must remain in safety until
orders came, and there upon he was civilly led to prison, as well as the
intoxicated valet.
What became of Douglas at that time was never known, except that he was
recognised in various places, running, inquiring, crying out with despair
that he had escaped, without mentioning any name. Apparently news came
to him, or he sought it, being tired of receiving none. The report of
what had occurred in such a little place as Nonancourt would easily have
reached him, close as he was to it; and perhaps it made him set out anew
to try and catch his prey.
But he journeyed in vain. King James had remained hidden at Nonancourt,
where, charmed with the attentions of his generous post-mistress, who had
saved him from his assassins, he admitted to her who he was, and gave her
a letter for the Queen, his mother. He remained there three days, to
allow the hubbub to pass, and rob those who sought him of all hope; then,
disguised as an Abbe, he jumped into a post-chaise that Madame L'Hospital
had borrowed in the neighbourhood--to confound all identity--and
continued his journey, during which he was always pursued, but happily
was never recognised, and embarked in Brittany for Scotland.
Douglas, tired of useless searches, returned to Paris, where Stair kicked
up a fine dust about the Nonancourt adventure. This he denominated
nothing less than an infraction of the law of nations, with an extreme
audacity and impudence, and Douglas, who could not be ignorant of what
was said about him, had the hardihood to go about everywhere as usual; to
show himself at the theatre; and to present himself before M. le Duc
d'Orleans.
This Prince ignored as much as he could a plot so cowardly and so
barbarous, and in respect to him so insolent. He kept silence, said to
Stair what he judged fitting to make him be silent likewise, but gave
liberty to his English assassins. Douglas, however, fell much in the
favour of the Regent, and many considerable people closed their doors to
him. He vainly tried to force mine. But as for me I was a perfect
Jacobite, and quite persuaded that it was the interest of France to give
England domestic occupation, which would long hinder her from thinking of
foreign matters. I then, as may be supposed, could not look upon the
odious enterprise with a favourable eye, or pardon its authors. Douglas
complained to me of my disregard for him, but to no purpose. Soon after
he disappeared from Paris. I know not what became of him afterwards.
His wife and his children remained there living by charity. A long time
after his death beyond the seas, the Abbe de Saint-Simon passed from
Noyan to Metz, where he found his widow in great misery.
The Queen of England sent for Madame L'Hospital to Saint-Germain, thanked
her, caressed her, as she deserved, and gave her her portrait. This was
all; the Regent gave her nothing; a long while after King James wrote to
her, and sent her also his portrait. Conclusion: she remained post-
mistress of Nonancourt as before, twenty or twenty-five years after, to
her death; and her son and her daughter-in-law keep the post now. She
was a true woman; estimated in her neighbourhood; not a single word that
she uttered concerning this history has been contradicted by any one.
What it cost her can never be said, but she never received a farthing.
She never complained, but spoke as she found things, with modesty, and
without seeking to speak. Such is the indigence of dethroned Kings, and
their complete forgetfulness of the greatest perils and the most signal
services.
Many honest people avoided Stair, whose insolent airs made others avoid
him. He filled the cup by the insupportable manner in which he spoke
upon that affair, never daring to admit he had directed it, or deigning
to disculpate himself. The only annoyance he showed was about his ill-
success.
CHAPTER LXXXI
I must say a few words now of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who, as may be
imagined, began to hold her head very high indeed directly the regency of
Monsieur her father was established. Despite the representations of
Madame de Saint-Simon, she usurped all the honours of a queen; she went
through Paris with kettle-drums beating, and all along the quay of the
Tuileries where the King was. The Marechal de Villeroy complained of
this next day to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who promised him that while the
King remained in Paris no kettle-drums should be heard but his. Never
afterwards did Madame la Duchesse de Berry have any, yet when she went to
the theatre she sat upon a raised dais in her box, had four of her guards
upon the stage, and others in the pit; the house was better lighted than
usual, and before the commencement of the performance she was harangued
by the players. This made a strange stir in Paris, and as she did not
dare to continue it she gave up her usual place, and took at the opera a
little box where she could scarcely be seen, and where she was almost
incognito. As the comedy was played then upon the opera stage for
Madame, this little box served for both entertainments.
The Duchess desired apparently to pass the summer nights in all liberty
in the garden of the Luxembourg. She accordingly had all the gates
walled up but one, by which the Faubourg Saint-Germain, which had always
enjoyed the privilege of walking there, were much deprived. M. le Duc
thereupon opened the Conti garden to make up to the public for their
loss. As may be imagined, strange things were said about the motives
which led to the walling up of the garden.
As the Princess found new lovers to replace the old ones, she tried to
pension off the latter at the expense of the public. She had a place
created expressly for La Haye. She bought, or rather the King for her,
a little house at the entry of the Bois de Boulogne, which was pretty,
with all the wood in front, and a fine garden behind. It was called La
Muette.
After many amours she had become smitten with Rion, a younger son of the
house of Aydic. He was a fat, chubby, pale little fellow, who had so
many pimples that he did not ill resemble an abscess. He had good teeth,
but had no idea he should cause a passion which in less than no time
became ungovernable, and which lasted a long while without however
interfering with temporary and passing amours. He was not worth a penny,
but had many brothers and sisters who had no more than he. He was a
lieutenant of dragoons, relative of Madame Pons, dame d'atours of Madame
la Duchesse de Berry, who sent for him to try and do something for him.
Scarcely had he arrived than the passion of the Duchess declared itself,
and he became the master of the Luxembourg where she dwelt. M. de
Lauzun, who was a distant relative, was delighted, and chuckled inwardly.
He thought he saw a repetition of the old times, when Mademoiselle was in
her glory; he vouchsafed his advice to Rion.
Rion was gentle and naturally polished and respectful, a good and honest
fellow. He soon felt the power of his charms, which could only have
captivated the incomprehensible and depraved fantasy of such a princess.
He did not abuse this power; made himself liked by everybody; but he
treated Madame la Duchesse de Berry as M. de Lauzun had treated
Mademoiselle. He was soon decorated with the most beautiful lace and the
richest clothes covered with silver, loaded with snuffboxes, jewels, and
precious stones. He took pleasure in making the Princess long after him,
and be jealous; affecting to be still more jealous of her. He often made
her cry. Little by little, he obtained such authority over her that she
did not dare to do anything without his permission, not even the most
indifferent things. If she were ready to go to the opera, he made her
stay away; at other times he made her go thither in spite of herself.
He made her treat well many ladies she did not like, or of whom she was
jealous, and treat ill persons who pleased her, but of whom he pretended
to be jealous. Even in her finery she had not the slightest liberty.
He amused himself by making her disarrange her head-dress, or change her
clothes, when she was quite dressed; and that so often and so publicly,
that he accustomed her at last to take over night his orders for her
morning's dress and occupation, and on the morrow he would change
everything, and the Princess wept as much as she could, and more. At
last she actually sent messages to him by trusty valets,--for he lived
close to the Luxembourg,--several times during her toilet, to know what
ribbons she should wear; the same with her gown and other things; and
nearly always he made her wear what she did not wish for. If ever she
dared to do the least thing without his permission, he treated her like a
serving-wench, and her tears lasted sometimes several days. This
princess, so haughty, and so fond of showing and exercising the most
unmeasured pride, disgraced herself by joining in repasts with him and
obscure people; she, with whom no man could lawfully eat if he were not a
prince of the blood!
A Jesuit, named Pere Riglet, whom she had known as a child, and whose
intimacy she had always cultivated since, was admitted to these private
repasts, without being ashamed thereof, and without Madame la Duchesse de
Berry being embarrassed. Madame de Mouchy was the confidante of all
these strange parties she and Rion invited the guests, and chose the
days. La Mouchy often reconciled the Princess to her lover, and was
better treated by him than she, without her daring to take notice of it,
for fear of an eclat which would have caused her to lose so dear a lover,
and a confidante so necessary. This life was public; everybody at the
Luxembourg paid court to M. de Rion, who, on his side, took care to be on
good terms with all the world, nay, with an air of respect that he
refused, even in public, to his princess. He often gave sharp replies to
her in society, which made people lower their eyes, and brought blushes
to the cheek of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who, nevertheless, did not
attempt to conceal her submission and passionate manners, even before
others. A remarkable fact is, that in the midst of this life, she took
an apartment at the Convent of the Carmelites of the Faubourg Saint-
Germain, where she sometimes went in the afternoon, always slept there on
grand religious fete days, and often remained there several days running.
She took with her two ladies, rarely three, scarcely a single domestic;
she ate with her ladies what the convent could supply for her table;
attended the services, was sometimes long in prayer, and rigidly fasted
on the appointed days.
Two Carmelites, of much talent, and who knew the world, were charged to
receive her, and to be near her. One was very beautiful: the other had
been so. They were rather young, especially the handsomer; but were very
religious and holy, and performed the office entrusted to them much
against their inclination. When they became more familiar they spoke
freely to the Princess, and said to her that if they knew nothing of her
but what they saw, they should admire her as a saint, but, elsewhere,
they learnt that she led a strange life, and so public, that they could
not comprehend why she came to their convent. Madame la Duchesse de
Berry laughed at this, and was not angry. Sometimes they lectured her,
called people and things by their names, and exhorted her to change so
scandalous a life; but it was all in vain. She lived as before, both at
the Luxembourg and at the Carmelites, and caused wonderment by this
surprising conduct.
Madame la Duchesse de Berry returned with usury to her father, the
severity and the domination she suffered at the hands of Rion--yet this
prince, in his weakness, was not less submissive to her, attentive to
her, or afraid of her. He was afflicted with the public reign of Rion,
and the scandal of his daughter; but he did not dare to breathe a word,
or if he did (after some scene, as ridiculous as it was violent, had
passed between the lover and the Princess, and become public), he was
treated like a negro, pouted at several days, and did not know how to
make his peace.
But it is time now to speak of the public and private occupations of the
Regent himself, of his conduct, his pleasure parties, and the employment
of his days.
Up to five o'clock in the evening he devoted himself exclusively to
public business, reception of ministers, councils, etc., never dining
during the day, but taking chocolate between two and three o'clock, when
everybody was allowed to enter his room. After the council of the day,
that is to say, at about five o'clock, there was no more talk of
business. It was now the time of the Opera or the Luxembourg (if he had
not been to the latter place before his chocolate), or he went to Madame
la Duchesse d'Orleans' apartments, or supped, or went out privately, or
received company privately; or, in the fine season, he went to Saint-
Cloud, or elsewhere out of town, now supping there, or at the Luxembourg,
or at home. When Madame was at Paris, he spoke to her for a moment
before his mass; and when she was at Saint-Cloud he went to see her
there, and always paid her much attention and respect.
His suppers were always in very strange company. His mistresses,
sometimes an opera girl, often Madame la Duchesse de Berry, and a dozen
men whom he called his rows, formed the party. The requisite cheer was
prepared in places made expressly, on the same floor, all the utensils
were of silver; the company often lent a hand to the cooks. It was at
these parties that the character of every one was passed in review,
ministers and favourites like the rest, with a liberty which was
unbridled license. The gallantries past and present of the Court and of
the town; all old stories, disputes, jokes, absurdities were raked up;
nobody was spared; M. le Duc d'Orleans had his say like the rest, but
very rarely did these discourses make the slightest impression upon him.
The company drank as much as they could, inflamed themselves, said the
filthiest things without stint, uttered impieties with emulation, and
when they had made a good deal of noise and were very drunk, they went to
bed to recommence the same game the next day. From the moment when
supper was ready, business, no matter of, what importance, no matter
whether private or national, was entirely banished from view. Until the
next morning everybody and everything were compelled to wait.
The Regent lost then an infinite amount of time in private, in
amusements, and debauchery. He lost much also in audiences too long, too
extended, too easily granted, and drowned himself in those same details
which during the lifetime of the late King we had both so often
reproached him with. Questions he might have decided in half an hour he
prolonged, sometimes from weakness, sometimes from that miserable desire
to set people at loggerheads, and that poisonous maxim which occasionally
escaped him or his favourite, 'divide et impera'; often from his general
mistrust of everybody and everything; nothings became hydras with which
he himself afterwards was much embarrassed. His familiarity and his
readiness of access extremely pleased people, but were much abused.
Folks sometimes were even wanting in respect to him, which at last was an
inconvenience all the more dangerous because he could not, when he
wished, reprimand those who embarrassed him; insomuch as they themselves
did not feel embarrassed.
What is extraordinary is, neither his mistress nor Madame la Duchesse de
Berry, nor his 'roues', could ever draw anything from him, even when
drunk, concerning the affairs of the government, however important. He
publicly lived with Madame de Parabere; he lived at the same time with
others; he amused himself with the jealousy and vexation of these women;
he was not the less on good terms with them all; and the scandal of this
public seraglio, and that of the daily filthiness and impiety at his
suppers, were extreme and spread everywhere.
Towards the end of the year (1715) the Chevalier de Bouillon, who since
the death of the son of the Comte d'Auvergne had taken the name of the
Prince d'Auvergne, proposed to the Regent that there should be a public
ball, masked and unmasked, in the opera three times a week, people to pay
upon entering, and the boxes to be thrown open to those who did not care
to dance. It was believed that a public ball, guarded as is the opera on
days of performance, would prevent those adventures which happened so
often at the little obscure balls scattered throughout Paris; and indeed
close them altogether. The opera balls were established on a grand
scale, and with all possible effect. The proposer of the idea had for it
six thousand livres pension; and a machine admirably invented and of easy
and instantaneous application, was made to cover the orchestra, and put
the stage and the pit on the same level. The misfortune was, that the
opera was at the Palais Royal, and that M. le Duc d'Orleans had only one
step to take to reach it after his suppers and show himself there, often
in a state but little becoming. The Duc de Noailles, who strove to pay
court to him, went there from the commencement so drunk that there was no
indecency he did not commit.
CHAPTER LXXXII
Let me speak now of another matter.
A Scotchman, I do not know of what family, a great player and combiner,
who had gained much in various countries he had been in, had come to
Paris during the last days of the deceased King. His name was Law; but
when he became more known, people grew so accustomed to call him Las,
that his name of Law disappeared. He was spoken of to M. le Duc
d'Orleans as a man deep in banking and commercial matters, in the
movements of the precious metals, in monies and finance: the Regent, from
this description, was desirous to see him. He conversed with Law some
time, and was so pleased with him, that he spoke of him to Desmarets as a
man from whom information was to be drawn. I recollect that the Prince
spoke of him to me at the same time. Desmarets sent for Law, and was a
long while with him several times; I know nothing of what passed between
them or its results, except that Desmarets was pleased with Law, and
formed some esteem for him.
M. le Duc d'Orleans, after that, only saw him from time to time; but
after the first rush of affairs, which followed the death of the King,
Law, who had formed some subaltern acquaintances at the Palais Royal, and
an intimacy with the Abbe Dubois, presented himself anew before M. le Duc
d'Orleans, soon after conversed with him in private, and proposed some
finance plans to him. The Regent made him work with the Duc de Noailles,
with Rouille, with Amelot--this last for commercial matters. The first
two were afraid of an intruder, favoured by the Regent, in their
administration; so that Law was a long time tossed about, but was always
backed by the Duc d'Orleans. At last, the bank project pleased that
Prince so much that he wished to carry it out. He spoke in private to
the heads of finance, in whom he found great opposition. He had often
spoken to me of it, and I had contented myself with listening to him upon
a matter I never liked, and which, consequently, I never well understood;
and the carrying out of which appeared to me distant. When he had
entirely formed his resolution, he summoned a financial and commercial
assembly, in which Law explained the whole plan of the bank he wished to
establish (this was on the 24th of October, 1715). He was listened to as
long as he liked to talk. Some, who saw that the Regent was almost
decided, acquiesced; but the majority opposed.
Law was not disheartened. The majority were spoken to privately in very
good French. Nearly the same assembly was called, in which, the Regent
being present, Law again explained his project. This time few opposed
and feebly. The Duc de Noailles was obliged to give in. The bank being
approved of in this manner, it had next to be proposed to the regency
council.
M. le Duc d'Orleans took the trouble to speak in private to each member
of the council, and gently to make them understand that he wished the
bank to meet with no opposition. He spoke his mind to me thoroughly:
therefore a reply was necessary. I said to him that I did not hide my
ignorance or my disgust for all finance matters; that, nevertheless, what
he had just explained to me appeared good in itself, that without any new
tax, without expense, and without wronging or embarrassing anybody, money
should double itself at once by means of the notes of this bank, and
become transferable with the greatest facility. But along with this
advantage I found two inconveniences, the first, how to govern the bank
with sufficient foresight and wisdom, so as not to issue more notes than
could be paid whenever presented: the second, that what is excellent in a
republic, or in a monarchy where the finance is entirely popular, as in
England, is of pernicious use in an absolute monarchy, such as France,
where the necessities of a war badly undertaken and ill sustained, the
avarice of a first minister, favourite, or mistress, the luxury, the wild
expenses, the prodigality of a King, might soon exhaust a bank, and ruin
all the holders of notes, that is to say, overthrow the realm. M. le Duc
d'Orleans agreed to this; but at the same time maintained that a King
would have so much interest in never meddling or allowing minister,
mistress, or favourite to meddle with the bank, that this capital
inconvenience was never to be feared. Upon that we for a long time
disputed without convincing each other, so that when, some few days
afterwards, he proposed the bank to the regency council, I gave my
opinion as I have just explained it, but with more force and at length:
and my conclusion was to reject the bank, as a bait the most fatal, in an
absolute country, while in a free country it would be a very good and
very wise establishment.
Few dared to be of this opinion: the bank passed. Duc d'Orleans cast
upon me some little reproaches, but gentle, for having spoken at such
length. I based my excuses upon my belief that by duty, honour, and
conscience, I ought to speak according to my persuasion, after having
well thought over the matter, and explained myself sufficiently to make
my opinion well understood, and the reason I had for forming it.
Immediately after, the edict was registered without difficulty at the
Parliament. This assembly sometimes knew how to please the Regent with
good grace in order to turn the cold shoulder to him afterwards with more
efficacy.
Some time after, to relate all at once, M. le Duc d'Orleans wished me to
see Law in order that he might explain to me his plans, and asked me to
do so as a favour. I represented to him my unskilfulness in all finance
matters; that Law would in vain speak a language to me of which I
understood nothing, that we should both lose our time very uselessly.
I tried to back out thus, as well as I could. The Regent several times
reverted to the charge, and at last demanded my submission. Law came
then to my house. Though there was much of the foreigner in his bearing,
in his expressions, and in his accent, he expressed himself in very good
terms, with much clearness and precision. He conversed with me a long
while upon his bank, which, indeed, was an excellent thing in itself, but
for another country rather than for France, and with a prince less easy
than the Regent. Law had no other solutions to give me, of my two
objections, than those the Regent himself had given, which did not
satisfy me. But as the affair had passed, and there was nothing now to
do but well direct it, principally upon that did our conversation turn.
I made him feel as much as I could the importance of not showing such
facility, that it might be abused, with a Regent so good, so easy, so
open, so surrounded. I masked as well as I could what I wished to make
him understand thereupon; and I dwelt especially upon the necessity of
being prepared to satisfy instantly all bearers of notes, who should
demand payment: for upon this depended the credit or the overthrow of the
bank. Law, on going out, begged me to permit him to come sometimes and
talk with me; we separated mutually satisfied, at which the Regent was
still more so.
Law came several other times to my house, and showed much desire to grow
intimate with me. I kept to civilities, because finance entered not into
my head, and I regarded as lost time all these conversations. Some time
after, the Regent, who spoke to me tolerably often of Law with great
prepossession, said that he had to ask of me, nay to demand of me, a
favour; it was, to receive a visit from Law regularly every week. I
represented to him the perfect inutility of these conversations, in which
I was incapable of learning anything, and still more so of enlightening
Law upon subjects he possessed, and of which I knew naught. It was in
vain; the Regent wished it; obedience was necessary. Law, informed of
this by the Regent, came then to my house. He admitted to me with good
grace, that it was he who had asked the Regent to ask me, not daring to
do so himself. Many compliments followed on both sides, and we agreed
that he should come to my house every Tuesday morning about ten o'clock,
and that my door should be closed to everybody while he remained. This
first visit was not given to business. On the following Tuesday morning
he came to keep his appointment, and punctually came until his
discomfiture. An hour-and-a-half, very often two hours, was the ordinary
time for our conversations. He always took care to inform me of the
favour his bank was obtaining in France and foreign countries, of its
products, of his views, of his conduct, of the opposition he met with
from the heads of finance and the magistracy, of his reasons, and
especially of his balance sheet, to convince me that he was more than
prepared to face all holders of notes whatever sums they had to ask for.
I soon knew that if Law had desired these regular visits at my house, it
was not because he expected to make me a skilful financier; but because,
like a man of sense--and he had a good deal--he wished to draw near a
servitor of the Regent who had the best post in his confidence, and who
long since had been in a position to speak to him of everything and of
everybody with the greatest freedom and the most complete liberty; to try
by this frequent intercourse to gain my friendship; inform himself by me
of the intrinsic qualities of those of whom he only saw the outside; and
by degrees to come to the Council, through me, to represent the
annoyances he experienced, the people with whom he had to do; and lastly,
to profit by my dislike to the Duc de Noailles, who, whilst embracing him
every day, was dying of jealousy and vexation, and raised in his path,
under-hand, all the obstacles and embarrassments possible, and would have
liked to stifle him. The bank being in action and flourishing,
I believed it my duty to sustain it. I lent myself, therefore, to the
instructions Law proposed, and soon we spoke to each other with a
confidence I never have had reason to repent. I will not enter into the
details of this bank, the other schemes which followed it, or the
operations made in consequence. This subject of finance would fill
several volumes. I will speak of it only as it affects the history of
the time, or what concerns me in particular. It is the history of my
time I have wished to write; I should have been too much turned from it
had I entered into the immense details respecting finance. I might add
here what Law was. I defer it to a time when this curiosity will be more
in place.
Arouet, son of a notary, who was employed by my father and me until his
death, was exiled and sent to Tulle at this time (the early part of
1716), for some verses very satirical and very impudent.
I should not amuse myself by writing down such a trifle, if this same
Arouet, having become a great poet and academician under the name of
Voltaire, had not also become--after many tragical adventures--a manner
of personage in the republic of letters, and even achieved a sort of
importance among certain people.
CHAPTER LXXXIII
I have elsewhere alluded to Alberoni, and shown what filthy baseness he
stooped to in order to curry favour with the infamous Duc de Vendome.
I have also shown that he accompanied the new Queen of Spain from Parma
to Madrid, after she had been married, by procuration, to Philip V. He
arrived at the Court of Spain at a most opportune moment for his fortune.
Madame des Ursins had just been disgraced; there was no one to take her
place. Alberoni saw his opportunity and was not slow to avail himself of
it. During the journey with the new Queen, he had contrived to
ingratiate himself so completely into her favour, that she was, in a
measure, prepared to see only with his eyes. The King had grown so
accustomed to be shut out from all the world, and to be ruled by others,
that he easily adapted himself to his new chains. The Queen and
Alberoni, then, in a short time had him as completely under their thumb,
as he had before been under that of Madame des Ursins.
Alberoni, unscrupulous and ambitious, stopped at nothing in order to
consolidate his power and pave the way for his future greatness. Having
become prime minister, he kept the King as completely inaccessible to the
courtiers as to the world; would allow no one to approach him whose
influence he had in any way feared. He had Philip completely in his own
hands by means of the Queen, and was always on his guard to keep him
there.
Ever since the Regent's accession to power an intimacy had gradually been
growing up between the two governments of France and England. This was
mainly owing to the intrigues of the Abbe Dubois, who had sold himself to
the English Court, from which he secretly received an enormous pension.
He was, therefore, devoted heart and soul--if such a despicable personage
can be said to have the one or the other--to the interests of King
George, and tried to serve them in every way. He had but little
difficulty--comparatively speaking--in inducing M. le Duc d'Orleans to
fall into his nets, and to declare himself in favour of an English
alliance. Negotiations with this end in view were, in fact, set on foot,
had been for some time; and about the month of September of this year
(1716), assumed a more smiling face than they had yet displayed.
Both France and England, from different motives, wished to draw Spain
into this alliance. The Regent, therefore, in order to further this
desire, obtained from England a promise that she would give up Gibraltar
to its former owners, the Spaniards. The King of England consented to do
so, but on one condition: it was, that in order not to expose himself to
the cries of the party opposed to him, this arrangement should be kept
profoundly secret until executed. In order that this secrecy might be
secured, he stipulated that the negotiation should not in any way pass
through the hands of Alberoni, or any Spanish minister, but be treated
directly between the Regent and the King of Spain, through a confidential
agent chosen by the former.
This confidential agent was to take a letter respecting the treaty to the
King of Spain, a letter full of insignificant trifles, and at the same
time a positive order from the King of England, written and signed by his
hand, to the Governor of Gibraltar, commanding him to surrender the place
to the King of Spain the very moment he received this order, and to
retire with his garrison, etc., to Tangiers. In order to execute this a
Spanish general was suddenly to march to Gibraltar, under pretence of
repressing the incursions of its garrison,--summon the Governor to
appear, deliver to him the King of England's order, and enter into
possession of the place. All this was very weakly contrived; but this
concerned the King of England, not us.
I must not be proud; and must admit that I knew nothing of all this, save
at second-hand. If I had, without pretending to be very clever, I must
say that I should have mistrusted this fine scheme. The King of England
could not be ignorant with what care and with what jealousy the Queen and
Alberoni kept the King of Spain locked up, inaccessible to everybody--and
that the certain way to fail, was to try to speak to him without their
knowledge, in spite of them, or unaided by them. However, my opinion
upon this point was not asked, and accordingly was not given.
Louville was the secret agent whom the Regent determined to send. He had
already been in Spain, had gained the confidence of the King, and knew
him better than any other person who could have been chosen. Precisely
because of all these reasons, I thought him the most unfit person to be
charged with this commission. The more intimate he had been with the
King of Spain, the more firm in his confidence, the more would he be
feared by the Queen and Alberoni; and the more would they do to cover his
embassy with failure, so as to guard their credit and their authority.
I represented my views on this subject to Louville, who acknowledged
there was truth in them, but contented himself with saying, that he had
not in his surprise dared to refuse the mission offered to him; and that
if he succeeded in it, the restitution to Spain of such an important
place as Gibraltar, would doubtless be the means of securing to him large
arrears of pensions due to him from Philip the First: an object of no
small importance in his eyes. Louville, therefore, in due time departed
to Madrid, on his strange and secret embassy.
Upon arriving he went straight to the house of the Duc de Saint-Aignan,
our ambassador, and took up his quarters there. Saint-Aignan who had
received not the slightest information of his arriving, was surprised
beyond measure at it. Alberoni was something more than surprised.
As fortune would have it, Louville when at some distance from Madrid was
seen by a courier, who straightway told Alberoni of the circumstance.
As may be imagined, tormented as Alberoni was by jealousy and suspicion,
this caused him infinite alarm. He was quite aware who Louville was;
the credit he had attained with the King of Spain; the trouble Madame
des Ursins and the deceased Queen had had to get him out of their way;
the fear, therefore, that he conceived on account of this unexpected
arrival, was so great that he passed all bounds, in order to free himself
from it.
He instantly despatched a courier to meet Louville with an order
prohibiting him to approach any nearer to Madrid. The courier missed
Louville, but a quarter of an hour after this latter had alighted at
Saint-Aignan's, he received a note from Grimaldo inclosing an order from
the King of Spain, commanding him to leave the city that instant!
Louville replied that he was charged with a confidential letter from the
King of France, and with another from M. le Duc d'Orleans, for the King
of Spain; and with a commission for his Catholic Majesty which would not
permit him to leave until he had executed it. In consequence of this
reply, a courier was at once despatched to the Prince de Cellamare,
Spanish ambassador at Paris, ordering him to ask for the recall of
Louville, and to declare that the King of Spain so disliked his person
that he would neither see him, nor allow him to treat with any of the
ministers!
Meanwhile the fatigue of the journey followed by such a reception so
affected Louville, that during the night he had an attack of a disease to
which he was subject, so that he had a bath prepared for him, into which
he got towards the end of the morning.
Alberoni, not satisfied with what he had already done, came himself to
the Duc de Saint-Aignan's, in order to persuade Louville to depart at
once. Despite the representations made to him, he insisted upon
penetrating to the sick-chamber. There he saw Louville in his bath.
Nothing could be more civil than the words of Alberoni, but nothing could
be more dry, more negative, or more absolute than their signification.
He pitied the other's illness and the fatigue of his journey; would have
wished to have known of this journey beforehand, so as to have prevented
it; and had hoped to be able to overcome the repugnance of the King of
Spain to see him, or at least to obtain permission for him to remain some
days in Madrid. He added that he had been unable to shake his Majesty in
any way, or to avoid obeying the very express order he had received from
him, to see that he (Louville) departed at once.
Louville, however, was in a condition which rendered his departure
impossible. Alberoni admitted this, but warned him that his stay must
only last as long as his illness, and that the attack once over, he must
away. Louville insisted upon the confidential letters, of which he was
the bearer, and which gave him an official character, instructed as he
was to execute an important commission from the King of France, nephew of
the King of Spain, such as his Majesty could not refuse to hear direct
from his mouth, and such as he would regret not having listened to.
The dispute was long and warm, despite the illness of Louville, who could
gain nothing. He did not fail to remain five or six days with the Duc de
Saint-Aignan, and to make him act as ambassador in order to obtain an
audience of the King, although Saint-Aignan was hurt at being kept
ignorant of the object of the other's mission.
Louville did not dare to call upon a soul, for fear of committing
himself, and nobody dared to call upon him. He hazarded, however, for
curiosity, to go and see the King of Spain pass through a street, and
ascertain if, on espying him, he would not be tempted to hear him, in
case his arrival, as was very possible, had been kept a secret. But
Alberoni had anticipated everything. Louville saw the King pass,
certainly, but found it was impossible to make himself perceived by his
Majesty. Grimaldo came afterwards to intimate to Louville an absolute
order to depart, and to inform the Duc de Saint-Aignan that the King of
Spain was so angry with the obstinacy of this delay, that he would not
say what might happen if the stay of Louville was protracted; but that he
feared the respect due to a representative minister, and above all an
ambassador of France, would be disregarded.
Both Louville and Saint-Aignan clearly saw that all audience was
impossible, and that in consequence a longer stay could only lead to
disturbances which might embroil the two crowns; so that, at the end of
seven or eight days, Louville departed, returning as he came. Alberoni
began then to breathe again after the extreme fear he had had. He was
consoled by this proof of his power, which showed he need no longer fear
that any one could approach the King without his aid, or that any
business could be conducted without him. Thus Spain lost Gibraltar, and
she has never been able to recover it since.
Such is the utility of prime ministers!
Alberoni spread the report in Spain and in France, that Philip V. had
taken a mortal aversion against Louville, since he had driven him out of
the country for his insolence and his scheming; that he would never see
him, and was offended because he had passed the Pyrenees; that Louville
had no proposition to make, or commission to execute; that he had
deceived the Regent, in making him believe that if once he found a
pretext for appearing before the King of Spain, knowing him so well as he
did, that prince would be ravished by the memory of his former affection,
would reinstate him in his former credit, and thus France would be able
to make Spain do all she wished. In a word, Alberoni declared that
Louville had only come into the country to try and obtain some of the
pensions he had been promised on quitting the King of Spain, but that he
had not gone the right way to work to be so soon paid.
Nothing short of the effrontery of Alberoni would have been enough for
the purpose of spreading these impostures. No one had forgotten in Spain
what Madame des Ursins had done to get rid of Louville, how the King of
Spain had resisted; that she was not able to succeed without the aid of
France and her intrigues with Madame de Maintenon; and that the King,
afflicted to the utmost, yielding to the orders given by France to
Louville, had doubled the pensions which had for a long time been paid to
him, given him a sum of money in addition, and the government of
Courtray, which he lost only by the misfortune of the war that followed
the loss of the battle of Ramillies. With respect to the commission, to
deny it was an extreme piece of impudence, a man being concerned so well
known as Louville, who descends at the house of the ambassador of France,
says he has letters of trust from the King and the Regent, and an
important mission which he can only confide to the King of Spain, the
self-same ambassador striving to obtain an audience for him. Nothing was
so easy as to cover Louville with confusion, if he had spoken falsely,
by making him show his letters; if he had none he would have been struck
dumb, and having no official character, Alberoni would have been free to
punish him. Even if with confidential letters, he had only a complaint
to utter in order to introduce himself and to solicit his pay, Alberoni
would very easily have been able to dishonour him, because he had no
commission after having roundly asserted that he was charged with one of
great importance. But omnipotence says and does with impunity whatever
it pleases.
Louville having returned, it was necessary to send word to the King of
England of all he had done in Spain; and this business came to nothing,
except that it set Alberoni against the Regent for trying to execute a
secret commission without his knowledge; and that it set the Regent
against Alberoni for frustrating a project so openly, and for showing the
full force of his power. Neither of the two ever forgot this matter; and
the dislike of Alberoni to the Regent led, as will be seen, to some
strange results.
I will add here, that the treaty of alliance between France and England
was signed a short time after this event. I did my utmost to prevent it,
representing to the Regent that his best policy was to favour the cause
of the Pretender, and thus by keeping the attention of Great Britain
continually fixed upon her domestic concerns, he would effectually
prevent her from influencing the affairs of the continent, and long were
the conversations I had with him, insisting upon this point. But
although, while he was with me, my arguments might appear to have some
weight with him, they were forgotten, clean swept from his mind, directly
the Abbe Dubois, who had begun to obtain a most complete and pernicious
influence over him, brought his persuasiveness to bear. Dubois' palm had
been so well greased by the English that he was afraid of nothing.
He succeeded then in inducing the Regent to sign a treaty with England,
in every way, it may safely be said, advantageous to that power, and in
no way advantageous to France. Amongst other conditions, the Regent
agreed to send the so-called Pretender out of the realm, and to force him
to seek an asylum in Italy. This was, in fact, executed to the letter.
King James, who for some time had retired to Avignon, crossed the Alps
and settled in Rome, where he lived ever afterwards. I could not but
deplore the adoption of a policy so contrary to the true interests of
France; but the business being done I held my peace, and let matters take
their course. It was the only course of conduct open to me.
CHAPTER LXXXIV
I have already shown in these memoirs, that the late King had made of the
lieutenant of police a species of secret and confidential minister; a
sort of inquisitor, with important powers that brought him in constant
relation with the King. The Regent, with less authority than the
deceased monarch, and with more reasons than he to be well informed of
everything passing, intrigues included, found occupying this office of
lieutenant of police, Argenson, who had gained his good graces chiefly,
I fancy, when the affair of the cordelier was on the carpet, as shown in
its place. Argenson, who had much intelligence, and who had desired this
post as the entry, the basis, and the road of his fortune, filled it in a
very superior manner, and the Regent made use of him with much liberty.
The Parliament, very ready to show the extent of its authority
everywhere, at the least as though in competition with that of the
Regent, suffered impatiently what it called the encroachments of the
Court. It wished to indemnify itself for the silence it had been
compelled to keep thereon under the last reign, and to re-obtain at the
expense of the Regent all it had lost of its authority over the police,
of which it is the head. The lieutenant of police is answerable to this
body--even receives his orders from it, and its reprimands (in public
audiences, standing uncovered at the bar of the Parliament) from the
mouth of the Chief-President, or of him who presides, and who calls him
neither Master nor Monsieur, but nakedly by his name, although the
lieutenant of police might have claimed these titles, being then
Councillor of State.
The Parliament wished, then, to humiliate Argenson (whom it hated during
the time of the deceased King); to give a disagreeable lesson to the
Regent; to prepare worse treatment still for his lieutenant of police; to
make parade of its power, to terrify thus the public, and arrogate to
itself the right of limiting the authority of the Regent.
Argenson had often during the late reign, and sometimes since, made use
of an intelligent and clever fellow, just suited to him, and named
Pomereu, to make discoveries, arrest people, and occasionally keep them a
short time in his own house. The Parliament believed, and rightly, that
in arresting this man under other pretexts, it would find the thread of
many curious and secret tortuosities, which would aid its design, and
that it might plume itself upon protecting the public safety against the
tyranny of secret arrests and private imprisonments. To carry out its
aim it made use of the Chamber of justice, so as to appear as little as
possible in the matter. This Chamber hastened on so well the
proceedings, for fear of being stopped on the road, that the first hint
people had of them was on learning that Pomereu was, by decree of this
Chamber, in the prisons of the Conciergerie, which are those of the
Parliament. Argenson, who was informed of this imprisonment immediately
it took place, instantly went to the Regent, who that very moment sent a
'lettre de cachet', ordering Pomereu to be taken from prison by force if
the gaoler made the slightest difficulty in giving him up to the bearers
of the 'lettre de cachet'; but that gentleman did not dare to make any.
The execution was so prompt that this man was not an hour in prison, and
they who had sent him there had not time to seize upon a box of papers
which had been transported with him to the Conciergerie, and which was
very carefully carried away with him. At the same time, everything in
any way bearing upon Pomereu, or upon the things in which he had been
employed, was carefully removed and secreted.
The vexation of the Parliament upon seeing its prey, which it had
reckoned upon making such a grand use of, carried off before its eyes,
may be imagined. It left nothing undone in order to move the public by
its complaints, and by its cries against such an attack upon law. The
Chamber of justice sent a deputation to the Regent, who made, fun of it,
by gravely giving permission to the deputies to re-take their prisoner,
but without saying a single word to them upon his escape from gaol. He
was in Paris, in a place where he feared nobody. The Chamber of justice
felt the derisiveness of the Regent's permission, and ceased to transact
business. It thought to embarrass the Regent thus, but 'twould have been
at its own expense. This lasted only a day or two. The Duc de Noailles
spoke to the Chamber; the members felt they could gain nothing by their
strike, and that if they were obstinate they would be dispensed with, and
others found to perform their duties. They recommenced their labours
then, and the Parliament gained nothing by its attack, but only showed
its ill-will, and at the same time its powerlessness.
I have forgotten something which, from its singularity, deserves
recollection, and I will relate it now lest it should escape me again.
One afternoon, as we were about to take our places at the regency
council, the Marechal de Villars drew me aside and asked me if I knew
that Marly was going to be destroyed. I replied, "No;" indeed, I had not
heard speak of it; and I added that I could not believe it. "You do not
approve of it?" said the Marechal. I assured him I was far from doing
so. He repeated that the destruction was resolved on, that he knew it
beyond all doubt, and that if I wished to hinder it, I had not a moment
to lose. I replied that when we took our places I would speak to M. le
Duc d'Orleans. "Immediately," quickly replied the Marechal; "speak to
him this instant, for the order is perhaps already given."
As all the council were already seated I went behind to M. le Duc
d'Orleans, and whispered in his ear what I had just learnt without naming
from whom, and begged him, if my information was right, to suspend
execution of his project until I had spoken to him, adding that I would
join him at the Palais Royal after the council. He stammered a little,
as if sorry at being discovered, but nevertheless agreed to wait for me:
I said so in leaving to the Marechal de Villars, and went to the Palais
Royal, where M. le Duc d'Orleans admitted the truth of the news I had
heard. I said I would not ask who had given such a pernicious counsel.
He tried to show it was good by pointing to the saving in keeping up that
would be obtained; to the gain that would accrue from the sale of so many
water-conduits and materials; to the unpleasant situation of a place to
which the King would not be able to go for several years; and to the
expense the King was put to in keeping up so many other beautiful houses,
not one of which admitted of pulling down.
I replied to him, that these were the reasons of the guardian of a
private gentleman that had been presented to him, the conduct of whom
could in no way resemble that of the guardian of a King of France; that
the expenses incurred in keeping up Marly were necessary, and that,
compared with the total of those of the King, they were but as drops in
the ocean. I begged him to get rid of the idea that the sale of the
materials would yield any profit,--all the receipts would go in gifts and
pillage, I said; and also that it was not these petty objects he ought to
regard, but that he should consider how many millions had been buried in
this ancient sewer, to transform it into a fairy palace, unique as to
form in all Europe--unique by the beauty of its fountains, unique also by
the reputation that the deceased King had given to it; and that it was an
object of curiosity to strangers of every rank who came to France; that
its destruction would resound throughout Europe with censure; that these
mean reasons of petty economy would not prevent all France from being
indignant at seeing so distinguished an ornament swept away; that
although neither he nor I might be very delicate upon what had been the
taste and the favourite work of the late King, the Regent ought to avoid
wounding his memory,--which by such a long reign, so many brilliant
years, so many grand reverses so heroically sustained, and escaped from
in so unhoped-for a manner--had left the entire world in veneration of
his person: in fine, that he might reckon all the discontented, all the
neutral even, would join in chorus with the Ancient Court, and cry
murder; that the Duc du Maine, Madame de Ventadour, the Marechal de
Villeroy would not hesitate to look upon the destruction of Marly as a
crime against the King,--a crime they would not fail to make the best of
for their own purposes during all the regency, and even after it was at
an end. I clearly saw that M. le Duc d'Orleans had not in the least
reflected upon all this. He agreed that I was right: promised that Marly
should not be touched, that it should continue to be kept up, and thanked
me for preserving him from this fault.
When I was well assured of him, "Admit," said I, "that the King, in the
other world, would be much astonished if he could know that the Duc de
Noailles had made you order the destruction of Marly, and that it was who
hindered it."
"Oh! as to that," he quickly replied, "it is true he could not believe
it." In effect Marly was preserved and kept up; and it is the Cardinal
Fleury, with his collegiate proctor's avarice, who has stripped it of its
river, which was its most superb charm.
I hastened to relate this good resolve to the Marechal de Villars.
The Duc de Noailles, who, for his own private reasons, had wished the
destruction of Marly, was furious when he saw his proposal fail.
To indemnify himself in some degree for his vexation, he made the Regent
agree, in the utmost secrecy, for fear of another failure, that all the
furniture, linen, etc., should be sold. He persuaded M. le Duc d'Orleans
that all these things would be spoiled and lost by the time the King was
old enough to use them; that in selling them a large sum would be gained
to relieve expenses; and that in future years the King could furnish
Marly as he pleased. There was an immense quantity of things sold, but
owing to favour and pillage they brought very little; and to replace them
afterwards, millions were spent. I did not know of this sale, at which
anybody bought who wished, and at very low prices, until it had
commenced; therefore I was unable to hinder this very damaging
parsimoniousness.
The Regent just about this time was bestowing his favours right and left
with a very prodigal hand; I thought, therefore, I was fully entitled to
ask him for one, which, during the previous reign, had been so rare, so
useful, and accordingly so difficult to obtain; I mean the right of
entering the King's room--the 'grandes entrees'--as it was called, and I
attained it at once.
Since the occasion offers, I may as well explain what are the different
sorts of entrees. The most precious are called the "grand," which give
the right to enter into all the retired places of the King's apartments,
whenever the grand chamberlain and the chief gentlemen of the chamber
enter. The importance of this privilege under a King who grants
audiences with difficulty, need not be insisted on. Enjoying it, you can
speak with him, tete-a-tete, whenever you please, without asking his
permission, and without the knowledge of others; you obtain a
familiarity, too, with him by being able to see him thus in private.
The offices which give this right are, those of grand chamberlain, of
first gentleman of the chamber, and of grand master of the wardrobe on
annual duty; the children, legitimate and illegitimate, of the King, and
the wives and husbands of the latter enjoy the same right. As for
Monsieur and M. le Duc d'Orleans they always had these entrees, and as
sons of France, were at liberty to enter and see the King at all hours,
but they did not abuse this privilege. The Duc du Maine and the Comte de
Toulouse had the same, which they availed themselves of unceasingly, but
by the back stairs.
The second entrees, simply called entrees, were purely personal; no
appointment or change gave them. They conferred the right to see the
King at his rising, after the grandes, and also to see him, but under
difficulties, during all the day and evening.
The last entrees are those called chamber entrees. They also give the
right to see the King at his rising, before the distinguished courtiers;
but no other privilege except to be present at the booting of the King.
This was the name employed when the King changed his coat, in going or
returning from hunting or a walk. At Marly, all who were staying there
by invitation, entered to see this ceremony without asking; elsewhere,
those who had not the entree were excluded. The first gentleman of the
chamber had the right, and used it sometimes, to admit four or five
persons at the most, to the "booting," if they asked, and provided they
were people of quality, or of some distinction.
Lastly, there were the entrees of the cabinet which gave you the right to
wait for the King there when he entered after rising, until he had given
orders for the day, and to pay your court to him, and to enter there when
he entered to change his coat. Beyond this, the privilege attached to
these admissions did not extend. The Cardinals and the Princes of the
blood had the entrees of the chamber and those of the cabinet, so had all
the chief officials.
I was the first who had the 'grandes entrees' from the Regent. D'Antin
asked for them next. Soon after, upon this example, they were accorded
to D'O. M. le Prince de Conti, the sole prince of the blood who had them
not, because he was the sole prince of the blood who did not come from
Madame de Montespan, received them next, and little by little the
privilege was completely prostituted as so many others were.
By extremely rare good fortune a servant employed in the diamond mines of
the Great Mogul found means to secrete about his person a diamond of
prodigious size, and what is more marvellous, to gain the seashore and
embark without being subjected to the rigid and not very delicate ordeal,
that all persons not above suspicion by their name or their occupation,
are compelled to submit to, ere leaving the country. He played his cards
so well, apparently, that he was not suspected of having been near the
mines, or of having had anything to do with the jewel trade. To complete
his good fortune he safely arrived in Europe with his diamond. He showed
it to several princes, none of whom were rich enough to buy, and carried
it at last to England, where the King admired it, but could not resolve
to purchase it. A model of it in crystal was made in England, and the
man, the diamond, and the model (perfectly resembling the original) were
introduced to Law, who proposed to the Regent that he should purchase the
jewel for the King. The price dismayed the Regent, who refused to buy.
Law, who had in many things much grandour of sentiment, came dispirited
to me, bringing the model. I thought, with him, that it was not
consistent with the greatness of a King of France to be repelled from the
purchase of an inestimable jewel, unique of its kind in the world, by the
mere consideration of price, and that the greater the number of
potentates who had not dared to think of it, the greater ought to be his
care not to let it escape him. Law, ravished to find me think in this
manner, begged me to speak to M. le Duc d'Orleans. The state of the
finances was an obstacle upon which the Regent much insisted. He feared
blame for making so considerable a purchase, while the most pressing
necessities could only be provided for with much trouble, and so many
people were of necessity kept in distress. I praised this sentiment,
but I said that he ought not to regard the greatest King of Europe as he
would a private gentleman, who would be very reprehensible if he threw
away 100,000 livres upon a fine diamond, while he owed many debts which
he could not pay: that he must consider the honour of the crown, and not
lose the occasion of obtaining, a priceless diamond which would efface
the lustre of all others in Europe: that it was a glory for his regency
which would last for ever; that whatever might be the state of the
finances the saving obtained by a refusal of the jewel would not much
relieve them, for it would be scarcely perceptible; in fact I did not
quit M. le Duc d'Orleans until he had promised that the diamond should be
bought.
Law, before speaking to me, had so strongly represented to the dealer the
impossibility of selling his diamond at the price he hoped for, and the
loss he would suffer in cutting it into different pieces, that at last he
made him reduce the price to two millions, with the scrapings, which must
necessarily be made in polishing, given in. The bargain was concluded on
these terms. The interest upon the two millions was paid to the dealer
until the principal could be given to him, and in the meanwhile two
millions' worth of jewels were handed to him as security.
M. le Duc d'Orleans was agreeably deceived by the applause that the
public gave to an acquisition so beautiful and so unique. This diamond
was called the "Regent." It is of the size of a greengage plum, nearly
round, of a thickness which corresponds with its volume, perfectly white,
free from all spot, speck, or blemish, of admirable water, and weighs
more than 500 grains. I much applauded myself for having induced the
Regent to make so illustrious a purchase.
CHAPTER LXXXV
In 1716 the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres died at Paris in her fine hotel.
She was not old, but had been long a widow, and had lost her only son.
She was the last relic of the Gondi who were brought into France by
Catherine de' Medici, and who made so prodigious a fortune. She left
great wealth. She was a sort of fairy, who, though endowed with much
wit, would see scarcely anybody, still less give dinners to the few
people she did see. She never went to Court, and seldom went out of her
house. The door of her house was always thrown back, disclosing a
grating, through which could be perceived a true fairy palace, such as
is sometimes described in romances. Inside it was nearly desert, but of
consummate magnificence, and all this confirmed the first impression,
assisted by the singularity of everything, her followers, her livery,
the yellow hangings of her carriage, and the two great Moors who always
followed her. She left much to her servants, and for pious purposes, but
nothing to her daughter-in-law, though poor and respectful to her. Others
got magnificent legacies.
Cavoye died about the same time. I have said enough about him and his
wife to have nothing to add. Cavoye, away from Court, was like a fish
out of water; and he could not stand it long. If romances have rarely
produced conduct like that of his wife towards him, they would with still
greater difficulty describe the courage with which her lasting love for
her husband sustained her in her attendance on his last illness, and the
entombment to which she condemned herself afterwards. She preserved her
first mourning all her life, never slept away from the house where he
died, or went out, except to go twice a day to Saint-Sulpice to pray in
the chapel where he was buried. She would never see any other persons
besides those she had seen during the last moments of her husband, and
occupied herself with good works also, consuming herself thus in a few
years without a single sign of hesitation. A vehemence so equal and so
maintained is perhaps an example, great, unique, and assuredly very
respectable.
Peter I., Czar of Muscovy, has made for himself, and justly, such a great
name, in his own country, in all Europe, and in Asia, that I will not
undertake to describe so grand, so illustrious a prince--comparable to
the greatest men of antiquity--who has been the admiration of his age,
who will be that of years to come, and whom all Europe has been so much
occupied in studying. The singularity of the journey into France of so
extraordinary a prince, has appeared to me to deserve a complete
description in an unbroken narrative. It is for this reason that I place
my account of it here a little late, according to the order of time, but
with dates that will rectify this fault.
Various things relating to this monarch have been seen in their place;
his various journeys to Holland, Germany, Vienna, England, and to several
parts of the North; the object of those journeys, with some account of
his military actions, his policy, his family. It has been shown that he
wished to come into France during the time of the late King, who civilly
refused to receive him. There being no longer this obstacle, he wished
to satisfy his curiosity, and he informed the Regent through Prince
Kourakin, his ambassador at Paris, that he was going to quit the Low
Countries, and come and see the King.
There was nothing for it but to appear very pleased, although the Regent
would gladly have dispensed with this visit. The expenses to be defrayed
were great; the trouble would be not less great with a prince so powerful
and so clear-sighted, but full of whims, with a remnant of barbarous
manners, and a grand suite of people, of behaviour very different from
that common in these countries, full of caprices and of strange fashions,
and both they and their master very touchy and very positive upon what
they claimed to be due or permitted to them.
Moreover the Czar was at daggers drawn with the King of England, the
enmity between them passing all decent limits, and being the more bitter
because personal. This troubled not a little the Regent, whose intimacy
with the King of England was public, the private interest of Dubois
carrying it even to dependence. The dominant passion of the Czar was to
render his territories flourishing by commerce; he had made a number of
canals in order to facilitate it; there was one for which he needed the
concurrence of the King of England, because it traversed a little corner
of his German dominions. From jealousy George would not consent to it.
Peter, engaged in the war with Poland, then in that of the North, in
which George was also engaged, negotiated in vain. He was all the more
irritated, because he was in no condition to employ force; and this
canal, much advanced, could not be continued. Such was the source of
that hatred which lasted all the lives of these monarchs, and with the
utmost bitterness.
Kourakin was of a branch of that ancient family of the Jagellons, which
had long worn the crowns of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. He was
a tall, well-made man, who felt all the grandeur of his origin; had much
intelligence, knowledge of the way of managing men, and instruction. He
spoke French and several languages very fairly; he had travelled much,
served in war, then been employed in different courts. He was Russian to
the backbone, and his extreme avarice much damaged his talents. The Czar
and he had married two sisters, and each had a son. The Czarina had been
repudiated and put into a convent near Moscow; Kourakin in no way
suffered from this disgrace; he perfectly knew his master, with whom he
kept on very free terms, and by whom he was treated with confidence and
consideration. His last mission had been to Rome, where he remained
three years; thence he came as ambassador to Paris. At Rome he was
without official character, and without business except a secret one,
with which the Czar had entrusted him, as to a sure and enlightened man.
This monarch, who wished to raise himself and his country from barbarism,
and extend his power by conquests and treaties, had felt the necessity of
marriages, in order to ally himself with the chief potentates of Europe.
But to form such marriages he must be of the Catholic religion, from
which the Greeks were separated by such a little distance, that he
thought his project would easily be received in his dominions, if he
allowed liberty of conscience there. But this prince was sufficiently
sagacious to seek enlightenment beforehand upon Romish pretensions. He
had sent for that purpose to Rome a man of no mark, but capable of well
fulfilling his mission, who remained there five or six months, and who
brought back no very satisfactory report. Later he opened his heart in
Holland to King William, who dissuaded him from his design, and who
counselled him even to imitate England, and to make himself the chief of
his religion, without which he would never be really master in his own
country. This counsel pleased the Czar all the more, because it was by
the wealth and by the authority of the patriarchs of Moscow, his
grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, that his father had attained the
crown, although only of ordinary rank among the Russian nobility.
These patriarchs were dependent upon those of the Greek rite of
Constantinople but very slightly. They had obtained such great power,
and such prodigious rank, that at their entry into Moscow the Czar held
their stirrups, and, on foot, led their horse by the bridle: Since the
grandfather of Peter, there had been no patriarch at Moscow. Peter I.,
who had reigned some time with his elder brother, incapable of affairs,
long since dead, leaving no son, had, like his father, never consented to
have a patriarch there. The archbishops of Novgorod supplied their place
in certain things, as occupying the chief see after that of Moscow, but
with scarcely any authority that the Czar did not entirely usurp, and
more carefully still after King William had given him the counsel before
alluded to; so that by degrees he had become the real religious chief of
his vast dominions.
Nevertheless, the passionate desire he had to give to his posterity the
privilege of marrying with Catholic princes, the wish he had, above all,
for the honour of alliances with the house of France, and that of
Austria, made him return to his first project. He tried to persuade
himself that the man whom he had secretly sent to Rome had not been well
informed, or had ill understood; he resolved, therefore, to fathom his
doubts, so that he should no longer have any as to the course he ought to
adopt.
It was with this design that he chose Prince Kourakin, whose knowledge
and intelligence were known to him, and sent him to Rome under pretence
of curiosity, feeling that a nobleman of his rank would find the best,
the most important, and the most distinguished society there ready to
receive him; and that by remaining there, under pretext of liking the
life he led, and of wishing to see and admire at his ease all the marvels
of so many different kinds collected there, he should have leisure and
means to return perfectly instructed upon everything he wished to know.
Kourakin, in fact, remained in Rome three years, associating with the
savans on the one hand and the best company on the other, whence by
degrees he obtained all he wished to know; all the more readily because
this Court boasts of its temporal pretensions and of its conquests of
this kind, instead of keeping them secret. In consequence of the long
and faithful report that Kourakin made to the Czar, that prince heaved a
sigh, saying that he must be master in his own country, and could not
place there anybody greater than himself; and never afterwards did he
think of turning Catholic.
This fact respecting the Czars and Rome, Prince Kourakin did not hide.
Everybody who knew him has heard him relate it. I have eaten with him
and he with me, and I have talked a good deal with him, and heard him
talk, with pleasure, upon many things.
The Regent, informed by him of the forthcoming arrival in France of the
Czar by sea, sent the King's equipages; horses, coaches, vehicles,
waggons, and tables and chambers with Du Libois, one of the King's
gentlemen in ordinary, to go and wait for the Czar at Dunkerque, pay the
expenses incurred by him and his suite on the way to Paris, and
everywhere render him the same honour as to the King. The Czar proposed
to allot a hundred days to his journey. The apartment of the Queen-
mother at the Louvre was furnished for him, the councils usually held
there taking place in the houses of the chiefs of these councils.
M. le Duc d'Orleans discussing with me as to the nobleman best fitted to
be appointed to wait upon the Czar during his stay, I recommended the
Marechal de Tesse, as a man without occupation, who well knew the
language and usages of society, who was accustomed to foreigners by his
journeys and negotiations in Spain, Turin, Rome, and in other courts of
Italy, and who, gentle and polite, was sure to perform his duties well.
M. le Duc d'Orleans agreed with me, and the next day sent for him and
gave him his orders.
When it was known that the Czar was near Dunkerque, the Regent sent the
Marquis de Neelle to receive him at Calais, and accompany him until they
met the Marechal de Tesse, who was not to go beyond Beaumont to wait for
him. At the same time the Hotel de Lesdiguieres was prepared for the
Czar and his suite, under the idea that he might prefer a private house,
with all his people around him, to the Louvre. The Hotel de Lesdiguieres
was large and handsome, as I have said at the commencement of this
chapter, adjoined the arsenal, and belonged by succession to the Marechal
de Villeroy, who lodged at the Tuileries. Thus the house was empty,
because the Duc de Villeroy, who was not a man fond of display, had found
it too distant to live in. It was entirely refurnished, and very
magnificently, with the furniture of the King.
The Czar arrived at Beaumont on Friday, the 7th of May, 1717, about mid-
day. Tesse made his reverences to him as he descended from his coach,
had the honour of dining with him, and of escorting him that very day to
Paris.
The Czar entered the city in one of Tesse's coaches, with three of his
suite with him, but not Tesse himself. The Marechal followed in another
coach. The Czar alighted at nine o'clock in the evening at the Louvre,
and walked all through the apartments of the Queen-mother. He considered
them to be too magnificently hung and lighted, jumped into his coach
again, and went to the Hotel de Lesdiguieres, where he wished to lodge.
He thought the apartment destined for him too fine also, and had his
camp-bed immediately spread out in a wardrobe. The Marechal de Tesse,
who was to do the honours of his house and of his table, to accompany him
everywhere, and not quit the place where he might be, lodged in an
apartment of the Hotel de Lesdiguieres, and had enough to do in following
and sometimes running after him. Verton, one of the King's maitres
d'hotel, was charged with serving him and all the tables of the Czar and
his suite. The suite consisted of forty persons of all sorts, twelve or
fifteen of whom were considerable people in themselves, or by their
appointments; they all ate with the Czar.
Verton was a clever lad, strong in certain company, fond of good cheer
and of gaming, and served the Czar with so much order, and conducted
himself so well, that this monarch and all the suite conceived a singular
friendship for him.
The Czar excited admiration by his extreme curiosity, always bearing upon
his views of government, trade, instruction, police, and this curiosity
embraced everything, disdained nothing in the smallest degree useful;
it was marked and enlightened, esteeming only what merited to be
esteemed, and exhibited in a clear light the intelligence, justness,
ready appreciation of his mind. Everything showed in the Czar the vast
extent of his knowledge, and a sort of logical harmony of ideas. He
allied in the most surprising manner the highest, the proudest, the most
delicate, the most sustained, and at the same time the least embarrassing
majesty, when he had established it in all its safety with a marked
politeness. Yet he was always and with everybody the master everywhere,
but with gradations, according to the persons he was with. He had a kind
of familiarity which sprang from liberty, but he was not without a strong
dash of that ancient barbarism of his country, which rendered all his
actions rapid; nay, precipitous, his will uncertain, and not to be
constrained or contradicted in anything. Often his table was but little
decent, much less so were the attendants who served, often too with an
openness of kingly audacity everywhere. What he proposed to see or do
was entirely independent of means; they were to be bent to his pleasure
and command. His desire for liberty, his dislike to be made a show of,
his free and easy habits, often made him prefer hired coaches, common
cabs even; nay, the first which he could lay his hands on, though
belonging to people below him of whom he knew nothing. He jumped in, and
had himself driven all over the city, and outside it. On one occasion he
seized hold of the coach of Madame de Mattignon, who had come to gape at
him, drove off with it to Boulogne and other country places near Paris.
The owner was much astonished to find she must journey back on foot. On
such occasions the Marechal de Tesse and his suite had often hard work to
find the Czar, who had thus escaped them.
CHAPTER LXXXVI
The Czar was a very tall man, exceedingly well made; rather thin, his
face somewhat round, a high forehead, good eyebrows, a rather short nose,
but not too short, and large at the end, rather thick lips, complexion
reddish brown, good black eyes, large, bright, piercing, and well open;
his look majestic and gracious when he liked, but when otherwise, severe
and stern, with a twitching of the face, not often occurring, but which
appeared to contort his eyes and all his physiognomy, and was frightful
to see; it lasted a moment, gave him a wild and terrible air, and passed
away. All his bearing showed his intellect, his reflectiveness, and his
greatness, and was not devoid of a certain grace. He wore a linen
collar, a round-brown wig, as though without powder, and which did not
reach to his shoulders; a brown coat tight to the body, even, and with
gold buttons; vest, breeches, stockings, no gloves or ruffles, the star
of his order over his coat, and the cordon under it, the coat itself
being frequently quite unbuttoned, his hat upon the table, but never upon
his head, even out of doors. With this simplicity ill-accompanied or ill
mounted as he might be, the air of greatness natural to him could not be
mistaken.
What he ate and drank at his two regular meals is inconceivable, without
reckoning the beer, lemonade, and other drinks he swallowed between these
repasts, his suite following his example; a bottle or two of beer, as
many more of wine, and occasionally, liqueurs afterwards; at the end of
the meal strong drinks, such as brandy, as much sometimes as a quart.
This was about the usual quantity at each meal. His suite at his table
drank more and ate in proportion, at eleven o'clock in the morning and at
eight at night. There was a chaplain who ate at the table of the Czar,
who consumed half as much again as the rest, and with whom the monarch,
who was fond of him, much amused himself. Prince Kourakin went every day
to the Hotel de Lesdiguieres, but lodged elsewhere.
The Czar well understood French, and I think could have spoken it, if he
had wished, but for greatness' sake he always had an interpreter. Latin
and many other languages he spoke very well. There was a detachment of
guards in his house, but he would scarcely ever allow himself to be
followed by them. He would not set foot outside the Hotel de
Lesdiguieres, whatever curiosity he might feel, or give any signs of
life, until he had received a visit from the King.
On Saturday, the day after his arrival, the Regent went in the morning to
see the Czar. This monarch left his cabinet, advanced a few paces,
embraced Monsieur d'Orleans with an air of great superiority, pointed to
the door of the cabinet, and instantly turning on his heel, without the
slightest compliment, entered there. The Regent followed, and Prince
Kourakin after him to serve as interpreter. They found two armchairs
facing each other, the Czar seated himself in the upper, the Regent in
the other. The conversation lasted nearly an hour without public affairs
being mentioned, after which the Czar left his cabinet; the Regent
followed him, made him a profound reverence, but slightly returned, and
left him in the same place as he had found him on entering.
On Monday, the 10th of May, the King went to see the Czar, who received
him at the door, saw him alight from his coach, walked with him at his
left into his chamber, where they found two armchairs equally placed.
The King sat down in the right-hand one, the Czar in the other, Prince
Kourakin served as interpreter. It was astonishing to see the Czar take
the King under both arms, hoist him up to his level, embrace him thus in
the air; and the King, young as he was, show no fear, although he could
not possibly have been prepared for such a reception. It was striking,
too, to see the grace which the Czar displayed before the King, the air
of tenderness he assumed towards him, the politeness which flowed as it
were naturally, and which nevertheless was mixed with greatness, with
equality of rank, and slightly with superiority of age: for all these
things made themselves felt. He praised the King, appeared charmed with
him, and persuaded everybody he was. He embraced him again and again.
The King paid his brief compliment very prettily; and M. du Maine, the
Marechal de Villeroy, and the distinguished people present, filled up the
conversation. The meeting lasted a short quarter of an hour. The Czar
accompanied the King as he had received him, and saw him to his coach.
On Tuesday, the 11th of May, between four and five o'clock, the Czar went
to see the King. He was received by the King at his carriage door, took
up a position on his right, and was conducted within. All these
ceremonies had been agreed on before the King went to see him. The Czar
showed the same affection and the same attentions to the King as before;
and his visit was not longer than the one he had received, but the crowd
much surprised him.
He had been at eight o'clock in the morning to see the Place Royal, the
Place des Victoires, and the Place de Vendome, and the next day he went
to the Observatoire, the Gobelins, and the King's Garden of Simples.
Everywhere he amused himself in examining everything, and in asking many
questions.
On Thursday, the 13th of May, he took medicine, but did not refrain after
dinner from calling upon several celebrated artificers. On Friday, the
14th, he went at six o'clock in the morning into the grand gallery of the
Louvre, to see the plans in relief of all the King's fortified places,
Hasfield, with his engineers, doing the honours. The Czar examined all
these plans for a long time; visited many other parts of the Louvre, and
descended afterwards into the Tuileries garden, from which everybody had
been excluded. They were working then upon the Pont Tournant. The Czar
industriously examined this work, and remained there a long time. In the
afternoon he went to see, at the Palais Royal, Madame, who had sent her
compliments to him by her officer. The armchair excepted, she received
him as she would have received the King. M. le Duc d'Orleans came
afterwards and took him to the Opera, into his grand box, where they sat
upon the front seat upon a splendid carpet. Sometime after, the Czar
asked if there was no beer to be had. Immediately a large goblet of it
was brought to him, on a salver. The Regent rose, took it, and presented
it to the Czar, who with a smile and an inclination of politeness,
received the goblet without any ceremony, drank, and put it back on the
salver which the Regent still held. In handing it back, the Regent took
a plate, in which was a napkin, presented it to the Czar, who without
rising made use of it, at which the house appeared rather astonished.
At the fourth act the Czar went away to supper, but did not wish the
Regent to leave the box. The next morning he jumped into a hired coach,
and went to see a number of curiosities among the workmen.
On the 16th of May, Whit Sunday, he went to the Invalides, where he
wished to see and examine everything. At the refectory he tasted the
soldiers' soup and their wine, drank to their healths, struck them on the
shoulders, and called them comrades. He much admired the church, the
dispensary, and the infirmary, and appeared much pleased with the order
of the establishment. The Marechal de Villars did the honours; the
Marechale went there to look on. The Czar was very civil to her.
On Monday, the 17th, he dined early with Prince Ragotzi, who had invited
him, and afterwards went to Meudon, where he found some of the King's
horses to enable him to see the gardens and the park at his ease. Prince
Ragotzi accompanied him.
On Tuesday, the 18th, the Marechal d'Estrees took him, at eight o'clock
in the morning, to his house at Issy, gave him a dinner, and much amused
him during the day with many things shown to him relating to the navy.
On Monday, the 24th, he went out early to the Tuileries, before the King
was up. He entered the rooms of the Marechal de Villeroy, who showed him
the crown jewels. They were more beautiful and more numerous than he
suspected, but he said he was not much of a judge of such things. He
stated that he cared but little for the beauties purely of wealth and
imagination, above all for those he could not attain. Thence he wished
to go and see the King, who spared him the trouble by coming. It had
been expressly arranged thus, so that his visit should appear one of
chance. They met each other in a cabinet, and remained there. The King,
who held a roll of paper in his hand, gave it to him, and said it was the
map of his territories. This compliment much pleased the Czar, whose
politeness and friendly affectionate bearing were the same as before,
with much grace and majesty.
In the afternoon he went to Versailles, where the Marechal de Tesse left
him to the Duc d'Antin. The apartment of Madame la Dauphine was prepared
for him, and he slept in the room of Monseigneur le Dauphin (the King's
father), now made into a cabinet for the Queen.
On Tuesday, the 25th, he had traversed the gardens, and had been upon the
canal early in the morning, before the hour of his appointment with
D'Antin. He saw all Versailles, Trianon, and the menagerie. His
principal suite was lodged at the chateau. They took ladies with them,
and slept in the apartments Madame de Maintenon had occupied, quite close
to that in which the Czar slept. Bloin, governor of Versailles, was
extremely scandalised to see this temple of prudery thus profaned. Its
goddess and he formerly would have been less shocked. The Czar and his
people were not accustomed to restraint.
The expenses of this Prince amounted to six hundred crowns a day, though
he had much diminished his table since the commencement.
On Sunday, the 30th of May, he set out with Bellegarde, and many relays,
to dine at Petit Bourg, with D'Antin, who received him there, and took
him in the afternoon to see Fontainebleau, where he slept, and the morrow
there was a stag-hunt, at which the Comte de Toulouse did the honours.
Fontainebleau did not much please the Czar, and the hunt did not please
him at all; for he nearly fell off his horse, not being accustomed to
this exercise, and finding it too violent. When he returned to Petit
Bourg, the appearance of his carriage showed that he had eaten and drunk
a good deal in it.
On Friday, the 11th of June, he went from Versailles to Saint-Cyr, where
he saw all the household, and the girls in their classes. He was
received there like the King. He wished to see Madame de Maintenon, who,
expecting his curiosity, had buried herself in her bed, all the curtains
closed, except one, which was half-open. The Czar entered her chamber,
pulled back the window-curtains upon arriving, then the bed-curtains,
took a good long stare at her, said not a word to her,--nor did she open
her lips,--and, without making her any kind of reverence, went his way.
I knew afterwards that she was much astonished, and still more mortified
at this; but the King was no more. The Czar returned on Saturday, the
12th of June, to Paris.
On Tuesday, the 15th of June, he went early to D'Antin's Paris house.
Working this day with M. le Duc d'Orleans, I finished in half an hour; he
was surprised, and wished to detain me. I said, I could always have the
honour of finding him, but not the Czar, who was going away; that I had
not yet seen him, and was going to D'Antin's to stare at my ease. Nobody
entered except those invited, and some ladies with Madame la Duchesse and
the Princesses, her daughters, who wished to stare also. I entered the
garden, where the Czar was walking. The Marechal de Tesse, seeing me at
a distance, came up, wishing to present me to the Czar. I begged him to
do nothing of the kind, not even to perceive me, but to let me gape at my
ease, which I could not do if made known. I begged him also to tell this
to D'Antin, and with these precautions I was enabled to satisfy my
curiosity without interruption. I found that the Czar conversed
tolerably freely, but always as the master everywhere. He retired into a
cabinet, where D'Antin showed him various plans and several curiosities,
upon which he asked several questions. It was there I saw the convulsion
which I have noticed. I asked Tesse if it often happened; he replied,
"several times a day, especially when he is not on his guard to prevent
it." Returning afterwards into the garden, D'Antin made the Czar pass
through the lower apartments, and informed him that Madame la Duchesse
was there with some ladies, who had a great desire to see him. He made
no reply, but allowed himself to be conducted. He walked more gently,
turned his head towards the apartment where all the ladies were under
arms to receive him; looked well at them all, made a slight inclination
of the head to the whole company at once, and passed on haughtily. I
think, by the manner in which he received other ladies, that he would
have shown more politeness to these if Madame la Duchesse had not been
there, making her visit too pretentious. He affected even not to inquire
which she was, or to ask the name of any of the others. I was nearly an
hour without quitting him, and unceasingly regarding him. At last I saw
he remarked it. This rendered me more discreet, lest he should ask who I
was. As he was returning, I walked away to the room where the table was
laid. D'Antin, always the same, had found means to have a very good
portrait of the Czarina placed upon the chimney-piece of this room, with
verses in her praise, which much pleased and surprised the Czar. He and
his suite thought the portrait very like.
The King gave the Czar two magnificent pieces of Gobelins tapestry. He
wished to give him also a beautiful sword, ornamented with diamonds, but
he excused himself from accepting it. The Czar, on his side, distributed
60,000 livres to the King's domestics, who had waited upon him; gave to
D'Antin, Marechal d'Estrees, and Marechal Tesse, his portrait, adorned
with diamonds, and five gold and eleven silver medals, representing the
principal actions of his life. He made a friendly present to Verton,
whom he begged the Regent to send to him as charge d'affaires of the
King, which the Regent promised.
On Wednesday, the 16th of June, he attended on horseback a review of the
two regiments of the guards; gendarmes, light horse, and mousquetaires.
There was only M. le Duc d'Orleans with him; the Czar scarcely looked at
these troops, and they perceived it. He partook of a dinner-supper at
Saint Ouen, at the Duc de Tresmes, where he said that the excessive heat
and dust, together with the crowd on horseback and on foot, had made him
quit the review sooner than he wished. The meal was magnificent; the
Czar learnt that the Marquise de Bethune, who was looking on, was the
daughter of the Duc de Tresriles; he begged her to sit at table; she was
the only lady who did so, among a crowd of noblemen. Several other
ladies came to look on, and to these he was very civil when he knew who
they were.
On Thursday, the 17th, he went for the second time to the Observatoire,
and there supped with the Marechal de Villars.
On Friday, the 18th of June, the Regent went early to the Hotel de
Lesdiguieres, to say adieu to the Czar, remaining some time with him,
with Prince Kourakin present. After this visit the Czar went to say
goodbye to the King at the Tuileries. It had been agreed that there
should be no more ceremonies between them. It was impossible to display
more intelligence, grace, and tenderness towards the King than the Czar
displayed on all these occasions; and again on the morrow, when the King
came to the Hotel de Lesdiguieres to wish him a pleasant journey, no
ceremony being observed.
On Sunday, the 20th of June, the Czar departed, and slept at Ivry, bound
straight for Spa, where he was expected by the Czarina. He would be
accompanied by nobody, not even on leaving Paris. The luxury he remarked
much surprised him; he was moved in speaking upon the King and upon
France, saying, he saw with sorrow that this luxury would soon ruin the
country. He departed, charmed by the manner in which he had been
received, by all he had seen, by the liberty that had been left to him,
and extremely desirous to closely unite himself with the King; but the
interests of the Abbe Dubois, and of England, were obstacles which have
been much deplored since.
The Czar had an extreme desire to unite himself to France. Nothing would
have been more advantageous to our commerce, to our importance in the
north, in Germany, in all Europe. The Czar kept England in restraint as
to her commerce, and King George in fear for his German states. He kept
Holland respectful, and the Emperor measured. It cannot be denied that
he made a grand figure in Europe and in Asia, or that France would have
infinitely profited by close union with him. He did not like the
Emperor; he wished to sever us from England, and it was England which
rendered us deaf to his invitations, unbecomingly so, though they lasted
after his departure. Often I vainly pressed the Regent upon this
subject, and gave him reasons of which he felt all the force, and to
which he could not reply. He was bewitched by Dubois, who panted to
become Cardinal, and who built all his hopes of success upon England.
The English saw his ambition, and took advantage of it for their own
interests. Dubois' aim was to make use of the intimacy between the King
of England and the Emperor, in order that the latter might be induced by
the former to obtain a Cardinalship from the Pope, over whom he had great
power. It will be seen, in due time, what success has attended the
intrigues of the scheming and unscrupulous Abbe.
CHAPTER LXXXVII
Courson, Intendant, or rather King of Languedoc, exercised his authority
there so tyrannically that the people suffered the most cruel oppressions
at his hands. He had been Intendant of Rouen, and was so hated that more
than once he thought himself in danger of having his brains beaten out
with stones. He became at last so odious that he was removed; but the
credit of his father saved him, and he was sent as Intendant to Bordeaux.
He was internally and externally a very animal, extremely brutal,
extremely insolent, his hands by no means clean, as was also the case
with those of his secretaries, who did all his work for him, he being
very idle and quite unfit for his post.
Amongst other tyrannic acts he levied very violent and heavy taxes in
Perigueux, of his own good will and pleasure, without any edict or decree
of the Council; and seeing that people were not eager to satisfy his
demands, augmented them, multiplied the expenses, and at last threw into
dungeons some sheriffs and other rich citizens. He became so tyrannical
that they sent a deputation to Paris to complain of him. But the
deputies went in vain the round of all the members of the council of the
regency, after having for two months kicked their heels in the ante-
chamber of the Duc de Noailles, the minister who ought to have attended
to their representations.
The Comte de Toulouse, who was a very just man, and who had listened to
them, was annoyed that they could obtain no hearing of the Duc de,
Noailles, and spoke to me on the subject. I was as indignant as he.
I spoke to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who only knew the matter superficially.
I showed him the necessity of thoroughly examining into complaints of
this nature; the injustice of allowing these deputies to wear out hope,
patience, and life, in the streets of Paris, without giving some
audience; the cruelty of suffering honest citizens to languish in
dungeons, without knowing why or by what authority they were there. He
agreed with me, and promised to speak to the Duc de Noailles. At the
first finance council after this, I apprised the Comte de Toulouse, and
we both asked the Duc de Noailles when he meant to bring forward the
affair of these Perigueux people.
He was utterly unprepared for this question, and wished to put us off. I
said to him that for a long time some of these people had been in prison,
and others had wandered the streets of Paris; that this was shameful, and
could not be longer endured. The Comte de Toulouse spoke very firmly, in
the same sense. M. le Duc d'Orleans arrived and took his place.
As the Duc de Noailles opened his bag, I said very loudly to M. le Duc
d'Orleans that M. le Comte de Toulouse and I had just asked M. de
Noailles when he would bring forward the Perigueux affair; that these
people, innocent or guilty, begged only to be heard and tried; and that
it appeared to me the council was in honour bound to keep them in misery
no longer. On finishing, I looked at the Comte de Toulouse, who also
said something short but rather strong. M. le Duc d'Orleans replied that
we could not have done better. The Duc de Noailles began muttering
something about the press of business; that he had not time, and so
forth. I interrupted him by saying that he must find time, and that he
ought to have found it long before; that nothing was so important as to
keep people from ruin, or to extricate others from dungeons they were
remaining in without knowing why. M. le Duc d'Orleans said a word to the
same effect, and ordered the Duc de Noailles to get himself ready to
bring forward the case in a week.
From excuse to excuse, three weeks passed over. At last I said openly to
M. le Duc d'Orleans that he was being laughed at, and that justice was
being trodden under foot. At the next council it appeared that M. le Duc
d'Orleans had already told the Duc de Noailles he would wait no longer.
M. le Comte de Toulouse and I continued to ask him if at last he would
bring forward the Perigueux affair. We doubted not that it would in the
end be brought forward, but artifice was not yet at an end.
It was on a Tuesday afternoon, when M. le Duc d'Orleans often abridged
the council to go to the opera. Knowing this, the Duc de Noailles kept
all the council occupied with different matters. I was between him and
the Comte de Toulouse. At the end of each matter I said to him, "And the
Perigueux affair?"--"Directly," he replied, and at once commenced
something else. At last I perceived his project, and whispered so to the
Comte de Toulouse, who had already suspected it, and resolved not to be
its dupe. When the Duc de Noailles had exhausted his bag, it was five
o'clock. After putting back his papers he closed his bag, and said to M.
le Duc d'Orleans that there was still the Perigueux affair which he had
ordered him to bring forward, but that it would be long and detailed;
that he doubtless wished to go to the opera; that it could be attended to
next week; and at once, without waiting for a reply, he rises, pushes
back his stool, and turns to go away. I took him by the arm.
"Gently," said I. "You must learn his highness's pleasure. Monsieur,"
said I to M. le Duc d'Orleans, still firmly holding the sleeve of the Duc
de Noailles, "do you care much to-day for the opera?"
"No, no," replied he; "let us turn to the Perigueux affair."
"But without strangling it," replied I.
"Yes," said M. le Duc d'Orleans: then looking at M. le Duc, who smiled;
"you don't care to go there?"
"No, Monsieur, let us see this business," replied M. le Duc.
"Oh, sit down again then, Monsieur," said I to the Duc de Noailles in a
very firm tone, pulling him sharply; "take your rest, and re-open your
bag."
Without saying a word he drew forward his stool with a great noise, and
threw himself upon it as though he would smash it. Rage beamed from his
eyes. The Comte de Toulouse smiled; he had said his word, too, upon the
opera, and all the company looked at us; nearly every one smiling, but
astounded also.
The Duc de Noailles displayed his papers, and began reading them. As
various documents were referred to, I turned them over, and now and then
took him up and corrected him. He did not dare to show anger in his
replies, yet he was foaming. He passed an eulogy upon Basville (father
of the Intendant), talked of the consideration he merited; excused
Courson, and babbled thereupon as much as he could to extenuate
everything, and lose sight of the principal points at issue. Seeing that
he did not finish, and that he wished to tire us, and to manage the
affair in his own way, I interrupted him, saying that the father and the
son were two people; that the case in point respected the son alone, and
that he had to determine whether an Intendant was authorised or not, by
his office, to tax people at will; to raise imposts in the towns and
country places of his department, without edicts ordering them, without
even a decree of council, solely by his own particular ordonnances, and
to keep people in prison four or five months, without form or shadow of
trial, because they refused to pay these heavy taxes, rendered still more
heavy by expenses. Then, turning round so as to look hard at him, "It is
upon that, Monsieur," added I, "that we must decide, since your report is
over, and not amuse ourselves with a panegyric upon M. de Basville, who
is not mixed up in the case."
The Duc de Noailles, all the more beside himself because he saw the
Regent smile, and M. le Duc, who looked at me do the same, but more
openly, began to speak, or rather to stammer. He did not dare, however,
to decide against the release of the prisoners.
"And the expenses, and the ordonnance respecting these taxes, what do you
do with them?"
"By setting the prisoners at liberty," he said, "the ordonnance falls to
the ground."
I did not wish to push things further just then. The liberation of the
prisoners, and the quashing of the ordonnance, were determined on: some
voices were for the reimbursement of the charges at the expense of the
Intendant, and for preventing him to do the like again.
When it was my turn to speak, I expressed the same opinions, but I added
that it was not enough to recompense people so unjustly ill-treated; that
I thought a sum of money, such as it should please the council to
name, ought to be adjudged to them; and that as to an Intendant who
abused the authority of his office so much as to usurp that of the King
and impose taxes, such as pleased him by his own ordinances, and who
threw people into dungeons as he thought fit by his private authority,
pillaging thus a province, I was of opinion that his Royal Highness
should be asked to make such an example of him that all the other
Intendants might profit by it.
The majority of those who had spoken before me made signs that I was
right, but did not speak again. Others were against me. M. le Duc
d'Orleans promised the liberation of the prisoners, broke Courson's
ordonnance, and all which had followed it; said that as for the rest, he
would take care these people should be well recompensed, and Courson well
blamed; that he merited worse, and, but for his father, would have
received it. As we were about to rise, I said it would be as well to
draw up the decree at once, and M. le Duc d'Orleans approved. Noailles
pounced, like a bird of prey, upon paper and ink, and commenced writing.
I bent down and read as he wrote. He stopped and boggled at the
annulling of the ordonnance, and the prohibition against issuing one
again without authorisation by edict or decree of council. I dictated
the clause to him; he looked at the company as though questioning all
eyes.
"Yes," said I, "it was passed like that--you have only to ask again."
M. le Duc d Orleans said, "Yes." Noailles wrote. I took the paper, and
read what he had written. He received it back in fury, cast it among the
papers pell-mell into his bag, then shoved his stool almost to the other
end of the room, and went out, bristling like a wild boar, without
looking at or saluting anybody--we all laughing. M. le Duc and several
others came to me, and with M. le Comte de Toulouse, were much diverted.
M. de Noailles had, in fact, so little command over himself, that, in
turning to go out, he struck the table, swearing, and saying he could
endure it no longer.
I learnt afterwards, by frequenters of the Hotel de Noailles, who told it
to my friends, that when he reached home he went to bed: and would not
see a soul; that fever seized him, that the next day he was of a
frightful temper, and, that he had been heard to say he could no longer
endure the annoyances I caused him. It may be imagined whether or not
this softened me. The Duc de Noailles had, in fact, behaved towards me
with such infamous treachery, and such unmasked impudence, that I took
pleasure at all times and at all places in making him feel, and others
see, the sovereign disdain I entertained for him. I did not allow my
private feelings to sway my judgment when public interests were at stake,
for when I thought the Duc de Noailles right, and this often occurred,
I supported him; but when I knew him to be wrong, or when I caught him
neglecting his duties, conniving at injustice, shirking inquiry, or
evading the truth, I in no way spared him. The incident just related is
an illustration of the treatment he often received at my hands. Fret,
fume, stamp, storm, as he might, I cared nothing for him. His anger to
me was as indifferent as his friendship. I despised both equally.
Occasionally he would imagine, after there had been no storm between us
for some time, that I had become reconciled to him, and would make
advances to me. But the stern and terrible manner in which I met them,
--or rather refused to meet them, taking no more notice of his politeness
and his compliments, than as if they made no appeal whatever to my eyes
or ears,--soon convinced him of the permanent nature of our quarrel, and
drove him to the most violent rage and despair.
The history of the affair was, apparently, revealed by somebody to the
deputies of Perigueux (for this very evening it was talked of in Paris),
who came and offered me many thanks. Noailles was so afraid of me, that
he did not keep their business unsettled more than two days.
A few months afterwards Courson was recalled, amid the bonfires of his
province. This did not improve him, or hinder him from obtaining
afterwards one of the two places of councillor at the Royal Council of
Finance, for he was already Councillor of State at the time of this
affair of Perigueux.
An amusement, suited to the King's age, caused a serious quarrel. A sort
of tent had been erected for him on the terrace of the Tuileries, before
his apartments, and on the same level. The diversions of kings always
have to do with distinction. He invented some medals to give to the
courtiers of his own age, whom he wished to distinguish, and those
medals, which were intended to be worn, conferred the right of entering
this tent without being invited; thus was created the Order of the
Pavilion. The Marechal de Villeroy gave orders to Lefevre to have the
medals made. He obeyed, and brought them to the Marechal, who presented
them to the King. Lefevre was silversmith to the King's household, and
as such under the orders of the first gentleman of the chamber. The Duc
de Mortemart, who had previously had some tiff with the Marechal de
Villeroy, declared that it devolved upon him to order these medals and
present them to the King. He flew into a passion because everything had
been done without his knowledge; and complained to the Duc d'Orleans.
It was a trifle not worth discussing, and in which the three other
gentlemen of the chamber took no part. Thus the Duc de Mortemart,
opposed alone to the Marechal de Villeroy, stood no chance. M. le Duc
d'Orleans, with his usual love for mezzo termine, said that Lefevre had
not made these medals, or brought them to the Marechal as silversmith,
but as having received through the Marechal the King's order, and that
nothing more must be said. The Duc de Mortemart was indignant, and did
not spare the Marechal.
VOLUME 12.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII
The Abbe Alberoni, having risen by the means I have described, and
acquired power by following in the track of the Princesse des Ursins,
governed Spain like a master. He had the most ambitious projects. One
of his ideas was to drive all strangers, especially the French, out of
the West Indies; and he hoped to make use of the Dutch to attain this
end. But Holland was too much in the dependence of England.
At home Alberoni proposed many useful reforms, and endeavoured to
diminish the expenses of the royal household. He thought, with reason,
that a strong navy was the necessary basis of the power of Spain; and to
create one he endeavoured to economise the public money. He flattered
the King with the idea that next year he would arm forty vessels to
protect the commerce of the Spanish Indies. He had the address to boast
of his disinterestedness, in that whilst working at all manner of
business he had never received any grace from the King, and lived only
on fifty pistoles, which the Duke of Parma, his master, gave him every
month; and therefore he made gently some complaints against the
ingratitude of princes.
Alberoni had persuaded the Queen of Spain to keep her husband shut up,
as had the Princesse des Ursins. This was a certain means of governing a
prince whose temperament and whose conscience equally attached him to his
spouse. He was soon completely governed once more--under lock and key,
as it were, night and day. By this means the Queen was jailoress and
prisoner at the same time. As she was constantly with the King nobody
could come to her. Thus Alberoni kept them both shut up, with the key of
their prison in his pocket.
One of the chief objects of his ambition was the Cardinal's hat. It
would be too long to relate the schemes he set on foot to attain his end.
He was opposed by a violent party at Rome; but at last his inflexible
will and extreme cunning gained the day. The Pope, no longer able to
resist the menaces of the King of Spain, and dreading the vengeance of
the all-powerful minister, consented to grant the favour that minister
had so pertinaciously demanded. Alberoni was made Cardinal on the 12th
of July, 1717. Not a soul approved this promotion when it was announced
at the consistory. Not a single cardinal uttered a word in praise of the
new confrere, but many openly disapproved his nomination. Alberoni's
good fortune did not stop here. At the death, some little time after,
of the Bishop of Malaga, that rich see, worth thirty thousand ecus a
year, was given to him. He received it as the mere introduction to the
grandest and richest sees of Spain, when they should become vacant.
The King of Spain gave him also twenty thousand ducats, to be levied upon
property confiscated for political reasons. Shortly after, Cardinal
Arias, Archbishop of Seville, having died, Alberoni was named to this
rich archbishopric.
In the middle of his grandeur and good luck he met with an adventure that
must have strangely disconcerted him.
I have before explained how Madame des Ursins and the deceased Queen had
kept the King of Spain screened from all eyes, inaccessible to all his
Court, a very palace-hermit. Alberoni, as I have said, followed their
example. He kept the King even more closely imprisoned than before, and
allowed no one, except a few indispensable attendants, to approach him.
These attendants were a small number of valets and doctors, two gentlemen
of the chamber, one or two ladies, and the majordomo-major of the King.
This last post was filled by the Duc d'Escalone, always called Marquis de
Villena, in every way one of the greatest noblemen in Spain, and most
respected and revered of all, and justly so, for his virtue, his
appointment, and his services.
Now the King's doctors are entirely under the authority of the majordomo-
major. He ought to be present at all their consultations; the King
should take no remedy that he is not told of, or that he does not
approve, or that he does not see taken; an account of all the medicines
should be rendered to him. Just at this time the King was ill. Villena
wished to discharge the duties attached to his post of majordomo-major.
Alberoni caused it to be insinuated to him, that the King wished to be at
liberty, and that he would be better liked if he kept at home; or had the
discretion and civility not to enter the royal chamber, but to ask at the
door for news. This was language the Marquis would not understand.
At the end of the grand cabinet of the mirrors was placed a bed, in which
the King was laid, in front of the door; and as the room is vast and
long, it is a good distance from the door (which leads to the interior)
to the place where the bed was. Alberoni again caused the Marquis to be
informed that his attentions were troublesome, but the Marquis did not
fail to enter as before. At last, in concert with the Queen, the
Cardinal resolved to refuse him admission. The Marquis, presenting
himself one afternoon, a valet partly opened the door and said, with much
confusion, that he was forbidden to let him enter.
"Insolent fellow," replied the Marquis, "stand aside," and he pushed the
door against the valet and entered. In front of him was the Queen,
seated at the King's pillow; the Cardinal standing by her side, and the
privileged few, and not all of them, far away from the bed. The Marquis,
who, though full of pride, was but weak upon his legs, leisurely
advanced, supported upon his little stick. The Queen and the Cardinal
saw him and looked at each other. The King was too ill to notice
anything, and his curtains were closed except at the side where the Queen
was. Seeing the Marquis approach, the Cardinal made signs, with
impatience, to one of the valets to tell him to go away, and immediately
after, observing that the Marquis, without replying, still advanced, he
went to him, explained to him that the King wished to be alone, and
begged him to leave.
"That is not true," said the Marquis; "I have watched you; you have not
approached the bed, and the King has said nothing to you."
The Cardinal insisting, and without success, took him by the arm to make
him go. The Marquis said he was very insolent to wish to hinder him from
seeing the King, and perform his duties. The Cardinal, stronger than his
adversary, turned the Marquis round, hurried him towards the door, both
talking the while, the Cardinal with measure, the Marquis in no way
mincing his words. Tired of being hauled out in this manner, the Marquis
struggled, called Alberoni a "little scoundrel," to whom he would teach
manners; and in this heat and dust the Marquis, who was weak, fortunately
fell into an armchair hard by. Angry at his fall, he raised his little
stick and let it fall with all his force upon the ears and the shoulders
of the Cardinal, calling him a little scoundrel--a little rascal--
a little blackguard, deserving a horsewhipping.
The Cardinal, whom he held with one hand, escaped as well as he could,
the Marquis continuing to abuse him, and shaking the stick at him. One
of the valets came and assisted him to rise from his armchair, and gain
the door; for after this accident his only thought was to leave the room.
The Queen looked on from her chair during all this scene, without
stirring or saying a word; and the privileged few in the chamber did not
dare to move. I learned all this from every one in Spain; and moreover I
asked the Marquis de Villena himself to give me the full details; and he,
who was all uprightness and truth, and who had conceived some little
friendship for me, related with pleasure all I have written. The two
gentlemen of the chamber present also did the same, laughing in their
sleeves. One had refused to tell the Marquis to leave the room, and the
other had accompanied him to the door. The most singular thing is, that
the Cardinal, furious, but surprised beyond measure at the blows he had
received, thought only of getting out of reach. The Marquis cried to him
from a distance, that but for the respect he owed to the King, and to the
state in which he was, he would give him a hundred kicks in the stomach,
and haul him out by the ears. I was going to forget this. The King was
so ill that he saw nothing.
A quarter of an hour after the Marquis had returned home, he received an
order to retire to one of his estates at thirty leagues from Madrid. The
rest of the day his house was filled with the most considerable people of
Madrid, arriving as they learned the news, which made a furious sensation
through the city. He departed the next day with his children. The
Cardinal, nevertheless, remained so terrified, that, content with the
exile of the Marquis, and with having got rid of him, he did not dare to
pass any censure upon him for the blows he had received. Five or six
months afterwards he sent him an order of recall, though the Marquis had
not taken the slightest steps to obtain it. What is incredible is, that
the adventure, the exile, the return, remained unknown to the King until
the fall of the Cardinal! The Marquis would never consent to see him, or
to hear him talked of, on any account, after returning, though the
Cardinal was the absolute master. His pride was much humiliated by this
worthy and just haughtiness; and he was all the more piqued because he
left nothing undone in order to bring about a reconciliation, without any
other success than that of obtaining fresh disdain, which much increased
the public estimation in which this wise and virtuous nobleman was held.
CHAPTER LXXXIX
I must not omit to mention an incident which occurred during the early
part of the year 1718, and which will give some idea of the character of
M. le Duc d'Orleans, already pretty amply described by me.
One day (when Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans had gone to Montmartre, which
she quitted soon after) I was walking alone with M. le Duc d'Orleans in
the little garden of the Palais Royal, chatting upon various affairs,
when he suddenly interrupted me, and turning towards me; said, "I am
going to tell you something that will please you."
Thereupon he related to me that he was tired of the life he led, which
was no longer in harmony with his age or his desires, and many similar
things; that he was resolved to give up his gay parties, pass his
evenings more soberly and decently, sometimes at home, often with Madame
la Duchesse d'Orleans; that his health would gain thereby, and he should
have more time for business; that in a little while I might rely upon it
--there would be no more suppers of "roues and harlots" (these were his
own terms), and that he was going to lead a prudent and reasonable life
adapted to his age and state.
I admit that in my extreme surprise I was ravished, so great was the
interest I took in him. I testified this to him with overflowing heart,
thanking him for his confidence. I said to him that he knew I for a long
time had not spoken to him of the indecency of his life, or of the time
he lost, because I saw that in so doing I lost my own; that I had long
since despaired of his conduct changing; that this had much grieved me;
that he could not be ignorant from all that had passed between us at
various times, how much I desired a change, and that he might judge of
the surprise and joy his announcement gave me. He assured me more and
more that his resolution was fixed, and thereupon I took leave of him,
the hour for his soiree having arrived.
The next day I learned from people to whom the roues had just related it,
that M. le Duc d'Orleans was no sooner at table than he burst out
laughing, and applauded his cleverness, saying that he had just laid a
trap for me into which I had fallen full length. He recited to them our
conversation, at which the joy and applause were marvellous. It is the
only time he ever diverted himself at my expense (not to say at his own)
in a matter in which the fib he told me, and which I was foolish enough
to swallow, surprised by a sudden joy that took from me reflection, did
honour to me, though but little to him. I would not gratify him by
telling him I knew of his joke, or call to his mind what he had said to
me; accordingly he never dared to speak of it.
I never could unravel what fantasy had seized him to lead him to hoax me
in this manner, since for many years I had never opened my mouth
concerning the life he led, whilst he, on his side, had said not a word
to me relating to it. Yet it is true that sometimes being alone with
confidential valets, some complaints have escaped him (but never before
others) that I ill-treated him, and spoke hastily to him, but all was
said in two words, without bitterness, and without accusing me of
treating him wrongfully. He spoke truly also; sometimes, when I was
exasperated with stupidity or error in important matters which affected
him or the State, or when he had agreed (having been persuaded and
convinced by good reasons) to do or not to do some essential thing, and
was completely turned from it by his feebleness, his easy-going nature
(which he appreciated as well as I)--cruelly did I let out against him.
But the trick he most frequently played me before others, one of which my
warmth was always dupe, was suddenly to interrupt an important argument
by a 'sproposito' of buffoonery. I could not stand it; sometimes being
so angry that I wished to leave the room. I used to say to him that if
he wished to joke I would joke as much as he liked, but to mix the most
serious matters with tomfoolery was insupportable. He laughed heartily,
and all the more because, as the thing often happened, I ought to have
been on my guard; but never was, and was vexed both at the joke and at
being surprised; then he returned to business. But princes must
sometimes banter and amuse themselves with those whom they treat as
friends. Nevertheless, in spite of his occasional banter, he entertained
really sincere esteem and friendship for me.
By chance I learnt one day what he really thought of me. I will say it
now, so as to leave at once all these trifles. M. le Duc d'Orleans
returning one afternoon from the Regency Council at the Tuileries to the
Palais Royal with M. le Duc de Chartres (his son) and the Bailli de
Conflans (then first gentleman of his chamber) began to talk of me,
passing an eulogium upon me I hardly dare to repeat. I know not what had
occurred at the Council to occasion it. All that I can say is that he
insisted upon his happiness in having a friend so faithful, so unchanging
at all times, so useful to him as I was, and always had been; so sure, so
true, so disinterested, so firm, such as he could meet with in no one
else, and upon whom he could always count. This eulogy lasted from the
Tuileries to the Palais Royal, the Regent saying to his son that he
wished to teach him how to make my acquaintance, as a support and a
source of happiness (all that I relate here is in his own words); such as
he had always found in my friendship and counsel. The Bailli de
Conflans, astonished at this abundant eloquence, repeated it to me two
days after, and I admit that I never have forgotten it. And here I will
say that whatever others might do, whatever I myself (from disgust and
vexation at what I saw ill done) might do, the Regent always sought
reconciliation with me with shame, confidence, confusion, and he has
never found himself in any perplexity that he has not opened his heart to
me, and consulted me, without however always following my advice, for he
was frequently turned from it by others.
He would never content himself with one mistress. He needed a variety in
order to stimulate his taste. I had no more intercourse with them than
with his roues. He never spoke of them to me, nor I to him. I scarcely
ever knew anything of their adventures. His roues and valets were always
eager to present fresh mistresses to him, from which he generally
selected one. Amongst these was Madame de Sabran, who had married a man
of high rank, but without wealth or merit, in order to be at liberty.
There never was a woman so beautiful as she, or of a beauty more regular,
more agreeable, more touching, or of a grander or nobler bearing, and yet
without affectation. Her air and her manners were simple and natural,
making you think she was ignorant of her beauty and of her figure (this
last the finest in the world), and when it pleased her she was
deceitfully modest. With much intellect she was insinuating, merry,
overflowing, dissipated, not bad-hearted, charming, especially at table.
In a word, she was all M. le Duc d'Orleans wanted, and soon became his
mistress without prejudice to the rest.
As neither she nor her husband had a rap, they were ready for anything,
and yet they did not make a large fortune. One of the chamberlains of
the Regent, with an annual salary of six thousand livres, having received
another appointment, Madame de Sabran thought six thousand livres a year
too good to be lost, and asked for the post for her husband. She cared
so little for him, by the way, that she called him her "mastiff." It was
she, who, supping with M. le Duc d'Orleans and his roues, wittily said,
that princes and lackeys had been made of one material, separated by
Providence at the creation from that out of which all other men had been
made.
All the Regent's mistresses had one by one their turn. Fortunately they
had little power, were not initiated into any state secrets, and received
but little money.
The Regent amused himself with them, and treated them in other respects
exactly as they deserved to be treated.
CHAPTER XC
It is time now that I should speak of matters of very great importance,
which led to changes that filled my heart with excessive joy, such as it
had never known before.
For a long time past the Parliament had made many encroachments upon the
privileges belonging to the Dukes. Even under the late King it had begun
these impudent enterprises, and no word was said against it; for nothing
gave the King greater pleasure than to mix all ranks together in a
caldron of confusion. He hated and feared the nobility, was jealous of
their power, which in former reigns had often so successfully balanced
that of the crown; he was glad therefore of any opportunity which
presented itself that enabled him to see our order weakened and robbed of
its dignity.
The Parliament grew bolder as its encroachments one by one succeeded.
It began to fancy itself armed with powers of the highest kind. It began
to imagine that it possessed all the authority of the English Parliament,
forgetting that that assembly is charged with the legislative
administration of the country, that it has the right to make laws and
repeat laws, and that the monarch can do but little, comparatively
speaking, without the support and sanction of this representative
chamber; whereas, our own Parliament is but a tribunal of justice, with
no control or influence over the royal authority or state affairs.
But, as I have said, success gave it new impudence. Now that the King
was dead, at whose name alone it trembled, this assembly thought that a
fine opportunity had come to give its power the rein. It had to do with
a Regent, notorious for his easy-going disposition, his indifference to
form and rule, his dislike to all vigorous measures. It fancied that
victory over such an opponent would be easy; that it could successfully
overcome all the opposition he could put in action, and in due time make
his authority secondary to its own. The Chief-President of the
Parliament, I should observe, was the principal promoter of these
sentiments. He was the bosom friend of M. and Madame du Maine, and by
them was encouraged in his views. Incited by his encouragement, he
seized an opportunity which presented itself now, to throw down the glove
to M. le Duc d'Orleans, in the name of the Parliament, and to prepare for
something like a struggle. The Parliament of Brittany had recently
manifested a very turbulent spirit, and this was an additional
encouragement to that of Paris.
At first the Parliament men scarcely knew what to lay hold of and bring
forward, as an excuse for the battle. They wished of course to gain the
applause of the people as protectors of their interests--likewise those
who for their private ends try to trouble and embroil the State--but
could not at first see their way clear. They sent for Trudaine, Prevot
des Marchand, Councillor of State, to give an account to them of the
state of the Hotel de Ville funds. He declared that they had never been
so well paid, and that there was no cause of complaint against the
government. Baffled upon this point, they fastened upon a edict,
recently rendered, respecting the money of the realm. They deliberated
thereon, deputed a commission to examine the matter, made a great fuss,
and came to the conclusion that the edict would, if acted upon, be very
prejudicial to the country.
Thus much done, the Parliament assembled anew on Friday morning, the 17th
of June, 1718, and again in the afternoon. At the end they decided upon
sending a deputation to the Regent, asking him to suspend the operation
of the edict, introduce into it the changes suggested by their body, and
then send it to them to be registered. The deputation was sent, and said
all it had to say.
On the morrow the Parliament again assembled, morning and afternoon, and
sent a message to the Regent, saying, it would not separate until it had
received his reply. That reply was very short and simple. The Regent
sent word that he was tired of the meddling interference of the
Parliament (this was not the first time, let me add, that he experienced
it), that he had ordered all the troops in Paris, and round about, to
hold themselves ready to march, and that the King must be obeyed. Such
was in fact true. He had really ordered the soldiers to keep under arms
and to be supplied with powder and shot.
The message did not intimidate the Parliament. The next day, Sunday, the
Chief-President, accompanied by all the other presidents, and by several
councillors, came to the Palais Royal. Although, as I have said, the
leader of his company, and the right-hand man of M. and Madame du Maine,
he wished for his own sake to keep on good terms with the Regent, and at
the same time to preserve all authority over his brethren, so as to have
them under his thumb. His discourse then to the Regent commenced with
many praises and much flattery, in order to smooth the way for the three
fine requests he wound up with. The first of these was that the edict
should be sent to the Parliament to be examined, and to suffer such
changes as the members should think fit to introduce, and then be
registered; the second, that the King should pay attention to their
remonstrances in an affair of this importance, which they believed
prejudicial to the State; the third, that the works recently undertaken
at the mint for recasting the specie should be suspended!
To these modest requests the Regent replied that the edict had been
registered at the Cour des Monnaies, which is a superior court, and
consequently sufficient for such registration; that there was only a
single instance of an edict respecting the money of the realm having been
sent before the Parliament, and then out of pure civility; that the
matter had been well sifted, and all its inconveniences weighed; that it
was to the advantage of the State to put in force this edict; that the
works of the Mint could not be interfered with in any way; finally, that
the King must be obeyed! It was quite true that the edict had been sent
to the Parliament out of courtesy, but at the suggestion of the Regent's
false and treacherous confidants, valets of the Parliament, such as the
Marechals de Villeroy, and Huxelles, and Besons, Canillac, Effiat, and
Noailles.
Notwithstanding the decisive answer they had received, the Parliament met
the very next day, and passed a decree against the edict. The council of
the regency, at its sitting on the afternoon of the same day, abrogated
this decree. Thus, since war was in a measure declared between the
Regent's authority and that of the Parliament, the orders emanating from
the one were disputed by the other, and vice versa. A nice game of
shuttlecock this, which it was scarce likely could last long!
The Regent was determined to be obeyed. He prohibited, therefore, the
printing and posting up of the decree of the Parliament. Soldiers of the
guards, too, were placed in the markets to hinder the refusal of the new
money which had been issued. The fact is, by the edict which had been
passed, the Louis worth thirty livres was taken at thirty-six livres, and
the crown piece, worth a hundred sous, at six livres instead of five. By
this edict also government notes were made legal tender until the new
money should be ready. The finances were thus relieved, and the King
gained largely from the recasting of the coin. But private people lost
by this increase, which much exceeded the intrinsic value of the metal
used, and which caused everything to rise in price. Thus the Parliament
had a fine opportunity for trumpeting forth its solicitude for the public
interest, and did not fail to avail itself of it.
During the night a councillor of the Parliament was surprised on
horseback in the streets tearing down and disfiguring the decree of the
Regency Council, which abrogated that of the Parliament. He was taken to
prison.
On Monday, the 27th of June, the Chief-President, at the head of all the
other presidents, and of forty councillors, went to the Tuileries, and in
the presence of the Regent read the wire-drawn remonstrance of the
Parliament upon this famous edict. The Keeper of the Seals said that in
a few days the King would reply. Accordingly on Saturday, the 2nd of
July, the same deputation came again to the Tuileries to hear the reply.
The Regent and all the Princes of the blood were there, the bastards
also. Argenson, who from lieutenant of police had been made keeper of
the seals, and who in his former capacity had often been ill-used--nay,
even attacked by the Parliament--took good care to show his superiority
over that assembly. He answered that deputation in the name of the King,
and concluded by saying that the edict would in no way be altered, but
would receive complete application. The parliamentary gentlemen did not
expect so firm a reply, and withdrew, much mortified.
They were not, however, vanquished. They reassembled on the 11th and
12th of August, and spat forth all their venom in another decree
specially aimed at the authority of the Regent. By this decree the
administration of the finances was henceforth entirely to be at the mercy
of the Parliament. Law, the Scotchman, who, under the favour of M. le
Duc d'Orleans, had been allowed some influence over the State money
matters, was to possess that influence no longer; in fact, all power on
the part of the Regent over the finances was to be taken from him.
After this the Parliament had to take but one step in order to become the
guardian of the King and the master of the realm (as in fact it madly
claimed to be), the Regent more at its mercy than the King, and perhaps
as exposed as King Charles I. of England. Our parliamentary gentlemen
began as humbly as those of England, and though, as I have said, their
assembly was but a simple court of justice, limited in its jurisdiction
like the other courts of the realm, to judge disputes between private
people, yet by dint of hammering upon the word parliament they believed
themselves not less important than their English brethren, who form the
legislative assembly, and represent all the nation.
M. and Madame du Maine had done not a little to bring about these
fancies, and they continued in secret to do more. Madame du Maine, it
may be recollected, had said that she would throw the whole country into
combustion, in order not to lose her husband's prerogative. She was as
good as her word. Encouraged doubtless by the support they received from
this precious pair, the Parliament continued on its mad career of
impudent presumption, pride, and arrogance. It assembled on the 22nd of
August, and ordered inquiry to be made of the Regent as to what had
become of all the state notes that had been passed at the Chamber of
justice; those which had been given for the lotteries that were held
every month; those which had been given for the Mississippi or Western
Company; finally, those which had been taken to the Mint since the change
in the specie.
These questions were communicated to the Regent by the King's officers.
In reply he turned his back upon them, and went away into his cabinet,
leaving these people slightly bewildered. Immediately after this
occurrence it was rumoured that a Bed of justice would soon be held. The
Regent had not then thought of summoning such an important assembly, and
his weakness and vacillation were such that no one thought he would dare
to do so.
The memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, of Joly, of Madame Motteville, had
turned all heads. These books had become so fashionable, that in no
class was the man or woman who did not have them continually in hand.
Ambition, the desire for novelty, the skill of those who circulated these
books, made the majority of people hope to cut a figure or make a
fortune, and persuaded them there was as little lack of personages as in
the last minority. People looked upon Law as the Mazarin of the day--
(they were both foreign)--upon M. and Madame du Maine, as the chiefs of
the Fronde; the weakness of M. le Duc d'Orleans was compared to that of
the Queen-mother, and so on.
To say the truth, all tended towards whatever was extreme--moderation
seemed forgotten--and it was high time the Regent aroused himself from a
supineness which rendered him contemptible, and which emboldened his
enemies and those of the State to brave all and undertake all. This
lethargy, too, disheartened his servants, and made all healthy activity
on their part impossible. It had at last led him to the very verge of
the precipice, and the realm he governed to within an inch of the
greatest confusion. He had need, indeed, to be up and doing!
The Regent, without having the horrible vice or the favourites of Henry
III., had even more than that monarch become notorious for his daily
debauches, his indecency, and his impiety. Like Henry III., too, he was
betrayed by his most intimate councillors and domestics. This treachery
pleased him (as it had pleased that King) because it induced him to keep
idle, now from fear, now from interest, now from disdain, and now from
policy. This torpor was agreeable to him because it was in conformity
with his humour and his tastes, and because he regarded those who
counselled it as good, wise, and enlightened people, not blinded by their
private interests, but seeing clearly things as they were; while he was
importuned with opinions and explanations which would have disclosed the
true state of affairs and suggested remedies.
He looked upon such people as offered these opinions and explanations as
impetuous counsellors, who hurried everything and suggested everything,
who wished to discount the future in order to satisfy their ambition,
their aversion, their different passions. He kept on his guard against
them; he applauded himself for not being their dupe. Now, he laughed at
them; often he allowed them to believe he appreciated their reasoning,
that he was going to act and rouse from his lethargy. He amused them
thus, gained time, and diverted himself afterwards with the others.
Sometimes he replied coldly to them, and when they pressed him too much
he allowed his suspicions to peep out.
Long since I had perceived M. le Duc d'Orleans' mode of action. At the
first movements of the Parliament, of the bastards, and of those who had
usurped the name of nobility, I had warned him. I had done so again as
soon as I saw the cadence and the harmony of the designs in progress. I
had pointed out to him their inevitable sequel; how easy it was to hinder
them at the commencement; how difficult after, especially for a person of
his character and disposition. But I was not the man for such work as
this. I was the oldest, the most attached, the freest spoken of all his
servitors; I had given him the best proofs of this in the most critical
times of his life, and in the midst of his universal abandonment; the
counsels I had offered him in these sad days he had always found for his
good; he was accustomed to repose in me the most complete confidence;
but, whatever opinion he might have of me, and of my truth and probity,
he was on his guard against what he called my warmth, and against the
love I had for my dignity, so attacked by the usurpations of the
bastards, the designs of the Parliament, and the modern fancies of a sham
nobility. As soon as I perceived his suspicions I told him so, and I
added that, content with having done my duty as citizen and as his
servitor, I would say no more on the subject. I kept my word. For more
than a year I had not of myself opened my mouth thereon. If he was
sometimes spoken to before me, and I could not keep quite silent without
being suspected of sulking or pique, I carelessly said something
indefinite, with as little meaning in it as possible, and calculated to
make us drop the subject.
Judge of my surprise, therefore, when as I was working as usual one
afternoon with the Regent, he interrupted me to speak with bitterness of
the Parliament. I replied with my accustomed coldness and pretended
negligence, and continued my business. He stopped me, and said that he
saw very well that I would not reply to him concerning the Parliament.
I admitted it was true, and added that he must long since have perceived
this. Pressed and pressed beyond measure, I coldly remarked that he
could not but remember what I had said to him of the Parliament both
before and after his accession to the regency, that other counsels had
prevailed over mine, and that finding my opinions were misinterpreted by
him, I had resolved to hold my tongue, and had done so. As the subject
was now reopened I reminded him of a prophecy I had uttered long before,
that he had missed the opportunity of governing the Parliament when he
might have done so with a frown, and that step by step he would allow
himself to be conducted by his easy-going disposition, until he found
himself on the very verge of the abyss; that if he wished to recover his
position he must begin at once to retrace his steps, or lose his footing
for ever!
Such strong words (from my mouth they had been rare of late), pronounced
with a slow, firm coldness, as though I were indifferent to the course he
might adopt, made him feel how little capable I believed him of vigorous
and sustained action, and what trifling trouble I took to make him adopt
my views. Dubois, Argenson, and Law had also spoken to him, urging him
to take strong measures against the Parliament; the effect of my speech
was therefore marvellous.
It was indeed high time to do something, as I have before remarked.
The Parliament, we found, after passing its last decree, had named a
commission to inquire into the financial edict; this commission was
working in the utmost secrecy; a number of witnesses had already been
examined, and preparations were quietly making to arrest Law some fine
morning, and hang him three hours after within the enclosure of the
Palais de justice.
Immediately this fact became known, the Duc de la Force and Fagon
(Councillor of State) went to the Regent--'twas on the 19th of August,
1718--and spoke to him with such effect, that he ordered them to assemble
with Law that very day at my house in order to see what was to be done.
They came, in fact, and this was the first intimation I had that the
Regent had begun to feel the gravity of his position, and that he was
ready to do something. In this conference at my house the firmness of
Law, hitherto so great, was shaken so that tears escaped him. Arguments
did not satisfy us at first, because the question could only be decided
by force, and we could not rely upon that of the Regent. The safe-
conduct with which Law was supplied would not have stopped the Parliament
an instant. On every side we were embarrassed. Law, more dead than
alive, knew not what to say; much less what to do. His safety appeared
to us the most pressing matter to ensure. If he had been taken it would
have been all over with him before the ordinary machinery of negotiation
(delayed as it was likely to be by the weakness of the Regent) could have
been set in motion; certainly, before there would have been leisure to
think of better, or to send a regiment of guards to force open the Palais
de justice; a critical remedy at all times, and grievous to the last
degree, even when it succeeds; frightful, if instead of Law, only his
suspended corpse had been found!
I advised Law, therefore, to retire to the Palais Royal, and occupy the
chamber of Nancre, his friend, then away in Spain. Law breathed again at
this suggestion (approved by de la Force and Fagon), and put it in
execution the moment he left my house. He might have been kept in safety
at the Bank, but I thought the Palais Royal would be better: that his
retirement there would create more effect, and induce the Regent to hold
firm to his purpose, besides allowing his Royal Highness to see the
financier whenever he pleased.
CHAPTER XCI
This done I proposed, and the others approved my proposition, that a Bed
of Justice should be held as the only means left by which the abrogation
of the parliamentary decrees could be registered. But while our
arguments were moving, I stopped them all short by a reflection which
came into my mind. I represented to my guests that the Duc du Maine was
in secret the principal leader of the Parliament, and was closely allied
with Marechal de Villeroy; that both would oppose might and main the
assembling of a Bed of justice, so contrary to their views, to their
schemes, to their projects; that to hinder it they, as guardians of the
young King, would plead on his behalf, the heat, which was in fact
extreme, the fear of the crowd, of the fatigue, of the bad air; that they
would assume a pathetic tone in speaking of the King's health, calculated
to embarrass the Regent; that if he persisted they would protest against
everything which might happen to His Majesty; declare, perhaps, that in
order not to share the blame, they would not accompany him; that the
King, prepared by them, would grow frightened, perhaps, and would not go
to the Parliament without them; that then all would be lost, and the
powerlessness of the Regent, so clearly manifested, might rapidly lead to
the most disastrous results.
These remarks stopped short our arguments, but I had not started
objections without being prepared with a remedy for them. I said, "Let
the Bed of justice be held at the Tuileries; let it be kept a profound
secret until the very morning it is to take place; and let those who are
to attend it be told so only a few hours before they are to assemble.
By these means no time will be allowed for anybody to object to the
proceeding, to plead the health of the King, the heat of the weather,
or to interfere with the arrangement of the troops which it will be
necessary to make."
We stopped at this: Law went away, and I dictated to Fagon the full
details of my scheme, by which secrecy was to be ensured and all
obstacles provided against. We finished about nine o'clock in the
evening, and I counselled Fagon to carry what he had written to the Abbe
Dubois, who had just returned from England with new credit over the mind
of his master.
The next day I repaired to the Palais Royal about four o'clock. A moment
after La Vrilliere came and relieved me of the company of Grancey and
Broglio, two roues, whom I had found in the grand cabinet, in the cool,
familiarly, without wigs. When M. le Duc d'Orleans was free he led me
into the cabinet, behind the grand salon, by the Rue de Richelieu, and on
entering said he was at the crisis of his regency, and that everything
was needed in order to sustain him on this occasion. He added that he
was resolved to strike a heavy blow at the Parliament; that he much
approved my proposition respecting the Bed of justice at the Tuileries,
and that it would be held exactly as I had suggested.
I was delighted at his animation, and at the firmness he appeared to
possess, and after having well discussed with him all the inconveniences
of my plan, and their remedy, we came at last to a very important matter,
the mechanical means, so to speak, by which that plan was to be put in
force. There was one thing to be provided for, which may appear an
exceedingly insignificant matter, but which in truth was of no light
importance. When a Bed of justice is held, seats one above another must
be provided for those who take part in it. No room in the Tuileries
possessed such seats and how erect them without noise, without exciting
remarks, without causing inquiries and suspicions, which must inevitably
lead to the discovery and perhaps thereby to the failure of our project?
I had not forgotten this difficulty, however, and I said to the Regent
I would go in secret to Fontanieu, who controlled the crown furniture,
explain all to him, and arrange matters with him so that these seats
should be erected at the very last moment, in time for our purpose, but
too late to supply information that could be made use of by our enemies.
I hurried off accordingly, as soon as I could get away, in search of
Fontanieu.
I had already had some relations with him, for he had married his
daughter to the son of the sister of my brother-in-law, M. de Lauzun.
I had done him some little service, and had therefore every reason to
expect he would serve me on this occasion. Judge of my annoyance when
upon reaching his house I learned that he had gone almost to the other
end of the town, to the Marais, to conduct a suit at law, in which
Monsieur and Madame de Lauzun were concerned, respecting an estate at
Rondon they claimed!
The porter seeing me so vexed at being obliged to journey so far in
search of Fontanieu, said, that if I would go and speak to Madame
Fontanieu, he would see if his master was not still in the neighbourhood,
at a place he intended to visit before going to the Marais. I acted upon
this suggestion and went to Madame Fontanieu, whom I found alone. I was
forced to talk to her of the suit of Monsieur and Madame de Lauzun, which
I pretended was the business I came upon, and cruelly did I rack my
brains to say enough to keep up the conversation. When Fontanieu
arrived, for he was soon found, fortunately, I was thrown into another
embarrassment, for I had all the pains in the world to get away from
Madame Fontanieu, who, aided by her husband, begged me not to take the
trouble to descend but to discuss the subject where I was as she was as
well informed upon the case as he, I thought once or twice I should never
escape her. At last, however, I led away Fontanieu, by dint of
compliments to his wife, in which I expressed my unwillingness to weary
her with this affair.
When Fontanieu and I were alone down in his cabinet, I remained some
moments talking to him upon the same subject, to allow the valets who had
opened the doors for us time to retire. Then, to his great astonishment,
I went outside to see if there were no listeners, and carefully closed
the doors. After this I said to Fontanieu that I had not come concerning
the affair of Madame de Lauzun, but upon another very different, which
demanded all his industry, a secrecy proof against every trial, and which
M. le Duc d'Orleans had charged me to communicate to him; but that before
explaining myself he must know whether his Royal Highness could certainly
count upon him.
It is strange what an impression the wildest absurdities leave if they
are spread abroad with art. The first thing Fontanieu did was to tremble
violently all over and become whiter than his shirt. With difficulty he
stammered out a few words to the effect that he would do for M. le Duc
d'Orleans as much as his duty would permit him to do. I smiled, looking
fixedly at him, and this smile warned him apparently that he owed me an
excuse for not being quite at ease upon any affair that passed through my
hands; he directly made me one, at all events, and with the confusion of
a man who sees that his first view has dazzled the second, and who, full
of this first view, does not show anything, yet lets all be seen.
I reassured him as well as I could, and said that I had answered for him
to M. le Duc d'Orleans, and afterwards that a Bed of justice was wanted,
for the construction of which we had need of him.
Scarcely had I explained this, than the poor fellow began to take breath,
as though escaping from stifling oppression, or a painful operation for
the stone, and asked me if that was what I wanted?
He promised everything, so glad was he to be let off thus cheaply, and in
truth he kept to his word, both as to the secret and the work. He had
never seen a Bed of justice, and had not the slightest notion what it was
like. I sat down on his bureau, and drew out the design of one. I
dictated to him the explanations in the margin, because I did not wish
them to be in my handwriting. I talked more than an hour with him; I
disarranged his furniture, the better to show to him the order of the
assembly, and explained to him what was to be done, so that all might be
carried to the Tuileries and erected in a very, few moments. When I
found I had made everything sufficiently clear, and he had understood me,
I returned to the Palais Royal as though recollecting something, being
already in the streets, to deceive my people.
A servant awaited me at the top of the staircase, and the concierge of
the Palais Royal at the door of M. le Duc d'Orleans' room, with orders to
beg me to write. It was the sacred hour of the roues and the supper,
at which all idea of business was banished. I wrote, therefore, to the
Regent in his winter cabinet what I had just done, not without some
little indignation that he could not give up his pleasure for an affair
of this importance. I was obliged to beg the concierge not to give my
note to M. le Duc d'Orleans unless he were in a state to read it and to
burn it afterwards.
Our preparations for the Bed of justice continued to be actively but
silently made during the next few days. In the course of the numberless
discussions which arose upon the subject, it was agreed, after much
opposition on my part, to strike a blow, not only at the Parliament, but
at M. du Maine, who had fomented its discontent. M. le Duc, who had been
admitted to our councils, and who was heart and soul against the
bastards, proposed that at the Bed of justice the education of the young
King should be taken out of the control of M. du Maine and placed in his
hands. He proposed also that the title of Prince of the Blood should be
taken from him, with all the privileges it conferred, and that he should
be reduced to the rank of a simple Duke and Peer, taking his place among
the rest according to the date of his erection; thus, at a bound, going
down to the bottom of the peerage!
Should these memoirs ever see the light, every one who reads them will be
able to judge how such a proposition as this harmonised with my personal
wishes. I had seen the bastards grow in rank and importance with an
indignation and disgust I could scarcely contain. I had seen favour
after favour heaped upon them by the late King, until he crowned all by
elevating them to the rank of Princes of the Blood in defiance of all
law, of all precedent, of all decency, if I must say the word. What I
felt at this accumulation of honours I have more than once expressed;
what I did to oppose such monstrous innovations has also been said. No
man could be more against M. du Maine than I, and yet I opposed this
proposition of M. le Duc because I thought one blow was enough at a time,
and that it might be dangerous to attempt the two at once. M. du Maine
had supporters, nay; he was at the head of a sort of party; strip him of
the important post he held, and what might not his rake, his
disappointment, and his wounded ambition lead him to attempt? Civil war,
perhaps, would be the result of his disgrace.
Again and again I urged these views, not only upon M. le Duc d'Orleans,
but upon M. le Duc. Nay, with this latter I had two long stolen
interviews in the Tuileries Gardens, where we spoke without constraint,
and exhausted all our arguments. But M. le Duc was not to be shaken, and
as I could do no more than I had done to move him, I was obliged at last
to give in. It was resolved, however, that disgrace should fall upon M.
du Maine alone; that his brother, the Comte de Toulouse, an account of
the devotion to the State he had ever exhibited, and his excellent
conduct since the death of the late King, should, when stripped of his
title like the other, receive it back again the moment after, in
acknowledgment of the services he had rendered to the Regent as
Councillor of State, and as an expression of personal good feeling
towards him, which his excellent qualities so justly merited.
I returned home from my last interview with M. le Duc, and went to mass
at the Jacobins, to which I entered from my garden. It was not without a
distracted mind. But I prayed to God sincerely and earnestly to guide my
steps, so that I might labour for His glory and the good of the State
without private ends. My prayer was heard, and in the sequel I had
nothing to reproach myself with. I followed the straight road without
turning to the right or to the left.
Fontanieu was waiting for me in my house as I returned home from mass,
and I was obliged to listen to his questions and to reply to them, as
though I had nothing on my mind. I arranged my chamber like a Bed of
Justice, I made him understand several things; connected with the
ceremonial that he had not under stood before, and that it was essential
he should in no way omit. Thus everything went on satisfactorily, and I
began to count the hours, by day as well as by night, until the great day
was to arrive on which the arrogant pride of the Parliament was to
receive a check, and the false plumage which adorned the bastards was to
be plucked from them.
In the midst of the sweet joy that I felt, no bitterness entered. I was
satisfied with the part I had played in this affair, satisfied that I had
acted sincerely, honestly, that I had not allowed my own private motives
to sway me; that in the interests of the State, as opposed to my own
interests, I had done all in my power to save the Duc du Maine. And yet
I did not dare to give myself up to the rosy thoughts suggested by the
great event, now so rapidly approaching. I toyed with them instead of
allowing myself to embrace them. I shrunk from them as it were like a
cold lover who fears the too ardent caresses of his mistress. I could
not believe that the supreme happiness I had so long pined for was at
last so near. Might not M. le Duc d'Orleans falter at the last moment?
Might not all our preparations, so carefully conducted, so cleverly
planned, weigh upon his feebleness until they fell to the ground? It was
not improbable. He was often firm in promises. How often was he firm in
carrying them out? All these questions, all these restless doubts--
natural as it appears to me under the circumstances--winged their way
through my mind, and kept me excited and feverish as though life and
death were hanging on one thread.
In the midst of my reflections, a messenger from M. le Duc d'Orleans,
Millain by name, arrived at my house. It was on the afternoon of
Thursday, the 25th of August, 1718. His message was simple. M. le Duc
d'Orleans was in the same mood as ever, and I was to join him at the
Palais Royal, according to previous agreement, at eight o'clock in the
evening. The Bed of justice was to be held on the morrow.
Never was kiss given to a beautiful mistress sweeter than that which I
imprinted upon the fat old face of this charming messenger! A close
embrace, eagerly repeated, was my first reply, followed afterwards by an
overflow of feeling for M. le Duc, and for Millain even, who had worthily
served in this great undertaking.
The rest of the day I passed at home with the Abbe Dubois, Fagon, and the
Duc de la Force, one after the other finishing up our work. We provided
against everything: If the Parliament refused to come to the Tuileries,
its interdiction was determined on: if any of the members attempted to
leave Paris they were to be arrested; troops were to be assembled in
order to carry out the Regent's orders; we left no accident without its
remedy.
The Abbe Dubois arranged a little code of signals, such as crossing the
legs, shaking a handkerchief, or other simple gestures, to be given the
first thing in the morning to the officers of the body-guards chosen to
be in attendance in the room where the Bed of Justice was to be held.
They were to fix their eyes upon the Regent, and when he made any of the
above signals, immediately to act upon it according to their written
instructions. The Abbe Dubois also drew out a sort of programme for M.
le Duc d'Orleans, of the different orders he was to give during the
night, fixing the hour for each, so that they might not arrive a minute
too soon or a minute too late, and secrecy thus be maintained to the very
latest moment.
Towards eight o'clock in the evening I went to they Palais Royal. I was
horror-struck to find M. le Duc d'Orleans in bed with fever, as he said;
I felt his pulse. Fever, he had, sure enough; perhaps from excitement
caused by the business in hand. I said to him it was only fatigue of
body and mind, of which he would be quit in twenty-four hours; he, on his
side, protested that whatever it might be, he would hold the Bed of
justice on the morrow. M. le Duc, who had just entered, was at his
pillow; the chamber lighted by a single wax candle. We sat down, M. le
Duc and I, and passed in review the orders given and to give, not without
much apprehension on account of this fever, come so strangely out of
season to the healthiest man in the world, and who had never had it
before.
I exhorted the Regent to take as much repose as he could, so that he
might be fully able to execute the great work of the morrow, the safety
of the Regency itself being at stake. After this I felt his pulse again,
not without fear. I assured him, however, his illness would be nothing;
without, it is true, being too sure of it myself. I took my leave about
ten o'clock, and went out of the room with Millain. When I found myself
alone with him in the cabinet, through which we passed, I embraced him
with an extreme pleasure. We had entered by the backstairs; we descended
by the same, so as not to be observed. It was dark, so that on both
occasions we were obliged to grope our way. Upon arriving at the bottom
I could not refrain from again embracing Millain, so great was my
pleasure, and we separated each to his home.
The arrangements respecting the troops and for summoning the Parliament,
etc., were all carried out to the letter during the night and early
morning. At the hours agreed upon M. le Duc d'Orleans gave the various
orders. About four o'clock in the morning the Duc du Maine, as colonel-
general of the Swiss guards, was aroused. He had not been in bed above
an hour, having just returned from a fete given at the arsenal by Madame
du Maine. He was doubtless much astonished, but contained himself, hid
his fear, and sent at once to instruct his companies of Swiss guards of
the orders they were to execute. I don't think he slept very well after
this, uncertain as he must have been what was going to happen. But I
never knew what he or Madame du Maine did after being thus rudely
disturbed.
Towards five o'clock in the morning drums began to be heard throughout
the town, and soon soldiers were seen in movement. At six o'clock a
message was sent to the Parliament requesting it to attend at the
Tuileries. The reply was that the request should be obeyed. The members
thereupon debated whether they should go to the Tuileries in coaches or
on foot. The last mode was adopted as being the most ordinary, and in
the hope of stirring the people and arriving at the Tuileries with a
yelling crowd. What happened will be related in its place.
At the same time, horsemen went to all the Peers and officers of the
Crown, and to all the chevaliers of the order, the governors and
lieutenant-governors of the provinces (who were to accompany the King),
informing them of the Bed of Justice. The Comte de Toulouse had been to
supper at the house of M. de Nevers, near Saint-Denis, and did not return
until late into the night. The French and Swiss guards were under arms
in various quarters; the watch, the light horse, and the two companies of
musketeers all ready in their barracks; the usual guard at the Tuileries.
If I had slept but little during the last eight days, I slept still less
that night, so near to the most considerable events. I rose before six
o'clock, and shortly after received my summons to the Bed of justice, on
the back of which was a note that I was not to be awakened, a piece of
politeness due to the knowledge of the bearer, who was aware that this
summons would teach me nothing I did not know. All the others had been
awakened, surprised thereby to an extent that may be imagined.
Towards eight o'clock in the morning a messenger from M. le Duc d'Orleans
came to remind me of the Regency Council at eight o'clock, and to attend
it in my mantle. I dressed myself in black, because I had only that suit
with a mantle, and another, a magnificent one in cloth of gold, which I
did not wish to wear lest it should cause the remark to be made, though
much out of season, that I wished to insult the Parliament and M. du
Maine. I took two gentlemen with me in my coach, and I went in order to
witness all that was to take place. I was at the same time full of fear,
hope, joy, reflection, and mistrust of M. le Duc d'Orleans' weakness, and
all that might result from it. I was also firmly resolved to do my best,
whatever might happen, but without appearing to know anything, and
without eagerness, and I resolved to show presence of mind, attention,
circumspection, modesty, and much moderation.
Upon leaving my house I went to Valincourt, who lived behind the hotel of
the Comte de Toulouse. He was a very honourable man, of much intellect,
moving among the best company, secretary-general of the navy, devoted to
the Comte de Toulouse ever since his early youth, and possessing all his
confidence. I did not wish to leave the Comte de Toulouse in any
personal fear, or expose him to be led away by his brother. I sent
therefore for Valincourt, whom I knew intimately, to come and speak to
me. He came half-dressed, terrified at the rumours flying over the town,
and eagerly asked me what they all meant. I drew him close to me and
said, "Listen attentively to me, and lose not a word. Go immediately to
M. le Comte de Toulouse, tell him he may trust in my word, tell him to be
discreet, and that things are about to happen to others which may
displease him, but that not a hair of his head shall be touched. I hope
he will not have a moment's uneasiness. Go! and lose not an instant."
Valincourt held me in a tight embrace. "Ah, Monsieur," said he, "we
foresaw that at last there would be a storm. It is well merited, but not
by M. le Comte, who will be eternally obliged to you." And, he went
immediately with my message to the Comte de Toulouse, who never forgot
that I saved him from the fall of his brother.
CHAPTER XCII
Arrived at the grand court of the Tuileries about eight o'clock without
having remarked anything extraordinary on the way. The coaches of the
Duc de Noailles, of Marechal de Villars, of Marechal d'Huxelles, and of
some others were already there. I ascended without finding many people
about, and directed the two doors of the Salle des Gardes, which were
closed, to be opened. The Bed of justice was prepared in the grand ante-
chamber, where the King was accustomed to eat. I stopped a short time to
see if everything was in proper order, and felicitated Fontanieu in a low
voice. He said to me in the same manner that he had arrived at the
Tuileries with his workmen and materials at six o'clock in the morning;
that everything was so well constructed and put up that the King had not
heard a sound; that his chief valet de chambre, having left the room for
some commission about seven o'clock in the morning, had been much
astonished upon seeing this apparatus; that the Marechal de Villeroy had
only heard of it through him, and that the seats had been erected with
such little noise that nobody had heard anything. After having well
examined everything with my eyes I advanced to the throne, then being
finished; wishing to enter the second ante-chamber, some servants came to
me, saying that I could not go in, all being locked up. I asked where I
was to await the assembling of the Council, and was admitted to a room
upstairs, where I found a good number of people already congregated.
After chatting some time with the Keeper of the Seals, the arrival of M.
le Duc d'Orleans was announced. We finished what we had to say, and went
downstairs separately, not wishing to be seen together.
The Council was held in a room which ever since the very hot weather the
King had slept in. The hangings of his bed, and of the Marechal de
Villeroy's were drawn back. The Council table was placed at the foot of
one of the beds. Upon entering the adjoining chamber I found many people
whom the first rumours of such an unexpected occurrence had no doubt led
there, and among the rest some of the Council. M. le Duc d'Orleans was
in the midst of a crowd at the end of the room, and, as I afterwards
learned, had just seen the Duc du Maine without speaking to him, or being
spoken to.
After a passing glance upon this crowd I entered the Council chamber. I
found scattered there the majority of those who composed the Council with
serious and troubled looks, which increased my seriousness. Scarcely
anybody spoke; and each, standing or seated here and there, kept himself
in his place. The better to examine all, I joined nobody. A moment
after M. le Duc d'Orleans entered with a gay, easy, untroubled air, and
looked smilingly upon the company. I considered this of good augury.
Immediately afterwards I asked him his news. He replied aloud that he
was tolerably well; then approaching my ear, added that, except when
aroused to give his orders, he had slept very well, and that he was
determined to hold firm. This infinitely pleased me, for it seemed to me
by his manner that he was in earnest, and I briefly exhorted him to
remain so.
Came, afterwards, M. le Duc, who pretty soon approached me, and asked if
I augured well from the Regent, and if he would remain firm. M. le Duc
had an air of exceeding gaiety, which was perceptible to those behind the
scenes. The Duc de Noailles devoured everything with his eyes, which
sparkled with anger because he had not been initiated into the secret of
this great day.
In due time M. du Maine appeared in his mantle, entering by the King's
little door. Never before had he made so many or such profound
reverences as he did now--though he was not usually very stingy of them--
then standing alone, resting upon his stick near the Council table, he
looked around at everybody. Then and there, being in front of him, with
the table between us, I made him the most smiling bow I had ever given
him, and did it with extreme volupty. He repaid me in the same coin, and
continued to fix his eyes upon everybody in turn; his face agitated, and
nearly always speaking to himself.
A few minutes after M. le Duc came to me, begging me to exhort M. le Duc
d'Orleans to firmness: then the Keeper of the Seals came forth for the
same purpose. M. le Duc d'Orleans himself approached me to say something
a moment afterwards, and he had no sooner quitted my side than M. le Duc,
impatient and troubled, came to know in what frame of mind was the
Regent. I told him good in a monosyllable, and sent him away.
I know not if these movements, upon which all eyes were fixed, began to
frighten the Duc du Maine, but no sooner had M. le Duc joined the Regent,
after quitting me, than the Duc du Maine went to speak to the Marechal de
Villeroy and to D'Effiat, both seated at the end of the room towards the
King's little door, their backs to the wall. They did not rise for the
Duc du Maine, who remained standing opposite, and quite near them, all
three holding long discourses, like people who deliberate with
embarrassment and surprise, as it appeared to me by the faces of the two
I saw, and which I tried not to lose sight of.
During this time M. le Duc d'Orleans and M. le Duc spoke to each other
near the window and the ordinary entrance door; the Keeper of the Seals,
who was near, joined them. At this moment M. le Duc turned round a
little, which gave me the opportunity to make signs to him of the other
conference, which he immediately saw. I was alone, near the Council
table, very attentive to everything, and the others scattered about began
to become more so. A little while after the Duc du Maine placed himself
where he had been previously: the two he quitted remained as before.
M. du Maine was thus again in front of me, the table between us: I
observed that he had a bewildered look, and that he spoke to himself more
than ever.
The Comte de Toulouse arrived as the Regent had just quitted the two
persons with whom he had been talking. The Comte de Toulouse was in his
mantle, and saluted the company with a grave and meditative manner,
neither accosting nor accosted: M. le Duc d'Orleans found himself in
front of him and turned towards me, although at some distance, as though
to testify his trouble. I bent my head a little while looking fixedly at
him, as though to say, "Well, what then?"
A short time afterwards the Comte de Toulouse had a conversation with his
brother, both speaking with agitation and without appearing to agree very
well. Then the Count approached M. le Duc d'Orleans, who was talking
again to M. le Duc, and they spoke at some length to each other. As
their faces were towards the wall, nothing but their backs could be seen,
no emotion and scarcely a gesture was visible.
The Duc du Maine had remained where he had spoken to his brother. He
seemed half dead, looked askance upon the company with wandering eyes,
and the troubled agitated manner of a criminal, or a man condemned to
death. Shortly afterwards he became pale as a corpse, and appeared to me
to have been taken ill.
He crawled to the end of the table, during which the Comte de Toulouse
came and said a word to the Regent, and began to walk out of the room.
All these movements took place in a trice. The Regent, who was near the
King's armchair, said aloud, "Now, gentlemen, let us take our places."
Each approached to do so, and as I looked behind mine I saw the two
brothers at the door as though about to leave the room. I leaped, so to
speak, between the King's armchair and M. le Duc d'Orleans, and whispered
in the Regent's ear so as not to be heard by the Prince de Conti:
"Monsieur, look at them. They are going."
"I know it," he replied tranquilly.
"Yes," I exclaimed with animation, "but do you know what they will do
when they are outside."
"Nothing at all," said he: "the Comte de Toulouse has asked me for
permission to go out with his brother; he has assured me that they will
be discreet."
"And if they are not?" I asked.
"They will be. But if they are not, they will be well looked after."
"But if they commit some absurdity, or leave Paris?"
"They will be arrested. Orders have been given, and I will answer for
their execution."
Therefore, more tranquil, I sat down in my place. Scarcely had I got
there than the Regent called me back, and said that since they had left
the room, he should like to tell the Council what was going to be done
with respect to them. I replied that the only objection to this, their
presence, being now removed--I thought it would be wrong not to do so.
He asked M. le Duc in a whisper, across the table, afterwards called to
the Keeper of the Seals; both agreed, and then we really seated
ourselves.
These movements had augmented the trouble and curiosity of every one.
The eyes of all, occupied with the Regent, had been removed from the
door, so that the absence of the bastards was by no means generally
remarked. As soon as it was perceived, everybody looked inquiringly
around, and remained standing in expectation. I sat down in the seat of
the Comte de Toulouse. The Duc de Guiche, who sat on the other side of
me, left a seat between us, and still waited for the bastards. He told
me to approach nearer to him, saying I had mistaken my place. I replied
not a word, looking on at the company, which was a sight to see. At the
second or third summons, I replied that he, on the contrary, must
approach me.
"And M. le Comte de Toulouse?" replied he.
"Approach," said I, and seeing him motionless with astonishment, looking
towards the Duc du Maine's seat, which had been taken by the Keeper of
the Seals, I pulled him by his coat (I was seated), saying to him, "Come
here and sit down."
I pulled him so hard that he seated himself near me without understanding
aught.
"But what is the meaning of all this?" he demanded; "where are these
gentlemen?"
"I don't know," replied I, impatiently; "but they are not here."
At the same time, the Duc de Noailles, who sat next to the Duc de Guiche,
and who, enraged at counting for nothing in preparations for such a great
day, had apparently divined that I was in the plot, vanquished by his
curiosity, stretched over the table in front of the Duc de Guiche, and
said to me:
"In the name of Heaven, M. le Duc, do me the favour to say what all this
means?"
I was at daggers-drawn with him, as I have explained, and had no mercy
for him. I turned, therefore, towards him with a cold and disdainful
air, and, after having heard him out, and looked at him, I turned away
again. That was all my reply. The Duc de Guiche pressed me to say
something, even if it was only that I knew all. I denied it, and yet
each seated himself slowly, because intent only upon looking around, and
divining what all this could mean, and because it was a long time before
any one could comprehend that we must proceed to business without the
bastards, although nobody opened his mouth.
When everybody was in his place M. le Duc d'Orleans after having far a
moment looked all around, every eye fixed upon him, said that he had
assembled this Regency Council to hear read the resolutions adopted at
the last; that he had come to the conclusion that there was no other
means of obtaining the registration of the finance edict recently passed
than that of holding a Bed of justice; that the heat rendering it
unadvisable to jeopardise the King's health in the midst of the crowd of
the Palais de justice, he had thought it best to follow the example of
the late King, who had sometimes sent for the Parliament to the
Tuileries; that, as it had become necessary to hold this Bed of justice,
he had thought it right to profit by the occasion, and register the
'lettres de provision' of the Keeper of the Seals at the commencement of
the sitting; and he ordered the Keeper of the Seals to read them.
During this reading, which had no other importance than to seize an
occasion of forcing the Parliament to recognize the Keeper of the Seals,
whose person and whose commission they hated, I occupied myself in
examining the faces.
I saw M. le Duc d'Orleans with an air of authority and of attention, so
new that I was struck with it. M. le Duc, gay and brilliant, appeared
quite at his ease, and confident. The Prince de Conti, astonished,
absent, meditative, seemed to see nothing and to take part in nothing.
The Keeper of the Seals, grave and pensive, appeared to have too many
things in his head; nevertheless, with bag, wax, and seals near him, he
looked very decided and very firm. The Duc de la Force hung his head,
but examined on the sly the faces of us all. Marechal Villeroy and
Marechal de Villars spoke to each other now and then; both had irritated
eyes and long faces. Nobody was more composed than the Marechal de
Tallard; but he could not hide an internal agitation which often peeped
out. The Marechal d'Estrees had a stupefied air, as though he saw
nothing but a mist before him. The Marechal de Besons, enveloped more
than ordinarily in his big wig, appeared deeply meditative, his look cast
down and angry. Pelletier, very buoyant, simple, curious, looking at
everything. Torcy, three times more starched than usual, seemed to look
at everything by stealth. Effiat, meddlesome, piqued, outraged, ready to
boil over, fuming at everybody, his look haggard, as it passed
precipitously, and by fits and starts, from side to side. Those on my
side I could not well examine; I saw them only by moments as they changed
their postures or I mine; and then not well or for long. I have already
spoken of the astonishment of the Duc de Guiche, and of the vexation and
curiosity of the Duc de Noailles. D'Antin, usually of such easy
carriage, appeared to me as though in fetters, and quite scared. The
Marechal d'Huxelles tried to put a good face on the matter, but could not
hide the despair which pierced him. Old Troyes, all abroad, showed
nothing but surprise and embarrassment, and did not appear to know where
he was.
From the first moment of this reading and the departure of the bastards,
everybody saw that something was in preparation against them. What that
something was to be, kept every mind in suspense. A Bed of justice, too,
prepared in secret, ready as soon as announced, indicated a strong
resolution taken against the Parliament, and indicated also so much
firmness and measure in a Prince, usually supposed to be entirely
incapable of any, that every one was at sea. All, according as they were
allied to the Parliament or to the bastards, seemed to wait in fear what
was to be proposed. Many others appeared deeply wounded because the
Regent had not admitted them behind the scenes, and because they were
compelled to share the common surprise. Never were faces so universally
elongated; never was embarrassment more general or more marked. In these
first moments of trouble I fancy few people lent an ear to the letters
the Keeper of the Seals was reading. When they were finished, M. le Duc
d'Orleans said he did not think it was worth while to take the votes one
by one, either upon the contents of these letters or their registration;
but that all would be in favour of commencing the Bed of justice at once.
After a short but marked pause, the Regent developed, in few words, the
reasons which had induced the Council at its last sitting, to abrogate
the decree of the Parliament. He added, that judging by the conduct of
that assembly, it would have been to jeopardise anew the King's
authority, to send for registration this act of abrogation to the
Parliament, which would assuredly have given in public a proof of formal
disobedience, in refusing to register; that there being no other remedy
than a Bed of justice, he had thought it best to assemble one, but in
secret, so as not to give time or opportunity to the ill-disposed to
prepare for disobedience; that he believed, with the Keeper of the Seals,
the frequency and the manner of the parliamentary remonstrances were such
that the Parliament must be made to keep within the limits of its duty,
which, long since, it seemed to have lost sight of; that the Keeper of
the Seals would now read to the Council the act of abrogation, and the
rules that were to be observed in future. Then, looking at the Keeper of
the Seals, "Monsieur," said he, "you will explain this better than I.
Have the goodness to do so before reading the decree."
The Keeper of the Seals then spoke, and paraphrased what his Royal
Highness had said more briefly; he explained in what manner the
Parliament had the right to remonstrate, showed the distinction between
its power and that of the Crown; the incompetence of the tribunals in all
matters of state and finance; and the necessity of repressing the
remonstrances of Parliament by passing a code (that was the term used),
which was to serve as their inviolable guide. All this explained without
lengthiness, with grace and clearness, he began to read the decree, as it
has since been printed and circulated everywhere, some trifling
alteration excepted.
The reading finished, the Regent, contrary to his custom, showed his
opinion by the praises he gave to this document: and then, assuming the
Regent's tone and air he had never before put on, and which completed the
astonishment of the company, he added, "To-day, gentlemen, I shall
deviate from the usual rule in taking your votes, and I think it will be
well to do so during all this Council."
Then after a slight glance upon both sides of the table, during which you
might have heard a worm crawl, he turned towards M. le Duc and asked him
his opinion. M. le Duc declared for the decree, alleging several short
but strong reasons. The Prince de Conti spoke in the same sense. I
spoke after, for the Keeper of the Seals had done so directly his reading
was finished. My opinion was given in more general terms so as not to
fall too heavily upon the Parliament, or to show that I arrogated to
myself the right to support his Royal Highness in the same manner as a
prince of the blood. The Duc de la Force was longer. All spoke, but the
majority said but little, and some allowed their vexation to be seen, but
did not dare to oppose, feeling that it would be of no use. Dejection
was painted upon their faces; it was evident this affair, of the
Parliament was not what they expected or wished. Tallard was the only
one whose face did not betray him; but the suffocated monosyllable of the
Marechal d'Huxelles tore off the rest of the mask. The Duc de Noailles
could scarcely contain himself, and spoke more than he wished, with
anguish worthy of Fresnes. M. le Duc d'Orleans spoke last, and with
unusual force; then made a pause, piercing all the company with his eyes.
At this moment the Marechal de Villeroy, full of his own thoughts,
muttered between his teeth, "But will the Parliament come?" This was
gently taken up. M. le Duc d'Orleans replied that he did not doubt it;
and immediately afterwards, that it would be as well to know when they
set out. The Keeper of the Seals said he should be informed. M. le Duc
d'Orleans replied that the door-keepers must be told. Thereupon up jumps
M. de Troyes.
I was seized with such a sudden fear lest he should go and chatter at the
door with some one that I jumped up also, and got the start of him. As I
returned, D'Antin, who had turned round to lay wait for me, begged me for
mercy's sake to tell him what all this meant. I sped on saying that I
knew nothing. "Tell that to others! Ho, ho!" replied he. When he had
resumed his seat, M. le Duc d'Orleans said something, I don't know what,
M. de Troyes still standing, I also. In passing La Vrilliere, I asked
him to go to the door every time anything was wanted, for fear of the
babbling of M. de Troyes; adding, that distant as I was from the door,
going there looked too peculiar. La Vrilliere did as I begged him all
the rest of the sitting.
As I was returning to my place, D'Antin, still in ambush, begged me in
the name of heaven, his hands joined, to tell him something. I kept
firm, however, saying, "You will see." The Duc de Guiche pressed me as
resolutely, even saying, it was evident I was in the plot. I remained
deaf.
These little movements over, M. le Duc d'Orleans, rising a little in his
seat, said to the company, in a tone more firm, and more like that of a
master than before, that there was another matter now to attend to, much
more important than the one just heard. This prelude increased the
general astonishment, and rendered everybody motionless. After a moment
of silence the Regent said, that the peers had had for some time good
grounds of complaint against certain persons, who by unaccustomed favour,
had been allowed to assume rank and dignity to which their birth did not
entitle them; that it was time this irregularity should be stopped short,
and that with this view, an instrument had been drawn up, which the
Keeper of the Seals would read to them.
A profound silence followed this discourse, so unexpected, and which
began to explain the absence of the bastards. Upon many visages a sombre
hue was painted. As for me I had enough to do to compose my own visage,
upon which all eyes successively passed; I had put upon it an extra coat
of gravity and of modesty; I steered my eyes with care, and only looked
horizontally at most, not an inch higher. As soon as the Regent opened
his mouth on this business, M. le Duc cast upon me a triumphant look
which almost routed my seriousness, and which warned me to increase it,
and no longer expose myself to meet his glance. Contained in this
manner, attentive in devouring the aspect of all, alive to everything and
to myself, motionless, glued to my chair, all my body fixed, penetrated
with the most acute and most sensible pleasure that joy could impart,
with the most charming anxiety, with an enjoyment, so perseveringly and
so immoderately hoped for, I sweated with agony at the captivity of my
transport, and this agony was of a voluptuousness such as I had never
felt before, such as I have never felt since. How inferior are the
pleasures of the senses to those of the mind! and how true it is that the
balance-weight of misfortunes, is the good fortune that finishes them!
A moment after the Regent had ceased speaking, he told the Keeper of the
Seals to read the declaration. During the reading, which was more than
music to my ears, my attention was again fixed on the company. I saw by
the alteration of the faces what an immense effect this document, which
embodied the resolutions I have already explained, produced upon some of
our friends. The whole of the reading was listened to with the utmost
attention, and the utmost emotion.
When it was finished, M. le Duc d'Orleans said he was very sorry for this
necessity, but that justice must be done to the peers as well as to the
princes of the blood: then turning to the Keeper of the Seals asked him
for his opinion.
This latter spoke briefly and well; but was like a dog running over hot
ashes. He declared for the declaration. His Royal Highness then called
upon M. le Duc for his opinion. It was short, but nervous, and polite to
the peers. M. le Prince de Conti the same. Then the Regent asked me my
opinion. I made, contrary to my custom, a profound inclination, but
without rising, and said, that having the honour to find myself the
eldest of the peers of the Council, I offered to his Royal Highness my
very humble thanks and those of all the peers of France, for the justice
so ardently desired, and touching so closely our dignity and our persons,
that he had resolved to render us; that I begged him to be persuaded of
our gratitude, and to count upon our utmost attachment to his person for
an act of equity so longed for, and so complete; that in this sincere
expression of our sentiments consisted all our opinion, because, being
pleaders, we could not be judges also. I terminated these few words with
a profound inclination, without rising, imitated by the Duc de la Force
at the same moment; all the rest of the Council briefly gave their
opinions, approving what the majority of them evidently did not approve
at all.
I had tried to modulate my voice, so that it should be just heard and no
more, preferring to be indistinct rather than speak too loudly; and
confined all my person to express as much as possible, gravity, modesty,
and simple gratitude. M. le Duc maliciously made signs to me in smiling,
that I had spoken well. But I kept my seriousness, and turned round to
examine all the rest.
It would be impossible to describe the aspect of the company. Nothing
was seen but people, oppressed with surprise that overwhelmed them,
meditative, agitated, some irritated, some but ill at ease, like La Force
and Guiche, who freely admitted so to me.
The opinions taken almost as soon as demanded, M. le Duc d'Orleans said,
"Gentlemen, it is finished, then justice is done, and the rights of
Messieurs the Peers are in safety. I have now an act of grace to propose
to you, and I do so with all the more confidence, because I have taken
care to consult the parties interested, who support me; and because, I
have drawn up the document in a manner to wound no one. What I am going
to explain to you, regards the Comte de Toulouse alone.
"Nobody is ignorant how he has disapproved all that has been done in
favour of him and his brother, and that he has sustained it since the
regency only out of respect for the wishes of the late King. Everybody
knows also his virtue, his merit, his application, his probity, his
disinterestedness. Nevertheless, I could not avoid including him in the
declaration you have just heard. Justice furnishes no exception in his
favour, and the rights of the Peers must be assured. Now that they are
no longer attacked, I have thought fitly to render to merit what from
equity I have taken from birth; and to make an exception of M. le Comte
de Toulouse, which (while confirming the rule), will leave him in full
possession of all the honours he enjoys to the exclusion of every other.
Those honours are not to pass to his children, should he marry and have
any, or their restitution be considered as a precedent to be made use of
at any future time.
"I have the pleasure to announce that the Princes of the Blood consent to
this, and that such of the Peers to whom I have been able to explain
myself, share my sentiments. I doubt not that the esteem he has acquired
here will render this proposition agreeable to you." And then turning to
the Keeper of the Seals, "Monsieur, will you read the declaration?"
It was read at once.
I had, during the discourse of his Royal Highness, thrown all my
attention into an examination of the impression it made upon the
assembly. The astonishment it caused was general; it was such, that to
judge of those addressed, it seemed that they understood nothing; and
they did not recover themselves during all the reading. I inwardly
rejoiced at success so pleasingly demonstrated and did not receive too
well the Duc de Guiche, who testified to me his disapprobation. Villeroy
confounded, Villars raging, Effiat rolling his eyes, Estrees beside
himself with surprise, were the most marked. Tallard, with his head
stretched forward, sucked in, so to speak, all the Regent's words as they
were proffered, and those of the declaration, as the Keeper of the Seals
read them. Noailles, inwardly distracted, could not hide his
distraction; Huxelles, entirely occupied in smoothing himself, forgot to
frown. I divided my attention between the declaration and these persons.
The document read, M. le Duc d'Orleans praised it in two words, and
called upon the Keeper of the Seals to give his opinion. He did so
briefly, in favour of the Comte de Toulouse. M. le Duc the same; M. le
Prince de Conti the same. After him, I testified to his Royal Highness
my joy at seeing him conciliate the justice and the safety of the peers
with the unheard-of favour he had just rendered to the virtue of M. le
Comte de Toulouse, who merited it by his moderation, his truthfulness,
his attachment to the State; thus the more he had recognised the
injustice of his elevation to the rank to which he was raised, the more
he had rendered himself worthy of it, and the more it was advantageous to
the peers to yield to merit, (when this exception was confined solely to
his person, with formal and legal precautions, so abundantly supplied by
the declaration) and voluntarily contribute thus to an elevation without
example, (so much the more flattering because its only foundation was
virtue), so as to incite that virtue more and more to the service and
utility of the state; that I declared therefore with joy for the
declaration, and did not fear to add the very humble thanks of the peers,
since I had the honour to be the oldest present.
As I closed my mouth I cast my eyes in front of some, and plainly saw
that my applause did not please, and, perhaps, my thanks still less. The
others gave their opinion with heavy heart, as it were, to so terrible a
blow, some few muttered I know not what between their teeth, but the
thunderbolt upon the Duc du Maine's cabal was more and more felt, and as
reflection succeeded to the first feeling of surprise, so a bitter and
sharp grief manifested itself upon their faces in so marked a manner,
that it was easy to see it had become high time to strike.
All opinions having been expressed, M. le Duc cast a brilliant leer at
me, and prepared to speak; but the Keeper of the Seals, who, from his
side of the table did not see this movement, wishing also to say
something, M. le Duc d'Orleans intimated to him that M. le Duc had the
start of him. Raising himself majestically from his seat, the Regent
then said: "Gentlemen, M. le Duc has a proposition to make to you. I
have found it just and reasonable; I doubt not, you will find it so too."
Then turning towards M. le Duc, he added, "Monsieur, will you explain
it?"
The movement these few words made among the company is inexpressible.
'Twas as though I saw before me people deprived of all power, and
surprised by a new assembly rising up from the midst of them in an asylum
they had breathlessly reached.
"Monsieur," said M. le Duc, addressing himself to the Regent, as usual;
"since you have rendered justice to the Dukes, I think I am justified in
asking for it myself. The deceased King gave the education of his
Majesty to M. le Duc du Maine. I was a minor then, and according to the
idea of the deceased King, M. du Maine was prince of the blood, capable
of succeeding to the crown. Now I am of age, and not only M. du Maine is
no longer prince of the blood, but he is reduced to the rank of his
peerage. M. le Marechal de Villeroy is now his senior, and precedes him
everywhere; M. le Marechal can therefore no longer remain governor of the
King, under the superintendence of M. du Maine. I ask you, then, for M.
du Maine's post, that I think my age, my rank, my attachment to the King
and the State, qualify me for. I hope," he added, turning towards his
left, "that I shall profit by the lessons of M. le Marechal de Villeroy,
acquit myself of my duties with distinction, and merit his friendship."
At this discourse the Marechal de Villeroy almost slipped off his chair.
As soon, at least, as he heard the Words, "Superintendence of the King's
education," he rested his forehead upon his stick, and remained several
moments in that posture. He appeared even to understand nothing of the
rest of the speech. Villars and D'Effiat bent their backs like people
who had received the last blow. I could see nobody on my own side except
the Duc de Guiche, who approved through all his prodigious astonishment.
Estrees became master of himself the first, shook himself, brightened up,
and looked at the company like a man who returns from the other world.
As soon as M. le Duc had finished, M. le Duc d'Orleans reviewed all the
company with his eyes, and then said, that the request of M. le Duc was
just; that he did not think it could be refused; that M. le Marechal de
Villeroy could not be allowed to remain under a person whom he preceded
in rank; that the superintendence of the King's education could not be
more worthily filled than by M. le Duc; and that he was persuaded all
would be of one voice in this matter. Immediately afterwards, he asked
M. le Prince de Conti to give his opinion, who did so in two words; then
he asked the Keeper of the Seals, whose reply was equally brief; then he
asked me.
I simply said, looking at M. le Duc, that I was for the change with all
my heart. The rest, M. de la Force excepted (who said a single word),
voted without speaking, simply bowing; the Marshals and D'Effiat scarcely
moved their eyes, and those of Villars glistened with fury.
The opinions taken, the Regent turning towards M. le Duc, said,
"Monsieur, I think you would like to read what you intend to say to the
King at the Bed of Justice."
Therefore M. le Duc read it as it has been printed. Some moments of sad
and profound silence succeeded this reading, during which the Marechal de
Villeroy, pale and agitated, muttered to himself. At last, like a man
who has made up his mind, he turned with bended head, expiring eyes, and
feeble voice, towards the Regent, and said, "I will simply say these two
words; here are all the dispositions of the late king overturned, I
cannot see it without grief. M. du Maine is very unfortunate."
"Monsieur," replied the Regent, in a loud and animated tone, "M. du Maine
is my brother-in-law, but I prefer an open enemy to a hidden one."
At this great declaration several lowered their heads. The Marechal de
Villeroy nearly swooned; sighs began to make themselves heard near me, as
though by stealth; everybody felt by this that the scabbard was thrown
away.
The Keeper of the Seals, to make a diversion; proposed to read the speech
he had prepared to serve as preface to the decree to be read at the Bed
of justice, abrogating the Parliament decrees; as he was finishing it,
some one entered to say he was asked for at the door.
He went out, returning immediately afterwards, not to his place, but to
M. le Duc d'Orleans, whom he took into a window, meditative silence
reigning around. The Regent having returned back to his place, said to
the company, he had received information that the Chief-President of the
Parliament, notwithstanding the reply previously made, had proposed that
the Parliament should not go to the Tuileries, asking, "What it was to do
in a place where it would not be free?" that he had proposed to send a
message to the King, stating that "his Parliament would hear his wishes
in their ordinary place of meeting, whenever it should please him to come
or to send." The Regent added that these propositions had made
considerable sensation, and that the Parliament were at that moment
debating upon them. The Council appeared much astounded at this news,
but M. le Duc d'Orleans said, in a very composed manner, that he did not
expect a refusal; he ordered the Keeper of the Seals, nevertheless, to
propose such measures as it would be best to take, supposing the motion
of the Chief-President should be carried.
The Keeper of the Seals declared that he could not believe the Parliament
would be guilty of this disobedience, contrary to all law and usage.
He showed at some length that nothing was so pernicious as to expose the
King's authority to a formal opposition, and decided in favour of the
immediate interdiction of the Parliament if it fell into this fault.
M. le Duc d'Orleans added that there was no other course open, and took
the opinion of M. le Duc, which was strongly in his favour. M. le Prince
de Conti the same, mine also, that of M. de la Force and of M. de Guiche
still more so. The Marechal de Villeroy, in a broken voice, seeking big
words, which would not come in time to him, deplored this extremity, and
did all he could to avoid giving a precise opinion. Forced at last by
the Regent to explain himself, he did not dare to oppose, but added that
he assented with regret, and wished to explain the grievous results of
the proposed measure. But the Regent, interrupting him, said he need not
take the trouble: everything had been foreseen; that it would be much
more grievous to be disobeyed by the Parliament than to force it into
obedience; and immediately after asked the Duc de Noailles his opinion,
who replied that it would be very sad to act thus, but that he was for
it. Villars wished to paraphrase, but contained himself, and said he
hoped the Parliament would obey. Pressed by the Regent, he proposed to
wait for fresh news before deciding; but, pressed more closely, he
declared for the interdiction, with an air of warmth and vexation,
extremely marked. Nobody after this dared to hesitate, and the majority
voted by an inclination of the head.
A short time afterwards it was announced to M. le Duc d'Orleans that the
Parliament had set out on foot, and had begun to defile through the
palace. This news much cooled the blood of the company, M. le Duc
d'Orleans more than that of any one else.
After this the Regent, in a cheerful manner, called upon the Presidents
of the Councils to bring forward any business they might have on hand,
but not one had any. The Marechal de Villars said, however, that he had
a matter to produce, and he produced it accordingly, but with a clearness
which, under the circumstances, was extraordinary. I fancy, however,
that very few knew what he was talking about. We were all too much
occupied with more interesting matters, and each voted without speaking.
Bad luck to those who had had business to bring forward this day; they
who conducted it would have known but little what they said: they who
listened, still less.
The Council finished thus, from lack of matter, and a movement was made
to adjourn it as usual. I stepped in front of M. le Prince de Conti to
M. le Duc d'Orleans, who understood me, and who begged the company to
keep their seats. La Vrilliere went out by order for news, but there was
nothing fresh.
CHAPTER XCIII
It was now a little after ten. We remained a good half-hour in our
places, talking a little with each other, but on the whole rather silent.
At the end some grew fidgety and anxious, rose and went to the windows.
M. le Duc d'Orleans restrained them as well as he could; but at length
Desgranges entered to say that the Chief-President had already arrived,
in his coach, and that the Parliament was near. So soon as he had
retired, the Council rose by groups, and could no longer be kept seated.
M. le Duc d'Orleans himself at last rose, and all he could do was to
prohibit everybody from leaving the room under any pretext, and this
prohibition he repeated two or three times.
Scarcely had we risen when M. le Duc came to me, rejoiced at the success
that had hitherto been had, and much relieved by the absence of the
bastards. Soon after I quitted him the Duc d'Orleans came to me,
overpowered with the same sentiment. I said what I thought of the
consternation of every one; and painted the expression of M. d'Effiat, at
which he was not surprised. He was more so about Besons. I asked if he
was not afraid the bastards would come to the Bed of justice; but he was
certain they would not. I was resolved, however, to prepare his mind
against that contingency.
I walked about, slowly and incessantly without fixing myself on any one,
in order that nothing should escape me, principally attending to the
doors. I took advantage of the opportunity to say a word here and a word
there, to pass continually near those who were suspected, to skim and
interrupt all conversations. D'Antin was often joined by the Duc de
Noailles, who had resumed his habit of the morning, and continually
followed me with his eyes. He had an air of consternation, was agitated
and embarrassed in countenance--he commonly so free and easy! D'Antin
took me aside to see whether he could not, considering his position, be
excused from attending the Bed of Justice. He received permission from
the Regent on certain conditions.
I went then to break in upon the colloquy of D'Effiat and his friends,
and taking them by surprise, caused D'Effiat to say that he had just
heard strange resolutions, that he did not know who had advised them,
that he prayed that M. d'Orleans would find them advantageous.
I replied, agreeing with him. The Marechal de Villeroy sighed, muttered,
and shook his wig, Villars spoke more at length, and blamed sharply what
had been done. I assented to everything, being there not to persuade but
to watch.
Nevertheless we grew weary of the slowness of the Parliament, and often
sent out for news. Several of the Council tried to leave the room,
perhaps to blab, but the Regent would allow no one but La Vrilliere to go
out, and seeing that the desire to leave increased, stood at the door
himself. I suggested to him that Madame d'Orleans would be in a great
state of uneasiness, and suggested that he should write to her; but he
could not be persuaded to do it, though he promised.
At last the Parliament arrived, and behold us! like children, all at the
windows. The members came in red robes, two by two, by the grand door of
the court, which they passed in order to reach the Hall of the
Ambassadors, where the Chief-President, who had come in his carriage with
the president Haligre, awaited them.
The Parliament being in its place, the peers having arrived, and the
presidents having put on their furs behind the screens arranged for that
purpose in an adjoining room, a messenger came to inform us that all was
ready. The question had been agitated, whether the King should dine
meanwhile, and I had it carried in the negative, fearing lest coming
immediately after to the Bed of justice, and having eaten before his
usual hour, he might be ill, which would have been a grievous
inconvenience. As soon as it was announced to the Regent that we could
set out, his Royal Highness sent word to the Parliament, to prepare the
deputation to receive the King; and then said aloud to the company, that
it was time to go in search of his Majesty.
At these words I felt a storm of joy sweep over me, at the thought of the
grand spectacle that was going to pass in my presence, which warned me to
be doubly on my guard. I tried to furnish myself with the strongest dose
of seriousness, gravity, and modesty. I followed M. le Duc d'Orleans,
who entered the King's room by the little door, and who found the King in
his cabinet. On the way the Duc d'Albret made me some very marked
compliments, with evident desire to discover something. I put him off
with politeness, complaints of the crowd, of the annoyance of my dress,
and gained thus the King's cabinet.
The King was dressed as usual. When the Duc d'Orleans had been a few
moments with him, he asked him if he would be pleased to go: and the way
was instantly' cleared, a procession formed, and the King moved towards
the Hall of the Swiss Guard.
I now hastened to the chamber, where the Bed of justice was to be held.
The passage to it was tolerably, free. The officers of the body-guard
made place for me and for the Duc de la Force, and Marechal de Villars,
who followed me, one by one. I stopped a moment in the passage at the
entrance to the room, seized with joy upon seeing this grand spectacle,
and at the thought of the grand movement that was drawing nigh, I needed
a pause in order to recover myself sufficiently to see distinctly what
I looked at, and to put on a new coat of seriousness and of modesty.
I fully expected I should be well examined by a company which had been
carefully taught not to like me, and by the curious spectators waiting to
see what was to be hatched out of so profound a secret, in such an
important assembly, summoned so hastily. Moreover, nobody was ignorant
that I knew all, at least from the Council of the Regency I had just
left.
I did not deceive myself. As soon as I appeared, all eyes were fixed
upon me. I slowly advanced towards the chief greffier, and introducing
myself between the two seats, I traversed the length of the room, in
front of the King's people, who saluted me with a smiling air, and I
ascended over three rows of high seats, where all the peers were in their
places, and who rose as I approached the steps. I respectfully saluted
them from the third row.
Seated in my elevated place, and with nothing before me, I was able to
glance over the whole assembly. I did so at once, piercing everybody
with my eyes. One thing alone restrained me; it was that I did not dare
to fix my eyes upon certain objects. I feared the fire and brilliant
significance of my looks at that moment so appreciated by everybody: and
the more I saw I attracted attention, the more anxious was I to wean
curiosity by my discreetness. I cast, nevertheless, a glittering glance
upon the Chief-President and his friends, for the examination of whom I
was admirably placed. I carried my looks over all the Parliament,
and saw there an astonishment, a silence, a consternation, such as I had
not expected, and which was of good augury to me. The Chief-President,
insolently crest-fallen, the other presidents disconcerted, and attentive
to all, furnished me the most agreeable spectacle. The simply curious
(among which I rank those who had no vote) appeared to me not less
surprised (but without the bewilderment of the others), calmly surprised;
in a word, everybody showed much expectation and desire to divine what
had passed at the Council.
I had but little leisure for this examination, for the King immediately
arrived. The hubbub which followed his entrance, and which lasted until
his Majesty and all who accompanied him were in their places, was another
singularity. Everybody sought to penetrate the Regent, the Keeper of the
Seals, and the principal personages. The departure of the bastards from
the cabinet of the Council had redoubled attention, but everybody did not
know of that departure; now everybody perceived their absence. The
consternation of the Marechals--of their senior--(the governor of the
King) was evident. It augmented the dejection of the Chief-President,
who not seeing his master the Duc du Maine, cast a terrible glance upon
M. de Sully and me, who exactly occupied the places of the two brothers.
In an instant all the eyes of the assembly were cast, at the same time,
upon us; and I remarked that the meditativeness and expectation increased
in every face. That of the Regent had an air of gentle but resolute
majesty completely new to it, his eyes attentive, his deportment grave,
but easy. M. le Duc, sage, measured, but encircled by I know not what
brilliancy, which adorned all his person and which was evidently kept
down. M. le Prince de Conti appeared dull, pensive, his mind far away
perhaps. I was not able during the sitting to see them except now and
then, and under pretext of looking at the King, who was serious,
majestic, and at the same time as pretty as can be imagined; grave, with
grace in all his bearing, his air attentive, and not at all wearied,
playing his part very well and without embarrassment.
When all was ready, Argenson, the Keeper of the Seals, remained some
minutes at his desk motionless, looking down, and the fire which sprang
from his eyes seemed to burn every breast. An extreme silence eloquently
announced the fear, the attention, the trouble, and the curiosity of all
the expectants. The Parliament, which under the deceased King had often
summoned this same Argenson, and as lieutenant of police had often given
him its orders, he standing uncovered at the bar of the house; the
Parliament, which since the regency had displayed its ill-will towards
him so far as to excite public remark, and which still detained prisoners
and papers to vex him; this Chief President so superior to him, so
haughty, so proud of his Duc du Maine; this Lamoignon, who had boasted he
would have him hanged at his Chamber of justice, where he had so
completely dishonoured himself: this Parliament and all saw him clad in
the ornaments of the chief office of the robe, presiding over them,
effacing them, and entering upon his functions to teach them their duty,
to read them a public lesson the first time he found himself at their
head! These vain presidents were seen turning their looks from a man who
imposed so strongly upon their pride, and who annihilated their arrogance
in the place even whence they drew it, and rendered them stupid by
regards they could not sustain.
After the Keeper of the Seals (according to the manner of the preachers)
had accustomed himself to this august audience, he uncovered himself,
rose, mounted to the King, knelt before the steps of the throne, by the
side of the middle of the steps, where the grand chamberlain was lying
upon cushions, and took the King's orders, descended, placed himself in
his chair and covered himself. Let us say it once for all, he performed
the same ceremony at the commencement of each business, and likewise
before and after taking the opinion upon each; at the bar of justice
neither he nor the chamberlain ever speaks otherwise to the King; and
every time he went to the King on this occasion the Regent rose and
approached him to hear and suggest the orders. Having returned back into
his place, he opened, after some moments of silence, this great scene by
a discourse. The report of the Bed of justice, made by the Parliament
and printed, which is in the hands of everybody, renders it unnecessary
for me to give the discourse of the Keeper of the Seals, that of the
Chief-President, those of the King's people, and the different papers
that were read and registered. I will simply content myself with some
observations. This first discourse, the reading of the letters of the
Keeper of the Seals, and the speech of the Advocate-General Blancmesnil
which followed, the opinions taken, the order given, sometimes reiterated
to keep the two double doors open, did not surprise anybody; served only
as the preface to all the rest; to sharpen curiosity more and more as the
moment approached in which it was to be satisfied.
This first act finished, the second was announced by the discourse of the
Keeper of the Seals, the force of which penetrated all the Parliament.
General consternation spread itself over their faces. Scarcely one of
the members dared to speak to his neighbour. I remarked that the Abbe
Pucelle, who, although only counsellor-clerk, was upon the forms in front
of me, stood, so that he might hear better every time the Keeper of the
Seals spoke. Bitter grief, obviously full of vexation, obscured the
visage of the Chief-President. Shame and confusion were painted there.
After the vote, and when the Keeper of the Seals had pronounced, I saw
the principal members of the Parliament in commotion. The Chief-
President was about to speak. He did so by uttering the remonstrance of
the Parliament, full of the most subtle and impudent malice against the
Regent, and of insolence against the King. The villain trembled,
nevertheless, in pronouncing it. His voice broken, his eyes constrained,
his flurry and confusion, contradicted the venomous words he uttered;
libations he could not abstain from offering to himself and his company.
This was the moment when I relished, with delight utterly impossible to
express, the sight of these haughty lawyers (who had dared to refuse us
the salutation), prostrated upon their knees, and rendering, at our feet,
homage to the throne, whilst we sat covered upon elevated seats, at the
side of that same throne. These situations and these postures, so widely
disproportioned, plead of themselves with all the force of evidence, the
cause of those who are really and truly 'laterales regis' against this
'vas electum' of the third estate. My eyes fixed, glued, upon these
haughty bourgeois, with their uncovered heads humiliated to the level of
our feet, traversed the chief members kneeling or standing, and the ample
folds of those fur robes of rabbit-skin that would imitate ermine, which
waved at each long and redoubled genuflexion; genuflexions which only
finished by command of the King.
The remonstrance being finished, the Keeper of the Seals mentioned to the
King their wishes, asking further opinions; took his place again; cast
his eyes on the Chief-President, and said: The King wishes to be obeyed,
and obeyed immediately.
This grand speech was a thunder-bolt which overturned councillors and
presidents in the most marked manner. All of them lowered their heads,
and the majority kept them lowered for a long time. The rest of the
spectators, except the marshals of France, appeared little affected by
this desolation.
But this--an ordinary triumph--was nothing to that which was to follow.
After an interval of some few minutes, the Keeper of the Seals went up
again to the King, returned to his place, and remained there in silence
some little time. Then everybody clearly saw that the Parliamentary
affair being finished, something else must be in the wind. Some thought
that a dispute which the Dukes had had with the Parliament, concerning
one of its usurpations, was now to be settled in our favour. Others who
had noticed the absence of the bastards, guessed it was something that
affected them; but nobody divined what, much less its extent.
At last the Keeper of the Seals opened his mouth, and in his first
sentence announced the fall of one brother and the preservation of the
other. The effect of this upon every one was inexpressible. However
occupied I might be in containing mine, I lost nothing. Astonishment
prevailed over every other sentiment. Many appeared glad, either from
hatred to the Duc du Maine, or from affection for the Comte de Toulouse;
several were in consternation. The Chief-President lost all countenance;
his visage, so self-sufficient and so audacious, was seized with a
convulsive movement; the excess alone of his rage kept him from swooning.
It was even worse at the reading of the declaration. Each word was
legislative and decreed a fresh fall. The attention was general; every
one was motionless, so as not to lose a word; all eyes were fixed upon
the 'greffier' who was reading. A third of this reading over, the Chief-
President, gnashing the few teeth left in his head, rested his forehead
upon his stick that he held in both hands, and in this singular and
marked position finished listening to the declaration, so overwhelming
for him, so resurrectionary for us.
Yet, as for me, I was dying with joy. I was so oppressed that I feared I
should swoon; my heart dilated to excess, and no longer found room to
beat. The violence I did myself, in order to let nothing escape me, was
infinite; and, nevertheless, this torment was delicious. I compared the
years and the time of servitude; the grievous days, when dragged at the
tail of the Parliamentary car as a victim, I had served as a triumph for
the bastards; the various steps by which they had mounted to the summit
above our heads; I compared them, I say, to this court of justice and of
rule, to this frightful fall which, at the same time, raised us by the
force of the shock. I thanked myself that it was through me this had
been brought about. I had triumphed, I was revenged; I swam in my
vengeance; I enjoyed the full accomplishment of desires the most vehement
and the most continuous of all my life. I was tempted to fling away all
thought and care. Nevertheless, I did not fail to listen to this
vivifying reading (every note of which sounded upon my heart as the bow
upon an instrument), or to examine, at the same time, the impressions it
made upon every one.
At the first word the Keeper of the Seals said of this affair, the eyes
of the two bishop-peers met mine. Never did I see surprise equal to
theirs, or so marked a transport of joy. I had not been able to speak to
them on account of the distance of our places; and they could not resist
the movement which suddenly seized them. I swallowed through my eyes a
delicious draught of their joy, and turned away my glance from theirs,
lest I should succumb beneath this increase of delight. I no longer
dared to look at them.
The reading finished, the other declaration in favour of the Comte de
Toulouse was immediately commenced by the 'greffier', according to the
command of the Keeper of the Seals, who had given them to him both
together. It seemed to complete the confusion of the Chief-President and
the friends of the Duc du Maine, by the contrast between the treatment of
the two brothers.
After the Advocate-General had spoken, the Keeper of the Seals mounted to
the King, with the opinions of the Princes of the Blood; then came to the
Duc de Sully and me. Fortunately I had more memory than he had, or
wished to have; therefore it was exactly my affair. I presented to him
my hat with a bunch of feathers in the front, in an express manner very
marked, saying to him loudly enough: "No, Monsieur, we cannot be judges;
we are parties to the cause, and we have only to thank the King for the
justice he renders us."
He smiled and made an excuse. I pushed him away before the Duc de Sully
had time to open his mouth; and looking round I saw with pleasure that my
refusal had been marked by everybody. The Keeper of the Seals retired as
he came, and without taking the opinions of the peers, or of the bishop-
peers, went to the marshals of France; thence descended to the Chief-
President and to the 'presidents a mortier', and so to the rest of the
lower seats; after which, having been to the King and returned to his
place, he pronounced the decree of registration, and thus put the
finishing touch to my joy.
Immediately after M. le Duc rose, and having made his reverences to the
King forgot to sit down and cover himself to speak, according to the
uninterrupted right and usage of the peers of France; therefore not one
of us rose. He made, then, slowly and uncovered, the speech which has
been printed at the end of the preceding ones, and read it not very
intelligibly because his organ was not favourable. As soon as he had
finished, M. le Duc d'Orleans rose, and committed the same fault. He
said, also standing and uncovered, that the request of M. le Duc appeared
to him just; and after some praises added, that M. le Duc du Maine was
now reduced to the rank given to him by his peerage, M. le Marechal de
Villeroy, his senior, could no longer remain under him, which was a new
and very strong reason in addition to those M. le Duc had alleged. This
request had carried to the highest point the astonishment of the assembly
and the despair of the Chief-President, and the handful of people who
appeared by their embarrassment to be interested in the Duc du Maine.
The Marechal de Villeroy, without knitting his brow, had a disturbed
look, and the eyes of the chief accuser oftener were inundated with
tears. I was not able to distinguish well his cousin and intimate friend
the Marechal d'Huxelles, who screened himself beneath the vast brim of
his hat, thrust over his eyes, and who did not stir. The Chief-
President, stunned by this last thunder-bolt, elongated his face so
surprisingly, that I thought for a moment his chin had fallen upon his
knees.
However, the Keeper of the Seals having called upon the King's people to
speak, they replied that they had not heard the proposition of M. le Duc,
therefore his paper was passed to them from hand to hand, during which
the Keeper of the Seals repeated very kindly what the Regent had added
upon the seniority of the Marechal de Villeroy over the Duc du Maine.
Blancmesnil merely threw his eyes upon the paper of M. le Duc, and spoke,
after which the Keeper of the Seals put it to the vote. I gave mine loud
enough, and said, "As for this affair I vote with all my heart for giving
the superintendence of the King's education to M. le Duc."
The votes being taken, the Keeper, of the Seals called the chief
'greffier', ordered him to bring his paper and his little bureau near
his, so as to do all at once; and in presence of the King register
everything that had been read and resolved, and signed also. This was
done without any difficulty, according to forms, under the eyes of the
Keeper of the Seals, who never raised them: but as there were five or six
documents to register they took up a long time.
I had well observed the King when his education was in question, and I
remarked in him no sort of alteration, change, or constraint. This was
the last act of the drama: he was quite lively now the registrations
commenced. However, as there were no more speeches to occupy him, he
laughed with those near, amused himself with everything, even remarking
that the Duc de Louvigny had on a velvet coat, and laughed at the heat he
must feel, and all this with grace. This indifference for M. du Maine
struck everybody, and publicly contradicted what his partisans tried to
publish, viz., that his eyes had been red, but that neither at the Bed of
justice, nor since, he had dared to show his trouble. The truth is he
had his eyes dry and serene the whole time, and pronounced the name of
the Duc du Maine only once since, which was after dinner the same day,
when he asked where he had gone, with a very indifferent air, without
saying a word more, then or since, or naming his children, who took
little trouble to see him; and when they went it was in order to have
even in his presence their little court apart, and to divert themselves
among themselves. As for the Duc du Maine, either from policy or because
he thought it not yet time, he only, saw the King in the morning,
sometimes in his bed, and not at all during the rest of the day, except
when obliged by his functions.
During the registration I gently passed my eyes over the whole assembly.,
and though I constantly constrained them, I could not resist the
temptation to indemnify myself upon the Chief-President; I perseveringly
overwhelmed him, therefore, a hundred different times during the sitting,
with my hard-hitting regards. Insult, contempt, disdain, triumph, were
darted at him from my eyes,--and pierced him to the very marrow often he
lowered his eyes when he caught my gaze once or twice he raised his upon
me, and I took pleasure in annoying him by sly but malicious smiles which
completed his vexation. I bathed myself in his rage, and amused myself
by making him feel it. I sometimes played with him by pointing him out
to my two neighbours when he could perceive this movement; in a word, I
pressed upon him without mercy, as heavily as I could.
At last the registration finished, the King descended the throne, and was
followed by the Regent, the two Princes of the Blood, and the necessary
gentlemen of the suite. At the same time the Marshals of France
descended, and while the King traversed the room, accompanied by the
deputation which had received him, they passed between the seats of the
councillors opposite us, to follow him to the door by which his Majesty
departed; and at the same time the two bishop-peers, passing before the
throne, came to put themselves at our head, and squeezed my hands and
my head (in passing before me) with warm gratification.
We followed them two by two according to seniority, and went straight
forward to the door. The Parliament began to move directly afterwards.
Place was made for us to the steps. The crowd, the people, the display
contrasted our conversation and our joy. I was sorry for it.
I immediately gained my coach, which I found near, and which took me
skilfully out of the court, so that I met with no check, and in a quarter
of an hour after leaving the sitting, I was at home.
I had need of a little rest, for pleasure even is fatigue, and happiness,
pure and untroubled as it may be, wearies the spirit. I entered my
house, then, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, intending to repose
myself, and in order to do so in security, I closed my door to everybody.
Alas! I had not been many minutes at home when I was called away to
perform one of the most painful and annoying commissions it was ever my
ill fortune to be charged with.
CHAPTER XCIV.
A little while before leaving the Cabinet of the Council for the Bed of
Justice, M. le Duc d'Orleans had begged me to go to the Palais Royal with
the Keeper of the Seals immediately after the ceremony had ended. As I
saw that nothing had been undertaken, I thought myself free of this
conference, and was glad to avoid a new proof that I had been in a
secret which had excited envy. I went, therefore, straight home,
arriving between two and three. I found at the foot of the steps
the Duc d'Humieres, Louville, and all my family, even my mother, whom
curiosity had drawn from her chamber, which she had not left since the
commencement of the winter. We remained below in my apartment, where,
while changing my coat and my shirt, I replied to their eager questions;
when, lo! M. de Biron, who had forced my door which I had closed against
everybody, in order to obtain a little repose, was announced.
Biron put his head in at my door, and begged to be allowed to say a word
to me. I passed, half-dressed, into my chamber with him. He said that
M. le Duc d'Orleans had expected me at the Palais Royal immediately after
the Bed of justice, and was surprised I had not appeared. He added that
there was no great harm done; and that the Regent wished to see me now,
in order that I might execute a commission for him. I asked Biron what
it was? He replied that it was to go to Saint-Clerc to announce what had
taken place to Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans!
This was a thunder-bolt for me. I disputed with Biron, who exhorted me
to lose no time, but to go at once to the Palais Royal, where I was
expected with impatience. I returned into my cabinet with him, so
changed in aspect that Madame de Saint-Simon was alarmed. I explained
what was the matter, and after Biron had chatted a moment, and again
pressed me to set out at once, he went away to eat his dinner. Ours was
served. I waited a little time in order to recover myself, determined
not to vex M. le Duc d'Orleans by dawdling, took some soup and an egg,
and went off to the Palais Royal.
It was in vain that, using all the eloquence I could command and all the
liberty I dared employ, I protested against being employed for this duty.
I represented to the Regent what an ill-chosen messenger I should be to
carry to Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans news of the disgrace of her brother
the Duc du Maine; I, who had always been such an open and declared enemy
to the bastards! I represented to him that people would say I went on
purpose to triumph over her at what had been done, and that she herself
would look upon my presence as a kind of insult. In vain! in vain! were
my arguments, my entreaties, my instances. M. le Duc d'Orleans had
determined that I should go on this errand, and go I must.
As I left his house to execute my luckless commission, I found one of
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans' pages, booted and spurred, who had just
arrived from Saint-Cloud. I begged him to return at once, at a gallop,
and say, on arriving, to the Duchesse Sforze (one of Madame la Duchesse
d'Orleans' ladies) that I should be there soon with a message from M. le
Duc d'Orleans, and to ask her to meet me as I descended from my coach.
My object was to charge her with the message I had to deliver, and not to
see Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans at all. But my poor prudence was
confounded by that of the page, who had not less than I. He took good
care not to be the bearer of such ill news as he had just learned at the
Palais Royal, and which was now everywhere public. He contented himself
with saying that I was coming, sent by M. le Duc d'Orleans, spoke not a
word to the Duchesse Sforze, and disappeared at once. This is what I
afterwards learned, and what I saw clearly enough on arriving at Saint-
Cloud.
I went there at a gentle trot, in order to give time to the page to
arrive before me, and to the Duchesse Sforze to receive me. During the
journey I applauded myself for my address, but feared lest I should be
obliged to see Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans after Madame Sforze. I could
not imagine that Saint-Cloud was in ignorance of what had occurred, and,
nevertheless, I was in an agony that cannot be expressed, and this
increased as I approached the end of my journey. If it is disagreeable
to announce unpleasant news to the indifferent, how much more is it to
announce them to the deeply interested!
Penetrated with this dolorous sentiment I arrived in the grand court of
Saint-Cloud, and saw everybody at the windows, running from all parts.
I alighted, and asked the first comer to lead me to the Duchesse Sforze,
the position of whose apartments I am unacquainted with. I was told that
Madame Sforze was in the chapel with Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. Then
I asked for the Marechale de Rochefort, and after a time she arrived,
hobbling along with her stick. I disputed with her, wishing to see
Madame Sforze, who was not to be found. I was anxious at all events to
go to her room and wait, but the inexorable Marechale pulled me by the
arm, asking what news I brought. Worn out at last, I said, "News? news
that you are acquainted with."
"How, acquainted with?" she asked. "We know nothing, except that a Bed
of justice has been held, and we are expiring to know why, and what has
passed there."
My astonishment at this ignorance was extreme, and I made her swear and
repeat four times over that nothing was known at Saint-Cloud. I told her
thereupon what had happened, and she, in her turn, astonished, almost
fell backwards! But where was Madame Sforze? she came not, and do what
I must, say what I might, I was forced to carry, my message to Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans. I was sorely loth to do so, but was dragged by the
hand almost as a sheep is led to the slaughter.
I stood before Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans after having passed through
an apartment filled with her people, fear painted upon all their faces.
I saluted her; but, oh! how differently from my usual manner! She did
not perceive this at first, and begged me, with a cheerful natural air,
to approach her; but seeing my trouble, she exclaimed, "Good Heavens,
Monsieur, what a face you wear! What news bring you?"
Seeing that I remained silent and motionless, she became more moved, and
repeated her questions. I advanced a few steps towards her, and at her
third appeal, I said: "Madame, you know nothing then?"
"No, Monsieur; I simply know that there has been a Bed of justice: what
has passed there I am quite ignorant of."
"Ah, Madame," I replied, half turning away; "I am more unhappy, then,
than I thought to be."
"What is the matter?" exclaimed she; "what has happened?" (rising and
sitting bolt upright on the sofa she was stretched upon.) "Come near and
sit down!"
I approached; stated that I was in despair. She, more and more moved,
said to me, "But speak; better to learn bad news from one's friend than
from others."
This remark pierced me to the heart, and made me sensible of the grief I
was going to inflict upon her. I summoned up courage, and I told her
all.
The tears of Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans flowed abundantly at my
recital. She did not answer a word, uttered no cry, but wept bitterly.
She pointed to a seat and I sat down upon it, my eyes during several
instants fixed upon the floor. Afterwards I said that M. le Duc
d'Orleans, who had rather forced upon me this commission, than charged me
with it, had expressly commanded me to tell her that he had very strong
proofs in his hands against M. du Maine; that he had kept them back a
long time, but could no longer do so now. She gently replied to me that
her brother was very unfortunate and shortly afterwards asked if I knew
what his crime was. I said that M. le Duc d'Orleans had not told me; and
that I had not dared to question him upon a subject of this nature,
seeing that he was not inclined to talk of it.
More tears shortly afterwards filled her eyes. Her brother must be very
criminal, she said, to be so treated.
I remained some time upon my seat, not daring to raise my eyes, in the
most painful state possible, and not knowing whether to remain or go
away. At last I acquainted her with my difficulty; said I fancied she
would like to be alone some little time before giving me her orders, but
that respect kept me equally in suspense as to whether I should go or
stay. After a short silence, she said she should like to see her women.
I rose, sent them to her, and said to them, if her Royal Highness asked
for me, I should be with the Duchesse Sforze, or the Marechale Rochefort;
but I could find neither of these two ladies, so I went up to Madame.
She rose as soon as I appeared, and said to me, with eagerness, "Well,
Monsieur, what news?" At the same time her ladies retired, and I was left
alone with her.
I commenced by an excuse for not coming to see her first, as was my duty,
on the ground that M. le Duc d'Orleans had assured me she would not
object to my commencing with Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. She did not
object, in fact, but asked me for my news with much eagerness. I told
her what had happened. Joy spread over her face. She replied with a
mighty, "At last!" which she repeated, saying, her son long since ought
to have struck this blow, but that he was too good. I mentioned to her
that she was standing, but for politeness she remained so. After some
further talk she begged me to state all the details of this celebrated
morning.
I again recalled to her mind that she was standing, and represented that
what she desired to learn would take a long time to relate; but her ardor
to know it was extreme. I began then my story, commencing with the very
morning. At the end of a quarter of an hour, Madame seated herself, but
with the greatest politeness. I was nearly an hour with her, continually
telling and sometimes replying to her questions. She was delighted at
the humiliation of the Parliament, and of the bastards, and that her son
had at last displayed some firmness.
At this point the Marechale de Rochefort entered, and summoned me back to
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. I found that princess extended upon the
sofa where I had left her, an inkstand upon her knees and a pen in her
hand. She had commenced a reply to M. le Duc d'Orleans, but had not been
able to finish it. Looking at me with an air of gentleness and of
friendship, she observed, "Tears escape me; I have begged you to descend
in order to render me a service; my hand is unsteady, I pray you finish
my writing for me;" and she handed to me the inkstand and her letter. I
took them, and she dictated to me the rest of the epistle, that I at once
added to what she had written.
I was infinitely amazed at the conciseness and appropriateness of the
expressions she readily found, in the midst of her violent emotion, her
sobs, and her tears. She finished by saying that she was going to
Montmartre to mourn the misfortunes of her brother, and pray God for his
prosperity. I shall regret all my life I did not transcribe this letter.
All its expressions were so worthy, so fitting, so measured, everything
being according to truth and duty; and the letter, in fact, being so
perfectly well written, that although I remember it roughly, I dare not
give it, for fear of spoiling it. What a pity that a mind capable of
such self-possession, at such a moment, should have become valueless from
its leaning towards illegitimacy.
After this I had another interview with Madame, and a long talk with my
sure and trusty friend Madame Sforze. Then I set out for Paris, went
straight to the Palais Royal, and found M. le Duc d'Orleans with Madame
la Duchesse de Berry. He was delighted when he heard what Madame had
said respecting him; but he was not particularly pleased when he found
that Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans (who after telling me she would go to
Montmartre, had changed her mind), was coming to the Palais Royal.
I learned afterwards that she came about half an hour after I left. At
first she was all humility and sorrow, hoping to soften the Regent by
this conduct. Then she passed to tears, sobs, cries, reproaches,
expecting to make him by these means undo what he had done, and reinstate
M. du Maine in the position he had lost. But all her efforts proving
vain, she adopted another course: her sorrow turned to rage,--her tears
to looks of anger. Still in vain. She could gain nothing; vex and annoy
M. le Duc d'Orleans as she might by her conduct. At last, finding there
was no remedy to be had, she was obliged to endure her sorrow as best she
might.
As for me, I was erased entirely from her books. She looked upon me as
the chief cause of what had occurred, and would not see me. I remained
ever afterwards at variance with her. I had nothing to reproach myself
with, however, so that her enmity did not very deeply penetrate me.
CHAPTER XCV
It was scarcely to be expected, perhaps, that M. du Maine would remain
altogether quiet under the disgrace which had been heaped upon him by the
proceedings at the Bed of Justice. Soon indeed we found that he had been
secretly working out the most perfidious and horrible schemes for a long
time before that assembly; and that after his fall, he gave himself up
with redoubled energy to his devilish devices.
Towards the end of this memorable year, 1718, it was discovered that
Alberoni, by means of Cellamare, Spanish Ambassador at our Court, was
preparing a plot against the Regent. The scheme was nothing less than to
throw all the realm into revolt against the government of M. le Duc
d'Orleans; to put the King of Spain at the head of the affairs of France,
with a council and ministers named by him, and a lieutenant, who would in
fact have been regent; this self-same lieutenant to be no other than the
Duc du Maine!
This precious plot was, fortunately, discovered before it had come to
maturity. Had such not happened, the consequences might have been very
serious, although they could scarcely have been fatal. The conspirators
counted upon the Parliaments of Paris and of Brittany, upon all the old
Court accustomed to the yoke of the bastards, and to that of Madame de
Maintenon; and they flung about promises with an unsparing hand to all
who supported them. After all, it must be admitted, however, that the
measures they took and the men they secured, were strangely unequal to
the circumstances of the case, when the details became known; in fact,
there was a general murmur of surprise among the public, at the
contemptible nature of the whole affair.
But let me relate the circumstances accompanying the discovery of M. du
Maine's pitiable treachery.
Cellamare, as I have said, was Spanish Ambassador at our Court. He had
been one of the chief movers in the plot. He had excited, as much as lay
in his power, discontent against the Regent's government; he had done his
best to embroil France with Spain; he had worked heart and soul with M.
du Maine, to carry out the common end they had in view. So much
preparation had been made; so much of the treason train laid, that at
last it became necessary to send to Alberoni a full and clear account of
all that had been done, so as to paint exactly the position of affairs,
and determine the measures that remained to be taken. But how to send
such an account as this? To trust it to the ordinary channels of
communication would have been to run a great risk of exposure and
detection. To send it by private hand would have been suspicious, if the
hand were known, and dangerous if it were not: Cellamare had long since
provided for this difficulty.
He had caused a young ecclesiastic to be sent from Spain, who came to
Paris as though for his pleasure. There he was introduced to young
Monteleon, son of a former ambassador at our Court, who had been much
liked. The young ecclesiastic was called the Abbe Portocarrero, a name
regarded with favour in France. Monteleon came from the Hague, and was
going to Madrid. Portocarrero came from Madrid, and was going back
there. What more natural than that the two young men should travel in
company? What less natural than that the two young men, meeting each
other by pure accident in Paris, should be charged by the ambassador with
any packet of consequence, he having his own couriers, and the use, for
the return journey, of those sent to him from Spain? In fact, it may be
believed that these young people themselves were perfectly ignorant of
what they were charged with, and simply believed that, as they were going
to Spain, the ambassador merely seized the occasion to entrust them with
some packet of no special importance.
They set out, then, at the commencement of December, furnished with
passports from the King--(for Alberoni had openly caused almost a rupture
between the two Courts)--with a Spanish banker, who had been established
in England, where he had become bankrupt for a large amount, so that the
English government had obtained permission from the Regent to arrest him,
if they could, anywhere in France. It will sometimes be perceived that I
am ill-instructed in this affair; but I can only tell what I know: and as
for the rest, I give my conjectures. In fact, the Abbe Dubois kept
everybody so much in the dark, that even M. le Duc d'Orleans was not
informed of all.
Whether the arrival of the Abbe Portocarrero in Paris, and his short stay
there, seemed suspicious to the Abbe Dubois and his emissaries, or
whether he had corrupted some of the principal people of the Spanish
Ambassador and this Court, and learned that these young men were charged
with a packet of importance; whether there was no other mystery than the
bad company of the bankrupt banker, and that the anxiety of Dubois to
oblige his friends the English, induced him to arrest the three
travellers and seize their papers, lest the banker should have confided
his to the young men, I know not: but however it may have been, it is
certain that the Abbe Dubois arrested the three travellers at Poitiers,
and carried off their papers, a courier bringing these papers to him
immediately afterwards.
Great things sometimes spring from chance. The courier from Poitiers
entered the house of the Abbe Dubois just as the Regent entered the
opera. Dubois glanced over the papers, and went and related the news of
this capture to M. le Duc Orleans, as he left his box. This prince, who
was accustomed to shut himself up with his roues at that hour, did so
with a carelessness to which everything yielded, under pretext that
Dubois had not had sufficient time to examine all the papers. The first
few hours of the morning he was not himself. His head, still confused by
the fumes of the wine and by the undigested supper of the previous night,
was not in a state to understand anything, and the secretaries of state
have often told me that was the time they could make him sign anything.
This was the moment taken by Dubois to acquaint the Regent with as much
or as little of the contents of the papers as he thought fit. The upshot
of their interview was, that the Abbe was allowed by the Duc d'Orleans to
have the control of this matter entirely in his own hands.
The day after the arrival of the courier from Poitiers, Cellamare,
informed of what had occurred, but who flattered himself that the
presence of the banker had caused the arrest of the young men, and the
seizure of their papers, hid his fears under a very tranquil bearing, and
went, at one o'clock in the day, to M. le Blanc, to ask for a packet of
letters he had entrusted to Portocarrero and Monteleon on their return to
Spain. Le Blanc (who had had his lesson prepared beforehand by the Abbe
Dubois) replied that the packet had been seen; that it contained
important things, and that, far from being restored to him, he himself
must go back to his hotel under escort, to meet there M. l'Abbe Dubois.
The ambassador, who felt that such a compliment would not be attempted
with out means having been prepared to put it in execution, made no
difficulty, and did not lose for a moment his address or his
tranquillity.
During the three hours, at least, passed in his house, in the examination
of all his bureaux and his boxes, and his papers, Cellamare, like a man
who fears nothing, and who is sure of his game, treated M. le Blanc very
civilly; as for the Abbe Dubois, with whom he felt he had no measure to
keep (all the plot being discovered), he affected to treat him with the
utmost disdain. Thus Le Blanc, taking hold of a little casket, Cellamare
cried, "M. le Blanc, M. le Blanc, leave that alone; that is not for you;
that is for the Abbe Dubois" (who was then present). Then looking at
him, he added, "He has been a pander all his life, and there are nothing
but women's letters there."
[Illustration: Search Of The Spanish Ambassador--Painted by Maurice
Leloir--front3]
The Abbe Dubois burst out laughing, not daring to grow angry.
When all was examined, the King's seal, and that of the ambassador, were
put upon all the bureaux and the caskets which contained papers. The
Abbe Dubois and Le Blanc went off together to give an account of their
proceedings to the Regent, leaving a company of musketeers to guard the
ambassador and his household.
I heard of the capture effected at Poitiers, at home, the morning after
it occurred, without knowing anything of those arrested. As I was at
table, a servant came to me from M. le Duc d'Orleans, summoning me to a
council of the regency, at four o'clock that day. As it was not the
usual day for the council, I asked what was the matter. The messenger
was surprised at my ignorance and informed me that the Spanish ambassador
was arrested. As soon as I had eaten a morsel, I quitted my company, and
hastened to the Palais Royal, where I learnt from M. le Duc d'Orleans all
that I have just related. Our conversation took up time, and, when it
was over, I went away to the Tuileries. I found there astonishment
painted upon several faces; little groups of two, three, and four people
together; and the majority struck by the importance of the arrest, and
little disposed to approve it.
M. le Duc d'Orleans arrived shortly after. He had, better than any man I
have ever known, the gift of speech, and without needing any preparation
he said exactly what he wanted to say, neither more nor less; his
expressions were just and precise, a natural grace accompanied them with
an air of proper dignity, always mixed with an air of politeness. He
opened the council with a discourse upon the people and the papers seized
at Poitiers, the latter proving that a very dangerous conspiracy against
the state was on the eve of bursting, and of which the Ambassador of
Spain was the principal promoter. His Royal Highness alleged the
pressing reasons which had induced him to secure the person of this
ambassador, to examine his papers, and to place them under guard. He
showed that the protection afforded by the law of nations did not extend
to conspiracies, that ambassadors rendered themselves unworthy of that
protection when they took part in them, still more when they excited
people against the state where they dwelt. He cited several examples of
ambassadors arrested for less. He explained the orders he had given so
as to inform all the foreign ministers in Paris of what had occurred, and
had ordered Dubois to render an account to the council of what he had
done at the ambassador's, and offered to read the letters from Cellamare
to Cardinal Alberoni, found among the papers brought from Poitiers.
The Abbe Dubois stammered out a short and ill-arranged recital of what he
had done at the ambassador's house, and dwelt upon the importance of the
discovery and upon that of the conspiracy as far as already known. The
two letters he read left me no doubt that Cellamare was at the head of
this affair, and that Alberoni had entered into it as far as he. We were
much scandalised with the expressions in these letters against M. le Duc
d'Orleans, who was in no way spared.
This prince spoke again, to say he did not suspect the King or Queen of
Spain to be mixed up in this affair, but that he attributed it all to the
passion of Alberoni, and that of his ambassador to please him, and that
he would ask for justice from their Catholic Majesties. He showed the
importance of neglecting no means in order to clear up an affair so
capital to the repose and tranquillity of the kingdom, and finished by
saying, that until he knew more he would name nobody who was mixed up in
the matter. All this speech was much applauded, and I believe there were
some among the company who felt greatly relieved when they heard the
Regent say he would name nobody nor would he allow suspicions to be
circulated until all was unravelled.
Nevertheless the next day, Saturday, the 10th of December, more than one
arrest was made. Others took place a few days afterwards.
On Tuesday, the 13th of December, all the foreign ministers went to the
Palais Royal, according to custom; not one made any complaint of what had
happened. A copy of the two letters read at the council was given to
them. In the afternoon, Cellamare was placed in a coach with a captain
of cavalry and a captain of dragoons, chosen to conduct him: to Blois,
until Saint-Aignan, our ambassador in Spain, should arrive in France.
The position of our ambassador, Saint-Aignan, at Madrid, was, as may be
imagined, by no means agreeable. The two courts were just upon the point
of an open rupture, thanks to the hatred Alberoni had made it a principle
to keep up in Spain against M. le Duc d'Orleans, by crying down his
actions, his government, his personal conduct, his most innocent acts,
and by rendering suspicious even his favourable proceedings with regard
to Spain. Alberoni for a long time had ceased to keep on even decent
terms with Saint-Aignan, scandalising thus even the most unfavourably
disposed towards France. Saint-Aignan only maintained his position by
the sagacity of his conduct, and he was delighted when he received orders
to return to France. He asked for his parting audience, and meanwhile
bade adieu to all his friends and to all the Court. Alberoni, who every
moment expected decisive news from Cellamare respecting the conspiracy,
wished to remain master of our ambassador, so as, in case of accident,
to have a useful hostage in his hands as security for his own ambassador.
He put off therefore this parting audience under various pretexts. At
last, Saint-Aignan, pressed by his reiterated orders (orders all the more
positive because suspicion had already begun to foresee a disturbance
ever alarming), spoke firmly to the Cardinal, and declared that if this
audience were not at once accorded to him, he would do without it!
Therefore the Cardinal, in anger, replied with a menace, that he knew
well enough how to hinder, him, from acting thus.
Saint-Aignan wisely contained himself; but seeing to what sort of a man
he was exposed, and judging rightly why he was detained at Madrid, took
his measures so secretly and so well, that he set out the same night,
with his most necessary equipage, gained ground and arrived at the foot
of the Pyrenees without being overtaken and arrested; two occurrences
which he expected at every moment, knowing that Alberoni was a man who
would stick at nothing.
Saint-Aignan, already so far advanced, did not deem it advisable to
expose himself any longer, bothered as he would be among the mountains by
his carriages. He and the Duchess, his wife, followed by a waiting-woman
and three valets, with a very trusty guide, mounted upon mules and rode
straight for Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port without stopping a moment more on
the road than was necessary. He sent on his equipages to Pampeluna at a
gentle pace, and placed in his carriage an intelligent valet de chambre
and a waiting-woman, with orders to pass themselves off as the ambassador
and ambassadress of France, and in case they were arrested to cry out a
good deal. The arrest did not fail to happen. The people despatched by
Alberoni soon came up with the carriage. The pretended ambassador and
ambassadress played their parts very well, and they who had arrested them
did not doubt for a moment they had made a fine capture, sending news of
it to Madrid, and keeping the prisoners in Pampeluna, to which the party
returned.
This device saved M. and Madame de Saint-Aignan, and gave them means to
reach Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port; as soon as they arrived there they sent
for assistance and carriages to Bayonne, which they gained in safety, and
reposed after their fatigue. The Duc de Saint-Aignan sent word of all
this to M. le Duc d'Orleans by a courier, and, at this arrival in
Bayonne, despatched a message to the Governor of Pampeluna, begging him
to send on his equipages. Alberoni's people were very much ashamed of
having been duped, but Alberoni when he heard of it flew into a furious
rage, and cruelly punished the mistake. The equipages were sent on to
Bayonne.
CHAPTER XCVI
To return now to what took place at Paris.
On Sunday, the 25th of December, Christmas Day, M. le Duc d'Orleans sent
for me to come and see him at the Palais Royal, about four o'clock in the
afternoon. I went accordingly, and after despatching some business with
him, other people being present, I followed him into his little winter
cabinet at the end of the little gallery, M. le Duc being present.
After a moment of silence, the Regent told me to see if no one was
outside in the gallery, and if the door at the end was closed. I went
out, found the door shut, and no one near.
This being ascertained, M. le Duc d'Orleans said that we should not be
surprised to learn that M. and Madame du Maine had been mixed up all
along with this affair of the Spanish Ambassador Cellamare; that he had
written proofs of this, and that the project was exactly that which I
have already described. He added, that he had strictly forbidden the
Keeper of the Seals, the Abbe Dubois, and Le Blanc, who alone knew of
this project, to give the slightest sign of their knowledge, recommended
to me the same secrecy, and the same precaution; and finished by saying
that he wished, above all things, to consult M. le Duc and me upon the
course he ought to adopt.
M. le Duc at once went to the point and said M. and Madame du Maine must
at once be arrested and put where they could cause no apprehension. I
supported this opinion, and showed the perilous annoyances that might
arise if this step were not instantly taken; as much for the purpose of
striking terror into the conspirators, as for disconcerting their
schemes. I added that there was not a moment to lose, and that it was
better to incur uncertain danger than to wait for that which was certain.
Our advice was accepted by M. le Duc d'Orleans, after some little debate.
But now the question arose, where are the prisoners to be put? The
Bastille and Vincennes both seemed to me too near to Paris. Several
places were named without one appearing to suit. At lasts M. le Duc
d'Orleans mentioned Dourlens. I stopped him short at the name, and
recommended it warmly. I knew the governor, Charost, and his son to be
men of probity, faithful, virtuous, and much attached to the state. Upon
this it was agreed to send M. du Maine to Dourlens.
Then we had to fix upon a place for his wife, and this was more
difficult; there were her sex, her fiery temper, her courage; her
daring,--all to be considered; whereas, her husband, we knew, so
dangerous as a hidden enemy, was contemptible without his mask, and would
fall into the lowest state of dejection in prison, trembling all over
with fear of the scaffold, and attempting nothing; his wife, on the
contrary, being capable of attempting anything:
Various places discussed, M. le Duc d'Orleans smiled, and proposed the
chateau of Dijon! Now, the joke of this suggestion was, that Dijon
belonged to M. le Duc, and that he was nephew of Madame du Maine, whom
the Regent proposed to lock up there! M. le Duc smiled also, and said it
was a little too bad to make him the gaoler of his aunt! But all things
considered, it was found that a better choice than Dijon could not be
made, so M. le Duc gave way. I fancy he had held out more for form's
sake than for any other reason. These points settled, we separated, to
meet another time, in order to make the final arrangements for the
arrest.
We met accordingly, the Monday and Tuesday following, and deliberated
with the same secrecy as before. On Wednesday we assembled again to put
the final touch to our work. Our conference was long, and the result of
it was, that M. and Madame du Maine were to be arrested on the morrow;
all the necessary arrangements were made, and, as we thought, with the
utmost secrecy. Nevertheless, the orders given to the regiment of the
guards, and to the musketeers somehow or other transpired during the
evening, and gave people reason to believe that something considerable
was in contemplation. On leaving the conference, I arranged with Le
Blanc that, when the blow was struck, he should inform me by simply
sending a servant to inquire after my health.
The morrow, about ten o'clock in the morning, having noiselessly and
without show placed the body-guard around Sceaux, La Billardiere,
lieutenant of the regiment, entered there, and arrested the Duc du Maine
as he was leaving his chapel after hearing mass, and very respectfully
begged him not to re-enter the house, but to mount immediately into a
coach which he had brought. M. du Maine, who had expected this arrest,
and who had had time to put his papers in order, mad not the slightest
resistance. He replied that he had anticipated this compliment for some
days, and at once moved into the coach. La Billardiere placed himself by
his side, and in front was an exempt of the bodyguards, and Favancourt,
brigadier in the first company of musketeers, destined to guard him in
his prison.
As these two latter persons did not appear before the Duc du Maine until
the moment he entered the coach, be appeared surprised and moved to see
Favancourt.
He would not have been at the exempt, but the sight of the other
depressed him. He asked La Billardiere what this meant. Billardiere
could not dissimulate that Favancourt had orders to accompany him, and to
remain with him in the place to which they were going. Favancourt
himself took this moment to pay his compliments as best he might to the
Duc du Maine, to which the Duke replied but little, and that in a civil
and apprehensive manner. These proceedings conducted them to the end of
the avenue of Sceaux, where the bodyguards appeared. The sight of them
made the Duc du Maine change colour.
Silence was but little interrupted in the coach. Now and then M. du
Maine would say that he was very innocent of the accusation which had
been formed against him; that he was much attached to the King, and not
less so to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who could not but recognise it; and that
it was very unfortunate his Royal Highness should put faith in his
enemies (he never named anybody). All this was said in a broken manner,
and amid many sighs; from time to time signs of the cross; low mumblings
as of prayers; and plunges at each church or each cross they passed. He
took his meals in the coach, ate very little, was alone at night, but
with good precautions taken. He did not know until the morrow that he
was going to Dourlens. He showed no emotion thereupon. All these
details I learnt from Favancourt, whom I knew very well, and who was in
the Musketeers when I served in that corps.
At the moment of the arrest of M. du Maine, Ancenis, captain of the body-
guard, arrested the Duchesse du Maine in her house in the Rue St.
Honore. A lieutenant, and an exempt of the foot body-guards, with other
troops, took possession of the house at the same time, and guarded the
doors. The compliment of the Duc d'Ancenis was sharply received. Madame
du Maine wished to take away some caskets. Ancenis objected. She
demanded, at the least, her jewels; altercations very strong on one side,
very modest on the other: but she was obliged to yield. She raged at the
violence done to a person of her rank, without saying anything too
disobliging to M. d'Ancenis, and without naming anybody. She delayed her
departure as long as she could, despite the instances of d'Ancenis, who
at last presented his hand to her, and politely, but firmly, said she
must go. She found at her door two six-horse coaches, the sight of which
much shocked her. She was obliged, however, to mount. Ancenis placed
himself by her side, the lieutenant and the exempt of the guard in front,
two chambermaids whom she had chosen were in the other coach, with her
apparel, which had been examined. The ramparts were followed, the
principal streets avoided; there was no stir, and at this she could not
restrain her surprise and vexation, or check a tear, declaiming by fits
and starts against the violence done her. She complained of the rough
coach, the indignity it cast upon her, and from time to time asked where
she was being led to. She was simply told that she would sleep at
Essonne, nothing more. Her three guardians maintained profound silence.
At night all possible precautions were taken. When she set out the next
day, the Duc d'Ancenis took leave of her, and left her to the lieutenant
and to the exempt of the body-guards, with troops to conduct her. She
asked where they were leading her to: he simply replied,
"To Fontainebleau." The disquietude of Madame du Maine augmented as she
left Paris farther behind, but when she found herself in Burgundy, and
knew at last she was to go to Dijon, she stormed at a fine rate.
It was worse when she was forced to enter the castle, and found herself
the prisoner of M. le Duc. Fury suffocated her. She raged against her
nephew, and the horrible place chosen for her. Nevertheless, after her
first transports, she returned to herself, and began to comprehend that
she was in no place and no condition to play the fury. Her extreme rage
she kept to herself, affected nothing but indifference for all, and
disdainful security. The King's lieutenant of the castle, absolutely
devoted to M. le Duc, kept her fast, and closely watched her and her
chambermaids. The Prince de Dombes and the Comte d'Eu (her sons) were at
the same time exiled to Eu, where a gentleman in ordinary always was near
them; Mademoiselle du Maine was sent to Maubuisson.
Several other people were successively arrested and placed either in the
Bastille or Vincennes. The commotion caused by the arrest and
imprisonment of M. and Madame du Maine was great; many faces, already
elongated by the Bed of justice, were still further pulled out by these
events. The Chief-President, D'Effiat, the Marechal de Villeroy, the
Marechal de Villars, the Marechal d'Huxelles, and other devoted friends
of M. du Maine, were completely terrified; they did not dare to say a
word; they kept out of the way; did not leave their houses except from
necessity; fear was painted upon their faces. All their pride was put
aside; they became polite, caressing, would have eaten out of your hand;
and by this sudden change and their visible embarrassment betrayed
themselves.
As for the Comte de Toulouse he remained as upright and loyal as ever.
The very day of the double arrest he came to M. le Duc d'Orleans and said
that he regarded the King, the Regent, and the State as one and the same
thing; that he should never be wanting in his duty or in his fidelity
towards them; that he was very sorry at what had happened to his brother,
but that he was in no way answerable for him. The Regent stated this to
me the same day, and appeared, with reason, to be charmed with such
straightforward honesty.
This arrest of M. and Madame du Maine had another effect. For some time
past, a large quantity of illicit salt had been sold throughout the
country. The people by whom this trade was conducted, 'faux sauniers',
as they were called, travelled over the provinces in bands well armed and
well organized. So powerful had they become that troops were necessary
in order to capture them. There were more than five thousand faux
saumers, who openly carried on their traffic in Champagne and Picardy.
They had become political instruments in the hands of others, being
secretly encouraged and commanded by those who wished to sow trouble in
the land. It could not be hidden that these 'faux sauniers' were
redoubtable by their valour and their arrangements; that the people were
favourable to them, buying as they did from them salt at a low price, and
irritated as they were against the gabelle and other imposts; that these
'faux sauniers' spread over all the realm, and often marching in large
bands, which beat all opposed to them, were dangerous people, who incited
the population by their examples to opposition against the government.
I had proposed on one occasion the abolition of the salt tax to the
Regent, as a remedy for these evils; but my suggestion shared the fate of
many others. It was favourably listened to, and nothing more. And
meanwhile the 'faux sauniers' had gone on increasing. I had no
difficulty in discovering by whom they were encouraged, and the event
showed I was right. Directly after the arrest of M. and Madame du Maine,
the 'faux sauniers' laid down their arms, asked, and obtained pardon.
This prompt submission showed dearly enough by whom they had been
employed, and for what reason. I had uselessly told M. le Duc d'Orleans
so long before, who admitted that I was right, but did nothing. It was
his usual plan.
Let me finish at once with all I shall have to say respecting M. and
Madame du Maine.
They remained in their prisons during the whole of the year 1719,
supplied with all the comforts and attentions befitting their state, and
much less rigorously watched than at first, thanks to the easy
disposition of M. le Duc d'Orleans, whose firmness yielded even more
rapidly than beauty to the effects of time. The consequence of his
indulgence towards the two conspirators was, that at about the
commencement of the following year, 1720, they began to play a very
ridiculous comedy, of which not a soul was the dupe; not even the public,
nor the principal actors, nor the Regent.
The Duc and Duchesse du Maine, thanks to the perfidy of the Abbe Dubois,
had had time to hide away all their papers, and to arrange together the
different parts they should play. Madame du Maine, supported by her sex
and birth, muffled herself up in her dignity, when replying to the
questions addressed to her, of which just as many, and no more, were read
to the replying counsel as pleased the Abbe Dubois; and strongly accusing
Cellamare and others; protected as much as possible her friends, her
husband above all, by charging herself with all; by declaring that what
she had done M. du Maine had no knowledge of; and that its object went no
farther than to obtain from the Regent such reforms in his administration
as were wanted.
The Duc du Maine, shorn of his rank and of his title of prince of the
blood, trembled for his life. His crimes against the state, against the
blood royal, against the person of the Regent, so long, so artfully, and
so cruelly offended, troubled him all the more because he felt they
deserved severe punishment. He soon, therefore, conceived the idea of
screening himself beneath his wife's petticoats. His replies, and all
his observations were to the same tune; perfect ignorance of everything.
Therefore when the Duchess had made her confessions, and they were
communicated to him, he cried out against his wife,--her madness, her
felony,--his misfortune in having a wife capable of conspiring, and
daring enough to implicate him in everything without having spoken to
him; making him thus a criminal without being so the least in the world;
and keeping him so ignorant of her doings, that it was out of his power
to stop them, to chide her, or inform M. le Duc d'Orleans if things had
been pushed so far that he ought to have done so!
From that time the Duc du Maine would no longer hear talk of a woman who,
without his knowledge, had cast him and his children into this abyss; and
when at their release from prison, they were permitted to write and send
messages to each other, he would receive nothing from her, or give any
signs of life. Madame du Maine, on her side, pretended to be afflicted
at this treatment; admitting, nevertheless, that she had acted wrongfully
towards her husband in implicating him without his knowledge in her
schemes. They were at this point when they were allowed to come near
Paris. M. du Maine went to live at Clagny, a chateau near Versailles,
built for Madame de Montespan. Madame du Maine went to Sceaux. They
came separately to see M. le Duc d'Orleans at Paris, without sleeping
there; both played their parts, and as the Abbe Dubois judged the time
had come to take credit to himself in their eyes for finishing their
disgrace, he easily persuaded M. le Duc d'Orleans to, appear convinced of
the innocence of M. du Maine.
During their stay in the two country-houses above named, where they saw
but little company, Madame du Maine made many attempts at reconciliation
with her husband, which he repelled. This farce lasted from the month of
January (when they arrived at Sceaux and at Clagny) to the end of July.
Then they thought the game had lasted long enough to be put an end to.
They had found themselves quit of all danger so cheaply, and counted so
much upon the Abbe Dubois, that they were already thinking of returning
to their former considerations; and to work at this usefully, they must
be in a position to see each other, and commence by establishing
themselves in Paris, where they would of necessity live together.
The sham rupture had been carried to this extent, that the two sons of
the Duc du Maine returned from Eu to Clagny a few days after him, did not
for a long time go and see Madame du Maine, and subsequently saw her but
rarely, and without sleeping under her roof.
At last a resolution being taken to put an end to the comedy, this is how
it was terminated by another.
Madame la Princesse made an appointment with the Duc du Maine, at
Vaugirard on the last of July, and in the house of Landais, treasurer of
the artillery. She arrived there a little after him with the Duchesse du
Maine, whom she left in her carriage. She said to M. du Maine she had
brought a lady with her who much desired to see him. The thing was not
difficult to understand; the piece had been well studied. The Duchesse
du Maine was sent for. The apparent reconcilement took place. The three
were a long time together. To play out the comedy, M. and Madame du
Maine still kept apart, but saw and approached each other by degrees,
until at last the former returned to Sceaux, and lived with his wife as
before.
VOLUME 13.
CHAPTER XCVII
To go back, now, to the remaining events of the year 1719.
The Marquise de Charlus, sister of Mezieres, and mother of the Marquis de
Levi, who has since become a duke and a peer, died rich and old. She was
the exact picture of an "old clothes" woman and was thus subject to many
insults from those who did not know her, which she by no means relished.
To relieve a little the seriousness of these memoirs, I will here relate
an amusing adventure of which she was heroine.
She was very avaricious, and a great gambler. She would have passed the
night up to her knees in water in order to play. Heavy gambling at
lansquenet was carried on at Paris in the evening, at Madame la Princesse
de Conti's. Madame de Charlus supped there one Friday, between the
games, much company being present. She was no better clad than at other
times, and wore a head-dress, in vogue at that day, called commode, not
fastened, but put on or taken off like a wig or a night-cap. It was
fashionable, then, to wear these headdresses very high.
Madame de Charlus was near the Archbishop of Rheims, Le Tellier. She
took a boiled egg, that she cracked, and in reaching for some salt, set
her head dress on fire, at a candle near, without perceiving it. The
Archbishop, who saw her all in flames, seized the head-dress and flung it
upon the ground. Madame de Charlus, in her surprise, and indignant at
seeing her self thus uncovered, without knowing why, threw her egg in the
Archbishop's face, and made him a fine mess.
Nothing but laughter was heard; and all the company were in convulsions
of mirth at the grey, dirty, and hoary head of Madame de Charlus, and the
Archbishop's omelette; above all, at the fury and abuse of Madame de
Charlus, who thought she had been affronted, and who was a long time
before she would understand the cause, irritated at finding herself thus
treated before everybody. The head-dress was burnt, Madame la Princesse
de Conti gave her another, but before it was on her head everybody had
time to contemplate her charms, and she to grow in fury. Her, husband
died three months after her. M. de Levi expected to find treasures;
there had been such; but they had taken wing and flown away.
About this time appeared some verses under the title of Philippiques,
which were distributed with extraordinary promptitude and abundance. La
Grange, formerly page of Madame la Princesse de Conti, was the author,
and did not deny it. All that hell could vomit forth, true and false,
was expressed in the most beautiful verses, most poetic in style, and
with all the art and talent imaginable. M. le Duc d'Orleans knew it, and
wished to see the poem, but he could not succeed in getting it, for no
one dared to show it to him.
He spoke of it several times to me, and at last demanded with such
earnestness that I should bring it to him, that I could not refuse. I
brought it to him accordingly, but read it to him I declared I never
would. He took it, therefore, and read it in a low tone, standing in the
window of his little cabinet, where we were. He judged it in reading
much as it was, for he stopped from time to time to speak to me, and
without appearing much moved. But all on a sudden I saw him change
countenance, and turn towards me, tears in his eyes, and himself ready to
drop.
"Ah," said he, "this is too much, this horrible poem beats me
completely."
He was at the part where the scoundrel shows M. le Duc d'Orleans having
the design to poison the King, and quite ready to execute his crime.
It is the part where the author redoubles his energy, his poetry, his
invocations, his terrible and startling beauties, his invectives, his
hideous pictures, his touching portraits of the youth and innocence of
the King, and of the hopes he has, adjuring the nation to save so dear a
victim from the barbarity of a murderer; in a word, all that is most
delicate, most tender, stringent, and blackest, most pompous, and most
moving, is there.
I wished to profit by the dejected silence into which the reading of this
poem had thrown M. le Duc d'Orleans, to take from him the execrable
paper, but I could not succeed; he broke out into just complaints against
such horrible wickedness, and into tenderness for the King; then finished
his reading, that he interrupted more than once to speak to me. I never
saw a man so penetrated, so deeply touched, so overwhelmed with injustice
so enormous and sustained. As for me, I could not contain myself. To
see him, the most prejudiced, if of good faith, would have been convinced
he was innocent of the come imputed to him, by the horror he displayed at
it. I have said all, when I state that I recovered myself with
difficulty, and that I had all the pains in the world to compose him a
little.
This La Grange, who was of no personal value, yet a good poet--only that,
and never anything else--had, by his poetry, insinuated himself into
Sceaux, where he had become one of the great favourites of Madame du
Maine. She and her husband knew his life, his habits, and his mercenary
villainy. They knew, too, haw to profit by it. He was arrested shortly
afterwards, and sent to the Isle de Sainte Marguerite, which he obtained
permission to leave before the end of the Regency. He had the audacity
to show himself everywhere in Paris, and while he was appearing at the
theatres and in all public places, people had the impudence to spread the
report that M. le Duc d'Orleans had had him killed! M. le Duc d'Orleans
and his enemies have been equally indefatigable; the latter in the
blackest villainies, the Prince in the most unfruitful clemency, to call
it by no more expressive name.
Before the Regent was called to the head of public affairs, I recommended
him to banish Pere Tellier when he had the power to do so. He did not
act upon my advice, or only partially; nevertheless, Tellier was
disgraced, and after wandering hither and thither, a very firebrand
wherever he went, he was confined by his superiors in La Fleche.
This tyrant of the Church, furious that he could no longer move, which
had been his sole consolation during the end of his reign and his
terrible domination, found himself at La Fleche, reduced to a position as
insupportable as it was new to him.
The Jesuits, spies of each other, and jealous and envious of those who
have the superior authority, are marvellously ungrateful towards those
who, having occupied high posts, or served the company with much labour
and success, become useless to it, by their age or their infirmities.
They regard them with disdain, and instead of bestowing upon them the
attention merited by their age, their services, and their merit, leave
them in the dreariest solitude, and begrudge them even their food!
I have with my own eyes seen three examples of this in these Jesuits, men
of much piety and honour, who hid filled positions of confidence and of
talent, and with whom I was very intimate. The first had been rector of
their establishment at Paris, was distinguished by excellent works of
piety, and was for several years assistant of the general at Rome, at the
death of whom he returned to Paris; because the rule is, that the new
general has new assistants. Upon his return to the Paris establishment
he was put into a garret, at the very top of the house, amid solitude,
contempt, and want.
The direction of the royal conscience had been the principal occupation
of the two others, one of whom had even been proposed as confessor to
Madame la Dauphine. One was long ill of a malady he died of. He was not
properly nourished, and I sent him his dinner every day, for more than
five months, because I had seen his pittance. I sent him even remedies,
for he could not refrain from admitting to me that he suffered from the
treatment he was subjected to.
The third, very old and very infirm, had not a better fate. At last,
being no longer able to hold out, he asked to be allowed to pay a visit
to my Versailles house (after having explained himself to me), under
pretext of fresh air. He remained there several months, and died at the
noviciate in Paris. Such is the fate of all the Jesuits, without
excepting the most famous, putting aside a few who having shone at the
Court and in the world by their sermons and their merit, and having made
many friends--as Peres Bordaloue, La Rue, Gaillard--have been guaranteed
from the general disgrace, because, often visited by the principal
persons of the Court and the town, policy did not permit them to be
treated like the rest, for fear of making so many considerable people
notice what they would not have suffered without disturbance and scandal.
It was, then, in this abandonment and this contempt that Pere Tellier
remained at La Fleche, although he had from the Regent four thousand
livres pension. He had ill-treated everybody. When he was confessor of
the King, not one of his brethren approached him without trembling,
although most of them were the "big-wigs" of the company. Even the
general of the company was forced to bend beneath the despotism he
exercised upon all. There was not a Jesuit who did not disapprove the
violence of his conduct, or who did not fear it would injure the society.
All hated him, as a minister is hated who is coarse, harsh, inaccessible,
egotistical, and who takes pleasure in showing his power and his disdain.
His exile, and the conduct that drew it upon him, were fresh motives for
hatred against him, unveiling, as they did, a number of secret intrigues
he had been concerned in, and which he had great interest in hiding. All
these things together did not render agreeable to Tellier his forced
retirement at La Fleche. He found there sharp superiors and equals,
instead of the general terror his presence had formerly caused among the
Jesuits. All now showed nothing but contempt for him, and took pleasure
in making him sensible of it. This King of the Church, in part of the
State, and in private of his society, became a common Jesuit like the
rest, and under superiors; it may be imagined what a hell this was to a
man so impetuous and so accustomed to a domination without reply, and
without bounds, and abused in every fashion. Thus he did not endure it
long. Nothing more was heard of him, and he died after having been only
six months at La Fleche.
There was another death, which I may as well mention here, as it occurred
about the same time.
On Saturday evening, the 15th of April, 1719, the celebrated and fatal
Madame de Maintenon died at Saint-Cyr. What a stir this event would have
made in Europe, had it happened a few years earlier. It was scarcely
mentioned in Paris!
I have already said so much respecting this woman, so unfortunately
famous, that I will say but little more now. Her life at Saint-Cyr was
divided between her spiritual duties, the letters she received, from her
religious correspondents, and the answers she gave to them. She took the
communion twice a-week, ordinarily between seven and eight o'clock in the
morning; not, as Dangeau says in his Memoires, at midnight or every day.
She was very rich, having four thousand livres pension per month from the
Regent, besides other emoluments. She had, too, her estate at Maintenon,
and some other property. With all this wealth, too, she had not a
farthing of expense at Saint-Cyr. Everything was provided for herself
and servants and their horses, even wood, coals, and candles. She had
nothing to buy, except dress for herself and for her people. She kept a
steward, a valet, people for the horses and the kitchen, a coach, seven
or eight horses, one or two others for the saddle, besides having the
young ladies of Saint-Cyr, chambermaids, and Mademoiselle d'Aumale to
wait upon her.
The fall of the Duc du Maine at the Bed of justice struck the first blow
at her. It is not too much to presume that she was well informed of the
measures and the designs of this darling, and that this hope had
sustained her; but when she saw him arrested she succumbed; continuous
fever seized her, and she died at eighty-three years of age, in the full
possession of all her intellect.
Regret for her loss, which was not even universal in Saint-Cyr, scarcely
passed the walls of that community. Aubigny, Archbishop of Rouen, her
pretended cousin, was the only man I ever heard of, who was fool enough
to die of grief on account of it. But he was so afflicted by this loss,
that he fell ill, and soon followed her.
CHAPTER XCVII.
Madame la Duchesse de Berry was living as usual, amid the loftiest pride,
and the vilest servitude; amid penitence the most austere at the
Carmelite convent of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and suppers the most
profaned by vile company, filthiness, and impiety; amid the most
shameless debauchery, and the most horrible fear of the devil and death;
when lo! she fell ill at the Luxembourg.
I must disguise nothing more, especially as what I am relating belongs to
history; and never in these memoirs have I introduced details upon
gallantry except such as were necessary to the proper comprehension of
important or interesting matters to which they related. Madame la
Duchesse de Berry would constrain herself in nothing; she was indignant
that people would dare to speak of what she did not take the trouble to
hide from them; and nevertheless she was grieved to death that her
conduct was known.
She was in the family way by Rion, but hid--it as much as she could.
Madame de Mouchy was their go-between, although her conduct was as clear
as day. Rion and Mouchy, in fact, were in love with each other, and had
innumerable facilities for indulging their passion. They laughed at the
Princess, who was their dupe, and from whom they drew in council all they
could. In one word, they were the masters of her and of her household,
and so insolently, that M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, who
knew them and hated them, feared them also and temporised with them.
Madame de Saint-Simon, sheltered from all that, extremely loved and
respected by all the household, and respected even by this couple who
made themselves so much dreaded and courted, only saw Madame la Duchesse
de Berry during the moments of presentation at the Luxembourg, whence she
returned as soon as all was finished, entirely ignorant of what was
passing, though she might have been perfectly instructed.
The illness of Madame la Duchesse de Berry came on, and this illness, ill
prepared for by suppers washed down by wine and strong liquors, became
stormy and dangerous. Madame de Saint-Simon could not avoid becoming
assiduous in her attendance as soon as the peril appeared, but she never
would yield to the instances of M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse
d'Orleans, who, with all the household; wished her to sleep in the
chamber allotted to her, and which she never put foot in, not even during
the day. She found Madame la Duchesse de Berry shut up in a little
chamber, which had private entrances--very useful just then, with no one
near her but La Mouchy and Rion, and a few trusty waiting-women. All in
attendance had free entrance to this room. M. le Duc and Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans were not allowed to enter when they liked; of course
it was the same with the lady of honour, the other ladies, the chief
femme de chambre, and the doctors. All entered from time to time, but
ringing for an instant. A bad headache or want of sleep caused them
often to be asked to stay away, or, if they entered, to leave directly
afterwards. They did not press their presence upon the sick woman,
knowing only too well the nature of her malady; but contented themselves
by asking after her through Madame de Mouchy, who opened the door to
reply to them, keeping it scarcely ajar: This ridiculous proceeding
passed before the crowd of the Luxembourg, of the Palais Royal, and of
many other people who, for form's sake or for curiosity, came to inquire
the news, and became common town-talk.
The danger increasing, Languet, a celebrated cure of Saint-Sulpice, who
had always rendered himself assiduous, spoke of the sacraments to M. le
Duc d'Orleans. The difficulty was how to enter and propose them to
Madame la Duchesse de Berry. But another and greater difficulty soon
appeared. It was this: the cure, like a man knowing his duty, refused to
administer the sacrament, or to suffer it to be administered, while Rion
or Madame de Mouchy remained in the chamber, or even in the Luxembourg!
He declared this aloud before everybody, expressly in presence of M. le
Duc d'Orleans, who was less shocked than embarrassed. He took the cure
aside, and for a long time tried to make him give way. Seeing him
inflexible, he proposed reference to the Cardinal de Noailles. The cure
immediately agreed, and promised to defer to his orders, Noailles being
his bishop, provided he was allowed to explain his reasons. The affair
passed, and Madame la Duchesse de Berry made confession to a Cordelier,
her confessor. M. le Duc d'Orleans flattered himself, no doubt, he would
find the diocesan more flexible than the cure. If he hoped so he
deceived himself.
The Cardinal de Noailles arrived; M. le Duc d'Orleans took him aside with
the cure, and their conversation lasted more than half an hour. As the
declaration of the cure had been public, the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris
judged it fitting that his should be so also. As all three approached
the door of the chamber, filled with company, the Cardinal de Noailles
said aloud to the cure, that he had very worthily done his duty, that he
expected nothing less from such a good, experienced, and enlightened man
as he was; that he praised him for what he had demanded before
administering the sacrament to Madame la Duchesse de Berry; that he
exhorted him not to give in, or to suffer himself to be deceived upon so
important a thing; and that if he wanted further authorisation he, as his
bishop, diocesan, and superior, prohibited him from administering the
sacraments, or allowing them to be administered, to Madame la Duchesse de
Berry while Rion and Madame de Mouchy were in the chamber, or even in the
Luxembourg.
It may be imagined what a stir such inevitable scandal as this made in a
room so full of company; what embarrassment it caused M. le Duc
d'Orleans, and what a noise it immediately made everywhere. Nobody, even
the chiefs of the constitution, the mass without, enemies of the Cardinal
de Noailles, the most fashionable bishops, the most distinguished women,
the libertines even--not one blamed the cure or his archbishop: some
because they knew the rules of the Church, and did not dare to impugn
them; others, the majority, from horror of the conduct of Madame la
Duchesse de Berry, and hatred drawn upon her by her pride.
Now came the question between the Regent, the Cardinal, and the cure,
which should announce this determination to Madame la Duchesse de Berry,
who in no way expected it, and who, having confessed, expected every
moment to see the Holy Sacrament enter, and to take it. After a short
colloquy urged on by the state of the patient, the Cardinal and the cure
withdrew a little, while M. le Duc d'Orleans slightly opened the door and
called Madame de Mouchy. Then, the door ajar, she within, he without, he
told her what was in debate. La Mouchy, much astonished, still more
annoyed, rode the high horse, talked of her merit, and of the affront
that bigots wished to cast upon her and Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who
would never suffer it or consent to it, and that she would die--in the
state she was--if they had the impudence and the cruelty to tell it to
her.
The conclusion was that La Mouchy undertook to announce to Madame la
Duchesse de Berry the resolution that had been taken respecting the
sacraments--what she added of her own may be imagined. A negative
response did not fail to be quickly delivered to M. le Duc d'Orleans
through the half-opened door. Coming through such a messenger, it was
just the reply he might have expected. Immediately after, he repeated it
to the Cardinal, and to the cure; the cure, being supported by his
archbishop, contented himself with shrugging his shoulders. But the
Cardinal said to M. le Duc d'Orleans that Madame de Mouchy, one of the
two who ought to be sent away, was not a fit person to bring Madame la
Duchesse to reason; that it was his duty to carry this message to her,
and to exhort her to do her duty as a Christian shortly about to appear
before God; and the Archbishop pressed the Regent to go and say so to
her. It will be believed, without difficulty, that his eloquence gained
nothing. This Prince feared too much his daughter, and would have been
but a feeble apostle with her.
Reiterated refusals determined the Cardinal to go and speak to Madame la
Duchesse de Berry, accompanied by the cure, and as he wished to set about
it at once, M. le Duc d'Orleans, who did not dare to hinder him, but who
feared some sudden and dangerous revolution in his daughter at the sight
and at the discourses of the two pastors, conjured him to wait until
preparations could be made to receive him. He went, therefore, and held
another colloquy through the door with Madame de Mouchy, the success of
which was equal to the other. Madame la Duchesse de Berry flew into
fury, railed in unruly terms against these hypocritical humbugs, who took
advantage of her state and their calling to dishonour her by an unheard-
of scandal, not in the least sparing her father for his stupidity and
feebleness in allowing it. To have heard her, you would have thought
that the cure and the Cardinal ought to be kicked downstairs.
M. le Duc d'Orleans returned to the ecclesiastics, looking very small,
and not knowing what to do between his daughter and them. However, he
said to them that she was so weak and suffering that they must put off
their visit, persuading them as well as he could. The attention and
anxiety of the large company which filled the room were extreme:
everything was known afterwards, bit by bit, during the day.
The Cardinal de Noailles remained more than two hours with M. le Duc
d'Orleans, round whom people gathered at last. The Cardinal, seeing that
he could not enter the chamber without a sort of violence, much opposed
to persuasion, thought it indecent and useless to wait any longer. In
going away, he reiterated his orders to the cure, and begged him to watch
so as not to be deceived respecting the sacraments, lest attempts were
made to administer them clandestinely. He afterwards approached Madame
de Saint-Simon, took her aside, related to her what had passed, and
deplored with her a scandal that he had not been able to avoid. M. le
Duc d'Orleans hastened to announce to his daughter the departure of the
Cardinal, at which he himself was much relieved. But on leaving the
chamber he was astonished to find the cure glued against the door, and
still more so to hear he had taken up his post there, and meant to
remain, happen what might, because he did not wish to be deceived
respecting the sacraments. And, indeed, he remained there four days and
four nights, except during short intervals for food and repose that he
took at home, quite close to the Luxembourg, and during which his place
was filled by two priests whom he left there. At last, the danger being
passed, he raised the siege.
Madame la Duchesse de Berry, safely delivered of a daughter, had nothing
to do but to re-establish herself; but she remained firm against the cure
and the Cardinal de Noailles, neither of whom she ever pardoned. She
became more and more bewitched by the two lovers, who laughed at her, and
who were attached to her only for their fortune and their interest. She
remained shut up without seeing M. and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
except for a few moments; no one, commencing with Madame de Saint-Simon,
showed any eagerness to see her, for everybody knew what kept the door
shut.
Madame la Duchesse de Berry, infinitely pained by the manner in which
everybody, even the people, looked upon her malady, thought to gain a
little lost ground by throwing open the gardens of the Luxembourg to the
public, after having long since closed them. People were glad: they
profited by the act; that was all. She made a vow that she would give
herself up to religion, and dress in white--that is, devote herself to
the service of the Virgin--for six months. This vow made people laugh a
little.
Her illness had begun on the 26th of March, 1719, and Easter-day fell on
the 9th of April. She was then quite well, but would not see a soul. A
new cause of annoyance had arisen to trouble her. Rion, who saw himself
so successful as the lover of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, wished to
improve his position by becoming her husband. He was encouraged in this
desire by his uncle, M. de Lauzun, who had also advised him to treat her
with the rigour, harshness--nay, brutality, which I have already
described. The maxim of M. de Lauzun was, that the Bourbons must be ill-
used and treated with a high hand in order to maintain empire over them.
Madame de Mouchy was as strongly in favour of this marriage as Rion. She
knew she was sure of her lover, and that when he became the husband of
Madame la Duchesse de Berry, all the doors which shut intimacy would be
thrown down. A secret marriage accordingly took place.
This marriage gave rise to violent quarrels, and much weeping. In order
to deliver herself from these annoyances, and at the same time steer
clear of Easter, the Duchess resolved to go away to Meudon on Easter
Monday. It was in vain that the danger was represented to her, of the
air, of the movement of the coach, and of the change of place at the end
of a fortnight. Nothing could make her endure Paris any longer. She set
out, therefore, followed by Rion and the majority of her ladies and her
household.
M. le Duc d'Orleans informed me then of the fixed design of Madame la
Duchesse de Berry to declare the secret marriage she had just made with
Rion. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans was at Montmartre for a few days, and
we were walking in the little garden of her apartments. The marriage did
not surprise me much, knowing the strength of her passion, her fear of
the devil, and the scandal which had just happened. But I was
astonished, to the last degree, at this furious desire to declare the
marriage, in a person so superbly proud.
M. le Duc d'Orleans dilated upon his troubles, his anger, that of Madame
(who wished to proceed to the most violent extremities), and the great
resolve of Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. Fortunately the majority of the
officers destined to serve against Spain, (war with that country had just
been declared) were leaving every day, and Rion had remained solely on
account of the illness of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, M. le Duc
d'Orleans thought the shortest plan would be to encourage hope by delay,
in forcing Rion to depart, flattering himself that the declaration would
be put off much more easily in his absence than in his presence. I
strongly approved this idea, and on the morrow, Rion received at Meudon a
curt and positive order to depart at once and join his regiment in the
army of the Duc de Berwick. Madame la Duchesse de Berry was all the more
outraged, because she knew the cause of this order, and consequently felt
her inability to hinder its execution. Rion on his side did not dare to
disobey it. He set out, therefore; and M. le Duc d'Orleans, who had not
yet been to Meudon, remained several days without going there.
Father and daughter feared each other, and this departure had not put
them on better terms. She had told him, and repeated it, that she was a
rich widow, mistress of her own actions, independent of him; had flown
into a fury, and terribly abused M. le Duc d'Orleans when he tried to
remonstrate with her. He had received much rough handling from her at
the Luxembourg when she was better; it was the same at Meudon during the
few visits he paid her there. She wished to declare her marriage; and
all the art, intellect, gentleness, anger, menace, prayers, and interest
of M. le Duc d'Orleans barely sufficed to make her consent to a brief
delay.
If Madame had been listened to, the affair would have been finished
before the journey to Meudon; for M. le Duc d'Orleans would have thrown
Rion out of the windows of the Luxembourg!
The premature journey to Meudon, and quarrels so warm, were not
calculated to re-establish a person just returned from the gates of
death. The extreme desire she had to hide her state from the public, and
to conceal the terms on which she was with her father ( for the rarity of
his visits to her began to be remarked), induced her to give a supper to
him on the terrace of Meudon about eight o'clock one evening. In vain
the danger was represented to her of the cool evening air so soon after
an illness such as she had just suffered from, and which had left her
health still tottering. It was specially on this account that she stuck
more obstinately to her supper on the terrace, thinking that it would
take away all suspicion she had been confined, and induce the belief that
she was on the same terms as ever with M. le Duc d'Orleans, though the
uncommon rarity of his visits to her had been remarked.
This supper in the open air did not succeed. The same night she was
taken ill. She was attacked by accidents, caused by the state in which
she still was, and by an irregular fever, that the opposition she met
with respecting the declaration of her marriage did not contribute to
diminish. She grew disgusted with Meudon, like people ill in body and
mind, who in their grief attribute everything to the air and the place.
She was annoyed at the few visits she received from M. le Duc and Madame
la Duchesse d'Orleans,-her pride, however, suffering more than her
tenderness.
In despite of all reason, nothing could hinder her from changing her
abode. She was transferred from Meudon to the Muette, wrapped up in
sheets, and in a large coach, on Sunday, the 14th of May, 1719. Arrived
so near Paris, she hoped M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans would
come and see her more frequently, if only for form's sake.
This journey was painful by the sufferings it caused her, added to those
she already had, which no remedies could appease, except for short
intervals, and which became very violent. Her illness augmented; but
hopes and fears sustained her until the commencement of July. During all
this time her desire to declare her marriage weakened, and M. le Duc and
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, as well as Madame, who passed the summer at
Saint-Cloud, came more frequently to see her. The month of July became
more menacing because of the augmentation of pain and fever. These ills
increased so much, in fact, that, by the 14th of July, fears for her life
began to be felt.
The night of the 14th was so stormy, that M. le Duc d'Orleans was sent to
at the Palais Royal, and awakened. At the same time Madame de Pons wrote
to Madame de Saint-Simon, pressing her to come and establish herself at
La Muette. Madame de Saint-Simon, although she made a point of scarcely
ever sleeping under the same roof as Madame la Duchesse de Berry (for
reasons which need no further explanation than those already given),
complied at once with this request, and took up her quarters from this
time at La Muette.
Upon arriving, she found the danger great. Madame la Duchesse de Berry
had been bled in the arm and in the foot on the 10th, and her confessor
had been sent for. But the malady still went on increasing. As the pain
which had so long afflicted her could not induce her to follow a regimen
necessary for her condition, or to think of a future state, relations and
doctors were at last obliged to speak a language to her, not used towards
princesses, except at the most urgent extremity. This, at last, had its
effect. She submitted to the medical treatment prescribed for her, and
received the sacrament with open doors, speaking to those present upon
her life and upon her state, but like a queen in both instances. After
this sight was over, alone with her familiars, she applauded herself for
the firmness she had displayed, asked them if she had not spoken well,
and if she was not dying with greatness and courage.
A day or two after, she wished to receive Our Lord once more. She
received, accordingly, and as it appeared, with much piety, quite
differently from the first time.
At the extremity to which she had arrived, the doctors knew not what to
do; everybody was tried. An elixir was spoken of, discovered by a
certain Garus, which made much stir just then, and the secret of which
the King has since bought. Garus was sent for and soon arrived. He
found Madame la Duchesse de Berry so ill that he would answer for
nothing. His remedy was given, and succeeded beyond all hopes. Nothing
remained but to continue it. Above all things, Garus had begged that
nothing should, on any account, be given to Madame la Duchesse de Berry
except by him, and this had been most expressly commanded by M. le Duc
and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. Madame la Duchesse de Berry continued
to be more and more relieved and so restored, that Chirac, her regular
doctor, began to fear for his reputation, and taking the opportunity when
Garus was asleep upon a sofa, presented, with impetuosity, a purgative to
Madame la Duchesse de Berry, and made her swallow it without saying a
word to anybody, the two nurses standing by, the only persons present,
not daring to oppose him.
The audacity of this was as complete as its villainy, for M. le Duc and
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans were close at hand in the salon. From this
moment to that in which the patient fell into a state worse than that
from which the elixir had drawn her, there was scarcely an interval.
Garus was awaked and called. Seeing this disorder, he cried that a
purgative had been given, and whatever it might be, it was poison in the
state to which the princess was now reduced. He wished to depart, he was
detained, he was taken to Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. Then followed a
great uproar, cries from Garus, impudence and unequalled hardihood of
Chirac, in defending what he had done.
He could not deny it, for the two nurses had been questioned, and had
told all. Madame la Duchesse de Berry drew near her end during this
debate, and neither Chirac nor Garus could prevent it. She lasted,
however, the rest of the day, and did not die until about midnight.
Chirac, seeing the death-agony advance, traversed the chamber, made an
insulting reverence at the foot of the bed, which was open, and wished
her "a pleasant journey" (in equivalent terms), and thereupon went off to
Paris. The marvel is that nothing came of this, and that he remained the
doctor of M. le Duc d'Orleans as before!
While the end was yet approaching, Madame de Saint-Simon, seeing that
there was no one to bear M. le Duc d'Orleans company, sent for me to
stand by him in these sad moments. It appeared to me that my arrival
pleased him, and that I was not altogether useless to him in relieving
his grief. The rest of the day was passed in entering for a moment at a
time into the sick-chamber. In the evening I was nearly always alone
with him.
He wished that I should charge myself with all the funeral arrangements,
and in case Madame la Duchesse de Berry, when opened, should be found to
be enceinte, to see that the secret was kept. I proposed that the
funeral should be of the simplest, without show or ceremonial. I
explained my reasons, he thanked me, and left all the orders in my hands.
Getting rid of these gloomy matters as quickly as possible, I walked with
him from time to time in the reception rooms, and in the garden, keeping
him from the chamber of the dying as much as possible.
The night was well advanced, and Madame la Duchesse de Berry grew worse
and worse, and without consciousness since Chirac had poisoned her. M.
le Duc d'Orleans returned into the chamber, approached the head of the
bed--all the curtains being pulled back; I allowed him to remain there
but a few moments, and hurried him into the cabinet, which was deserted
just then. The windows were open, he leaned upon the iron balustrade,
and his tears increased so much that I feared lest they should suffocate
him. When this attack had a little subsided, he began to talk of the
misfortunes of this world, and of the short duration of its most
agreeable pleasures. I urged the occasion to say to him everything God
gave me the power to say, with all the gentleness, emotion, and
tenderness, I could command. Not only he received well what I said to
him, but he replied to it and prolonged the conversation.
After we had been there more than an hour, Madame de Saint-Simon gently
warned me that it was time to try and lead M. le Duc d'Orleans away,
especially as there was no exit from the cabinet, except through the
sick-chamber. His coach, that Madame de Saint-Simon had sent for, was
ready. It was without difficulty that I succeeded in gently moving away
M. le Duc d'Orleans, plunged as he was in the most bitter grief. I made
him traverse the chamber at once, and supplicated him to return to Paris.
At last he consented. He wished me to remain and give orders, and
begged, with much positiveness, Madame de Saint-Simon to be present when
seals were put upon the effects, after which I led him to his coach, and
he went away. I immediately repeated to Madame de Saint-Simon the orders
he had given me respecting the opening of the body, in order that she
might have them executed, and I hindered her from remaining in the
chamber, where there was nothing now but horror to be seen.
At last, about midnight, on the 21st of July, 1819, Madame la Duchesse de
Berry died, ten days after Chirac had consummated his crime. M. le Duc
d'Orleans was the only person touched. Some people grieved; but not one
of them who had enough to live upon appeared ever to regret her loss.
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans felt her deliverance, but paid every
attention to decorum. Madame constrained herself but little. However
affected M. le Duc d'Orleans might be, consolation soon came. The yoke
to which he had submitted himself, and which he afterwards found heavy,
was severed. Above all, he was free from all annoyance on the score of
Rion's marriage, and its results, annoyance that would have been all the
greater, inasmuch as at the opening of the poor princess she was found to
be again enceinte; it was also found that her brain was deranged. These
circumstances were for the time carefully hidden. It may be imagined
what a state Rion fell into in learning at the army the death of Madame
la Duchesse de Berry. All his romantic notions of ambition being
overturned, he was more than once on the point of killing himself, and
for a long time was always kept in sight by his friends. He sold out at
the end of the campaign. As he had been gentle and polite to his
friends, they did not desert him. But he ever afterwards remained in
obscurity.
On account of this death the theatres were closed for eight days.
On Saturday, the 22nd of July, the heart of Madame la Duchesse de Berry
was taken to the Val-de-Grace.
On Sunday, the 23rd of July, her body was carried in an eight-horse coach
to Saint-Denis. There was very little display; only about forty torches
were carried by pages and guards.
The funeral service was performed at Saint-Denis in the early part of
September. There was no funeral oration.
Madame de Saint-Simon had been forced, as I have shown, to accept the
post of lady of honour to Madame la Duchesse de Berry, and had never been
able to quit it. She had been treated with all sorts of consideration,
had been allowed every liberty, but this did not console her for the post
she occupied; so that she felt all the pleasure, not to say the
satisfaction, of a deliverance she did not expect, from a princess
twenty-four years of age. But the extreme fatigue of the last days of
the illness, and of those which followed death, caused her a malignant
fever, which left her at death's portal during six weeks in a house at
Passy. She was two months recovering herself.
This accident, which almost turned my head, sequestered me from anything
for two months, during which I never left the house, scarcely left the
sick-chamber, attended to nothing, and saw only a few relatives or
indispensable friends.
When my wife began to be re-established, I asked M. le Duc d'Orleans for
a lodging at the new chateau at Meudon. He lent me the whole chateau;
completely furnished. We passed there the rest of this summer, and
several other summers afterwards. It is a charming place for rides or
drives. We counted upon seeing only our friends there, but the proximity
to Paris overwhelmed us with people, so that all the new chateau was
sometimes completely filled, without reckoning the people of passage.
I have little need to say anything more of Madame la Duchesse de Berry.
These pages have already painted her. She was a strange mixture of pride
and shamelessness. Drunkenness, filthy conversation, debauchery of the
vilest kind, and impiety, were her diversions, varied, as has been seen,
by occasional religious fits. Her indecency in everything, language,
acts, behaviour, passed all bounds; and yet her pride was so sublime that
she could not endure that people should dare to speak of her amid her
depravity, so universal and so public; she had the hardihood to declare
that nobody had the right to speak of persons of her rank, or blame their
most notorious actions!
Yet she had by nature a superior intellect, and, when she wished, could
be agreeable and amiable. Her face was commanding, though somewhat
spoiled at last by fat. She had much eloquence, speaking with an ease
and precision that charmed and overpowered. What might she not have
become, with the talents she possessed! But her pride, her violent
temper, her irreligion, and her falsehood, spoiled all, and made her what
we have seen her.
CHAPTER XCIX
Law had established his Mississippi Company, and now began to do marvels
with it. A sort of language had been invented, to talk of this scheme,
language which, however, I shall no more undertake to explain than the
other finance operations. Everybody was mad upon Mississippi Stock.
Immense fortunes were made, almost in a breath; Law, besieged in his
house by eager applicants, saw people force open his door, enter by the
windows from the garden, drop into his cabinet down the chimney! People
talked only of millions.
Law, who, as I have said, came to my house every Tuesday, between eleven
and twelve, often pressed me to receive some shares for nothing, offering
to manage them without any trouble to me, so that I must gain to the
amount of several millions! So many people had already gained enormously
by their own exertions that it was not doubtful Law could gain for me
even more rapidly. But I never would lend myself to it. Law addressed
himself to Madame de Saint-Simon, whom he found as inflexible. He would
have much preferred to enrich me than many others; so as to attach me to
him by interest, intimate as he saw me with the Regent. He spoke to M.
le Duc d'Orleans, even, so as to vanquish me by his authority. The
Regent attacked me more than once, but I always eluded him.
At last, one day when we were together by appointment, at Saint-Cloud,
seated upon the balustrade of the orangery, which covers the descent into
the wood of the goulottes, the Regent spoke again to me of the
Mississippi, and pressed me to receive some shares from Law.
The more I resisted, the more he pressed me, and argued; at last he grew
angry, and said that I was too conceited, thus to refuse what the King
wished to give me (for everything was done in the King's name), while so
many of my equals in rank and dignity were running after these shares.
I replied that such conduct would be that of a fool, the conduct of
impertinence, rather than of conceit; that it was not mine, and that
since he pressed me so much I would tell him my reasons. They were,
that since the fable of Midas, I had nowhere read, still less seen,
that anybody had the faculty of converting into gold all he touched;
that I did not believe this virtue was given to Law, but thought that all
his knowledge was a learned trick, a new and skilful juggle, which put
the wealth of Peter into the pockets of Paul, and which enriched one at
the expense of the other; that sooner or later the game would be played
out, that an infinity of people would be ruined; finally, that I abhorred
to gain at the expense of others, and would in no way mix myself up with
the Mississippi scheme.
M. le Duc d'Orleans knew only too well how to reply to me, always
returning to his idea that I was refusing the bounties of the King.
I said that I was so removed from such madness, that I would make a
proposition to him, of which assuredly I should never have spoken, but
for his accusation.
I related to him the expense to which my father had been put in defending
Blaye against the party of M. le Prince in years gone by. How he had
paid the garrison, furnished provisions, cast cannon, stocked the place,
during a blockade of eighteen months, and kept up, at his own expense,
within the town, five hundred gentlemen, whom he had collected together.
How he had been almost ruined by the undertaking, and had never received
a sou, except in warrants to the amount of five hundred thousand livres,
of which not one had ever been paid, and that he had been compelled to
pay yearly the interest of the debts he had contracted, debts that still
hung like a mill-stone upon me. My proposition was that M. le Duc
d'Orleans should indemnify me for this loss, I giving up the warrants, to
be burnt before him.
This he at once agreed to. He spoke of it the very next day to Law: my
warrants were burnt by degrees in the cabinet of M. le Duc d'Orleans, and
it was by this means I paid for what I had done at La Ferme.
Meanwhile the Mississippi scheme went on more swimmingly than ever. It
was established in the Rue Quincampoix, from which horses and coaches
were banished. About the end of October of this year, 1817, its business
so much increased, that the office was thronged all day long, and it was
found necessary to place clocks and guards with drums at each end of the
street, to inform people, at seven o'clock in the morning, of the opening
of business, and of its close at night: fresh announcements were issued,
too, prohibiting people from going there on Sundays and fete days.
Never had excitement or madness been heard of which approached this.
M. le Duc d'Orleans distributed a large number of the Company's shares to
all the general officers and others employed in the war against Spain.
A month after, the value of the specie was diminished; then the whole of
the coin was re-cast.
Money was in such abundance--that is to say, the notes of Law, preferred
then to the metallic currency--that four millions were paid to Bavaria,
and three millions to Sweden, in settlement of old debts. Shortly after,
M. le Duc d'Orleans gave 80,000 livres to Meuse; and 80,000 livres to
Madame de Chateauthiers, dame d'atours of Madame. The Abbe Alari, too,
obtained 2000 livres pension. Various other people had augmentation of
income given to them at this time.
Day by day Law's bank and his Mississippi increased in favour. The
confidence in them was complete. People could not change their lands and
their houses into paper fast enough, and the result of this paper was,
that everything became dear beyond all previous experience. All heads
were turned, Foreigners envied our good fortune, and left nothing undone
to have a share in it. The English, even, so clear and so learned in
banks, in companies, in commerce, allowed themselves to be caught, and
bitterly repented it afterwards. Law, although cold and discreet, felt
his modesty giving way. He grew tired of being a subaltern. He hankered
after greatness in the midst of this splendour; the Abbe Dubois and M. le
Duc d'Orleans desired it for him more than he; nevertheless, two
formidable obstacles were in the way: Law was a foreigner and a heretic,
and he could not be naturalised without a preliminary act of abjuration.
To perform that, somebody must be found to convert him, somebody upon
whom good reliance could be placed. The Abbe Dubois had such a person
all ready in his pocket, so to speak. The Abbe Tencin was the name of
this ecclesiastic, a fellow of debauched habits and shameless life, whom
the devil has since pushed into the most astonishing good fortune; so
true it is that he sometimes departs from his ordinary rules, in order to
recompense his servitors, and by these striking examples dazzle others,
and so secure them.
As may be imagined, Law did not feel very proud of the Abbe who had
converted him: more especially as that same Abbe was just about this time
publicly convicted of simony, of deliberate fraud, of right-down lying
(proved by his own handwriting), and was condemned by the Parliament to
pay a fine, which branded him with infamy, and which was the scandal of
the whole town. Law, however, was converted, and this was a subject
which supplied all conversation.
Soon after, he bought, for one million livres, the Hotel Mazarin for his
bank, which until then had been established in a house he hired of the
Chief-President, who had not need of it, being very magnificently lodged
in the Palace of the Parliament by virtue of his office. Law bought, at
the same time, for 550,000 livres, the house of the Comte de Tesse.
Yet it was not all sunshine with this famous foreigner, for the sky above
him was heavy with threatening clouds. In the midst of the flourishing
success of his Mississippi, it was discovered that there was a plot to
kill him. Thereupon sixteen soldiers of the regiment of the Guards were
given to him as a protection to his house, and eight to his brother, who
had come to Paris some little time before.
Law had other enemies besides those who were hidden. He could not get on
well with Argenson, who, as comptroller of the finances, was continually
thrown into connection with him. The disorder of the finances increased
in consequence every day, as well as the quarrels between Law and
Argenson, who each laid the blame upon the other. The Scotchman was the
best supported, for his manners were pleasing, and his willingness to
oblige infinite. He had, as it were, a finance tap in his hand, and he
turned it on for every one who helped him. M. le Duc, Madame la
Duchesse, Tesse, Madame de Verue, had drawn many millions through this
tap, and drew still. The Abbe Dubois turned it on as he pleased. These
were grand supports, besides that of M. le Duc d'Orleans, who could not
part with his favourite.
Argenson, on the contrary, was not much liked. He had been at the head
of the police so long that he could not shake off the habits he had
acquired in that position: He had been accustomed to give audiences upon
all sorts of police matters at dead of night, or at the small hours of
the morning, and he appeared to see no reason why he should not do the
same now that he was Keeper of the Seals. He irritated people beyond all
bearing, by making appointments with them at these unreasonable hours,
and threw into despair all who worked under him, or who had business with
him. The difficulty of the finances, and his struggles with Law, had
thrown him into ill-humour, which extended through all his refusals.
Things, in fact, had come to such a pass, that it was evident one or the
other must give up an administration which their rivalry threw into
confusion.
Argenson saw the storm coming, and feeling the insecurity of his
position, wished to save himself. He had too much sense and too much
knowledge of the world not to feel that if he obstinately clung to the
finances he should not only lose them but the seals also. He yielded
therefore to Law, who was at last declared comptroller-general of the
finances, and who, elevated to this (for him) surprising point, continued
to visit me as usual every Tuesday morning, always trying to persuade me
into belief of his past miracles, and of those to come.
Argenson remained Keeper of the Seals, and skilfully turned to account
the sacrifice he had made by obtaining through it the permission to
surrender his appointment of Chancellor of the Order of Saint-Louis to
his eldest son, and the title, effectively, to his younger son. His
place of Conseiller d'Etat, that he had retained,--he also gave to his
eldest son, and made the other lieutenant of police. The murmur was
great upon seeing a foreigner comptroller-general, and all abandoned to a
finance system which already had begun to be mistrusted. But Frenchmen
grow accustomed to everything, and the majority were consoled by being no
longer exposed to the sharp humour of Argenson, or his strange hours of
business.
But Law's annoyances were not over when this change had been made. M. le
Prince de Conti began to be troublesome. He was more grasping than any
of his relatives, and that is not saying a little. He accosted Law now,
pistol in hand, so to speak, and with a perfect "money or your life"
manner. He had already amassed mountains of gold by the easy humour of
M. le Duc d'Orleans; he had drawn, too, a good deal from Law, in private.
Not content with this, he wished to draw more. M. le Duc d'Orleans grew
tired, and was not over-pleased with him. The Parliament just then was
at its tricks again; its plots began to peep out, and the Prince de Conti
joined in its intrigues in order to try and play a part indecent,
considering his birth; little fitting his age; shameful, after the
monstrous favours unceasingly heaped upon him.
Repelled by the Regent, he turned, as I have said, towards Law, hoping
for more success. His expectations were deceived; prayers, cringing
meanness (for he stopped at nothing to get money) being of no effect, he
tried main strength, and spared Law neither abuse nor menaces. In fact,
not knowing what else to do to injure his bank, he sent three waggons
there, and drove them away full of money, which he made Law give him for
paper he held. Law did not dare to refuse, and thus show the poverty of
his metallic funds, but fearing to accustom so insatiable a prince to
such tyranny as this, he went, directly the waggons left, to M. le Duc
d'Orleans, and complained of what had occurred. The Regent was much
annoyed; he saw the dangerous results, and the pernicious example of so
violent a proceeding, directed against an unsupported foreigner, whom
rather lightly he had just made comptroller-general. He flew into a
violent rage, sent for the Prince de Conti, and, contrary to his nature,
reprimanded him so severely, that he was silenced and cried for mercy.
But annoyed at having failed, and still more at the sharp scolding he had
received, the Prince de Conti consoled himself, like a woman, by
spreading all sorts of reports against Law, which caused him but little
fear, and did him still less harm, but which did slight honour to M. le
Prince de Conti, because the cause of these reports, and also the large
sums he had drawn from the financier, were not unknown to the public;
blame upon him was general, and all the more heavy, because Law had
fallen out of public favour, which a mere trifle had changed into spite
and indignation.
This is the trifle. The Marechal de Villeroy, incapable of inspiring the
King with any solid ideas, adoring even to worship the deceased King,
full of wind, and lightness, and frivolity, and of sweet recollections of
his early years, his grace at fetes and ballets, his splendid
gallantries, wished that the King, in imitation of the deceased monarch,
should dance in a ballet. It was a little too early to think of this.
This pleasure seemed a trifle too much of pain to so young a King; his
timidity should have been vanquished by degrees, in order to accustom him
to society which he feared, before engaging him to show himself off in
public, and dance upon a stage.
The deceased King,--educated in a brilliant Court, where rule and
grandeur were kept up with much distinction, and where continual
intercourse with ladies, the Queen-mother, and others of the Court, had
early fashioned and emboldened him, had relished and excelled in these
sorts of fetes and amusements, amid a crowd of young people of both
sexes, who all rightfully bore the names of nobility, and amongst whom
scarcely any of humble birth were mixed, for we cannot call thus some
three or four of coarser stuff, who were admitted simply for the purpose
of adding strength and beauty to the ballet, by the grace of their faces
and the elegance of their movements, with a few dancing-masters to
regulate and give the tone to the whole. Between this time and that I am
now speaking of was an abyss. The education of those days instructed
every one in grace, address, exercise, respect for bearing, graduated and
delicate politeness, polished and decent gallantry. The difference,
then, between the two periods is seen at a glance, without time lost in
pointing it out.
Reflection was not the principal virtue of the Marechal de Villeroy. He
thought of no obstacle either on the part of the King or elsewhere, and
declared that his Majesty would dance in a ballet. Everything was soon
ready for the execution. It was not so with the action. It became
necessary to search for young people who could dance: soon, whether they
danced ill or well, they were gladly received; at last the only question
was, "Whom can we get?" consequently a sorry lot was obtained. Several,
who ought never to have been admitted, were, and so easily, that from one
to the other Law had the temerity to ask M. le Duc d'Orleans to allow his
son, who danced very well, to join the ballet company! The Regent,
always easy, still enamoured of Law, and, to speak truth, purposely
contributing as much as possible to confusion of rank, immediately
accorded the demand, and undertook to say so to the Marechal de Villeroy.
The Marechal, who hated and crossed Law with might and main, reddened
with anger, and represented to the Regent what, in fact, deserved to be
said: the Regent, in reply, named several young people, who, although of
superior rank, were not so well fitted for the ballet as young Law; and
although the answer to this was close at hand, the Marechal could not
find it, and exhausted himself in vain exclamations. He could not,
therefore, resist the Regent; and having no support from M. le Duc,
superintendent of the King's education and a great protector of Law and
of confusion, he gave in, and the financier's son was named for the
ballet.
It is impossible to express the public revolt excited by this bagatelle,
at which every one was offended. Nothing else was spoken of for some
days; tongues wagged freely, too; and a good deal of dirty water was
thrown upon other dancers in the ballet.
At last the public was satisfied. The small-pox seized Law's son, and
(on account of its keeping him from the ballet) caused universal joy.
The ballet was danced several times, its success answering in no way to
the Marechal de Villeroy. The King was so wearied, so fatigued, with
learning, with rehearsing, and with dancing this ballet, that he took an
aversion for these fetes and for everything offering display, which has
never quitted him since, and which does not fail to leave a void in the
Court; so that this ballet ceased sooner than was intended, and the
Marechal de Villeroy never dared to propose another.
M. le Duc d'Orleans, either by his usual facility, or to smooth down the
new elevation of Law to the post of comptroller-general, bestowed a
number of pecuniary favours; he gave 600,000 livres to La Fare, captain
of his guard; 200,000 livres to Castries, chevalier d'honneur to Madame
la Duchesse d'Orleans; 200,000 livres to the old Prince de Courtenay, who
much needed them; 20,000 livres pension to the Prince de Talmont; 6000
livres to the Marquise de Bellefonds, who already had a similar sum; and
moved by cries on the part of M. le Prince de Conti, 60,000 livres to the
Comte de la Marche his son, scarcely three years old; he gave, also,
smaller amounts to various others. Seeing so much depredation, and no
recovery to hope for, I asked M. le Duc d'Orleans to attach 12,000
livres, by way of increase, to my government of Senlis, which was worth
only 1000 livres, and of which my second son had the reversion. I
obtained it at once.
CHAPTER C
About the commencement of the new year, 1720, the system of Law
approached its end. If he had been content with his bank his bank within
wise and proper limits--the money of the realm might have been doubled,
and an extreme facility afforded to commerce and to private enterprise,
because, the establishment always being prepared to meet its liabilities,
the notes it issued would have been as good as ready money, and sometimes
even preferable, on account of the facility of transport. It must be
admitted, however, as I declared to M. le Duc d'Orleans in his cabinet,
and as I openly said in the Council of the Regency when the bank passed
there, that good as this establishment might be in itself, it could only
be so in a republic, or in a monarchy, like that of England, where the
finances are absolutely governed by those who furnish them, and who
simply furnish as much or as little as they please; but in a trivial,
changing, and more than absolute state like France solidity necessarily
is wanting, consequently confidence (at least of a discreet and proper
kind): since a king, and under his name, a mistress, a minister,
favourites; still more, extreme necessities, such as the deceased King
experienced in the years 1707-8-9 and 10,--a hundred things, in fact,
could overthrow the bank, the allurements of which were, at once, too
great and too easy. But to add to the reality of this bank, the chimera
of the Mississippi, with its shares, its special jargon, its science (a
continual juggle for drawing money from one person to give it to
another), was to almost guarantee that these shares should at last end in
smoke (since we had neither mines, nor quarries of the philosopher's
stone), and that the few would be enriched at the expense of the many, as
in fact happened.
What hastened the fall of the bank, and of the system, was the
inconceivable prodigality of M. le Duc d'Orleans, who, without bounds,
and worse still, if it can be, without choice, could not resist the
importunities even of those whom he knew, beyond all doubt, to have been
the most opposed to him, and who were completely despicable, but gave
with open hands; and more frequently allowed money to be drawn from him
by people who laughed at him, and who were grateful only to their
effrontery. People with difficulty believe what they have seen; and
posterity will consider as a fable what we ourselves look upon as a
dream. At last, so much was given to a greedy and prodigal nation,
always covetous and in want on account of its luxury, its disorder, and
its confusion of ranks, that paper became scarce, and the mills could not
furnish enough.
It may be imagined by this, what abuse had been made of a bank,
established as a resource always ready, but which could not exist as such
without being always delicately adjusted; and above all, kept in a state
to meet the obligations it had contracted. I obtained information on
this point from Law, when he came to me on Tuesday mornings; for a long
time he played with me before admitting his embarrassments, and
complained modestly and timidly, that the Regent was ruining everything
by his extravagance. I knew from outsiders more than he thought, and it
was this that induced me to press him upon his balance-sheet. In
admitting to me, at last, although faintly, what he could no longer hide,
he assured me he should not be wanting in resources provided M. le Duc
d'Orleans left him free. That did not persuade me. Soon after, the
notes began to lose favour; then to fall into discredit, and the
discredit to become public. Then came the necessity to sustain them by
force, since they could no longer be sustained by industry; and the
moment force showed itself every one felt that all was over. Coercive
authority was resorted to; the use of gold, silver, and jewels was
suppressed (I speak of coined money); it was pretended that since the
time of Abraham,--Abraham, who paid ready money for the sepulchre of
Sarah,--all the civilised nations in the world had been in the greatest
error and under the grossest delusion, respecting money and the metals it
is made of; that paper alone was useful and necessary; that we could not
do greater harm to our neighbours--jealous of our greatness and of our
advantages--than to send to them all our money and all our jewels; and
this idea was in no way concealed, for the Indian Company was allowed to
visit every house, even Royal houses, confiscate all the louis d'or, and
the coins it could find there; and to leave only pieces of twenty sous
and under (to the amount of not more than 200 francs), for the odd money
of bills, and in order to purchase necessary provisions of a minor kind,
with prohibitions, strengthened by heavy punishment, against keeping
more; so that everybody was obliged to take all the ready money he
possessed to the bank, for fear of its being discovered by a valet. But
nobody, as may be imagined, was persuaded of the justice of the power
accorded to the Company, and accordingly authority was more and more
exerted; all private houses were searched, informations were laid against
people in order that no money might be kept back, or if it were, that the
guilty parties might be severely punished.
Never before had sovereign power been so violently exercised, never had
it attacked in such a manner the temporal interests of the community.
Therefore was it by a prodigy, rather than by any effort or act of the
government, that these terribly new ordonnances failed to produce the
saddest and most complete revolutions; but there was not even talk of
them; and although there were so many millions of people, either
absolutely ruined or dying of hunger, and of the direst want, without
means to procure their daily subsistence, nothing more than complaints
and groans was heard.
This violence was, however, too excessive, and in every respect too
indefensible to last long; new paper and new juggling tricks were of
necessity resorted to; the latter were known to be such--people felt them
to be such--but they submitted to them rather than not have twenty crowns
in safety in their houses; and a greater violence made people suffer the
smaller. Hence so many projects, so many different faces in finance, and
all tending to establish one issue of paper upon another; that is to say,
always causing loss to the holders of the different paper (everybody
being obliged to hold it), and the universal multitude. This is what
occupied all the rest of the government, and of the life of M. le Duc
d'Orleans; which drove Law out of the realm; which increased six-fold the
price of all merchandise, all food even the commonest; which ruinously
augmented every kind of wages, and ruined public and private commerce;
which gave, at the expense of the public, sudden riches to a few noblemen
who dissipated it, and were all the poorer in a short time; which enabled
many financiers' clerks, and the lowest dregs of the people, profiting by
the general confusion, to take advantage of the Mississippi, and make
enormous fortunes; which occupied the government several years after the
death of M. le Duc d'Orleans; and which, to conclude, France never will
recover from, although it may be true that the value of land is
considerably augmented. As a last affliction, the all-powerful,
especially the princes and princesses of the blood, who had been mixed
up, in the Mississippi, and who had used all their authority to escape
from it without loss, re-established it upon what they called the Great
Western Company, which with the same juggles and exclusive trade with the
Indies, is completing the annihilation of the trade of the realm,
sacrificed to the enormous interest of a small number of private
individuals, whose hatred and vengeance the government has not dared to
draw upon itself by attacking their delicate privileges.
Several violent executions, and confiscations of considerable sums found
in the houses searched, took place. A certain Adine, employed at the
bank, had 10,000 crowns confiscated, was fined 10,000 francs, and lost
his appointment. Many people hid their money with so much secrecy, that,
dying without being able to say where they had put it, these little
treasures remained buried and lost to the heirs.
In the midst of the embarrassments of the finances, and in spite of them,
M. le Duc d'Orleans continued his prodigal gifts. He attached pensions
of 6000 livres and 4000 livres to the grades of lieutenant-general and
camp-marshal. He gave a pension of 20,000 livres to old Montauban; one
of 6000 livres to M. de Montauban (younger brother of the Prince de
Guemene); and one of 6000 livres to the Duchesse de Brissac. To several
other people he gave pensions of 4000 livres; to eight or ten others,
3000 or 2000 livres. I obtained one of 8000 livres for Madame Marechal
de Lorges; and one of 6000 livres was given to the Marechal de Chamilly,
whose affairs were much deranged by the Mississippi. M. de Soubise and
the Marquis Noailles had each upwards of 200,000 livres. Even Saint-
Genies, just out of the Bastille, and banished to Beauvais, had a pension
of 1000. Everybody in truth wanted an augmentation of income, on account
of the extreme high price to which the commonest, almost necessary things
had risen, and even all other things; which, although at last diminshed
by degrees, remain to this day much dearer than they were before the
Mississippi.
The pensions being given away, M. le Duc d'Orleans began to think how he
could reduce the public expenditure. Persuaded by those in whose
financial knowledge he had most confidence, he resolved to reduce to two
per cent. the interest upon all the funds. This much relieved those who
paid, but terribly cut down the income of those who received, that is to
say, the creditors of the state, who had lent their money at five per
cent., according to the loan--and, public faith and usage, and who had
hitherto peacefully enjoyed that interest. M. le Duc d'Orleans assembled
at the Palais Royal several financiers of different rank, and resolved
with them to pass this edict. It made much stir among the Parliament
men, who refused to register it. But M. le Duc d'Orleans would not
change his determination, and maintained his decree in spite of them.
By dint of turning and turning around the Mississippi, not to say of
juggling with it, the desire came to establish, according to the example
of the English, colonies in the vast countries beyond the seas. In order
to people these colonies, persons without means of livelihood, sturdy
beggars, female and male, and a quantity of public creatures were carried
off. If this had been executed with discretion and discernment, with the
necessary measures and precautions, it would have ensured the object
proposed, and relieved Paris and the provinces of a heavy, useless, and
often dangerous burthen; but in Paris and elsewhere so much violence, and
even more roguery, were mixed up with it, that great murmuring was
excited. Not the slightest care had been taken to provide for the
subsistence of so many unfortunate people, either while in the place they
were to embark from, or while on the road to reach it; by night they were
shut up, with nothing to eat, in barns, or in the dry ditches of the
towns they stopped in, all means of egress being forbidden them. They
uttered cries which excited pity and indignation; but the alms collected
for them not being sufficient, still less the little their conductors
gave them, they everywhere died in frightful numbers.
[Illustration: Mississippi Colonization--Painted by C. E. Delort--1176]
This inhumanity, joined to the barbarity of the conductors, to violence
of a kind unknown until this, and to the rascality of carrying off people
who were not of the prescribed quality, but whom others thus got rid of
by whispering a word in the ear of the conductors and greasing their
palms; all these things, I say, caused so much stir, so much excitement,
that the system, it was found, could not be kept up. Some troops had
been embarked, and during the voyage were not treated much better than
the others. The persons already collected were set at liberty, allowed
to do what they pleased, and no more were seized. Law, regarded as the
author of these seizures, became much detested, and M. le Duc d'Orleans
repented having ever fallen in with the scheme.
The 22nd of May of this year, 1720, became celebrated by the publication
of a decree of the Council of State, concerning the shares of the Company
of the Indies (the same as that known under the name of Mississippi) and
the notes of Law's bank. This decree diminished by degrees, and from
month to month, the value of the shares and the notes, so that, by the
end of the year, that value would have been reduced one-half.
This, in the language of finance and of bankruptcy, was to turn tail with
a vengeance: and its effect, while remedying nothing, was to make people
believe that things were in a worse state than was actually the case.
Argenson, who, as we have seen, had been turned out of the finances to
make room for Law, was generally accused of suggesting this decree out of
malice, already foreseeing all the evils that must arise from it. The
uproar was general and frightful. There was not a rich person who did
not believe himself lost without resource; not a poor one who did not see
himself reduced to beggary. The Parliament, so opposed to the new money
system, did not let slip this fine opportunity. It rendered itself the
protector of the public by refusing to register the decree, and by
promptly uttering the strongest remonstrance against it. The public even
believed that to the Parliament was due the sudden revocation of the
edict, which, however, was simply caused by the universal complaining,
and the tardy discovery of the fault committed in passing it. The little
confidence in Law remaining was now radically extinguished; not an atom
of it could ever be set afloat again. Seditious writings and analytical
and reasonable pamphlets rained on all sides, and the consternation was
general.
The Parliament assembled on Monday, the 27th of May, in the morning, and
named certain of its members to go to M. le Duc d'Orleans, with
remonstrances against the decree. About noon of the same day, M. le Duc
d'Orleans sent La Vrilliere to say to the Parliament that he revoked that
decree, and that the notes would remain as before. La Vrilliere, finding
that the Parliament had adjourned, went to the Chief-President, to say
with what he was charged. After dinner the Parliamentary deputies came
to the Palais Royal, where they were well received; M. le Duc d'Orleans
confirmed what they had already heard from La Vrilliere, and said to them
that he would re-establish the funds of the Hotel de Ville at two-and-a-
half percent. The deputies expected that in justice and in goodness he
ought to raise them to at least three per cent. M. le Duc d'Orleans
answered, that he should like not only to raise them to three, but to
four, nay, five per cent.; but that the state of affairs would not permit
him to go beyond two-and-a-half. On the next day was published the
counter-decree, which placed the shares and actions as they were before
the 22nd of May. The decree of that date was therefore revoked in six
days, after having caused such a strange effect.
On Wednesday, the 29th, a pretty little comedy was played. Le Blanc,
Secretary of State, went to Law, told him that M. le Duc d'Orleans
discharged him from his office as comptroller-general of the finances,
thanked him for the attention he had given to it, and announced that as
many people in Paris did not like him, a meritorious officer should keep
guard in his house to prevent any accident that might happen to him. At
the same time, Benzualde, major of the regiment of Swiss guards, arrived
with sixteen of his men to remain night and day in Law's house.
The Scotchman did not in the least expect this dismissal or this guard,
but he appeared very tranquil respecting both, and maintained his usual
coolness. The next day he was taken by the Duc de la Force to the Palais
Royal. Then comedy number two was played. M. le Duc d'Orleans refused
to see the financier, who went away without an interview. On the day
after, however, Law was admitted by the back stairs, closeted with the
Regent, and was treated by him as well as ever. The comedies were over.
On Sunday, the 2nd of June, Benzualde and his Swiss withdrew from Law's
house. Stock-jobbing was banished at the same time from the Rue
Quincampoix, and established in the Place Vendome. In this latter place
there was more room for it. The passers-by were not incommoded. Yet
some people did not find it as convenient as the other. At this time the
King gave up to the bank one hundred million of shares he had in it.
On the 5th July, a decree of the Council was issued, prohibiting people
from possessing jewels, from keeping them locked up, or from selling them
to foreigners. It may be imagined what a commotion ensued. This decree
was grafted upon a number of others, the object of all, too visibly,
being to seize upon all coin, in favour of the discredited paper, in
which nobody could any longer have the slightest confidence. In vain M.
le Duc d'Orleans, M. le Duc, and his mother, tried to persuade others, by
getting rid of their immense stores of jewels, that is to say, by sending
them abroad on a journey--nothing more: not a person was duped by this
example; not a person omitted to conceal his jewels very carefully: a
thing much more easy to accomplish than the concealment of gold or silver
coin, on account of the smaller value of precious stones. This jewellery
eclipse was not of long duration.
CHAPTER CI
Immediately after the issue of this decree an edict was drawn up for the
establishment of an Indian commercial company, which was to undertake to
reimburse in a year six, hundred millions of bank notes, by paying fifty
thousand dollars per month. Such was the last resource of Law and his
system. For the juggling tricks of the Mississippi, it was found
necessary to substitute something real; especially since the edict of the
22nd of May, so celebrated and so disastrous for the paper. Chimeras
were replaced by realities--by a true India Company; and it was this name
and this thing which succeeded, which took the place of the undertaking
previously known as the Mississippi. It was in vain that the tobacco
monopoly and a number of other immense monopolies were given to the new
company; they could not enable it to meet the proper claims spread among
the public, no matter what trouble might be taken to diminish them at all
hazard and at all loss.
It was now necessary to seek other expedients. None could be found
except that of rendering this company a commercial one; this was, under a
gentler name, a name vague and unpretending, to hand over to it the
entire and exclusive commerce of the country. It may be imagined how
such a resolution was received by the public, exasperated by the severe
decree, prohibiting people, under heavy penalties, from having more than
five-hundred livres, in coin, in their possession, subjecting them to
visits of inspection, and leaving them nothing but bank notes to, pay for
the commonest necessaries of daily life. Two things resulted; first,
fury, which day by day was so embittered by the difficulty of obtaining
money for daily subsistence, that it was a marvel all Paris did not
revolt at once, and that the emeute was appeased; second, the Parliament,
taking its stand upon this public emotion, held firm to the end in
refusing to register the edict instituting the new company.
On the 15th of July, the Chancellor showed in his own house the draught
of the edict to deputies from the Parliament, who remained with him until
nine o'clock at night, without being persuaded. On the morrow, the 16th,
the edict was brought forward in the Regency Council. M. le Duc
d'Orleans, sustained by M. le Duc, spoke well upon it, because he could
not speak ill, however bad his theme. Nobody said a word, and all bowed
their necks. It was resolved, in this manner, to send the edict to the
Parliament on the morrow, the 17th of July.
That same 17th of July, there was such a crowd in the morning, at the
bank and in the neighbouring streets, for the purpose of obtaining enough
money to go to market with, that ten or twelve people were stifled.
Three of the bodies were tumultuously carried to the Palais Royal, which
the people, with loud cries, wished to enter. A detachment of the King's
guards at the Tuileries was promptly sent there. La Vrilliere and Le
Blanc separately harangued the people. The lieutenant of police came;
brigades of the watch were sent for. The dead bodies were afterwards
carried away, and by gentleness and cajoleries the people were at length
dispersed. The detachment of the King's guards returned to the
Tuileries. By about ten o'clock in the morning, all being over, Law took
it into his head to go to the Palais Royal. He received many
imprecations as he passed through the streets. M. le Duc d'Orleans
thought it would be well not to let him leave the Palais Royal, and gave
him a lodging there. He sent back Law's carriage, however, the windows
of which were smashed on the way by the stones thrown at them. Law's
house, too, was attacked, amid much breaking of windows. All this was
known so late in our quarter of the Jacobins of the Saint-Dominique, that
when I arrived at the Palais Royal there was not a vestige visible of any
disturbance. M. le Duc d'Orleans, in the midst of a very small company,
was very tranquil, and showed that you would not please him unless you
were so also. I did not stop long, having nothing to do or say.
This same morning the edict was carried to the Parliament, which refused
to register it, and sent a deputation to M. le Duc d'Orleans with its
reasons for this, at which the Regent was much vexed. The next morning
an ordonnance of the King was pasted all over the town, prohibiting the
people, under heavy penalties, to assemble, and announcing that in
consequence of the disturbances which had taken place the previous day at
the bank, that establishment would remain closed until further notice,
and no more money would be paid by it. Luck supplied the place of
prudence; for people knew not how they were to live in the meanwhile, yet
no fresh disturbance occurred fact which shows the goodness and obedience
of the people, subjected to so many and to such strange trials. Troops,
however, were collected at Charenton, who were at work upon the canal of
Montargis: some regiments of cavalry and of dragoons were stationed at
Saint-Denis, and the King's regiment was posted upon the heights of
Chaillot. Money was sent to Gonesse to induce the bakers to come as
usual, and for fear they should refuse bank notes, like the Paris workmen
and shopkeepers, nearly all of whom would no longer receive any paper,
the regiment of the guards had orders to hold itself ready, and the
musketeers to keep within their quarters, their horses saddled and
bridled.
As for the Parliament, M. le Duc d'Orleans determined to punish its
disobedience by sending it to Blois. This resolution was carried in full
council. The Regent hoped that the Parliamentary men, accustomed to the
comfort of their Paris homes, and to the society there of their wives;
children, and friends, would soon grow tired of being separated from
them, and of the extra expense they would be put to, and would give in.
I agreed to the project, although I saw, alas! that by this exile the
Parliament would be punished, but would be neither conciliated nor tamed
into submission. To make matters worse, Blois was given up, and Pontoise
was substituted for it! This latter town being close to Paris, the
chastisement became ridiculous, showed the vacillating weakness of the
Regent, and encouraged the Parliament to laugh at him. One thing was,
however, well done. The resolution taken to banish the Parliament was
kept so secret that that assembly had not the slightest knowledge of it.
On Sunday, the 21st of July, squadrons of the guards, with officers at
their head, took possession, at four o'clock in the morning, of all the
doors of the Palais de justice. The musketeers seized at the same time
upon the doors of the Grand Chamber, whilst others invaded the house of
the Chief-President, who was in much fear during the first hour. Other
musketeers went in parties of four to all the officers of the Parliament,
and served them with the King's order, commanding them to repair to
Pontoise within twice twenty-four hours. All passed off very politely on
both sides, so that there was not the slightest complaint: several
members obeyed the same day and went to Pontoise.
Rather late in the evening M. le Duc d'Orleans sent to the Attorney-
General 200,000 livres in coin, and as much in bank notes of 100 livres,
and of 10 livres to be given to those who should need them for the
journey, but not as gifts. The Chief-President was more brazen and more
fortunate; he made so many promises, showed so much meanness, employed so
much roguery, that abusing by these means the feebleness and easiness of
the Regent, whom he laughed at, he obtained more than 100,000 ecus for
his expenses. The poor prince gave him the money, under the rose, in two
or three different payments, and permitted the Duc de Bouillon to lend
him his house at Pontoise, completely furnished, and the garden of which,
on the banks of the river, is admirable and immense, a masterpiece of its
kind, and had been the delight of Cardinal Bouillon, being perhaps the
only thing in France he regretted. With such fine assistance the Chief-
President--on bad terms with his companions, who had openly despised him
for some time--perfectly made it up with them. He kept at Pontoise open
table for the Parliament; all were every day at liberty to use it if they
liked, so that there were always several tables, all equally, delicately,
and splendidly served. He sent, too, to those who asked for them,
liquors, etc., as they could desire. Cooling drinks and fruits of all
kinds were abundantly served every afternoon, and there were a number of
little one and two-horse vehicles always ready for the ladies and old men
who liked a drive, besides play-tables in the apartments until supper
time. The result of all this magnificence was, as I have said, that the
Chief-President completely reinstated himself in the good graces of his
companions; but it was at the expense of the Regent, who was laughed at
for his pains. A large number of the members of the Parliament did not
go to Pontoise at all, but took advantage of the occasion to recreate
themselves in the country. Only a few of the younger members mounted
guard in the assembly, where nothing but the most trivial and make-
believe business was conducted. Everything important was deliberately
neglected. Woe! to those, therefore, who had any trial on hand. The
Parliament, in a word, did nothing but divert itself, leave all business
untouched, and laugh at the Regent and the government. Banishment to
Pontoise was a fine punishment!
This banishment of the Parliament to Pontoise was followed by various
financial operations and by several changes in the administrations. Des
Forts had the general control of the finances and all authority, but
without the name. The disordered state of the exchequer did not hinder
M. le Duc d'Orleans from indulging in his strange liberalities to people
without merit and without need, and not one of whom he could possibly
care a straw for. He gave to Madame la Grande Duchesse an augmentation
of her pension of 50,000 livres; one of 8,000 livres to Trudaine: one of
9,000 livres to Chateauneuf; one of 8,000 livres to Bontems, chief valet
de chambre of the King; one of 6,000 livres to the Marechal de
Montesquieu; one of 3,000 livres to Faucault; and one of 9,000 livres to
the widow of the Duc d'Albemarle, secretly remarried to the son of
Mahoni.
All this time the public stock-jobbing still continued on the Place
Vendome. The Mississippi had tempted everybody. It was who should fill
his pockets first with millions, through M. le Duc d'Orleans and Law.
The crowd was very great. One day the Marechal de Villars traversed the
Place Vendome in a fine coach, loaded with pages and lackeys, to make way
for which the mob of stock-jobbers had some difficulty. The Marechal
upon this harangued the people in his braggart manner from the carriage
window, crying out against the iniquity of stock-jobbing, and the shame
it cast upon all. Until this point he had been allowed to say on, but
when he thought fit to add that his own hands were clean, and that he had
never dabbled in shares, a voice uttered a cutting sarcasm, and all the
crowd took up the word, at which the Marechal, ashamed and confounded,
despite his ordinary authority, buried himself in his carriage and
finished his journey across the Place Vendome at a gentle trot in the
midst of a hue and cry, which followed him even beyond, and which
diverted Paris at his expense for several days, nobody pitying him.
At last it was found that this stock-jobbing too much embarrassed the
Place Vendome and the public way; it was transferred, therefore, to the
vast garden of the Hotel de Soissons. This was, in fact, its proper
place. Law, who had remained at the Palais Royal some time, had returned
to his own house, where he received many visits. The King several times
went to see the troops that had been stationed near Paris; after this
they were sent away again. Those which had formed a little camp at
Charenton, returned to Montargis to work at the canal making there.
Law, for commercial reasons, had some time ago caused Marseilles to be
made a free port. The consequence of this was that an abundance of
vessels came there, especially vessels from the Levant, and from want of
precautions the plague came also, lasted a long while, desolated the
town, province; and the neighbouring provinces. The care and precautions
afterwards taken restrained it as much as possible, but did not hinder it
from lasting a long time, or from creating frightful disorders. These
details are so well known that they can be dispensed with here.
I have a few more words to say of Law and his Mississippi. The bubble
finally burst at the end of the year (1720). Law, who had no more
resources, being obliged secretly to depart from the realm, was
sacrificed to the public. His flight was known only through the eldest
son of Argenson, intendant at Mainbeuge, who had the stupidity to arrest
him. The courier he despatched with the news was immediately sent back,
with a strong reprimand for not having deferred to the passport with
which Law had been furnished by the Regent. The financier was with his
son, and they both went to Brussels where the Marquis de Prie, Governor
of the Imperial Low Countries, received them very well, and entertained
them. Law did not stop long, gained Liege and Germany, where he offered
his talents to several princes, who all thanked him; nothing more. After
having thus roamed, he passed through the Tyrol, visited several Italian
courts, not one of which would have him, and at last retired to Venice.
This republic, however, did not employ him. His wife and daughter
followed him some time after. I don't know what became of them or of the
son.
Law was a Scotchman; of very doubtful birth; tall and well made; of
agreeable face and aspect; gallant, and on very good terms with the
ladies of all the countries he had travelled in. His wife was not his
wife; she was of a good English family and well connected; had followed
Law for love; had had a son and a daughter by him, passed for his wife,
and bore his name without being married to him. This was suspected
towards the end; after his departure it became certain. She had one eye
and the top of one cheek covered by an ugly stain as of wine; otherwise
she was well made, proud, impertinent in her conversation and in her
manners, receiving compliments, giving next to none, paying but few
visits, these rare and selected, and exercising authority in her
household. I know not whether her credit over her husband was great; but
he appeared full of regard, of care, and of respect for her; at the time
of their departure they were each about fifty and fifty-five years old.
Law had made many acquisitions of all kinds and still more debts, so that
this tangle is not yet unravelled by the committee of the council
appointed to arrange his affairs with his creditors. I have said
elsewhere, and I repeat it here, that there was neither avarice nor
roguery in his composition. He was a gentle, good, respectable man, whom
excess of credit and fortune had not spoiled, and whose deportment,
equipages, table, and furniture could not scandalise any one. He
suffered with singular patience and constancy all the vexations excited
by his operations, until towards the last, when, finding himself short of
means and wishing to meet his difficulty, he became quick and bad-
tempered, and his replies were often ill-measured. He was a man of
system, of calculation, of comparison, well and profoundly instructed in
these things, and, without ever cheating, had everywhere gained at play
by dint of understanding--which seems to me incredible--the combinations
of cards.
His bank, as I have elsewhere said, was an excellent thing for a
republic, or for a country like England, where finance is as in a
republic. His Mississippi he was the dupe of, and believed with good
faith he should make great and rich establishments in America. He
reasoned like an Englishman, and did not know how opposed to commerce and
to such establishments are the frivolity of the (French) nation, its
inexperience, its avidity to enrich itself at once, the inconvenience of
a despotic government, which meddles with everything, which has little or
no consistency, and in which what one minister does is always destroyed
by his successor.
Law's proscription of specie, then of jewels, so as to have only paper in
France, is a system I have never comprehended, nor has anybody, I fancy,
during all the ages which have elapsed since that in which Abraham, after
losing Sarah, bought, for ready-money, a sepulchre for her and for her
children. But Law was a man of system, and of system so deep, that
nobody ever could get to the bottom of it, though he spoke easily, well
and clearly, but with a good deal of English in his French.
He remained several years at Venice, upon very scanty means, and died
there a Catholic, having lived decently, but very humbly, wisely, and
modestly, and received with piety the last sacraments of the Church.
Thus terminates all I have to say of Law. But a painful truth remains.
I have to speak of the woful disorder in the finances which his system
led to, disorder which was not fully known until after his departure from
France. Then people saw, at last, where all the golden schemes that had
flooded upon popular credulity had borne us;--not to the smiling and
fertile shores of Prosperity and Confidence, as may be imagined; but to
the bleak rocks and dangerous sands of Ruin and Mistrust, where dull
clouds obscure the sky, and where there is no protection against the
storm.
CHAPTER CII
Not long after the flight of Law, that is to say, on Sunday, the 24th of
January, of the new year, 1721, a council was held at the Tuileries, at
four o'clock in the afternoon, principally for the purpose of examining
the state of the finances and of Law's Bank and India Company. It was,
in fact, high time to do something to diminish the overgrown disorder and
confusion everywhere reigning. For some time there had been complete
stagnation in all financial matters; the credit of the King had step by
step diminished, private fortune had become more and more uncertain. The
bag was at last empty, the cards were cast aside, the last trick was
played: The administration of the finances had passed into the hands of
La Houssaye, and his first act was to call the attention of the Regency
Council to the position of the bank and the company. We were prepared to
hear that things were in a very bad state, but we were scarcely prepared
to find that they so closely resembled utter ruin and bankruptcy.
I need not relate all that passed at this council; the substance of it is
enough. From the statement there of M. le Duc d'Orleans, it appeared
that Law had issued 1,200,000,000 livres of bank notes more than he ought
to have issued. The first 600,00,000 livres had not done much harm,
because they had been kept locked up in the bank; but after the 22nd of
May, another issue of 600,000,000 had taken place, and been circulated
among the public, without the knowledge of the Regent, without the
authorisation of any decree. "For this," said M. le Duc d'Orleans, "Law
deserved to be hanged, but under the circumstances of the case, I drew
him from his embarrassment, by an ante-dated decree, ordering the issue
of this quantity of notes."
Thereupon M. le Duc said to the Regent, "But, Monsieur, why, knowing
this, did you allow him to leave the realm?"
"It was you who furnished him with the means to do so," replied M. le Duc
d'Orleans.
"I never asked you to allow him to quit the country," rejoined M. le Duc.
"But," insisted the Regent, "it was you yourself who sent him his
passports."
"That's true," replied M. le Duc, "but it was you who gave them to me to
send to him; but I never asked you for them, or to let him leave the
realm. I know that I have the credit for it amongst the public, and I am
glad of this opportunity to explain here the facts of the case. I was
against the proposition for sending M. Law to the Bastille, or to any
other prison, because I believed that it was not to your interest to
sanction this, after having made use of him as you had; but I never asked
you to let him leave the realm, and I beg you, Monsieur, in presence of
the King, and before all these gentlemen, to say if I ever did."
"'Tis true," replied the Regent, "you never asked me; I allowed him to
go, because I thought his presence in France would injure public credit,
and the operations of the public."
"So far was I from asking you," said M. le Duc, "that if you had done me
the honour to demand my opinion, I should have advised you to take good
care not to let him depart from the country."
This strange conversation, which roused our astonishment to an incredible
point, and which was sustained with so much out-spoken freedom by M. le
Duc, demands a word or two of explanation.
M. le Duc was one of those who, without spending a farthing, had drawn
millions from Law's notes and shares. He had had large allotments of the
latter, and now that they had become utterly valueless, he had been
obliged to make the best of a bad bargain, by voluntarily giving them up,
in order to lighten the real responsibilities of the Company. This he
had done at the commencement of the Council, M. le Prince de Conti also.
But let me explain at greater length.
The 22nd of May, the day of the decree, was the period at which commenced
the final decay of the Company, and of the bank, and the extinction of
all confidence by the sad discovery that there was no longer any money
wherewith to pay the bank notes, they being so prodigiously in excess of
the coin. After this, each step had been but a stumble: each operation a
very feeble palliation. Days and weeks had been gained, obscurity had
been allowed to give more chance, solely from fear of disclosing the true
and terrible state of affairs, and the extent of the public ruin. Law
could not wash his hands of all this before the world; he could not avoid
passing for the inventor and instrument, and he would have run great risk
at the moment when all was unveiled. M. le Duc d'Orleans, who, to
satisfy his own prodigality, and the prodigious avidity of his friends,
had compelled Law to issue so many millions of livres of notes more than
he had any means of paying, and who had thus precipitated him into the
abyss, could not let him run the chance of perishing, still less to save
him, could he proclaim himself the real criminal. It was to extricate
himself from this embarrassment that he made Law leave the country, when
he saw that the monstrous deceit could no longer be hidden.
This manifestation, which so strongly interested the shareholders, and
the holders of bank notes, especially those who had received shares or
notes as favours due to their authority, and who could show no other
title to them, threw every one into despair. The most important holders,
such as the Princes of the Blood, and others, whose profits had been
immense, had by force or industry delayed this manifestation as long as
possible. As they knew the real state of affairs, they felt that the
moment all the world knew it also, their gains would cease, and their
paper become worthless, that paper from which they had drawn so much, and
which had not cost them a farthing! This is what induced M. le Duc
d'Orleans to hide from them the day of this manifestation, so as to avoid
being importuned by them; and by a surprise, to take from them the power
of preparing any opposition to the measures it was proposed to carry out.
M. le Duc, when he learned this, flew into a fury, and hence the strange
scene between him and M. le Duc d'Orleans, which scandalised and
terrified everybody in the Council.
M. le Duc d'Orleans, who, from taste, and afterwards from necessity,
lived upon schemes and trickery, thought he had done marvels in saddling
M. le Duc with the passport of Law. He wished to lay the blame of Law's
departure upon M. le Duc; but as I have shown, he was defeated by his own
weapons. He had to do with a man as sharp as himself. M. le Duc, who
knew he had nothing to fear, would not allow it to be supposed that he
had sanctioned the flight of the financier. That was why he pressed M.
le Duc d'Orleans so pitilessly, and forced him to admit that he had never
asked him to allow Law to leave the country.
The great and terrible fact brought out by this Council was, that Law,
without the knowledge or authority of the Regent, had issued and
disseminated among the public 600,000,000 livres of notes; and not only
without being authorised by any edict, but contrary to express
prohibition. But when the Regent announced this, who did he suppose
would credit it? Who could believe that Law would have had the hardihood
to issue notes at this rate without the sanction and approbation of his
master?
However, to leave once and for all these unpleasant matters, let me say
what was resolved upon by way of remedy to the embarrassments discovered
to exist. The junction of the India Company with the bank, which had
taken place during the previous February, had led to transactions which
made the former debtor to the latter to an immense amount. But the bank
being a governmental establishment, the King became thus the creditor of
the Company. It was decreed, in fact, that the Company should be
considered as debtor to the King. It was decided, however, that other
debtors should receive first attention. Many private people had invested
their money in the shares of the Company. It was not thought just that
by the debt of the Company to the King, these people should be ruined;
or, on the other hand, that those who had left the Company in good time,
who had converted their shares into notes, or who had bought them at a
low price in the market, should profit by the misfortune of the bona fide
shareholders. Accordingly, commissioners, it was decided, were to be
named, to liquidate all these papers and parchments, and annul those
which did not proceed from real purchases.
M. le Duc said, upon this, "There are at least eighty thousand families,
the whole of whose wealth consists of these effects; how are they to live
during this liquidation?"
La Houssaye replied, that so many commissioners could be named, that the
work would soon be done.
And so the Council ended.
But I must, perforce, retrace my steps at this point to many other
matters, which I have left far behind me in going on at once to the end
of this financial labyrinth. And first let me tell what happened to that
monstrous personage, Alberoni, how he fell from the lofty pinnacle of
dower on which he had placed himself, and lost all consideration and all
importance in the fall. The story is mightily curious and instructive.
CHAPTER CIII
Alberoni had made himself detested by all Europe,--for all Europe, in one
way or another, was the victim of his crimes. He was detested as the
absolute master of Spain, whose guides were perfidy, ambition, personal
interest, views always oblique, often caprice, sometimes madness; and
whose selfish desires, varied and diversified according to the fantasy
of the moment, were hidden under schemes always uncertain and oftentimes
impossible of execution. Accustomed to keep the King and Queen of Spain
in chains, and in the narrowest and obscurest prison, where he allowed
them to communicate with no one, and made them see, feel, and breathe
through him, and blindly obey his every wish; he caused all Spain to
tremble, and had annihilated all power there, except his own, by the most
violent acts, constraining himself in no way, despising his master and
his mistress, whose will and whose authority he had utterly absorbed.
He braved successively all the powers of Europe, and aspired to nothing
less than to deceive them all, then to govern them, making them serve all
his ends; and seeing at last his cunning exhausted, tried to execute
alone, and without allies, the plan he had formed.
This plan was nothing less than to take away from the Emperor all that
the peace of Utrecht had left him in Italy; all that the Spanish house of
Austria had possessed there; to dominate the Pope and the King of Sicily;
to deprive the Emperor of the help of France and England, by exciting the
first against the Regent through the schemes of the ambassador Cellamare
and the Duc du Maine; and by sending King James to England, by the aid of
the North, so as to keep King George occupied with a civil war. In the
end he wished to profit by all these disorders, by transporting into
Italy (which his cardinalship made him regard as a safe asylum against
all reverses) the immense treasures he had pillaged and collected m
Spain, under pretext of sending the sums necessary to sustain the war,
and the conquests he intended to make; and this last project was,
perhaps, the motive power of all the rest. The madness of these schemes,
and his obstinacy in clinging to them, were not discovered until
afterwards. The astonishment then was great indeed, upon discovering the
poverty of the resources with which he thought himself capable of
carrying out these wild projects. Yet he had made such prodigious
preparations for war, that he had entirely exhausted the country without
rendering it able for a moment to oppose the powers of Europe.
Alberoni, abhorred in Spain as a cruel tyrant, in France, in England, in
Rome, and by the Emperor as an implacable and personal enemy, did not
seem to have the slightest uneasiness. Yet he might have had some, and
with good cause, at the very moment when he fancied himself most powerful
and most secure.
The Regent and the Abbe Dubois, who for a long time had only too many
reasons to regard Alberoni as their personal enemy, were unceasingly
occupied in silently plotting his fall; they believed the present moment
favourable, and did not fail to profit by it. How they did so is a
curious fact, which, to my great regret, has never reached me. M. le Duc
d'Orleans survived Dubois such a few months that many things I should
have liked to have gained information upon, I had not the time to ask him
about; and this was one.
All I know is, that what Alberoni always dreaded, at last happened to
him. He trembled, at every one, no matter of how little importance, who
arrived from Parma (the Queen of Spain, it has not been forgotten, was of
that Duchy); he omitted nothing by the aid of the Duke of Parma, and by
other means, to hinder the Parmesans from coming to Madrid; and was in
terror of the few of those whose journey he could not hinder, and whose
dismissal he could not obtain.
Among these few people there was nobody he feared so much as the Queen's
nurse, whom he drew up with a round turn occasionally, so to speak, but
less from policy than ill-temper. This nurse, who was a rough country-
woman of Parma, was named Donna Piscatori Laura. She had arrived in
Spain some years after the Queen, who had always liked her, and who made
her, shortly after her arrival, her 'assofeta', that is to say, her chief
'femme de chambre'; an office more considerable in Spain than with us.
Laura had brought her husband with her, a peasant in every way, seen and
known by nobody; but Laura had intelligence, shrewdness, cleverness, and
ambitious views, in spite of the external vulgarity of her manners, which
she had preserved either from habit, or from policy, for make herself
less suspected. Like all persons of this extraction, she was thoroughly
selfish. She was not unaware how impatiently Alberoni endured her
presence, and feared her favour with the Queen, whom he wished to possess
alone; and, more sensible to the gentle taps she from time to time
received from him, than to his ordinary attentions, she looked upon him
simply as a very formidable enemy, who kept her within very narrow
limits, who hindered her from profiting by the favour of the Queen, and
whose design was to send her back to Parma, and to leave nothing undone
until he had carried it out.
This is all the information I have ever been able to obtain. The
probability is, that Donna Laura was gained by the money of the Regent
and the intrigues gained Dubois; and that she succeeded in convincing the
Queen of Spain that Alberoni was a minister who had ruined the country,
who was the sole obstacle in the way of peace, and who had sacrificed
everything and everybody to his personal views, their Catholic Majesties
included. However, as I relate only what I know, I shall be very brief
upon this interesting event.
Laura succeeded. Alberoni, at the moment he least expected it, received
a note from the King of Spain ordering him to withdraw at once, without
attempting to see him or the Queen, or to write to them; and to leave
Spain in twice twenty-four hours! An officer of the guards was to
accompany him until his departure: How this overruling order was
received, and what the Cardinal did, I know not; I only know that he
obeyed it, and took the road for Arragon. So few precautions had been
taken, that he carried off an immense number of papers, money, and
jewels; and it was not until a few days had elapsed, that the King of
Spain was informed that the original will of Charles the Second could not
be found. It was at once supposed that Alberoni had carried away this
precious document (by which Charles the Second named Philippe V. King of
Spain), in order to offer it, perhaps, to the Emperor, so as to gain his
favour and good graces. Alberoni was stopped. It was not without
trouble, the most terrible menaces, and loud cries from him, that he
surrendered the testament, and some other important papers which it was
perceived were missing. The terror he had inspired was so profound,
that, until this moment, no one had dared to show his joy, or to speak,
though the tyrant was gone. But this event reassured every one against
his return, and the result was an unexampled overflow of delight, of
imprecations, and of reports against him, to the King and Queen, of the
most public occurrences (which they alone were ignorant of) and of.
private misdeeds, which it was no longer thought necessary to hide.
M. le Duc d'Orleans did not restrain his joy, still less the Abbe Dubois;
it was their work which had overthrown their personal enemy; with him
fell the wall of separation, so firmly erected by Alberoni between the
Regent and the King of Spain; and (at the same time) the sole obstacle
against peace. This last reason caused joy to burst out in Italy, in
Vienna, in London; and peace between France, and Spain soon resulted.
The allied princes felicitated themselves on what had happened; even the
Dutch were ravished to be delivered of a minister so double-dealing, so
impetuous, so powerful. M. le Duc d'Orleans dispatched the Chevalier de
Morcieu, a very skilful and intelligent man, and certainly in the hands
of the Abbe Dubois, to the extreme confines of the frontiers to wait for
Alberoni, accompanying him until the moment of his embarkation in
Provence for Italy; with orders never to lose sight of him, to make him
avoid the large towns and principal places as much as possible; suffer no
honours to be rendered to him; above all, to hinder him from
communicating with anybody, or anybody with him; in a word, to conduct
him civilly, like a prisoner under guard.
Morcieu executed to the letter this disagreeable commission; all the more
necessary, because, entirely disgraced as was Alberoni, everything was to
be forced from him while traversing a great part of France, where all who
were adverse to the Regent might have recourse to him. Therefore it was
not without good reason that every kind of liberty was denied him.
It may be imagined what was suffered by a man so impetuous, and so
accustomed to unlimited power; but he succeeded in accommodating himself
to such a great and sudden change of condition; in maintaining his self-
possession; in subjecting himself to no refusals; in being sage and
measured in his manners; very reserved in speech, with an air as though
he cared for nothing; and in adapting himself to everything without
questions, without pretension, without complaining, dissimulating
everything, and untiringly pretending to regard Morcieu as an
accompaniment of honour. He received, then, no sort of civility on the
part of the Regent, of Dubois, or of anybody; and performed the day's
journeys, arranged by Morcieu, without stopping, almost without suite,
until he arrived on the shores of the Mediterranean, where he immediately
embarked and passed to the Genoa coast.
Alberoni, delivered of his Argus, and arrived in Italy, found himself in
another trouble by the anger of the Emperor, who would suffer him
nowhere, and by the indignation of the Court of Rome, which prevailed, on
this occasion, over respect for the purple. Alberoni for a long time was
forced to keep out of the way, hidden and a fugitive, and was not able to
approach Rome until the death of the Pope. The remainder of the life of
this most extraordinary man is not a subject for these memoirs. But what
ought not to be forgotten is the last mark of rage, despair, and madness
that he gave in traversing France. He wrote to M. le Duc d'Orleans,
offering to supply him with the means of making a most dangerous war
against Spain; and at Marseilles, ready to embark, he again wrote to
reiterate the same offers, and press them on the Regent.
I cannot refrain from commenting here upon the blindness of allowing
ecclesiastics to meddle with public affairs; above all, cardinals, whose
special privilege is immunity from everything most infamous and most
degrading. Ingratitude, infidelity, revolt, felony, independence, are
the chief characteristics of these eminent criminals.
Of Alberoni's latter days I will say but a few words.
At the death of Clement XI., legal proceedings that had been taken to
deprive Alberoni of his cardinalship, came to an end. Wandering and
hidden in Italy, he was summoned to attend a conclave for the purpose of
electing a new Pope. Alberoni was the opprobrium of the sacred college;
proceedings, as I have said, were in progress to deprive him of his
cardinalship. The King and Queen of Spain evidently stimulated those
proceedings: the Pope just dead had opposed him; but the cardinals would
not agree to his disgrace; they would not consent to strip him of his
dignity. The example would have been too dangerous. That a cardinal,
prince, or great nobleman, should surrender his hat in order to marry,
the store of his house demands it; well and good; but to see a cardinal
deprive himself of his hat by way of penitence, is what his brethren will
not endure. A cardinal may be poisoned, stabbed, got rid of altogether,
but lose his dignity he never can. Rome must be infallible, or she is
nothing.
It was decided, that if, at the election of the new Pope, Alberoni were
not admitted to take part in the proceedings, he always might protest
against them, and declare them irregular. Therefore he was, as I have
said, admitted to the conclave. He arrived in Rome, without display, in
his own coach, and was received in the conclave with the same honours as
all the other cardinals, and performed all the duties of his position.
A few days after the election, he absented himself from Rome, as though
to see whether proceedings would be continued against him. But they fell
of themselves. The new Pope had no interest in them. The cardinals
wished only for silence. Spain felt at last the inutility of her cries.
Dubois was in favour of throwing a veil over his former crimes, so that,
after a short absence, Alberoni hired in Rome a magnificent palace, and
returned there for good, with the attendance, expense, and display his
Spanish spoils supplied. He found himself face to face with the Cardinal
Giudice, and with Madame des Ursins. The three formed a rare triangle,
which caused many a singular scene in home. After seeing them both die,
Alberoni became legate at Ferrara, continued there a long time, little
esteemed at Rome, where he is now living, sound in mind and body, and
eighty-six years of age.
CHAPTER CIV
The King attended the Royal Council for the first time on Sunday, the
18th of February, 1720. He said nothing while there, or on going away,
excepting that when M. le Duc d'Orleans, who feared he might grow weary
of the proceedings, proposed to him to leave, he said he would stop to
the end. After this he did not come always, but often, invariably
remaining to the last, without moving or speaking. His presence changed
nothing in the order of our arrangements, because his armchair was always
there, alone, at the end of the table, and M. le Duc d'Orleans, whether
his Majesty came or not, had but a "stool" similar to those we all sat
upon. Step by step this council had been so much increased, that now, by
the entry of the Duc de Berwick, it numbered sixteen members! To say
truth, we were far too many, and we had several among us who would have
been much better away. I had tried, but in vain, to make the Regent see
this. He did see at last, but it was too late; and meanwhile we were, as
I have stated, sixteen in the council. I remember that one day, when the
King came, a kitten followed him, and some time after jumped upon him,
and thence upon the table, where it began to walk; the Duc de Noailles
immediately crying out, because he did not like cats. M. le Duc
d'Orleans wished to drive the animal away. I smiled, and said, "Oh,
leave the kitten alone, it will make the seventeenth."
M. le Duc d'Orleans burst out laughing at this, and looked at the
company, who laughed also, the King as well. His Majesty briefly spoke
of it to me on the morrow, as though appreciating the joke, which, by the
way, immediately ran over all Paris.
The Abbe Dubois still maintained his pernicious influence over the
Regent, and still looked forward to a cardinalship as the reward of his
scheming, his baseness, and his perfidy. In the meantime, the
Archbishopric of Cambrai became vacant (by the death, at Rome, of the
Cardinal Tremoille). That is to say, the richest archbishopric, and one
of the best posts in the Church. The Abbe Dubois was only tonsured;
150,000 livres, a year tempted him, and perhaps this position, from which
he could more easily elevate himself to the cardinalship. Impudent as he
might be, powerful as might be the empire he had acquired over his
master, he was much embarrassed, and masked his effrontery under a trick.
He said to M. le Duc d'Orleans, he had a pleasant dream; and related to
him that he had dreamt he was Archbishop of Cambrai! The Regent, who
smelt the rat, turned on his heel, and said nothing. Dubois, more and
more embarrassed, stammered, and paraphrased his dream; then, re-assuring
himself by an effort, asked, in an offhand manner, why he should not
obtain it, His Royal Highness, by his will alone, being able thus to make
his fortune.
M. le Duc d'Orleans was indignant, even terrified, little scrupulous as
he might be as to the choice of bishops, and in a tone of contempt
replied to Dubois, "What, you Archbishop of Cambrai!" making him thus
feel his low origin, and still more the debauchery and scandal of his
life. Dubois was, however, too far advanced to stop on the road, and
cited examples; unfortunately these were only too many.
M. le Duc d'Orleans, less touched by such bad reasoning than embarrassed
how to resist the ardor of a man whom for a long time he had not dated to
contradict, tried to get out of the difficulty, by saying, "But you being
such a scoundrel, where will you find another to consecrate you?"
"Oh, if it's only that!" exclaimed Dubois, "the thing is done. I know
very well who will consecrate me; he is not far from here."
"And who the devil is he who will dare to do so?" asked the Regent.
"Would you like to know?" replied the Abbe, "and does the matter rest
only upon that?"
"Well, who?" said the Regent.
"Your chief chaplain," replied Dubois, "who is close at hand. Nothing
will please him better; I will run and speak to him."
And thereupon he embraces the knees of M. le Duc d'Orleans (who, caught
thus in his own trap, had not the strength to refuse), runs to the Bishop
of Nantes, says that he is to have Cambrai, begs the Bishop to consecrate
him, and receives his promise to do so, returns, wheels round, tells M.
le Duc d'Orleans that his chief chaplain has agreed to the consecration;
thanks, praises, admires the Regent, fixes more and more firmly the
office by regarding it as settled, and by persuading M. le Duc d'Orleans,
who dares not say no; and in this manner was Dubois made Archbishop of
Cambrai!
The extreme scandal of this nomination caused a strange, stir. Impudent
as was the Abbe Dubois, he was extremely embarrassed; and M. le Duc
d'Orleans so much ashamed, that it was soon remarked he was humbled if
you spoke to him upon the subject. The next question was, from whom
Dubois was to receive holy orders? The Cardinal de Noailles was applied
to, but he stoutly refused to assist in any way. It may be imagined what
an affront this was to Dubois. He never in his life pardoned the
Cardinal, who was nevertheless universally applauded for his refusal.
But the Abbe Dubois was not a man to be daunted by an ordinary obstacle;
he turned his glances elsewhere, and soon went through all the
formalities necessary.
The very day he took orders there was a Regency Council at the old
Louvre, because the measles, which were then very prevalent, even in the
Palais Royal, hindered us from meeting as usual in the Tuileries.
A Regency Council without the Abbe Dubois present was a thing to marvel
at, and yet his arrival to-day caused even more surprise than his absence
would have caused. But he was not a man to waste his time in
thanksgiving for what had just happened to him. This was a new scandal,
which revived and aggravated the first. Everybody had arrived in the
cabinet of the council, M. le Duc d'Orleans also; we were scattered about
and standing. I was in a corner of the lower end, when I saw Dubois
enter in a stout coat, with his ordinary bearing. We did not expect him
on such a day, and naturally enough cried out surprised. M. le Prince de
Conti, with his father's sneering manner, spoke to the Abbe Dubois, on
his appearance among us on the very day of taking orders, and expressed
his surprise at it with the most pathetic malignity imaginable.
Dubois, who had not had time to reply one word, let him say to the end;
then coldly observed, that if he had been a little more familiar with
ancient history, he would not have found what astonished him very
strange, since he (the Abbe) had only followed the example of Saint-
Ambrose, whose ordination he began to relate. I did not wait for his
recital; at the mere mention of Saint-Ambrose I flew to the other end of
the cabinet, horror-struck at the comparison Dubois had just made, and
fearing lest I should be tempted to say to him, that the ordination of
Saint-Ambrose had been forced upon him in spite of his resistance. This
impious citation of Saint-Ambrose ran all over the town with the effect
that may be imagined. The nomination and this ordination took place
towards the end of February.
I will finish at once all that relates to this matter, so as not to
separate it, or have to return to it. Dubois had his bulls at the
commencement of May, and the consecration was fixed for Sunday the 9th
of June. All Paris and the Court were invited to it, myself excepted.
I was on bad terms with Dubois, because I in no way spared him when with
M. le Duc d'Orleans. He on his side, fearing the power I had over the
Regent, the liberty I enjoyed with him, and the freedom with which I
spoke to him, did as much as he could to injure me, and to weaken the
confidence of M. le Duc d'Orleans in me. Dubois and I continued,
nevertheless, to be on good terms with each other in appearance, but it
was in appearance only.
This consecration was to be magnificent, and M. le Duc d'Orleans was to
be present at it. If the nomination and the ordination of the Abbe
Dubois had caused much stir, scandal, and horror, the superb preparations
for the consecration caused even more: Great was the indignation against
M. le Duc d'Orleans. I went, therefore, to him the evening before this
strange ceremony was to take place, to beg him not to attend it. I
represented to him that the nomination and ordination of the Abbe Dubois
had created frightful effect upon the public, and that the consecration
of a man of such low extraction, and whose manners and mode of life were
so notorious; would create more. I added, that if he attended this
ceremony, people would say it was simply for the purpose of mocking God,
and insulting His Church; that the effect of this would be terrible,
and always much to be feared; and that people would say the Abbe Dubois
abused the mastery he had over him, and that this was evidence of
dependence would draw down upon him hatred, disdain, and shame, the
results of which were to be dreaded. I concluded by saying, that I spoke
to him as his disinterested servitor; that his absence or his presence at
this consecration would change in, nothing the fortune of the Abbe
Dubois, who would be Archbishop of Cambrai all the same without
prostituting his master in the eyes of all France, and of all Europe,
by compelling him to be guilty of a measure to which it would be seen he
had been urged by force. I conjured him not to go; and to show him on
what terms I was with the Abbe Dubois, I explained to him I was the sole
man of rank he had not invited to his consecration; but that,
notwithstanding this circumstance, if he would give me his word that he
would not go, I on my side would agree to go, though my horror at doing
so would be very great.
My discourse, pronounced with warmth and developed with freedom, was
listened to from beginning to end. I was surprised to hear the Regent
say I was right, but I opened my eyes very wide when he embraced me, said
that I spoke like a true friend, and that he would give me his word, and
stick to it, he would not go. We parted upon this, I strengthening him
in his resolution, promising anew I would go, and he thanking me for this
effort. He showed no impatience, no desire that I should go; for I knew
him well, and I examined him to the very bottom of his soul, and quitted
him much pleased at having turned him from a measure so disgraceful and
so extraordinary. Who could have guessed that he would not keep his
word? But so it happened.
Although as I have said I felt sure of him, yet the extreme weakness of
this prince, and the empire the Abbe Dubois had acquired over him;
induced me to be quite certain of him before going to the consecration.
I sent therefore the next morning to the Palais Royal to inquire after M.
le Duc d'Orleans; keeping my carriage all ready for a start. But I was
much confused, accustomed as I might be to his miserable vacillation, to
hear from the person I had sent, that he had just seen the Regent jump
into his coach, surrounded by all the pomp usual on grand occasions,
and set out for the consecration. I had my horses put up at once, and
locked myself into my cabinet.
A day or two after I learnt from a friend of Madame de Parabere, then the
reigning Sultana, but not a faithful one, that M. le Duc d'Orleans had
been with her the previous night, and had spoken to her in praise of me,
saying he would not go to the ceremony, and that he was very grateful to
me for having dissuaded him from going. La Parabere praised me, admitted
I was right, but her conclusion was that he would go.
M. le Duc d'Orleans, surprised, said to her she was then mad.
"Be it so," replied she, "but you will go."
"But I tell you I will not go," he rejoined.
"Yes, yes, I tell you," said she; "you will go."
"But," replied he, "this is admirable. You say M. de Saint-Simon is
quite right, why then should I go?"
"Because I wish it," said she.
"Very good," replied he, "and why do you wish I should go--what madness
is this?"
"I wish it because--," said she.
"Oh, because," replied he, "that's no reason; say why you wish it."
(After some dispute) "You obstinately desire then to know? Are you not
aware that the Abbe Dubois and I quarreled four days ago, and that we
have not yet made it up. He mixes in everything. He will know that you
have been with me to-night. If to-morrow you do not go to his
consecration, he will not fail to believe it is I who have hindered you;
nothing will take this idea out of his head; he will never pardon me;
he will undermine in a hundred ways my credit with you, and finish by
embroiling us. But I don't wish such a thing to happen, and for that
reason you must go to his consecration, although M. de Saint-Simon is
right."
Thereupon ensued a feeble debate, then resolution and promise to go,
which was very faithfully kept.
As for me I could only deplore the feebleness of the Regent, to whom I
never afterwards spoke of this consecration, or he to me; but he was very
much ashamed of himself, and much embarrassed with me afterwards. I do
not know whether he carried his weakness so far as to tell Dubois what I
had said to hinder him from going to the ceremony or whether the Abbe was
told by La Parabere, who thought thus to take credit to herself for
having changed the determination of M. le Duc d'Orleans, and to show her
credit over him. But Dubois was perfectly informed of it, and never
pardoned me.
The Val de Grace was chosen for the consecration as being a royal
monastery, the most magnificent of Paris, and the most singular church.
It was superbly decorated; all France was invited, and nobody dared to
stop away or to be out of sight during the whole ceremony.
There were tribunes with blinds prepared for the ambassadors and
Protestant ministers. There was another more magnificent for M. le Duc
d'Orleans and M. le Duc de Chartres, whom he took there. There were
places for the ladies, and as M. le Duc d'Orleans entered by the
monastery, and his tribune was within, it was open to all comers, so that
outside and inside were filled with refreshments of all kinds, which
officers distributed in profusion. This disorder continued all day, on
account of the large number of tables that were served without and within
for the subordinate people of the fete and all who liked to thrust
themselves in. The chief gentlemen of the chamber of M. le Duc
d'Orleans, and his chief officers did the business of the ceremony;
placed distinguished people in their seats, received them, conducted
them, and other of his officers paid similar attentions to less
considerable people, while, all the watch and all the police were
occupied in looking after the arrival and departure of the carriages
in proper and regular order.
During the consecration, which was but little decent as far as the
consecrated and the spectators were concerned, above all when leaving the
building, M. le Duc d'Orleans evinced his satisfaction at finding so many
considerable people present, and then went away to Asnieres to dine with
Madame Parabere--very glad that a ceremony was over upon which he had
bestowed only indirect attention, from the commencement to the end. All
the prelates, the distinguished Abbes, and a considerable number of the
laity, were invited during the consecration by the chief officers of M.
le Duc d'Orleans to dine at the Palais Royal. The same officers did the
honours of the feast, which was served with the most splendid abundance
and delicacy. There were two services of thirty covers each, in a large
room of the grand suite of apartments, filled with the most considerable
people of Paris, and several other tables equally well served in
adjoining rooms for people less distinguished. M. le Duc d'Orleans gave
to the new Archbishop a diamond of great price to serve him as ring.
All this day was given up to that sort of triumph which draws down
neither the approbation of man nor the blessing of God. I saw nothing of
it all, however, and M. le Duc d'Orleans and I never spoke of it.
The Comte de Horn had been in Paris for the last two months, leading an
obscure life of gaming and debauchery. He was a man of two-and-twenty,
tall and well made, of that ancient and grand family of Horn, known in
the eleventh century among the little dynasties of the Low Countries, and
afterwards by a long series of illustrious generations. The Comte de
Horn in question had been made captain in the Austrian army, less on
account of his youth than because he was such an ill-behaved dog, causing
vast trouble to his mother and brother. They heard so much of the
disorderly life he was leading in Paris, that they sent there a
confidential gentleman with money to pay his debts, to try and persuade
him to return, and failing in this, to implore the authority of the
Regent (to whom, through Madame, the Horns were related), in order to
compel him to do so. As ill-luck would have it, this gentleman arrived
the day after the Comte had committed the crime I am about to relate.
On Friday, the 22nd of March, 1720, he went to the Rue Quincampoix,
wishing, he said, to buy 100,000 ecus worth of shares, and for that
purpose made an appointment with a stockbroker in a cabaret. The stock-
broker came there with his pocket-book and his shares; the Comte de Horn
came also, accompanied, as he said, by two of his friends; a moment
after, they all three threw themselves upon this unfortunate stock-
broker; the Comte de Horn stabbed him several times with a poniard, and
seized his pocket-book; one of his pretended friends (a Piedmontese named
Mille), seeing that the stock-broker was not dead, finished the work.
At the noise they made the people of the house came, not sufficiently
quick to prevent the murder, but in time to render themselves masters of
the assassins, and to arrest them. In the midst of the scuffle, the
other cut-throat escaped, but the Comte de Horn and Mille were not so
fortunate. The cabaret people sent for the officers of justice, who
conducted the criminals to the Conciergerie. This horrible crime,
committed in broad daylight, immediately made an immense stir, and
several kinsmen of this illustrious family at once went to M. le Duc
d'Orleans to beg for mercy; but the Regent avoided speaking to them as
much as possible, and very rightly ordered full and prompt justice to be
done.
At last, the relatives of Horn penetrated to the Regent: they tried to
make the Count pass for mad, saying even that he had an uncle confined in
an asylum, and begging that he might be confined also. But the reply
was, that madmen who carried their madness to fury could not be got rid
of too quickly. Repulsed in this manner, they represented what an infamy
it would be to their illustrious family, related to nearly all the
sovereigns of Europe, to have one of its members tried and condemned.
M. le Duc d'Orleans replied that the infamy was in the crime, and not in
the punishment. They pressed him upon the honour the family had in being
related to him. "Very well, gentlemen," said he, "I will divide the
shame with you."
The trial was neither long nor difficult. Law and the Abbe Dubois, so
interested in the safety of the stock-jobbers (without whom the paper
must have fallen at once), supported M. le Duc d'Orleans might and main,
in order to render him inexorable, and he, to avoid the persecutions he
unceasingly experienced on the other side, left nothing undone in order
to hurry the Parliament into a decision; the affair, therefore; went full
speed, and it seemed likely that the Comte de Horn would be broken on the
wheel.
The relatives, no longer hoping to save the criminal, thought only of
obtaining a commutation of the sentence. Some of them came to me, asking
me to save them: though I was not related to the Horn family, they
explained to me, that death on the wheel would throw into despair all
that family, and everybody connected with it in the Low Countries,
and in Germany, because in those parts there was a great and important
difference between the punishments of persons of quality who had
committed crimes; that decapitation in no way influenced the family of
the decapitated, but that death on the wheel threw such infamy upon it,
that the uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters, and the three next
generations, were excluded from entering into any noble chapter, which,
in addition to the shame, was a very injurious deprivation, annihilating
the family's chance of ecclesiastic preferment; this reason touched me,
and I promised to do my best with M. le Duc d'Orleans to obtain a
commutation of the sentence.
I was going off to La Ferme to profit by the leisure of Holy Week.
I went therefore to M. le Duc d'Orleans, and explained to him what I had
just learnt. I said that after the detestable crime the Comte de Horn
had committed, every one must feel that he was worthy of death; but that
every one could not admit it was necessary to break him on the wheel, in
order to satisfy the ends of justice. I showed him how the family would
suffer if this sentence were carried out, and I concluded by proposing to
the Regent a 'mezzo termine', such as he was so fond of.
I suggested that the decree ordering death by the wheel should be
pronounced. That another decree should at the same time be prepared and
kept ready signed and sealed, with only a date to fill in, revoking the
first, and changing the punishment into decapitation. That at the last
moment this second decree should be produced, and immediately afterwards
the head of the Comte de Horn be cut off. M. le Duc d'Orleans offered no
objection, but consented at once to my plan. I said to him, by way of
conclusion, that I was going to set out the next day, and that I begged
him not to be shaken in the determination he had just formed, by the
entreaties of Dubois or Law, both of whom were strongly in favour of
punishment by the wheel. He assured me he would keep firm; reiterated
the assurance; I took leave of him; and the next day went to La Ferme.
He was firm, however, in his usual manner. Dubois and Law besieged him,
and led the attack so well that he gave in, and the first thing I learnt
at La Ferme was that the Comte de Horn had been broken alive on the wheel
at the Greve, on Holy Friday; the 26th March, 1720, about 4 o'clock in
the afternoon, and the scoundrel Mille with him on the same scaffold,
after having both suffered torture.
The result of this was as I anticipated. The Horn family and all the
grand nobility of the Low Countries, many of Germany, were outraged, and
contained themselves neither in words nor in writings. Some of them even
talked of strange vengeance, and a long time after the death of M. le Duc
d'Orleans, I met with certain of the gentlemen upon whose hearts the
memory of this punishment still weighed heavily.
VOLUME 14
CHAPTER CV
For a long time a species of war had been declared between the King of
England and his son, the Prince of Wales, which had caused much scandal;
and which had enlisted the Court on one side, and made much stir in the
Parliament. George had more than once broken out with indecency against
his son; he had long since driven him from the palace, and would not see
him. He had so cut down his income that he could scarcely subsist. The
father never could endure this son, because he did not believe him to be
his own. He had more than suspected the Duchess, his wife, to be in
relations with Count Konigsmarck. He surprised him one morning leaving
her chamber; threw him into a hot oven, and shut up his wife in a chateau
for the rest of her days. The Prince of Wales, who found himself ill-
treated for a cause of which he was personally innocent, had always borne
with impatience the presence of his mother and the aversion of his
father. The Princess of Wales, who had much sense, intelligence, grace,
and art, had softened things as much as possible; and the King was unable
to refuse her his esteem, or avoid loving her. She had conciliated all
England; and her Court, always large, boasted of the presence of the most
accredited and the most distinguished persons. The Prince of Wales
feeling his strength, no longer studied his father, and blamed the
ministers with words that at least alarmed them. They feared the credit
of the Princess of Wales; feared lest they should be attacked by the
Parliament, which often indulges in this pleasure. These considerations
became more and more pressing as they discovered what was brewing against
them; plans such as would necessarily have rebounded upon the King. They
communicated their fears to him, and indeed tried to make it up with his
son, on certain conditions, through the medium of the Princess of Wales,
who, on her side, felt all the consciousness of sustaining a party
against the King, and who always had sincerely desired peace in the royal
family. She profited by this conjuncture; made use of the ascendency she
had over her husband, and the reconciliation was concluded. The King
gave a large sum to the Prince of Wales, and consented to see him. The
ministers were saved, and all appeared forgotten.
The excess to which things had been carried between father and son had
not only kept the entire nation attentive to the intestine disorders
ready to arise, but had made a great stir all over Europe; each power
tried to blow this fire into a blaze, or to stifle it according as
interest suggested. The Archbishop of Cambrai, whom I shall continue to
call the Abbe Dubois, was just then very anxiously looking out for his
cardinal's hat, which he was to obtain through the favour of England,
acting upon that of the Emperor with the Court of Rome. Dubois,
overjoyed at the reconciliation which had taken place, wished to show
this in a striking manner, in order to pay his court to the King of
England. He named, therefore, the Duc de la Force to go to England, and
compliment King George on the happy event that had occurred.
The demonstration of joy that had been resolved on in France was soon
known in England. George, annoyed by the stir that his domestic
squabbles had made throughout all Europe, did not wish to see it
prolonged by the sensation that this solemn envoy would cause. He begged
the Regent, therefore, not to send him one. As the scheme had been
determined on only order to please him, the journey of the Duc de la
Force was abandoned almost as soon as declared. Dubois had the double
credit, with the King of England, of having arranged this demonstration
of joy, and of giving it up; in both cases solely for the purpose of
pleasing his Britannic Majesty.
Towards the end of this year, 1720, the Duc de Brissac married Mlle.
Pecoil, a very rich heiress, whose father was a 'maitre des requetes',
and whose mother was daughter of Le Gendre, a very wealthy merchant of
Rouen. The father of Mlle. Pecoil was a citizen of Lyons, a wholesale
dealer, and extremely avaricious. He had a large iron safe, or strong-
box, filled with money, in a cellar, shut in by an iron door, with a
secret lock, and to arrive at which other doors had to be passed through.
He disappeared so long one day, that his wife and two or three valets or
servants that he had sought him everywhere. They well knew that he had a
hiding-place, because they had sometimes seen him descending into his
cellar, flat-candlestick in hand, but no one had ever dared to follow
him.
Wondering what had become of him, they descended to the cellar, broke
open the doors, and found at last the iron one. They were obliged to
send for workmen to break it open, by attacking the wall in which it was
fixed. After much labour they entered, and found the old miser dead in
his strong-box, the secret spring of which he had apparently not been
able to find, after having locked himself in; a horrible end in every
respect.
The Brissacs have not been very particular in their alliances for some
time, and yet appear no richer. The gold flies away; the dross remains.
I had almost forgotten to say that in the last day of this year, 1720, a
Prince of Wales was born at Rome.
The Prince was immediately baptised by the Bishop; of Montefiascone, and
named Charles. The event caused a great stir in the Holy City. The Pope
sent his compliments to their Britannic Majesties, and forwarded to the
King of England (the Pretender) 10,000 Roman crowns, gave him, for his
life, a country house at Albano, which until then, he had only lent him,
and 2000 crowns to furnish it. A Te Deum was sung in the chapel of the
Pope, in his presence, and there were rejoicings at Rome. When the Queen
of England was able to see company, Cardinal Tanora came in state, as
representative of the Sacred College, to congratulate her.
The birth of the Prince also made much stir at the Court of England, and
among the priests and Jacobites of that country. For very different
reasons, not only the Catholics and Protestants, enemies of the
government, were ravished at it, but nearly all the three realms showed
as much joy as they dared; not from any attachment to the dethroned
house, but for the satisfaction of seeing a line continue with which they
could always menace and oppose their kings and the royal family.
[Illustration: Jacobites Drinking To The Pretender--Painted by F.
Willems--1208]
In France we were afraid to show any public feeling upon the event. We
were too much in the hands of England; the Regent and Dubois too much the
humble servants of the house of Hanover; Dubois especially, waiting, as
he was, so anxiously for his cardinal's hat. He did not, as will be
seen, have to wait much longer.
The new Pope had given, in writing, a promise to Dubois, that if elected
to the chair of St. Peter he would make him cardinal. Time had flown,
and the promise was not yet fulfilled. The impatience of Dubois
increased with his hopes, and gave him no repose. He was much bewildered
when he learnt that, on the 16th of June, 1721, the Pope had elevated to
the cardinalship; his brother, who for ten years had been Bishop of
Terracine and Benedictine monk of Mount Cassini. Dubois had expected
that no promotion would be made in which he was not included. But here
was a promotion of a single person only. He was furious; this fury did
not last long, however; a month after, that is to say, on the 16th of
July, the Pope made him cardinal with Dion Alexander Alboni, nephew of
the deceased Pope, and brother of the Cardinal Camarlingue.
Dubois received the news and the compliment that followed with extreme
joy, but managed to contain himself with some little decency, and to give
all the honour of his nomination to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who, sooth to
say, had had scarcely anything to do with it. But he could not prevent
himself from saying to everybody that what honoured him more than the
Roman purple was the unanimous eagerness of all the European powers to
procure him this distinction; to press the Pope to award it; to desire
that his promotion would be hastened without waiting for their
nominations. He incessantly blew these reports about everywhere without
ever being out of breath; but nobody was the dupe of them.
Shortly after this, that is, on the last day of July, the King, who had
until then been in perfect health, woke with headache and pain in the
throat; shivering followed, and towards afternoon, the pains in the head
and throat being augmented, he went to bed. I repaired the next day
about twelve to inquire after him. I found he had passed a bad night,
and that within the last two hours he had grown worse. I saw everywhere
consternation. I had the grandes entrees, therefore I went into his
chamber. I found it very empty. M. le Duc d'Orleans, seated in the
chimney corner, looked exceedingly downcast and solitary. I approached
him for a moment, then I went to the King's bed. At this moment Boulduc,
one of the apothecaries, gave him something to take. The Duchesse de la
Ferme, who, through the Duchesse de Ventadour, her sister, had all the
entrees as godmother to the King, was at the heels of Boulduc, and
turning round to see who was approaching, saw me, and immediately said in
a tone neither high nor low, "He is poisoned! he is poisoned!"
"Hold your tongue, Madame," said I. "This is terrible."
But she kept on, and spoke so loudly that I feared the King would hear
her. Boulduc and I looked at each other, and I immediately withdrew from
the bed and from this mad woman, with whom I was in no way familiar.
During this illness, which lasted only five days (but of which the first
three were violent) I was much troubled, but at the same time I was
exceedingly glad that I had refused to be the King's governor, though the
Regent had over and over again pressed me to accept the office. There
were too many evil reports in circulation against M. le Duc d'Orleans for
me to dream of filling this position. For was I not his bosom friend
known to have been on the most intimate terms with him ever since his
child hood--and if anything had happened to excite new suspicions against
him, what would not have been said? The thought of this so troubled me
during the King's illness, that I used to wake in the night with a start,
and, oh, what joy was mine when I remembered that I had not this duty on
my head!
The malady, as I have said, was not long, and the convalescence was
prompt, which restored tranquillity and joy, and caused an overflow of Te
Deums and rejoicing. Helvetius had all the honour of the cure; the
doctors had lost their heads, he preserved his, and obstinately proposed
bleeding at the foot, at a consultation at which M. le Duc d'Orleans was
present; his advice prevailed, change for the better immediately took
place, cure soon after.
The Marechal de Villeroy (the King's governor) did not let slip this
occasion for showing all his venom and his baseness; he forgot nothing,
left nothing undone in order to fix suspicion upon M. le Duc d'Orleans,
and thus pay his court to the robe. No magistrate, however unimportant,
could come to the Tuileries whom he did not himself go to with the news
of the King and caresses; whilst to the first nobles he was inaccessible.
The magistrates of higher standing he allowed to enter at all times into
the King's chamber, even to stand by his bed in order to see him, while
they who had the 'grandes entrees' with difficulty enjoyed a similar
privilege.
He did the same during the first days of convalescence, which he
prolonged as much as possible, in order to give the same distinction to
the magistrates, come at what time they might, and privately to the great
people of the Court and the ambassadors. He fancied himself a tribune of
the people, and aspired to their favour and their dangerous power. From
this he turned to other affectations which had the same aim against M. le
Duc d'Orleans. He multiplied the Te Deums that he induced the various
ranks of petty officers of the King to have sung on different days and in
different churches; he attended all, took with him as many people as he
could, and for six weeks continued this game. A Te Deum was sung in
every church in Paris. He spoke of nothing else, and above the real joy
he felt at the King's recovery, he put on a false one which had a party
smell about it, and which avowed designs not to be mistaken.
The King went in state to Notre Dame and Saint Genevieve to thank God.
These mummeries, thus prolonged, extended to the end of August and the
fete Saint-Louis. Each year there, is on that day a concert in the
garden. The Marechal de Villeroy took care that on this occasion, the
concert should become a species of fete, to which he added a display of
fireworks. Less than this would have been enough to draw the crowd.
It was so great that a pin could not have fallen to the ground through
the mass of people wedged against each other in the garden. The windows
of the Tuileries were ornamented, and were filled with people. All the
roofs of the Carrousel, as well as the Place, were covered with
spectators.
The Marechal de Villeroy was in; his element, and importuned the King,
who tried to hide himself in the corners at every moment. The Marechal
took him by the arm, and led him, now to the windows where he could see
the Carrousel, and the houses covered with people; now to those which
looked upon the garden, full of the innumerable crowd waiting for the
fete. Everybody cried 'Vive le Roi!' when he appeared, but had not the
Marechal detained him, he would have run away and hid himself.
"Look, my master," the Marechal would say, "all that crowd, all these
people are yours, all belong to you; you are the master of them: look at
them a little therefore, to please them, for they are all yours, they are
all devoted to you."
A nice lesson this for a governor to give to a young King, repeating it
every time he leads him to the windows, so fearful is he lest the boy-
sovereign shall forget it! I do not know whether he received similar
lessons from those who had the charge of his education. At last the
Marechal led him upon the terrace, where, beneath a dais, he heard the
end of the concert, and afterwards saw the fireworks. The lesson of the
Marechal de Villeroy, so often and so publicly repeated, made much stir,
and threw but little honour upon him. He himself experienced the first
effect of is fine instruction.
M. le Duc d'Orleans conducted himself in a manner simple, so prudent,
that he infinitely gained by it. His cares and his reasonable anxiety
were measured; there was much reserve in his conversation, an exact and
sustained attention in his language, and in his countenance, which
allowed nothing to escape him, and which showed as little as possible
that he was the successor to the crown; above all, he never gave cause
for people to believe that he thought the King's illness more or less
serious than it was, or that his hopes were stronger than his fears.
He could not but feel that in a conjuncture so critical, all eyes were
fixed upon him, and as in truth he never wished for the crown (however
unlikely the statement may seem), he had no need to constrain himself in
any way, but simply to be measured in his bearing. His conduct was, in
fact, much remarked, and the cabal opposed to him entirely reduced to
silence. Nobody spoke to him upon the event that might happen, not even
his most familiar friends and acquaintances, myself included; and at this
he was much pleased. He acted entirely upon the suggestions of his own
good sense.
This was not the first time, let me add, that the Marechal de Villeroy,
in his capacity of governor of the King, had tacitly insulted M. le Duc
d'Orleans. He always, in fact, affected, in the discharge of his duties,
a degree of care, vigilance, and scrutiny, the object of which was
evident. He was particularly watchful of the food of the King, taking it
up with his own hands, and making a great show of this precaution; as
though the King could not have been poisoned a thousand times over in
spite of such ridiculous care. 'Twas because M. le Duc d'Orleans was
vexed with this childish behaviour, so calculated to do him great injury,
that he wished me to supersede the Marechal de Villeroy as governor of
the King. This, as before said, I would never consent to. As for the
Marechal, his absurdities met with their just reward, but at a date I
have not yet come to.
CHAPTER CVI
Before this illness of the King, that is to say, at the commencement of
June, I went one day to work with M, le Duc d'Orleans, and found him
alone, walking up and down the grand apartment.
"Holloa! there," said he, as soon as he saw me; then, taking me by the
hand, "I cannot leave you in ignorance of a thing which I desire above
all others, which is of the utmost importance to me, and which will cause
you as much joy as me; but you must keep it profoundly secret." Then
bursting out laughing, "If M. de Cambrai knew that I had told it to you,
he would never pardon me." And he proceeded to state that perfect
reconciliation had been established between himself and the King and
Queen of Spain; that arrangements had been made by which our young King
was to marry the Infanta of Spain, as soon as he should be old enough;
and the Prince of the Asturias (the heir to the Spanish throne) was to
marry Mademoiselle de Chartres, the Regent's daughter.
If my joy at this was great, my astonishment was even greater; M. le Duc
d'Orleans embraced me, and the first surprise over, I asked him how he
had contrived to bring about these marriages; above all, that of his
daughter. He replied that it had all been done in a trice by the Abbe
Dubois, who was a regular devil when once he had set his mind upon
anything; that the King of Spain had been transported at the idea of the
King of France marrying the Infanta; and that the marriage of the Prince
of the Asturias had been the 'sine qua non' of the other.
After we had well talked over the matter and rejoiced thereon, I said to
the Regent that the proposed marriage of his daughter must be kept
profoundly secret until the moment of her departure for Spain; and that
of the King also, until the time for their execution arrived; so as to
prevent the jealousy of all Europe. At this union, so grand and so
intimate, of the two branches of the royal family, such a union having
always been the terror of Europe and disunion the object of all its
policy--this policy having only too well succeeded--I urged that the
sovereigns must be left as long as possible in the confidence they had
acquired, the Infanta above all, being but three years old (she was born
at Madrid on the morning of the 30th of March, 1718), by which means the
fears of Europe upon the marriage of Mademoiselle de Chartres with the
Prince of the Asturias would be coloured--the Prince could wait, he
having been born in August, 1707, and being accordingly only fourteen
years of age. "You are quite right," replied M. le Duc d'Orleans, "but
this can't be, because in Spain they wish to make public the declarations
of marriage at once, indeed, as soon as the demand is made and the
declaration can be signed."
"What madness!" cried I; "what end can this tocsin have except to arouse
all Europe and put it in movement! They must be made to understand this,
and we must stick to it; nothing is so important."
"All this is true," said M. le Duc d'Orleans. "I think exactly like you,
but they are obstinate in Spain; they have wished matters to be arranged
thus, and their wishes have been agreed to. Everything is arranged,
fixed, finished. I am so much interested in the matter that you surely
would not have advised me to break off for this condition."
I said of course not, shrugging my shoulders at his unseasonable
impatience.
During the discussion which followed, I did not forget to think of
myself, the occasion being so opportune for making the fortunes of my
second son. I remembered then, that as matters were advanced to this
point, a special ambassador must be sent to Spain, to ask the hand of the
Infanta for the King, and to sign the compact of marriage; that the
ambassador must be a nobleman of mark and title, and thus I begged the
Duke to give me this commission, with a recommendation to the King of
Spain, so as to make my second son, the Marquis of Ruffec, grandee of
Spain.
M. le Duc d'Orleans scarcely allowed me to finish, immediately accorded
me what I had asked, promised me the recommendation with many expressions
of friendship, and asked me to keep the whole matter secret, and make no
preparation that would disclose it.
I knew well enough why he enjoined me to secrecy. He wished to have the
time to make Dubois swallow this pill. My thanks expressed, I asked him
two favours; first, not to pay me as an ambassador, but to give me a
round sum sufficient to provide for all my expenses without ruining
myself; second, not to entrust any business to me which might necessitate
a long stay in Spain, inasmuch as I did not wish to quit him, and wanted
to go to Spain simply for the purpose of obtaining the honour above
alluded to for my second son. The fact is, I feared that Dubois, not
being able to hinder my embassy, might keep me in Spain in a sort of
exile, under pretence of business, in order to get rid of me altogether.
Events proved that my precaution was not altogether useless.
M. le Duc d'Orleans accorded both the favours I asked, with many obliging
remarks, and a hope that my absence would not be long. I thought I had
then done great things for my family, and went home much pleased. But,
mon Dieu! what are the projects and the successes of men!
Dubois, as I expected, was vexed beyond measure at my embassy, and
resolved to ruin me and throw me into disgrace. I was prepared for this,
and I soon saw it was so. At first, I received from him nothing but
professions of friendship and of attachment for me, congratulations that
M. le Duc d'Orleans had accorded to me an embassy my merit deserved, and
which would be productive of such useful results for my children. He
took care, however, in the midst of these fine phrases, to introduce not
one word upon my arrangements, so that he might be able to drive me into
a corner at the last moment, and cause me all the inconvenience possible.
He slipped through my hands like an eel until the moment for my departure
drew near. As he saw it approach, he began to preach to me of
magnificence, and wished to enter into details respecting my suite. I
described it to him, and everybody else would have been satisfied, but as
his design was to ruin me, he cried out against it, and augmented it by a
third. I represented to him the excessive expense this augmentation
would cause, the state of the finances, the loss upon the exchange: his
sole reply was that the dignity of the King necessitated this expense and
show; and that his Majesty would bear the charge. I spoke to M. le Duc
d'Orleans, who listened to me with attention, but being persuaded by the
Cardinal, held the same language.
This point settled, the Cardinal must needs know how many coats I should
take, and how many I should give to my sons.--in a word, there was not a
single detail of table or stable that he did not enter into, and that he
did not double. My friends exhorted me not to be obstinate with a man so
impetuous, so dangerous, so completely in possession of M. le Duc
d'Orleans, pointing out to me that when once I was away he might profit
by my absence, and that, meanwhile, everything relating to my embassy
must pass through his hands. All this was only too true. I was obliged,
therefore, to yield, although I felt that, once embarked, the King's
purse would be spared at the expense of mine.
As soon as the marriages were declared, I asked to be declared as
ambassador, so that I might openly make my preparations, which, it will
be remembered, I had been forbidden to do. Now that there was no secret
about the marriage, I fancied there need be no secret as to the
ambassador by whom they were to be conducted. I was deceived: Whatever I
might allege, the prohibition remained. The Cardinal wished to put me to
double the necessary expense, by compelling me to have my liveries,
dresses, etc., made in the utmost precipitation; and this happened. He
thought, too, I should not be able to provide myself with everything in
time; and that he might represent this to M. le Duc d'Orleans, and in
Spain, as a fault, and excite envious cries against me.
Nevertheless, I did not choose to press him: to announce my embassy, at
the same time trying to obtain from him the instructions I was to
receive, and which, passing through him and the Regent done, told nothing
to the public, as my preparations would have done. But I could not
obtain them. Dubois carelessly replied to me, that in one or two
conversations the matter would be exhausted. He wished me to know
nothing, except vaguely; to leave no time for reflection, for questions,
for explanations; and to throw me thus into embarrassments, and to cause
me to commit blunders which he intended to make the most of.
At last, tired of so many and such dangerous postponements, I went on
Tuesday, the 23rd of September, to M. le Duc d'Orleans, arranging my
visit so that it took place when he was in his apartments at the
Tuileries; there I spoke with such effect, that he said I had only to
show myself to the King. He led me to his Majesty at once, and there and
then my embassy was announced. Upon leaving the King's cabinet, M. le
Duc d'Orleans made me jump into his coach, which was waiting for him, and
took me to the Palais Royal, where we began to speak seriously upon the
affairs of my embassy.
I fancy that Cardinal Dubois was much annoyed at what had been done, and
that he would have liked to postpone the declaration yet a little longer.
But this now was impossible. The next day people were sent to work upon
my equipments, the Cardinal showing as much eagerness and impatience
respecting them, as he had before shown apathy and indifference. He
urged on the workmen; must needs see each livery and each coat as it was
finished; increased the magnificence of each; and had all my coats and
those of my children sent to him. At last, the hurry to make me set out
was so great, that such of the things as were ready he sent on by rapid
conveyance to Bayonne, at a cost by no means trifling to me.
The Cardinal next examined the list of persons I intended to have with
me, and approved it. To my extreme surprise he said, however, that I
must add forty officers of cavalry and infantry, from the regiments of my
sons. I cried out against the madness and the expense of such a numerous
military accompaniment. I represented that it was not usual for
ambassadors, with a peaceful mission, to take with them such an imposing
force by way of escort; I showed that these officers, being necessarily
gay men, might be led away into indiscreet gallantries, which would give
me more trouble than all the business of my embassy. Nothing could be
more evident, true, and reasonable than my representations, nothing more
useless or worse received.
The Cardinal had resolved to ruin me, and to leave me in Spain with all
the embarrassment, business, and annoyances he could. He rightly thought
that nothing was more likely to make him succeed than to charge me with
forty officers. Not finding them, I took only twenty-nine, and if the
Cardinal succeeded as far as concerned my purse, I was so fortunate, and
these gentlemen were so discreet, that he succeeded in no other way.
Let me add here, before I give the details of my journey to Spain, in
what manner the announcement of these two marriages was received by the
King and the public.
His Majesty was by no means gratified when he heard that a wife had been
provided for him. At the first mention of marriage he burst out crying.
The Regent, M. le Duc, and M. de Frejus, had all the trouble in the world
to extract a "yes" from him, and to induce him to attend the Regency
Council, in which it was necessary that he should announce his consent to
the proposed union, or be present while it was announced for him. The
council was held, and the King came to it, his eyes swollen and red, and
his look very serious.
Some moments of silence passed, during which M. le Duc d'Orleans threw
his eyes over all the company (who appeared deeply expectant), and then
fixed them on the King, and asked if he might announce to the council the
marriage of his Majesty. The King replied by a dry "yes," and in a
rather low tone, but which was heard by the four or five people on each
side of him, and the Regent immediately announced the marriage. Then,
after taking the opinions of the council, which were for the most part
favorable, he turned towards the King with a smiling air, as though
inviting him to assume the same, and said, "There, then, Sire, your
marriage is approved and passed, and a grand and fortunate matter
finished." The council then broke up.
The news of what had taken place immediately ran over all Paris. The
Tuileries and the Palais Royal were soon filled with people who came to
present themselves before the King to compliment him and the Regent on
the conclusion of this grand marriage, and the crowd continued the
following days. The King had much difficulty in assuming some little
gaiety the first day, but on the morrow he was less sombre, and by
degrees he quite recovered himself.
M. le Duc d'Orleans took care not to announce the marriage of his
daughter with the Prince of the Asturias at the same time that the other
marriage was announced. He declared it, however, the next day, and the
news was received with the utmost internal vexation by the cabal opposed
to him. Men, women, people of all conditions who belonged to that cabal,
lost all countenance. It was a pleasure to me, I admit, to look upon
them. They were utterly disconcerted. Nevertheless, after the first few
days of overthrow, they regained courage, and set to work in order to
break off both the marriages.
CHAPTER CVII
I have already said that Dubois looked most unfavourably upon my embassy
to Spain, and that I saw he was determined to do all in his power to
throw obstacles in its way. I had fresh proofs of this. First, before
my departure: when he gave me my written instructions, he told me that in
Spain I must take precedence of everybody during the signing of the
King's contract of marriage, and at the chapel, at the two ceremonies of
the marriage of the Prince of the Asturias, allowing no one to be before
me!
I represented to him that the Pope's nuncio would be present, and that to
him the ambassadors of France gave place everywhere, and even the
ambassadors of the Emperor also, who, without opposition, preceded those
of the King. He replied that that was true, except in special cases like
the present, and that his instructions must be obeyed: My surprise was
great at so strange an order. I tried to move him by appealing to his
pride; asking him how I should manage with a cardinal, if one happened to
be present, and with the majordomo-major, who corresponds, but in a very
superior degree, with our grand master of France. He flew in a rage, and
declared that I must precede the majordomo-major also; that there would
be no difficulty in doing so; and that, as to the cardinals, I should
find none. I shrugged my shoulders, and begged him to think of the
matter. Instead of replying, to me, he said he had forgotten to acquaint
me with a most essential particular: it was, that I must take care not to
visit anybody until I had been first visited.
I replied that the visiting question had not been forgotten in my
instructions, and that those instructions were to the effect that I
should act in this respect as the Duc de Saint-Aignan had acted, and that
the usage he had followed was to pay the first visit to the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, and to the Councillors of State (when there were any),
who are the same as are known here under the name of ministers.
Thereupon he broke out afresh, prated, talked about the dignity of the
King, and did not allow me the opportunity of saying another word. I
abridged my visit, therefore, and went away.
However strange might appear to me these verbal orders of such a new
kind, I thought it best to speak to the Duc de Saint-Aignan and Amelot on
the subject, so as to convince myself of their novelty. Both these
ambassadors, as well as those who had preceded them, had visited in an
exactly opposite manner; and they thought it extravagant that I should
precede the nuncio, no matter where. Amelot told me, moreover, that I
should suffer all sorts of annoyances, and succeed in nothing, if I
refused the first visit to the Minister of Foreign Affairs; that as for
the Councillors of State, they existed only in name, the office having
fallen into desuetude; and that I must pay other visits to certain
officers he named (three in number), who would be justly offended and
piqued if I refused them what every one who had preceded me had rendered
them. He added that I had better take good care to do so, unless I
wished to remain alone in my house, and have the cold shoulder turned
upon me by every principal person of the Court.
By this explanation of Amelot I easily comprehended the reason of these
singular verbal orders. The Cardinal wished to secure my failure in
Spain, and my disgrace in France: in Spain by making me offend at the
outset all the greatest people and the minister through whose hands all
my business would pass; draw upon myself thus complaints here, which, as
I had no written orders to justify my conduct, he (Dubois) would
completely admit the justice of, and then disavow me, declaring he had
given me exactly opposite orders. If I did not execute what he had told
me, I felt that he would accuse me of sacrificing the King's honour and
the dignity of the Crown, in order to please in Spain, and obtain thus
honours for myself and my sons, and that he would prohibit the latter to.
accept them. There would have been less uproar respecting the nuncio;
but if I preceded him, Dubois felt persuaded that the Court of Rome would
demand justice; and this justice in his hands would have been a shameful
recall.
My position appeared so difficult, that I resolved to leave nothing
undone in order to change it. I thought M. le Duc d'Orleans would not
resist the evidence I should bring forward, in order to show the
extraordinary nature of Dubois' verbal instructions: I deceived myself.
It was in vain that I spoke to M. le Duc d'Orleans. I found nothing but
feebleness under the yoke of a master; by which I judged how much I could
hope for during my absence. Several times I argued with him and the
Cardinal; but in vain. They both declared that if preceding ambassadors
had paid the first visits, that was no example for me, in an embassy so
solemn and distinguished as that I was about to execute. I represented
that, however solemn and however distinguished might be my embassy, it
gave me no rank superior to that of extraordinary ambassadors, and that I
could claim none. Useless! useless! To my arguments there was no
reply, but obstinacy prevailed; and I clearly saw the extreme malignity
of the valet, and the unspeakable weakness of the master. It was for me
to manage as I could.
The Cardinal now began ardently to press my departure; and, in fact,
there was no more time to lose. He unceasingly hurried on the workmen
who were making all that I required,--vexed, perhaps, that being in such
prodigious number, he could not augment them. There was nothing more for
him to do but to give me the letters with which I was to be charged. He
delayed writing them until the last moment previous to my departure, that
is to say; the very evening before I started; the reason will soon be
seen. The letters were for their Catholic Majesties, for the Queen
Dowager at Bayonne, and for the Prince of the Asturias; letters from the
King and from the Duc d'Orleans. But before giving them to me, the
Regent said he would write two letters to the Prince of the Asturias,
both alike, except in this respect, that in the one he would address the
Prince as "nephew," and in the other as "brother and nephew," and that I
was to try and deliver the latter, which he passionately wished; but that
if I found too much difficulty in doing so, I must not persevere but
deliver the former instead.
I had reason to believe that here was another plot of Dubois, to cause me
trouble by embroiling me with M. le Duc d'Orleans. The Regent was the
last man in the world to care for these formalities. The Prince of the
Asturias was son of the King and heir to the Crown, and, in consequence,
of the rank of a son of France. In whatever way regarded, M. le Duc
d'Orleans was extremely inferior in rank to him; and it was something new
and adventurous to treat him on terms of equality. This, however, is
what I was charged with, and I believe, in the firm hope of Cardinal
Dubois that I should fail, and that he might profit by my failure.
Finally, on the morning of the day before my departure, all the papers
with which I was to be charged were brought to me. I will not give the
list of them. But among these letters there was none from the King to
the Infanta! I thought they had forgotten to put it with the others.
I said so to the persons who brought them to me. What was my surprise
when they told me that the letter was not written, but that I would have
it in the course of the day.
This appeared so strange to me, that my mind was filled with suspicion.
I spoke of the letter to the Cardinal and to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who
assured me that I should have it in the evening. At midnight it had not
arrived. I wrote to the Cardinal. Finally I set out without it. He
wrote to me, saying I should receive it before arriving at Bayonne; but
nothing less. I wrote him anew. He replied to me, saying that I should
have it before I arrived at Madrid. A letter from the King to the
Infanta was not difficult to write; I could not doubt, therefore, that
there was some design in this delay. Whatever it might be, I could not
understand it, unless the intention was to send the letter afterwards,
and make me pass for a heedless fellow who had lost the first.
Dubois served me another most impudent turn, seven or eight days before
my departure. He sent word to me, by his two devoted slaves, Le Blanc
and Belleisle, that as he had the foreign affairs under his charge, he
must have the post, which he would not and could not any longer do
without; that he knew I was the intimate friend of Torcy (who had the
post in his department), whose resignation he desired; that he begged me
to write to Torcy, and send my letter to him by an express courier to
Sable (where he had gone on an excursion); that he should see by my
conduct on this occasion, and its success, in what manner he could count
upon me, and that he should act towards me accordingly. To this his two
slaves added all they could to persuade me to comply, assuring me that
Dubois would break off my embassy if I did not do as he wished. I did
not for a moment doubt, after what I had seen of the inconceivable
feebleness of M. le Duc d'Orleans, that Dubois was really capable of thus
affronting and thwarting me, or that I should have no aid from the
Regent. At the same time I resolved to run all hazards rather than lend
myself to an act of violence against a friend, so sure; so sage, and so
virtuous, and who had served the state with such reputation, and deserved
so well of it.
I replied therefore to these gentlemen that I thought the commission very
strange, and much more so their reasoning of it; that Torcy was not a man
from whom an office of this importance could be taken unless he wished to
give it up; that all I could do was to ask him if he wished to resign,
and if so, on what conditions; that as to exhorting him to resign, I
could do nothing of the kind, although I was not ignorant of what this
refusal might cost me and my embassy. They tried in vain to reason with
me; all they could obtain was this firm resolution.
Castries and his brother, the Archbishop, were intimate friends of Torcy
and of myself. I sent for them to come to me in the midst of the tumult
of my departure. They immediately came, and I related to them what had
just happened. They were more indignant at the manner and the moment,
than at the thing itself; for Torcy knew that sooner or later the
Cardinal would strip him of the post for his own benefit. They extremely
praised my reply, exhorted me to send word to Torcy, who was on the point
of departing from Sable, or had departed, and who would make his own
terms with M. le Duc d'Orleans much more advantageously, present, than
absent. I read to them the letter I had written to Torcy, while waiting
for them, which they much approved, and which I at once despatched.
Torcy of himself, had hastened his return. My courier found him with his
wife in the Parc of Versailles, having passed by the Chartres route. He
read my letter, charged the courier with many compliments for me (his
wife did likewise), and told me to say he would see me the next day. I
informed M. Castries of his arrival. We all four met the next day.
Torcy warmly appreciated my conduct, and, to his death, we lived on terms
of the greatest intimacy, as may be imagined when I say that he committed
to me his memoirs (these he did not write until long after the death of
M. le Duc d'Orleans), with which I have connected mine. He did not seem
to care for the post, if assured of an honourable pension.
I announced then his return to Dubois, saying it would be for him and M.
le Duc d'Orleans to make their own terms with him, and get out of the
matter in this way. Dubois, content at seeing by this that Torcy
consented to resign the post, cared not how, so that the latter made his
own arrangements, and all passed off with the best grace on both sides.
Torcy had some money and 60,000 livres pension during life, and 20,000
for his wife after him. This was arranged before my departure and was
very well carried out afterwards.
A little while after the declaration of the marriage, the Duchesse de
Ventadour and Madame de Soubise, her granddaughter, had been named, the
one governess of the Infanta, the other successor to the office; and they
were both to go and meet her at the frontier, and bring her to Paris to
the Louvre, where she was to be lodged a little while after the
declaration of my embassy: the Prince de Rohan, her son-in-law, had
orders to go and make the exchange of the Princesses upon the frontier,
with the people sent by the King of Spain to perform the same function.
I had never had any intimacy with them, though we were not on bad terms.
But these Spanish commissions caused us to visit each other with proper
politeness. I forgot to say so earlier and in the proper place.
At last, viz., on the 23rd of October, 1721, I set out, having with me
the Comte de Lorge, my children, the Abbe de Saint-Simon, and his
brother, and many others. The rest of the company joined me at Blaye.
We slept at Orleans, at Montrichard; and at Poictiers. On arriving at
Conte my berline broke down. This caused a delay of three hours, and I
did not arrive at Ruffec until nearly midnight. Many noblemen of the
neighbourhood were waiting for me there, and I entertained them at dinner
and supper during the two days I stayed. I experienced real pleasure in
embracing Puy-Robert, who was lieutenant-colonel of the Royal Roussillon
Regiment when I was captain.
From Ruffec I went in two days to La Cassine, a small house at four
leagues from Blaye, which my father had built on the borders of his
marshes of Blaye, and which I felt much pleasure in visiting; I stopped
there during All Saints' Day and the evening before, and the next day I
early betook myself to Blaye again, where I sojourned two days. I found
several persons of quality there, many of the nobility of the country and
of the adjoining provinces, and Boucher, Intendant of Bordeaux, brother-
in-law of Le Blanc, who was waiting for me, and whom I entertained with
good cheer morning and evening during this short stay.
We crossed to Bordeaux in the midst of such bad weather that everybody
pressed me to delay the trip; but I had so few, days at my command that I
did not accede to their representations. Boucher had brought his
brigantine magnificently equipped, and boats enough to carry over all my
company, most of whom went with us. The view of the port and the town of
Bordeaux surprised me, with more than three hundred ships of all nations
ranged in two lines upon my passage, decked out in all their finery, and
with a great noise from their cannons and those of the Chateau Trompette.
Bordeaux is too well known to need description at my hands: I will simply
say that after Constantinople it presents the finest view of any other
port. Upon landing we received many compliments, and found many
carriages, which conducted us to the Intendant's house, where the Jurats
came to compliment me in state dress. I invited them to supper with.
me, a politeness they did not expect, and which they appeared to highly
appreciate. I insisted upon going to see the Hotel de Ville, which is
amazingly ugly, saying to the Jurats that it was not to satisfy my
curiosity, but in order to pay a visit to them, that I went. This
extremely pleased.
After thanking M. and Madame Boucher for their attention, we set out
again, traversed the great Landes, and reached in due time Bayonne. The
day after my arrival there, I had an audience with the Queen Dowager of
Spain. I was astonished upon arriving at her house. It had only two
windows in front, looked upon a little court, and had but trifling depth.
The room I entered was very plainly furnished. I found the Queen, who
was waiting for me, accompanied by the Duchesse de Linorez and very few
other persons. I complimented her in the name of the King, and presented
to her his letter. Nothing could be more polite than her bearing towards
me.
Passing the Pyrenees, I quitted with France, rain and bad weather, and
found a clear sky, a charming temperature, with views and perspectives
which changed at each moment, and which were not less charming. We were
all mounted upon mules, the pace of which is good but easy. I turned a
little out of my way to visit Loyola, famous by the birth of Saint
Ignatius, and situated all alone in a narrow valley. We found there four
or five Jesuits, very polite and instructed, who took care of the
prodigious building erected there for more than a hundred Jesuits and
numberless scholars. A church was there nearly finished, of rotunda
shape, of a grandeur and size which surprised me. Gold, painting,
sculpture, the richest ornaments of all kinds, are distributed everywhere
with prodigality but taste. The architecture is correct and admirable,
the marble is most exquisite; jasper, porphyry, lapis, polished,
wreathed, and fluted columns, with their capitals and their ornaments of
gilded bronze, a row of balconies between each altar with little steps of
marble to ascend them, and the cage encrusted; the altars and that which
accompanied them admirable. In a word, the church was one of the most
superb edifices in Europe, the best kept up, and the most magnificently
adorned. We took there the best chocolate I ever tasted, and, after some
hours of curiosity and admiration, we regained our road.
On the 15th, we arrived at Vittoria, where I found a deputation of the
province, whom I invited to supper, and the next day to breakfast. They
spoke French and I was surprised to see Spaniards so gay and such good
company at table. Joy on account of my journey burst out in every place
through which I passed in France and Spain, and obtained for me a good
reception. At Salinas, among other towns which I passed through without
stopping, ladies, who, to judge by their houses and by themselves,
appeared to me to be quality folks, asked me with such good grace to let
them see the man who was bringing happiness to Spain, that I thought it
would only be proper gallantry to enter their dwellings. They appeared
ravished, and I had all the trouble in the world to get rid of them, and
to continue my road.
I arrived on the 18th at Burgos, where I meant to stay at least one day,
to see what turn would take a rather strong fever which had seized my
eldest son; but I was so pressed to hasten on that I was obliged to leave
my son behind with nearly all his attendants.
I left Burgos therefore on the 19th. We found but few relays, and those
ill-established. We travelled night and day without going to bed, until
we reached Madrid, using such vehicles as we could obtain. I performed
the last twelve leagues on a posthorse, which cost twice as much as in
France. In this manner we arrived in Madrid on Friday, the 21st, at
eleven o'clock at night.
We found at the entrance of the town (which has neither gates nor walls,
neither barriers nor faubourgs,) people on guard, who asked us who we
were, and whence we came. They had been placed there expressly so as to
know the moment of my arrival. As I was much fatigued by travelling
incessantly from Burgos without stopping, I replied that we were the
people of the Ambassador of France, who would arrive the next day.
I learnt afterwards, that the minister had calculated that I could not
reach Madrid before the 22d.
CHAPTER CVIII
Early the next morning I received a visit from Grimaldo, Minister of
Foreign Affairs, who, overjoyed at my arrival, had announced it to their
Catholic Majesties before coming to me. Upon his example, apparently,
the three other ministers, whom, according to usage, I ought to have
visited first, came also; so that one infamous difficulty which Cardinal
Dubois had placed in my path was happily overcome without effort on my
part.
Grimaldo at once conducted me to the palace, and introduced me to the
King. I made a profound reverence to him; he testified to me his joy at
my arrival, and asked me for news of the King, of M. le Duc d'Orleans, of
my journey, and of my eldest son, whom, as he knew, I had left behind at
Burgos. He then entered alone into the Cabinet of the Mirrors. I was
instantly surrounded by all the Court with compliments and indications of
joy at the marriages and union of the crowns. Nearly all the seigneurs
spoke French, and I had great difficulty in replying to their numberless
compliments.
A half quarter of an hour after the King had entered his cabinet, he sent
for me. I entered alone into the Hall of Mirrors, which is very vast,
but much less wide than long. The King, with the Queen on his left, was
nearly at the bottom of the salon, both their Majesties standing and
touching each other. I approached with three profound reverences, and I
will remark, once for all, that the King never covers himself except at
public audiences, and when he goes to and comes from his mass. The
audience lasted half an hour, and was principally occupied, on the part
of the King and Queen, with compliments and expressions of joy at the
marriages that were to take place. At its close, the Queen asked me if I
would like to see the children, and conducted me to them.
I never saw prettier boys than Don Carlos and Don Ferdinand, nor a
prettier babe than Don Philip. The King and Queen took pleasure in
making me look at them, and in making them turn and walk before me with
very good grace. Their Majesties entered afterwards into the Infanta's
chamber, where I tried to exhibit as much gallantry as possible. In
fact, the Infanta was charming-like a little woman--and not at all
embarrassed. The Queen said to me that she already had begun to learn
French, and the King that she would soon forget Spain.
"Oh!" cried the Queen, "not only Spain, but the King and me, so as to
attach herself to the King, her husband, alone." Upon this I tried not
to remain dumb, and to say what was appropriate. Their Majesties
dismissed me with much goodness, and I was again encircled by the crowd
with many compliments.
A few moments after the King recalled me, in order to see the Prince of
the Asturias, who was with their Majesties in the same Hall of Mirrors.
I found him tall, and really made to be painted; fine light-brown hair,
light fresh-coloured complexion, long face, but agreeable; good eyes, but
too near the nose. I found in him also much grace and politeness. He
particularly asked after the King, M. le Duc d'Orleans, and Mademoiselle
de Montpensier, to whom he was to be betrothed.
Their Catholic Majesties testified much satisfaction to me at the
diligence I had used; said that a single day would be sufficient for the
ceremonies that had to be gone through (demanding the hand of the
Infanta, according it, and signing the marriage contract). Afterwards
they asked me when all would be ready. I replied it would be any day
they pleased; because, as they wished to go into the country, I thought
it would be best to throw no delay in their path. They appeared much
pleased at this reply, but would not fix the day, upon which I proposed
the following Tuesday. Overjoyed at this promptness, they fixed the
Thursday for their departure, and left me with the best possible grace.
I had got over one difficulty, as I have shown, that connected with the
first visits, but I had others yet to grapple with. And first, there was
my embarrassment at finding no letter for the Infanta. I confided this
fact to Grimaldo, who burst out laughing, was to have my first audience
with the Infanta the next day, and it was then that the letter ought to
be produced. Grimaldo said he would arrange so that when I--went, the
governess should come into the antechamber, and say that the Infanta was
asleep, and upon offering to awake her, I should refuse to allow her,
take my leave, and wait until the letter from the King arrived before I
visited her again. Everything happened just as it had been planned, and
thus the second obstacle which the crafty and malicious Cardinal had put
in my path, for the sake of overturning me, was quietly got over.
Grimaldo's kindness encouraged me to open my heart under its influence.
I found that the Spanish minister knew, quite as, well as I did, what
manner of person Dubois was.
On Sunday, the 23rd, I had in the morning my first private audience of
the King and Queen, together, in the Hall of Mirrors, which is the place
where they usually give it. I was accompanied by Maulevrier, our
ambassador. I presented to their Catholic Majesties the Comte de Lorge,
the Comte de Cereste, my second son, and the Abbe de Saint-Simon and his
bother. I received many marks of goodness from the Queen in this
audience.
On Tuesday, the 25th of November, I had my solemn audience. I went to
the palace in a magnificent coach, belonging to the King, drawn by eight
grey horses, admirably dappled. There were no postillions, and the
coachman drove me, his hat under his arm. Five of my coaches filled with
my suite followed, and about twenty others (belonging to noblemen of the
Court, and sent by them in order to do me honour), with gentlemen in
each. The King's coach was surrounded by my musicians, liveried servants
on foot, and by officers of my household. On arriving at the open place
in front of the palace, I thought myself at the Tuileries. The regiments
of Spanish guards, clad, officers and soldiers, like the French guards,
and the regiment of the Walloon guards, clad, officers and, soldiers,
like the Swiss guards, were under arms; the flags waved, the drums beat,
and the officers saluted with the half-pike. On the way, the streets
were filled with people, the shops with dealers and artisans, all the
windows were crowded. Joy showed itself on every face, and we heard
nothing but benedictions.
The audience passed off admirably. I asked the hand of the Infanta in
marriage on the part of the King; my request was graciously complied
with, compliments passed on both sides, and I returned to my house, well
pleased with the reception I had met with from both their Catholic
Majesties.
There was still the marriage contract to be signed, and this was to take
place in the afternoon. Here was to be my great trial, for the
majordomo-major and the nuncio of the Pope were to be present at the
ceremony, and, according to the infamous and extraordinary instructions
I had received from Dubois, I was to precede them! How was this to be
done? I had to bring all my ingenuity to bear upon the subject in order
to determine. In the embarrassment I felt upon this position, I was
careful to affect the most marked attention to the nuncio and the
majordomo-major every time I met them and visited them; so as to take
from them all idea that I wished to precede them, when I should in
reality do so.
The place the majordomo-major was to occupy at this ceremony was behind
the King's armchair, a little to the right, so as to allow room for the
captain of the guards on duty; to put myself there would be to take his
place, and push the captain of the guards away, and those near him. The
place of the nuncio was at the side of the King, his face to the
armchair; to take it would have been to push him beyond the arm of the
chair, which assuredly he would no more have submitted to than the
majordomo-major on the other side. I resolved, therefore, to hazard a
middle term; to try and introduce myself at the top of the right arm of
the chair, a little sideways, so as to take the place of neither,
entirely; but, nevertheless, to drive them out, and to cover this with an
air of ignorance and of simplicity; and, at the same time, of eagerness,
of joy, of curiosity, of courtier-like desire to speak to the King as
much as possible: and all this I exactly executed, in appearance
stupidly, and in reality very successfully!
When the time for the audience arrived, I took up my position,
accordingly, in the manner I have indicated. The majordomo-major and the
nuncio entered, and finding me thus placed, and speaking to the King,
appeared much surprised. I heard Signor and Sefor repeated right and
left of me, and addressed to me--for both expressed themselves with
difficulty in French--and I replied with bows to one and to the other
with the smiling air of a man entirely absorbed in joy at his functions,
and who understands nothing of what is meant; then I recommenced my
conversation with the King, with a sort of liberty and enthusiasm, so
that the nuncio and majordomo-major: soon grew tired of appealing to a
man whose spirit was so transported that he no longer knew where he was,
or what was said to him. In this manner I defeated the craft, cunning,
and maliciousness of Dubois. At the conclusion of the ceremony, I
accompanied the King and Queen to the door of the Hall of Mirrors, taking
good care then to show every deference to the majordomo-major and the
nuncio, and yielding place to them, in order to remove any impression
from their minds that I had just acted in a contrary manner from design.
As soon as their Catholic Majesties had departed, and the door of the
salon was closed upon them, I was encircled and, so to speak, almost
stifled by the company present, who, one after the other, pressed upon me
with the greatest demonstrations of joy and a thousand compliments.
I returned home after the ceremony, which had lasted a long time. While
I occupied my stolen position I was obliged, in order to maintain it, to
keep up an incessant conversation with the King, and at last, no longer
knowing what to talk about, I asked him for an audience the next day,
which he readily accorded me. But this direct request was contrary to
the usage of the Court, where the ambassadors, the other foreign
ministers, and the subjects of the country of, whatever rank, address
their requests to an officer who is appointed to receive them, who
communicates with the King, and names the day and the hour when his
Majesty will grant the interview.
Grimaldo, a little after the end of ceremony, had gone to work with the
King and Queen, as was customary.--I was surprised, an hour after
returning home, to receive a letter from this minister, asking me if I
had anything to say to the King I did not wish the Queen to hear,
referring to the audience I had asked of the King for the morrow, and
begging me to tell him what it was for. I replied to him instantly, that
having found the opportunity good I had asked for this audience; but if I
had not mentioned the Queen, it was because I had imagined she was so
accustomed to be present that there was no necessity to allude to her:
but as to the rest, I had my thanks to offer to the King upon what had
just passed, and nothing to say to him that I should not wish to say to
the Queen, and that I should be very sorry if she were not present.
As I was writing this reply, Don Gaspard Giron invited me to go and see
the illuminations of the Place Mayor. I quickly finished my letter; we
jumped into a coach, and the principal people of my suite jumped into
others. We were conducted by detours to avoid the light of the
illuminations in approaching them, and we arrived at a fine house which
looks upon the middle of the Place, and which is that where the King and
Queen go to see the fetes that take place. We perceived no light in
descending or in ascending the staircase. Everything had been closed,
but on entering into the chamber which looks upon the Place, we were
dazzled, and immediately we entered the balcony speech failed me, from
surprise, for more than seven or eight minutes.
This Place is superficially much vaster than any I had ever seen in Paris
or elsewhere, and of greater length than breadth. The five stories of
the houses which surround it are all of the same level; each has windows
at equal distance, and of equal size, with balconies as deep as they are
long, guarded by iron balustrades, exactly alike in every case. Upon
each of these balconies two torches of white wax were placed, one at each
end of the balcony, supported upon the balustrade, slightly leaning
outwards, and attached to nothing. The light that this--gives is
incredible; it has a splendour and a majesty about it that astonish you
and impress you. The smallest type can be read in the middle of the
Place, and all about, though the ground-floor is not illuminated.
As soon as I appeared upon the balcony, all the people beneath gathered
round and began to cry, Senor! tauro! tauro! The people were asking me
to obtain for them a bull-fight, which is what they like best in the
world, and what the King had not permitted for several years from
conscientious principles. Therefore I contented myself the next day with
simply telling him of these cries, without asking any questions thereon,
while expressing to him my astonishment at an illumination so surprising
and so admirable.
Don Gaspard Giron and the Spaniards who were with me in the house from
which I saw the illumination, charmed with the astonishment I had
displayed at this spectacle, published it abroad with all the more
pleasure because they were not accustomed to the admiration of the
French, and many noblemen spoke of it to me with great pleasure.
Scarcely had I time to return home and sup after this fine illumination
than I was obliged to go to the palace for the ball that the King had
prepared there, and which lasted until past two in the morning.
The salon was very vast and splendid;'the dresses of the company were
sumptuous; the appearance of our finest fancy-dress balls did not
approach the appearance of this.
What seemed strange to me was to see three bishops in lawn sleeves and
cloaks in the ball-room, remaining, too, all the evening, and to see the
accoutrement of the camerara-mayor, who held exposed in her hand a great
chaplet, and who, while talking and criticising the ball and the dancers,
muttered her prayers, and continued to do so while the ball lasted. What
I found very strange was, that none of the men present (except six
special officers and Maulevrier and myself) were allowed to sit, not even
the dancers; in fact, there was not a single seat in the whole salon, not
even at the back, except those I have specified.
In Spain, men and women of all ages wear all sorts of colours, and dance
if they like, even when more than sixty years old, without exciting the
slightest ridicule or astonishment. I saw several examples of this among
men and women.
Amongst the company present was Madame Robecque, a Frenchwoman, one of
the Queen's ladies, whom I had known before she went to Spain. In former
days we had danced together at the Court. Apparently she said so to the
Queen, for after having danced with one of the children, she traversed
the whole length of the salon, made a fine curtsey to their Catholic
Majesties, and came to dislodge me from my retreat, asking me with a
curtsey and a smile to dance. I replied to her by saying she was
laughing at me; dispute, gallantries; finally, she went to the Queen, who
called me and told me that the King and she wished me to dance.
I took the liberty to represent to her that she wished to divert herself
at my expense; that this order could not be serious; I alleged my age, my
position, the number of years since I had danced; in a word, I did all I
could to back out. But all was useless. The King mixed himself in the
matter; both he and the Queen begged me to comply, tried to persuade me
I danced very well; at last commanded me, and in such a manner that I was
obliged to obey. I acquitted myself, therefore, as well as I could.
The ball being finished, the Marquis de Villagarcias, one of the
majordomos, and one of the most honest and most gracious of men I ever
saw (since appointed Viceroy of Peru), would not let me leave until I had
rested in the refreshment-room, where he made me drink a glass of
excellent neat wine, because I was all in a sweat from the minuets and
quadrilles I had gone through, under a very heavy coat.
This same evening and the next I illuminated my house within and without,
not having a moment's leisure to give any fete in the midst of the many
functions I had been so precipitately called upon to fulfil.
CHAPTER CIX
On Thursday, the 27th of November, the King and Queen were to depart from
Madrid to Lerma, a pretty hamlet six leagues from Burgos, where they had
a palace. On the same day, very early in the morning, our ambassador,
Maulevrier, came to me with despatches from Cardinal Dubois, announcing
that the Regent's daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, had departed on
the 18th of November for Spain, and giving information as to the places
she would stop at, the people she would be accompanied by, the day she
would arrive at the frontier, and the persons charged with the exchange
of the Princesses.
Maulevrier and I thought this news so important that we felt there was no
time to lose, and at once hastened away to the palace to communicate it
to their Majesties, who we knew were waiting for it most impatiently. We
arrived at such an early hour that all was deserted in the palace, and
when we reached the door of the Hall of Mirrors, we were obliged to knock
loudly in order to be heard. A French valet opened the door, and told us
that their Catholic Majesties were still in bed. We did not doubt it,
and begged him to apprise them that we wished to have the honour of
speaking to them. Such an honour was unheard of, except under
extraordinary circumstances; nevertheless the valet quickly returned,
saying that their Majesties would receive us, though it was against all
rule and usage to do so while they were in bed.
We traversed therefore the long and grand Hall of Mirrors, turned to the
left at the end into a large and fine room, then short off to the left
again into a very little chamber, portioned off from the other, and
lighted by the door and by two little windows at the top of the partition
wall. There was a bed of four feet and a half at most, of crimson
damask, with gold fringe, four posts, the curtains open at the foot and
at the side the King occupied. The King was almost stretched out upon
pillows with a little bed-gown of white satin; the Queen sitting upright,
a piece of tapestry in her hand, at the left of the King, some skeins of
thread near her, papers scattered upon the rest of the bed and upon an
armchair at the side of it. She was quite close to the King, who was in
his night-cap, she also, and in her bed-gown, both between the sheets,
which were only very imperfectly hidden by the papers.
They made us abridge our reverences, and the King, raising himself a
little impatiently, asked us our business. We were alone, the valet
having retired after showing us the door.
"Good news, Sire," replied I. "Mademoiselle de Montpensier set out on
the 18th; the courier has this instant brought us the news, and we have
at once come to present ourselves to you and apprise your Majesties of
it."
Joy instantly painted itself on their faces, and immediately they began
to question us at great length upon the details the courier had brought
us. After an animated conversation, in which Maulevrier took but little
part, their Catholic Majesties dismissed us, testifying to us the great
pleasure we had caused them by not losing a minute in acquainting them
with the departure of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, above all in not
having been stopped by the hour, and by the fact that they were in bed.
We went back to my house to dine and returned to the palace in order to
see the King and Queen depart. I again received from them a thousand
marks of favour. Both the King and Queen, but especially the latter,
several times insisted that I must not lose any time in following them to
Lerma; upon which I assured them they would find me there as they
alighted from their coach.
I set out, in fact, on the 2nd of December, from Madrid, to join the
Court, and was to sleep at the Escurial, with the Comtes de Lorges and de
Cereste, my second son, the Abbe de Saint-Simon and his brother, Pacquet,
and two principal officers of the King's troops, who remained with me as
long as I stayed in Spain. In addition to the orders of the King of
Spain and the letters of the Marquis de Grimaldo, I was also furnished
with those of the nuncio for the Prior of the Escurial, who is, at the
same time, governor, in order that I might he shown the marvels of this
superb and prodigious monastery, and that everything might be opened for
me that I wished to visit; for I had been warned that, without the
recommendation of the nuncio, neither that of the King and his minister,
nor any official character, would have much served me. It will be seen
that, after all, I did not fail to suffer from the churlishness and the
superstition of these coarse Jeronimites.
They are black and white monks, whose dress resembles that of the
Celestins; very idle, ignorant, and without austerity, who, by the number
of their monasteries and their riches, are in Spain much about what the
Benedictines are in France, and like them are a congregation. They elect
also, like the Benedictines, their superiors, local and general, except
the Prior of the Escurial, who is nominated by the King, remains in
office as long as the King likes and no more, and who is yet better
lodged at the Escurial than his Catholic Majesty. 'Tis a prodigy, this
building, of extent, of structure, of every kind of magnificence, and
contains an immense heap of riches, in pictures, in ornaments, in vases
of all kinds, in precious stones, everywhere strewn about, and the
description of which I will not undertake, since it does not belong to my
subject. Suffice it to say that a curious connoisseur of all these
different beauties might occupy himself there for three months without
cessation, and then would not have examined all. The gridiron (its form,
at least) has regulated all the ordonnance of this sumptuous edifice in
honour of Saint-Laurent, and of the battle of Saint-Quentin, gained by
Philippe II., who, seeing the action from a height, vowed he would erect
this monastery if his troops obtained the victory, and asked his
courtiers, if such were the pleasures of the Emperor, his father, who in
fact did not go so far for them as that.
There is not a door, a lock, or utensil of any kind, or a piece of plate,
that is not marked with a gridiron.
The distance from Madrid to the Escurial is much about the same as that
from Paris to Fontainebleau. The country is very flat and becomes a
wilderness on approaching the Escurial, which takes its name from a large
village you pass, a league off. It is upon an eminence which you ascend
imperceptibly, and upon which you see endless deserts on three sides; but
it is backed, as it were, by the mountain of Guadarama, which encircles
Madrid on three sides, at a distance of several leagues, more or less.
There is no village at the Escurial; the lodging of their Catholic
Majesties forms the handle of the gridiron. The principal grand
officers, and those most necessary, are lodged, as well as the Queen's
ladies, in the monastery; on the side by which you arrive all is very
badly built.
The church, the grand staircase, and the grand cloister, surprised me.
I admired the elegance of the surgery, and the pleasantness of the
gardens, which, however, are only a long and wide terrace. The Pantheon
frightened me by a sort of horror and majesty. The grand-altar and the
sacristy wearied my eyes, by their immense opulence. The library did not
satisfy me, and the librarians still less: I was received with much
civility, and invited to a good supper in the Spanish style, at which the
Prior and another monk did the honours. After this fast repast my people
prepared my meals, but this fat monk always supplied one or two things
that it would not have been civil to refuse, and always ate with me; for,
in order that he might conduct us everywhere, he never quitted our sides.
Bad Latin supplied the place of French, which he did not understand; nor
even Spanish.
In the sanctuary at the grand altar, there are windows behind the seats
of the priest and his assistants, who celebrate the grand mass. These
windows, which are nearly on a level with the sanctuary (very high),
belong to the apartment that Philippe II. had built for himself, and in
which he died. He heard service through these windows. I wished to see
this apartment, which was entered from behind. I was refused. It was in
vain that I insisted on the orders of the King and of the nuncio,
authorising me to see all I wished. I disputed uselessly. They told me
this apartment had been closed ever since the death of Philippe II., and
that nobody had entered it. I maintained that King Philippe V. and his
suite had seen it. They admitted the fact, but at the same time told me
that he had entered by force as a master, threatening to break in the
doors, that he was the only King who had entered since Philippe II., and
that they would not open the apartment to anybody. I understood nothing
of all this superstition, but I was forced to rest content in my
ignorance. Louville, who had entered with the King, had told me that the
place contained only five or six dark chambers, and some holes and
corners with wainscots plastered with mud; without tapestry, when he saw
it, or any kind of furniture; thus I did not lose much by not entering.
In the Rotting-Room, which I have elsewhere described, we read the
inscriptions near us, and the monk read others as we asked him. We
walked thus, all round, talking and discoursing thereon. Passing to the
bottom of the room, the coffin of the unhappy Don Carlos offered itself
to our sight.
"As for him," said I, "it is well known why, and of what he died." At
this remark, the fat monk turned rusty, maintained he had died a natural
death, and began to declaim against the stories which he said had been
spread abroad about him. I smiled, saying, I admitted it was not true
that his veins had been opened. This observation completed the
irritation of the monk, who began to babble in a sort of fury. I
diverted myself with it at first in silence; then I said to him, that the
King, shortly after arriving in Spain; had had the curiosity to open the
coffin of Don Carlos, and that I knew from a man who was present ('twas
Louville), that his head had been found between his legs; that Philippe
II., his father, had had it cut off before him in the prison.
"Very well!" cried the monk in fury, "apparently he had well deserved it;
for Philippe II., had permission from the Pope to do so!" and,
thereupon, he began to cry with all his might about the marvels of piety
and of justice of Philippe II., and about the boundless power of the
Pope, and to cry heresy against any one who doubted that he could not
order, decide, and dispose of all.
Such is the fanaticism of the countries of the Inquisition, where science
is a crime, ignorance and superstition the first of virtues. Though my
official character protected me, I did not care to dispute, and cause a
ridiculous scene with this bigot of a monk. I contented myself with
smiling, and by making a sign of silence as I did so to those who were
with me. The monk, therefore, had full swing, and preached a long time
without giving over. He perceived, perhaps, by our faces, that we were
laughing at him, although without gestures or words. At last he showed
us the rest of the chamber, still fuming; then we descended to the
Pantheon. They did me the singular favour to light about two-thirds of
the immense and admirable chandelier, suspended from the middle of the
roof, the lights of which dazzled us, and enabled us to distinguish in
every part of the Rotting-Room; not only the smallest details of the
smallest letter, but the minutest features of the place.
I passed three days in the Escurial, lodged in a large and fine
apartment, and all that were with me well lodged also. Our monk, who had
always been in an ill-humour since the day of the Rotting-Room, did not
recover himself until the parting breakfast came. We quitted him without
regret, but not the Escurial, which would pleasantly occupy a curious
connoisseur during more than a three months' stay. On the road we met
the Marquis de Montalegre, who invited, us to dinner with him. The meal
was so good that we little regretted the dinner my people had prepared
for us.
At last we arrived on the 9th, at our village of Villahalmanzo, where I
found most comfortable quarters for myself and all who were with me. I
found there, also, my eldest son, still merely, convalescent, with the
Abbe de Monthon, who came from Burgos. We supped very gaily, and I
reckoned upon taking a good excursion the next day, and upon amusing
myself in reconnoitring the village and the environs; but fever seized me
during the night, augmented during the day, became violent the following
night, so that there was no more talk of going on the 11th to meet the
King and Queen at Lerma, as they alighted from their coach, according to
arrangement.
The malady increased with such rapidity that I was found to be in great
danger, and immediately after, on the point of death. I was bled shortly
after. The small-pox, with which the whole country was filled, appeared.
The climate was such this year that it froze hard twelve or fourteen
hours every day, while from eleven o'clock in 'the morning till nearly
four, the sun shone as brightly as possible, and it was too hot about
mid-day for walking! Yet in the shade it did not thaw for an instant.
This cold weather was all the more sharp because the air was purer and
clearer, and the sky continually of the most perfect serenity.
The King of Spain, who was dreadfully afraid of the small-pox, and who
with reason had confidence only in his chief doctor, sent him to me as
soon as he was informed of my illness, with orders not to quit me until I
was cured. I had, therefore, five or six persons continually around me,
in addition to the domestics who served me, one of the best and most
skilful physicians in Europe, who, moreover, was capital company, and who
did not quit me night or day, and three very good surgeons. The small-
pox came out very abundantly all over me; it was of a good kind, and I
had no dangerous accident. Every one who waited upon me, master or man,
was cut off from all intercourse with the rest of the world; even those
who cooked for us, from those who did not.
The chief physician nearly every day provided new remedies in case of
need, and yet administered none to me, except in giving me, as my sole
beverage, water, in which, according to its quantity, oranges were
thrown, cut in two with their skins on, and which gently simmered before
my fire; occasionally some spoonful of a gentle and agreeable cordial
during the height of the suppuration, and afterwards a little Rota wine,
and some broth, made of beef and partridge.
Nothing was wanting, then, on the part of those who had charge of me. I
was their only patient, and they had orders not to quit me, and nothing
was wanting for my amusement, when I was in a condition to take any, so
much good company being around me, and that at a time when convalescents
of this malady experience all the weariness and fretfulness of it. At
the end of my illness I was bled and purged once, after which I lived as
usual, but in a species of solitude.
During the long interval in which this illness shut me out from all
intercourse with the world, the Abbe de Saint-Simon corresponded for me
with Cardinal Dubois, Grimaldo, Sartine, and some others.
The King and Queen, not content with having sent me their chief
physician, M. Hyghens, to be with me night and day, wished to hear how I
was twice a day, and when I was better, unceasingly showed to me a
thousand favours, in which they were imitated by all the Court.
But I was six weeks ill in all.
CHAPTER CX
Here I think will be the fitting place to introduce an account of the
daily life of the King and Queen of Spain, which in many respects was
entitled to be regarded as singular. During my stay at the Court I had
plenty of opportunity to mark it well, so that what I relate may be said
to have passed under my own eyes. This, then, was their daily life
wherever they were, and in all times and seasons.
The King and Queen never had more than one apartment, and one bed between
them, the latter exactly as I have described it when relating my visit
with Maulevrier to their Catholic Majesties to carry to them the news of
the departure from Paris of the future Princess of the Asturias. During
fevers, illness, no matter of what kind, or on whose side, childbirth
even,--never were they a single night apart, and even when the deceased
Queen was eaten up with the scrofula, the King continued to sleep with
her until a few nights before her death!
About nine o'clock in the morning the curtains were drawn by the Asafeta,
followed by a single valet carrying a basin full of caudle. Hyghens,
during my convalescence, explained to me how this caudle was made, and in
fact concocted some for me to taste. It is a light mixture of broth,
milk, wine (which is in the largest quantity), one or two yolks of eggs,
sugar, cinnamon, and a few cloves. It is white; has a very strong taste,
not unmixed with softness. I should not like to take it habitually,
nevertheless it is not disagreeable. You put in it, if you like, crusts
of bread, or, at times, toast, and then it becomes a species of soup;
otherwise it is drunk as broth; and, ordinarily, it was in this last
fashion the King took it. It is unctuous, but very warm, a restorative
singularly good for retrieving the past night, and, for preparing you for
the next.
While the King partook of this brief breakfast, the Asafeta brought the
Queen some tapestry to work at, passed bed-gowns to their Majesties, and
put upon the bed some of the papers she found upon the adjoining seats,
then withdrew with the valet and what he had brought. Their Majesties
then said their morning prayers. Grimaldo afterwards entered. Sometimes
they signalled to him to wait, as he came in, and called him when their
prayer was over, for there was nobody else, and the bedroom was very
small. Then Grimaldo displayed his papers, drew from his pocket an
inkstand, and worked with the King; the Queen not being hindered by her
tapestry from giving her opinion.
This work lasted more or less according to the business, or to the
conversation. Grimaldo, upon leaving with his papers, found the
adjoining room empty, and a valet in that beyond, who, seeing him pass,
entered into the empty room, crossed it, and summoned the Asafeta, who
immediately came and presented to the King his slippers and his dressing-
gown; he at once passed across the empty room and entered into a cabinet,
where he dressed himself, followed by three valets (never changed) and by
the Duc del Arco, or the Marquis de Santa Cruz, and after by both, nobody
else ever being present at the ceremony.
The Queen, as soon as the King had passed into his cabinet, put on her
stockings and shoes alone with the Asafeta, who gave her her dressing-
gown. It was the only moment in which this person could speak to the
Queen, or the Queen to her; but this moment did not stretch at the most
to more than half a quarter of an hour. Had they been longer together
the King would have known it, and would have wanted to hear what kept
them. The Queen passed through the empty chamber and entered into a fine
large cabinet, where her toilette awaited her. When the King had dressed
in his cabinet--where he often spoke to his confessor--he went to the
Queen's toilette, followed by the two seigneurs just named. A few of the
specially--privileged were also admitted there. This toilette lasted
about three-quarters of an hour, the King and all the rest of the company
standing.
When it was over, the King half opened the door of the Hall of Mirrors,
which leads into the salon where the Court assembled, and gave his
orders; then rejoined the Queen in that room which I have so often called
the empty room. There and then took place the private audiences of the
foreign ministers, and of, the seigneurs, or other subjects who obtained
them. Once a week, on Monday, there was a public audience, a practice
which cannot be too much praised where it is not abused. The King,
instead of half opening the door, threw it wide open, and admitted
whoever liked to enter. People spoke to the King as much as they liked,
how they liked, and gave him in writing what they liked. But the
Spaniards resemble in nothing the French; they are measured, discreet,
respectful, brief.
After the audiences, or after amusing himself with the Queen--if there
are none, the King went to dress. The Queen accompanied him, and they
took the communion together (never separately) about once a week, and
then they heard a second mass. The confession of the King was said after
he rose, and before he went to the Queen's toilette.
Upon returning from mass, or very shortly after, the dinner was served.
It was always in the Queen's apartment, as well as the supper, but the
King and Queen had each their dishes; the former, few, the latter, many,
for she liked eating, and ate of everything; the King always kept to the
same things--soup, capon, pigeons, boiled and roast, and always a roast
loin of veal--no fruit; or salad, or cheese; pastry, rarely, never
maigre; eggs, often cooked in various fashion; and he drank nothing but
champagne; the Queen the same. When the dinner was finished, they prayed
to God together. If anything pressing happened, Grimaldo came and gave
them a brief account of it.
About an hour after dinner, they left the apartment by a short passage
accessible to the court, and descended by a little staircase to their
coach, returning by the same way. The seigneurs who frequented the court
pretty constantly assembled, now one, now another, in this passage, or
followed their Majesties to their coaches. Very often I saw them in this
passage as they went or returned. The Queen always said something
pleasant to whoever was there. I will speak elsewhere of the hunting-
party their Majesties daily made.
Upon returning, the King gave his orders. If they had not partaken of a
collation in the coach, they partook of one upon arriving. It was for
the King, a morsel of bread, a big biscuit, some water and wine; and for
the Queen, pastry and fruit in season, sometimes cheese. The Prince and
the Princess of the Asturias, and the children, followed and waited for
them in the inner apartment. This company withdrew in less than half a
quarter of an hour. Grimaldo came and worked ordinarily for a long time;
it was the time for the real work of the day. When the Queen went to
confession this also was the time she selected. Except what related to
the confession, she and her confessor had no time to say anything to each
other. The cabinet in which she confessed to him was contiguous to the
room occupied by the King, and when the latter thought the confession too
long, he opened the door and called her. Grimaldo being gone, they
prayed together, or sometimes occupied themselves with spiritual reading
until supper. It was served like the dinner. At both meals there were
more dishes in the French style than in the Spanish, or even the Italian.
After supper, conversation or prayers conducted them to the hour for bed,
when nearly the same observances took place as in the morning. Finally,
their Catholic Majesties everywhere had but one wardrobe between them,
and were never in private one from another.
These uniform days were the same in all places, and even during the
journeys taken by their Majesties, who were thus never separated, except
for a few minutes at a time. They passed their lives in one long tete-a-
tete. When they travelled it was at the merest snail's pace, and they
slept on the road, night after night, in houses prepared for them. In
their coach they were always alone; when in the palace it was the same.
The King had been accustomed to this monotonous life by his first queen,
and he did not care for any other. The new Queen, upon arriving, soon
found this out, and found also that if she wished to rule him, she must
keep him in the same room, confined as he had been kept by her
predecessor. Alberoni was the only person admitted to their privacy.
This second marriage of the King of Spain, entirely brought about by
Madame des Ursins, was very distasteful to the Spaniards, who detested
that personage most warmly, and were in consequence predisposed to look
unfavourably upon anyone she favoured. It is true, the new Queen, on
arriving, drove out Madame des Ursins, but this showed her to be
possessed of as much power as the woman she displaced, and when she began
to exercise that power in other directions the popular dislike to her was
increased. She made no effort to mitigate it--hating the Spaniards as
much as they hated her--and it is incredible to what an extent this
reciprocal aversion stretched.
When the Queen went out with the King to the chase or to the atocha, the
people unceasingly cried, as well as the citizens in their shops, "Viva
el Re y la Savoyana, y la Savoyana," and incessantly repeated, with all
their lungs, "la Savoyana," which is the deceased Queen (I say this to
prevent mistake), no voice ever crying "Viva la Reina." The Queen
pretended to despise this, but inwardly raged (as people saw), she could
not habituate herself to it. She has said to me very frequently and more
than once: "The Spaniards do not like me, and in return I hate them,"
with an air of anger and of pique.
These long details upon the daily life of the King and Queen may appear
trivial, but they will not be judged so by those who know, as I do, what
valuable information is to be gained from similar particulars. I will
simply say in passing, that an experience of twenty years has convinced
me that the knowledge of such details is the key to many others, and that
it is always wanting in histories, often in memoirs the most interesting
and instructive, but which would be much more so if they had not
neglected this chapter, regarded by those who do not know its price, as a
bagatelle unworthy of entering into a serious recital. Nevertheless, I
am quite certain, that there is not a minister of state, a favourite, or
a single person of whatever rank, initiated by his office into the
domestic life of sovereigns, who will not echo my sentiments.
And now let me give a more distinct account of the King of Spain than I
have yet written.
Philip V. was not gifted with superior understanding or with any stock of
what is called imagination. He was cold, silent, sad, sober, fond of no
pleasure except the chase, fearing society, fearing himself, unexpansive,
a recluse by taste and habits, rarely touched by others, of good sense
nevertheless, and upright, with a tolerably good knowledge of things,
obstinate when he liked, and often then not to be moved; nevertheless,
easy at other times to govern and influence.
He was cold. In his campaigns he allowed himself to be led into any
position, even under a brisk fire, without budging in the slightest; nay,
amusing himself by seeing whether anybody was afraid. Secured and
removed from danger he was the same, without thinking that his glory
could suffer by it. He liked to make war, but was indifferent whether he
went there or not; and present or absent, left everything to the generals
without doing anything himself.
He was extremely vain; could bear no opposition in any of his
enterprises; and what made me judge he liked praise, was that the Queen
invariably praised him--even his face; and asked me one day, at the end
of an audience which had led us into conversation, if I did not think him
very handsome, and more so than any one I knew?--His piety was only
custom, scruples, fears, little observances, without knowing anything of
religion: the Pope a divinity when not opposed to him; in fact he had the
outside religion of the Jesuits, of whom he was passionately fond.
Although his health was very good, he always feared for it; he was always
looking after it. A physician, such as the one Louis XI. enriched so
much at the end of his life; a Maitre Coythier would have become a rich
and powerful personage by his side; fortunately his physician was a
thoroughly good and honourable man, and he who succeeded him devoted to
the Queen. Philip V. could speak well--very well, but was often hindered
by idleness and self-mistrust. To the audiences I had with him, however,
he astonished me by the precision, the grace, the easiness of his words.
He was good, easy to serve, familiar with a few. His love of France
showed itself in everything. He preserved much gratitude and veneration
for the deceased King, and tenderness for the late Monsieur; above all
for the Dauphin, his brother, for whose loss he was never consoled.
I noticed nothing in him towards any other of the royal family, except
the King; and he never asked me concerning anybody in the Court, except,
and then in a friendly manner, the Duchesse de Beauvilliers.
He had scruples respecting his crown, that can with difficulty be
reconciled with the desire he had to return, in case of misfortune, to
the throne of his fathers, which he had more than once so solemnly
renounced. He believed himself an usurper! and in this idea nourished
his desire to return to France, and abandon Spain and his scruples at one
and the same time. It cannot be disguised that all this was very ill-
arranged in his head, but there it was, and he would have abandoned Spain
had it been possible, because he felt compelled by duty to do so. It was
this feeling which principally induced him, after meditating upon it long
before I arrived in Spain, to abdicate his throne in favour of his son.
It was the same usurpation in his eyes, but not being able to obey his
scruples, he contented himself by doing all he could in abdicating. It
was still this feeling which, at the death of his son, troubled him so
much, when he saw himself compelled to reascend the throne; though,
during his abdication, that son had caused him not a little vexation.
As may well be imagined, Philip V. never spoke of these delicate matters
to me, but I was not less well informed of them elsewhere.
The Queen desired not less to abandon Spain, which she hated, and to
return into France and reign, where she hoped to lead a life of less
seclusion, and much more agreeable.
Notwithstanding all I have said, it is perfectly true that Philip V. was
but little troubled by the wars he made, that he was fond of enterprises,
and that his passion was to be respected and dreaded, and to figure
grandly in Europe.
But let me now more particularly describe the Queen.
This princess had much intellect and natural graces, which she knew how
to put to account. Her sense, her reflection, and her conduct, were
guided by that intellect, from which she drew all the charms and, all the
advantages possible. Whoever knew her was astonished to find how her
intelligence and natural capacity supplied the place of her want of
knowledge of the world, of persons, of affairs, upon all of which
subjects, her garret life in Parma, and afterwards her secluded life with
the King of Spain, hindered her from obtaining any real instruction. The
perspicuity she possessed, which enabled her to see the right side of
everything that came under her inspection, was undeniable, and this
singular gift would have become developed in her to perfection if its
growth had not been interrupted by the ill-humour she possessed; which it
must be admitted the life she led was more than enough to give her. She
felt her talent and her strength, but did not feel the fatuity and pride
which weakened them and rendered them ridiculous. The current of her
life was simple, smooth, with a natural gaiety even, which sparkled
through the eternal restraint of her existence; and despite the ill-
temper and the sharpness which this restraint without rest gave her, she
was a woman ordinarily without pretension, and really charming.
When she arrived in Spain she was sure, in the first place, of driving
away Madame des Ursins, and of filling-her place in the government at
once. She seized that place, and took possession also of the King's
mind, which she soon entirely ruled. As to public business, nothing
could be hidden from her. The King always worked in her presence, never
otherwise; all that he saw alone she read and discussed with him. She
was always present at all the private audiences that he gave, whether to
his subjects or to the foreign ministers; so that, as I have before
remarked, nothing possibly could escape her.
As for the King, the eternal night and day tete-a-tete she had with him
enabled her to sound him thoroughly, to know him by heart, so to speak.
She knew perfectly the time for preparatory insinuations, their success;
the resistance, when there was any, its course and how to overcome it;
the moments for yielding, in order to return afterwards to the charge,
and those for holding firm and carrying everything by force. She stood
in need of all these intrigues, notwithstanding her credit with the King.
If I may dare to say it, his temperament was her strong point, and she
sometimes had recourse to it. Then her coldness excited tempests. The
King cried and menaced; now and then went further; she held firm, wept,
and sometimes defended herself. In the morning all was stormy. The
immediate attendants acted towards King and Queen often without
penetrating the cause of their quarrel. Peace was concluded at the first
opportunity, rarely to the disadvantage of the Queen, who mostly had her
own way.
A quarrel of this sort arose when I was at Madrid; and I was advised,
after hearing details I will not repeat, to mix myself up in it, but I
burst out laughing and took good care not to follow this counsel.
CHAPTER CXI.
The chase was every day the amusement of the King, and the Queen was
obliged to make it hers. But it was always the same. Their Catholic
Majesties did me the singular honour to invite me to it once, and I went
in my coach. Thus I saw this pleasure well, and to see it once is to see
it always. Animals to shoot are not met with in the plains. They must
be sought for among the mountains,--and there the ground is too rugged
for hunting the stag, the wild boar, and other beasts as we hunt the
hare,--and elsewhere. The plains even are so dry, so hard, so full of
deep crevices (that are not perceived until their brink is reached), that
the best hounds or harriers would soon be knocked up, and would have
their feet blistered, nay lamed, for a long time. Besides, the ground is
so thickly covered with sturdy vegetation that the hounds could not
derive much help from their noses. Mere shooting on the wing the King
had long since quitted, and he had ceased to mount his horse; thus the
chase simply resolved itself into a battue.
The Duc del Orco, who, by his post of grand ecuyer, had the
superintendence of all the hunting arrangements, chose the place where
the King and Queen were to go. Two large arbours were erected there, the
one against the other, entirely shut in, except where two large openings,
like windows, were made, of breast-height. The King, the Queen, the
captain of the guards, and the grand ecuyer were in the first arbour with
about twenty guns and the wherewithal to load them. In the other arbour,
the day I was present, were the Prince of the Asturias, who came in his
coach with the Duc de Ponoli and the Marquis del Surco, the Marquis de
Santa Cruz, the Duc Giovenazzo, majordomo, major and grand ecuyer to the
Queen, Valouse, two or three officers of the body-guard, and I myself.
We had a number of guns, and some men to load them. A single lady of the
palace followed the Queen all alone, in another coach, which she did not
quit; she carried with her, for her consolation, a book or some work, for
no one approached her. Their Majesties and their suite went to the chase
in hot haste with relays of guards and of coach horses, for the distance
was at least three or four leagues; at the least double that from Paris
to Versailles. The party alighted at the arbours, and immediately the
carriages, the poor lady of the palace, and all the horses were led away
far out of sight, lest they should frighten the beasts.
Two, three, four hundred peasants had early in the morning beaten the
country round, with hue and cry, after having enclosed it and driven all
the animals together as near these arbours as possible. When in the
arbour you were not allowed to stir, or to make the slightest remarks, or
to wear attractive colours; and everybody stood up in silence.
This period of expectation lasted an hour and a half, and did not appear
to me very amusing. At last we heard loud cries from afar, and soon
after we saw troops of animals pass and repass within shot and within
half-shot of us; and then the King and the Queen banged away in good
earnest. This diversion, or rather species of butchery, lasted more than
half an hour, during which stags, hinds, roebucks, boars, hares, wolves,
badgers, foxes, and numberless pole-cats passed; and were killed or
lamed.
We were obliged to let the King and Queen fire first, although pretty
often they permitted the grand ecuyer and the captain of the guard to
fire also; and as we did not know from whom came the report, we were
obliged to wait until the King's arbour was perfectly silent; then let
the Prince shoot, who very often had nothing to shoot at, and we still
less. Nevertheless, I killed a fox, but a little before I ought to have
done so, at which, somewhat ashamed, I made my excuses to the Prince of
the Asturias, who burst out laughing, and the company also, I following
their example and all passing very politely.
In proportion as the peasants approach and draw nearer each other, the
sport advances, and it finishes when they all come close to the arbours,
still shouting, and with nothing more behind them. Then the coaches
return, the company quits the arbours, the beasts killed are laid before
the King. They are placed afterwards behind the coaches. During all
this, conversation respecting the sport rolls on. We carried away this
day about a dozen or more beasts, some hares, foxes, and polecats. The
night overtook us soon after we quitted the arbours.
And this is the daily diversion of their Catholic Majesties.
It is time now, however, to resume the thread of my narrative, from which
these curious and little-known details have led me.
I have shown in its place the motive which made me desire my embassy; it
was to obtain the 'grandesse' for my second son, and thus to "branch" my
house. I also desired to obtain the Toison d'Or for my eldest son, that
he might derive from this journey an ornament which, at his age, was a
decoration. I had left Paris with full liberty to employ every aid, in
order to obtain these things; I had, too, from M. le Duc d'Orleans, the
promise that he would expressly ask the King of Spain for the former
favour, employing the name of the King, and letters of the strongest kind
from Cardinal Dubois to Grimaldo and Father Aubenton. In the midst of
the turmoil of affairs I spoke to both of these persons, and was
favourably attended to.
Grimaldo was upright and truthful. He conceived a real friendship for
me, and gave me, during my stay at Madrid, all sorts of proofs of it.
He said that this union of the two Courts by the two marriages might
influence the ministers. His sole point of support, in order to maintain
himself in the post he occupied, so brilliant and so envied, was the King
of Spain. The Queen, he found, could never be a solid foundation on
which to repose. He wished, then, to support himself upon France, or at
least to have no opposition from it, and he perfectly well knew the
duplicity and caprices of Cardinal Dubois. The Court of Spain, at all
times so watchful over M. le Duc d'Orleans, in consequence of what had
passed in the time of the Princesse des Ursins, and during the Regency,
was not ignorant of the intimate and uninterrupted confidence of this
prince in me, or of the terms on which I was with him. These sort of
things appear larger than they are, when seen from afar, and the choice
that had been made of me for this singular embassy confirmed it still
more! Grimaldo, then, might have thought to assure my friendship in his
behalf, and my influence with M. le Duc d'Orleans, occasion demanding it;
and I don't think I am deceiving myself in attributing to him this policy
while he aided me to obtain a favour, at bottom quite natural, and which
could cause him no inconvenience.
I regarded the moment at which the marriage would be celebrated as that
at which I stood most chance of obtaining what I desired, and I
considered that if it passed over without result to me, all would grow
cold, and become uncertain, and very disagreeable. I had forgotten
nothing during this first stay in Madrid, in order to please everybody,
and I make bold to say that I had all the better succeeded because I had
tried to give weight and merit to my politeness, measuring it according
to the persons I addressed, without prostitution and without avarice, and
that's what made me hasten to learn all I could of the birth, of the
dignities, of the posts, of the alliances, of the reputation of each, so
as to play my cards well, and secure the game.
But still I needed the letters of M. le Duc d'Orleans, and of Cardinal
Dubois. I did not doubt the willingness of the Regent, but I did doubt,
and very much too, that of his minister. It has been seen what reason I
had for this.
These letters ought to have arrived at Madrid at the same time that I
did, but they had not come, and there seemed no prospect of their
arriving. What redoubled my impatience was that I read them beforehand,
and that I wished to have the time to reflect, and to turn round, in
order to draw from them, in spite of them, all the help I could. I
reckoned that these letters would be in a feeble spirit, and this opinion
made me more desirous to fortify my batteries in Spain in order to render
myself agreeable to the King and Queen, and to inspire them with the
desire to grant me the favours I wished.
A few days before going to Lerma I received letters from Cardinal Dubois
upon my affair. Nobody could be more eager or more earnest than the
Cardinal, for he gave me advice how to arrive at my aim, and pressed me
to look out for everything which could aid me; assuring me that his
letters, and those of M. le Duc d'Orleans, would arrive in time. In the
midst of the perfume of so many flowers, the odour of falsehood could
nevertheless be smelt. I had reckoned upon this. I had done all in my
power to supply the place of these letters. I received therefore not as
gospel, all the marvels Dubois sent me, and I set out for Lerma fully
resolved to more and more cultivate my affair without reckoning upon the
letters promised me; but determined to draw as much advantage from them
as I could.
Upon arriving at Lerma I fell ill as I have described, and the small-pox
kept me confined forty days: The letters so long promised and so long
expected did not arrive until the end of my quarantine. They were just
what I expected. Cardinal Dubois explained himself to Grimaldo in turns
and circumlocution, and if one phrase displayed eagerness and desire, the
next destroyed it by an air of respect and of discretion, protesting he
wished simply what the King of Spain would himself wish, with all the
seasoning necessary for the annihilation of his good offices under the
pretence that he did not wish to press his Majesty to anything or to
importune him.
This written stammering savoured of the bombast of a man who had no
desire to serve me, but who, not daring to break his word, used all his
wits to twist and overrate the little he could not hinder himself from
saying. This letter was simply for Grimaldo, as the letter of M. le Duc
d'Orleans was simply for the King of Spain. The last was even weaker
than the first. It was like a design in pencil nearly effaced by the
rain, and in which nothing, connected appeared. It scarcely touched upon
the real point, but lost itself in respects, in reservations, in
deference, and would propose nothing that was not according to the taste
of the King! In a word, the letter withdrew rather than advanced, and
was a sort of ease-conscience which could not be refused, and which did
not promise much success.
It is easy to understand that these letters much displeased me. Although
I had anticipated all the malice of Cardinal Dubois, I found it exceeded
my calculations, and that it was more undisguised than I imagined it
would be.
Such as the letters were I was obliged to make use of them. The Abbe de
Saint-Simon wrote to Grimaldo and to Sartine, enclosing these letter, for
I myself did not yet dare to write on account of the precautions I was
obliged to use against the bad air. Sartine and Grimaldo, to whom I had
not confided my suspicions that these recommendations would be in a very
weak tone, were thrown into the utmost surprise on reading them.
They argued together, they were indignant, they searched for a bias to
strengthen that which had so much need of strength, but this bias could
not be found; they consulted together, and Grimaldo formed a bold
resolution, which astonished me to the last degree, and much troubled me
also.
He came to the conclusion that these letters would assuredly do me more
harm than good; that they must be suppressed, never spoken of to the
King, who must be confirmed without them in the belief that in according
me these favours he would confer upon M. le Duc d'Orleans a pleasure, all
the greater, because he saw to what point extended all his reserve in not
speaking to him about this matter, and mine in not asking for these
favours through his Royal Highness, as there was every reason to believe
I should do. Grimaldo proposed to draw from these circumstances all the
benefit he proposed to have drawn from the letters had they been written
in a fitting spirit, and he said he would answer for it; I should have
the 'grandesse' and the 'Toison d'Or' without making the slightest
allusion to the cold recommendations of M. le Duc d'Orleans to the King
of Spain, and of Dubois to him.
Sartine, by his order, made this known to the Abbe de Saint-Simon, who
communicated it to me, and after having discussed together with Hyghens,
who knew the ground as well as they, and who had really devoted himself
to me, I blindly abandoned myself to the guidance and friendship of
Grimaldo, with full success, as will be seen.
In relating here the very singular fashion by which my affair succeeded,
I am far indeed from abstracting from M. le Duc d'Orleans all gratitude.
If he had not confided to me the double marriage, without the knowledge
of Dubois, and in spite of the secrecy that had been asked for, precisely
on my account, I should not have been led to beg of him the embassy.
I instantly asked for it, declaring that my sole aim was the grandesse
for my second son, and he certainly accorded it to me with this aim, and
promised to aid me with his recommendation in order to arrive at it, but
with the utmost secrecy on account of the vexation Dubois would feel, and
in order to give himself time to arrange with the minister and induce him
to swallow the pill.
If I had not had the embassy in this manner, it would certainly have
escaped me; and thus would have been lost all hope of the grandesse, to
obtain which there would have been no longer occasion, reason, or means.
The friendship and the confidence of this prince prevailed then over the
witchery which his miserable preceptor had cast upon him, and if he
afterwards yielded to the roguery, to the schemes, to the folly which
Dubois employed in the course of this embassy to ruin and disgrace me,
and to bring about the failure of the sole object which had made me
desire it, we must only blame his villainy and the deplorable feebleness
of M. le Duc d'Orleans, which caused me many sad embarrassments, and did
so much harm, but which even did more harm to the state and to the prince
himself.
It is with this sad but only too true reflection that I finish the year
1721.
CHAPTER CXII
The Regent's daughter arrived in Spain at the commencement of the year
1722, and it was arranged that her marriage with the Prince of the
Asturias should be celebrated on the 30th of January at Lerma, where
their Catholic Majesties were then staying. It was some little distance
from my house. I was obliged therefore to start early in the morning in
order to arrive in time. On the way I paid a visit of ceremony to the
Princess, at Cogollos, ate a mouthful of something, and turned off to
Lerma.
As soon as I arrived there, I went to the Marquis of Grimaldo's
apartments. His chamber was at the end of a vast room, a piece of which
had been portioned off, in order to serve as a chapel. Once again I had
to meet the nuncio, and I feared lest he should remember what had passed
on a former occasion, and that I should give Dubois a handle for
complaint. I saw, therefore, but very imperfectly, the reception of the
Princess; to meet whom the King and Queen (who lodged below) and the
Prince precipitated themselves, so to speak, almost to the steps of the
coach. I quietly went up again to the chapel.
The prie-dieu of the King was placed in front of the altar, a short
distance from the steps, precisely as the King's prie-dieu is placed at
Versailles, but closer to the altar, and with a cushion on each side of
it. The chapel was void of courtiers. I placed myself to the right of
the King's cushion just beyond the edge of the carpet, and amused myself
there better than I had expected. Cardinal Borgia, pontifically clad,
was in the corner, his face turned towards me, learning his lesson
between two chaplains in surplices, who held a large book open in front
of him. The good prelate did not know how to read; he tried, however,
and read aloud, but inaccurately. The chaplains took him up, he grew
angry, scolded them, recommenced, was again corrected, again grew angry,
and to such an extent that he turned round upon them and shook them by
their surplices. I laughed as much as I could; for he perceived nothing,
so occupied and entangled was he with his lesson.
Marriages in Spain are performed in the afternoon, and commence at the
door of the church, like baptisms. The King, the Queen, the Prince, and
the Princess arrived with all the Court, and the King was announced.
"Let them wait," said the Cardinal in choler, "I am not ready." They
waited, in fact, and the Cardinal continued his lesson, redder than his
hat, and still furious. At last he went to the door, at which a ceremony
took place that lasted some time. Had I not been obliged to continue at
my post, curiosity would have made me follow him. That I lost some
amusement is certain, for I saw the King and Queen laughing and looking
at their prie-dieu, and all the Court laughing also. The nuncio arriving
and seeing by the position I had taken up that I was preceding him, again
indicated his surprise to me by gestures, repeating, "Signor, signor;"
but I had resolved to understand nothing, and laughingly pointed out the
Cardinal to him, and reproached him for not having better instructed the
worthy prelate for the honour of the Sacred College. The nuncio
understood French very well, but spoke it very badly. This banter and
the innocent air with which I gave it, without appearing to notice his
demonstrations, created such a fortunate diversion, that nobody else was
thought of; more especially as the poor cardinal more and more caused
amusement while continuing the ceremony, during which he neither knew
where he was nor what he was doing, being taken up and corrected every
moment by his chaplains, and fuming against them so that neither the King
nor the Queen could; contain themselves. It was the same with everybody
else who witnessed the scene.
I could see nothing more than the back of the Prince and the Princess as
they knelt each upon a cushion between the prie-dieu and the altar, the
Cardinal in front making grimaces indicative of the utmost confusion.
Happily all I had to think of was the nuncio, the King's majordomo-major
having placed himself by the side of his son, captain of the guards. The
grandees were crowded around with the most considerable people: the rest
filled all the chapel so that there was no stirring.
Amidst the amusement supplied to us by the poor Cardinal, I remarked
extreme satisfaction in the King and Queen at seeing this grand marriage
accomplished. The ceremony finished, as it was not long, only the King,
the Queen, and, when necessary, the Prince and Princess kneeling, their
Catholic Majesties rose and withdrew towards the left corner of their
footcloth, talked together for a short time, after which the Queen
remained where she was, and the King advanced to me, I being where I had
been during all the ceremony.
The King did me the honour to say to me, "Monsieur, in every respect I am
so pleased with you, and particularly for the manner in which you have
acquitted yourself of your embassy, that I wish to give you some marks of
my esteem, of my satisfaction; of my friendship. I make you Grandee of
Spain of the first class; you, and, at the same time, whichever of your
sons you may wish to have the same distinction; and your eldest son I
will make chevalier of the Toison d'Or."
I immediately embraced his knees, and I tried to testify to him my
gratitude and my extreme desire to render myself worthy of the favour he
deigned to spread upon me, by my attachment, my very humble services, and
my most profound respect. Then I kissed his hand, turned and sent for
my children, employing the moments which had elapsed before they came in
uttering fresh thanks. As soon as my sons appeared, I called the younger
and told him, to embrace the knees of the King who overwhelmed us with
favours, and made him grandee of Spain with me. He kissed the King's
hand in rising, the King saying he was very glad of what he had just
done. I presented the elder to him afterwards, to thank him for the
Toison. He simply bent very low and kissed the King's hand. As soon as
this was at an end, the King went towards the Queen, and I followed him
with my children. I bent very low before the Queen, thanked her, then
presented to her my children, the younger first, the elder afterwards.
The Queen received us with much goodness, said a thousand civil things,
then walked away with the King, followed by the Prince, having upon his
arm the Princess, whom we saluted in passing; and they returned to their
apartments. I wished to follow them, but was carried away, as it were,
by the crowd which pressed eagerly around me to compliment me. I was
very careful to reply in a fitting manner to each, and with the utmost
politeness, and though I but little expected these favours at this
moment, I found afterwards that all this numerous court was pleased with
me.
A short time after the celebration of the marriage between the Regent's
daughter and the Prince of the Asturias, the day came on which my eldest
son was to receive the Toison d'Or. The Duc de Liria was to be his,
godfather, and it was he who conducted us to the place of ceremony. His
carriage was drawn by four perfectly beautiful Neapolitan horses; but
these animals, which are often extremely fantastical, would not stir.
The whip was vigorously applied; results--rearing, snorting, fury, the
carriage in danger of being upset. Time was flying; I begged the Duc de
Liria, therefore, to get into my carriage, so that we might not keep the
King and the company waiting for us. It was in vain I represented to him
that this function of godfather would in no way be affected by changing
his own coach for mine, since it would be by necessity. He would not
listen to me. The horses continued their game for a good half hour
before they consented to start.
All my cortege followed us, for I wished by this display to show the King
of Spain how highly I appreciated the honours of his Court. On the way
the horses again commenced their pranks. I again pressed the Duc de
Liria to change his coach, and he again refused. Fortunately the pause
this time was much shorter than at first; but before we reached the end
of our journey there came a message to say that the King was waiting for
us. At last we arrived, and as soon as the King was informed of it he
entered the room where the chapter of the order was assembled. He
straightway sat himself down in an armchair, and while the rest of the
company were placing themselves in position; the Queen, the Princess of
the Asturias, and their suite, seated themselves as simple spectators at
the end of the room.
All the chapter having arranged themselves in order, the door in front of
the King, by which we had entered, was closed, my son remaining outside
with a number of the courtiers. Then the King covered himself, and all
the chevaliers at the same time, in the midst of a silence, without sign,
which lasted as long as a little prayer. After this, the King very
briefly proposed that the Vidame de Chartres should be received into the
order. All the chevaliers uncovered themselves, made an inclination,
without rising, and covered themselves again. After another silence, the
King called the Duc de Liria, who uncovered himself, and with a reverence
approached the King; by whom he was thus addressed: "Go and see if the
Vidame de Chartres is not somewhere about here."
The Duc de Liria made another reverence to the King, but none to the
chevaliers (who, nevertheless, were uncovered at the same time as he),
went away, the door was closed upon him, and the chevaliers covered
themselves again. The reverences just made, and those I shall have
occasion to speak of in the course of my description, were the same as
are seen at the receptions of the chevaliers of the Saint-Esprit, and in
all grand ceremonies.
The Duc de Liria remained outside nearly a quarter of an hour, because it
is assumed that the new chevalier is ignorant of the proposition made for
him, and that it is only by chance he is found in the palace, time being
needed in order to look for him. The Duc de Liria returned, and
immediately after the door was again closed, and he advanced to the King,
as before, saying that the Vidame de Chartres was in the other room.
Upon this the King ordered him to go and ask the Vidame if he wished to
accept the Order of the Toison d'Or, and be received into it, and
undertake to observe its statutes, its duties, its ceremonies, take its
oaths, promise to fulfil all the conditions submitted: to every one who
is admitted into it, and agree to conduct himself in everything like a
good, loyal, brave, and virtuous chevalier. The Duc de Liria withdrew as
he had before withdrawn. The door was again closed. He returned after
having been absent a shorter time than at first. The door was again
closed, and he approached the King as before, and announced to him the
consent and the thanks of the Vidame. "Very well," replied the King.
"Go seek him, and bring him here."
The Duc de Liria withdrew, as on the previous occasions, and immediately
returned, having my son on his left. The door being open, anybody was at
liberty to enter, and see the ceremony.
The Duc de Liria conducted my son to the feet of the King, and then
seated himself in his place. My son, in advancing, had lightly inclined
himself to the chevaliers, right and left; and, after having made in the
middle of the room a profound bow, knelt before the King, without
quitting his sword, and having his hat under his arm, and no gloves on.
The chevaliers, who had uncovered themselves at the entry of the Duc de
Liria, covered themselves when he sat down; and the Prince of the
Asturias acted precisely as they acted.
The King repeated to my son the same things, a little more lengthily,
that had been said to him by the Duc de Liria, and received his promise
upon each in succession. Afterwards, an attendant, who was standing in
waiting behind the table, presented to the King, from between the table
and the chair, a large book, open, and in which was a long oath, that my
son repeated to the King, who had the book upon his knees, the oath in
French, and on loose paper; being in it. This ceremony lasted rather a
long time: Afterwards, my son kissed the King's hand, and the King made
him rise and pass, without reverence; directly before the table, towards
the middle of which he knelt, his back to the Prince of the Asturias, his
face to the attendant, who showed him (the table being between them) what
to do. There was upon this table a great crucifix of enamel upon a
stand, with a missal open at the Canon, the Gospel of Saint-John, and
forms, in French, of promises and oaths to be made, whilst putting the
hand now upon the Canon, now upon the Gospel. The oath-making took up
some time; after which my son came back and knelt before the King again
as before.
Then, the Duc del Orco, grand ecuyer, and Valouse, premier ecuyer, who
have had the Toison since, and who were near me, went away, the Duke
first, Valouse behind him, carrying in his two hands, with marked care
and respect, the sword of the Grand Captain, Don Gonzalvo de Cordova, who
is never called otherwise. They walked, with measured step, outside the
right-hand seats of the chevaliers, then entered the chapter, where the
Duc de Liria had entered with my son, marched inside the left-hand seats
of the chevaliers, without reverence, but the Duke inclining himself;
Valouse not doing so on account of the respect due to the sword; the
grandees did not incline themselves.
The Duke on arriving between the Prince of the Asturias and the King,
knelt, and Valouse knelt behind him. Some moments after, the King made a
sign to them; Valouse drew the sword from its sheath which he put under
his arm, held the naked weapon by the middle of the blade, kissed the
hilt, and presented it to the King, who, without uncovering himself,
kissed the pommel, took the sword in both hands by the handle, held it
upright some moments; then held it with one hand, but almost immediately
with the other as well, and struck it three times upon each shoulder of
my son, alternately, saying to him, "By Saint-George and Saint-Andrew I
make you Chevalier." And the weight of the sword was so great that the
blows did not fall lightly. While the King was striking them, the grand
ecuyer and the premier remained in their places kneeling. The sword was
returned as it had been presented, and kissed in the same manner.
Valouse put it back into its sheath, after which the grand ecuyer and the
premier ecuyer returned as they came.
This sword, handle included, was more than four feet long; the blade four
good digits wide, thick in proportion, insensibly diminishing in
thickness and width to the point, which was very small. The handle
appeared to me of worked enamel, long and very large; as well as the
pommel; the crossed piece long, and the two ends wide, even, worked,
without branch. I examined it well, and I could not hold it in the air
with one-hand, still less handle it with both hands except with much
difficulty. It is pretended that this is the sword the Great Captain
made use of, and with which he obtained so many victories.
I marvelled at the strength of the men in those days, with whom I believe
early habits did much. I was touched by the grand honour rendered to the
Great Captain's memory; his sword becoming the sword of the State,
carried even by the King with great respect. I repeated, more than once,
that if I were the Duc de Scose (who descends in a direct line from the
Great Captain by the female branch, the male being extinct), I would
leave nothing undone to obtain the Toison, in order to enjoy the honour
and the sensible pleasure of being struck by this sword, and with such
great respect for my ancestor. But to return to the ceremony from which
this little digression has taken me.
The accolade being given by the King after the blows with the sword,
fresh oaths being taken at his feet, then before the table as at first,
and on this occasion at greater length, my son returned and knelt before
the King, but without saying anything more. Then Grimaldo rose and,
without reverence, left the chapter by the left, went behind the right-
hand seats of the chevaliers, and took the collar of the Toison which was
extended at the end of the table. At this moment the King told my son to
rise, and so remain standing in the same place. The Prince of the
Asturias, and the Marquis de Villena then rose also, end approached my
son, both covered, all the other chevaliers remaining seated and covered.
Then Grimaldo, passing between the table and the empty seat of the Prince
of the Asturias, presented; standing, the collar to the King, who took it
with both hands, and meanwhile Grimaldo, passing behind the Prince of the
Asturias, went and placed himself behind my son. As soon as he was
there, the King told my son to bend very low, but without kneeling, and
then leaning forward, but without rising, placed the collar upon him, and
made him immediately after stand upright. The King then took hold of the
collar, simply holding the end of it in his hand. At the same time, the
collar was attached to the left shoulder by the Prince of the Asturias,
to the right shoulder by the Marquis de Villena, and behind by Grimaldo;
the King still holding the end.
When the collar was attached, the Prince of the Asturias, the Marquis de
Villena, and Grimaldo, without making a reverence and no chevalier
uncovering himself, went back to their places, and sat down; at, the same
moment my son knelt before the King, and bared, his head. Then the Duc
de Liria, without reverence, and uncovered (no chevalier uncovering
himself), placed himself before the King at the left, by the side of my
son, and both made their reverences to the King; turned round to the
Prince of the Asturias, did the same to him, he rising and doing my son
the honour to embrace him, and as soon as he was reseated they made a
reverence to him; then, turning to the King, made him one; afterwards
they did the same to the Marquis de Villena, who rose and embraced my
son. Then he reseated himself; upon which they made a reverence to him,
then turning again towards the King, made another to him; and so an from
right to left until every chevalier had been bowed to in a similar
manner. Then my son sat down, and the Duc de Liria returned to his
place.
After this long series of bows, so bewildering for those who play the
chief part in it, the King remained a short time in his armchair, them
rose, uncovered himself, and retired into his apartment as he came. I
had instructed my son to hurry forward and arrive before him at the door
of his inner apartment. He was in time, and I also, to kiss the hand of
the King, and to express our thanks, which were well received. The Queen
arrived and overwhelmed us with compliments. I must observe that the
ceremony of the sword and the accolade are not performed at the reception
of those who, having already another order, are supposed to have received
them; like the chevaliers of the Saint-Esprit and of Saint-Michel, and
the chevaliers of Saint-Louis.
Their Catholic Majesties being gone, we withdrew to my house, where a
very grand dinner was prepared. The usage is, before the reception, to
visit all the chevaliers of the Toison, and when the day is fixed, to
visit all those invited to dinner on the day of the ceremony; the
godfather, with the other chevalier by whom he is accompanied, also
invites them at the palace before they enter the chapter, and aids the
new chevalier to do the honours of the repast. I had led my son with me
to pay these visits. Nearly all the chevaliers came to dine with us, and
many other nobles. The Duc d'Albuquerque, whom I met pretty often, and
who had excused himself from attending a dinner I had previously given,
on account of his stomach (ruined as he said in the Indies), said he,
would not refuse me twice, on condition that I permitted him to take
nothing but soup, because meat was too solid for him. He came, and
partook of six sorts of soup, moderately of all; he afterwards lightly
soaked his bread in such ragouts as were near him, eating only the end,
and finding everything very good. He drank nothing but wine and water.
The dinner was gay, in spite of the great number of guests. The
Spaniards eat as much as, nay more than, we, and with taste, choice, and
pleasure: as to drink, they are very modest.
On the 13th of March, 1722, their Catholic Majesties returned from their
excursion to the Retiro. The hurried journey I had just made to the
former place, immediately after the arrival of a courier, and in spite of
most open prohibitions forbidding every one to go there, joined to the
fashion, full of favour and goodness, with which I had been distinguished
by their Majesties ever since my arrival in Spain, caused a most
ridiculous rumour to obtain circulation, and which, to my great surprise,
at once gained much belief.
It was reported there that I was going to quit my position of ambassador
from France, and be declared prime minister of Spain! The people who had
been pleased, apparently, with the expense I had kept up, and to whom not
one of my suite had given the slightest cause of complaint, set to crying
after me in the streets; announcing my promotion, displaying joy at it,
and talking of it even in the shops. A number of persons even assembled
round my house to testify to me their pleasure. I dispersed them as
civilly and as quickly as possible, assuring them the report was not
true, and that I was forthwith about to return to France.
This was nothing more than the truth. I had finished all my business.
It was time to think about setting out. As soon, however, as I talked
about going, there was nothing which the King and the Queen did not do to
detain me. All the Court, too, did me the favour to express much
friendship for me, and regret at my departure. I admit even that I could
not easily make up my mind to quit a country where I had found nothing
but fruits and flowers, and to which I was attached, as I shall ever be,
by esteem and gratitude. I made at once a number of farewell visits
among the friends I had been once acquainted with; and on the 21st of
March I had my parting state audiences of the King and Queen separately.
I was surprised with the dignity, the precision, and the measure of the
King's expressions, as I had been surprised at my first audience. I
received many marks of personal goodness, and of regret at my departure
from his Catholic Majesty, and from the Queen even more; from the Prince
of the Asturias a good many also. But in another direction I met with
very different treatment, which I cannot refrain from describing, however
ridiculous it may appear.
I went, of course, to say my adieux to the Princess of the Asturias, and
I was accompanied by all my suite. I found the young lady standing under
a dais, the ladies on one side, the grandees on the other; and I made my
three reverences, then uttered my compliments. I waited in silence her
reply, but 'twas in vain. She answered not one word.
After some moments of silence, I thought I would furnish her with matter
for an answer; so I asked her what orders she had for the King; for the
Infanta, for Madame, and for M. and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. By way
of reply, she looked at me and belched so loudly in my face, that the
noise echoed throughout the chamber. My surprise was such that I was
stupefied. A second belch followed as noisy as the first.
I lost countenance at this, and all power of hindering myself from
laughing. Turning round, therefore, I saw everybody with their hands
upon their mouths, and their shoulders in motion. At last a third belch,
still louder than the two others, threw all present into confusion, and
forced me to take flight, followed by all my suite, amid shouts of
laughter, all the louder because they had previously been kept in. But
all barriers of restraint were now thrown down; Spanish gravity was
entirely disconcerted; all was deranged; no reverences; each person,
bursting with laughter, escaped as he could, the Princess all the while
maintaining her countenance. Her belches were the only answers she made
me. In the adjoining room we all stopped to laugh at our ease, and
express our astonishment afterwards more freely.
The King and Queen were soon informed of the success of this audience,
and spoke of it to me after dinner at the Racket Court. They were the
first to laugh at it, so as to leave others at liberty to do so too; a
privilege that was largely made use of without pressing. I received and
I paid numberless visits; and as it is easy to flatter one's self, I
fancied I might flatter myself that I was regretted.
I left Madrid on the 24th of March, after having had the honour of paying
my court to their Catholic Majesties all the afternoon at the Racket
Court, they overwhelming me with civilities, and begging me to take a
final adieu of them in their apartments. I had devoted the last few days
to the friends whom, during my short stay of six months, I had made.
Whatever might be the joy and eagerness I felt at the prospect of seeing
Madame de Saint-Simon and my Paris friends again, I could not quit Spain
without feeling my heart moved, or without regretting persons from whom I
had received so many marks of goodness, and for whom, all I had seen of
the nation, had made me conceive esteem, respect, and gratitude. I kept
up, for many years, a correspondence with Grimaldo, while he lived, in
fact, and after his fall and disgrace, which occurred long after my
departure, with more care and attention than formerly. My attachment,
full of respect and gratitude for the King and Queen of Spain, induced me
to do myself the honour of writing to them on all occasions. They often
did me the honour to reply to me; and always charged their new ministers
in France and the persons of consideration who came there, to convey to
me the expression of their good feeling for me.
After a journey without particular incident, I embarked early one morning
upon the Garonne, and soon arrived at Bordeaux. The jurats did me the
honour to ask, through Segur, the under-mayor, at what time they might
come and salute me. I invited them to supper, and said to Segur that
compliments would be best uttered glass in hand. They came, therefore,
to supper, and appeared to me much pleased with this civility: On the
morrow, the tide early carried me to Blaye, the weather being most
delightful. I slept only one night there, and to save time did not go to
Ruffec.
On the 13th of April, I arrived, about five o'clock in the afternoon, at
Loches. I slept there because I wished to write a volume of details to
the Duchesse de Beauvilliers, who was six leagues off, at one of her
estates. I sent my packet by an express, and in this manner I was able
to say what I liked to her without fearing that the letter would be
opened.
On the morrow, the 14th, I arrived at Etampes, where I slept, and the
15th, at ten o'clock in the morning, I reached Chartres, where Madame de
Saint-Simon was to meet me, dine, and sleep, so that we might have the
pleasure of opening our hearts to each other, and of finding ourselves
together again in solitude and in liberty, greater than could be looked
for in Paris during the first few days of my return. The Duc d'Humieres
and Louville came with her. She arrived an hour after me, fixing herself
in the little chateau of the Marquis d'Arpajan, who had lent it to her,
and where the day appeared to us very short as well as the next morning,
the 16th of April.
To conclude the account of my journey, let me say that I arrived in Paris
shortly after, and at once made the best of my way to the Palais Royal,
where M. le Duc d'Orleans gave me a sincere and friendly welcome.
VOLUME 15.
CHAPTER CXIII
Few events of importance had taken place during my absence in Spain.
Shortly after my return, however, a circumstance occurred which may
fairly claim description from me. Let me, therefore, at once relate it.
Cardinal Dubois, every day more and more firmly established in the favour
of M. le Duc d'Orleans, pined for nothing less than to be declared prime
minister. He was already virtually in that position, but was not
publicly or officially recognised as being so. He wished, therefore, to
be declared.
One great obstacle in his path was the Marechal de Villeroy, with whom he
was on very bad terms, and whom he was afraid of transforming into an
open and declared enemy, owing to the influence the Marechal exerted over
others. Tormented with agitating thoughts, every day that delayed his
nomination seemed to him a year. Dubois became doubly ill-tempered and
capricious, more and more inaccessible, and accordingly the most pressing
and most important business was utterly neglected. At last he resolved
to make a last effort at reconciliation with the Marechal, but
mistrusting his own powers, decided upon asking Cardinal Bissy to be the
mediator between them.
Bissy with great willingness undertook the peaceful commission; spoke to
Villeroy, who appeared quite ready to make friends with Dubois, and even
consented to go and see him. As chance would have it, he went,
accompanied by Bissy, on Tuesday morning. I at the same time went, as
was my custom, to Versailles to speak to M. le Duc d'Orleans upon some
subject, I forget now what.
It was the day on which the foreign ministers had their audience of
Cardinal Dubois, and when Bissy and Villeroy arrived, they found these
ministers waiting in the chamber adjoining the Cardinal's cabinet.
The established usage is that they have their audience according to the
order in which they arrive, so as to avoid all disputes among them as to
rank and precedence. Thus Bissy and Villeroy found Dubois closeted with
the Russian minister. It was proposed to inform the Cardinal at once, of
a this, so rare as a visit from the Marechal de Villeroy; but the
Marechal would not permit it, and sat down upon a sofa with Bissy to wait
like the rest.
The audience being over, Dubois came from his cabinet, conducting the
Russian minister, and immediately saw his sofa so well ornamented. He
saw nothing but that in fact; on the instant he ran there, paid a
thousand compliments to the Marechal for anticipating him, when he was
only waiting for permission to call upon him, and begged him and Bissy to
step into the cabinet. While they were going there, Dubois made his
excuses to the ambassadors for attending to Villeroy before them, saying
that his functions and his assiduity as governor of the King did not
permit him to be long absent from the presence of his Majesty; and with
this compliment he quitted them and returned into his cabinet.
At first nothing passed but reciprocal compliments and observations from
Cardinal Bissy, appropriate to the subject. Then followed protestations
from Dubois and replies from the Marechal. Thus far, the sea was very
smooth. But absorbed in his song, the Marechal began to forget its tune;
then to plume himself upon his frankness and upon his plain speaking;
then by degrees, growing hot in his honours, he gave utterance to divers
naked truths, closely akin to insults.
Dubois, much astonished, pretended not to feel the force of these
observations, but as they increased every moment, Bissy tried to call
back the Marechal, explain things to him, and give a more pleasant tone
to the conversation. But the mental tide had begun to rise, and now it
was entirely carrying away the brains of Villeroy. From bad to worse was
easy. The Marechal began now to utter unmistakable insults and the most
bitter reproaches. In vain Bissy tried to silence him; representing to
him how far he was wandering from the subject they came to talk upon; how
indecent it was to insult a man in his own house, especially, after
arriving on purpose to conclude a reconciliation with him. All Bissy
could say simply had the effect of exasperating the Marechal, and of
making him vomit forth the most extravagant insults that insolence and
disdain could suggest.
Dubois, stupefied and beside himself, was deprived of his tongue, could
not utter a word; while Bissy, justly inflamed with anger, uselessly
tried to interrupt his friend. In the midst of the sudden fire which had
seized the Marechal, he had placed himself in such a manner that he
barred the passage to the door, and he continued his invectives without
restraint. Tired of insults, he passed to menaces and derision, saying
to Dubois that since he had now thrown off all disguise, they no longer
were on terms to pardon each other, and then he assured Dubois that,
sooner or later, he would do him all the injury possible, and gave him
what he called good counsel.
"You are all powerful," said he; "everybody bends before you; nobody
resists you; what are the greatest people in the land compared with you?
Believe me, you have only one thing to do; employ all your power, put
yourself at ease, and arrest me, if you dare. Who can hinder you?
Arrest me, I say, you have only that course open."
Thereupon, he redoubled his challenges and his insults, like a man who is
thoroughly persuaded that between arresting him and scaling Heaven there
is no difference. As may well be imagined, such astounding remarks were
not uttered without interruption, and warm altercations from the Cardinal
de Bissy, who, nevertheless, could not stop the torrent. At last,
carried away by anger and vexation, Bissy seized the Marechal by the arm
and the shoulder, and hurried him to the door, which he opened, and then
pushed him out, and followed at his heels. Dubois, more dead than alive,
followed also, as well as he could--he was obliged to be on his guard
against the foreign ministers who were waiting. But the three disputants
vainly tried to appear composed; there was not one of the ministers who
did not perceive that some violent scene must have passed in the cabinet,
and forthwith Versailles was filled with this news; which was soon
explained by the bragging, the explanations, the challenges, and the
derisive speeches of the Marechal de Villeroy.
I had worked and chatted for a long time with M. le Duc d'Orleans. He
had passed into his wardrobe, and I was standing behind his bureau
arranging his papers when I saw Cardinal Dubois enter like a whirlwind,
his eyes starting out of his head. Seeing me alone, he screamed rather
than asked, "Where is M. le Duc d'Orleans?" I replied that he had gone
into his wardrobe, and seeing him so overturned, I asked him what was the
matter.
"I am lost, I am lost!" he replied, running to the wardrobe. His reply
was so loud and so sharp that M. le Duc d'Orleans, who heard it, also ran
forward, so that they met each other in the doorway. They returned
towards me, and the Regent asked what was the matter.
Dubois, who always stammered, could scarcely speak, so great was his rage
and fear; but he succeeded at last in acquainting us with the details I
have just given, although at greater length. He concluded by saying that
after the insults he had received so treacherously, and in a manner so
basely premeditated, the Regent must choose between him and the Marechal
de Villeroy, for that after what had passed he could not transact any
business or remain at the Court in safety and honour, while the Marechal
de Villeroy remained there!
I cannot express the astonishment into which M. le Duc d'Orleans and I
were thrown. We could not believe what we had heard, but fancied we were
dreaming. M. le Duc d'Orleans put several questions to Dubois, I took
the liberty to do the same, in order to sift the affair to the bottom.
But there was no variation in the replies of the Cardinal, furious as he
was. Every moment he presented the same option to the Regent; every
moment he proposed that the Cardinal de Bissy should be sent for as
having witnessed everything. It may be imagined that this second scene,
which I would gladly have escaped, was tolerably exciting.
The Cardinal still insisting that the Regent must choose which of the two
be sent away, M. le Duc d'Orleans asked me what I thought. I replied
that I was so bewildered and so moved by this astounding occurrence that
I must collect myself before speaking. The Cardinal, without addressing
himself to me but to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who he saw was plunged Memoirs
in embarrassment, strongly insisted that he must come to some resolution.
Upon this M. le Duc d'Orleans beckoned me over, and I said to him that
hitherto I had always regarded the dismissal of the Marechal de Villeroy
as a very dangerous enterprise, for reasons I had several times alleged
to his Royal Highness: but that now whatever peril there might be in
undertaking it, the frightful scene that had just been enacted persuaded
me that it would be much more dangerous to leave him near the King than
to get rid of him altogether. I added that this was my opinion, since
his Royal Highness wished to know it without giving me the time to
reflect upon it with more coolness; but as for the execution, that must
be well discussed before being attempted.
Whilst I spoke, the Cardinal pricked up his ears, turned his eyes upon
me, sucked in all my words, and changed colour like a man who hears his
doom pronounced. My opinion relieved him as much as the rage with which
he was filled permitted. M. le Duc d'Orleans approved what I had just
said, and the Cardinal, casting a glance upon me as of thanks, said he
was the master, and must choose, but that he must choose at once, because
things could not remain as they were. Finally, it was agreed that the
rest of the day (it was now about twelve) and the following morning
should be given to reflection upon the matter, and that the next day, at
three o'clock in the afternoon, I should meet M. le Duc d'Orleans.
The next day accordingly I went to M. le Prince, whom I found with the
Cardinal Dubois. M. le Duc entered a moment after, quite full of the
adventure. Cardinal Dubois did not fail, though, to give him an abridged
recital of it, loaded with comments and reflections. He was more his own
master than on the preceding day, having had time to recover himself, we
cherishing hopes that the Marechal would be sent to the right about. It
was here that I heard of the brag of the Marechal de Villeroy concerning
the struggle he had had with Dubois, and of the challenges and insults he
had uttered with a confidence which rendered his arrest more and more
necessary.
After we had chatted awhile, standing, Dubois went away. M. le Duc
d'Orleans sat down at his bureau, and M. le Duc and I sat in front of
him. There we deliberated upon what ought to be done. After a few words
of explanation from the Regent, he called upon me to give my opinion. I
did so as briefly as possible, repeating what I had said on the previous
day. M. le Duc d'Orleans, during my short speech, was very attentive,
but with the countenance of a man much embarrassed.
As soon as I had finished, he asked M. le Duc what he thought. M. le Duc
said his opinion was mine, and that if the Marechal de Villeroy remained
in his office there was nothing for it but to put the key outside the
door; that was his expression. He reproduced some of the principal
reasons I had alleged, supported them, and concluded by saying there was
not a moment to lose. M. le Duc d'Orleans summed up a part of what had
been said, and agreed that the Marechal de Villeroy must be got rid of.
M. le Duc again remarked that it must be done at once. Then we set about
thinking how we could do it.
M. le Duc d'Orleans asked me my advice thereon. I said there were two
things to discuss, the pretext and the execution. That a pretext was
necessary, such as would convince the impartial, and be unopposed even by
the friends of the Marechal de Villeroy; that above all things we had to
take care to give no one ground for believing that the disgrace of
Villeroy was the fruit of the insults he had heaped upon Cardinal Dubois;
that outrageous as those insults might be, addressed to a cardinal, to a
minister in possession of entire confidence, and at the head of affairs,
the public, who envied him and did not like him, well remembering whence
he had sprung, would consider the victim too illustrious; that the
chastisement would overbalance the offence, and would be complained of;
that violent resolutions, although necessary, should always have reason
and appearances in their favour; that therefore I was against allowing
punishment to follow too quickly upon the real offence, inasmuch as M. le
Duc d'Orleans had one of the best pretexts in the world for disgracing
the Marechal, a pretext known by everybody, and which would be admitted
by everybody.
I begged the Regent then to remember that he had told me several times he
never had been able to speak to the King in private, or even in a whisper
before others; that when he had tried, the Marechal de Villeroy had at
once come forward poking his nose between them, and declaring that while
he was governor he would never suffer any one, not even his Royal
Highness, to address his Majesty in a low tone, much lest to speak to him
in private. I said that this conduct towards the Regent, a grandson of
France, and the nearest relative the King had, was insolence enough to
disgust every one, and apparent as such at half a glance. I counselled
M. le Duc d'Orleans to make use of this circumstance, and by its means to
lay a trap for the Marechal into which there was not the slightest doubt
he would fall. The trap was to be thus arranged. M. le Duc d'Orleans
was to insist upon his right to speak to the King in private, and upon
the refusal of the Marechal to recognise it, was to adopt a new tone and
make Villeroy feel he was the master. I added, in conclusion, that this
snare must not be laid until everything was ready to secure its success.
When I had ceased speaking, "You have robbed me," said the Regent; "I was
going to propose the same thing if you had not. What do you think of it,
Monsieur?" regarding M. le Duc. That Prince strongly approved the
proposition I had just made, briefly praised every part of it, and added
that he saw nothing better to be done than to execute this plan very
punctually.
It was agreed afterwards that no other plan could be adopted than that of
arresting the Marechal and sending him right off at once to Villeroy, and
then, after having allowed him to repose there a day or two, on account
of his age, but well watched, to see if he should be sent on to Lyons or
elsewhere. The manner in which he was to be arrested was to be decided
at Cardinal Dubois' apartments, where the Regent begged me to go at once.
I rose accordingly, and went there.
I found Dubois with one or two friends, all of whom were in the secret of
this affair, as he, at once told me, to put me at my ease. We soon
therefore entered upon business, but it would be superfluous to relate
here all that passed in this little assembly. What we resolved on was
very well executed, as will be seen. I arranged with Le Blanc, who was
one of the conclave, that the instant the arrest had taken place, he
should send to Meudon, and simply inquire after me; nothing more, and
that by this apparently meaningless compliment, I should know that the
Marechal had been packed off.
I returned towards evening to Meudon, where several friends of Madame de
Saint-Simon and of myself often slept, and where others, following the
fashion established at Versailles and Paris, came to dine or sup, so that
the company was always very numerous. The scene between Dubois and
Villeroy was much talked about, and the latter universally blamed.
Neither then nor during the ten days which elapsed before his arrest,
did it enter into the head of anybody to suppose that anything worse
would happen to him than general blame for his unmeasured violence, so
accustomed were people to his freaks, and to the feebleness of M. le Duc
d'Orleans. I was now delighted, however, to find such general
confidence, which augmented that of the Marechal, and rendered more easy
the execution of our project against him; punishment he more and more
deserved by the indecency and affectation of his discourses, and the
audacity of his continual challenges.
Three or four days after, I went to Versailles, to see M. le Duc
d'Orleans. He said that, for want of a better, and in consequence of
what I had said to him on more than one occasion of the Duc de Charost,
it was to him he intended to give the office of governor of the King:
that he had secretly seen him that Charost had accepted with willingness
the post, and was now safely shut up in his apartment at Versailles,
seeing no one, and seen by no one, ready to be led to the King the moment
the time should arrive. The Regent went over with me all the measures to
be taken, and I returned to Meudon, resolved not to budge from it until
they were executed, there being nothing more to arrange.
On Sunday, the 12th of August, 1722, M. le Duc d'Orleans went, towards
the end of the afternoon, to work with the King, as he was accustomed to
do several times each week; and as it was summer time now, he went after
his airing, which he always took early. This work was to show the King
by whom were to be filled up vacant places in the church, among the
magistrates and intendants, &c., and to briefly explain to him the
reasons which suggested the selection, and sometimes the distribution of
the finances. The Regent informed him, too, of the foreign news, which
was within his comprehension, before it was made public. At the
conclusion of this labour, at which the Marechal de Villeroy was always
present, and sometimes M. de Frejus (when he made bold to stop), M. le
Duc d'Orleans begged the King to step into a little back cabinet, where
he would say a word to him alone.
The Marechal de Villeroy at once opposed. M. le Duc d'Orleans, who had
laid this snare far him, saw him fall into it with satisfaction. He
represented to the Marechal that the King was approaching the age when he
would govern by himself, that it was time for him, who was meanwhile the
depository of all his authority, to inform him of things which he could
understand, and which could only be explained to him alone, whatever
confidence might merit any third person. The Regent concluded by begging
the Marechal to cease to place any obstacles in the way of a thing so
necessary and so important, saying that he had, perhaps, to reproach
himself for,--solely out of complaisance to him, not having coerced
before.
The Marechal, arising and stroking his wig, replied that he knew the
respect he owed, him, and knew also quite as well the respect he owed to
the King, and to his place, charged as he was with the person of his
Majesty, and being responsible for it. But he said he would not suffer
his Royal Highness to speak to the King in private (because he ought to
know everything said to his Majesty), still less would he suffer him to
lead the King into a cabinet, out of his sight, for 'twas his (the
Marechal's) duty never to lose sight of his charge, and in everything to
answer for it.
Upon this, M. le Duc d'Orleans looked fixedly at the Marechal and said,
in the tone of a master, that he mistook himself and forgot himself; that
he ought to remember to whom he was speaking, and take care what words he
used; that the respect he (the Regent) owed to the presence of the King,
hindered him from replying as he ought to reply, and from continuing this
conversation. Therefore he made a profound reverence to the King, and
went away.
The Marechal, thoroughly angry, conducted him some steps, mumbling and
gesticulating; M. le Duc d'Orleans pretending to neither see nor hear
him, the King astonished, and M. de Frejus laughing in his sleeve. The
bait so well swallowed,--no one doubted that the Marechal, audacious as
he was, but nevertheless a servile and timid courtier, would feel all the
difference between braving, bearding, and insulting Cardinal Dubois
(odious to everybody, and always smelling of the vile egg from which he
had been hatched) and wrestling with the Regent in the presence of the
King, claiming to annihilate M. le Duc d'Orleans' rights and authority,
by appealing to his own pretended rights and authority as governor of the
King. People were not mistaken; less than two hours after what had
occurred, it was known that the Marechal, bragging of what he had just
done, had added that he should consider himself very unhappy if M. le Duc
d'Orleans thought he had been wanting in respect to him, when his only
idea was to fulfil his precious duty; and that he would go the next day
to have an explanation with his Royal Highness, which he doubted not
would be satisfactory to him.
At every hazard, all necessary measures had been taken as soon as the day
was fixed on which the snare was to be laid for the Marechal. Nothing
remained but to give form to them directly it was known that on the
morrow the Marechal would come and throw himself into the lion's mouth.
Beyond the bed-room of M. le Duc d'Orleans was a large and fine cabinet,
with four big windows looking upon the garden, and on the same floor, two
paces distant, two other windows; and two at the side in front of the
chimney, and all these windows opened like doors. This cabinet occupied
the corner where the courtiers awaited, and behind was an adjoining
cabinet, where M. le Duc d'Orleans worked and received distinguished
persons or favourites who wished to talk with him.
The word was given. Artagnan, captain of the grey musketeers, was in the
room (knowing what was going to happen), with many trusty officers of his
company whom he had sent for, and former musketeers to be made use of at
a pinch, and who clearly saw by these preparations that something
important was in the wind, but without divining what. There were also
some light horse posted outside these windows in the same ignorance, and
many principal officers and others in the Regent's bed-room, and in the
grand cabinet.
All things being well arranged, the Marechal de Villeroy arrived about
mid-day, with his accustomed hubbub, but alone, his chair and porters
remaining outside, beyond the Salle des Gardes. He enters like a
comedian, stops, looks round, advances some steps. Under pretext of
civility, he is environed, surrounded. He asks in an authoritative tone,
what M. le Duc d'Orleans is doing: the reply is, he is in his private
room within.
The Marechal elevates his tone, says that nevertheless he must see the
Regent; that he is going to enter; when lo! La Fare, captain of M. le Duc
d'Orleans' guards, presents himself before him, arrests him, and demands
his sword. The Marechal becomes furious, all present are in commotion.
At this instant Le Blanc presents himself. His sedan chair, that had
been hidden, is planted before the Marechal. He cries aloud, he is
shaking on his lower limbs; but he is thrust into the chair, which is
closed upon him and carried away in the twinkling of an eye through one
of the side windows into the garden, La Fare and Artagnan each on one
side of the chair, the light horse and musketeers behind, judging only by
the result what was in the wind. The march is hastened; the party
descend the steps of the orangery by the side of the thicket; the grand
gate is found open and a coach and six before it. The chair is put down;
the Marechal storms as he will; he is cast into the coach; Artagnan
mounts by his side; an officer of the musketeers is in front; and one of
the gentlemen in ordinary of the King by the side of the officer; twenty
musketeers, with mounted officers, surround the vehicle, and away they
go.
This side of the garden is beneath the window of the Queen's apartments
(when occupied by the Infanta). This scene under the blazing noon-day
sun was seen by no one, and although the large number of persons in M. le
Duc d'Orleans' rooms soon dispersed, it is astonishing that an affair of
this kind remained unknown more than ten hours in the chateau of
Versailles. The servants of the Marechal de Villeroy (to whom nobody had
dared to say a word) still waited with their master's chair near the
Salle des Gardes. They were, told, after M. le Duc d'Orleans had seen
the King, that the Marechal had gone to Villeroy, and that they could
carry to him what was necessary.
I received at Meudon the message arranged. I was sitting down to table,
and it was only towards the supper that people came from Versailles to
tell us all the news, which was making much sensation there, but a
sensation very measured on account of the surprise and fear paused by the
manner in which the arrest had been executed.
It was no agreeable task, that which had to be performed soon after by
the Regent; I mean when he carried the news of the arrest to the King.
He entered into his Majesty's cabinet, which he cleared of all the
company it contained, except those people whose post gave them aright to
enter, but of them there were not many present. At the first word, the
King reddened; his eyes moistened; he hid his face against the back of an
armchair, without saying a word; would neither go out nor play. He ate
but a few mouthfuls at supper, wept, and did not sleep all night. The
morning and the dinner of the next day, the 14th, passed off but little
better.
CHAPTER CXIV
That same 14th, as I rose from dinner at Meudon, with much company, the
valet de chambre who served me said that a courier from Cardinal Dubois
had a letter for me, which he had not thought good to bring me before all
my guests. I opened the letter. The Cardinal conjured me to go
instantly and see him at Versailles, bringing with me a trusty servant,
ready to be despatched to La Trappe, as soon as I had spoken with him,
and not to rack my brains to divine what this might mean, because it
would be impossible to divine it, and that he was waiting with the utmost
impatience to tell it to me. I at once ordered my coach, which I thought
a long time in coming from the stables. They are a considerable distance
from the new chateau I occupied.
This courier to be taken to the Cardinal, in order to be despatched to La
Trappe, turned my head. I could not imagine what had happened to occupy
the Cardinal so thoroughly so soon after the arrest of Villeroy. The
constitution, or some important and unknown fugitive discovered at La
Trappe, and a thousand other thoughts, agitated me until I arrived at
Versailles.
Upon reaching the chateau, I saw Dubois at a window awaiting me, and
making many signs to me, and upon reaching the staircase, I found him
there at the bottom, as I was about to mount. His first word was to ask
me if I had brought with me a man who could post to La Trappe. I showed
him my valet de chambre, who knew the road well, having travelled over it
with me very often, and who was well known to the Cardinal, who, when
simple Abbe Dubois, used very frequently to chat with him while waiting
for me.
The Cardinal explained to me, as we ascended the stairs, the cause of his
message. Immediately after the departure of the Marechal de Villeroy,
M. le Frejus, the King's instructor, had been missed. He had
disappeared. He had not slept at Versailles. No one knew what had
become of him! The grief of the King had so much increased upon
receiving this fresh blow--both his familiar friends taken from him at
once--that no one knew what to do with him. He was in the most violent
despair, wept bitterly, and could not be pacified. The Cardinal
concluded by saying that no stone must be left unturned in order to find
M. de Frejus. That unless he had gone to Villeroy, it was probable he
had hid himself in La Trappe, and that we must send and see. With this
he led me to M. le Duc d'Orleans. He was alone, much troubled, walking
up and down his chamber, and he said to me that he knew not what would
become of the King, or what to do with him; that he was crying for M. de
Frejus, and--would listen to nothing; and the Regent began himself to cry
out against this strange flight.
After some further consideration, Dubois pressed me to go and write to La
Trappe. All was in disorder where we were; everybody spoke at once in
the cabinet; it was impossible, in the midst of all this noise, to write
upon the bureau, as I often did when I was alone with the King. My
apartment was in the new wing, and perhaps shut up, for I was not
expected that day. I went therefore, instead, into the chamber of Peze,
close at hand, and wrote my letter there. The letter finished, and I
about to descend, Peze, who had left me, returned, crying, "He is found!
he is found! your letter is useless; return to M. le Duc d'Orleans."
He then related to me that just before, one of M. le Duc d'Orleans'
people, who knew that Frejus was a friend of the Lamoignons, had met
Courson in the grand court, and had asked him if he knew what had become
of Frejus; that Courson had replied, "Certainly: he went last night to
sleep at Basville, where the President Lamoignon is;" and that upon this,
the man hurried Courson to M. le Duc d'Orleans to relate this to him.
Peze and I arrived at M. le Duc d'Orleans' room just after Courson left
it. Serenity had returned. Frejus was well belaboured. After a moment
of cheerfulness, Cardinal Dubois advised M. le Duc d'Orleans to go and
carry this good news to the King, and to say that a courier should at
once be despatched to Basville, to make his preceptor return. M. le Duc
d'Orleans acted upon the suggestion, saying he would return directly. I
remained with Dubois awaiting him.
After having discussed a little this mysterious flight of Frejus, Dubois
told me he had news of Villeroy. He said that the Marechal had not
ceased to cry out against the outrage committed upon his person, the
audacity of the Regent, the insolence of Dubois, or to hector Artagnan
all the way for having lent himself to such criminal violence; then he
invoked the Manes of the deceased King, bragged of his confidence in him,
the importance of the place he held, and for which he had been preferred
above all others; talked of the rising that so impudent an enterprise
would cause in Paris, throughout the realm, and in foreign countries;
deplored the fate of the young King and of all the kingdom; the officers
selected by the late King for the most precious of charges, driven away,
the Duc du Maine first, himself afterwards; then he burst out into
exclamations and invectives; then into praises of his services, of his
fidelity, of his firmness, of his inviolable attachment to his duty. In
fact, he was so astonished, so troubled, so full of vexation and of rage,
that he was thoroughly beside himself. The Duc de Villeroy, the Marechal
de Tallard and Biron had permission to go and see him at Villeroy:
scarcely anybody else asked for it.
M. le Duc d'Orleans having returned from the King, saying that the news
he had carried had much appeased his Majesty, we agreed we must so
arrange matters that Frejus should return the next morning, that M. le
Duc d'Orleans should receive him well, as though nothing had happened,
and give him to understand that it was simply to avoid embarrassing him,
that he had not been made aware of the secret of the arrest (explaining
this to him with all the more liberty, because Frejus hated the Marechal,
his haughtiness, his jealousy, his capriciousness, and in his heart must
be delighted at his removal, and at being able to have entire possession
of the--King), then beg him to explain to the King the necessity of
Villeroy's dismissal: then communicate to Frejus the selection of the Duc
de Charost as governor of the King; promise him all the concert and the
attention from this latter he could desire; ask him to counsel and guide
Charost; finally, seize the moment of the King's joy at the return of
Frejus to inform his Majesty of the new governor chosen, and to present
Charost to him. All this was arranged and very well, executed next day.
When the Marechal heard of it at Villeroy, he flew into a strange passion
against Charost (of whom he spoke with the utmost contempt for having
accepted his place), but above all against Frejus, whom he called a
traitor and a villain! His first moments of passion, of fury, and of
transport, were all the more violent, because he saw by the tranquillity
reigning everywhere that his pride had deceived him in inducing him to
believe that the Parliament, the markets, all Paris would rise if the
Regent dared to touch a person so important and so well beloved as he
imagined himself to be. This truth, which he could no longer hide from
himself, and which succeeded so rapidly to the chimeras that had been his
food and his life, threw him into despair, and turned his head. He fell
foul of the Regent, of his minister, of those employed to arrest him, of
those who had failed to defend him, of all who had not risen in revolt to
bring him back in triumph, of Charost, who had dared to succeed him, and
especially of Frejus, who had deceived him in such an unworthy manner.
Frejus was the person against whom he was the most irritated. Reproaches
of ingratitude and of treachery rained unceasingly upon him; all that the
Marechal had done for him with the deceased King was recollected; how he
had protected, aided, lodged, and fed him; how without him (Villeroy) he
(Frejus) would never have been preceptor of the King; and all this was
exactly true.
The treachery to which he alluded he afterwards explained. He said that
he and Frejus had agreed at the very commencement of the regency to act
in union; and that if by troubles or events impossible to foresee, but
which were only too common in regencies, one of them should be dismissed
from office, the other not being able to hinder the dismissal, though not
touched himself, should at once withdraw and never return to his post,
until the first was reinstated in his. And after these explanations, new
cries broke out against the perfidy of this miserable wretch--(for the
most odious terms ran glibly from the end of his tongue)--who thought
like a fool to cover his perfidy with a veil of gauze, in slipping off to
Basville, so as to be instantly sought and brought back, in fear lest he
should lose his place by the slightest resistance or the slightest delay,
and who expected to acquit himself thus of his word, and of the
reciprocal engagement both had taken; and then he returned to fresh
insults and fury against this serpent, as he said, whom he had warmed and
nourished so many years in his bosom.
The account of these transports and insults, promptly came from Villeroy
to Versailles, brought, not only by the people whom the Regent had placed
as guards over the Marechal, and to give an exact account of all he said
and did, day by day, but by all the domestics who came and went, and
before whom Villeroy launched out his speeches, at table, while passing
through his ante-chambers, or while taking a turn in his gardens.
All this weighed heavily upon Frejus by the rebound. Despite the
apparent tranquillity of his visage, he appeared confounded. He replied
by a silence of respect and commiseration in which he enveloped himself;
nevertheless, he could not do so to the Duc de Villeroy, the Marechal de
Tallard, and a few others. He tranquilly said to them, that he had done
all he could to fulfil an engagement which he did not deny, but that
after having thus satisfied the call of honour, he did not think he could
refuse to obey orders so express from the King and the Regent, or abandon
the former in order to bring about the return of the Marechal de
Villeroy, which was the object of their reciprocal engagement, and which
he was certain he could not effect by absence, however prolonged. But
amidst these very sober excuses could be seen the joy which peeped forth
from him, in spite of himself, at being freed from so inconvenient a
superior, at having to do with a new governor whom he could easily
manage, at being able when he chose to guide himself in all liberty
towards the grand object he had always desired, which was to attach
himself to the King without reserve, and to make out of this attachment,
obtained by all sorts of means, the means of a greatness which he did not
yet dare to figure to himself, but which time and opportunity would teach
him how to avail himself of in the best manner, marching to it meanwhile
in perfect security.
The Marechal was allowed to refresh himself, and exhale his anger five or
six days at Villeroy; and as he was not dangerous away from the King, he
was sent to Lyons, with liberty to exercise his functions of governor of
the town and province, measures being taken to keep a watch upon him, and
Des Libois being left with him to diminish his authority by this
manifestation of precaution and surveillance, which took from him all
appearance of credit. He would receive no honours on arriving there.
A large quantity of his first fire was extinguished; this wide separation
from Paris and the Court, where not even the slightest movement had taken
place, everybody being stupefied and in terror at an arrest of this
importance; took from him all remaining hope, curbed his impetuosity, and
finally induced him to conduct himself with sagacity in order to avoid
worse treatment.
Such was the catastrophe of a man, so incapable of all the posts he had
occupied, who displayed chimeras and audacity in the place of prudence
and sagacity, who everywhere appeared a trifler and a comedian, and whose
universal and profound ignorance (except of the meanest arts of the
courtier) made plainly visible the thin covering of probity and of virtue
with which he tried to hide his ingratitude, his mad ambition, his desire
to overturn all in order to make himself the chief of all, in the midst
of his weakness and his fears, and to hold a helm he was radically
incapable of managing. I speak here only of his conduct since the
establishment of the regency. Elsewhere, in more than one place, the
little or nothing he was worth has been shown; how his ignorance and his
jealousy lost us Flanders, and nearly ruined the State; how his felicity
was pushed to the extreme, and what deplorable reverses followed his
return. Sufficient to say that he never recovered from the state into
which this last madness threw him, and that the rest of his life was only
bitterness, regret, contempt! He had persuaded the King that it was he,
alone, who by vigilance and precaution had preserved his life from poison
that others wished to administer to him. This was the source of those
tears shed by the King when Villeroy was carried off, and of his despair
when Frejus disappeared. He did not doubt that both had been removed in
order that this crime might be more easily committed.
The prompt return of Frejus dissipated the half, of his fear, the
continuance of his good health delivered him by degrees from the other.
The preceptor, who had a great interest in preserving the King, and who
felt much relieved by the absence of Villeroy, left nothing undone in
order to extinguish these gloomy ideas; and consequently to let blame
fall upon him who had inspired them. He feared the return of the
Marechal when the King, who was approaching his majority, should be the
master; once delivered of the yoke he did not wish it to be reimposed
upon him. He well knew that the grand airs, the ironies, the
authoritative fussiness in public of the Marechal were insupportable to
his Majesty, and that they held together only by those frightful ideas of
poison. To destroy them was to show the Marechal uncovered, and worse
than that to show to the King, without appearing to make a charge against
the Marechal, the criminal interest he had in exciting these alarms, and
the falsehood and atrocity of such a venomous invention. These
reflections; which the health of the King each day confirmed, sapped all
esteem, all gratitude, and left his Majesty in full liberty of conscience
to prohibit, when he should be the master, all approach to his person on
the part of so vile and so interested an impostor.
Frejus made use of these means to shelter himself against the possibility
of the Marechal's return, and to attach himself to the King without
reserve. The prodigious success of his schemes has been only too well
felt since.
The banishment of Villeroy, flight and return of Frejus, and installation
of Charost as governor of the King, were followed by the confirmation of
his Majesty by the Cardinal de Rohan, and by his first communion,
administered to him by this self-same Cardinal, his grand almoner.
CHAPTER CXV
Villeroy being banished, the last remaining obstacle in Dubois' path was
removed. There was nothing: now, to hinder him from being proclaimed
prime minister. I had opposed it as stoutly as I could; but my words
were lost upon M. le Duc d'Orleans. Accordingly, about two o'clock in
the afternoon of the 23rd of August, 1722, Dubois was declared prime
minister by the Regent, and by the Regent at once conducted to the King
as such.
After this event I began insensibly to withdraw from public affairs.
Before the end of the year the King was consecrated at Rheims. The
disorder at the ceremony was inexpressible. All precedent was forgotten.
Rank was hustled and jostled, so to speak, by the crowd. The desire to
exclude the nobility from all office and all dignity was obvious, at half
a glance. My spirit was ulcerated at this; I saw approaching the
complete re-establishment of the bastards; my heart was cleft in twain,
to see the Regent at the heels of his unworthy minister. He was a prey
to the interest, the avarice, the folly, of this miserable wretch, and no
remedy possible. Whatever experience I might have had of the astonishing
weakness of M. le Duc d'Orleans, it had passed all bounds when I saw him
with my own eyes make Dubois prime minister, after all I had said to him
on the subject,--after all he had said to me. The year 1723 commenced,
and found me in this spirit. It is at the end of this year I have
determined to end those memoirs, and the details of it will not be so
full or so abundant as of preceding years. I was hopelessly wearied with
M. le Duc d'Orleans; I no longer approached this poor prince (with so
many great and useless talents buried in him)--except with repugnance.
I could not help feeling for him what the poor, Israelites said to
themselves in the desert about the manna: "Nauseat anima mea suffer cibum
istum tevissimum." I no longer deigned to speak to him. He perceived
this: I felt he was pained at it; he strove to reconcile me to him,
without daring, however, to speak of affairs, except briefly, and with
constraint, and yet he could not hinder himself from speaking of them.
I scarcely took the trouble to reply to him, and I cut his conversation
as short as possible. I abridged and curtailed my audiences with him;
I listened to his reproaches with coldness. In fact, what had I to
discuss with a Regent who was no longer one, not even over himself, still
less over a realm plunged in disorder?
Cardinal Dubois, when he met me, almost courted me. He knew not how to
catch me. The bonds which united me to M. le Duc d'Orleans had always
been so strong that the prime minister, who knew their strength, did not
dare to flatter himself he could break them. His resource was to try to
disgust me by inducing his master to treat me with a reserve which was
completely new to him, and which cost him more than it cost me; for, in
fact, he had often found my confidence very useful to him, and had grown
accustomed to it. As for me, I dispensed with his friendship more than
willingly, vexed at being no longer able to gather any fruit from it for
the advantage of the State or himself, wholly abandoned as he was to his
Paris pleasures and to his minister. The conviction of my complete
inutility more and more kept me in the background, without the slightest
suspicion that different conduct could be dangerous to me, or that, weak
and abandoned to Dubois as was the Regent, the former could ever exile
me, like the Duc de Roailles, and Cariillac, or disgust me into exiling
myself. I followed, then, my accustomed life. That is to say, never saw
M. le Duc d'Orleans except tete-a-tete, and then very seldom at intervals
that each time grew longer, coldly, briefly, never talking to him of
business, or, if he did to me, returning the conversation, and replying
it! a manner to make it drop. Acting thus, it is easy to see that I was
mixed up in nothing, and what I shall have to relate now will have less
of the singularity and instructiveness of good and faithful memoirs, than
of the dryness and sterility of the gazettes.
First of all I will finish my account of Cardinal Dubois. I have very
little more to say of him; for he had scarcely begun to enjoy his high
honours when Death came to laugh at him for the sweating labour he had
taken to acquire them.
On the 11th of June, 1723, the King went to reside at Meudon, ostensibly
in order that the chateau of Versailles might be cleared--in reality,
to accommodate Cardinal Dubois. He had just presided over the assembly
of the day, and flattered to the last degree at this, wished to repose
upon the honour. He desired, also, to be present sometimes at the
assembling of the Company of the Indies. Meudon brought him half-way to
Paris, and saved him a journey. His debauchery had so shattered his
health that the movement of a coach gave him pains which he very
carefully hid.
The King held at Meudon a review of his household, which in his pride the
Cardinal must needs attend. It cost him dear. He mounted on horseback
the better, to enjoy his triumph; he suffered cruelly, and became so
violently ill that he was obliged to have assistance. The most
celebrated doctors and physicians were called in, with great secrecy.
They shook their heads, and came so often that news of the illness began
to transpire. Dubois was unable to go to Paris again more than once or
twice, and then with much trouble, and solely to conceal his malady,
which gave him no repose.
He left nothing undone, in fact, to hide it from the world; he went as
often as he could to the council; apprised the ambassadors he would go to
Paris, and did not go; kept himself invisible at home, and bestowed the
most frightful abuse upon everybody who dared to intrude upon him. On
Saturday, the 7th of August, he was so ill that the doctors declared he
must submit to an operation, which was very urgent, and without which he
could hope to live but a few days; because the abscess he had having
burst the day he mounted on horseback, gangrene had commenced, with an
overflow of pus, and he must be transported, they added, to Versailles,
in order to undergo this operation. The trouble this terrible
announcement caused him, so overthrew him that he could not be moved the
next day, Sunday, the 8th; but on Monday he was transported in a litter,
at five o'clock in the morning.
After having allowed him to repose himself a little, the doctors and
surgeons proposed that he should receive the sacrament, and submit to the
operation immediately after. This was not heard very peacefully; he had
scarcely ever been free from fury since the day of the review; he had
grown worse on Saturday, when the operation was first announced to him.
Nevertheless, some little time after, he sent for a priest from
Versailles, with whom he remained alone about a quarter of an hour.
Such a great and good man, so well prepared for death, did not need more:
Prime ministers, too, have privileged confessions. As his chamber again
filled, it was proposed that he should take the viaticum; he cried out
that that was soon said, but there was a ceremonial for the cardinals,
of which he was ignorant, and Cardinal Bissy must be sent to, at Paris,
for information upon it. Everybody looked at his neighbour, and felt
that Dubois merely wished to gain time; but as the operation was urgent,
they proposed it to him without further delay. He furiously sent them
away, and would no longer hear talk of it.
The faculty, who saw the imminent danger of the slightest delay, sent to
Meudon for M. le Duc d'Orleans, who instantly came in the first
conveyance he could lay his hands on. He exhorted the Cardinal to suffer
the operation; then asked the faculty, if it could be performed in
safety. They replied that they could say nothing for certain, but that
assuredly the Cardinal had not two hours to live if he did not instantly
agree to it. M. le Duc d'Orleans returned to the sick man, and begged
him so earnestly to do so, that he consented.
The operation was accordingly performed about five o'clock, and in five
minutes, by La Peyronie, chief surgeon of the King, and successor to
Marechal, who was present with Chirac and others of the most celebrated
surgeons and doctors. The Cardinal cried and stormed strongly. M. le
Duc d'Orleans returned into the chamber directly after the operation was
performed, and the faculty did not dissimulate from him that, judging by
the nature of the wound, and what had issued from it, the Cardinal had
not long to live. He died, in fact, twenty-four hours afterwards, on the
10th, of August, at five o'clock in the morning, grinding his teeth
against his surgeons and against Chirac, whom he had never ceased to
abuse.
Extreme unction was, however, brought to him. Of the communion, nothing
more was said--or of any priest for him--and he finished his life thus,
in the utmost despair, and enraged at quitting it. Fortune had nicely
played with him; slid made him dearly and slowly buy her favours by all
sorts of trouble, care, projects, intrigues, fears, labour, torment; and
at last showered down upon him torrents of greater power, unmeasured
riches, to let him enjoy them only four years (dating from the time when
he was made Secretary of State, and only two years dating from the time
when he was made Cardinal and Prime Minister), and then snatched them
from him, in the smiling moment when he was most enjoying them, at sixty-
six years of age.
He died thus, absolute master of his master, less a prime minister than
an all-powerful minister, exercising in full and undisturbed liberty the
authority and the power of the King; he was superintendent of the post,
Cardinal, Archbishop of Cambrai, had seven abbeys, with respect to which
he was insatiable to the last; and he had set on foot overtures in order
to seize upon those of Citeaux, Premonte, and others, and it was averred
that he received a pension from England of 40,000 livres sterling! I had
the curiosity to ascertain his revenue, and I have thought what I found
curious enough to be inserted here, diminishing some of the benefices to
avoid all exaggeration. I have made a reduction, too, upon what he drew
from his place of prime minister, and that of the post. I believe, also,
that he had 20,000 livres from the clergy, as Cardinal, but I do not know
it as certain. What he drew from Law was immense. He had made use of a
good deal of it at Rome, in order to obtain his Cardinalship; but a
prodigious sum of ready cash was left in his hands. He had an extreme
quantity of the most beautiful plate in silver and enamel, most admirably
worked; the richest furniture, the rarest jewels of all kinds, the finest
and rarest horses of all countries, and the most superb equipages. His
table was in every way exquisite and superb, and he did the honours of it
very well, although extremely sober by nature and by regime.
The place of preceptor of M. le Duc d'Orleans had procured for him the
Abbey of Nogent-sous-Coucy; the marriage of the Prince that of Saint-
Just; his first journeys to Hanover and England, those of Airvause and of
Bourgueil: three other journeys, his omnipotence. What a monster of
Fortune! With what a commencement, and with what an end!
ACCOUNT OF HIS RICHES:
Benefices .............................324,000 livres
Prime Minister and Past ...............250,000 "
Pension from England ................ 960,000 "
--------
1,534,000 "
On Wednesday evening, the day after his death, Dubois was carried from
Versailles to the church of the chapter of Saint-Honore, in Paris, where
he was interred some days after. Each of the academies of which he was a
member had a service performed for him (at which they were present), the
assembly of the clergy had another (he being their president); and as
prime minister he had one at Notre Dame, at which the Cardinal de
Noailles officiated, and at which the superior courts were present.
There was no funeral oration at any of them. It could not be hazarded.
His brother, more modest than he, and an honest man, kept the office of
secretary of the cabinet, which he had, and which the Cardinal had given
him. This brother found an immense heritage. He had but one son, canon
of Saint-Honore, who had never desired places or livings, and who led a
good life. He would touch scarcely anything of this rich succession.
He employed a part of it in building for his uncle a sort of mausoleum
(fine, but very modest, against the wall, at the end of the church, where
the Cardinal is interred, with a Christian-like inscription), and
distributed the rest to the poor, fearing lest this money should bring a
curse upon him.
It was found some time after his death that the Cardinal had been long
married, but very obscurely! He paid his wife to keep silent when he
received his benefices; but when he dawned into greatness became much
embarrassed with her. He was always in agony lest she should come
forward and ruin him. His marriage had been made in Limousin, and
celebrated in a village church. When he was named Archbishop of Cambrai
he resolved to destroy the proofs of this marriage, and employed
Breteuil, Intendant of Limoges, to whom he committed the secret, to do
this for him skilfully and quietly.
Breteuil saw the heavens open before him if he could but succeed in this
enterprise, so delicate and so important. He had intelligence, and knew
how to make use of it. He goes to this village where the marriage had
been celebrated, accompanied by only two or three valets, and arranges
his journey so as to arrive at night, stops at the cure's house, in
default of an inn, familiarly claims hospitality like a man surprised by
the night, dying of hunger and thirst, and unable to go a step further.
The good cure; transported with gladness to lodge M. l'Intendant, hastily
prepared all there was in the house, and had the honour of supping with
him, whilst his servant regaled the two valets in another room, Breteuil
having sent them all away in order to be alone with his host. Breteuil
liked his glass and knew how to empty it. He pretended to find the
supper good and the wine better. The cure, charmed with his guest,
thought only of egging him on, as they say in the provinces. The tankard
was on the table, and was drained again and again with a familiarity
which transported the worthy priest. Breteuil; who had laid his project,
succeeded in it, and made the good man so drunk that he could not keep
upright, or see, or utter a word. When Breteuil had brought him to this
state, and had finished him off with a few more draughts of wine, he
profited by the information he had extracted from him during the first
quarter of an hour of supper. He had asked if his registers were in good
order, and how far they extended, and under pretext of safety against
thieves, asked him where he kept them, and the keys of them, so that the
moment Breteuil was certain the cure could no longer make use of his
senses, he took his keys, opened the cupboard, took from it the register
of the marriage of the year he wanted, very neatly detached the page he
sought (and woe unto that marriage registered upon the same page), put it
in his pocket, replaced the registers where he had found them, locked up
the cupboard, and put back the keys in the place he had taken them
from. His only thought after this was to steal off as soon as the dawn
appeared, leaving the good cure snoring away the effects of the wine, and
giving, some pistoles to the servant.
He went thence to the notary, who had succeeded to the business and the
papers of the one who had made the contract of marriage; liked himself up
with him, and by force and authority made him give up the minutes of the
marriage contract. He sent afterwards for the wife of Dubois (from whose
hands the wily Cardinal had already obtained the copy of the contract she
possessed), threatened her with dreadful dungeons if she ever dared to
breathe a word of her marriage, and promised marvels to her if she kept
silent.
He assured her, moreover, that all she could say or do would be thrown
away, because everything had been so arranged that she could prove
nothing, and that if she dared to speak, preparations were made for
condemning her as a calumniator and impostor, to rot with a shaven head
in the prison of a convent! Breteuil placed these two important
documents in the hands of Dubois, and was (to the surprise and scandal of
all the world) recompensed, some time after, with the post of war
secretary, which, apparently; he had done nothing to deserve, and for
which he was utterly unqualified. The secret reason of his appointment
was not discovered until long after.
Dubois' wife did not dare to utter a whisper. She came to Paris after
the death of her husband. A good proportion was given to her of what was
left. She lived obscure, but in easy circumstances, and died at Paris
more than twenty years after the Cardinal Dubois, by whom she had had no
children. The brother lived on very good terms with her. He was a
village doctor when Dubois sent for him to Paris: In the end this history
was known, and has been neither contradicted nor disavowed by anybody.
We have many examples of prodigious fortune acquired by insignificant
people, but there is no example of a person so destitute of all talent
(excepting that of low intrigue), as was Cardinal Dubois, being thus
fortunate. His intellect was of the most ordinary kind; his knowledge
the most common-place; his capacity nil; his exterior that of a ferret,
of a pedant; his conversation disagreeable, broken, always uncertain; his
falsehood written upon his forehead; his habits too measureless to be
hidden; his fits of impetuosity resembling fits of madness; his head
incapable of containing more than one thing at a time, and he incapable
of following anything but his personal interest; nothing was sacred with
him; he had no sort of worthy intimacy with any one; had a declared
contempt for faith, promises, honour, probity, truth; took pleasure at
laughing at all these things; was equally voluptuous and ambitious,
wishing to be all in all in everything; counting himself alone as
everything, and whatever was not connected with him as nothing; and
regarding it as the height of madness to think or act otherwise. With
all this he was soft, cringing, supple, a flatterer, and false admirer,
taking all shapes with the greatest facility, and playing the most
opposite parts in order to arrive at the different ends he proposed to
himself; and nevertheless was but little capable of seducing. His
judgment acted by fits and starts, was involuntarily crooked, with little
sense or clearness; he was disagreeable in spite of himself.
Nevertheless, he could be funnily vivacious when he wished, but nothing
more, could tell a good story, spoiled, however, to some extent by his
stuttering, which his falsehood had turned into a habit from the
hesitation he always had in replying and in speaking. With such defects
it is surprising that the only man he was able to seduce was M. le Duc
d'Orleans, who had so much intelligence, such a well-balanced mind, and
so much clear and rapid perception of character. Dubois gained upon him
as a child while his preceptor; he seized upon him as a young man by
favouring his liking for liberty, sham fashionable manners and
debauchery, and his disdain of all rule. He ruined his heart, his mind,
and his habits, by instilling into him the principles of libertines,
which this poor prince could no more deliver himself from than from those
ideas of reason, truth, and conscience which he always took care to
stifle.
Dubois having insinuated himself into the favour of his master in this
manner, was incessantly engaged in studying how to preserve his position.
He never lost sight of his prince, whose great talents and great defects
he had learnt how to profit by. The Regent's feebleness was the main
rock upon which he built. As for Dubois' talent and capacity, as I have
before said, they were worth nothing. All his success was due to his
servile pliancy and base intrigues.
When he became the real master of the State he was just as incompetent as
before. All his application was directed towards his master, and it had
for sole aim that that master should not escape him. He wearied himself
in watching all the movements of the prince, what he did, whom he saw,
and for how long; his humour, his visage, his remarks at the issue of
every audience and of every party; who took part in them, what was said
and by whom, combining all these things; above all, he strove to frighten
everybody from approaching the Regent, and kept no bounds with any one
who had the temerity to do so without his knowledge and permission. This
watching occupied all his days, and by it he regulated all his movements.
This application, and the orders he was obliged to give for appearance
sake, occupied all his time, so that he became inaccessible except for a
few public audiences, or for others to the foreign ministers. Yet the
majority of those ministers never could catch him, and were obliged to
lie in wait for him upon staircases or in passages, where he did not
expect to meet them. Once he threw into the fire a prodigious quantity
of unopened letters, and then congratulated himself upon having got rid
of all his business at once. At his death thousands of letters were
found unopened.
Thus everything was in arrear, and nobody, not even the foreign
ministers, dared to complain to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who, entirely
abandoned to his pleasures, and always on the road from Versailles to
Paris, never thought of business, only too satisfied to find himself so
free, and attending to nothing except the few trifles he submitted to the
King under the pretence of working with his Majesty. Thus, nothing could
be settled, and all was in chaos. To govern in this manner there is no
need for capacity. Two words to each minister charged with a department,
and some care in garnishing the councils attended by the King, with the
least important despatches (settling the others with M. le Duc d'Orleans)
constituted all the labour of the prime minister; and spying, scheming,
parade, flatteries, defence, occupied all his time. His fits of passion,
full of insults and blackguardism, from which neither man nor woman, no
matter of what rank, was sheltered, relieved him from an infinite number
of audiences, because people preferred going to subalterns, or neglecting
their business altogether, to exposing themselves to this fury and these
affronts.
The mad freaks of Dubois, especially when he had become master, and
thrown off all restraint, would fill a volume. I will relate only one or
two as samples. His frenzy was such that he would sometimes run all
round the chamber, upon the tables and chairs, without touching the
floor! M. le Duc d'Orleans told me that he had often witnessed this.
Another sample:
The Cardinal de Gesvres came over to-day to complain to M. le Duc
d'Orleans that the Cardinal Dubois had dismissed him in the most filthy
terms. On a former occasion, Dubois had treated the Princesse de
Montauban in a similar manner, and M. le Duc d'Orleans had replied to her
complaints as he now replied to those of the Cardinal de Gesvres. He
told the Cardinal, who was a man of good manners, of gravity, and of
dignity (whereas the Princess deserved what she got) that he had always
found the counsel of the Cardinal Dubois good, and that he thought he
(Gesvres ) would do well to follow the advice just given him! Apparently
it was to free himself from similar complaints that he spoke thus; and,
in fact, he had no more afterwards.
Another sample:
Madame de Cheverny, become a widow, had retired to the Incurables. Her
place of governess of the daughters of M. le Duc d'Orleans had been given
to Madame de Conflans. A little while after Dubois was consecrated,
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans asked Madame de Conflans if she had called
upon him. Thereupon Madame de Conflans replied negatively and that she
saw no reason for going, the place she held being so little mixed up in
State affairs. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans pointed out how intimate the
Cardinal was with M. le Duc d'Orleans. Madame de Conflans still tried to
back out, saying that he was a madman, who insulted everybody, and to
whom she would not expose herself. She had wit and a tongue, and was
supremely vain, although very polite. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans burst
out laughing at her fear, and said, that having nothing to ask of the
Cardinal, but simply to render an account to him of the office M. le Duc
d'Orleans had given her, it was an act of politeness which could only
please him, and obtain for her his regard, far from having anything
disagreeable, or to be feared about it; and finished by saying to her
that it was proper, and that she wished her to go.
She went, therefore, for it was at Versailles, and arrived in a large
cabinet, where there were eight or ten persons waiting to speak to the
Cardinal, who was larking with one of his favourites, by the mantelpiece.
Fear seized upon Madame de Conflans, who was little, and who appeared
less. Nevertheless, she approached as this woman retired. The Cardinal,
seeing her advance, sharply asked her what she wanted.
"Monseigneur," said she,--"Oh, Monseigneur--"
"Monseigneur," interrupted the Cardinal, "I can't now."
"But, Monseigneur," replied she--
"Now, devil take me, I tell you again," interrupted the Cardinal, "when I
say I can't, I can't."
"Monseigneur," Madame de Conflans again said, in order to explain that
she wanted nothing; but at this word the Cardinal seized her by the
shoulders; and pushed her out, saying, "Go to the devil, and let me
alone."
She nearly fell over, flew away in fury, weeping hot tears, and reached,
in this state, Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, to whom, through her sobs,
she related the adventure.
People were so accustomed to the insults of the Cardinal, and this was
thought so singular and so amusing, that the recital of it caused shouts
of laughter, which finished off poor Madame de Conflans, who swore that,
never in her life, would she put foot in the house of this madman.
The Easter Sunday after he was made Cardinal, Dubois woke about eight
o'clock, rang his bells as though he would break them, called for his
people with the most horrible blasphemies, vomited forth a thousand
filthy expressions and insults, raved at everybody because he had not
been awakened, said that he wanted to say mass, but knew not how to find
time, occupied as he was. After this very beautiful preparation, he very
wisely abstained from saying mass, and I don't know whether he ever did
say it after his consecration.
He had taken for private secretary one Verrier, whom he had unfrocked
from the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, the business of which he had
conducted for twenty years, with much cleverness and intelligence. He
soon accommodated himself to the humours of the Cardinal, and said to him
all he pleased.
One morning he was with the Cardinal, who asked for something that could
not at once be found. Thereupon Dubois began to blaspheme, to storm
against his clerks, saying that if he had not enough he would engage
twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred, and making the most frightful din.
Verrier tranquilly listened to him. The Cardinal asked him if it was not
a terrible thing to be so ill-served, considering the expense he was put
to; then broke out again, and pressed him to reply.
"Monseigneur," said Verrier, "engage one more clerk, and give him, for
sole occupation, to swear and storm for you, and all will go well; you
will have much more time to yourself and will be better served."
The Cardinal burst out laughing, and was appeased.
Every evening he ate an entire chicken for his supper. I know not by
whose carelessness, but this chicken was forgotten one evening by his
people. As he was about to go to bed he bethought him of his bird, rang,
cried out, stormed against his servants, who ran and coolly listened to
him. Upon this he cried the more, and complained of not having been
served. He was astonished when they replied to him that he had eaten his
chicken, but that if he pleased they would put another down to the spit.
"What!" said he, "I have eaten my chicken!"
The bold and cool assertion of his people persuaded him, and they laughed
at him.
I will say no more, because, I repeat it, volumes might be filled with
these details. I have said enough to show what was this monstrous
personage, whose death was a relief to great and little, to all Europe,
even to his brother, whom he treated like a negro. He wanted to dismiss
a groom on one occasion for having lent one of his coaches to this same
brother, to go somewhere in Paris.
The most relieved of all was M. le Duc d'Orleans. For a long time he had
groaned in secret beneath the weight of a domination so harsh, and of
chains he had forged for himself. Not only he could no longer dispose or
decide upon anything, but he could get the Cardinal to do nothing, great
or small, he desired done. He was obliged, in everything, to follow the
will of the Cardinal, who became furious, reproached him, and stormed
at him when too much contradicted. The poor Prince felt thus the
abandonment into which he had cast himself, and, by this abandonment,
the power of the Cardinal, and the eclipse of his own power. He feared
him; Dubois had become insupportable to him; he was dying with desire, as
was shown in a thousand things, to get rid of him, but he dared not--he
did not know how to set about it; and, isolated and unceasingly wretched
as he was, there was nobody to whom he could unbosom himself; and the
Cardinal, well informed of this, increased his freaks, so as to retain by
fear what he had usurped by artifice, and what he no longer hoped to
preserve in any other way.
As soon as Dubois was dead, M. le Duc d'Orleans returned to Meudon, to
inform the King of the event. The King immediately begged him to charge
himself with the management of public affairs, declared him prime
minister, and received, the next day, his oath, the patent of which was
immediately sent to the Parliament, and verified. This prompt
declaration was caused by the fear Frejus had to see a private person
prime minister. The King liked M. le Duc d'Orleans, as we have already
seen by the respect he received from him, and by his manner of working
with him. The Regent, without danger of being taken at his word, always
left him master of all favours, and of the choice of persons he proposed
to him; and, besides, never bothered him, or allowed business to
interfere with his amusements. In spite of all the care and all the
suppleness Dubois had employed in order to gain the spirit of the King,
he never could succeed, and people remarked, without having wonderful
eyes, a very decided repugnance of the King for him. The Cardinal was
afflicted, but redoubled his efforts, in the hope at last of success.
But, in addition to his own disagreeable manners, heightened by the
visible efforts he made to please, he had two enemies near the King, very
watchful to keep him away from the young prince--the Marechal de
Villeroy, while he was there, and Frejus, who was much more dangerous,
and who was resolved to overthrow him. Death, as we have seen, spared
him the trouble.
The Court returned from Meudon to Paris on the 13th of August. Soon
after I met M. le Duc d'Orleans there.
As soon as he saw me enter his cabinet he ran to me, and eagerly asked me
if I meant to abandon him. I replied that while his Cardinal lived I
felt I should be useless to him, but that now this obstacle was removed,
I should always be very humbly at his service. He promised to live with
me on the same terms as before, and, without a word upon the Cardinal,
began to talk about home and foreign affairs. If I flattered myself that
I was to be again of use to him for any length of time, events soon came
to change the prospect. But I will not anticipate my story.
CHAPTER CXVI
The Duc de Lauzun died on the 19th of November, at the age of ninety
years and six months. The intimate union of the two sisters I and he had
espoused, and our continual intercourse at the Court (at Marly, we had a
pavilion especially for us four), caused me to be constantly with him,
and after the King's death we saw each other nearly every day at Paris,
and unceasingly frequented each other's table. He was so extraordinary a
personage, in every way so singular, that La Bruyere, with much justice,
says of him in his "Characters," that others were not allowed to dream as
he had lived. For those who saw him in his old age, this description
seems even more just. That is what induces me to dwell upon him here.
He was of the House of Caumont, the branch of which represented by the
Ducs de la Force has always passed for the eldest, although that of
Lauzun has tried to dispute with it.
The mother of M. de Lauzun was daughter of the Duc de la Force, son of
the second Marechal Duc de la Force, and brother of the Marechale de
Turenne, but by another marriage; the Marechale was by a first marriage.
The father of M. de Lauzun was the Comte de Lauzun, cousin-german of the
first Marechal Duc de Grammont, and of the old Comte de Grammont.
M. de Lauzun was a little fair man, of good figure, with a noble and
expressively commanding face, but which was without charm, as I have
heard people say who knew him when he was young. He was full of
ambition, of caprice, of fancies; jealous of all; wishing always to go
too far; never content with anything; had no reading, a mind in no way
cultivated, and without charm; naturally sorrowful, fond of solitude,
uncivilised; very noble in his dealings, disagreeable and malicious by
nature, still more so by jealousy and by ambition; nevertheless, a good
friend when a friend at all, which was rare; a good relative; enemy even
of the indifferent; hard upon faults, and upon what was ridiculous,
which he soon discovered; extremely brave, and as dangerously bold.
As a courtier he was equally insolent and satirical, and as cringing as a
valet; full of foresight, perseverance, intrigue, and meanness, in order
to arrive at his ends; with this, dangerous to the ministers; at the
Court feared by all, and full of witty and sharp remarks which spared
nobody.
He came very young to the Court without any fortune, a cadet of Gascony,
under the name of the Marquis de Puyguilhem. The Marechal de Grammont,
cousin-german of his brother, lodged him: Grammont was then in high
consideration at the Court, enjoyed the confidence of the Queen-mother,
and of Cardinal Mazarin, and had the regiment of the guards and the
reversion of it for the Comte de Guiche, his eldest son, who, the prince
of brave fellows, was on his side in great favour with the ladies, and
far advanced in the good graces of the King and of the Comtesse de
Soissons, niece of the Cardinal, whom the King never quitted, and who was
the Queen of the Court. This Comte de Guiche introduced to the Comtesse
de Soissons the Marquis de Puyguilhem, who in a very little time became
the King's favourite. The King, in fact, gave him his regiment of
dragoons on forming it, and soon after made him Marechal de Camp, and
created for him the post of colonel-general of dragoons.
The Duc de Mazarin, who in 1669 had already retired from the Court,
wished to get rid of his post of grand master of the artillery;
Puyguilhem had scent of his intention, and asked the King for this
office. The King promised it to him, but on condition that he kept the
matter secret some days. The day arrived on which the King had agreed to
declare him. Puyguilhem, who had the entrees of the first gentleman of
the chamber (which are also named the grandes entrees), went to wait for
the King (who was holding a finance council), in a room that nobody
entered during the council, between that in which all the Court waited,
and that in which the council itself was held. He found there no one but
Nyert, chief valet de chambre, who asked him how he happened to come
there. Puyguilhem, sure of his affair, thought he should make a friend
of this valet by confiding to him what was about to take place. Nyert
expressed his joy; then drawing out his watch, said he should have time
to go and execute a pressing commission the King had given him. He
mounted four steps at a time the little staircase, at the head of which
was the bureau where Louvois worked all day--for at Saint-Germain the
lodgings were little and few--and the ministers and nearly all the Court
lodged each at his own house in the town. Nyert entered the bureau of
Louvois, and informed him that upon leaving the council (of which Louvois
was not a member), the King was going to declare Puyguilhem grand master
of the artillery, adding that he had just learned this news from
Puyguilhem himself, and saying where he had left him.
Louvois hated Puyguilhem, friend of Colbert, his rival, and he feared his
influence in a post which had so many intimate relations with his
department of the war, the functions and authority of which he invaded
as much as possible, a proceeding which he felt Puyguilhem was not the
kind of man to suffer. He embraces Nyert, thanking him, dismisses him as
quickly as possible, takes some papers to serve as an excuse, descends,
and finds Puyguilhem and Nyert in the chamber, as above described. Nyert
pretends to be surprised to see Louvois arrive, and says to him that the
council has not broken up.
"No matter," replied Louvois, "I must enter, I have something important
to say to the King;" and thereupon he enters. The King, surprised to see
him, asks what brings him there, rises, and goes to him. Louvois draws
him into the embrasure of a window, and says he knows that his Majesty is
going to declare Puyguilhem grand master of the artillery; that he is
waiting in the adjoining room for the breaking up of the council; that
his Majesty is fully master of his favours and of his choice, but that he
(Louvois) thinks it his duty to represent to him the incompatibility
between Puyguilhem and him, his caprices, his pride; that he will wish to
change everything in the artillery; that this post has such intimate
relations with the war department, that continual quarrels will arise
between the two, with which his Majesty will be importuned at every
moment.
The King is piqued to see his secret known by him from whom, above all,
he wished to hide it; he replies to Louvois, with a very serious air,
that the appointment is not yet made, dismisses him, and reseats himself
at the council. A moment after it breaks up. The King leaves to go to
mass, sees Puyguilhem, and passes without saying anything to him.
Puyguilhem, much astonished, waits all the rest of the day, and seeing
that the promised declaration does not come, speaks of it to the King at
night. The King replies to him that it cannot be yet, and that he will
see; the ambiguity of the response, and the cold tone, alarm Puyguilhem;
he is in favour with the ladies, and speaks the jargon of gallantry; he
goes to Madame de Montespan, to whom he states his disquietude, and
conjures her to put an end to it. She promises him wonders, and amuses
him thus several days.
Tired of this, and not being able to divine whence comes his failure, he
takes a resolution--incredible if it was not attested by all the Court of
that time. The King was in the habit of visiting Madame de Montespan in
the afternoon, and of remaining with her some time. Puyguilhem was on
terms of tender intimacy with one of the chambermaids of Madame de
Montespan. She privately introduced him into the room where the King
visited Madame de Montespan, and he secreted himself under the bed. In
this position he was able to hear all the conversation that took place
between the King and his mistress above, and he learned by it that it was
Louvois who had ousted him; that the King was very angry at the secret
having got wind, and had changed his resolution to avoid quarrels between
the artillery and the war department; and, finally, that Madame de
Montespan, who had promised him her good offices, was doing him all the
harm she could. A cough, the least movement, the slightest accident,
might have betrayed the foolhardy Puyguilhem, and then what would have
become of him? These are things the recital of which takes the breath
away, and terrifies at the same time.
Puyguilhem was more fortunate than prudent, and was not discovered. The
King and his mistress at last closed their conversation; the King dressed
himself again, and went to his own rooms. Madame de Montespan went away
to her toilette, in order to prepare for the rehearsal of a ballet to
which the King, the Queen, and all the Court were going. The chambermaid
drew Puyguilhem from under the bed, and he went and glued himself against
the door of Madame de Montespan's chamber.
When Madame de Montespan came forth, in order to go to the rehearsal of
the ballet, he presented his hand to her, and asked her, with an air of
gentleness and of respect, if he might flatter himself that she had
deigned to think of him when with the King. She assured him that she had
not failed, and enumerated services she had; she said, just rendered him.
Here and there he credulously interrupted her with questions, the better
to entrap her; then, drawing near her, he told her she was a liar, a
hussy, a harlot, and repeated to her, word for word, her conversation
with the King!
Madame de Montespan was so amazed that she had not strength enough to
reply one word; with difficulty she reached the place she was going to,
and with difficulty overcame and hid the trembling of her legs and of her
whole body; so that upon arriving at the room where the rehearsal was to
take place, she fainted. All the Court was already there. The King, in
great fright, came to her; it was not without much trouble she was
restored to herself. The same evening she related to the King what had
just happened, never doubting it was the devil who had so promptly and so
precisely informed Puyguilhem of all that she had said to the King. The
King was extremely irritated at the insult Madame de Montespan had
received, and was much troubled to divine how Puyguilhem had been so
exactly and so suddenly instructed.
Puyguilhem, on his side, was furious at losing the artillery, so that the
King and he were under strange constraint together. This could last only
a few days. Puyguilhem, with his grandes entrees, seized his opportunity
and had a private audience with the King. He spoke to him of the
artillery, and audaciously summoned him to keep his word. The King
replied that he was not bound by it, since he had given it under secrecy,
which he (Puyguilhem) had broken.
Upon this Puyguilhem retreats a few steps, turns his back upon the King,
draws his sword, breaks the blade of it with his foot, and cries out in
fury, that he will never in his life serve a prince who has so shamefully
broken his word. The King, transported with anger, performed in that
moment the finest action perhaps of his life. He instantly turned round,
opened the window, threw his cane outside, said he should be sorry to
strike a man of quality, and left the room.
The next morning, Puyguilhem, who had not dared to show himself since,
was arrested in his chamber, and conducted to the Bastille. He was an
intimate friend of Guitz, favourite of the King, for whom his Majesty had
created the post of grand master of the wardrobe. Guitz had the courage
to speak to the King in favour of Puyguilhem, and to try and reawaken the
infinite liking he had conceived for the young Gascon. He succeeded so
well in touching the King, by showing him that the refusal of such a
grand post as the artillery had turned Puyguilhem's head, that his
Majesty wished to make amends far this refusal. He offered the post of
captain of the King's guards to Puyguilhem, who, seeing this incredible
and prompt return of favour, re-assumed sufficient audacity to refuse it,
flattering himself he should thus gain a better appointment. The King
was not discouraged. Guitz went and preached to his friend in the
Bastille, and with great trouble made him agree to have the goodness to
accept the King's offer. As soon as he had accepted it he left the
Bastille, went and saluted the King, and took the oaths of his new post,
selling that which he occupied in the dragoons.
He had in 1665 the government of Berry, at the death of Marechal de
Clerembault. I will not speak here of his adventures with Mademoiselle,
which she herself so naively relates in her memoirs, or of his extreme
folly in delaying his marriage with her (to which the King had
consented), in order to have fine liveries, and get the marriage
celebrated at the King's mass, which gave time to Monsieur (incited by M.
le Prince) to make representations to the King, which induced him to
retract his consent, breaking off thus the marriage. Mademoiselle made a
terrible uproar, but Puyguilhem, who since the death of his father had
taken the name of Comte de Lauzun, made this great sacrifice with good
grace, and with more wisdom than belonged to him. He had the company of
the hundred gentlemen, with battle-axes, of the King's household, which
his father had had, and he had just been made lieutenant-general.
Lauzun was in love with Madame de Monaco, an intimate friend of Madame,
and in all her Intrigues: He was very jealous of her, and was not pleased
with her. One summer's afternoon he went to Saint-Cloud, and found
Madame and her Court seated upon the ground, enjoying the air, and Madame
de Monaco half lying down, one of her hands open and outstretched.
Lauzun played the gallant with the ladies, and turned round so neatly
that he placed his heel in the palm of Madame de Monaco, made a pirouette
there, and departed. Madame de Monaco had strength enough to utter no
cry, no word!
A short time after he did worse. He learnt that the King was on intimate
terms with Madame de Monaco, learnt also the hour at which Bontems, the
valet, conducted her, enveloped in a cloak, by a back staircase, upon the
landing-place of which was a door leading into the King's cabinet, and in
front of it a private cabinet. Lauzun anticipates the hour, and lies in
ambush in the private cabinet, fastening it from within with a hook, and
sees through the keyhole the King open the door of the cabinet, put the
key outside (in the lock) and close the door again. Lauzun waits a
little, comes out of his hiding-place, listens at the door in which the
King had just placed the key, locks it, and takes out the key, which he
throws into the private cabinet, in which he again shuts himself up.
Some time after Bontems and the lady arrive. Much astonished not to find
the key in the door of the King's cabinet, Bontems gently taps at the
door several times, but in vain; finally so loudly does he tap that the
King hears the sound. Bontems says he is there, and asks his Majesty to
open, because the key is not in the door. The King replies that he has
just put it there. Bontems looks on the ground for it, the King
meanwhile trying to open the door from the inside, and finding it double-
locked. Of course all three are much astonished and much annoyed; the
conversation is carried on through the door, and they cannot determine
how this accident has happened. The King exhausts himself in efforts to
force the door, in spite of its being double-locked. At last they are
obliged to say good-bye through the door, and Lauzun, who hears every
word they utter, and who sees them through the keyhole, laughs in his
sleeve at their mishap with infinite enjoyment.
CHAPTER CXVII
In 1670 the King wished to make a triumphant journey with the ladies,
under pretext of visiting his possessions in Flanders, accompanied by an
army, and by all his household troops, so that the alarm was great in the
Low Countries, which he took no pains to appease. He gave the command of
all to Lauzun, with the patent of army-general. Lauzun performed the
duties of his post with much intelligence, and with extreme gallantry and
magnificence. This brilliancy, and this distinguished mark of favour,
made Louvois, whom Lauzun in no way spared, think very seriously. He
united with Madame de Montespan (who had not pardoned the discovery
Lauzun had made, or the atrocious insults he had bestowed upon her), and
the two worked so well that they reawakened in the King's mind
recollections of the broken sword, the refusal in the Bastille of the
post of captain of the guards, and made his Majesty look upon Lauzun as a
man who no longer knew himself, who had suborned Mademoiselle until he
had been within an inch of marrying her, and of assuring to himself
immense wealth; finally, as a man, very dangerous on account of his
audacity, and who had taken it into his head to gain the devotion of the
troops by his magnificence, his services to the officers, and by the
manner in which he had treated them during the Flanders journey, making
himself adored. They made him out criminal for having remained the
friend of, and on terms of great intimacy with, the Comtesse de Soissons,
driven from the Court and suspected of crimes. They must have accused
Lauzun also of crimes which I have never heard of, in order to procure
for him the barbarous treatment they succeeded in subjecting him to.
Their intrigues lasted all the year, 1671, without Lauzun discovering
anything by the visage of the King, or that of Madame de Montespan. Both
the King and his mistress treated him with their ordinary distinction and
familiarity. He was a good judge of jewels (knowing also how to set them
well), and Madame de Montespan often employed him in this capacity. One
evening, in the middle of November, 1671, he arrived from Paris, where
Madame de Montespan had sent him in the morning for some precious stones,
and as he was about to enter his chamber he was arrested by the Marechal
de Rochefort, captain of the guards.
Lauzun, in the utmost surprise, wished to know why, to see the King or
Madame de Montespan--at least, to write to them; everything was refused
him. He was taken to the Bastille, and shortly afterwards to Pignerol,
where he was shut up in a low-roofed dungeon. His post of captain of the
body-guard was given to M. de Luxembourg, and the government of Berry to
the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, who, at the death of Guitz, at the passage
of the Rhine, 12th June, 1672, was made grand master of the wardrobe.
It may be imagined what was the state of a man like Lauzun, precipitated,
in a twinkling, from such a height to a dungeon in the chateau of
Pignerol, without seeing anybody, and ignorant of his crime. He bore up,
however, pretty well, but at last fell so ill that he began to think
about confession. I have heard him relate that he feared a fictitious
priest, and that, consequently, he obstinately insisted upon a Capuchin;
and as soon as he came he seized him by the beard, and tugged at it,
as hard as he could, on all sides, in order to see that it was not a sham
one! He was four or five years in his gaol. Prisoners find employment
which necessity teaches them. There ware prisoners above him and at the
side of him. They found means to speak to him. This intercourse led
them to make a hole, well hidden, so as to talk more easily; then to
increase it, and visit each other.
The superintendent Fouquet had been enclosed near them ever since
December, 1664. He knew by his neighbours (who had found means of seeing
him) that Lauzun was under them. Fouquet, who received no news, hoped
for some from him, and had a great desire to see him. He, had left
Lauzun a young man, dawning at the Court, introduced by the Marechal de
Grammont, well received at the house of the Comtesse de Soissons, which
the King never quitted, and already looked upon favourably. The
prisoners, who had become intimate with Lauzun, persuaded him to allow
himself to be drawn up through their hole, in order to see Fouquet in
their dungeon. Lauzun was very willing. They met, and Lauzun began
relating, accordingly, his fortunes and his misfortunes, to Fouquet. The
unhappy superintendent opened wide his ears and eyes when he heard this
young Gasepan (once only too happy to be welcomed and harboured by the
Marechal de Grammont) talk of having been general of dragoons, captain of
the guards, with the patent and functions of army-general! Fouquet no
longer knew where he was, believed Lauzun mad, and that he was relating
his visions, when he described how he had missed the artillery, and what
had passed afterwards thereupon: but he was convinced that madness had
reached its climax, and was afraid to be with Lauzun, when he heard him
talk of his marriage with Mademoiselle, agreed to by the King, how
broken, and the wealth she had assured to him. This much curbed their
intercourse, as far as Fouquet was concerned, for he, believing the brain
of Lauzun completely turned, took for fairy tales all the stories the
Gascon told him of what had happened in the world, from the imprisonment
of the one to the imprisonment of the other.
The confinement of Fouquet was a little relieved before that of Lauzun.
His wife and some officers of the chateau of Pignerol had permission to
see him, and to tell him the news of the day. One of the first things he
did was to tell them of this poor Puyguilhem, whom he had left young, and
on a tolerably good footing for his age, at the Court, and whose head was
now completely turned, his madness hidden within the prison walls; but
what was his astonishment when they all assured him that what he had
heard was perfectly true! He did not return to the subject, and was
tempted to believe them all mad together. It was some time before he was
persuaded.
In his turn, Lauzun was taken from his dungeon, and had a chamber, and
soon after had the same liberty that had been given to Fouquet; finally,
they were allowed to see each other as much as they liked. I have never
known what displeased Lauzun, but he left Pignerol the enemy of Fouquet,
and did him afterwards all the harm he could, and after his death
extended his animosity to his family.
During the long imprisonment of Lauzun, Madame de Nogent, one of his
sisters, took such care of his revenues that he left Pignerol extremely
rich.
Mademoiselle, meanwhile, was inconsolable at this long and harsh
imprisonment, and took all possible measures to deliver Lauzun. The King
at last resolved to turn this to the profit of the Duc du Maine, and to
make Mademoiselle pay dear for the release of her lover. He caused a
proposition to be made to her, which was nothing less than to assure to
the Duc du Maine, and his posterity after her death, the countdom of Eu,
the Duchy of Aumale, and the principality of Domfes! The gift was
enormous, not only as regards the value, but the dignity and extent of
these three slices. Moreover, she had given the first two to Lauzun,
with the Duchy of Saint-Forgeon, and the fine estate of Thiers, in
Auvergne, when their marriage was broken off, and she would have been
obliged to make him renounce Eu and Aumale before she could have disposed
of them in favour of the Duc du Maine. Mademoiselle could not, make up
her mind to this yoke, or to strip Lauzun of such considerable benefits.
She was importuned to the utmost, finally menaced by the ministers, now
Louvois, now Colbert. With the latter she was better pleased, because he
had always been on good terms with Lauzun, and because he handled her
more gently than Louvois, who, an enemy of her lover, always spoke in the
harshest terms. Mademoiselle unceasingly felt that the King did not like
her, and that he had never pardoned her the Orleans journey, still less
her doings at the Bastille, when she fired its cannons upon the King's
troops, and saved thus M. le Prince and his people, at the combat of the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Feeling, therefore, that the King, hopelessly
estranged from her, and consenting to give liberty to Lauzun only from
his passion for elevating and enriching his bastards, would not cease to
persecute her until she had consented--despairing of better terms, she
agreed to the gift, with the most bitter tears and complaints. But it
was found that, in order to make valid the renunciation of Lauzun, he
must be set at liberty, so that it was pretended he had need of the
waters of Bourbon, and Madame de Montespan also, in order that they might
confer together upon this affair.
Lauzun was taken guarded to Bourbon by a detachment of musketeers,
commanded by Maupertuis. Lauzun saw Madame de Montespan at Bourbon; but
he was so indignant at the terms proposed to him as the condition of his
liberty, that after long disputes he would hear nothing more on the
subject, and was reconducted to Pignerol as he had been brought.
This firmness did not suit the King, intent upon the fortune of his well-
beloved bastard. He sent Madame de Nogent to Pignerol; then Borin (a
friend of Lauzun, and who was mixed up in all his affairs), with menaces
and promises. Borin, with great trouble, obtained the consent of Lauzun,
and brought about a second journey to Bourbon for him and Madame de
Montespan, with the same pretext of the waters. Lauzun was conducted
there as before, and never pardoned Maupertuis the severe pedantry of his
exactitude. This last journey was made in the autumn of 1680. Lauzun
consented to everything. Madame de Montespan returned triumphant.
Maupertuis and his musketeers took leave of Lauzun at Bourbon, whence he
had permission to go and reside at Angers; and immediately after, this
exile was enlarged, so that he had the liberty of all Anjou and Lorraine.
The consummation of the affair was deferred until the commencement of
February, 1681, in order to give him a greater air of liberty. Thus
Lauzun had from Mademoiselle only Saint-Forgeon and Thiers, after having
been on the point of marrying her, and of succeeding to all her immense
wealth. The Duc du Maine was instructed to make his court to
Mademoiselle, who always received him very coldly, and who saw him take
her arms, with much vexation, as a mark of his gratitude, in reality for
the Sake of the honour it brought him; for the arms were those of Gaston,
which the Comte de Toulouse afterwards took, not for the same reason, but
under pretext of conformity with his brother; and they have handed them
down to their children.
Lauzun, who had been led to expect much more gentle treatment, remained
four years in these two provinces, of which he grew as weary as was
Mademoiselle at his absence. She cried out in anger against Madame de
Montespan and her son; complained loudly that after having been so
pitilessly fleeced, Lauzun was still kept removed from her; and made such
a stir that at last she obtained permission for him to return to Paris,
with entire liberty; on condition, however, that he did not approach
within two leagues of any place where the King might be.
Lauzun came, therefore, to Paris, and assiduously visited his
benefactors. The weariness of this kind of exile, although so softened,
led him into high play, at which he was extremely successful; always a
good and sure player, and very straightforward, he gained largely.
Monsieur, who sometimes made little visits to Paris, and who played very
high, permitted him to join the gambling parties of the Palais Royal,
then those of Saint-Cloud. Lauzun passed thus several years, gaining and
lending much money very nobly; but the nearer he found himself to the
Court, and to the great world, the more insupportable became to him the
prohibition he had received.
Finally, being no longer able to bear it, he asked the King for
permission to go to England, where high play was much in vogue. He
obtained it, and took with him a good deal of money, which secured him an
open-armed reception in London, where he was not less successful than in
Paris.
James II., then reigning, received Lauzun with distinction. But the
Revolution was already brewing. It burst after Lauzun had been in
England eight or ten months. It seemed made expressly for him, by the
success he derived from it, as everybody is aware. James II., no longer
knowing what was to become of him--betrayed by his favourites and his
ministers, abandoned by all his nation, the Prince of Orange master of
all hearts, the troops, the navy, and ready to enter London--the unhappy
monarch confided to Lauzun what he held most dear--the Queen and the
Prince of Wales, whom Lauzun happily conducted to Calais. The Queen at
once despatched a courier to the King, in the midst of the compliments of
which she insinuated that by the side of her joy at finding herself and
her son in security under his protection, was her grief at not daring to
bring with her him to whom she owed her safety.
The reply of the King, after much generous and gallant sentiment, was,
that he shared this obligation with her, and that he hastened to show it
to her, by restoring the Comte de Lauzun to favour.
In effect, when the Queen presented Lauzun to the King, in the Palace of
Saint-Germain (where the King, with all the family and all the Court,
came to meet her), he treated him as of old, gave him the privilege of
the grandes entrees, and promised him a lodging at Versailles, which he
received immediately after. From that day he always went to Marly, and
to Fontainebleau, and, in fact, never after quitted the Court. It may be
imagined what was the delight of such an ambitious courtier, so
completely re-established in such a sudden and brilliant manner. He had
also a lodging in the chateau of Saint-Germain, chosen as the residence
of this fugitive Court, at which King James soon arrived.
Lauzun, like a skilful courtier, made all possible use of the two Courts,
and procured for himself many interviews with the King, in which he
received minor commissions. Finally, he played his cards so well that
the King permitted him to receive in Notre Dame, at Paris, the Order of
the Garter, from the hands of the King of England, accorded to him at his
second passage into Ireland the rank of lieutenant-general of his
auxiliary army, and permitted at the same time that he should be of the
staff of the King of England, who lost Ireland during the same campaign
at the battle of the Boyne. He returned into France with the Comte de
Lauzun, for whom he obtained letters of the Duke; which were verified at
the Parliament in May, 1692. What a miraculous return of fortune! But
what a fortune, in comparison with that of marrying Mademoiselle, with
the donation of all her prodigious wealth, and the title and dignity of
Duke and Peer of Montpensier. What a monstrous pedestal! And with
children by this marriage, what a flight might not Lauzun have taken, and
who can say where he might have arrived?
CHAPTER CXVIII
I have elsewhere related Lauzun's humours, his notable wanton tricks, and
his rare singularity.
He enjoyed, during the rest of his long life, intimacy with the King,
distinction at the Court, great consideration, extreme abundance, kept up
the state of a great nobleman, with one of the most magnificent houses of
the Court, and the best table, morning and evening, most honourably
frequented, and at Paris the same, after the King's death: All this did
not content him. He could only approach the King with outside
familiarity; he felt that the mind and the heart of that monarch were on
their guard against him, and in an estrangement that not all his art nor
all his application could ever overcome. This is what made him marry my
sister-in-law, hoping thus to re-establish himself in serious intercourse
with the King by means of the army that M. le Marechal de Lorge commanded
in Germany; but his project failed, as has been seen. This is what made
him bring about the marriage of the Duc de Lorge with the daughter of
Chamillart, in order to reinstate himself by means of that ministry;
but without success. This is what made him undertake the journey to Aix-
la-Chapelle, under the pretext of the waters, to obtain information which
might lead to private interviews with the King, respecting the peace;
but he was again unsuccessful. All his projects failed; in fact, he
unceasingly sorrowed, and believed himself in profound disgrace--even
saying so. He left nothing undone in order to pay his court, at bottom
with meanness, but externally with dignity; and he every year celebrated
a sort of anniversary of his disgrace, by extraordinary acts, of which
ill-humour and solitude were oftentimes absurdly the fruit. He himself
spoke of it, and used to say that he was not rational at the annual
return of this epoch, which was stronger than he. He thought he pleased
the King by this refinement of attention, without perceiving he was
laughed at.
By nature he was extraordinary in everything, and took pleasure in
affecting to be more so, even at home, and among his valets. He
counterfeited the deaf and the blind, the better to see and hear without
exciting suspicion, and diverted himself by laughing at fools, even the
most elevated, by holding with them a language which had no sense. His
manners were measured, reserved, gentle, even respectful; and from his
low and honeyed tongue, came piercing remarks, overwhelming by their
justice, their force, or their satire, composed of two or three words,
perhaps, and sometimes uttered with an air of naivete or of distraction,
as though he was not thinking of what he said. Thus he was feared,
without exception, by everybody, and with many acquaintances he had few
or no friends, although he merited them by his ardor in seeing everybody
as much as he could, and by his readiness in opening his purse. He liked
to gather together foreigners of any distinction, and perfectly did the
honours of the Court. But devouring ambition poisoned his life; yet he
was a very good and useful relative.
During the summer which followed the death of Louis XIV. there was a
review of the King's household troops, led by M. le Duc d'Orleans, in the
plain by the side of the Bois de Boulogne. Passy, where M. de Lauzun had
a pretty house, is on the other side. Madame de Lauzun was there with
company, and I slept there the evening before the review. Madame de
Poitiers, a young widow, and one of our relatives, was there too, and was
dying to see the review, like a young person who has seen nothing, but
who dares not show herself in public in the first months of her mourning.
How she could be taken was discussed in the company, and it was decided
that Madame de Lauzun could conduct her a little way, buried in her
carriage. In the midst of the gaiety of this party, M. de Lauzun arrived
from Paris, where he had gone in the morning. He was told what had just
been decided. As soon as he learnt it he flew into a fury, was no longer
master of himself, broke off the engagement, almost foaming at the mouth;
said the most disagreeable things to his wife in the strongest, the
harshest, the most insulting, and the most foolish terms. She gently
wept; Madame de Poitiers sobbed outright, and all the company felt the
utmost embarrassment. The evening appeared an age, and the saddest
refectory repast a gay meal by the side of our supper. He was wild in
the midst of the profoundest silence; scarcely a word was said. He
quitted the table, as usual, at the fruit, and went to bed. An attempt
was made to say something afterwards by way of relief, but Madame de
Lauzun politely and wisely stopped the conversation, and brought out
cards in order to turn the subject.
The next morning I went to M. de Lauzun, in order to tell him in plain
language my opinion of the scene of the previous evening. I had not the
time. As soon as he saw me enter he extended his arms, and cried that I
saw a madman, who did not deserve my visit, but an asylum; passed the
strongest eulogies upon his wife (which assuredly she merited), said he
was not worthy of her, and that he ought to kiss the ground upon which
she walked; overwhelmed himself with blame; then, with tears in his eyes,
said he was more worthy of pity than of anger; that he must admit to me
all his shame and misery; that he was more than eighty years of age; that
he had neither children nor survivors; that he had been captain of the
guards; that though he might be so again, he should be incapable of the
function; that he unceasingly said this to himself, and that yet with all
this he could not console himself for having been so no longer during the
many years since he had lost his post; that he had never been able to
draw the dagger from his heart; that everything which recalled the memory
of the past made him beside himself, and that to hear that his wife was
going to take Madame de Poitiers to see a review of the body-guards, in
which he now counted for nothing, had turned his head, and had rendered
him wild to the extent I had seen; that he no longer dared show himself
before any one after this evidence of madness; that he was going to lock
himself up in his chamber, and that he threw himself at my feet in order
to conjure me to go and find his wife, and try to induce her to take pity
on and pardon a senseless old man, who was dying with grief and shame.
This admission, so sincere and so dolorous to make, penetrated me. I
sought only to console him and compose him. The reconciliation was not
difficult; we drew him from his chamber, not without trouble, and he
evinced during several days as much disinclination to show himself, as I
was told, for I went away in the evening, my occupations keeping me very
busy.
I have often reflected, apropos of this, upon the extreme misfortune of
allowing ourselves to be carried away by the intoxication of the world,
and into the formidable state of an ambitious man, whom neither riches
nor comfort, neither dignity acquired nor age, can satisfy, and who,
instead of tranquilly enjoying what he possesses, and appreciating the
happiness of it, exhausts himself in regrets, and in useless and
continual bitterness. But we die as we have lived, and 'tis rare it
happens otherwise. This madness respecting the captaincy of the guards
so cruelly dominated M. de Lauzun, that he often dressed himself in a
blue coat, with silver lace, which, without being exactly the uniform of
the captain of, the body-guards, resembled it closely, and would have
rendered him ridiculous if he had not accustomed people to it, made
himself feared, and risen above all ridicule.
With all his scheming and cringing he fell foul of everybody, always
saying some biting remark with dove-like gentleness. Ministers,
generals, fortunate people and their families, were the most ill-treated.
He had, as it were, usurped the right of saying and doing what he
pleased; nobody daring to be angry with him. The Grammonts alone were
excepted. He always remembered the hospitality and the protection he had
received from them at the outset of his life. He liked them; he
interested himself in them; he was in respect before them. Old Comte
Grammont took advantage of this and revenged the Court by the sallies he
constantly made against Lauzun, who never returned them or grew angry,
but gently avoided him. He always did a good deal for the children of
his sisters.
During the plague the Bishop of Marseilles had much signalised himself by
wealth spent and danger incurred. When the plague had completely passed
away, M. de Lauzun asked M. le Duc d'Orleans for an abbey for the Bishop.
The Regent gave away some livings soon after, and forgot M. de
Marseilles. Lauzun pretended to be ignorant of it, and asked M. le Duc
d'Orleans if he had had the goodness to remember him. The Regent was
embarrassed. The Duc de Lauzun, as though to relieve him from his
embarrassment, said, in a gentle and respectful tone, "Monsieur, he will
do better another time," and with this sarcasm rendered the Regent dumb,
and went away smiling. The story got abroad, and M. le Duc d'Orleans
repaired his forgetfulness by the bishopric of Laon, and upon the refusal
of M. de Marseilles to change, gave him a fat abbey.
M. de Lauzun hindered also a promotion of Marshal of France by the
ridicule he cast upon the candidates. He said to the Regent, with that
gentle and respectful tone he knew so well how to assume, that in case
any useless Marshals of France (as he said) were made, he begged his
Royal Highness to remember that he was the oldest lieutenant-general of
the realm, and that he had had the honour of commanding armies with the
patent of general. I have elsewhere related other of his witty remarks.
He could not keep them in; envy and jealousy urged him to utter them, and
as his bon-mots always went straight to the point, they were always much
repeated.
We were on terms of continual intimacy; he had rendered me real solid
friendly services of himself, and I paid him all sorts of respectful
attentions, and he paid me the same. Nevertheless, I did not always
escape his tongue; and on one occasion, he was perhaps within an inch of
doing me much injury by it.
The King (Louis XIV.) was declining; Lauzun felt it, and began to think
of the future. Few people were in favour with M. le Duc d'Orleans;
nevertheless, it was seen that his grandeur was approaching. All eyes
were upon him, shining with malignity, consequently upon me, who for a
long time had been the sole courtier who remained publicly attached to
him, the sole in his confidence. M. de Lauzun came to dine at my house,
and found us at table. The company he saw apparently displeased him; for
he went away to Torcy, with whom I had no intimacy, and who was also at
table, with many people opposed to M. le Duc d'Orleans, Tallard, among
others, and Tesse.
"Monsieur," said Lauzun to Torcy, with a gentle and timid air, familiar
to him, "take pity upon me, I have just tried to dine with M. de Saint-
Simon. I found him at table, with company; I took care not to sit down
with them, as I did not wish to be the 'zeste' of the cabal. I have come
here to find one."
They all burst out laughing. The remark instantly ran over all
Versailles. Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine at once heard it, and
nevertheless no sign was anywhere made. To have been angry would only
have been to spread it wider: I took the matter as the scratch of an ill-
natured cat, and did not allow Lauzun to perceive that I knew it.
Two or three years before his death he had an illness which reduced him
to extremity. We were all very assiduous, but he would see none of us,
except Madame de Saint-Simon, and her but once. Languet, cure of Saint-
Sulpice, often went to him, and discoursed most admirably to him. One
day, when he was there, the Duc de la Force glided into the chamber:
M. de Lauzun did not like him at all, and often laughed at him. He
received him tolerably well, and continued to talk aloud with the cure.
Suddenly he turned to the cure, complimented and thanked him, said he had
nothing more valuable to give him than his blessing, drew his arm from
the bed, pronounced the blessing, and gave it to him. Then turning to
the Duc de la Force, Lauzun said he had always loved and respected him as
the head of his house, and that as such he asked him for his blessing.
These two men, the cure and the Duc de la Force, were astonished, could
not utter a word. The sick man redoubled his instances. M. de la Force,
recovering himself, found the thing so amusing, that he gave his
blessing; and in fear lest he should explode, left the room, and came to
us in the adjoining chamber, bursting with laughter, and scarcely able to
relate what had happened to him.
A moment after, the cure came also, all abroad, but smiling as much as
possible, so as to put a good face on the matter. Lauzun knew that he
was ardent and skilful in drawing money from people for the building of a
church, and had often said he would never fall into his net; he suspected
that the worthy cure's assiduities had an interested motive, and laughed
at him in giving him only his blessing (which he ought to have received
from him), and in perseveringly asking the Duc de la Force for his. The
cure, who saw the point of the joke, was much mortified, but, like a
sensible man, he was not less frequent in his visits to M. de Lauzun
after this; but the patient cut short his visits, and would not
understand the language he spoke.
Another day, while he was still very ill, Biron and his wife made bold to
enter his room on tiptoe, and kept behind his curtains, out of sight, as
they thought; but he perceived them by means of the glass on the chimney-
piece. Lauzun liked Biron tolerably well, but Madame Biron not at all;
she was, nevertheless, his niece, and his principal heiress; he thought
her mercenary, and all her manners insupportable to him. In that he was
like the rest of the world. He was shocked by this unscrupulous entrance
into his chamber, and felt that, impatient for her inheritance, she came
in order to make sure of it, if he should die directly. He wished to
make her repent of this, and to divert himself at her expense. He
begins, therefore; to utter aloud, as though believing himself alone, an
ejaculatory orison, asking pardon of God for his past life, expressing
himself as though persuaded his death was nigh, and saying that, grieved
at his inability to do penance, he wishes at least to make use of all the
wealth he possesses, in order to redeem his sins, and bequeath that
wealth to the hospitals without any reserve; says it is the sole road to
salvation left to him by God, after having passed a long life without
thinking of the future; and thanks God for this sole resource left him,
which he adopts with all his heart!
He accompanied this resolution with a tone so touched, so persuaded, so
determined, that Biron and his wife did not doubt for a moment he was
going to execute his design, or that they should be deprived of all the
succession. They had no desire to spy any more, and went, confounded, to
the Duchesse de Lauzun, to relate to her the cruel decree they had just
heard pronounced, conjuring her to try and moderate it. Thereupon the
patient sent for the notaries, and Madame Biron believed herself lost.
It was exactly the design of the testator to produce this idea. He made
the notaries wait; then allowed them to enter, and dictated his will,
which was a death-blow to Madame de Biron. Nevertheless, he delayed
signing it, and finding himself better and better, did not sign it at
all. He was much diverted with this farce, and could not restrain his
laughter at it, when reestablished. Despite his age, and the gravity of
his illness, he was promptly cured and restored to his usual health.
He was internally as strong as a lion, though externally very delicate.
He dined and supped very heartily every day of an excellent and very
delicate cheer, always with good company, evening and morning; eating of
everything, 'gras' and 'maigre', with no choice except that of his taste
and no moderation. He took chocolate in the morning, and had always on
the table the fruits in season, and biscuits; at other times beer, cider,
lemonade, and other similar drinks iced; and as he passed to and fro, ate
and drank at this table every afternoon, exhorting others to do the same.
In this way he left table or the fruit, and immediately went to bed.
I recollect that once, among others, he ate at my house, after his
illness, so much fish, vegetables, and all sorts of things (I having no
power to hinder him), that in the evening we quietly sent to learn
whether he had not felt the effects of them. He was found at table
eating with good appetite.
His gallantry was long faithful to him. Mademoiselle was jealous of it,
and that often controlled him. I have heard Madame de Fontenelles ( a
very enviable woman, of much intelligence, very truthful, and of singular
virtue), I have heard her say, that being at Eu with Mademoiselle,
M. de Lauzun came there and could not desist from running after the
girls; Mademoiselle knew it, was angry, scratched him, and drove him from
her presence. The Comtesse de Fiesque reconciled them. Mademoiselle
appeared at the end of a long gallery; Lauzun was at the other end, and
he traversed the whole length of it on his knees until he reached the
feet of Mademoiselle. These scenes, more or less moving, often took
place afterwards. Lauzun allowed himself to be beaten, and in his turn
soundly beat Mademoiselle; and this happened several times, until at
last, tired of each other, they quarrelled once for all and never saw
each other again; he kept several portraits of her, however, in his house
or upon him, and never spoke of her without much respect. Nobody doubted
they had been secretly married. At her death he assumed a livery almost
black, with silver lace; this he changed into white with a little blue
upon gold, when silver was prohibited upon liveries.
His temper, naturally scornful and capricious, rendered more so by prison
and solitude, had made him a recluse and dreamer; so that having in his
house the best of company, he left them to Madame de Lauzun, and withdrew
alone all the afternoon, several hours running, almost always without
books, for he read only a few works of fancy--a very few--and without
sequence; so that he knew nothing except what he had seen, and until the
last was exclusively occupied with the Court and the news of the great
world. I have a thousand times regretted his radical incapacity to write
down what he had seen and done. It would have been a treasure of the
most curious anecdotes, but he had no perseverance, no application. I
have often tried to draw from him some morsels. Another misfortune. He
began to relate; in the recital names occurred of people who had taken
part in what he wished to relate. He instantly quitted the principal
object of the story in order to hang on to one of these persons, and
immediately after to some other person connected with the first, then to
a third, in the manner of the romances; he threaded through a dozen
histories at once, which made him lose ground and drove him from one to
the other without ever finishing anything; and with this his words were
very confused, so that it was impossible to learn anything from him or
retain anything he said. For the rest, his conversation was always
constrained by caprice or policy; and was amusing only by starts, and by
the malicious witticisms which sprung out of it. A few months after his
last illness, that is to say, when he was more than ninety years of age,
he broke in his horses and made a hundred passades at the Bois de
Boulogne (before the King, who was going to the Muette), upon a colt he
had just trained, surprising the spectators by his address, his firmness,
and his grace. These details about him might go on for ever.
His last illness came on without warning, almost in a moment, with the
most horrible of all ills, a cancer in the mouth. He endured it to the
last with incredible patience and firmness, without complaint, without
spleen, without the slightest repining; he was insupportable to himself.
When he saw his illness somewhat advanced, he withdrew into a little
apartment (which he had hired with this object in the interior of the
Convent of the Petits Augustins, into which there was an entrance from
his house) to die in repose there, inaccessible to Madame de Biron and
every other woman, except his wife, who had permission to go in at all
hours, followed by one of her attendants.
Into this retreat Lauzun gave access only to his nephews and brothers-in-
law, and to them as little as possible. He thought only of profiting by
his terrible state, of giving all his time to the pious discourses of his
confessor and of some of the pious people of the house, and to holy
reading; to everything, in fact, which best could prepare him for death.
When we saw him, no disorder, nothing lugubrious, no trace of suffering,
politeness, tranquillity, conversation but little animated, indifference
to what was passing in the world, speaking of it little and with
difficulty; little or no morality, still less talk of his state; and this
uniformity, so courageous and so peaceful, was sustained full four months
until the end; but during the last ten or twelve days he would see
neither brothers-in-law nor nephews, and as for his wife, promptly
dismissed her. He received all the sacraments very edifyingly, and
preserved his senses to the last moment: The morning of the day during
the night of which he died, he sent for Biron, said he had done for him
all that Madame de Lauzun had wished; that by his testament he gave him
all his wealth, except a trifling legacy to the son of his other sister,
and some recompenses to his domestics; that all he had done for him since
his marriage, and what he did in dying, he (Biron) entirely owed to
Madame de Lauzun; that he must never forget the gratitude he owed her;
that he prohibited him, by the authority of uncle and testator, ever to
cause her any trouble or annoyance, or to have any process against her,
no matter of what kind. It was Biron himself who told me this the next
day, in the terms I have given. M. de Lauzun said adieu to him in a firm
tone, and dismissed him. He prohibited, and reasonably, all ceremony; he
was buried at the Petits Augustins; he had nothing from the King but the
ancient company of the battle-axes, which was suppressed two days after.
A month before his death he had sent for Dillon (charged here with the
affairs of King James, and a very distinguished officer general), to whom
he surrendered his collar of the Order of the Garter, and a George of
onyx, encircled with perfectly beautiful and large diamonds, to be sent
back to the Prince.
I perceive at last, that I have been very prolix upon this man, but the
extraordinary singularity of his life, and my close connexion with him,
appear to me sufficient excuses for making him known, especially as he
did not sufficiently figure in general affairs to expect much notice in
the histories that will appear. Another sentiment has extended my
recital. I am drawing near a term I fear to reach, because my desires
cannot be in harmony with the truth; they are ardent, consequently
gainful, because the other sentiment is terrible, and cannot in any way
be palliated; the terror of arriving there has stopped me--nailed me
where I was--frozen me.
It will easily be seen that I speak of the death (and what a death!) of
M. le Duc d'Orleans; and this frightful recital, especially after such a
long attachment (it lasted all his life, and will last all mine),
penetrates me with terror and with grief for him. The Regent had said,
when he died he should like to die suddenly: I shudder to my very marrow,
with the horrible suspicion that God, in His anger, granted his desire.
CHAPTER CXIX
The new chateau of Meudon, completely furnished, had been restored to me
since the return of the Court to Versailles, just as I had had it before
the Court came to Meudon. The Duc and Duchesse d'Humieres were with us
there, and good company. One morning towards the end of October, 1723,
the Duc d'Humieres wished me to conduct him to Versailles, to thank M. le
Duc d'Orleans.
We found the Regent dressing in the vault he used as his wardrobe. He
was upon his chair among his valets, and one or two of his principal
officers. His look terrified me. I saw a man with hanging head, a
purple-red complexion, and a heavy stupid air. He did not even see me
approach. His people told him. He slowly turned his head towards me,
and asked me with a thick tongue what brought me. I told him. I had
intended to pass him to come into the room where he dressed himself, so
as not to keep the Duc d'Humieres waiting; but I was so astonished that I
stood stock still.
I took Simiane, first gentleman of his chamber, into a window, and
testified to him my surprise and my fear at the state in which I saw M.
le Duc d'Orleans.
Simiane replied that for a long time he had been so in the morning; that
to-day there was nothing extraordinary about him, and that I was
surprised simply because I did not see him at those hours; that nothing
would be seen when he had shaken himself a little in dressing. There was
still, however, much to be seen when he came to dress himself. The
Regent received the thanks of the Duc d'Humieres with an astonished and
heavy air; he who always was so gracious and so polite to everybody, and
who so well knew how to express himself, scarcely replied to him! A
moment after, M. d'Humieres and I withdrew. We dined with the Duc de
Gesvres, who led him to the King to thank his Majesty.
The condition of M. le Duc d'Orleans made me make many reflections. For
a very long time the Secretaries of State had told me that during the
first hours of the morning they could have made him pass anything they
wished, or sign what might have been the most hurtful to him. It was the
fruit of his suppers. Within the last year he himself had more than once
told me that Chirac doctored him unceasingly, without effect; because he
was so full that he sat down to table every evening without hunger,
without any desire to eat, though he took nothing in the morning, and
simply a cup of chocolate between one and two o'clock in the day (before
everybody), it being then the time to see him in public. I had not kept
dumb with him thereupon, but all my representations were perfectly
useless. I knew moreover, that Chirac had continually told him that the
habitual continuance of his suppers would lead him to apoplexy, or dropsy
on the chest, because his respiration was interrupted at times; upon
which he had cried out against this latter malady, which was a slow,
suffocating, annoying preparation for death, saying that he preferred
apoplexy, which surprised and which killed at once, without allowing time
to think of it!
Another man, instead of crying out against this kind of death with which
he was menaced, and of preferring another, allowing him no time for
reflection, would have thought about leading a sober, healthy, and decent
life, which, with the temperament he had, would have procured him a very
long time, exceeding agreeable in the situation--very probably durable--
in which he found himself; but such was the double blindness of this
unhappy prince.
I was on terms of much intimacy with M. de Frejus, and since, in default
of M. le Duc d'Orleans, there must be another master besides the King,
until he could take command, I preferred this prelate to any other. I
went to him, therefore, and told him what I had seen this morning of the
state of M. le Duc d'Orleans. I predicted that his death must soon come,
and that it would arrive suddenly, without warning. I counselled Frejus,
therefore, to have all his arrangements ready with the King, in order to
fill up the Regent's place of prime minister when it should become
vacant. M. de Frejus appeared very grateful for the advice, but was
measured and modest as though he thought the post much above him!
On the 22nd of December, 1723, I went from Meudon to Versailles to see
M. le Duc d'Orleans; I was three-quarters of an hour with him in his
cabinet, where I had found him alone. We walked to and fro there,
talking of affairs of which he was going to give an account to the King
that day. I found no difference in him, his state was, as usual, languid
and heavy, as it had been for some time, but his judgment was clear as
ever. I immediately returned to Meudon, and chatted there some time with
Madame de Saint-Simon on arriving. On account of the season we had
little company. I left Madame de Saint-Simon in her cabinet, and went
into mine.
About an hour after, at most, I heard cries and a sudden uproar. I ran
out and I found Madame de Saint-Simon quite terrified, bringing to me a
groom of the Marquis de Ruffec, who wrote to me from Versailles, that
M. le Duc d'Orleans was in a apoplectic fit. I was deeply moved, but not
surprised; I had expected it, as I have shown, for a long time.
I impatiently waited for my carriage, which was a long while coming,
on account of the distance of the new chateau from the stables. I flung
myself inside; and was driven as fast as possible.
At the park gate I met another courier from M. de Ruffec, who stopped me,
and said it was all over. I remained there more than half an hour
absorbed in grief and reflection. At the end I resolved to go to
Versailles, and shut myself up in my rooms; I learnt there the
particulars of the event.
M. le Duc d'Orleans had everything prepared to go and work with the King.
While waiting the hour, he chatted with Madame Falari, one of his
mistresses. They were close to each other, both seated in armchairs,
when suddenly he fell against her, and never from that moment had the
slightest glimmer of consciousness.
La Falari, frightened as much as may be imagined, cried with all her
might for help, and redoubled her cries. Seeing that nobody replied, she
supported as best she could this poor prince upon the contiguous arms of
the two chairs, ran into the grand cabinet, into the chamber, into the
ante-chambers, without finding a soul; finally, into the court and the
lower gallery. It was the hour at which M. le Duc d'Orleans worked with
the King, an hour when people were sure no one would come and see him,
and that he had no need of them, because he ascended to the King's room
by the little staircase from his vault, that is to say his wardrobe. At
last La Falari found somebody, and sent the first who came to hand for
help. Chance; or rather providence, had arranged this sad event at a
time when everybody was ordinarily away upon business or visits, so that
a full half-hour elapsed before doctor or surgeon appeared, and about as
long before any domestics of M. le Duc d'Orleans could be found.
As soon as the faculty had examined the Regent; they judged his case
hopeless. He was hastily extended upon the floor, and bled, but he gave
not the slightest sign of life, do what they might to him. In an
instant, after the first announcement, everybody flocked to the spot; the
great and the little cabinet were full of people. In less than two hours
all was over, and little by little the solitude became as great as the
crowd had been. As soon as assistance came, La Falari flew away and
gained Paris as quickly as possible.
La Vrilliere was one of the first who learnt of the attack of apoplexy.
He instantly ran and informed the King and the Bishop of Frejus. Then M.
le Duc, like a skilful courtier, resolved to make the best of his time;
he at once ran home and drew up at all hazards the patent appointing M.
le Duc prime minister, thinking it probable that that prince would be
named. Nor was he deceived. At the first intelligence of apoplexy,
Frejus proposed M. le Duc to the King, having probably made his
arrangements in advance. M. le Duc arrived soon after, and entered the
cabinet where he saw the King, looking very sad, his eyes red and
tearful.
Scarcely had he entered than Frejus said aloud to the King, that in the
loss he had sustained by the death of M. le Duc d'Orleans (whom he very
briefly eulogised), his Majesty could not do better than beg M. le Duc,
there present, to charge himself with everything, and accept the post of
prime minister M. le Duc d'Orleans had filled. The King, without saying
a word, looked at Frejus, and consented by a sign of the head, and M. le
Duc uttered his thanks.
La Vrilliere, transported with joy at the prompt policy he had followed,
had in his pocket the form of an oath taken by the prime minister, copied
from that taken by M. le Duc d'Orleans, and proposed to Frejus to
administer it immediately. Frejus proposed it to the King as a fitting
thing, and M. le Duc instantly took it. Shortly after, M. le Duc went
away; the crowd in the adjoining rooms augmented his suite, and in a
moment nothing was talked of but M. le Duc.
M. le Duc de Chartres (the Regent's son), very awkward, but a libertine,
was at Paris with an opera dancer he kept. He received the courier which
brought him the news of the apoplexy, and on the road (to Versailles),
another with the news of death. Upon descending from his coach, he found
no crowd, but simply the Duc de Noailles, and De Guiche, who very
'apertement' offered him their services, and all they could do for him.
He received them as though they were begging-messengers whom he was in a
hurry to get rid of, bolted upstairs to his mother, to whom he said he
had just met two men who wished to bamboozle him, but that he had not
been such a fool as to let them. This remarkable evidence of
intelligence, judgment, and policy, promised at once all that this prince
has since performed. It was with much trouble he was made to comprehend
that he had acted with gross stupidity; he continued, nevertheless, to
act as before.
He was not less of a cub in the interview I shortly afterwards had with
him. Feeling it my duty to pay a visit of condolence to Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans, although I had not been on terms of intimacy with her
for a long while, I sent a message to her to learn whether my presence
would be agreeable. I was told that Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans would
be very glad to see me. I accordingly immediately went to her.
I found her in bed, with a few ladies and her chief officers around, and
M. le Duc de Chartres making decorum do double duty for grief. As soon
as I approached her she spoke to me of the grievous misfortune--not a
word of our private differences. I had stipulated thus. M. le Duc de
Chartres went away to his own rooms. Our dragging conversation I put an
end to as soon as possible.
From Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans I went to M. le Duc de Chartres. He
occupied the room his father had used before being Regent. They told me
he was engaged. I went again three times during the same morning. At
the last his valet de chambre was ashamed, and apprised him of my visit,
in despite of me. He came across the threshold of the door of his
cabinet, where he had been occupied with some very common people; they
were just the sort of people suited to him.
I saw a man before me stupefied and dumfounded, not afflicted, but so
embarrassed that he knew not where he was. I paid him the strongest, the
clearest, the most energetic of compliments, in a loud voice. He took
me, apparently, for some repetition of the Ducs de Guiche and de
Noailles, and did not do me the honour to reply one word.
I waited some moments, and seeing that nothing would come out of the
mouth of this image, I made my reverence and withdrew, he advancing not
one step to conduct me, as he ought to have done, all along his
apartment, but reburying himself in his cabinet. It is true that in
retiring I cast my eyes upon the company, right and left, who appeared to
me much surprised. I went home very weary of dancing attendance at the
chateau.
The death of M. le Duc d'Orleans made a great sensation abroad and at
home; but foreign countries rendered him incomparably more justice, and
regretted him much more, than the French. Although foreigners knew his
feebleness, and although the English had strangely abused it, their
experience had not the less persuaded them of the range of his mind, of
the greatness of his genius and of his views, of his singular
penetration, of the sagacity and address of his policy, of the fertility
of his expedients and of his resources, of the dexterity of his conduct
under all changes of circumstances and events, of his clearness in
considering objects and combining things; of his superiority over his
ministers, and over those that various powers sent to him; of the
exquisite discernment he displayed in investigating affairs; of his
learned ability in immediately replying to everything when he wished.
The majority of our Court did not regret him, however. The life he had
led displeased the Church people; but more still, the treatment they had
received from his hands.
The day after death, the corpse of M. le Duc d'Orleans was taken from
Versailles to Saint-Cloud, and the next day the ceremonies commenced.
His heart was carried from Saint-Cloud to the Val de Grace by the
Archbishop of Rouen, chief almoner of the defunct Prince. The burial
took place at Saint-Denis, the funeral procession passing through Paris,
with the greatest pomp. The obsequies were delayed until the 12th of
February. M. le Duc de Chartres became Duc d'Orleans.
After this event, I carried out a determination I had long resolved on.
I appeared before the new masters of the realm as seldom as possible--
only, in fact, upon such occasions where it would have been inconsistent
with my position to stop away. My situation at the Court had totally
changed. The loss of the dear Prince, the Duc de Bourgogne, was the
first blow I had received. The loss of the Regent was the second. But
what a wide gulf separated these two men!
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A cardinal may be poisoned, stabbed, got rid of altogether
A good friend when a friend at all, which was rare
A King's son, a King's father, and never a King
A lingering fear lest the sick man should recover
A king is made for his subjects, and not the subjects for him
Admit our ignorance, and not to give fictions and inventions
Aptitude did not come up to my desire
Arranged his affairs that he died without money
Artagnan, captain of the grey musketeers
Believed that to undertake and succeed were only the same things
But with a crawling baseness equal to her previous audacity
Capacity was small, and yet he believed he knew everything
Compelled to pay, who would have preferred giving voluntarily
Conjugal impatience of the Duc de Bourgogne
Countries of the Inquisition, where science is a crime
Danger of inducing hypocrisy by placing devotion too high
Death came to laugh at him for the sweating labour he had taken
Depopulated a quarter of the realm
Desmarets no longer knew of what wood to make a crutch
Enriched one at the expense of the other
Exceeded all that was promised of her, and all that I had hoped
Few would be enriched at the expense of the many
For penance: "we must make our servants fast"
For want of better support I sustained myself with courage
Found it easier to fly into a rage than to reply
From bad to worse was easy
He had pleased (the King) by his drugs
He limped audaciously
He was often firm in promises
He was so good that I sometimes reproached him for it
He was born bored; he was so accustomed to live out of himself
He liked nobody to be in any way superior to him
He was scarcely taught how to read or write
He was accused of putting on an imperceptible touch of rouge
Height to which her insignificance had risen
His death, so happy for him and so sad for his friends
His habits were publicly known to be those of the Greeks
His great piety contributed to weaken his mind
I abhorred to gain at the expense of others
Ignorance and superstition the first of virtues
Imagining themselves everywhere in marvellous danger of capture
In order to say something cutting to you, says it to himself
Indiscreet and tyrannical charity
Interests of all interested painted on their faces
It is a sign that I have touched the sore point
Jesuits: all means were good that furthered his designs
Juggle, which put the wealth of Peter into the pockets of Paul
King was being wheeled in his easy chair in the gardens
Less easily forget the injuries we inflict than those received
Madame de Maintenon in returning young and poor from America
Make religion a little more palpable
Manifesto of a man who disgorges his bile
Mightily tired of masters and books
Monseigneur, who had been out wolf-hunting
More facility I have as King to gratify myself
My wife went to bed, and received a crowd of visitors
Never been able to bend her to a more human way of life
Never was a man so ready with tears, so backward with grief
No means, therefore, of being wise among so many fools
Not allowing ecclesiastics to meddle with public affairs
Of a politeness that was unendurable
Oh, my lord! how many virtues you make me detest
Omissions must be repaired as soon as they are perceived
Others were not allowed to dream as he had lived
People who had only sores to share
People with difficulty believe what they have seen
Persuaded themselves they understood each other
Polite when necessary, but insolent when he dared
Pope excommunicated those who read the book or kept it
Pope not been ashamed to extol the Saint-Bartholomew
Promotion was granted according to length of service
Received all the Court in her bed
Reproaches rarely succeed in love
Revocation of the edict of Nantes
Rome must be infallible, or she is nothing
Said that if they were good, they were sure to be hated
Saw peace desired were they less inclined to listen to terms
Scarcely any history has been written at first hand
Seeing him eat olives with a fork!
She lose her head, and her accomplice to be broken on the wheel
Spark of ambition would have destroyed all his edifice
Spoil all by asking too much
Spoke only about as much as three or four women
Sulpicians
Supported by unanswerable reasons that did not convince
Suspicion of a goitre, which did not ill become her
Teacher lost little, because he had little to lose
The clergy, to whom envy is not unfamiliar
The porter and the soldier were arrested and tortured
The shortness of each day was his only sorrow
The most horrible sights have often ridiculous contrasts
The argument of interest is the best of all with monks
The nothingness of what the world calls great destinies
The safest place on the Continent
There was no end to the outrageous civilities of M. de Coislin
Touched, but like a man who does not wish to seem so
Unreasonable love of admiration, was his ruin
We die as we have lived, and 'tis rare it happens otherwise
Whatever course I adopt many people will condemn me
Whitehall, the largest and ugliest palace in Europe
Who counted others only as they stood in relation to himself
Wise and disdainful silence is difficult to keep under reverses
With him one's life was safe
World; so unreasoning, and so little in accord with itself
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