Origin of the _liaison_ between _Monsieur le Duc_ and Madame
de Prie considered--Extraordinary ascendency which the latter
acquires over her lover--For a while, the favourite leads a
life of pleasure, but is soon obliged to give her attention
to politics--Exasperation of Madame de Pléneuf’s coterie
against her--Insecurity of _Monsieur le Duc’s_ position--The
Orléans faction--Intrigues of the War Minister Le Blanc and
the Belle-Isles--Hatred of Madame de Prie for Le Blanc--She
resolves to crush the common enemies of herself and _Monsieur
le Duc_--Her skilful conduct--Murder of Sandrier de Mitry,
chief cashier of La Jonchère, treasurer of the Emergency
War Fund--Sinister suspicions concerning La Jonchère and Le
Blanc--Madame de Prie determines to get to the bottom of the
mystery--Her alliance with the Pâris brothers against the
War Minister--Dubois persuades the Regent to withdraw his
protection from Le Blanc--Arrest of La Jonchère and examination
of his accounts--Disgrace and exile of Le Blanc--The death
of Dubois puts a stop to the proceedings--Death of Philippe
d’Orléans--_Monsieur le Duc_ becomes Prime Minister.
One night, in the autumn of 1719, so the story goes, the Duc de Bourbon
attended a ball at the Opera, where his attention was attracted by
two masked ladies, who remained inseparable throughout the evening.
One of them in particular piqued his curiosity, as much as by her
liveliness and wit, as by the perfection of her shape and the grace of
her movements. He entreated her to unmask, but was met by a refusal,
and she and her companion took their departure, laughing merrily at
his mortification. At the next Opera-ball, the two ladies appeared
in the same costume. _Monsieur le Duc_, who was again present,
hastened to join them, but, though, on this occasion, he succeeded
in ascertaining that the elder was a Madame Auxy, he was unable to
discover the identity of the one who most interested him, for nothing
could persuade her to unmask. On leaving him, however, she hinted that,
if he cared to attend the next ball, he might find her less obdurate.
The prince was faithful to the rendezvous, but the fair _inconnue_
seemed disinclined to fulfil her promise; and it was only after many
refusals and many protestations that she at length consented to remove
her mask, and to reveal the adorable features of Madame de Prie, at
sight of which _Monsieur le Duc_ incontinently succumbed.
Such is the version of the affair which has found favour with the
majority of historians. It is doubtful, however, if it is the correct
one, and, any way, it is strangely inconsistent with the account given
by Caylus--no friend, by the way, of Madame de Prie--of the repulsion
with which the first solicitations of _Monsieur le Duc_ inspired
the object of his desires:
“However ambitious Madame de Prie may have been, when she saw herself
on the point of surrendering to a man whose face was extremely
repulsive, although he was rather well-made, she experienced a
frightful repugnance, and was a hundred times ready to renounce her
project.”
A more plausible explanation of the origin of this passion, which,
owing to its consequences, belongs to history, is that Madame de Prie’s
aunt, Madame de Séchelles, who was on friendly terms with Marie Anne
de Bourbon-Conti, the first wife of _Monsieur le Duc_, and a
frequent visitor at the Hôtel de Condé, brought her niece there; that
_Monsieur le Duc_ saw her and fell desperately in love with her,
and that certain partisans of the House of Condé, who were anxious to
find some intelligent woman capable of guiding the prince amidst the
bewildering chaos of passions and intrigues in which he found himself,
and of awakening in him those ambitions which they themselves had
vainly endeavoured to arouse, persuaded her, weary as she was of the
trials and humiliations of poverty and eager once again to possess the
good things of life, to become his mistress.
What, however, is incontestable, is the completeness of her triumph.
From the first hour until the time, six years later, when circumstances
over which neither of them had any control came to force them apart,
she dominated _Monsieur le Duc_ entirely, and he adored her with
an intensity of devotion of which no one had believed him capable.
The Sabrans, the Nesles, the Polignacs and the rest were as entirely
forgotten as if they had never existed; never was there so much as a
whisper of a rival in his affections. He consecrated himself to her
body and soul.
Nor is this a matter for surprise, since Madame de Prie was no ordinary
mistress. Not only did she possess in a superlative degree all that
could charm the senses, but she had intelligence, culture, and
exquisite tact, and, she understood to perfection the art of pleasing.
“She amused him, she distracted him, she showed a profound respect for
his decisions, which flattered him in confirming him in the idea that
he acted always on his own initiative. She never gave him advice except
after being asked for it, and in subordinating it, in appearance, to
the superior intelligence of her lover, although it was frequently her
counsel which prevailed.”[257] Thus, she insinuated herself into the
mind and heart of the prince and “disposed of him as a slave.”[258]
Never did he dream of rebelling against his fetters, since he was
barely conscious of them.
For a while, Madame de Prie gave herself up to the enjoyment of all the
luxury and splendour with which her princely lover hastened to surround
her with the zest which only a pretty young woman can feel who, after
once being in a position to indulge all her caprices, has for several
years been compelled to deny herself even the necessaries--or what the
feminine mind considers the necessaries--of existence. She passed long
delightful hours in the shops of fashionable _couturiers_ and made
extensive purchases, which, let us hope, _Monsieur le Duc_ paid
for in hard cash, and not in the notes of his _protégé_ Law’s
unfortunate bank. She visited the _ateliers_ of the artists, of
whom she had in former days been a generous patron, and commissioned
a portrait of herself from Van Loo, and another from Rosalba, whom
she had patronised at Turin, and who had just completed a pastel of
Madame de Parabère. Arrayed in ravishing toilettes and blazing with
diamonds, she did the honours of the Hôtel de Condé, of Chantilly
and of Saint-Maur, for, very opportunely for her, the unloved wife
of _Monsieur le Duc_ had, after a long and painful illness,
recently departed to another world, leaving the field quite free for
the sultana. And she profoundly troubled the salons by launching
an entirely novel method of arranging the hair, which became her
_à merveille_, but caused serious inconvenience to some of the
fashionable dames who felt constrained to adopt it.
But, after some weeks, she was obliged to give her mind to more serious
matters. The “elevation” of a _petite bourgeoise_, daughter of a
fraudulent financier and of a woman universally despised, to be the
favourite of a prince who stood so near the throne and might even one
day ascend it, had not taken place without exciting the most rancorous
jealousy and hatred. _Chansons_, venomous satires, slanders,
calumnies, rained upon her, until, if she had been a more sensitive
woman, she might well have been driven to the verge of despair. She was
charged with having led a life of debauchery from her earliest youth;
of having bewitched _Monsieur le Duc_ by initiating him into vices
imported by her from Italy and hitherto unknown in France; of having
ruined her husband by her scandalous extravagance; of having treated
an unselfish and devoted mother with the most outrageous cruelty and
ingratitude. She learned that in Madame de Pléneuf’s circle it was
predicted that her triumph would be of very brief duration; that they
would soon succeed in disgusting _Monsieur le Duc_ with his
choice, and that when she had fallen from her high estate and had been
abandoned by the prince, they would make her bitterly repent of her
victory.
She learned, too, that the position of _Monsieur le Duc_ was
far from secure, and that he had many powerful enemies, who were
continually intriguing against him and who would not scruple to employ
every possible means to reduce him to political impotence. This,
however, requires a word of explanation.
For some years past the bitterest antipathy had existed between the
Houses of Orléans and Condé. This feud had its origin in the aversion
which the two daughters of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan had
always entertained for each other, and which, in their younger days,
had so much disturbed the harmony of the royal circle that the King
was at length obliged to threaten them with banishment from the Court
if they could not live peaceably together. The hatred between the two
sisters had been communicated to their sons, the Duc de Chartres and
_Monsieur le Duc_, and intensified by the lawsuit over the will
of the late _Monsieur le Prince_ and by the prominence taken
by _Monsieur le Duc_ in the campaign against the legitimated
princes, whose cause the Duchesse d’Orléans had espoused with the most
passionate enthusiasm.
The Regent did not share the antipathy of his wife and son to the
Condés; indeed, he regarded the proceedings of them and the faction
which they had gathered about them with the gravest suspicion, which
is hardly surprising, having regard to the ambitions with which they
were generally credited. These included his own deposition and the
substitution of the Duchesse d’Orléans as Regent, the banishment of
_Monsieur le Duc_ and the Condés, the re-establishment of the
legitimated princes in their titles and dignities, the constitution of
a new Ministry, and a _rapprochement_ with Spain.
The party was numerically powerful, including as it did a number of
the _protégés_ of the House of Orléans, and many discontented and
ambitious persons. It also comprised some very distinguished names:
the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, the Comte de Toulouse, the Prince de
Condé, the Rohans, the Duc de Montemart, and the Maréchaux de Villeroy,
Berwick and Tallard. But its most active and formidable members were
three men of middle-class origin: the Secretary of State for War,
Le Blanc, the Comte, afterwards the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, and his
younger brother, the Chevalier de Belle-Isle.
[Illustration: LOUIS HENRI, DUC DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ
(CALLED MONSIEUR LE DUC)
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY P. DREVET, AFTER THE PAINTING BY GOBERT]
Claude Le Blanc was the son of Louis Le Blanc, who had been at one
time intendant of Normandy; his mother was a sister of the Maréchal de
Bezons. Born in 1669, he practised for some years at the Bar, but in
1704 was appointed intendant of Auvergne. He was an exceedingly able
man, “full of intelligence, capacity and resource,”[259] and in the
intendancy of Flanders, to which he was transferred towards the close
of the War of the Austrian Succession, he rendered such admirable
service that Louis XIV. summoned him to Court in order that he might
thank him personally.
On the old King’s death, the functions of Secretary of State for War
were suppressed and replaced by a council, of which Le Blanc was a
member, but, after trying this experiment for two years, the Regent
decided to revert to the old order of things, and the office was
conferred upon the ex-intendant.
Although Le Blanc possessed few of the qualities of a Louvois, and
during the war with Spain which followed the Cellamare conspiracy was
guilty of more than one grave error, he was, on the whole, far from an
incapable Minister, and the Army owed to him several useful reforms,
while he always enjoyed great popularity with the troops. But, on the
other hand, he was greedy, ambitious, unscrupulous, and an incorrigible
intriguer, with whom no consideration of gratitude or honour would be
permitted to weigh for a moment.
In the Comte de Belle-Isle, who, a quarter of a century later, during
the War of the Austrian Succession, was to earn undying renown by
his gallant defence of Prague and the masterly manner in which he
subsequently conducted the retreat of the garrison to Eger, through the
midst of an enemy’s country and in the depth of winter, he possessed a
most valuable ally.
Although Belle-Isle was the grandson of the Surintendant Fouquet, whose
ill-gotten wealth had brought upon him so terrible a punishment, he
had, nevertheless, entered the service of Louis XIV. and risen to the
rank of brigadier-general. He accompanied Villars to the negotiations
of Rastadt, and, after the conclusion of peace, was made governor of
Huningue. Appointed _maréchal de camp_ on the outbreak of the war
between France and Spain, he contributed to the capture of Fontarabia
and San Sebastian, and, without having done anything very notable,
contrived, thanks to the adroit manner in which his friend Le Blanc
represented his services, to acquire a considerable military reputation
and with it a footing at the Court, of which he did not fail to profit.
Ambitious, enterprising, and persuasive, he succeeded in insinuating
himself into the favour of the Regent, and soon began to be regarded
as a very important personage.
The third member of the triumvirate, the Chevalier de Belle-Isle,
was a young man of twenty-seven, noted for his dashing valour in the
field and his innumerable gallantries. His abilities were, however,
considerable, and his ambition perhaps even more excessive than that of
his elder brother, whose entire confidence he enjoyed.
Le Blanc and the Belle-Isles, while secretly the protagonists of
the opposition party, remained, in appearance, devoted adherents of
Philippe d’Orléans, and this made them doubly dangerous. Profiting
by the confidence which the Regent reposed in them, they had lately
attempted a master-stroke, by imputing to the Duc de Bourbon
machinations of their own cabal which were on the point of being
discovered. They accused him of conspiring to supplant the Regent, and
so cleverly did they manufacture evidence in support of this charge
that _Monsieur le Duc_ had all the difficulty imaginable to prove
his innocence. Eventually, the Duc d’Orléans accepted his indignant
protestations, but from that moment the chief of the House of Condé
began to be regarded by the public as a possible rival of his Royal
Highness.
Now, by a singular coincidence, the same three men who had so nearly
succeeded in bringing about the disgrace of _Monsieur le Duc_
were the most devoted of all the friends of Madame de Pléneuf, and,
in consequence, implacable enemies of Madame de Prie. Le Blanc had
rendered himself particularly odious to the Duc de Bourbon’s mistress.
For some years past the Minister had been completely infatuated with
Madame de Pléneuf and obedient to her slightest behest, and in the
miserable days which had followed the discovery of Agnès’s flirtation
with M. d’Angennes he had ably seconded her mother in making the
girl’s life a burden to her. Moreover, whether justly or no, she
strongly suspected him and the Belle-Isles of having been concerned
in the tragic end of the unfortunate d’Angennes, who, shortly after
the episode in question, had been found dead in the street, pierced
by three sword-thrusts, in circumstances which pointed to his being
the victim of some private vengeance. Again, Le Blanc had, at his own
special request, been appointed a member of the commission appointed to
investigate the accounts of M. de Pléneuf and his fellow-commissaries;
and the animus he had displayed against the principal delinquent on
this occasion--which, it was generally believed, had been prompted by
the desire to please Madame de Pléneuf, who had been for some years
past on very bad terms with her husband, and, at the same time, to
obtain greater facilities for enjoying that lady’s society--had largely
contributed to his ruin.
And, finally, he had committed an action which would alone have
sufficed to assure him the undying hatred of Madame de Prie.
We have mentioned that among the admirers of Madame de Prie at
Turin was the Marquis d’Alincourt, son of the Maréchal de Villeroy.
Whether there had ever been anything serious between them is very
doubtful, but, at any rate, the lady had been indiscreet enough to
write d’Alincourt several letters which were capable of such an
interpretation. Now, Le Blanc, who was a friend of d’Alincourt, knew
of the existence of these epistles, and, soon after Madame de Prie
became the mistress of _Monsieur le Duc_, he contrived, by some
means, to get possession of them, and handed them to Madame de Pléneuf,
who carried them straight to her daughter’s lover. The precious pair
doubtless hoped thereby to bring about a rupture between the prince
and his inamorata, but they had sadly underrated the strength of the
former’s infatuation; and the only result was to disgust him with
persons who could make war with such weapons and to intensify the
hatred with which Madame de Prie regarded her mother and the Minister
for War.
As soon as Madame de Prie understood the precarious situation of
_Monsieur le Duc_, and that her mother’s friends, Le Blanc and the
Belle-Isles, were his most redoubtable enemies, she recognized that her
interests were one with those of her lover, and that, by placing him in
a position in which he would be able to defy them, she would shelter
herself from their blows. From that moment, the line of action which
it behoved her to follow was clear, and she determined to devote all
her talents and all her energies to rallying the prince’s partisans
around him and thwarting the machinations of their common foes. Nor did
she intend to rest from her labours until she had crushed them utterly,
and raised _Monsieur le Duc_ so high that they would be powerless
to injure either him or herself.
But, to accomplish this, it was necessary to begin by freeing herself
from certain embarrassments: by appeasing her husband’s indignation
and preventing a scandal, which might prejudice her in the eyes of
those old-fashioned persons who consented to condone immorality only
so long as the conventionalities were duly observed; by rehabilitating
her father, whose delinquencies were a continual reproach to her; and
by persuading the Condés, and, in particular, the Dowager-Duchesse de
Bourbon to accept the situation and admit her to their intimacy.
All these matters were satisfactorily arranged. M. de Prie, who, at
the beginning of 1720, had resigned his post at Turin, returned to
Paris vowing vengeance against his erring wife, and, if gossip is to be
believed, did actually go so far as to give her several blows with his
cane. But he was a man of feeble character, and, besides, desperately
in need of money; and soon, perceiving in which direction his interests
lay, he calmed down, and eventually took himself off to Languedoc, with
the title of lieutenant-general of that province, which _Monsieur le
Duc_ had been instrumental in obtaining for him.
Thanks to the same influence, the Government consented to throw a veil
over the misdeeds of M. de Pléneuf, and to permit him to return to
Paris, though it refused to restore him his property. His daughter,
however, hastened to provide for his necessities, and soon afterwards
secured for him the post of secretary to Sennecterre, who had been
despatched to England to discuss with the British Government the
question of the restoration of Gibraltar to Spain.
The question of her relations with the Condé family presented some
difficulty. The Duc de Bourbon’s two brothers, the Comte de Charolais
and the Comte de Clermont, were disposed to be friendly enough. With
the elder, indeed, she happened to be already on amicable terms, as
some three years before, during a visit to Italy, he had stayed for a
time at the French Embassy at Turin, and had been much pleased by the
hospitality he had received while she had earned the gratitude of the
Comte de Clermont by assisting him in a love-affair with a cousin of
her own. But their sisters, with the exception of Mlle. de Clermont,
were less inclined to complaisance, while it was plain that _Madame
la Duchesse_ looked upon Madame de Prie’s subjugation of her son
with a very jaundiced eye. _Madame la Duchesse_ had very little
affection for the latter, but she aspired to control all his actions,
and she strongly resented the appearance upon the scene of a rival
influence. For some time she made no secret of her dislike of Madame
de Prie, and treated her with the coldest disdain; and the favourite
had need of all her suppleness to overcome her hostility. At length,
however, the princess decided to accept the situation, and, though she
continued to cherish for her son’s mistress a strong aversion, their
relations were, to all appearances, perfectly cordial.
Next, the astute young woman proceeded to ingratiate herself with the
Regent, Cardinal Dubois, and other members of the Government.
By Philippe d’Orléans she was, as we have seen, already very favourably
regarded, and very soon she was admitted to the circle of his intimate
friends.
Profiting by the knowledge that Dubois, although he had little liking
for _Monsieur le Duc_, cared still less for the adversaries of
the Condés, she sought eagerly for opportunities of rendering herself
useful to him, and succeeded so well that before long she was able
to reckon with confidence upon the support of his Eminence, who was
becoming more powerful every day.
Nor did she neglect persons who, although they did not occupy any
important ministerial office, were, nevertheless, possessed of
influence. Thus, she succeeded in detaching, temporarily at least,
the Cardinal de Rohan from the opposing faction--a distinct triumph,
since the cardinal was generally believed to have been one of the
lovers of Madame de Pléneuf--and in deciding the Maréchal de Villars,
d’Alincourt, Livry, first _maître d’hôtel_ to the King, her uncle
by marriage the Maréchal de Matignon, the Duc de Richelieu, of gallant
memory, for whom, when _Monsieur le Duc_ became Prime Minister,
she obtained the Embassy of Vienna, and several other nobles who had
been hesitating between the two parties, to throw in their lot with the
Condés.
She supported Law, too; and that adventurous financier was not
ungrateful, and repaid her protection by filling her purse so full that
she became quite independent of her lover’s bounty and was able to
maintain a whole company of spies, who brought her early information of
the movements of the enemy.
And so, shrewd, vigilant, resolute, and courageous, she pursued the
path she had marked out for herself, to all appearance satisfied to
remain on the defensive, but, in reality, carefully noting the weak
points in her adversaries’ position, and watching for the occasion to
deliver a crushing blow. Nor was the occasion long in presenting itself.
* * * * *
On 25 March, 1722, Sandrier de Mitry, receiver-general of the finances
of French Flanders, and secretary and principal cashier to La
Jonchère,[260] treasurer of the Emergency War Fund,[261] disappeared
from his home, and nothing more was heard of him until the 18th of the
following month, when his body, partially clothed and pierced by two
wounds, was discovered in the Seine, near Marly.
This mysterious crime created an immense sensation in Paris, and a
strong suspicion prevailed that La Jonchère, who did not bear too high
a character,[262] had been plundering the State; that the unfortunate
Sandrier had detected the defalcations, and that the treasurer had
caused him to be made away with in order to close the matter.
But rumour, in certain quarters, went further than this, and accused
the War Minister, Le Blanc, of being a party to the crime, or, at any
rate, to what was believed to be the cause of it. For Le Blanc was not
only La Jonchère’s official chief, but his patron and friend, and it
would have been almost impossible for the treasurer to have falsified
his accounts without the Minister being aware of it.
The authorities, however, declined to see the least connexion between
the murder of Sandrier and the position which he had occupied, and
nearly a year passed without any steps being taken against La Jonchère.
It is, indeed, highly improbable that they would ever have been stirred
to action had not Madame de Prie taken upon herself to intervene.
No sooner did that energetic lady hear of the crime that had been
committed and of the rumours that were in circulation concerning La
Jonchère and Le Blanc, than she resolved to employ every means in her
power to get to the bottom of the affair. Fortune favoured her quest,
in bringing her allies, wealthy, enterprising, and capable, and as
determined to compass the ruin of the Minister for War as she was
herself.
Quite apart from the Condé faction, Le Blanc possessed many enemies.
Of these the most powerful were the four brothers Pâris, the famous
bankers, who, after the Mississippi crash, had been entrusted by the
Regent with the task of restoring the public credit. In the days
before they had attained their present eminence, the Pâris had been
in business as army-contractors, and Le Blanc, at that time Intendant
of Flanders, had caused the third brother, Pâris-Le Montagne, to be
arrested on a charge of rendering fraudulent accounts. More recently
become Minister for War, he had accused the ablest of the four,
Pâris-Duverney, of infringing the edicts forbidding the export of gold,
and, though Duverney had succeeded in exculpating himself, both he and
his brothers were provisionally banished from the realm. Hence, the
bankers hated Le Blanc and had sworn to be avenged on him as soon as
they were able.
The task of re-establishing the finances which had been entrusted
to them, and which they conducted with undeniable skill, of course
included an examination of the accounts of the public services.
Scarcely had they begun to investigate those of the Ministry for War
than they discovered such flagrant irregularities as to leave little
room for doubt that a system of wholesale robbery prevailed. They
immediately drew up a report to that effect and despatched it to the
Regent, but, in their eagerness to bring their enemy to account, they
had not waited to substantiate the charges they made; and Philippe
d’Orléans, with whom Le Blanc was just then in high favour, excused
himself from moving in the matter, on the ground that the Minister for
War had rendered undoubted service to the State, and was extremely
popular with the Army, and that, in the present critical condition
of affairs, it would be better to watch his future conduct than to
criticize his past acts.
The bankers were greatly mortified by this repulse. Nevertheless, they
were too embittered against Le Blanc, and too apprehensive of reprisals
on his part, to abandon the struggle; and they accordingly began to
look about them for some powerful ally, whose assistance might enable
them to resume it with some prospect of success.
Naturally, their thoughts turned in the direction of the Duc de
Bourbon, but, since they had been the most strenuous opponents of his
_protégé_ Law, and they feared that the prince might harbour some
resentment against them on that account, they hesitated to approach
him. Great therefore was their satisfaction, when one day they received
a letter from Madame de Prie proposing an alliance between them and the
House of Condé against the common enemy.
The alliance was soon concluded, and, supported openly by the whole
weight of the Condé influence, and encouraged in secret by Dubois,
whose jealousy of Le Blanc Madame de Prie had artfully fanned, the
Pâris brothers again advanced to the attack, and demanded that a
commission should be appointed to investigate the accounts of the
Ministry for War.
Their demand was conceded, the commissioners had been already
nominated, and every one was expecting to hear that Le Blanc and La
Jonchère had been summoned to appear before them, when the faction
opposed to the Condés, with the Duc de Chartres, the Prince de Conti,
and the legitimated princes at its head, started a violent agitation
in favour of Le Blanc, and carried the war into the enemy’s camp by
accusing the Pâris brothers of having themselves despoiled the State.
This furnished the Regent with a pretext for intervening between the
accused and justice, and the meeting of the commission was postponed
_sine die_.
Madame de Prie, however, did not despair. She had made sure of the
support of Dubois, who in August, 1722, had been named _ministre
principal_--the same title which had been given the Cardinal de
Richelieu--and her several agents were everywhere at work. Daily the
evidence against Le Blanc was accumulating in her hands; towards the
end of the spring of 1723, it was so overwhelming that she felt that it
would be impossible for the Regent to ignore it.
She had ascertained that, apart from their official relations, Le Blanc
and La Jonchère were on terms of the closest intimacy; that the latter
had a pretty and coquettish wife, whom he had complacently surrendered
to his chief, being himself in love with the wife of the unfortunate
Sandrier; that he lived in almost princely style, and had, moreover,
advanced large sums of money to the Comte de Belle-Isle, to defray
the cost of a magnificent hôtel which he was building on the banks of
the Seine, opposite the Tuileries; that, on learning of the death of
Sandrier, Le Blanc had shown so much emotion that every one present was
astonished, and that a day or two later he fell ill and was obliged to
take to his bed. And finally, she discovered that it was practically
certain that, in robbing the State, Le Blanc and La Jonchère had been
acting with the connivance of the Palais-Royal, and that a considerable
portion of the spoil had found its way into the Regent’s coffers.
When she judged that the moment for action had arrived, Madame de Prie
communicated with Dubois, who, armed with the reports she had sent him,
went to the Regent, laid them before him, and told him very plainly
that he could no longer support Le Blanc without being immediately
compromised.
Philippe d’Orléans, after a perusal of the documents, was obliged to
acknowledge that the Minister was right, and authorized him to take
what steps he considered advisable in the matter. Dubois lost no time
in setting the Law in motion; the commission met at the house of the
Maréchal de Villars, who had been appointed president; and on 24 May La
Jonchère was arrested as he was returning from Versailles, in virtue
of a _lettre de cachet_ signed by the Cardinal, and conducted
to the Bastille, while the seals were placed on his hôtel in the Rue
Saint-Honoré, and all his registers and papers seized by the police. At
the Bastille, La Jonchère was subjected to two long interrogatories by
Ravot d’Ombreval, a relative of Dubois, who acted as attorney-general
to the commission. He appeared very agitated, contradicted himself
several times, and ended by admitting that he had acted dishonestly,
and that he was not the only one guilty, though he obstinately refused
to give the names of his accomplices.
A few days later, two of La Jonchère’s principal clerks were also
arrested, and on 18 June the treasurer was conducted to his house to be
present at the raising of the seals and the sorting of his papers. This
operation lasted from eleven o’clock in the morning until nine in the
evening, when he was escorted back to the Bastille, guarded by forty
archers and followed by two carts filled with his registers and papers.
The examination of these, which was carried out under the supervision
of the Lieutenant of Police, d’Argenson, revealed immense defalcations,
and, moreover, left no room for doubt as to the culpability of Le
Blanc. It also showed that La Jonchère had received a great number of
the discredited notes of Law’s Bank, for which he had presumably given
in exchange gold to the amount of their face value.
On 1 July, Le Blanc received orders from the King to send him his
resignation of the office of Secretary of State for War, and to retire
immediately to the Château of Doué, belonging to his son-in-law, the
Marquis de Traisnel. A few days later, he was replaced by the Marquis
de Breteuil,[263] a devoted adherent of _Monsieur le Duc_ and
Madame de Prie. On the 16th, the commission, which was now established
at the Arsenal, summoned the two Belle-Isles to appear before it,
together with the Marquis de Conches and the Comte de Mayières, two
lieutenant-generals attached to Le Blanc, and several other persons.
The Belle-Isles adopted a haughty tone, and protested their innocence
with such indignation that the commission were visibly impressed.
However, the discovery of a note concealed behind the grate in La
Jonchère’s bedroom, in the Rue Saint-Honoré, in which the elder brother
acknowledged the receipt of 1,800,000 livres from the treasurer, put a
different complexion upon the matter.
The utmost consternation now reigned among the Orléans faction, and it
seemed as though Madame de Prie had succeeded in reducing the enemies
of herself and her lover to complete impotence, when the death of
Dubois, which occurred on 10 August, 1723, intervened to save them, or,
at any rate, to procure them a respite of some months.
With the disappearance from the political scene of the ambitious
cardinal, whose will had so long dominated his own, Philippe d’Orléans
resumed his liberty of action. On the very day on which Dubois died,
he demanded and obtained from the King the post of Prime Minister,
cleverly forestalling _Monsieur le Duc_, who, on the advice of his
mistress, had decided to ask for it himself; and thus united in his own
person the titles of heir-presumptive to the Crown and Prime Minister.
The question as to which of the two parties the prince would incline
greatly agitated the public mind, and it was the opinion of most that
he would favour that of his wife and son. It is very probable that he
would have done so, had _Monsieur le Duc_ been so maladroit as to
display any mortification at his having stolen a march upon him, in
which case the work of so many months might have been undone in a few
hours. But Madame de Prie was far too astute to permit her lover to
commit a blunder of this kind; and, prompted by her, the Duc de Bourbon
hastened to repair to the Palais-Royal, to present his compliments to
the new Prime Minister and to assure him of his devotion to his person.
Thanks to this prudent conduct, although they were not allowed to
follow up their victory, they retained possession of the greater part
of the field. Le Blanc remained in exile, and his successor, Breteuil,
who, as we have mentioned, was devoted to their cause, was confirmed
in his office: La Jonchère remained under lock and key; while the
Belle-Isles and their creatures, though they remained at liberty, were
kept under observation. Finally--and this, we may be sure, was not
the least satisfaction to Madame de Prie--her mother found herself
neglected and reduced to poverty.
Such was the position of affairs when, on 2 December, 1723, the Duc
d’Orléans was suddenly attacked by apoplexy at Versailles, and expired
almost immediately, in the arms of his latest inamorata, Madame de
Phalaris. Of all the princes, _Monsieur le Duc_ happened to be
the only one on the spot, and he did not fail to profit by his good
fortune. Following the procedure adopted by the deceased prince on
the day of Dubois’s death, he hastened to the King, informed him of
the loss which he had just sustained, and, almost in the same breath,
demanded the vacant post of Prime Minister. His youthful Majesty,
“without being moved by the news,” conferred it upon him; the prince,
in accordance with custom, forthwith took the oath and received the
patent; and when, a few hours later, the Duc de Chartres, who had
received the news of his father’s death at the Opera in Paris, or,
according to another account, in the boudoir of an Opera-girl whose
society he affected, came galloping madly into Versailles, he found,
to his profound disgust, the place to which he himself aspired already
filled. _Monsieur le Duc_ was the master of the realm, and Madame
de Prie mistress of all that was his.