“One has no more luck at our age,” Louis XIV. had said to his old friend
Marshal Villars, returning from his most disastrous campaign. It was a
bitter reflection upon himself which had put these words into the king’s
mouth. After the most brilliant, the most continually and invariably
triumphant of reigns, he began to see Fortune slipping away from him,
and the grievous consequences of his errors successively overwhelming the
state. “God is punishing me; I have richly deserved it,” he said to
Marshal Villars, who was on the point of setting out for the battle of
Denain. The aged king, dispirited and beaten, could not set down to men
his misfortunes and his reverses; the hand of God Himself was raised
against his house. Death was knocking double knocks all round him. The
grand-dauphin had for some days past been ill of small-pox. The king had
gone to be with him at Meudon, forbidding the court to come near the
castle. The small court of Monseigneur were huddled together in the
lofts. The king was amused with delusive hopes; his chief physician,
Fagon, would answer for the invalid. The king continued to hold his
councils as usual, and the deputation of market-women (_dames de la
Halle_), come from Paris to have news of Monseigneur, went away,
declaring that they would go and sing a Te Deum, as he was nearly well.
“It is not time yet, my good women,” said Monseigneur, who had given them
a reception. That very evening he was dead, without there having been
time to send for his confessor in ordinary. “The parish priest of
Meudon, who used to look in every evening before he went home, had found
all the doors open, the valets distracted, Fagon heaping remedy upon
remedy without waiting for them to take effect. He entered the room, and
hurrying to Monseigneur’s bedside, took his hand and spoke to him of God.
The poor prince was fully conscious, but almost speechless. He repeated
distinctly a few words, others inarticulately, smote his breast, pressed
the priest’s hand, appeared to have the most excellent sentiments, and
received absolution with an air of contrition and wistfulness.”
[Memoires de St. Simon, ix.] Meanwhile word had been sent to the king,
who arrived quite distracted. The Princess of Conti, his daughter, who
was deeply attached to Monseigneur, repulsed him gently: “You must think
only of yourself now, Sir,” she said. The king let himself sink down
upon a sofa, asking news of all that came out of the room, without any
one’s daring to give him an answer. Madame de Maintenon, who had hurried
to the king, and was agitated without being affected, tried to get him
away; she did not succeed, however, until Monseigneur had breathed his
last. He passed along to his carriage between two rows of officers and
valets, all kneeling, and conjuring him to have pity upon them who had
lost all and were like to starve.
[Illustration: The King leaving the Death-bed of Monseigneur----36]
The excitement and confusion at Versailles were tremendous. From the
moment that small-pox was declared, the princes had not been admitted to
Meudon. The Duchess of Burgundy alone had occasionally seen the king.
All were living in confident expectation of a speedy convalescence; the
news of the death came upon them like a thunderclap. All the courtiers
thronged together at once, the women half dressed, the men anxious and
concerned, some to conceal their extreme sorrow, others their joy,
according as they were mixed up in the different cabals of the court.
“It was all, however, nothing but a transparent veil,” says St. Simon,
“which did not prevent good eyes from observing and discerning all the
features. The two princes and the two princesses, seated beside them,
taking care of them, were most exposed to view. The Duke of Burgundy
wept, from feeling and in good faith, with an air of gentleness, tears of
nature, of piety, and of patience. The Duke of Berry, in quite as good
faith, shed abundance, but tears, so to speak, of blood, so great
appeared to be their bitterness; he gave forth not sobs, but shrieks,
howls. The Duchess of Berry (daughter of the Duke of Orleans) was beside
herself. The bitterest despair was depicted on her face. She saw her
sister-in-law, who was so hateful to her, all at once raised to that
title, that rank of dauphiness, which were about to place so great a
distance between them. Her frenzy of grief was not from affection, but
from interest; she would wrench herself from it to sustain her husband,
to embrace him, to console him, then she would become absorbed in herself
again with a torrent of tears, which helped her to stifle her shrieks.
The Duke of Orleans wept in his own corner, actually sobbing, a thing
which, had I not seen it, I should never have believed,” adds St. Simon,
who detested Monseigneur, and had as great a dread of his reigning as the
Duke of Orleans had. “Madame, re-dressed in full dress, in the middle of
the night, arrived regularly howling, not quite knowing why either one or
the other; inundating them all with her tears as she embraced them, and
making the castle resound with a renewal of shrieks, when the king’s
carriages were announced, on his return to Marly.” The Duchess of
Burgundy was awaiting him on the road. She stepped down and went to the
carriage window. “What are you about, Madame?” exclaimed Madame de
Maintenon; “do not come near us, we are infectious.” The king did not
embrace her, and she went back to the palace, but only to be at Marly
next morning before the king was awake.
The king’s tears were as short as they had been abundant. He lost a son
who was fifty years old, the most submissive and most respectful creature
in the world, ever in awe of him and obedient to him, gentle and
good-natured, a proper man amid all his indolence and stupidity, brave
and even brilliant at head of an army. In 1688, in front of Philipsburg,
the soldiers had given him the name of “Louis the Bold.” He was full of
spirits and always ready, “revelling in the trenches,” says Vauban. The
Duke of Montausier, his boyhood’s strict governor, had written to him,
“Monseigneur, I do not make you my compliments on the capture of
Philipsburg; you had a fine army, shells, cannon, and Vauban. I do not
make them to you either on your bravery; it is an hereditary virtue in
your house; but I congratulate you on being open-handed, humane,
generous, and appreciative of the services of those who do well; that is
what I make you my compliments upon.” “Did not I tell you so?” proudly
exclaimed the Chevalier de Grignan, formerly attached (as menin) to the
person of Monseigneur, on hearing his master’s exploits lauded; “for my
part, I am not surprised.” Racine had exaggerated the virtues of
Monseigneur in the charming verses of the prologue of Esther:
“Thou givest him a son, an ever ready aid,
Apt or to woo or fight, obey or be obeyed;
A son who, like his sire, drags victory in his train,
Yet boasts but one desire, that father’s heart to gain;
A son, who to his will submits with loving air,
Who brings upon his foes perpetual despair.
As the swift spirit flies, stern Equity’s envoy,
So, when the king says, ‘Go,’ down rusheth he in joy,
With vengeful thunderbolt red ruin doth complete,
Then tranquilly returns to lay it at his feet.”
In 1690 and in 1691 he had gained distinction as well as in 1688. “The
dauphin has begun as others would think it an honor to leave off,” the
Prince of Orange had said, “and, for my part, I should consider that I
had worthily capped anything great I may have done in war if, under
similar circumstances, I had made so fine a march.” Whether it were
owing to indolence or court cabal, Monseigneur had no more commands;
he had no taste for politics, and always sat in silence at the council,
to which the king had formally admitted him at thirty years of age,
“instructing him,” says the Marquis of Sourches, “with so much vigor and
affection, that Monseigneur could not help falling at his feet to testify
his respect and gratitude.” Twice, at grave conjunctures, the
grand-dauphin allowed his voice to be heard; in 1685, to offer a timid
opposition to the Edict of Nantes, and, in 1700, to urge very vigorously
the acceptance of the King of Spain’s will. “I should be enchanted,” he
cried, as if with a prophetic instinct of his own destiny, “to be able to
say all my life, ‘The king my father, and the king my SON.’” Heavy in
body as well as mind, living on terms of familiarity with a petty court,
probably married to Mdlle. Choin, who had been for a long time installed
in his establishment at Meudon, Monseigneur, often embarrassed and made
uncomfortable by the austere virtue of the Duke of Burgundy, and finding
more attraction in the Duke of Berry’s frank geniality, had surrendered
himself, without intending it, to the plots which were woven about him.
“His eldest son behaved to him rather as a courtier than as a son,
gliding over the coldness shown him with a respect and a gentleness
which, together, would have won over any father less a victim to
intrigue. The Duchess of Burgundy, in spite of her address and her
winning grace, shared her husband’s disfavor.” The Duchess of Berry had
counted upon this to establish her sway in a reign which the king’s great
age seemed to render imminent; already, it was said, the chief amusement
at Monseigneur’s was to examine engravings of the coronation ceremony,
when death carried him off suddenly on the 14th of April, 1711, to the
consternation of the lower orders, who loved him because of his
reputation for geniality. The severity of the new dauphin caused some
little dread.
“Here is a prince who will succeed me before long,” said the king on
presenting his grandson to the assembly of the clergy; “by his virtue and
piety he will render the church still more flourishing, and the kingdom
more happy.” That was the hope of all good men. Fenelon, in his exile
in Cambrai, and the Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse, at court, began
to feel themselves all at once transported to the heights with the prince
whom they had educated, and who had constantly remained faithful to them.
The delicate foresight and prudent sagacity of Fenelon had a long while
ago sought to prepare his pupil for the part which he was about to play.
It was piety alone that had been able to triumph over the dangerous
tendencies of a violent and impassioned temperament. Fenelon, who had
felt this, saw also the danger of devoutness carried too far. “Religion
does not consist in a scrupulous observance of petty formalities,” he
wrote to the Duke of Burgundy; “it consists, for everybody, in the
virtues proper to one’s condition. A great prince ought not to serve
God in the same way as a hermit or a simple individual.”
“The prince thinks too much and acts too little,” he said to the Duke of
Chevreuse; “his most solid occupations are confined to vague applications
of his mind and barren resolutions; he must see society, study it, mix in
it, without becoming a slave to it, learn to express himself forcibly,
and acquire a gentle authority. If he do not feel the need of possessing
firmness and nerve, he will not make any real progress; it is time for
him to be a man. The life of the region in which he lives is a life of
effeminacy, indolence, timidity, and amusement. He will never be so true
a servant to the king and to Monseigneur as when he makes them see that
they have in him a man matured, full of application, firm, impressed with
their true interests, and fitted to aid them by the wisdom of his
counsels and the vigor of his conduct. Let him be more and more little
in the hands of God, but let him become great in the eyes of men; it is
his duty to make virtue, combined with authority, loved, feared, and
respected.”
Court-perfidy dogged the Duke of Burgundy to the very head of the army
over which the king had set him; Fenelon, always correctly informed, had
often warned him of it. The duke wrote to him, in 1708, on the occasion
of his dissensions with VendOme: “It is true that I have experienced a
trial within the last fortnight, and I am far from having taken it as I
ought, allowing myself to give way to an oppression of the heart caused
by the blackenings, the contradictions, and the pains of irresolution,
and the fear of doing something untoward in a matter of extreme
importance to the State. As for what you say to me about my indecision,
it is true that I myself reproach myself for it, and I pray God every day
to give me, together with wisdom and prudence, strength and courage to
carry out what I believe to be my duty.” He had no more commands, in
spite of his entreaties to obtain, in 1709, permission to march against
the enemy. “If money is short, I will go without any train,” he said;
“I will live like a simple officer; I will eat, if need be, the bread of
a common soldier, and none will complain of lacking superfluities when I
have scarcely necessaries.” It was at the very time when the Archbishop
of Cambrai was urgent for peace to be made at any price. “The people no
longer live like human beings,” he said, in a memorial sent to the Duke
of Beauvilliers; “there is no counting any longer on their patience, they
are reduced to such outrageous trials. As they have nothing more to
hope, they have nothing more to fear. The king has no right to risk
France in order to save Spain; he received his kingdom from God, not that
he should expose it to invasion by the enemy, as if it were a thing with
which he can do anything he pleases, but that he should rule it as a
father, and transmit it as a precious heirloom to his posterity.” He
demanded at the same time the convocation of the assembly of notables.
It was this kingdom, harassed on all sides by its enemies, bleeding,
exhausted, but stronger, nevertheless, and more bravely faithful than was
made out by Fenelon, that the new dauphin found himself suddenly called
upon to govern by the death of Monseigneur, and by the unexpected
confidence testified in him before long by the king. “The prince should
try more than ever to appear open, winning, accessible, and sociable,”
wrote Fenelon; “he must undeceive the public about the scruples imputed
to him; keep his strictness to himself, and not set the court
apprehending a severe reform of which society is not capable, and which
would have to be introduced imperceptibly, even if it were possible. He
cannot be too careful to please the king, avoid giving him the slightest
umbrage, make him feel a dependence founded on confidence and affection,
relieve him in his work, and speak to him with a gentle and respectful
force which will grow by little and little. He should say no more than
can be borne; it requires to have the heart prepared for the utterance
of painful truths which are not wont to be heard. For the rest, no
puerilities or pettinesses in the practice of devotion; government is
learned better from studying men than from studying books.”
The young dauphin was wise enough to profit by these sage and able
counsels. “Seconded to his heart’s content by his adroit young wife,
herself in complete possession of the king’s private ear and of the heart
of Madame de Maintenon, he redoubled his attentions to the latter, who,
in her transport at finding a dauphin on whom she might rely securely
instead of one who did not like her, put herself in his hands, and, by
that very act, put the king in his hands. The first fortnight made
perceptible to all at Marly this extraordinary change in the king, who
was so reserved towards his legitimate children, so very much the king
with them. Breathing more freely after so great a step had been made,
the dauphin showed a bold front to society, which he dreaded during the
lifetime of Monseigneur, because, great as he was, he was often the
victim of its best received jests. The king having come round to him;
the insolent cabal having been dispersed by the death of a father, almost
an enemy, whose place he took; society in a state of respect, attention,
alacrity; the most prominent personages with an air of slavishness; the
gay and frivolous, no insignificant portion of a large court, at his feet
through his wife,--it was observed that this timid, shy,
self-concentrated prince, this precise (piece of) virtue, this (bit of)
misplaced learning, this gawky man, a stranger in his own house,
constrained in everything,--it was observed, I say, that he was showing
himself by degrees, unfolding himself little by little, presenting
himself to society in moderation, and that he was unembarrassed,
majestic, gay, and agreeable in it. A style of conversation, easy but
instructive, and happily and aptly directed, charmed the sensible
courtier and made the rest wonder. There was all at once an opening of
eyes, and ears, and hearts. There was a taste of the consolation, which
was so necessary and so longed for, of seeing one’s future master so well
fitted to be from his capacity and from the use that he showed he could
make of it.”
The king had ordered ministers to go and do their work at the prince’s.
The latter conversed modestly and discreetly with the men he thought
capable of enlightening him; the Duke of St. Simon had this honor, which
he owed to the friendship of the Duke of Beauvilliers, and of which he
showed himself sensible in his Memoires. Fenelon was still at Cambrai,
“which all at once turned out to be the only road from all the different
parts of Flanders. The archbishop had such and so eager a court there,
that for all his delight he was pained by it, from apprehension of the
noise it would make, and the bad effect he feared it might have on the
king’s mind.” He, however, kept writing to the dauphin, sending him
plans of government prepared long before; some wise, bold, liberal,
worthy of a mind that was broad and without prejudices; others chimerical
and impossible of application. The prince examined them with care.
“He had comprehended what it is to leave God for God’s sake, and had set
about applying himself almost entirely to things which might make him
acquainted with government, having a sort of foretaste already of
reigning, and being more and more the hope of the nation, which was at
last beginning to appreciate him.”
God had in former times given France a St. Louis. He did not deem her
worthy of possessing such an ornament a second time. The comfort and
hope which were just appearing in the midst of so many troubles vanished
suddenly like lightning; the dauphiness fell ill on the 5th of February;
she had a burning fever, and suffered from violent pains in the head; it
was believed to be scarlet-fever (rougeole), with whispers, at the same
time, of ugly symptoms; the malady went on increasing; the dauphin was
attacked in his turn; sacraments were mentioned; the princess, taken by
surprise, hesitated without daring to speak. Her Jesuit confessor,
Father La Rue, himself proposed to go and fetch another priest. A
_Recollet_ (Raptionist) was brought; when he arrived she was dying. A
few hours later she expired, at the age of twenty-six, on the 12th of
February, 1712. “With her there was a total eclipse of joys, pleasures,
amusements even, and every sort of grace; darkness covered the whole face
of the court; she was the soul of it all, she filled it all, she pervaded
all the interior of it.” The king loved her as much as he was capable of
loving; she amused him and charmed him in the sombre moments of his life;
he, like the dauphin, had always been ignorant of the giddiness of which
she had been guilty; Madame de Maintenon, who knew of them, and who held
them as a rod over her, was only concerned to keep them secret; all the
court, with the exception of a few perfidious intriguers, made common
cause to serve her and please her. “Regularly ugly, pendent cheeks,
forehead too prominent, a nose that said nothing; of eyes the most
speaking and most beautiful in the world; a carriage of the head gallant,
majestic, graceful, and a look the same; smile the most expressive, waist
long, rounded, slight, supple; the gait of a goddess on the clouds; her
youthful, vivacious, energetic gayety, carried all before it, and her
nymph-like agility wafted her everywhere, like a whirlwind that fills
many places at once, and gives to them movement and life. If the court
existed after her it was but to languish away.” [Memoires de St. Simon,
xi.] There was only one blow more fatal for death to deal; and there was
not long to wait for it.
“I have prayed, and I will pray,” writes F6nelon. “God knows whether the
prince is for one instant forgotten. I fancy I see him in the state in
which St. Augustin depicts himself: ‘My heart is obscured by grief. All
that I see reflects for me but the image of death. All that was sweet to
me, when I could share it with her whom I loved, becomes a torment to me
since I lost her. My eyes seek for her everywhere and find her nowhere.
When she was alive, wherever I might be without her, everything said to
me, You are going to see her. Nothing says so now. I find no solace but
in my tears. I cannot bear the weight of my wounded and bleeding heart,
and yet I know not where to rest it. I am wretched; for so it is when
the heart is set on the love of things that pass away.’” “The days of
this affliction were soon shortened,” says St. Simon; “from the first
moment I saw him, I was scared at his fixed, haggard look, with a
something of ferocity, at the change in his countenance and the livid
marks I noticed upon it. He was waiting at Marly for the king to awake;
they came to tell him he could go in; he turned without speaking a word,
without replying to his gentlemen (_menins_) who pressed him to go; I
went up to him, taking the liberty of giving him a gentle push; he gave
me a look, that pierced right to the heart, and went away. I never
looked on him again. Please God in His mercy I may look on him forever
there where his goodness, no doubt, has placed him!”
It was a desperate but a short struggle. Disease and grief were
victorious over the most sublime courage. “It was the spectacle of a man
beside himself, who was forcing himself to keep the surface smooth, and
who succumbed in the attempt.” The dauphin took to his bed on the 14th
of February; he believed himself to be poisoned, and said, from the
first, that he should never recover. His piety alone, through the most
prodigious efforts, still kept up; he spoke no more, save to God,
continually lifting up his soul to him in fervent aspirations. “What
tender, but tranquil views! What lively motions towards thanksgiving for
being preserved from the sceptre and the account that must be rendered
thereof! What submission, and how complete! What ardent love of God!
What a magnificent idea of infinite mercy! What pious and humble awe!
What invincible patience! What sweetness! What constant kindness
towards all that approached him! What pure charity which urged him
forward to God! France at length succumbed beneath this last
chastisement; God gave her a glimpse of a prince whom she did not
deserve. Earth was not worthy of him; he was already ripe for a blessed
eternity!”
“For some time past I have feared that a fatality hung over the dauphin,”
Fenelon had written at the first news of his illness; “I have at the
bottom of my heart a lurking apprehension that God is not yet appeased
towards France. For a long while He has been striking, as the prophet
says, and His anger is not yet worn out. God has taken from us all our
hope for the Church and for the State.”
Fenelon and his friends had expected too much and hoped for too much;
they relied upon the dauphin to accomplish a work above human strength;
he might have checked the evil, retarded for a while the march of events,
but France carried simultaneously in her womb germs of decay and hopes of
progress, both as yet concealed and confused, but too potent and too
intimately connected with the very sources of her history and her
existence for the hand of the most virtuous and most capable of princes
to have the power of plucking them out or keeping them down.
There was universal and sincere mourning in France and in Europe. The
death of the little Duke of Brittany, which took place a few days after
that of his parents, completed the consternation into which the court was
thrown. The most sinister rumors circulated darkly; a base intrigue
caused the Duke of Orleans to be accused; people called to mind his taste
for chemistry and even magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalous
debauchery; beside himself with grief and anger, he demanded of the king
to be sent to the Bastille; the king refused curtly, coldly, not unmoved
in his secret heart by the perfidious insinuations which made their way
even to him, but too just and too sensible to entertain a hateful lie,
which, nevertheless, lay heavy on the Duke of Orleans to the end of his
days.
[Illustration: Louis XIV. in Old Age----47]
Darkly, but to more effect, the same rumors were renewed before long.
The Duke of Berry died at the age of twenty-seven on the 4th of May,
1714, of a disease which presented the same features as the scarlet fever
(_rougeole vourpree_) to which his brother and sister-in-law had
succumbed. The king was old and sad; the state of his kingdom preyed
upon his mind; he was surrounded by influences hostile to his nephew,
whom he himself called “a vaunter of crimes.” A child who was not five
years old remained sole heir to the throne. Madame de Maintenon, as sad
as the king, “naturally mistrustful, addicted to jealousies,
susceptibilities, suspicions, aversions, spites, and woman’s wiles ”
[_Lettres de Fenelon au duc de Chevreuse_], being, moreover, sincerely
attached to the king’s natural children, was constantly active on their
behalf. On the 19th of July, 1714, the king announced to the premier
president and the attorney-general of the Parliament of Paris that it was
his pleasure to grant to the Duke of Maine and to the Count of Toulouse,
for themselves and their descendants, the rank of princes of the blood,
in its full extent, and that he desired that the deeds should be
enregistered in the Parliament. Soon after, still under the same
influence, he made a will which was kept a profound secret, and which
he sent to be deposited in the strong-room (_greffe_) of the Parliament,
committing the guardianship of the future king to the Duke of Maine, and
placing him, as well his brother, on the council of regency, with close
restrictions as to the Duke of Orleans, who would he naturally called to
the government of the kingdom during the minority. The will was darkly
talked about; the effect of the elevation of bastards to the rank of
princes of the blood had been terrible. “There was no longer any son of
France; the Spanish branch had renounced; the Duke of Orleans had been
carefully placed in such a position as not to dare say a word or show the
least dissatisfaction; his only son was a child; neither the Duke (of
Berry), his brothers, nor the Prince of Conti, were of an age or of
standing, in the king’s eyes, to make the least trouble in the world
about it. The bombshell dropped all at once when nobody could have
expected it, and everybody fell on his stomach as is done when a shell
drops; everybody was gloomy and almost wild; the king himself appeared as
if exhausted by so great an effort of will and power. He had only just
signed his will, when he met, at Madame de Maintenon’s, the Ex-Queen of
England. “I have made my will, Madame,” said he. “I have purchased
repose; I know the impotence and uselessness of it; we can do all we
please as long as we are here; after we are gone, we can do less than
private persons; we have only to look at what became of my father’s, and
immediately after his death too, and of those of so many other kings.
I am quite aware of that; but, in spite of all that, it was desired; and
so, Madame, you see it has been done; come of it what may, at any rate I
shall not be worried about it any more.” It was the old man yielding to
the entreaties and intrigues of his domestic circle; the judgment of the
king remained steady and true, without illusions and without prejudices.
Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so long and had
occupied so much room in the world that it caused mistakes as to the very
age of the king. He was seventy-seven; he continued to work with his
ministers; the order so long and so firmly established was, not disturbed
by illness any more than it had been by the reverses and sorrows of late;
meanwhile the appetite was diminishing, the thinness went on increasing,
a sore on the leg appeared, the king suffered a great deal. On the 24th
of August he dined in bed, surrounded as usual by his courtiers; he had a
difficulty in swallowing; for the first time, publicity was burdensome to
him; he could not get on, and said to those who were there that he begged
them to withdraw. Meanwhile the drums and hautboys still went on playing
beneath his window, and the twenty-four violins at his dinner. In the
evening, he was so ill that he asked for the sacraments. There had been
wrung from him a codicil which made the will still worse. He,
nevertheless, received the Duke of Orleans, to whom he commended the
young king. On the 26th he called to his bedside all those of the court
who had the entry. “Gentlemen,” he said to them, “I ask your pardon for
the bad example I have set you. I have to thank you much for the way in
which you have served me, and for the attachment and fidelity you have
always shown me. I am very sorry not to have done for you what I should
have liked to do. The bad times are the cause of that. I request of
you, on my great-grandson’s behalf, the same attention and fidelity that
you have shown me. It is a child who will possibly have many crosses to
bear. Follow the instructions my nephew gives you; he is about to govern
the kingdom, and I hope that he will do it well; I hope also that you
will all contribute to preserve unity. I feel that I am becoming
unmanned, and that I am unmanning you also; I ask your pardon. Farewell,
gentlemen; I feel sure that you will think of me sometimes.”
The princesses had entered the king’s closet; they were weeping and
making a noise. “You must not cry so,” said the king, who asked for them
to bid them farewell. He sent for the little dauphin. His governess,
the Duchess of Ventadour, brought him on to the bed. “My child,” said
the king to him, “you are going to be a great king. Render to God that
which you owe to Him; recognize the obligations you have towards Him;
cause Him to be honored by your subjects. Try to preserve peace with
your neighbors. I have been too fond of war; do not imitate me in that,
any more than in the too great expenses I have incurred. Take counsel in
all matters, and seek to discern which is the best in order to follow it.
Try to relieve your people, which I have been so unfortunate as not to
have been able to do.” He kissed the child, and said, “Darling, I give
you my blessing with all my heart.” He was taken away; the king asked
for him once more and kissed him again, lifting hands and eyes to Heaven
in blessings upon him. Everybody wept. The king caught sight in a glass
of two grooms of the chamber who were sobbing. “What are you crying
for?” he said to them; “did you think that I was immortal?” He was left
alone with Madame de Maintenon. “I have always heard say that it was
difficult to make up one’s mind to die,” said he; “I do not find it so
hard.” “Ah, Sir,” she replied, “it may be very much so, when there are
earthly attachments, hatred in the heart, or restitutions to make!”
“Ah!” replied the king, “as for restitutions to make, I owe nobody any
individually; as for those that I owe the kingdom, I have hope in the
mercy of God.”
[Illustration: The Death-bed of Louis XIV.----50]
The Duke of Orleans came back again; the king had sent for him. “When I
am dead,” he said, “you will have the young king taken to Vincennes; the
air there is good; he will remain there until all the ceremonies are over
at Versailles, and the castle well cleaned afterwards; you will then
bring him back again.” He at the same time gave orders for going and
furnishing Vincennes, and directed a casket to be opened in which the
plan of the castle was kept, because, as the court had not been there for
fifty years, Cavoye, grand chamberlain of his household, had never
prepared apartments there. “When I was king . . . ,” he said several
times.
A quack had brought a remedy which would cure gangrene, he said. The
sore on the leg was hopeless, but they gave the king a dose of the elixir
in a glass of Alicante. “To life and to death,” said he as he took the
glass; “just as it shall please God.” The remedy appeared to act; the
king recovered a little strength. The throng of courtiers, which, the
day before, had been crowding to suffocation in the rooms of the Duke of
Orleans, withdrew at once. Louis XIV. did not delude himself about this
apparent rally. “Prayers are offered in all the churches for your
Majesty’s life,” said the parish priest of Versailles. “That is not the
question,” said the king “it is my salvation that much needs praying
for.”
Madame de Maintenon had hitherto remained in the back rooms, though
constantly in the king’s chamber when he was alone. He said to her once,
“What consoles me for leaving you, is that it will not be long before we
meet again.” She made no reply. “What will become of you?” he added;
“you have nothing.” “Do not think of me,” said she; “I am nobody; think
only of God.” He said farewell to her; she still remained a little while
in his room, and went out when he was no longer conscious. She had given
away here and there the few movables that belonged to her, and now took
the road to St. Cyr. On the steps she met Marshal Villeroy. “Good by,
marshal,” she said curtly, and covered up her face in her coifs. He! it
was who sent her news of the king to the last moment. The Duke of
Orleans, on becoming regent, went to see her, and took her the patent
(_brevet_) for a pension of sixty thousand livres, “which her
disinterestedness had made necessary for her,” said the preamble. It was
paid her up to the last day of her life. History makes no further
mention of her name; she never left St. Cyr. Thither the czar Peter the
Great, when he visited Paris and France, went to see her; she was
confined to her bed; he sat a little while beside her. “What is your
malady?” he asked her through his interpreter. “A great age,” answered
Madame de Maintenon, smiling. He looked at her a moment longer in
silence; then, closing the curtains, he went out abruptly. The memory he
would have called up had vanished. The woman on whom the great king had,
for thirty years, heaped confidence and affection, was old, forgotten,
dying; she expired at St. Cyr on the 15th of April, 1719, at the age of
eighty-three.
She had left the king to die alone. He was in the agonies; the prayers
in extremity were being repeated around him; the ceremonial recalled him
to consciousness. He joined his voice with the voices of those present,
repeating the prayers with them. Already the court was hurrying to the
Duke of Orleans; some of the more confident had repaired to the Duke of
Maine’s; the king’s servants were left almost alone around his bed; the
tones of the dying man were distinctly heard above the great number of
priests. He several times repeated, _Nunc et in hora mortis_. Then he
said, quite loud, “O, my God, come Thou to help me, haste Thee to succor
me.” Those were his last words. He expired on Sunday, the 1st of
September, 1715, at eight A. M. Next day, he would have been seventy-
seven years of age, and he had reigned seventy-two of them.
In spite of his faults and his numerous and culpable errors, Louis XIV.
had lived and died like a king. The slow and grievous agony of olden
France was about to begin.
[Illustration: Versailles at Night----52]