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.