she succeeded on this occasion. When the Due d'Aumale had Mile, de
Clermont and M. de Melun painted as a pendant to Théophile and Sylvie,
he accepted the truth of the story told by Madame de Genlis. It may
possibly be said that the Due d'Aumale could not refuse such a species
of posthumous homage to the tutor of Louis Philippe. But all the
historians who have written of Chantilly have in turn told the story
of the adventure of Mlle, de Clermont, without even discussing its
probability.... And now let us read the novel of Madame de Genlis.
It is a short and very agreeable task. The contemporaries of Madame de
Genlis united in considering Mademoiselle de Clermont as her masterpiece
and as a masterpiece. On the first point, I am ready to believe them; I
cannot compare Mademoiselle de Clermont with the innumerable romances,
tales and novels of the same author: I do not know them. As a child, I
read Les Veillées du Chateau, and I cannot say today if it is necessary
to set them above the similar works of Boüilly and of Berquin. As to
the Souvenirs de Félicie, it has always seemed to me a sufficiently
diverting book, full of doubtful anecdotes and of untruthful portraits,
but in which the author shows her true self, with all her vanities of
a woman and all her ridiculous traits as a writer. Is Mademoiselle de
Clermont a masterpiece? Perhaps it was, but it is no longer. It remains
a delightful book. It has great merits: marvelous rapidity, perfect
skill and ease in the knitting together of the different episodes, a
facile, supple and natural way of telling. If we confine ourselves
to the composition of the work, it is a model: neither Mérimée nor
Maupassant has written anything more concise or more polished. Without
doubt, the style of Madame de Genlis seems terribly out of date today;
her simple, limpid, perfectly correct language entirely lacks
accent; her somewhat vague expressions have today a trace of age and
colorlessness; in the tragic passages she exasperates us a little by the
abuse of points of suspense; finally we are sometimes tired out by the
lazy sensibility of the writer, the simplicity of the maxims which
she inserts in her narration, her childish efforts to give a moral
appearance to the most passionate of adventures; we discover too often
the author of Les Veillées du Château in a story which we would have
preferred to have told by the author of La Chartreuse de Parme. But the
pleasure of a well-written story is so vivid that even in spite of the
affectations, the artifices and the childishness, we still feel the
emotion of the drama.
The two principals of the story are Mademoiselle de Clermont, sister of
the Duc de Bourbon, and the Duc de Melun.
"Mlle, de Clermont received from nature and from fortune all the gifts
and all the goods which can be envied: royal birth, perfect beauty,
a fine and delicate mind, a sensitive soul and that sweetness, that
equality of character which are so precious and so rare, especially
in persons of her rank. Simple, natural, chary of words, she always
expressed herself delightfully and wisely; there was as much reason
as charm in her conversation. The sound of her voice penetrated to the
bottom of the heart, and an air of sentiment, spread over her whole
person, gave interest to her least important actions; such was Mlle,
de Clermont at the age of twenty." She appears at Chantilly and,
immediately, the beauty of the place, which offers "all that a sensitive
soul can love in the way of rural and solitary delights," the splendor
of "the most ingenious and the most sumptuous feasts," the pleasure of
her first homage and her first praise, intoxicate her youthful heart.
Portrait of M. de Melun: "His character, his virtues, entitle him to
personal consideration, independently of his fortune and of his birth.
Although his figure was noble and his features mild and intellectual,
his outer man showed no brilliancy; he was cold and distracted in
society; though gifted with a superior mind, he was not at all what is
called an amiable man, because he felt no desire to please, not from
disdain or pride, but from an indifference which he had constantly
preserved up to this period.... Finally the Duc de Melun, though endowed
with the most noble politeness, had no gallantry; his very sensitiveness
and extreme delicacy had preserved him till then from any engagement
formed in caprice; aged scarcely thirty years, he was still only too
capable of experiencing a grand passion, but, because of his character
and his morals, he was safe from all the seductions of coquetry."
One of the favorite diversions of Mlle, de Clermont was to read romances
aloud before a few friends, and on these occasions, they never failed
to praise her reading and her sensitiveness. "The women wept, the men
listened with the appearance of admiration and sentiment; they talked
quite low among themselves; it was easy to guess what they said;
sometimes they were overheard (vanity has so fine an ear!), and the
hearer gathered the words ravishing, enchanting..." We will soon see if
this story is true. But let us emphasize in passing the improbability of
this little picture. Is it credible that people wept so abundantly at
Chantilly in 1724?
A single man, always present at these lectures, preserves an obstinate
silence: it is M. de Melun. The attitude of this motionless and silent
auditor pricks the curiosity of Mlle, de Clermont. She questions. The
Duke lets her understand that the reading of romances seems futile and
frivolous to him. On the morrow she inflicts on her auditors the reading
of a book of history. And the intrigue is begun.
Mlle, de Clermont seeks the company of the Marquise de G..., a tiresome
and loquacious person, but the cousin of M. de Melun: her presence
takes the curse off the promenades and conversations in the gardens of
Chantilly. During one of these promenades, a petition is presented to
the princess. She promises to hand it to her brother. But, in the hurry
of dressing for the ball, she forgets her promise. M. de Melun, without
saying anything about it, picks up the petition which was forgotten
upon a table, and obtains from M. le Duc the favor which was asked,
pretending that he is fulfilling the wishes of Mlle, de Clermont.
Confusion of the forgetful young girl, who makes a vow not to appear at
a ball for a year.... I will not say that this sentimental catastrophe
is the most happy episode of the novel of Madame de Genlis.
More delicate, more truthful, more touching--with an agreeable dash of
romance--is the story of the incidents which lead up to the inevitable
declaration. Mlle, de Clermont is the first to avow her passion. Her
birth and rank forbid M. de Melun to seek the hand of a princess of the
blood royal. He goes away, he returns. Oaths are exchanged, and it is
finally Mlle, de Clermont who proposes a secret marriage.
The two lovers appoint a meeting in a cottage. M. de Melun throws
himself at the feet of Mile, de Clermont and abandons himself to all the
transports of passion. Suddenly he rises and in a stifled voice begs her
for the last time to abandon him.
"No, no," returns Mlle, de Clermont, "I will not flee from him whom
I can love without shame, without reserve and without remorse, if he
dares, as well as myself, to brave the most odious prejudices." At these
words the Duke regarded Mlle, de Clermont with surprise and shock. "I am
twenty-two years old," she continued; "the authors of my being no longer
exist; the age and the rank of my brother give him only a fictitious
authority over me, for nature has made me his equal."
"Great God!" cried the Duke, "what are you trying to make me think?"
"What! would I then be doing such an extraordinary thing? Did not Mlle,
de Montpensier marry the Duc de Lauzun?"
"What do you say? Oh, heavens!"
"Did not the proudest of our kings at first approve this union? Later a
court intrigue made him revoke his permission; but he had given it. Your
birth is not inferior to that of the Duc de Lauzun. Mlle, de Montpensier
was blamed by nobody, and she would not have failed to appear
interesting in all eyes, because she was young and especially because
she was loved."
"Who? Me? By such an excess I would abuse your sentiments and your
inexperience!"
"There is no longer time for us to flee.... There is no longer time for
us to deceive ourselves by discussing impossible sacrifices.... As we
cannot break the tie which binds us, we must render it legitimate and
sanctify it."
The next night, at two o'clock in the morning, clothed in a simple white
muslin dress, she leaves the chateau. As she crosses the courtyard, her
skirt catches on one of the ornaments of the pedestal of Condé's statue.
She turns around in terror and believes that she must relate to her
great ancestor the reasons for her attire. This nocturnal discourse is
not one of the most ingenious inventions of Madame de Genlis.
In the same hut where the supreme explanation had occurred a chaplain
secretly unites the new Lauzun to the new Montpensier.
Eight days later the King arrives at Chantilly. Festivals and hunts. M.
de Melun is thrown off his horse and wounded by a stag: we have seen the
true story of the accident.
Mlle, de Clermont is a few steps from the place where her husband
is wounded; her carriage serves to transport the wounded man to the
chateau. Passion is stronger than convention: she confesses all to M. le
Duc. He, to avoid a scandal, feigns a trifle of indulgence and persuades
the unfortunate lady to conceal her grief until the King's departure.
She is buoyed up by false news, is told that the wound is not mortal
and is not informed of the death of M. de Melun until Louis XV has left
Chantilly.
* * * * *
Let us first remark that, whether history or romance, there is nothing
to localize this story at the House of Sylvie. Madame de Genlis simply
says to us that she thought it out in Sylvie's wood, that is all. In
the great gallery of the Musée Condé, a painting by Nattier shows us
the delicate countenance and the ardent eyes of Mlle, de Clermont. The
princess is there represented in the guise of a nymph; her elbow rests
on an overturned urn whence flows a limpid stream; a Love smiles at her
feet; near her a servant holds a ewer bound with gold and from it fills
a cup. In the background a pretty garden pavilion is outlined against
a winter sky. This pavilion is that of the "Mineral Springs," and
thus explains the allegories of the portrait. This little structure
disappeared more than a century ago: it was situated in a part of the
gardens which formerly extended over the hill of La Nonette, between the
little stream and the main street of Chantilly: this land was separated
from the domain during the Revolution and is now occupied by private
owners. Possibly, at some time, some one has taken the pavilion in
Nattier's picture for the House of Sylvie and perhaps this confusion
explains why the souvenir of Mlle, de Clermont and M. de Melun has been
placed beside the souvenir of Théophile and the Duchess of Montmorency.
But do we find here only an error of topography? Did Mlle, de Clermont
secretly marry the Duc de Melun?
[Illustration: 0385]
What might make us doubt the truth of the anecdote is primarily the
character of the author who related it to us. Madame de Genlis made a
travesty of everything: the past, the present and even the future. She
put romanticism and romance into her own existence as well as that of
others; whether it is a question of events of which she was witness or
of those which she relates from hearsay, it is never prudent to accept
her word without confirmation.
Let us apply the test. Neither in the memoirs nor in the letters of the
first half of the eighteenth century have I discovered an allusion to
the intrigue of one of the sisters of M. le Due with the gentleman whom
a stag mortally wounded in the forest of Chantilly on August 30, 1724.
I have questioned the man who today best knows the history of Chantilly,
M. Gustav Macon: he told me that he has never met a mention of the
adventure of Mlle, de Clermont before 1802, the date at which Madame de
Genlis published her novel.
We do not know much about the pretty naiad painted by Nattier. We know
the charm of her features and we know that Montesquieu wrote for her
the Temple de Guide, "with no other aim than to make a poetic picture
of voluptuousness." But an anecdote told by Duclos will show us a
person somewhat different from the heroine of Madame de Genlis. When
the marriage of Louis XV with Marie Leczinska was decided upon, the Due
d'Antin was sent to Strasbourg as an envoy to the Polish princess. He
pronounced in these circumstances a discourse in which, with singular
lack of tact, he found it necessary to make an allusion to the project
which M. le Duc had recently conceived of marrying the King to the
youngest of his sisters, Mlle, de Sens: the King, he said, having to
choose between the Graces and Virtues, had taken the latter. Mile, de
Clermont, superintendent of the future household of the Queen, heard
this remark: "Apparently," she said, "d'Antin takes us, my sisters and
myself, for prostitutes." This is not the tone of the romance of Madame
de Genlis.
[Illustration: 0389]
Madame de Tracy relates that one day she read Mademoiselle de Clermont
and wept for a solid hour. Madame de Coigny then said to her: "But all
that is not true." Madame de Tracy answered: "_What has that to do with
it, if it seems true?_" And Madame de Tracy was right.... Today it seems
a little less true, and I do not promise my female readers, if they take
the fancy of reading Mademoiselle de Clermont, that they will weep for
an hour. It is even possible that in certain places they might have more
desire to laugh than to weep. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant bit to read
under the trees of Chantilly, this tiny romance printed by Didot, and
which Desenne illustrated with fine and childish little designs, where
we see gentlemen in wigs and ladies in curls in surroundings of Empire
style; a lovable and opportune anachronism, for it has marvelously
translated the character of this sentimental novel, which never had any
history back of it.
XV. THE CHÂTEAU OF WIDEVILLE.
|IN a little valley, between Versailles and Maule, at the end of an
immense green carpet where a few old garden statues still stand, the
château of Wideville deploys its beautiful façade of red brick framed
in white stone. The harmonious lines of the uneven roofs show up against
the background of the wooded hillside. Around the building, wide moats
filled with running water form a square, and at each angle of the
platform projects a square bastion topped by a watch tower. This
parade-armor harmonizes well with the robust elegance of the
construction. On beholding the admirable mixture here produced by the
reminiscences of the feudal manor, the graces of the Renaissance and the
majesty of classic architecture, we immediately think of that magical
line of Victor Hugo:
It was a grand château of the day of Louis Treize.
To tell the truth, we know no other architectural work in France which
expresses with more delicacy and seduction the noble and chivalrous
charm of the period when order and discipline had not effaced all traces
of fancy. And as, by rare good fortune, Wideville still belongs to
descendants of him who built it, and as its possessors have preserved
it and repaired it with jealous care and perfect taste, it is a living
image of French art of the time of Louis XIII which we have before our
eyes.
At the commencement of the seventeenth century, the manor of Wideville
was a square fortress, flanked with towers and rising upon a mound; it
was doubtless restored at the time of the Renaissance, for magnificent
mantels of this period were moved into the new château which Claude de
Bullion built in 1632 at the bottom of the valley, after he had bought
the estate of Wideville from René de Longueil, Marquis de Maisons.
This little Claude de Bullion was a very great personage, though the
tininess of his stature provoked all kinds of jeers. He was the son of a
Burgundian magistrate, and his mother was one of the twenty children
of Charles de Lamoignon. Tallemant des Réaux has related that a certain
Countess de Sault had contributed to the advancement of the little
Claude, and had succeeded in getting him nominated as President of the
Inquests. "Ah! Madame!" she said one day to Marie de Médicis, "if you
only knew Monsieur de Bullion as well as I do!"
"Gawd preserve me from it, Madame la Comtesse!" replied the Italian.
Henri IV had charged him with various embassies. Louis XIII made him
guardian of the seals of his orders, and then superintendent of the
finances. Whatever may have been the origin of the good luck of Bullion,
he showed himself worthy of his position by his talent and probity. When
he became superintendent of the finances, he had the prudence to make an
inventory of his property, in order to be able to defend himself against
any future accusation of peculation. It became necessary for him to
provide for the financial demands of Richelieu, which were terrible. So
he laid new taxes and became very unpopular, but it did not displease
him to oppose the multitude. In 1636, when the Spanish army had invaded
the kingdom, Richelieu did not dare to face the discontent of the
people, exasperated by defeat. "And I," said Bullion to him, "whom
they hate more than your Eminence, I will go through the whole city on
horseback, followed by two lackeys only, and no one will say a word
to me." He did it as he had promised, and the next day the Cardinal,
emboldened, repaired in a carriage with doors open from his palace to
the Porte Saint Antoine.
The King and his minister backed up Bullion.
He groaned incessantly about the state of the finances and forecast
bankruptcy. His complaints did not trouble Richelieu: "As to the humors
of M. de Bullion," wrote the Cardinal, "we must overlook them without
worrying about them, when they are bad."
He was extremely rich, for he was a good manager and received each year
from the King a present of one hundred thousand livres in addition to
his salary. His manner of life never exceeded his income. Later, in the
time of the great prodigality of the superintendent Nicolas Fouquet,
people recalled the economy of M. de Bullion and the modest appearance
of his hotel in the Rue Plâtrière. As for his morals, they were
scandalous, also on the authority of Tallemant. The superintendent often
repaired to the Faubourg Saint Victor, to the home of his friend Doctor
de Brosse, who had there founded a botanical garden, and there he
indulged in gross debauchery at his ease. But we possess a very curious
letter from Richelieu to Madame de Bullion, where we read: "I would like
to be able to witness more usefully than I have the affection with
which I shall always be at your service. Aside from the fact that the
consideration of your merit would cause this, the frequent solicitations
which M. de Bullion makes to me in regard to what can concern your
contentment, renders me not a little agreeable to this. I have seen the
day when I believed that he was one of those husbands who love their
wives only because of the money they have brought; but now I perceive
that he loves his skin better than his shirt, the interest of his wife
more than those of another, and that he is, as concerns marriage, like
those who do not think that they have done a good work unless they do
it in secret...." Harmonize the testimony of Tallemant with that of
Richelieu.
[Illustration: 0397]
The story of Bullion's death is rather tragic. On December 21, 1640, in
the new château of Saint Germain, as the King, who was already very ill,
seemed to sleep before the fire, stretched out in his great Roman chair,
some courtiers who were talking in a window embrasure asked one another
in a low voice who would succeed Cardinal de Richelieu, whose life was
known to be in danger. The King heard their words and turned around:
"Gentlemen," he said, "you forget M. de Bullion." On the next day the
words of Louis XIII were reported to the minister, who became furious
at the thought that his place was being thus disposed of. He harshly
criticized Bullion, who had come to see him as ordinarily, for having
forgotten a detail of administration, and wished to make him sign an
acknowledgment of it. As the superintendent refused, he seized the
tongs from the fireplace "to give them to him on the head." Bullion
signed, but was stricken with apoplexy as the result. He was bled twice
in the arm. The Cardinal came to see him, and found him without
speech or knowledge. "Having seen which,"--it is Guy Patin who relates
it,--"dissolved in tears, the Cardinal Prince returned. The sick man
died from congestion of the brain."
Such was the man who built the Château de Wideville. The neighborhood
of Saint Germain, and the nearness of the forests where the King
usually hunted, doubtless decided him to choose for his residence this
melancholy and solitary valley surrounded by woods.
*****
We do not know what architect drew the plan and superintended the
construction of Wideville. We do not know to whom to attribute this
building, so well seated upon the fortified platform, these façades
so pleasingly designed, cut by a central projection and flanked by two
pavilions, these roofs where dormers of charming style alternate with
projecting bull's-eyes, these rounded platforms which unite the mansion
to the court of honor and to the gardens, and that delightful coloring
which is given to the whole construction by the happy union of stone and
brick.
Two great artists collaborated in the decoration of Wideville, the
sculptor Sarazin and the painter Vouet, for whom Bullion seems to have
felt especial esteem, for he commissioned the pair of them with the
ornamentation of his Parisian hotel also. Sarazin executed the four
statues in niches which beautify the façade towards the gardens; he
also carved the two hounds which guard the door of the house on the same
side.
[Illustration: 0401]
Behind the château are gardens in the French style. The flower-beds
have been restored in the antique taste. In Bullion's time a wide avenue
started from the platform, bordered with mythological statues, works of
Buyster, but nothing remains of it today. The grotto, situated at
the end of this alley, still exists, and this grotto is the marvel
of Wideville. Of all the edifices of this species with which fashion
ornamented so many French gardens in imitation of Italy, this is, I
believe, the best preserved. It is a pavilion whose façade presents four
columns of the Tuscan order, cut by rustic drums and charged with carved
mosses. The three bays between these columns are closed by hammered iron
gratings, masterpieces of the locksmith's art. Male and female figures,
representing rivers, lying on a bed of roses, enframe the arched
pediment which surmounts the grotto. The interior is lined with shells.
The nymphæum has lost its statues, but we still see the vase from which
water flowed through three lions' heads. Stucco figures of satyrs frame
the great cartouches of the ceiling, where Youet executed admirable
mythological paintings. These are now very much damaged, but what time
has spared of them shows a marvelous decorator, a worthy disciple of the
great Venetians.
Near the chateau, a pleasant little house which is called the
"Hermitage," and which was slightly modified in the eighteenth century,
contains some delicate wood carvings. Farther away stands the chapel, a
simple oratory with an arched ceiling. There, before the altar, a stone
sarcophagus bears the words Respect and Obedience; this is the sepulcher
of the Duchesse de La Vallière, niece of the Carmelite Louis de la
Miséricorde. Of all the phantoms which people Wideville, there is none
more charming than that of Julie de Crussol, Duchesse de La Vallière.
The whole eighteenth century celebrated her grace, her charity, her
sharp and brilliant wit, her beauty which defied years. Voltaire
versified for her his finest compliments. During the whole Revolution
she remained in her château, and her presence preserved Wideville
from the fate which then overtook so many old seigniorial domains. The
thought of being buried under the earth had always horrified her; so her
remains were placed in this sarcophagus standing above ground.
*****