The Count de Vermandois--His Portrait--Mademoiselle de la Vallière,
his Mother--Anecdote from the _Mémoires Secrets pour servir à
l’Histoire de Perse_--Father Griffet adopts its Conclusions--Arguments
that he advances--Motives which render certain of Mademoiselle de
Montpensier’s Appreciations suspicious--Improbability of the Story in
the _Mémoires de Perse_--Illness of the Count de Vermandois--Reality
of his Death attested by the most authentic Despatches--Magnificence
of his Obsequies--Pious Endowments at Arras.
Those whose minds are naturally inclined to the romantic, but whom even
a superficial examination of the question of the Man with the Iron
Mask has determined to put the hypothesis which makes him a son of
Anne of Austria, on one side,[117] willingly see in him the Count de
Vermandois, natural son of Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Vallière.
This opinion is a kind of compromise between the impossibility of
accepting an imaginary being for hero, and the desire of seeing in the
mysterious prisoner a very high personage. After having sacrificed to
truth this unfortunate brother of Louis XIV., called to the throne by
his origin, and kept away from it by a perpetual detention, they take
refuge in an intermediary system, undoubtedly less tempting, but of
which the attraction is still very exciting, and which, in a certain
degree, reconciles the exigencies of truth with the taste for the
romantic.
It is no longer the question of a prince of whose very birth we are
ignorant. The present one actually existed, and such interest as he
inspires from the moment he comes into the world he owes to her who
gave him birth. He is the son of that La Vallière, equally touching in
her heroic resistance to the inclination which impels her towards Louis
XIV., and in her yielding, whom one esteems even when she succumbs, and
whom one admires when she rises again to flee from the peril; who, long
virtuous, always upright and disinterested, lives entirely absorbed
in her passion, then takes refuge in penitence, and powerful without
having desired it; ignorant or careless of her influence, strong in
her very weakness, subjugates without art and without study the most
imperious of kings; who, after having charmed all her contemporaries
by her sweet and simple grace, and passed from the torments of a
love unceasingly combated to the voluntary rigours of an expiation
courageously submitted to for thirty years, has remained the most
pleasing and most interesting character of this great reign, and will
seduce even the most remote posterity.
Louis de Bourbon, Count de Vermandois, inherited his mother’s grace.
He was tall and well made, and, like her, instinctively possessed that
gift of pleasing which is never so engaging as when all about it is
natural and nothing appears to depend upon art. Good and liberal, he
had ways of obliging that were peculiar to himself,[118] and the most
sensitive of men could not feel offended at his kindnesses. With such
as these, when he wished to aid them, he made bets which he was certain
to lose, or he sent them money by a hand which remained unknown. He was
suspected of acts of generosity, which he never acknowledged himself
the author of, and those whom he obliged had their necessities relieved
without being required to testify their gratitude. His proud bearing
and the air of supreme distinction which he inherited from his royal
father, drew attention towards him still more than his high origin. To
these outward charms, to these sentiments of exquisite delicacy and
natural kindliness, which attached to him the soldier as much as the
officer, Vermandois united a ready wit, a well-proved courage, a lively
wish to distinguish himself, and to merit by splendid achievements the
high dignity[119] to which, at the age of two years, he had been raised
by the affection and pride of Louis XIV. Whilst still very young, and
already in the midst of the army of Flanders, he had concealed a severe
illness in order not to miss the noble rendezvous of an attack.[120]
Like many of those destined to die prematurely, and who appear to
foresee it, Vermandois hastened as it were through life, and seemed
to strive, in endeavouring to render himself early illustrious, to
anticipate the blow that was about to strike him. But sufficient time
to attain glory was to fail him, and it was his destiny to leave behind
him only the touching souvenir that attaches itself to beautiful hopes
suddenly dissipated by death.
An unforeseen _amende_ was, nevertheless, reserved for his memory.
Sixty years after his sad end an idea suddenly sprang up of adding
twenty years of captivity to his short existence, and with the view of
rendering his destiny still more lamentable, of representing him as the
mysterious victim of the rigours of Louis XIV.
In 1745 there appeared at Amsterdam the _Mémoires Secrets pour servir
à l’Histoire de Perse_,[121] which, under supposititious names,
contain the anecdotic history of the Court of France. This book, which
had a prodigious success, and the editions of which were rapidly
multiplied, owed in a great measure its celebrity to the following
narration: “Cha-abas (Louis XIV.) had a legitimate son, Sephi-Mirza
(Louis, Dauphin of France), and a natural son, Giafer (Louis de
Bourbon, Count de Vermandois). Almost of the same age, they were of
opposite characters. The latter did not allow any occasion to escape
of saying that he pitied the French being destined some day to obey a
prince without talent, and so little worthy to rule them. Cha-abas,
to whom this conduct was reported, was fully sensible of its danger.
But authority yielded to paternal love, and this absolute monarch had
not sufficient strength to impose his will upon a son who abused his
kindness. Finally, Giafer so far forgot himself one day as to strike
Sephi-Mirza. Cha-abas is at once informed of this. He trembles for
the culprit, but, however desirous he may be of feigning to ignore
this crime, what he owes to himself and to his crown, combined with
the noise this action has made at court, will not allow him to pay
regard to his affection. He assembles, not without doing violence to
his feelings, his most intimate confidants, allows them to see all his
grief, and asks their advice. In view of the magnitude of the crime
and conformably to the laws of the State, every one is in favour of
inflicting the punishment of death. What a blow for so tender a father!
However, one of the Ministers, more sensitive to the affliction of
Cha-abas than the rest, tells him that there is a method of punishing
Giafer without depriving him of life; that he should be sent to the
army, which was then upon the frontiers of Feldran (Flanders); that
shortly after his arrival, rumours could be spread that he was attacked
by the plague, in order to alarm and keep away from him all those who
might wish to see him; that at the end of several days of feigned
illness, he should be made to pass for dead, and that, whilst in the
presence of the whole army obsequies worthy of his birth were performed
for him, he should be transferred by night with great secrecy to the
citadel of the island of Ormus (Isle Sainte-Marguerite). This advice
was generally approved of, and above all by an afflicted father.
Faithful and discreet people were chosen for the management of the
affair. Giafer starts for the army with a magnificent train. Everything
is carried out as had been projected, and whilst the death of this
unfortunate prince is being lamented in the camp, he is conveyed by
by-roads to the island of Ormus, and placed in charge of the governor,
who had received in advance the order of Cha-abas not to let his
prisoner be seen by any one whatever. A single servant, who was in the
secret, was sent with the Prince. But, having died upon the journey,
the leaders of the escort disfigured his face with dagger-strokes in
order to prevent his being recognized, left him lying upon the road,
and after having stripped him as a further precaution, continued their
route. Giafer was transferred to the citadel of Ispahan (the Bastille)
when Cha-abas bestowed the governorship of it upon the governor of the
island of Ormus as a recompence for his fidelity. The precaution was
taken at the island of Ormus, as at the citadel of Ispahan, to put a
mask over the face of Giafer, when on account of illness, or other
causes, it was necessary to let him be seen by any one.”[122]
This narration, which for the first time presented to public curiosity
the anecdote of the Man with the Iron Mask, at once furnished food for
conversation and became the subject of the most lively controversies.
Several distinguished critics hastened to adopt the opinion it
expressed, while others combated it, and for a long time the _Année
Littéraire_ of Fréron was the theatre of a debate which had the
_savants_ and the curious of the whole world for attentive audience.
Voltaire himself, in introducing for the first time the hypothesis
which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a brother of Louis XIV., did not
succeed in stifling an opinion which had secured a clever defender.
Father Griffet, a patient disciple of Father Daniel, and the author of
an excellent _Histoire de Louis XIII._, published in 1765, in his fine
_Traité des Différentes Sortes des Preuves qui servent à établir la
Vérité dans l’Histoire_, a long dissertation upon the Man with the Iron
Mask, and in it pronounced resolutely for the Count de Vermandois. What
proofs, or at least what probabilities, did he invoke?
He bases his argument upon the _Mémoires de Mademoiselle de
Montpensier_, in which we read that “when Vermandois left for the
siege of Courtray, he had not long returned to the court; that the
King had been displeased with his conduct and would not see him, on
account of his having been mixed up with parties of debauchery; that
since that time he had lived in a very retired manner, and only went
out to go to the Academy[123] and to mass in the morning; that those
whose company he had been keeping were not agreeable to the King,
which caused much grief to Mademoiselle de la Vallière, by whom he
was well scolded.”[124] Father Griffet added that, long before the
publication of the _Mémoires Secrets de Perse_, a rumour had spread
that the Count de Vermandois had been guilty, before his departure for
the army, of some great crime, such as a blow given to the Dauphin.
“It had been generally spoken of,” says he, “on the strength of one of
those traditions which have need, indeed, of being proved, but which
are not necessarily false; the remembrance of this one had always been
preserved, although there was not much noise made about it in the time
of the late King, for fear of displeasing him; of this many people
who lived under his reign can bear witness.” The learned historian
found another argument in the very name under which the prisoner of
Saint-Mars was inscribed in the registers of the Church of Saint-Paul,
the letters which form this name of Marchiali being those of the two
words _hic amiral_, and designating thus by an anagram the high dignity
of the son of Mademoiselle de la Vallière. Finally, he published in the
_Année Littéraire_ a second tradition, according to which “on the very
day the body of the Count de Vermandois was to be transported to Arras,
there left the camp, by a by-way, a litter in which it was believed
there was a prisoner of importance, although the rumour was spread that
the military chest was enclosed in it.”
Of all these allegations, the only one that deserves to be discussed is
that which, reposing upon special evidence, namely, the _Mémoires de
Mademoiselle de Montpensier_, shows us the Count de Vermandois, fallen
into disgrace with Louis XIV. for having mixed himself up in certain
debaucheries, and starting almost at once for Courtray, where he was
to meet his death. One certainly finds no allusion to “a great crime”
committed by Vermandois upon the person of his legitimate brother, and
this very silence would suffice to invalidate the pretended tradition
invoked by Father Griffet. But as, from another point of view, these
_Mémoires_ furnish a kind of basis for his argument, reveal a stain on
the memory of Vermandois, and indicate a period at which the offence
might have been possible, it is essential the value of this evidence
should be weighed.
In his _Traité des Différentes Sortes de Preuves qui servent à établir
la Vérité dans l’Histoire_, Father Griffet himself very judiciously
remarks that before adopting the opinion of a writer upon an
individual whose contemporary he had been, it is desirable to examine
whether he had not a powerful interest either to praise or to blame
him. Father Griffet displayed more prudent sagacity when he enunciated
this excellent precept than when he neglected to apply it to the
_Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier_. He ought to have shown
this romantic princess in her true light, endowed with a too lively
imagination, whose self-esteem rendered her extremely accessible to
the influence of others and incapable of protecting herself against
interested suggestions; whom Madame de Montespan and Madame de
Maintenon, by incessant attentions and delicate and careful acts of
civility, easily gained over to their long-time common cause; and,
in a word, whose credulous mind was entrapped by Madame de Maintenon
in favour of the children of whom she was governess, and whom Madame
de Montespan had had by Louis XIV. To love these, and above all the
awkward Duke du Maine, must have led her almost infallibly to repulse
the highly-gifted son of Mademoiselle de la Vallière, who had the
least intriguing and the most disinterested of the royal favourites
for mother, whilst his brother, better seconded, received from those
surrounding him advice suitable to gain the heart, and perhaps one
day assure him the immense fortune,[125] of the opulent cousin of
Louis XIV. To attain this object, to influence her, as was done, in
favour of a child deprived of all attractive qualities, they did not
hesitate dictating for her the most affectionate letters to the Duke
du Maine, pointing out to him the steps most likely to please her,
and suggesting to him filial sentiments for a Princess whom they ended
by inspiring with a veritable maternal love, of which Mademoiselle de
Montpensier had all the jealousy, at first provoked but afterwards
spontaneous, and which led her to detest the brilliant rival of the
very insignificant but attentive Duke du Maine. This sentiment breaks
out in several parts of her _Mémoires_. “It seemed to me,” she remarks,
“that it was in order to disparage M. du Maine people said that no one
would ever equal M. de Vermandois.” And elsewhere, “I was not vexed at
the death of M. de Vermandois, I was well pleased that M. du Maine had
nothing to do with his affairs.”[126] How, after this, can we put faith
in such suspicious testimony? There is nothing to prove and nothing to
disprove that Vermandois may have been led away by youth into being
present at some dissolute pleasure-party unknown to the King, and that
he may have incurred the latter’s reproaches by this conduct. But his
disgrace and the causes to which it is ascribed, his hasty departure,
his father refusing to see him and banishing him from his presence,
Mademoiselle de la Vallière in distress: all these circumstances,
which are only to be found in the _Mémoires_ of the adoptive mother
of the Duke du Maine--must we accept them when impartial witnesses
bestow unqualified praises upon the Count de Vermandois[127] and relate
nothing that can tarnish his memory? Must we accept them when, some
days after this pretended disgrace, and at the first news of what was
thought to be only a slight indisposition, Louis XIV. writes to the
Marquis de Montchevreuil to cause Vermandois to return at once to the
court, in order that greater care may be taken of him and that he may
more thoroughly recover.[128]
Is there any need to set forth the impossibility of admitting that of
two sons of Louis XIV., one, the Grand-Dauphin, the heir to the crown,
could have received from the other the gravest of insults, in the
midst of the court and at the end of a violent discussion, without any
contemporary writer having spoken of an event which would have had an
inevitable celebrity? In order to make this circumstance appear less
improbable, the _Mémoires de Perse_ represent Vermandois as fiery,
haughty, and unsubmissive to a brother who would one day be his king,
whereas the most unexceptionable testimony[129] establishes the fact
that he was mild, affable, full of deference, and only anxious to
acquire glory. The author of these _Mémoires_, in order to render a
dispute between the two brothers more plausible, asserts, in addition,
that they were of the same age, instead of which there were six years
between them; and, at the period when this passionate act is ascribed
to him, Vermandois was barely sixteen, while the Dauphin was already
the father of the Duke de Bourgogne.
There remains his premature death. Tacitus has said that when princes
or extraordinary men die young, one finds it difficult to believe that
they have been carried off by a natural course. This remark applies
with justice to all epochs, and in our annals how many crimes are
there, imagined by popular passion and credited through the ignorance
of the time, of which a healthy criticism, aided by the progress of
medical science,[130] has in our days acquitted the pretended authors?
Is there, in the last moments of Vermandois and in the transport of
his remains to Arras, where he was buried, the smallest circumstance
that can allow the most credulous mind to retain a single doubt, and to
suppose that he left the camp of Courtray alive to be confided to the
guardianship of Saint-Mars?
On November 6, 1683, the Count de Vermandois takes to his bed at
Courtray. Ill for several days before, he has concealed his condition
in order not to quit the army, and to be able to assist at the attack
on the faubourg of Menin, where he displayed the highest courage.
Consumed by fever, he is at length compelled to separate from the first
_corps-d’armée_, which is about to form the camp of Harlebeck. Marshal
d’Humières had had the intention of causing him to be transported
to Lille, and with this object had already made arrangements with
the Marquis de Montchevreuil.[131] But a speedy aggravation of the
invalid’s condition hinders the execution of this project. On the 8th
bleeding relieves him;[132] but, on the 12th, Marshal d’Humières writes
to Louvois that there are grounds for considerable uneasiness.[133] On
the 13th Boufflers writes to the court that, the head of Vermandois
commencing to be affected by the disease, bleeding from the feet has
become necessary.[134] On the 14th Marshal d’Humières, who had come
to Courtray from the camp of Rousselaer, of which he is commander,
finds Vermandois at the worst, the doctors very undecided, “and not
daring to resort to extreme remedies.” They determine to try them,
however, but, doubtless, too late; for, after a tolerably favourable
day, during which the fever seemed to diminish and the brain to become
clearer, a violent agitation ensues, abundant perspiration exhausts the
patient,[135] and, on the 16th, Boufflers announces that Vermandois
has just received the last communion,[136] and that there is no longer
any hope except in his youth. At the moment that he was writing this
letter, Madame de Maintenon wrote to Madame de Brinon:[137] “M. de
Vermandois is very ill; have our great saint prayed to for him.”
Vain hope, useless prayers! On November 18 the son of La Vallière
died of a malignant fever, surrounded by Marshal d’Humières, whom
he had begged to remain near him, the Marquis de Montchevreuil, and
Lieutenant-General Boufflers.[138] In the camp the grief was general,
and the troops wept for him, for the good which he had done and the
great things he had promised. At the court the impressions were
various. The Hôtel de Condé deeply regretted this death, because the
Prince was betrothed to Mademoiselle de Bourbon. The Princess de Conti,
sister to Vermandois, was inconsolable.[139]
Louis XIV., much more sensitive than tender, and whose grief relieved
itself all at once in a flood of tears which was of very short
duration, had, moreover, already shown in favour of the children he
had had by Madame de Montespan a sentiment of predilection which was
to survive their mother’s disgrace, and which Madame de Maintenon,
their former governess, carefully cherished. As to Mademoiselle de la
Vallière, Voltaire has said,[140] and it has been often repeated after
him, that she exclaimed on learning the fatal news: “It is not his
death that I should lament, but his birth.” This exclamation is not
true; it is not that of a mother. That the pious Carmelite offered as
a sacrifice this new blow that smote her, that she accepted it as an
additional expiation for her faults, one may admit. But that her tears
only flowed because she had brought Vermandois into the world, that, at
the announcement of the most painful of afflictions, she was so little
crushed by it as to be able to utter such words, is what no mother
will believe. How much more acceptable is that testimony which Madame
de Sevigné bears in saying “that she perfectly tempered her maternal
love with that of the spouse of Jesus Christ.” “Mademoiselle de la
Vallière is all day at the foot of the crucifix,” says the Présidente
d’Osembray[141] on December 22. This is the true language of two
mothers speaking of another mother who had just lost her son.
Pompous obsequies were performed over the remains of the son of Louis
XIV. On November 21, the King sent word to the Chapter of Arras that
the body of the Count de Vermandois would be transported to that town
and buried in the choir of its cathedral church.[142] On the 24th, the
mayors and échevins, bearing wax tapers, proceed to the Méaulens Gate,
where are already assembled the governors of the town and citadel, all
the officers of the staff, the clergy of the different parishes, and
the friars of the mendicant orders. The infantry line the road from the
entrance of the town to the cathedral.[143] At noon the roar of cannon
and the tolling of bells announces the arrival of the remains, which
are contained in a coach hung with black cloth, and escorted by the
cavalry of the garrison. The Bishop of Arras, clothed in his pontifical
robes, and his chapter, advance in procession and receive the body,
which, removed from the coach, is borne by canons, and followed by the
officers of the Council of Artois, those of the bailiwick, and all the
other dignitaries of the county. Until Saturday the 27th, the day fixed
for the solemn service, masses were said without intermission from six
o’clock till noon in the Chapel of Saint-Vaast, where the body had been
placed, and the canons and chaplains succeeded each other in praying
there, the first during the day, the others during the night.[144]
They selected, in the middle of the choir of the cathedral, in the
place of “the angel,” the spot that appeared most distinguished for
the inhumation, for, five hundred years before, it had served for the
interment of Isabelle de Vermandois, wife of Philip d’Alsace, Count
of Flanders, and descendant in the direct line of Henri I., King of
France. The last ceremony was worthy, in its pomp and splendour, of
the King who had commanded it, and of the Prince in whose honour it
was performed. The choir and the nave of the cathedral, entirely hung
with black velvet, upon which shone silver escutcheons emblazoned with
the arms of Vermandois, the lugubrious harmony of the service, the
funereal light of the tapers, the sad and silent troops, the spectators
all clothed in mourning, and, still more than these external signs, a
sincere grief manifesting itself, especially amongst the gentlemen of
the Prince’s suite, in tears and sobs; such is the spectacle that the
interior of the cathedral church of Arras presents on November 27, 1683.
The evidences of the King’s piety, and of the eagerness of the Chapter
to satisfy it, did not end here. On January 24, 1684, M. Chauvelin,
Intendant of the province, drew up with the Chapter, in the name of
Louis XIV., a deed in which it was stipulated “that the prelate, dean,
and canons should say every day, each in his turn and during the
year following the inhumation, a low requiem mass in the _chapelle
ardente_,[145] prepared and hung with mourning for this purpose; that
on the 18th November of every year, or in case of hindrance on another
day near that date, there should be celebrated in perpetuity in their
church a solemn service, preceded by vigils of nine psalms and nine
lessons; that the Chapter should distribute annually to fifty poor
people, who were to be present at these offices, five sols each, and an
eight-pounds loaf; that there should also be given every year by the
Chapter on the day of the service, to the poor _Clairisses_[146] of the
city of Arras, a sum of six livres, in order that their community might
pray for the soul of the Count de Vermandois, and that all the bells
should be tolled on the day, and on the evening before, as is customary
at the obits of the bishops.” In order to indemnify the Chapter for the
expenditure imposed by him, Louis XIV. bestowed upon it, in addition to
magnificent presents, a sum of 10,000 livres, which served to purchase
at the village of La Coutaie, near Béthune, a farm, since then, and
for that cause, known as the Ferme de Vermandois. Until the year 1789,
the stipulations contained in this deed were faithfully executed,
and, during more than a century, November 25 witnessed a renewal of
the alms of the Chapter, the prayers of the clergy, the assemblage of
all the magistrates and municipal officers, and, in this manner, the
remembrance of the son of La Vallière.
In supposing that Vermandois could have given way to such a violent and
hasty act towards the Dauphin, without the proof of it being handed
down to us; that Louis XIV. was cruel enough to condemn a beloved
son to perpetual imprisonment; and, finally, that it was possible to
keep his abduction secret in the midst of the troops, how can we
possibly admit that ceremonies, which the pious monarch always regarded
as sacred, could have been ordered by him to deceive his subjects
and take advantage of their credulity? How can we admit that this
illness, of which we have traced all the phases, was feigned; that the
despatches that have been analysed were false; that Louis XIV. had for
the accomplices of his stratagem men such as the Lieutenant-General
Boufflers, Marshal d’Humières, and the Marquis de Montchevreuil; that,
not content with making them take part in such a singular project, he
made a mockery of religion the better to mask it? How can we admit
that this bier, round which prayers ascended and tears flowed, was
empty,[147] and that the Prince, of whom pompous epitaphs vaunt the
qualities, was then in rigorous confinement at Pignerol? Finally, how
explain, if not as the testimony of his sincere piety and affection,
this solemn service, founded in perpetuity by Louis XIV., and which,
in prolonging it, would have aggravated an impious derision, and
perpetuated the memory of a profane fraud?
FOOTNOTES:
[117] In the preceding chapters we have made no mention of a _Mémoire
de M. de Saint-Mars sur la Naissance de l’Homme au Masque de Fer_,
published in vol. iii. of the _Mémoires de Tous_ (Levasseur, 1835,
8vo). According to this document, “copied by M. Billiard from the
Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” M. de Saint-Mars had
been the governor of the mysterious son of Anne of Austria, whose
high origin was carefully hidden from him. But this brother of Louis
XIV. having discovered it, was sent to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite,
the command of which was then (in 1687) confided to his governor. If
we have not spoken of this document, it is because its authenticity
has already been completely disproved. It is nothing else than a copy
of the apocryphal narrative of Soulavie, which we have transcribed
and refuted in the first part of our work (see page 15). The author
of this copy has contented himself with substituting Saint-Mars for
the “anonymous governor of the unfortunate prince.” He did not think
that he thereby added a fresh impossibility to those contained in
the narrative of Soulavie. For how could Saint-Mars, before 1687,
have been the governor of a brother of Louis XIV., when a hundred
despatches establish the fact that, from 1664, he was successively
governor of the donjon of Pignerol and of Exiles? As to the presence
of this document in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
there is no reason for astonishment. It is explained, like the presence
of so many other documents in our archives, by the seizure of the
papers of great personages after their deaths, or, more commonly, by
having been transmitted by some ambassador inhabiting the country
in which these apocryphal writings circulated freely. But the place
where they are found gives them no authenticity. At all periods, and
to-day even, ambassadors send to the Government copies of anonymous
memoirs, pamphlets, and different papers, which remain joined to
their despatches, but to which no historical value can be ascribed.
It has been the same with this pretended _Mémoire de Saint-Mars_, of
which, in addition, a mere perusal demonstrates the untruth to any
one acquainted with the usual style of the illiterate governor of the
Isles Sainte-Marguerite. One sometimes hears it related--and this fact
has been repeated to ourselves--that a great personage of a former
Government introduced one of his friends, with much precaution, into
the galleries of the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and
there showed him a document which contained the secret of the Man with
the Iron Mask. It is doubtless the document attributed to Saint-Mars
that is referred to in this anecdote.
[118] Letter of Madame la Présidente d’Osembray to Bussy-Rabutin, dated
December 22, 1683:--_Lettres de Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy_, vol.
vi. p. 135, edition of 1716. Testimony of Lauzun in the _Mémoires de
Mademoiselle de Montpensier_, vol. vii. pp. 90, 92.
[119] That of High Admiral. See amongst the papers of Colbert, MSS.
of the Imperial Library, a curious memorandum drawn up by him, “to
know what name and title it is necessary to give to M. le Comte de
Vermandois.” Vermandois was endowed on November 12, 1669, at the age of
twenty-two months, with this office of High Admiral of France, which,
suppressed in 1626 by Richelieu, and changed by him into the office
of “Grand Master, Chief, and General Superintendent of the Navigation
and Commerce of France,” had been held successively by the Cardinal
himself; his nephew Armand de Maillé-Brézé, Duke de Fronsac; Anne of
Austria; César, Duke de Vendôme; and his son François de Vendôme, Duke
de Beaufort.
[120] Letter of the Présidente d’Osembray, already cited.
[121] Published by the Compagnie des Libraires Associés (Company of
Associated Booksellers) in 12mo.
[122] _Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’Histoire de Perse._
[123] The academy here mentioned is not the present French Academy, but
a kind of gymnasium, where the nobles met to learn riding, fencing,
dancing, &c. It is frequently referred to in the memoirs of the
time.--_Trans._
[124] _Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier_, vol. vii. p. 91.
[125] We shall see, in the course of this work, that they succeeded in
securing at least a portion of this enormous fortune, thanks to the
imprisonment of Lauzun, the husband of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.
[126] _Mémoires_ already cited, vol. vii. p. 92.
[127] Such as Lauzun, who was present at the siege of Courtray, and the
Présidente d’Osembray.--See _Lettres de Bussy-Rabutin_, already cited,
vol. vi. p. 13.
[128] Dated November 4, 1683. The King to the Marquis de Montchevreuil.
“Monsieur le Marquis de Montchevreuil--I have received the letter which
you wrote to me from the camp of Courtray. I am very well pleased with
what you tell me of my son, the Count de Vermandois. But I am not the
less uneasy, as the Sieur d’Aquin has told me that the fever has become
continuous. You have done well to take him to Lille” (we shall see that
they did not have the time to remove him to Lille); “he may remain
there as long as may be needful for his health; but as soon as it
allows him to travel I shall be pleased at his returning here. Having
nothing else to add, except that I am always very well pleased at your
conduct, I pray God to take you, Monsieur le Marquis de Montchevreuil,
into his holy keeping.--LOUIS.”
[129] See _ante_, p. 67.
[130] See, amongst others, the excellent work of M. Jules Loiseleur,
_Problèmes Historiques_; the review, _La Philosophie Positive_, of M.
Littré; the fourth volume of the _Histoire de Louvois_, of M. Camille
Rousset, already cited; the very curious appendices given by M. Chéruel
at the end of each volume of his fine edition of the _Mémoires de
Saint-Simon_, &c.
[131] Archives of the Ministry of War; Letter from Marshal d’Humières
to Louvois, “Camp of Courtray, November 7, 1683.”
[132] _Ibid._ Marshal d’Humières to Louvois, “Camp of Harlebeck,
November 8, 1683.”
[133] _Ibid._ D’Humières to Louvois, “Camp of Rousselaer, November 12,
1683.”
[134] _Ibid._ Boufflers to Louvois, “Courtray, November 13, 1683.”
[135] _Ibid._ D’Humières to Louvois, “Courtray, November 14, 15, 1683,”
and Boufflers to Louvois, “Courtray, November 15, 1683.”
[136] _Ibid._ Boufflers to Louvois, “Courtray, November 16, 1683.”
[137] Letter from Madame de Maintenon to Madame de Brinon, of November
15, 1683.
[138] Archives of the Ministry of War; Boufflers to Louvois, “Courtray,
November 19, 1683.”
[139] Letter of Madame d’Osembray, December 22, 1683.
[140] _Siècle de Louis XIV._
[141] _Lettres de Bussy-Rabutin_, vol. vi. p. 135.
[142] The letter which we extract is from a learned article of Baron
de Hautecloque, ex-mayor of Arras, published in the _Chroniques
Artésiennes_ of M. P. Roger, member of the Society of Antiquarians of
Picardy; of the Count d’Allonville, Councillor of State, and of M.
Dusevel, Inspector of Historical Monuments for the Department of the
Somme:--
“Very dear and well-beloved--Having learnt with very sensible sorrow,
that our very dear and well-beloved son, the _Duke_ de Vermandois,[A]
Admiral of France, has lately died in the town of Courtray in Flanders,
and desiring him to be placed in the cathedral church of our town of
Arras, we send word to the Sieur Bishop of Arras to receive the body
of our said son, when it is brought to the said church, and to have it
buried in the choir of the said church with the ceremonies observed at
the burial of persons of his birth.
[A] This title may appear singular, but an old and curious book “_Les
Estats de France_,” which contains the genealogies of all the nobles of
this period, describes him as “the Count de Vermandois, _duke_ and peer
of France.”--_Trans._
“All of which we have desired to make known to you by this letter, and
to state that our intention is that you should conform to our will in
this and assist in a body at this ceremony as is customary, on such
occasions; and assuring ourselves that you will satisfy us in this, we
do not make this present letter longer or more express; do not fail;
for such is our pleasure.
“Given at Versailles, the xix[B] November, 1683. Signed, “LOUIS,” and
lower down, “LE TELLIER.”
[B] We think, with M. de Hautecloque, that this date should be the
21st. In the registers of the chapter it is in Roman figures, and there
is reason to suppose that a clumsy copyist has inverted the order
of them and put xix for xxi. The comparison of dates and the very
expressions of the King’s letter indicate it sufficiently.
[143] Register of the Hôtel de Ville of Arras and of the Chapter.
[144] _Ibid._
[145] [Chapel in which a dead person lies in state.--_Trans._] The
cathedral in which Vermandois was interred no longer exists. Devastated
and greatly mutilated during the revolutionary period, it was almost in
ruins, and was later completely demolished. The Church of Saint-Nicolas
was built upon the site which it occupied in that part of Arras styled
the Cité, formerly completely distinct from the town properly so
called. The Chapel of Saint-Vaast, in which the body of Vermandois was
first deposited, formed part of the Abbey of Saint-Vaast. This chapel
is the present cathedral of Arras.
[146] Nuns of the order of Sainte-Claire.--_Trans._
[147] In 1786, Louis XVI., moved with the rumour referring to this
supposition, ordered the coffin to be opened. A _procès-verbal_
drawn up December 16, 1786, in the presence of the Bishop of Arras,
the provost of the cathedral, the head of the vestry, and the
procureur-général, verified the existence “of an entire and well-shaped
body.” See the very interesting _Vie de Madame Elizabeth_, of M. de
Beauchesne, vol. i. p. 543. To this decisive proof we have felt bound
to add others for those who might be tempted to believe that another
body than that of Vermandois had been enclosed in the coffin.