to have her caprices accepted as laws, to endure disgrace, humiliation,
and retirement. Madame de Prie was at first under an illusion. She
thought she would be speedily recalled to Versailles, but when she
saw she was mistaken, and that her place as lady of the palace had
been given to the Marquise d’Arlincourt, her disappointment was cruel.
According to M. Michelet: “She devoured her own heart, and could not
conceal it. No caged lion or tiger ever was so restless. She was
furious, and talked nonsense. She hoped to die, and later on she tried
to kill herself by furious excesses; but in vain. She lost nothing by
it but her health, her freshness, and her beauty. _In extremis_
she still retained a lover and a friend in her desert. The latter, very
malicious, very corrupt, a real cat, was Madame du Deffand, and the
two friends scratched each other every day between their caresses. The
lover, a young man of merit, persisted in loving her, bad as she was.
She was hopelessly dried up, and her last punishment was that she could
not resume life through love. She was devoured by pride. She no longer
desired anything but to die like a Roman woman, like Petronia.”
All this seems to us exaggerated. We believe Madame de Prie was too
frivolous to experience such despair. She had not waited for her
exile in order to know those alternations of sadness and folly which
accompany vice even when it has the air of being happy. For some time,
already, the taste for intrigue, the thirst for pleasure, the ardor
of ambition, had kindled in her veins a fever which undermined her
strength. Her plumpness had been succeeded by an excessive lankness.
Struggling against ill-health with extreme energy, she tried to build
herself up, to put a good face on everything, to shake off trouble,
and find amusement. Though her body was so much weakened, says the
Marquis d’Argenson, her mind and temper were still as gay, shrewd,
merry, and frivolous as in the times of her greatest prosperity. Even
in her misfortune she had courtiers who deceived her. She had become
ugly, and her flatterers continued to tell her she was adorable. She
was hopelessly ill, and her physicians told her she was doing very
well. Two days before her death she played in a comedy, and recited
three hundred lines with as much sentiment as memory. Nevertheless,
she had predicted her approaching death. People thought, however, that
this was but a jest, a pleasantry. Hence, when she breathed her last,
October 6, 1728, after such convulsions that her toes were turned
towards her heels, a rumor that she had poisoned herself got abroad.
Such a suicide is improbable, and not easily reconcilable with the
superficial character of Madame de Prie. M. Michelet adds that she made
a farcical confession (_bouffonna une confession_)--these are the
expressions employed by an historian who is often too fanciful. What
can M. Michelet know about it? Why does he affirm that she did not
repent of her faults and errors? Greater sinners than she have been
illuminated at the last moment by a ray of light. It is certain, at
all events, that the sudden and terrible death of this young woman of
only twenty-nine years, who expiated so cruelly her shameful successes,
was a striking lesson for her contemporaries. Was Madame de Prie’s
death-bed conversion sincere? God only knows.
IV
THE KING FAITHFUL TO THE QUEEN
For several years Louis XV. gave no scandal. Faithful to his religious
duties, he lived like a good Christian and good husband. The courtiers,
habituated to the manners of the Regency, did not conceal their
surprise and annoyance. One day, in January, 1729, when there had been
several sleighing excursions, old Marshal de Villars wrote: “These
sleighing parties give the ladies some hopes that things are going to
be rather livelier. There was dancing after supper, and if that happens
often, it is not impossible that some courageous beauty may lay hold of
the King.” But this daring beauty was not to be found. The intimidating
politeness and freezing glance of the young sovereign kept all women
at a distance. Louis XV. did not yield. People wondered whether pride
or timidity, goodness or egotism, wisdom or ennui, was what gave its
predominating character to his attitude of taciturnity and extreme
reserve.
The character of the King, who as yet did not know himself, was an
enigma to the court. Versailles, under the direction of an aged
priest, resembled an Escurial, and the small apartments destined to
so scandalous a future had at this time the tranquillity of a convent
or a sanctuary. If any one mentioned a woman famous for her beauty
to the monarch, he would merely say: “She is not more beautiful than
the Queen.” Marie Leczinska kept her spouse within the bounds of
duty by her exquisite goodness, her remoteness from all intrigue,
her submissive and gentle spirit. Loving neither luxury nor racket,
she lived like a worthy citizeness, charitable, modest, and entirely
occupied with her salvation. She arrived in France in September, 1725,
and for three years she did not see Paris. A sort of votive pilgrimage
took her there for the first time on October 4, 1728. She had brought
twin daughters into the world the previous year, Louise Elizabeth and
Henriette of France; this time she desired a son, and to obtain one
from Heaven she came to invoke the intercession of the Blessed Virgin
in the Parisian churches. Barbier, the advocate, thus describes in his
_Journal_ Marie Leczinska’s pious excursion:--
“October.--Monday, 4, our good Queen has seen Paris. She came to
Notre Dame to ask a dauphin from the Virgin, and from there she went
to Saint-Geneviève with the same end in view. She made this journey
_incognita_ after a fashion; that is to say, it was not a
formal entry. She had only her usual suite, which consists of four
carriages with eight horses apiece.... As to the person of the Queen,
she is little, rather slender than stout, not pretty without being
disagreeable, and looks good-natured and gentle, which does not impart
the majesty needful in a queen. She went about a good deal in Paris and
saw astonishing crowds of people. They say that money to the extent of
twelve thousand livres was scattered from the door of her carriage.”
Marie Leczinska’s prayer was heard. The next year she had a son
(September 4, 1729). She gave the King ten children in ten years
(1727–1737). And yet there was no real intimacy between the married
pair. During the daytime they scarcely addressed a word to each other.
One might have said they never came together but from a sense of duty,
for the welfare of the State. Cold, polite, reserved, they mutually
intimidated each other.
Was the Queen as clever as she ought to have been in order to keep
Louis XV. in the straight path? One may be permitted to doubt it.
Her frank and simple nature knew neither astuteness nor diplomacy.
The secrets of feminine coquetry were completely foreign to her. If
D’Argenson is to be believed, she was not adroit. He says she was too
prudish with her husband, thinking she had noticed that in France it
was considered in good taste to be so. He accuses her of overdoing
the matter, and then lamenting her mistake with bitter tears when it
was past all remedy. He says, too, that she did not do all that was
in her power to make her society agreeable to her husband. “At the
beginning of his marriage,” he writes, “the King wanted to spend his
evenings in the Queen’s apartments, playing cards and chatting. The
Queen, instead of attracting him thither, putting him at his ease, and
amusing him, played the disdainful. Hence the King grew disgusted,
accustomed himself to pass the evenings in his own apartments, at first
with men and afterwards with women, his cousin Charolais, the Countess
of Toulouse. The King is naturally very timid and seeks for those with
whom he can be at his ease. When he once meets them, it is plain to
what degree he is a man of habitudes.”
The Queen would have tried in vain to use the language of passion to
her husband or treat him to jealous scenes. Louis XV. had a horror
of everything that seemed to him exaggerated. In his wife’s chagrin
he would have seen a freak, a forgetfulness of etiquette, a want
of deference. Already, in 1726, Marshal de Villars had recommended
calmness and resignation to Marie Leczinska. He says in his Memoirs:
“The Queen led me into her cabinet, and spoke to me with keen sorrow
of the changes she observed in the King’s affection. Her tears flowed
abundantly. I replied: ‘I think, Madame, that the King’s heart is far
removed from what is called love; you are not the same with regard to
him; but, believe me, it is best not to display your passion too much;
don’t let any one see that you fear a diminution in his sentiments,
lest the many fine eyes that are ogling him continually should risk
everything in order to profit by this change. For the rest, it is
all the better for you that the King’s heart is not much inclined to
tenderness, because where passion is concerned, natural coldness is
less cruel than abandonment.’”
What is to become of this undecided, timid, vacillating king? In which
direction will this young man go, who, like Hercules in the fable,
is hesitating between Virtue and Pleasure? Will he be a saint or a
debauchee? He wants to do what is right, but will he have the courage?
Everything conspires to thrust him into the evil way. His morality
is begrudged him. The air he breathes is poisonous. The women, who
incessantly provoke him, rival each other in glances and coquetries.
His former preceptor, now become directing minister, dares not venture
a counsel. His first _valet de chambre_, Bachelier, already dreams
of playing the pander, and great lords, with the Duke de Richelieu at
their head, likewise aspire to those sorry but lucrative functions. Who
would dare to reprimand the monarch if he gave a scandalous example?
The clergy hold their peace. The nobles demand but one thing from
the King: to choose his mistress among women of quality. Shame needs
a blazon. The _bourgeoisie_ will be too prudent to meddle with
the secrets of the gods. D’Argenson and Barbier, the nobleman and the
advocate, will rival each other in indulgent judgments on adultery.
In D’Argenson’s eyes the sole fault of favorites is their propensity
to meddle with State affairs. He adds: “I approve of private persons
confiding in a mistress in whose affection they believe; it makes
little scandal, and is even edification and honesty, according to the
present relaxation of manners, which are coming closer and closer
to nature.” Barbier, the lawyer, goes farther still. He says in his
_Journal_, with an astonishing mixture of cynicism and naïveté:
“Fifteen out of twenty nobles of the court do not live with their
wives, and do have mistresses; nothing is so common even among private
persons. It is ridiculous, then, that the King, who is certainly the
master, should be in worse condition than his predecessors.”
The courtiers could not accustom themselves to the absence of a royal
mistress. It seemed to them as if there was a place vacant, a post to
which some one ought to be appointed. How could any one fancy Henri
IV. without _la belle Gabrielle_, Louis XIV. without La Vallière
and Montespan? And what! said they with indignation, shall Louis
XV. confine himself to his wife, that Polish woman without beauty,
and seven years older than himself? In their eyes this would be to
derogate from all the traditions of French gallantry. The military men,
impatient of peace, fancied that a favorite might be an Agnes Sorel,
who would rouse this new Charles VIII. from his torpor, and lead him
to victory. Fashionable young people were persuaded that Versailles
would become animated, that there would be feasts, suppers, diversions,
pleasures of every kind.
The enemies of Cardinal Fleury, all those in search of places, money,
or credit, thought that a mistress would bring about the downfall of
the old minister, so careful of the State funds. Ah! if the monarch
yields, if he succumbs to temptation, the guilty ones will be the
counsellors, the cynical, corrupt egotists, who persuade him to
evil, who deify his caprices, who exalt his adulteries; they will be
Richelieu, the official go-between; Voltaire, the laureate in prose
and verse of the reign of the favorites; the women who entreat the
Christian Sultan to throw them the handkerchief; the entire century,
still more responsible and blameworthy than the King.
V
THE FAVOR OF THE COUNTESS DE MAILLY
There are two kinds of royal favorites: the proud and the humble; those
who make a boast of scandal and those who blush at it. The proud brag
of their shame as if it were a victory; insatiable for money, credit,
pleasures, they are intoxicated with the incense burned at their feet,
and haughtily wave the sceptre of left-handed queens. The humble are
less unreasonable; they voluntarily abase themselves; they try to gain
pardon for a situation whose ignominy they comprehend, and though they
have not sufficient moral sense to be willing to renounce the profits
of their rôle, neither have they the impudence to make an imperious
demand of homage and adulation. At the court of Louis XIV. Madame de
Montespan was the type of the haughty mistress. The first mistress of
Louis XV., the Countess de Mailly, must be classed among the humble
ones.
Louise Julie de Mailly-Nesle, the eldest of five sisters who all played
a part at court, was of the same age as the King: like him she was
born in 1710. Married in 1726 to Count Louis Alexandre de Mailly, her
cousin-german, her fortune was small, and the need of money was said
to be one occasion of her faults. The huntsman Le Roy, that master of
the hunt who was so sagacious an observer, and whom Sainte-Beuve has
qualified as La Bruyère on horseback, thus delineates the portrait
of the countess: “This lady was very far from being pretty; but
her figure and her manners were very graceful, her sensibility was
already recognized, and she had a complaisant character adapted to the
abridgment of formalities. This was essential to vanquish the timidity
of a prince who was still a novice, whom the least reserve would have
abashed. They were sure, moreover, of the disinterestedness of her
who was destined to become the favorite, and of her aversion from all
ambitious schemes. Some difficulty was experienced in establishing
a complete familiarity between a prince excessively timid and a
woman whose birth, at least, obliged her to have some regard for
appearances.” Madame de Mailly was lady of the palace to the Queen.
This facilitated matters. At first everything was managed with the
utmost secrecy. “I have learned,” says the Duke de Luynes in his
Memoirs, “that the commerce of the King with Madame de Mailly commenced
as early as 1783. I know this to be true beyond all doubt, and at that
time no one suspected it.”
The favor of the King’s mistress was not known to the public until
four years later, and the advocate Barbier declared “that there was
nothing to say, the name of De Nesle being one of the first in the
kingdom.” “The Queen,” says D’Argenson, “is in a cruel situation at
present, on account of Madame de Mailly, whom she is obliged to retain
as lady of the palace. During this lady’s weeks she is in a horrible
humor, and all her domestics feel the effects of it. Certainly, to make
a third after supper, between her and Madame de Mailly, is to render
her a great service.” The poor Queen at last resigned herself. When a
woman no longer appeals to either a man’s heart or his senses, what can
she do? One day when Madame de Mailly asked her sovereign’s permission
to go to a pleasure-house where Louis XV. was, Marie Leczinska merely
replied: “You are the mistress.”
Cardinal Fleury did not complain, because the favorite neither meddled
with affairs nor cost the King much. At this time Louis XV. was as
economical as he was timid. Count de Mailly, who had set up an equipage
as soon as his wife came into favor, was soon obliged to sell it again,
and continued to live a needy life.
In 1738, when Madame de Mailly was openly acknowledged as mistress,
Louis XV. changed his bedchamber. He left that where Louis XIV. had
died, and which he had himself occupied since 1722, to install himself
in the chamber contiguous to the Council hall, and which, even in the
time of Louis XIV., had been designated as the billiard room (room No.
126 of the _Notice du Musée de Versailles_, by M. Eudore Soulié).
Louis XV. found this chamber more convenient than the other, because
it opened the series of small rooms called the cabinets (rooms Nos.
126 to 134 of the _Notice_[11]), where Louis XV. admitted a very
small number of courtiers to his intimacy. It was there he hid himself
from the vulgar crowd; there that, living more like a private person
than a king, he spent his time in trifles and futilities unworthy of
a sovereign. There he made tapestry like a woman, or, like a cook,
prepared side-dishes with truffles. There, supping after the chase, he
sought forgetfulness of his remorse in bumpers of champagne. It was
there he sought a remedy for his, alas! incurable melancholy; there
that he allowed himself to be vanquished by his enemy, voluptuousness.
Beneath the King’s chamber lodged the Countess de Toulouse, widowed
within a year of the son of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan. The
countess occupied the apartment called the apartment of the baths,
which, after having been the abode of Madame de Montespan, had been
given to the sons of the celebrated favorite, first to the Duke du
Maine, and afterward to the Count de Toulouse (rooms Nos. 52, 53,
and 54 of the _Notice du Musée_). This apartment had one great
advantage: it communicated by a private staircase with the King’s
study. The Count de Toulouse had the key to this precious staircase.
His widow had sufficient address to induce the King to leave it with
her. She was at this time a woman of about fifty, who no longer wore
rouge, and often spent several hours in a confessional in the chapel,
where she read by the light of a candle. In spite of her austere
appearance, she was the intimate friend of the Countess de Mailly, and
slanderous tongues accused her of facilitating the latter’s meetings
with the King.
Another woman also lived in close friendship with Louis XV. This was
Mademoiselle de Charolais, who was born in 1695 and died in 1758
unmarried. A sister of the Duke of Bourbon, she had the hauteur of the
Condés and the wit of the Mortemarts. She was a type of the extravagant
_grande dame_, a capricious, witty woman, greedy for pleasure,
frolicsome as an elf, and fearless as a page. “This princess is very
accommodating to the King,” says the Marquis d’Argenson; “she keeps
company with Madame de Mailly, and, in the midst of her complaisance,
she sometimes proposes to the King to take a prettier mistress. At
other times she advises Madame de Mailly to profit by her reign, and
secure all the riches and grandeur that she can.... Madame de Mailly
is honest and well-intentioned, and confides in her. This is what
sustains her, in spite of her lightheartedness, her temper, and the
variety of opinions which torment her. But as she is noble in the midst
of her necessities, her demands are not acrimonious nor her intrigues
underhanded and circuitous.”
Among the influential persons surrounding the King let us not forget
his first _valet de chambre_, Bachelier, the master’s confidant;
Bachelier with his occult power, his fifty thousand pounds of income,
his charming property of La Celle, which the sovereign honors by
visiting. Listen again to D’Argenson: “Le sieur Bachelier is a
philosopher, well content with his fortune, which is a good one. He
has an income, a country house, and a mistress. He loves his master
and is loved by him; he desires the public welfare. People of this
character are difficult to displace; it is this also which accounts for
the force and elevation of our cardinal, and, fortunately for France,
the King likes men of this sort. It is true that Bachelier is still
a go-between” (D’Argenson employs a stronger word). “But his office
allows this, just as that of a soldier permits him to be a slayer of
men. Perhaps it is he who prescribed to the King to limit himself to a
single mistress, as he has done up to the present with little Mailly;
or to seldom change them, and not to be prodigal of money or power.”
Nothing great could issue from such a society. This voluptuous
existence, parodied without poetry or enthusiasm from the scenes of
Lancret and Watteau, belittled and atrophied the moral sense of the
King. What could he learn from a futile and idle woman like Madame de
Mailly, entirely devoted to trifles and her toilet? Listening from
morning to night to silly and insignificant tittle-tattle, Louis XV.
himself became womanish. His preoccupations were mean, his ideas
narrow. He interested himself in petty gossip unworthy of a king,
unworthy of a man. Madame de Mailly had neither wit enough to amuse him
nor tact enough to lead him. After awhile she wearied him. He kept her
near him, however, while looking about for her successor.
VI
THE COUNTESS DE VINTIMILLE
In 1738, the Countess de Mailly had been for five years the mistress
of Louis XV., or, rather, his slave. She no longer pleased him, and
only the lingering force of habit made him tolerate her. He was so
bored that Madame de Mailly wished to divert him at any cost. She had
a sister younger than herself, Pauline Félicité, who had completed her
education, but still remained at the convent for economical reasons.
The young girl, who was not at all religiously inclined, considered
herself a prisoner. She champed at her bit. Witty, ambitious, burning
to play a part, the splendors of the chateau of Versailles constantly
appealed to her imagination. “I, also, would like to amuse myself.”
The good-natured Mailly was not alarmed by the thought of a rival.
She supposed her sister would be a precious ally, and that since a
new-comer was absolutely necessary in the cabinets, it would be better
that this new-comer should belong to the De Nesle family. Félicité
would dispel the King’s melancholy. The little suppers would no longer
have a funereal air. Louis XV. would cheer up; the situation would be
saved. Madame de Mailly showed the King the beseeching letters in which
her young sister spoke of Versailles as an Eldorado, the kingdom of
her dreams. To be summoned to court seemed to her supreme happiness.
Louis XV., flattered by so ardent a desire, granted it. Mademoiselle de
Nesle arrived at Versailles in December, 1738, and acted at first as
her sister’s companion. She pleased the King at once by her more than
lively character and her school-girlish good-humor. She was present at
all the parties and suppers, and it appears that Louis XV. made her his
mistress in 1739. He thought afterwards of finding her a husband.
The sovereign who thus glided over the declivity of scandal was,
nevertheless, not without remorse, and his melancholy increased along
with his vices. When the Holy Week of 1739 arrived, he felt a secret
anguish which troubled him profoundly. This remark of Massillon’s was
realized: “The crime which you pursue with such appetite, afterwards
pursues you like a cruel vulture, fastening upon and rending your heart
to punish you for the pleasure it has given you.”[12]
Corrupt as he was, Louis XV. had faith. He suffered, because he acted
against his conscience, and his conscience spoke louder than all his
flatterers. The more adulation they gave him the more dissatisfied
was he with himself. Nothing is so sad as the condition of a man who
believes but does not practise, who is present at divine service, who
kneels before the altar, who prays or tries to pray, and yet who does
not amend his life. The ceremonies of religion, so touching and poetic,
are then no longer consolations. They are torments. Remorse pursues
him everywhere. The chants of the Church, if they are sad, increase
his disquietude. If they are joyous, their gladness brings them into
contrast with the bitterness of his heart. The soul feels that it can
nevermore rejoice. Occasionally he conceives a horror of the woman who
turns him from his duty; she appears to him for what she is: his enemy,
his bad angel. Then the habit of vice resumes its sway. Remorse is
stilled for awhile. Holy Week has gone by. But the wound remains at the
bottom of his heart, profound, incurable.