mistress. Nevertheless, the Duke de Noailles was frank enough to reply
to the favorite: “I do not think, madame, that you can follow the King
with madame, your sister. You, yourself, feel the inconveniences of
it, since you afterwards reduce your demands to asking whether you
could not come to some town near enough to receive daily news from His
Majesty.... I cannot avoid telling you that both the King and yourself
would need some plausible reason to justify such a step in the eyes
of the public.” The result of this letter was to defer the military
inclinations of the monarch. He gave up the autumn campaign of 1743,
and did not start for the seat of war until the following spring, May
2, 1744.
IX
THE JOURNEY TO METZ
At last Louis XV. is at the head of his troops. There is a burst of
enthusiasm as soon as he appears at the northern frontier. He is
thirty-four years old, has a fine bearing and an expression at once
kindly and dignified. He sits a horse well and makes an excellent
figure in front of the regiments. He is present at the siege of Menin,
and people lavish praises on him. He has gone through the trenches, he
has visited the ambulances, he has tasted the broth of the invalids
and the bread of the soldiers. Everybody cries: “He is a warrior! he
is a father! he is a king!” He has brought his chaplain with him,
Monseigneur de Fitz-James, Bishop of Soissons, to give him the last
sacraments if required, and his confessor, Père Pérusseau, to give him
absolution in case he is in danger of death. There are no women in
camp. The Duchesses of Châteauroux and Lauraguais have shown themselves
at the opera to prove they have not followed the sovereign. Things are
going on well. There is not the least scandal. Menin opens its gates
June 4. Fireworks are set off at the Hôtel-de-Ville in Paris. The
_Te Deum_ is chanted in every church in France. Universal joy and
confidence prevail.
But presently a dark cloud appears in this clear sky. Louis XV. is
bored at the army as he was at Versailles. _Post equitem sedet atra
cura._ He misses Madame de Châteauroux, and prefers the women’s
jokes to the reports of his generals. The favorite is likewise uneasy;
she fancies that the warrior will deteriorate the lover; she fears for
her position. “In truth, dear uncle,” she writes, June 3, to the Duke
de Richelieu, “I was not made for things like these, and from time to
time I am seized by terrible discouragements. I am so naturally averse
to it all that I must have been a great fool to have meddled with it.
However, it is done, and I must have patience; I am persuaded that
everything will turn out according to my wishes.”
Madame de Châteauroux is absolutely determined to rejoin the King. But
how is it to be done? There is not a single woman with the army. If she
should be the first one to arrive, the scandal would be much too great.
A princess of the blood, the Duchess de Chartres, gives the example;
she sets off under pretext of her husband’s fall from a horse. Directly
Mesdames de Châteauroux and de Lauraguais follow suit. June 6 they
have the impudence to come and say good by to the Queen, who carries
long-suffering so far as to invite them both to supper.
“One cannot sufficiently praise,” says the Duke de Luynes in noting
the fact, “the courtesy she displays to all the men and women who come
to pay court to her.”
Two days afterward the pair of duchesses leave Versailles by night.
The King receives them at Lille, and then goes to take the city of
Ypres. Madame de Châteauroux carries fatuity so far as to attribute
this success to herself. June 25 she wrote from Lille to the Duke
de Richelieu: “You know how ready I always am to see everything in
rose-color, and that I think my star, which I rely on, and which is
not a bad one, has influence on everything. It answers instead of
good generals and ministers. He has never done so well as in placing
himself under its direction.” Thus, as is plainly evident, Madame de
Châteauroux considers herself as the King’s directress.
A thing painful to admit, because it shows so clearly the
demoralization of the period, is that the Marquis d’Argenson finds
this ridiculous and scandalous journey quite natural. He writes in his
Memoirs, June 30, 1744: “The King has begun to show himself at the
head of the army. It must be owned that this conduct is in good taste.
Some people claim that it is a stain on his glory to have brought his
mistress to the army, thus dishonoring the princesses and great people
who came with him. Surely there is some prejudice in such a reproach.
For why, in fact, should he deny himself pleasures which harm nobody?
The Flemish are superstitious. They have been told that the King has
had three sisters; they are scandalized to see these two arrive at
Lille. Two hours afterward a barracks took fire, and they said it was
caused by fire from heaven.”
Barbier is not quite so indulgent, but he pleads extenuating
circumstances. “The public,” says he, “does not find this journey to
its taste.... Nevertheless it is just to say that a decent appearance
is given it by the concourse of three princesses of the blood and a
number of ladies who are all supposed to have gone thither to keep
company with Madame the Duchess de Chartres, who had a legitimate
excuse for going to the army.”
The people, who have the veritable moral instinct, are more just
and more severe. They are indignant. The soldiers jeer at the two
duchesses. The Queen is pitied and the favorite detested. While all
this is going on, Alsace is invaded, and Louis XV. goes to Metz,
dragging after him his train of women like an Asiatic monarch. On the
way Madame de Châteauroux falls sick at Rheims. The King thinks she
is going to die, and begins to consider where she shall be buried and
what sort of mausoleum he shall build for her. It is only a vain alarm.
The favorite speedily recovers and goes to join the King at Metz. She
establishes herself and her sister in the Abbey of Saint Arnould, and
a long wooden gallery is constructed to put the abbey in communication
with the palace where Louis XV. is quartered. Four streets are closed
for this purpose. The people murmur. In order to quiet them, an effort
is made to persuade them that the only purpose of this wooden gallery
is to make it easier for the monarch to be present at Mass.
All at once a sinister rumor gets about. The King has fallen ill on
August 4. His life is in danger. He thinks he has but a few moments
before he must appear before God. All his religious sentiments revive.
He wishes to make his confession; but the departure of Madame de
Châteauroux is indispensable for that, and Louis XV., always weak,
has not courage to dismiss her. He adjourns his confession under the
pretext that he needs a little time in which to recollect all his
faults. His mistress approaches his bed. He wants to kiss her hand.
Then, thinking better of it, he says: “Ah! Princess, I think I am
doing wrong; perhaps we shall have to separate.” Madame de Châteauroux
parleys with the Jesuit Pérusseau. She implores him not to have her
driven away. She swears she will no longer be the King’s mistress, but
only his friend. But the Jesuit is firm. Bishop Fitz-James behaves like
an apostle; he says frankly to the King: “Sire, the laws of the Church
and our holy canons forbid us to bring the Viaticum so long as the
concubine is still in the city. I pray Your Majesty to give new orders
for her departure, because there is no time to lose. Your Majesty will
soon die!” Louis XV. hesitates no longer; the libertine disappears; the
devotee alone remains. “I made my first communion twenty-two years
ago,” he says to the Bishop; “I wish to make a good one now and let it
be the last. Ah! how unworthy I have been up to this day of royalty.
What accounts a king must render who is about to appear before God!”
Louis XV. receives extreme unction. Bishop Fitz-James, who administers
it, turns toward the spectators and addresses them in these words:
“Gentlemen the princes of the blood, and you, nobles of the realm, the
King charges Monseigneur the Bishop of Metz and me to acquaint you with
his sincere repentance for the scandal he has caused in his kingdom by
living as he has done with Madame de Châteauroux. He has learned that
she is only three leagues from here, and he orders her not to come
within fifty leagues of the court. His Majesty deprives her of her
post.” “And her sister also,” adds the King.
Could one believe it? This noble and Christian conduct of Bishop
Fitz-James finds detractors. Barbier writes in his journal: “People
hereabouts regard the action of the Bishop of Soissons as the finest
thing in the world. The public often admire the greatest events without
reflection. For my part, I take the liberty of considering this conduct
very indecent, and this public reparation as an open scandal. The
reputation of a king ought to be respected, and he should be allowed
to die with the rites of religion, but with dignity and majesty. What
is the good of this ecclesiastical parade? It was enough for the King
to have interiorly a sincere repentance for what he had done without
making a display of it.”
All France is affected. It is rumored that the King’s malady was caused
by his grief at the invasion of Alsace. His kindness, his repentance,
his courage, his patriotism, are everywhere celebrated. Masses are
said for him in every church in the kingdom. The clergy read from the
pulpits the bulletins from Metz and accounts of the King’s public
penance. People speak of him with tears of tenderness and admiration.
As for his favorite, the “Lady in red,” as the people call her, she is
loaded with maledictions. The Queen is sent for to Metz. She leaves
Versailles August 15, amidst universal emotion. When she reaches her
spouse, he receives her with tenderness. He embraces her and asks
pardon for the pain he has given her.
The next day Louis XV. has Madame de Villais waked up at four o’clock
in the morning. He knows the Queen has great confidence in her, and he
wants her to tell him if Marie Leczinska has really forgiven him. He
expresses the most beautiful sentiments, begging God, as he says, to
withdraw him from the world if his people would be governed better by
some one else. His convalescence begins a few days later. The Queen is
full of joy; she thinks her husband has become a saint. But here we
leave the narrative to the Duchess de Brancas, a witness of the hopes
and the disappointments of Marie Leczinska:--
“The old court,” she says in a curious fragment of Memoirs, “found
small difficulty in convincing itself that God, after striking the
King, would touch his heart. The maid-of-honor was so devoutly
persuaded of this one day that, finding the King in such a condition
that he could give the Queen indubitable marks of a sincere
reconciliation, she had the Queen’s bed changed into a nuptial couch
and put two pillows over the bolster. You can understand what hopes
were revealed, by the joy of some people and the astonishment of
others. The Queen had been wonderfully well dressed since the King’s
convalescence; she wore rose-colored gowns. The old ladies announced
their hopes by green ribbons; in fact, there had been nothing so
spirituelle in toilet adornments seen for a long time; one was
reminded of ancient gallantry by the way in which they were relied
on to announce everything without compromising anybody. But you can
also conceive the pleasure which the Duke de Bouillon and the Duke de
Richelieu took in speaking to the King about what was going on in the
Queen’s palace. He seemed so dissatisfied with it that these gentlemen
thought they would not displease him by notifying the mothers of the
churches that they had been mistaken in getting ready a _Te Deum_
which they would never chant, and that nothing was more uncertain than
the King’s conversion. This was quite enough to decide these ladies to
change their toilette. Some assumed more modest colors, others lowered
their headdresses, still others wore less rouge.”
The Duke de Richelieu, that Mephistopheles of Louis XV., had prophesied
correctly. When he was sick, the King was a saint. When he was well, he
once more became a debauchee. A sort of human respect made him blush
at his momentary conversion to virtue. He felt there was something
ridiculous in his repentance. He bore a grudge against his confessor,
his chaplain, and all those who had given him good advice. The love
of his people, far from touching his heart, dissatisfied him, because
these loyal and faithful subjects had had the audacity not to kneel
before the Duchess de Châteauroux. He took offence at the respect
showed to the Queen, and considered the priests who had prayed so
well for him almost as adversaries of his royal authority. Poor Marie
Leczinska’s illusions were soon dispelled. When Louis XV. was about
to leave Metz, she tremblingly asked his permission to follow him to
Saverne and to Strasburg. “It is not worth while,” he responded in a
dry tone. The Queen went away in despair. The heart she thought she had
regained had finally escaped her.
X
THE DEATH OF THE DUCHESS DE CHÂTEAUROUX
What has become of Madame de Châteauroux? How is she bearing her
humiliations and her disgrace? We left her at Metz at the moment when,
driven away ignominiously by the Bishop of Soissons, treated as an
accursed wretch by the people, overwhelmed by the anathemas of the
public conscience, she with great difficulty procured a carriage from
Marshal de Belle-Isle in which to return to Paris. Her flight had been
painful. She only escaped rough treatment by taking by-roads and going
through several villages in disguise and on foot. However, she had not
yet submitted. From Bar-le-Duc she wrote to M. de Richelieu:[16] “I can
well believe that so long as the King’s head is feeble he will be in a
state of great devotion; but as soon as he is a little better, I bet I
shall trot furiously through his head, and that in the end he will not
be able to resist, and will quietly ask Lebel and Bachelier what has
become of me.”
In the same letter the fallen favorite speaks of herself with admiring
complacency. “So long as the King is living,” she says, “all the
torments they want to inflict on me must be borne with patience. If
he recovers, I shall affect him the more on that account, and he will
feel the more obliged to make me a public reparation. If he dies, I
am not the sort of person to humiliate myself, even if I could gain
the kingdom of France by it. Up to now I have conducted myself with
dignity; I shall always preserve that inclination; it is the only
way to make myself respected, to win back the public and retain the
consideration I deserve.” Can one be amazed at the illusions cherished
by certain kings when a mere royal mistress has her eyes so thickly
bandaged?
Debility succeeded to fever. Sometimes Madame de Châteauroux,
intoxicated with pride and vengeance, fancied she was about to resume
arrogantly the left-handed sceptre which had just slipped through her
fingers; sometimes she cast a disdainful glance at the sorry spectacle
of the human comedy, and talked of abandoning everything. She wrote
from Sainte-Ménehould to the Duke de Richelieu (August 18, 1744): “All
this is very terrible and gives me a furious disgust for the place I
lived in despite myself, and, far from desiring to return there some
day, as you believe, I am persuaded that even if they wished it I could
never consent. All I desire, meanwhile, is that the affront offered me
shall be repaired, and not to be dishonored. That, I assure you, is my
sole ambition.... Ah! my God, what does all this amount to? I give you
my word it is all over so far as I am concerned. I would have to be a
great fool to go into it again; and you know how little I was flattered
and dazzled by all the grandeurs, and that if I had had my own way, I
would not have been there; but the thing is done; I must resign myself
and think no more about it.”
These be sage reflections. But the favorite’s philosophy lasted no
longer than the King’s repentance. La Rochefoucauld says in his maxims:
“The intelligence of the majority of women serves rather to fortify
their folly than their reason.” Hardly had she reached Paris when the
Duchess felt all her ambitious spites and rages rekindle to new life.
She wrote to the Duke de Richelieu: “You have good reason to say it
would be fine to make the day of the Dupes come round again; for me, I
don’t doubt, it is all the same a Thursday; but patience is needed,--in
fact, a great deal of patience. All you have been told about the
remarks made at Paris is very true; you could hardly believe how far
they have gone; if you had been there at the time, you would have
been torn to pieces.... I tell you we shall get through it, and I am
persuaded it will be a very fine moment; I should like to be there now,
as you can easily believe.”
Evidently, renunciation of earthly vanities was already far in the
background. The Duchess wrote again to Richelieu, September 13: “I hope
the King’s sickness has not taken away his memory. No one but me has
known his heart thus far, and I assure you he has a very good one, very
capable of sentiments. I don’t deny that there is something a little
singular along with all that, but it does not get the upper hand. He
will remain devout, but not a bigot; I love him ten times better; I
will be his friend, and then I shall be beyond attack. All that these
scamps have done during his illness will only make my destiny more
fortunate and secure. I shall no longer have to fear either changes,
sickness, or the devil, and we shall lead a delicious life.... Adieu,
dear uncle, keep yourself well. For my part, I am really thinking of
getting a health like a porter’s, so as to enrage our enemies as long
as I can and have time to ruin them; that will happen, you may rely on
it.”
Meanwhile all this was accompanied by moral and physical sufferings,
convulsions, nervous attacks, inquietudes, and agonizing pains. With
her ecstasies and self-abasements, her alternatives of pride and
humility, folly and clear-sightedness, ardor and disgust, illusions and
discouragement, Madame de Châteauroux is the type of the passionate
woman. There is nothing sadder than this correspondence, which is the
confession of a soul. One lacks courage to be angry with these avowals
so naïve in their immorality. To make such scandals possible a whole
century must be corrupted. What one should accuse is not a woman, but
an epoch.
Madame de Châteauroux understood the character of Louis XV. very well.
She knew beforehand that he would come back to her. He had, in fact,
but one idea,--to be reconciled with his mistress. He found camp life
insupportable. He consented to witness the taking of Fribourg, but as
soon as the city surrendered he returned in haste to Paris. He made
his formal entry November 13, 1744, at six in the evening, in one of
the coronation carriages. Triumphal arches had been erected with the
inscription: _Ludovico redivivo et triumphatori_. The houses were
filled to the roofs with applauding spectators. The monarch alighted at
the palace of the Tuileries, where the nobles of the realm were drawn
up in double line awaiting him. The next day he went with all the royal
family to Notre Dame to render thanks to God. Madame de Châteauroux
was hidden amongst the crowd. In the evening she wrote to Richelieu:
“I have seen him; he looked joyful and affected, so he is capable of a
tender sentiment.... A single voice near me recalled my misfortunes by
naming me in a very offensive manner.”
It was neither of his glory, his people, or of God that Louis XV. was
thinking, as he came out of Notre Dame. Madame de Châteauroux still
occupied his whole attention. She lived very near the Tuileries, in the
rue de Bac. That night, when all was quiet in the palace, he crossed
the Pont-Royal, and arrived unattended at the favorite’s house, like a
criminal who comes to entreat pardon. Madame de Châteauroux received
him with arrogance, and imposed severe conditions before absolving
him. Louis XV. was ready to agree to everything except the dismissal
of Maurepas, a useful and agreeable minister, who worked as well as
amused himself, and who had the gift of making business easy. The King
then returned to the Tuileries, and presently it was rumored that
the Duchesses of Châteauroux and Lauraguais were about to reappear
triumphantly at court. The people, who resemble the chorus in Greek
tragedies, at once resumed their anathemas. “Since the King is going
to take her back,” cried the market-women, “he will never find another
‘_Pater_’ on the streets of Paris.”
The prudent Duke de Luynes was more circumspect in his speech. He
said, apropos of the news of this return to favor: “It has been almost
publicly spoken of all over Paris, and Versailles, where little is said
ordinarily, has not been absolutely exempt from some remarks concerning
it. However, as such remarks serve only to displease, and are moreover
useless, those who are wisest have kept silence.”
The thing was done, the arrangement concluded. There had been a
compromise between the King and his mistress. Maurepas was not to leave
the ministry, but it was he who was charged to bear the King’s excuses
to Madame de Châteauroux, rue de Bac, and an invitation to return to
Versailles. The minister acquitted himself of this commission November
25. The Duchess, who was sick abed, replied that as soon as she was
able to get up she would comply with the King’s orders. That evening
she wrote to her friend the Duchess de Boufflers: “I rely too much on
your friendship not to acquaint you at once with what concerns me. The
King has just sent me word by M. de Maurepas, that he was very much
offended by all that occurred at Metz, and the indecency with which I
had been treated; that he begged me to forget it, and that, to give
him a proof of my having done so, he hoped my sister and myself would
have the kindness to resume our apartments at Versailles; that he would
give us on all occasions tokens of his protection, his esteem, and his
friendship, and that he would restore us to our positions.”
So many emotions had prostrated Madame de Châteauroux. Joy revived
her for awhile, but all was over with her; she was never again to see
either the palace of Versailles, so greatly longed for, or the King
whose love had been so fatal to her. She never left her bed again. A
burning fever consumed her; she thought herself poisoned, and suffered
horrible tortures in soul and body. Her worst enemies would have
pitied her. Her agony lasted eleven days. She had a violent delirium
accompanied by convulsive movements, and struggled against death with
all the energy of her youth, all the vehemence of her character. In
spite of his pretended passion, Louis XV. did not trouble himself to
come and bid her adieu. He did not even send directly to inquire about
her. Madame de Lauraguais, who had just had a child, was not beside her
sister’s bed. The Duchess de Châteauroux died alone, December 8, 1744.
The King deserted her; Jesus Christ did not forsake her. At her last
hour, she repented like Magdalen, and for the first time in years, the
dying sinner knew interior peace. “Père Ségand was with her,” says the
Duke de Luynes. “As he was speaking to her of the confidence we ought
to have in the Blessed Virgin, she replied that she had always worn a
little medal of her, and that she had begged two graces through her
intercession,--not to die without the sacraments, and to die on one of
her feasts. She had already obtained the first and was presently to
obtain the second, for she died on the feast of the Conception.”
At first Louis XV. felt crushed. The Queen herself, who practised on so
great a scale the wholly Christian virtue of forgiveness of injuries,
the Queen shared sincerely in her husband’s grief. She passed in
solitude the evening which had been set apart for a friendly reunion
at the house of the Duchess de Luynes. During the night she became
frightened, and summoned one of her women: “My God!” cried she, “that
poor duchess! If she should return!... I think I see her.”--“Eh!
madame,” returned the chambermaid, “if she comes back, it will not be
Your Majesty that receives her first visit.”