[Illustration: LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING]
LA GRANDE
MADEMOISELLE
1627-1652
BY
ARVÈDE BARINE
AUTHORISED ENGLISH VERSION BY
HELEN E. MEYER
[Illustration]
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1902
COPYRIGHT, 1902
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Published, November, 1902
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE
La Grande Mademoiselle was one of the most original persons of her
epoch, though it cannot be said that she was ever of the first order.
Hers was but a small genius; there was nothing extraordinary in her
character; and she had too little influence over events to have made
it worth while to devote a whole volume to her history--much less to
prepare for her a second chronicle--had she not been an adventurous and
picturesque princess, a proud, erect figure standing in the front rank
of the important personages whom Emerson called "representative."
Mademoiselle's agitated existence was a marvellous commentary on the
profound transformation accomplished in the mind of France toward the
close of the seventeenth century,--a transformation whose natural
reaction changed the being of France.
I have tried to depict this change, whose traces are often hidden
by the rapid progress of historical events, because it was neither
the most salient feature of the closing century nor the result of a
revolution.
Essential, of the spirit, it passed in the depths of the eager souls of
the people of those tormented days. Such changes are analogous to the
changes in the light of the earthly seasons. From day to day, marking
dates which vary with the advancing years, the intense light of summer
gives place to the wan light of autumn. So the landscape is perpetually
renewed by the recurring influences of natural revolution; in like
manner, the moral atmosphere of France was changed and recharged with
the principles of life in the new birth; and when the long civil labour
of the Fronde was ended, the nation's mind had received a new and
opposite impulsion, the casual daily event wore a new aspect, the sons
viewed things in a light unknown to their fathers, and even to the
fathers the appearance of things had changed. Their thoughts, their
feelings, their whole moral being had changed.
It is the gradual progress of this transformation that I have attempted
to show the reader. I know that my enterprise is ambitious; it would
have been beyond my strength had I had nothing to refer to but the
Archives and the various collections of personal memoirs. But two
great poets have been my guides, Corneille and Racine, both faithful
interpreters of the thoughts and the feelings of their contemporaries;
and they have made clear the contrast between the two distinct social
epochs--between the old and the new bodies, so different, yet so
closely connected.
When the Christian pessimism of Racine had--in the words of Jules
Lemaître--succeeded the stoical optimism of Corneille, all the
conditions evolving their diverse lines of thought had changed.
The nature of La Grande Mademoiselle was exemplified in the moral
revolution which gave us _Phédre_ thirty-four years (the space of a
generation) after the apparition of _Pauline_.
In the first part of her life,--the part depicted in this
volume,--Mademoiselle was as true a type of the heroines of Corneille
as any of her contemporaries. Not one of the great ladies of her world
had a more ungovernable thirst for grandeur; not one of them cherished
more superb scorn for the baser passions, among which Mademoiselle
classed the tender sentiment of love. But, like all the others, she was
forced to renounce her ideals; and not in her callow youth, when such
a thing would have been natural, but when she was growing old, was she
carried away by the torrent of the new thought, whose echoes we have
caught through Racine.
The limited but intimately detailed and somewhat sentimental history
of Mademoiselle is the history of France when Louis XIII. was old, and
when young Louis--Louis XIV.--was a minor, living the happiest years of
all his life.
If I seem presumptuous, let my intention be my excuse for so long
soliciting the attention of my reader in favour of La Grande
Mademoiselle.
ERRATA.
Page 83, ninth line from top, _read_ de Lormes _for_ de Lorme.
Page 272, fifth line from bottom, _dele_ hypnotic.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
I. Gaston d'Orléans--His Marriage--His Character--II. Birth
of Mademoiselle--III. The Tuileries in 1627--The Retinue
of a Princess--IV. Contemporary Opinions of Education--The
Education of Boys--V. The Education of Girls--VI. Mademoiselle's
Childhood--Divisions of the Royal Family 1-80
CHAPTER II
I. Anne of Austria and Richelieu--Birth of Louis XIV.--II.
_L'Astrée_ and its Influence--III. Transformation of the Public
Manners--The Creation of the Salon--The Hôtel de Rambouillet and
Men of Letters 81-153
CHAPTER III
I. The Earliest Influences of the Theatre--II. Mademoiselle and
the School of Corneille--III. Marriage Projects--IV. The Cinq-Mars
Affair--Close of the Reign 154-236
CHAPTER IV
I. The Regency--The Romance of Anne of Austria and
Mazarin--Gaston's Second Wife--II. Mademoiselle's New Marriage
Projects--III. Mademoiselle Would Be a Carmelite Nun--The Catholic
Renaissance under Louis XIII. and the Regency--IV. Women Enter
Politics--The Rivalry of the Two Junior Branches of the House of
France--Continuation of the Royal Romance 237-327
CHAPTER V
I. The Beginning of Trouble--Paris and the Parisians in
1648--II. The Parliamentary Fronde--Mademoiselle Would Be Queen
of France--III. The Fronde of the Princes and the Union of the
Frondes--Projects for an Alliance with Condé--IV. La Grande
Mademoiselle's Heroic Period--The Capture of Orleans--The Combat in
the Faubourg Saint Antoine--The End of the Fronde--Exile 328-436
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE _Frontispiece_
From a steel engraving.
MARIE DE MÉDICIS 6
From a steel engraving.
THE CHÂTEAU OF VERSAILLES FROM THE TERRACE 8
After the painting by J. Rigaud.
THE TUILERIES FROM THE SEINE IN THE 16TH CENTURY 22
From a contemporary print.
MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ 54
From an engraving of the painting by Muntz.
CARDINAL RICHELIEU 84
THE ABBEY OF ST. GERMAIN DES-PRES IN THE 16TH CENTURY 110
From an old print.
LOUIS XIII., KING OF FRANCE AND OF NAVARRE 152
From an old print.
CORNEILLE 168
From an engraving of the painting by Lebrun.
RACINE 182
From a steel engraving.
THE HÔTEL DE RICHELIEU IN THE 17TH CENTURY 204
From a contemporary print.
A GAME OF CHANCE IN THE 17TH CENTURY 210
From an engraving by Sébastien Leclerc.
MARQUIS DE CINQ-MARS 212
ANNE OF AUSTRIA 242
VIEW OF THE LOUVRE FROM THE SEINE IN THE 17TH CENTURY 254
From an old print.
HENRIETTE, DUCHESSE D'ORLÉANS 258
From a steel engraving.
ST. VINCENT DE PAUL 292
From a steel engraving.
DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 300
CARDINAL MAZARIN 320
MADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER 324
From a steel engraving.
THE TOWER OF NESLE 342
From a contemporary print.
CARDINAL DE RETZ 344
MADAME DE LA VALLIÈRE 366
From a steel engraving.
VICOMTE DE TURENNE 398
VIEW OF THE LUXEMBOURG (LATER CALLED THE PALAIS D'ORLÉANS)
IN THE 17TH CENTURY 410
From an old print.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD 416
From a steel engraving.
PRINCE DE CONDÉ 420
DUC D'ORLÉANS 422
LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
THE YOUTH OF LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
CHAPTER I
I. Gaston d'Orléans--His Marriage--His Character--II. Birth
of Mademoiselle--III. The Tuileries in 1627--The Retinue
of a Princess--IV. Contemporary Opinions of Education--The
Education of Boys--V. The Education of Girls--VI. Mademoiselle's
Childhood--Divisions of the Royal Family.
In the Château of Versailles there is a full-length portrait of La
Grande Mademoiselle,--so called because of her tall stature,--daughter
of Gaston d'Orléans, and niece of Louis XIII. When the portrait was
painted, the Princess's hair was turning grey. She was forty-five years
old. Her imperious attitude and warlike mien befit the manners of the
time of her youth, as they befit her Amazonian exploits in the days of
the Fronde.
Her lofty bearing well accords with the adventures of the illustrious
girl whom the customs and the life of her day, the plays of Corneille,
and the novels of La Calprenède and of Scudéry imbued with sentiments
much too pompous. The painter of the portrait had seen Mademoiselle
as we have seen her in her own memoirs and in the memoirs of her
companions.
Nature had fitted her to play the part of the goddess in exile; and it
had been her good fortune to find suitable employment for faculties
which would have been obstacles in an ordinary life. To become the
Minerva of Versailles, Mademoiselle had to do nothing but yield to
circumstances and to float onward, borne by the current of events.
In the portrait, under the tinselled trappings the deep eyes look
out gravely, earnestly; the thoughtful face is naively proud of its
borrowed divinity; and just as she was pictured--serious, exalted in
her assured dignity, convinced of her own high calling--she lived her
life to its end, too proud to know that hers was the fashion of a
bygone age, too sure of her own position to note the smiles provoked
by her appearance. She ignored the fact that she had denied her
pretensions by her own act (her romance with Lauzun,--an episode by far
too bourgeois for the character of an Olympian goddess). She had given
the lie to her assumption of divinity, but throughout the period of
her romance she bore aloft her standard, and when it was all over she
came forth unchanged, still vested with her classic dignity. The old
Princess, who excited the ridicule of the younger generation, was, to
the few surviving companions of her early years, the living evocation
of the past. To them she bore the ineffaceable impression of the
thought, the feeling, the inspiration, the soul of France, as they had
known it under Richelieu and Mazarin.
The influences that made the tall daughter of Gaston d'Orléans a
romantic sentimentalist long before sentimental romanticism held any
place in France, ruled the destinies of French society at large; and
because of this fact, because the same influences that directed the
illustrious daughter of France shaped the course of the whole French
nation, the solitary figure--though it was never of a high moral
order--is worthy of attention. La Grande Mademoiselle is the radiant
point whose light illumines the shadows of the past in which she lived.
I
Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, was the daughter
of Gaston of France, younger brother of King Louis XIII., and of a
distant cousin of the royal family, Marie of Bourbon, Duchess of
Montpensier. It would be impossible for a child to be less like her
parents than was La Grande Mademoiselle. Her mother was a beautiful
blond personage with the mild face of a sheep, and with a character
well fitted to her face. She was very sweet and very tractable.
Mademoiselle's father resembled the decadents of our own day. He was a
man of sickly nerves, vacillating, weak of purpose, with a will like
wax, who formed day-dreams in which he figured as a gallant and warlike
knight, always on the alert, always the omnipotent hero of singularly
heroic exploits. He deluded himself with the idea that he was a real
prince, a typical Crusader of the ancient days. In his chaotic fancy he
raised altar against altar, burning incense before his purely personal
and peculiar gods, taking principalities by assault, bringing the kings
and all the powers of the earth into subjection, bearing down upon them
with his might, and shifting them like the puppets of a chess-board.
His efforts to attain the heights pictured by his imagination resulted
in awkward gambols through which he lost his balance and fell, crushed
by the weight of his own folly. Thus his life was a series of ludicrous
but tragic burlesques.
In the seventeenth century, in flesh and blood, he was the Prince
whom modern writers set in prominent places in romance, and whom they
introduce to the public, deluded by the thought that he is the creature
of their invention. Louis XIII. was a living and pitiable anachronism.
He had inherited all the traditions of his rude ancestors. Yet, to meet
the requirements of his situation, nature had accoutred him for active
service with nothing but an enervated and unbalanced character. One
of his most odious infamies--his first--served as a prologue to the
birth of "Tall Mademoiselle." In 1626, as Louis XIII. had no child,
his brother Gaston was heir-presumptive to the throne, and he was a
bachelor. They who had some interest in the question were pushing him
from all sides, urging him not to fetter himself by the inferior
marriage of a younger son. They implored him to have patience; to "wait
a while"; to see if there would not be some unlooked-for opening for
him in the near future. His own apparent future was promising; there
was much encouragement in the fact that the King was sickly. What might
not a day bring forth?--"under such conditions great changes were
possible!"
Monsieur's mind laid a tenacious grasp on the idea that he must either
marry a royal princess, or none at all; and he was so imbued with the
thought that he must remain free to attain supreme heights that when
Marie de Médicis proposed to him a marriage with the richest heiress
of France, Mlle. de Montpensier, he tried to evade her offer. He
encouraged Chalais's conspiracy, which was to be the means of helping
him to effect his flight from Court; he permitted his friends to
compromise themselves, then without a shadow of hesitation he sold them
all. When the plot had been exposed, he hastily withdrew his irons from
the fire by reporting everything to Richelieu and the Queen-mother.
His friends tried to excuse him by saying that he had lost his head;
but it was not true. His avowals as informer are on record in the
archives of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and they prove that he
was a man who knew very well what he was doing and why he was doing
it, who worked intelligently and systematically, planning his course
with matter-of-fact self-possession, selling his treason at the highest
market-price of such commodities.
The 12th July, 1626, Monsieur denounced thirty of his friends, or
servitors, whose only fault had lain in their devotion to his interests.
Once when Marie de Médicis reproached him for having failed to keep a
certain written promise "never to think of anything tending to separate
him from the King," Monsieur replied calmly that he had _signed that
paper_ but that he never had _said_ that he would not do it,--that he
"never had given a verbal promise." They then reminded him that he
had "solemnly sworn several times." The young Prince replied with the
same serenity, that whenever he took an oath, he did it "with a mental
reservation."
The 18th, Monsieur, being in a good humour, made some strong
protestations to his mother, who was in her bed. He again took up the
thread of his denunciations to Richelieu without waiting to be invited
to give his information. The 23d, he went to the Cardinal and told him
to say that he, Monsieur, was ready to marry whenever they pleased, "if
they would give him his appanage at the time of the marriage,"--after
which announcement he remarked that _the late M. d'Alençon had had
three appanages_. Monsieur sounded his seas, and spied out his
land in all directions, carefully gathering data and making very
minute investigations as to the King's intentions. He intimated his
requirements to the Cardinal, who "sent the President, Le Coigneux, to
talk over his marriage and his appanage."
[Illustration: MARIE DE MEDICIS
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING]
His haggling and his denunciations alternated until August 2d. Finally
he obtained the duchies of Montpensier and of Chartres, the county of
Blois, and pecuniary advantages which raised his income to the sum of a
million livres. His vanity was allowed free play on the occasion of the
signing of the contract, but this was forgiven him because he was only
eighteen years old.
Monsieur had eighty French guards, all wearing casques, and
bandoleers of the fine velvet of his livery. Their helmets were
loaded, in front and behind, with Monsieur's initials enriched with
gold. He had, also, twenty-four Swiss guards, who marched before
him on Sundays and other fête days, with drums beating, though
the King was still in Paris. He was fond of pomp. The lives of
his friends did not weigh a feather in the balance against a few
provinces and a rolling drum.
His guardian, Marshal d'Ornano, was a prisoner in Versailles, where
the Court was at that time. Investigations against him were in rapid
progress; but the face of the young bridegroom was wreathed with smiles
when he led his bride to the altar, 5th August, 1626. As soon as he had
given his consent they had hastened the marriage. The ceremony took
place as best it could. It was marriage by the lightning process. There
was no music, the bridegroom's habit was not new. While the cortège
was on its way, two of the resplendent duchesses quarrelled over some
question of precedence. To quote the _Chronicles_: "From words they
came to blows and from blows to scratches of their skins."
This event scandalised the public, but the splendour of the fêtes
effaced the memory of the regrettable incidents preceding them.
While the fêtes were in progress, Monsieur exhibited a gayety which
astonished the people; they were not accustomed to the open display
of such indelicacy. It was known why young Chalais had been condemned
to death; it was known that Monsieur had vainly demanded that he
be shown some mercy. When the 19th--the day of execution--came,
Monsieur saw fit to be absent. The youthful Chalais was beheaded by a
second-rate executioner, who hacked at his neck with a dull sword and
with an equally dull tool used by coopers. When the twentieth blow was
struck, Chalais was still moaning. The people assembled to witness the
execution cried out against it.
Fifteen days later Marshal d'Ornano gave proof of his accommodating
amiability by dying in his prison. Others who had vital interests at
stake either fled or were exiled.
Judging from appearances, Monsieur had had nothing to do with the
condemned or the suspected. His callous levity was noted and judged
according to its quality. Frequently tolerant to an extraordinary
degree, the morality of the times was firm enough where the fidelity
of man to master, or of master to man, was concerned. The common idea
of decency exacted absolute devotion from the soldier to his chief,
from servant to employer, from the gentleman to his seignior. Nor was
the duty of master to man less binding. Though his creatures or
servants were in the wrong, though their failures numbered seventy
times seven, it was the master's part to uphold, to defend, and to give
them courage, to stand or to fall with them, as the leader stands with
his armies. Gaston knew this; he knew that he dishonoured his own name
in the eyes of France when he delivered to justice the men who had
worn his colours. But he mocked at the idea of honour, shaming it, as
those among our own sons--if they are unfortunate enough to resemble
him--mock at the higher and broader idea of home and country,--the
idea which, in our day, takes the place of all other ideas exacting an
effort or a sacrifice.
[Illustration: THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES FROM THE TERRACE
AFTER THE PAINTING BY J. RIGAUD]
It must not be supposed that Monsieur was an ordinary poltroon,
bowed down by the weight of his shame, desperately feeble, a mawkish
and shambling type of the effeminate adolescent; though a coward in
shirking consequences he was a typical "prince": very spirited, very
gay, and very brilliant; conscious of the meaning of all his actions;
contented in his position,--such as he made it,--and resigned to act
the part of a coward before the world.
His vivacity was extraordinary. The people marvelled at his unfailing
lack of tact. Though very young, he was well grown. He was no longer
a child whose nurse caught him with one hand, forcibly buttoning his
apron as he struggled to run away; yet he skipped and gambolled,
spinning incessantly on his high heels, his hand thrust into his
pocket, his cap over his ear. In one way or in another he incessantly
proclaimed his presence. His sarcastic lips were always curved over his
white teeth; he was always whistling.
"One can see well that he is high-born," wrote the indulgent Madame
de Motteville. "His restlessness and his grimaces show it." But
Madame de Motteville was not his only chronicler. Others relished his
manners less. A gentleman who had lived in his (Monsieur's) house when
Monsieur was very young, saw him again under Mazarin, and finding that
despite his age and size he was the same peculiar being that he had
been in infancy, the old gentleman turned and ran away. "Well, upon my
word," he cried, "if he is not the same deuced scamp as in the days of
Richelieu! I shall not salute him."
Monsieur's portraits are not calculated to contradict the impression
given by his contemporaries. He is a handsome boy. The long oval face
is delicately fine. The eyes are spiritual; and despite its look of
self-sufficiency the whole face is infinitely charming. One of the
portraits shows a certain shade of sly keenness, but as a whole the
face is always indescribably attractive,--and yet as we gaze upon it
we are seized by an impulse to follow the example of the old marquis,
and run away without saluting. In the portrait the base soul looks
out of the handsome face just as it did in life, manifesting its
deplorable reality through its mask of natural beauty and intelligence.
No one could say that Monsieur was a fool. Retz declared: "M. le
Duc d'Orléans had a fine and enlightened mind." It was the general
impression that his conversation was admirable; judged by his talk
he was a being of a superior order. His manners and his voice were
engaging. He was an artist, very fond of pictures and rare and handsome
trifles. He was skilful in engraving on metals; he loved literature;
he loved to read; he was interested in new ideas and in the march of
thought. He knew many curious sciences. He was a cheerful companion,
easy-mannered, sprightly, easy of approach, fond of raillery, and full
of his jests, but his jests were never ill-natured. Even his enemies
were forced to own that he had a good disposition, and that he was
naturally kind; and this was the general opinion of the strange being
who was a Judas to so many of his most devoted friends.
Had Monsieur possessed but one grain of moral consciousness, and had
he been free from an almost inconceivable degree of weakness and
of cowardice, he would have made a fine Prince Charming. But his
poltroonery and his moral debility stained the whole fabric of his life
and made him a lugubrious example of spiritual infirmity. He engaged in
all sorts of intrigues because he was too weak to say No, and owing to
the same weakness he never honestly fulfilled an engagement.
At times he started out intending to do his duty, then when midway on
his route he was seized by fear, he took the bit between his teeth,
and ran, and nothing on earth could stop him. He carried out his
cowardice with impudence, and his villainy was artful and adroit.
However base his action, he was never troubled by remorse. He was
insensible to love, and devoid of any sense of honour. Having betrayed
his associates, he abandoned them to their fate, then thrust his hand
into his pocket, pirouetted, cut a caper, whistled a tune, and thought
no more of it.
II
The third week in October the Duchess of Orleans returned to Paris.
The Court was at the Louvre. The young pair, Monsieur and his wife,
had their apartments in the palace, and the courtiers were not slow in
finding their way to them.
Hardly had she arrived when Madame declared her pregnancy. As there
was no direct heir to the crown, this event was of great importance.
The people precipitated themselves toward the happy Princess who was
about to give birth to a future King of France. Staid and modest though
she was, her own head was turned by her condition. She paraded her
hopes. It seemed to her that even then she held in her arms the son
who was to take the place of a dauphin. Every one offered her prayer
and acclamations; and every one hailed Monsieur as if he had been the
rising sun.[1]
Monsieur asked nothing better than to play his part; he breathed the
incense offered to his brilliant prospects with felicity.
Husband and wife enjoyed their importance to the full; they displayed
their triumphant faces in all parts of that palace that had seen so
much bitterness of spirit.
In itself, politics apart, the Louvre was not a very agreeable
resting-place. On the side toward Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois its aspect
was rough and gloomy. The remains of the old fortress of Philip
Augustus and of Charles V. were still in existence. Opposite the
Tuileries, towards the Quai, the exterior of the palace was elegant and
cheerful. There the Valois and Henry IV. had begun to build the Louvre
as we know it to-day.
A discordant combination of extreme refinement and of extreme
coarseness made the interior of the palace one of the noisiest and
dirtiest places in the world. The entrance to the palace of the King
of France was like the entrance to a mill; a tumultuous crowd filled
the palace from morning until night; and it was the custom of the day
for individuals to be perfectly at ease in public,--no one stood on
ceremony. The ebbing and flowing tide of courtiers, of business men, of
countrymen, of tradesmen, and all the throngs of valets and underlings
considered the stairways, the balconies, the corridors, and the places
behind the doors, retreats propitious for the relief of nature.
It was a system, an immemorial servitude, existing in Vincennes and
Fontainebleau as at the Louvre,--a system that was not abolished
without great difficulty. In a document dated posterior to 1670,
mention is made of the thousand masses of all uncleanness, and the
thousand insupportable stenches, "which made the Louvre a hot-bed of
infection, very dangerous in time of epidemic." The great ones of earth
accepted such discrepancies as fatalities; they contented themselves
with ordering a sweep of the broom.
Neither Gaston nor the Princess, his wife, descended to the level of
their critical surroundings. They were habituated to the peculiar
features of the royal palaces; and certainly that year, in the
intoxication of their prospects, they must have considered the palatial
odours very acceptable.
It did not agree with their frame of mind to note that the always
gloomy palace was more than usually dismal. Anne of Austria had been
struck to the heart by the pregnancy of her sister-in-law. She had been
married twelve years and she no longer dared to cherish the hope of
an heir. She felt that she was sinking into oblivion. Her enemies had
begun to insinuate that her usefulness was at an end and that she had
no reason for clinging to life. The Queen of France lived so eclipsed
a life that to the world she was nothing but a pretty woman with a
complexion of milk and roses. The people knew that she was unhappy,
and they pitied her. They never learned her true character until she
became Regent. Anne of Austria was not the only one to drain the cup of
bitterness that year. Louis XIII. also was jealous of the maternity of
Madame. It was a part of his nature to cherish evil sentiments, and
his friends found some excuse for his faults in his misfortunes. Since
Richelieu had attained power, Louis had succumbed to the exigencies
of monarchical duty. His whole person betrayed his distress, exhaling
constraint and anxiety. The most mirthful jester quailed at the sight
of the long, livid face, so mournful, so expressive of the mental
torment of the Prince who "knew that he was hated and who had no
fondness for himself."
Louis was timid and prudish, and, like his brother, he had sick nerves.
Hérouard, who was his doctor when he was a child, exhibits the young
Prince as a somnambulist, who slept with eyes open, and who arose in
his sleep, walking and talking in a loud voice. Louis's doctors put
an end to any strength that he may have had originally. In one year
Bouvard bled him forty-seven times; and during that one twelvemonth the
child was given twelve different kinds of medicines and two hundred
and fifteen enemas. Is it credible that after such an experience
the unhappy King merited the reproach of being "obstreperous in his
intercourse with the medical faculty"?
He had studied but little; he took no interest in the things that
pleased the mind; his pastimes were purely animal. He liked to hunt, to
work in his garden, to net pouches for fish and game, to make snares
and arquebuses. He liked to make preserves, to lard meat, and to
shave. Like his brother, he had one artistic quality: he loved music
and composed it. "This was the one smile, the only smile of a natural
ingrate."
Louis XIII. was of a nature dry and hard. He detested his wife; he
loved nothing on earth but his young favourites. He loved them; then,
in an instant, without warning, he ceased to love them; and when he
had ceased to love them he did not care what became of them,--did not
care whether they lived or died. Whenever he could witness the agony of
death he did so, and turned the occasion into a picnic or a pleasure
trip. He enjoyed watching the grimaces of the dying. His religious
devotion was sincere, but it was narrow and sterile. He was jealous
and suspicious, forgetful, frivolous, incapable of applying himself to
anything serious.
He had but one virtue, but that he carried to such lengths that it
sufficed to embalm his memory. This virtue was the one which raised
the family of Hohenzollern to power and to glory. The sombre soul
of Louis XIII. was imbued with the imperious sentiment of royal
duty,--the professional duty of the man designed and appointed by
Divine Providence to give account to God for millions of the souls of
other men. He never separated either his own advantage or his own glory
from the advantage and the glory of France. He forced his brother to
marry, though he knew that the birth of a nephew would ulcerate his own
flesh. He harboured Richelieu with despairing resolution because he
believed that France could not maintain its existence without the hated
ministry. He had the essential quality, the one quality which supplies
the lack of other qualities, without which all other qualities, great
and noble though they be, are useless before the State.
Around these chiefs of the Court buzzed a swarm of ambitious rivals
and whispering intriguers all animated by one purpose, to effect the
discomfiture of Richelieu. The King's health was failing. The Cardinal
knew that Louis "had not two days to live"; he was seen daily, steadily
advancing toward the grave. In Michelet's writings there is a striking
page devoted to the "great man of business wasting his time and
strength struggling against I do not know how many insects which have
stung him." Marie de Médicis was the only one who united with the King
in defending Richelieu in the critical winter of 1626. The Cardinal
was the Queen's creature. The pair had many memories in common--and of
more than one kind. Some years previous Richelieu had taken the trouble
to play lover to the portly quadragenarian, and he had brought to bear
upon his effort all the courage requisite for such a suit. The Court of
France had looked on while the Cardinal took lessons in lute playing,
because the Queen-mother, notwithstanding her age and her proportions,
had had a fancy to play the lute as she had done when a little girl.
Marie de Médicis had given proof that she was not insensible to such
delicate attentions, and she had forgotten nothing; but the moment was
approaching when Richelieu would find that it had been to no purpose
that he had shouldered the ridicule of France by sighing out his music
at the feet of the fat Queen.
That year a stranger would have said that the Court of France had
never been more gay. Fête followed fête. In the winter there were two
grand ballets at the Louvre, danced by the flower of the nobility, the
King at their head. Louis XIII. adored such exhibitions, though they
overthrow all modern ideas of a royal majesty.
The previous winter he had invited the Bourgeoisie of Paris to the
Hôtel-de-Ville to contemplate their ghastly monarch masked for the
carnival, dancing his _grand pas_. "_It is my wish_," said he, "_to
confer honour upon the city by this action_." The Bourgeoisie had
accepted the invitation; man and wife had flocked to the appointed
place at the appointed hour, and there they had waited from four
o'clock in the afternoon until five o'clock in the morning, before the
royal dancers had made their appearance. The dance had not ended until
noon, when the honoured Bourgeoisie had returned to their homes.
Monsieur took his full share of all official pleasures, and he had also
some pleasures of his own,--and purely personal they were. Some of
them were infantine; some of them, marked by intelligence, were far in
advance of the ideas of that epoch. Contemporary customs demanded that
people of the world should relegate their serious affairs to the tender
mercies of the professional keen wits, who made it their business to
attend to such questions. Gaston used to convene the chosen of his
lords and gentlemen, to argue subjects of moral and political import.
In discussion Monsieur bore himself very gallantly. The resources of
his wit were inexhaustible, and the justice of his judgment invariably
evoked applause. He was a sleep-walker, because awake or asleep he was
so restless that "he could not stay long in one place."[2] But he was
not always asleep when he was met in the night groping his way through
the noisome alleys. He used to jump from his bed, disguise himself, and
run about in the night, leading a life like that of the wretched Gérard
de Nerval, lounging on foot through the little streets of Paris which
were very dark and suspiciously dirty. It amused him to enter strange
houses and invite himself to balls and other assemblies. His behaviour
in such places is not recorded, but the gentlemen who followed him (to
protect him) let it be understood that there was "nothing good in it."
Gaston of Orleans had all the traits common to those whom we call
"degenerate." His chief characteristic was an active form of bare and
shameless moral relaxation. He was the mainspring of many and various
movements.
One day when Richelieu was present, Louis XIII. twitted the Queen with
her fancies. He said that she had "wished to prevent Monsieur from
marrying so that she could marry him herself when she became a widow."
Anne of Austria cried out: "I should not have gained much by the
change!"
(Neither would France have "gained much by the change," and it was
fortunate for her that Louis was permitted to retain possession of his
feeble rights.)
The child so desired by some, so envied and so dreaded by others,
entered the world May 29, 1627. Instead of a dauphin it was a girl--_La
Grande Mademoiselle_. Seven days after the child was born the mother
died.
Louis XIII. gave orders for the provision of royal obsequies, and
he himself sprinkled the bier with the blessed water, very grateful
because Providence had not endowed him with a nephew. Anne of Austria,
incognito, assisted at the funeral pomps. This act was received with
various interpretations. The simple--the innocent-minded--said that it
was a proof of the compassion inspired by Madame's sudden taking off;
the malicious supposed that it was just as the King had said: "The
Queen loved Monsieur; she rejoiced in his wife's death; she hoped to
marry him when she became a widow."
The Queen was sincerely afflicted by Madame's death. She cherished an
open preference for her second son, and the thought of his ambitious
flight had agreeably caressed her heart.
Richelieu pronounced a few suitable words of regret for the Princess
who had never meddled with politics, and Monsieur did just what he
might have been expected to do: he wept boisterously, immediately dried
his tears, and plunged into debauchery.
The Court executed the regulation manœuvres, and came to the "about
face" demanded by the circumstances. Whatever may have been the
calculations made by individuals relative to the positions to be taken
in order to secure the best personal results, and whatever the secret
opinions may have been (as to the advantages to be drawn from the
catastrophe), it was generally conceded that the little Duchess had
been fortunate in being left sole possessor of the vast fortune of the
late Madame her mother.
The latter had brought as marriage-portion the dominion of Dombes,
the principality of Roche-sur-Yon, the duchies of Montpensier,
Châtellerault, and Saint-Fargeau, with several other fine tracts of
territory bearing the titles of marquisates, counties, viscounties, and
baronies, with very important incomes from pensions granted by the King
and by several private individuals,--in all amounting to three hundred
thousand livres of income.[3]
The child succeeding to this immense inheritance was the richest
heiress in Europe. As her mother had been before her, so Mademoiselle
was raised in all the magnificence and luxury befitting her rank and
fortune.
III
They had brought her from the Louvre to the Tuileries by the
balustraded terrace along the Seine.[4]
She was lodged in the _Dôme_--known to the old Parisians as the
_pavillon d'Horloge_--and in the two wings of the adjoining buildings.
At that time the Tuileries had not assumed the aspect of a great
barrack. They wore a look of elegance and fantastic grace before they
were remodelled and aligned by rule. At its four corners the _Dôme_
bore four pretty little towers; on the side toward the garden was a
projecting portico surmounted by a terrace enclosed by a gallery. On
this terrace, in time, Mademoiselle and her ladies listened to many a
serenade and looked down on many a riot.
The rest of the façade (as far as the _pavillon de Flore_) formed
a succession of angles, now jutting forward, now receding, in
conformations very pleasing to the eye. The opposite wing and the
_pavillon de Marsan_ had not been built. Close at hand lay an almost
unbroken country. The rear of the palace looked out upon a parterre;
beyond the parterre lay a chaos from which the _Carrousel_ was not
wholly delivered until the Second Empire. There stood the famous Hôtel
de Rambouillet, close to the hotel of Madame de Chevreuse, confidential
friend of Anne of Austria and interested enemy of Richelieu. There were
other hotels, entangled with churches, with a hospital, a "Court of
Miracles," gardens, and wild lands overgrown with weeds and grasses.
There were shops and stables; and away at the far end of the settlement
stood the Louvre, closing the perspective.
[Illustration: THE TUILERIES FROM THE SEINE IN THE 16TH CENTURY
FROM A CONTEMPORARY PRINT]
The Court and the city crowded together around the Bird House and the
Swans' Pond, in the Dedalus and before the Echo, ogling or criticising
one another. At that time the Place de la Concorde was a great, green
field, called the Rabbit Warren. In one part of the field stood the
King's kennels.[5] The city's limits separated the Champs-Élysées from
the wild lands running down to the Seine at the point where the Pont
de la Concorde now stands. This space, enclosed by the boundaries
of the city, assured to the Court a park-like retreat in the green
fields of the open country. The enclosure was entered by the gate
of the Conférence. The celebrated "Garden of Renard" was associated
with Mademoiselle's first memories. It had been taken from that part
of _La Garenne_ which lay between the gate of the Conférence[6] and
the Garden of the Tuileries. Renard had been _valet-de-chambre_ to a
noble house. He was witty, pliable, complaisant to the wishes or the
fancied needs of his employers, amiable, and of "easy, accommodating
manners"[7]; in short, he was a precursor of the Scapins and the
Mascarelles of Molière. Mazarin found pleasure and profit in talking
with him. Renard's garden was a bower of delights. It was the preferred
trysting-place of the lordlings of the Court, and the scene of all
things gallant in that gallant day.
The fair ladies of the Court frequented the place; so did the crowned
queens; and there many an amorous knot was tied, and many a plot laid
for the fall of many a minister.
There the men of the day gave dinners, and rolled under the table at
dessert; and in the bosky glades of the garden the ladies offered their
collations. There were balls, comedies, concerts, and serenades in the
groves, and all the gay world met there to hear the news and to discuss
it. Renard was the man of the hour, no one could live without him.
The Cours la Reine, created by Marie de Médicis, was outside of Paris.
It was a broad path, fifteen hundred and forty common steps long, with
a "round square," or _rond-point_, in its centre. In that sheltered
path, the fine world, good and bad, displayed its toilets and its
equipages.
Mlle. de Scudéry has given us a description of it at the hour when it
was most frequented. Two of her characters entered Paris by the village
of Chaillot.
Coming into the city, where Hermogène led Bélésis, one finds beside
the beautiful river four great alleys, so broad, so straight, and
so shaded by the great trees which form them, that one could not
imagine a more agreeable promenade. And this is the place where all
the ladies come in the evening in little open chariots, and where
all the men follow them on horseback; so that having liberty to
approach either one or the other, or all of them, as they go up and
down the paths they all promenade and talk together; and this is
doubtless very diverting.
Hermogène and Bélésis having penetrated into the Cours,
they saw the great alleys full of little chariots, all painted and
gilded; sitting in the chariots were the most beautiful ladies
of Suze (Paris), and near the ladies were infinite numbers of
gentlemen of quality, admirably well mounted and magnificently
dressed, going and coming, saluting as they passed.
In the summer they lingered late in the Cours la Reine, and ended the
evening at Renard's. Marie de Médicis and Anne of Austria were rarely
absent.
Close by the Champs-Élysées lay a forest, through which the huntsman
passed to hunt the wolf in the dense woods of the Bois de Boulogne. In
the distance could be seen the village of Chaillot, perched on a height
amidst fields and vines. Market gardens covered the quarters of Ville
l'Evêque and the Chaussée d'Antin.
Mademoiselle was installed with royal magnificence at the Tuileries. In
her own words: "They made my house, and they gave me an equipage much
grander than any daughter of France had ever had."
Thirty years later she was still happily surrounded by the retinue
provided by her far-seeing guardians. Her servitors were of every
grade, from the lowest, who prepared a pathway for her feet, to the
highest, whose service added dignity to her presence. By investing her
with her nucleus of domestic tributaries, her friends had established
her importance, even in her infancy, by manifestations that could not
be disputed. In that day people were obliged to attach importance to
such details. But a short time had passed since brutal force had been
the only recognised right; and it was the way of the world to judge
the grandeur of a prince by the length and volume of his train. It was
because La Grande Mademoiselle had, from earliest youth, possessed
an army of squires, of courtiers, of valets, and of serving-men and
serving-women--a horde beginning with the fine milord and ending with
the hare-faced scullion, seen now and then in some shadowy retreat of
the palace, low-browed, down-trodden, looking out with dazzled eyes
upon the world of life and luxury,--it was because she had been a
ruler even in her swaddling bands, that she could aspire, naturally
and without overweening arrogance, to the hands of the most powerful
sovereigns. "The sons of France," says a document of 1649, "are
provided with just such officials as surround the King; but they
are less numerous.... The Princes have officers in accordance with
their revenues and in accordance with the rank that they hold in the
kingdom."[8]
The same document furnishes us with details of the installation of
Anne of Austria. If, when we estimate the equipage of Mademoiselle,
we reduce it by half of the estimate of the Queen's equipage, we fall
short of the reality. Like an army in campaign, a Court ought to be
sufficient unto itself, able to meet all its requirements. The upper
domestic retinue of the Queen comprised more than one hundred persons,
_maîtres-d'hôtel_ or stewards, cup-bearers, carvers, secretaries,
physicians, surgeons, oculists, musicians, squires, almoners, nine
chaplains, "her confessor," a common confessor, and too many other
kinds of employees to be enumerated. Under all these officials, each
one of whom had his own especial underlings, were equal numbers of
valets and of chambermaids who assured the service of the apartments.
The Court cooking kept busy one hundred and fifty-nine drilled
knife-sharpeners, soup-skimmers, roast-hasteners, and water-handers, or
people to hand water as the cooks needed it for their mixtures. There
were other servitors whose business it was to await the beck and call
of their superiors,--call-boys, always waiting for signals. Then came
the busy world of the stables; then fifty merchants or shop-men, and
an indefinite number of artisans of all the orders of all the trades.
In all there were between six and seven hundred souls, not counting
the valets of the valets or the grand "_charges_," the officials close
to the Queen, the Queen's chancellor, the _chevaliers d'honneur_, or
gentlemen-in-waiting, the ladies in-waiting, and maids of honour.
The great and noble people were often very badly served by their hordes
of servants. Madame de Motteville tells us how the ladies of the Court
of Anne of Austria were nourished in the peaceful year 1644, when the
Court coffers were yet full.
According to the law of etiquette, the Queen supped in solitary
state. Her supper ended, we ate what was left. We ate without order
or measure, in any way we could. Our only table service was her
wash-cloth and the remnants of her bread. And, though this repast
was very ill-organised, it was not at all disagreeable, because it
had the advantage of what is called "privacy," and because of the
quality and the merit of those who sometimes met there.
The most modern Courts still retain some vestiges of the Middle Ages.
Louis XIII. had, or had had, four dwarfs, their salary being three
hundred "tournois" or Tours livres. The King paid a man to look after
his dwarfs, keep them in order, and regulate their conduct.[9]
To the day of her death, despite her exile and her misery, Marie de
Médicis maintained in her service a certain Jean Gassan, who figures in
her will as employed in "keeping the parrot."
When a child, Louis XIV. had two _baladins_. Mademoiselle had a dwarf
who did not retire from her service until 1645. The registers of the
Parliament (date, 10th May, 1645) contain letters patent and duly
verified, by which the King accorded to "Ursule Matton, the dwarf of
Mademoiselle, sole daughter of the Duke of Orleans, the power and the
right to establish a little market in a court behind the new meat
market of Saint Honoré."[10]
Marie de Médicis completed the house and establishment of her
granddaughter by giving her, for governess, a person of much virtue,
wit, and merit, Madame de Saint Georges, who knew the Court thoroughly.
Nevertheless Mademoiselle asserted that she had been very badly raised,
thanks to the herd of flattering hirelings who thronged the Tuileries,
and who no sooner surrounded her than they became insupportable.
It is a common thing [said she] to see children who are objects of
respect, and whose high birth and great possessions are continually
the subject of conversation, acquire sentiments of spurious glory.
I so often had at my ears people who talked to me either about my
riches or about my birth that I had no trouble to persuade myself
that what they said was true, and I lived in a state of vanity
which was very inconvenient.
While very young she had reached a degree of folly where it displeased
her to have people speak of her maternal grandmother, Madame de Guise.
"I used to say: '_She_ is my _distant_ grandmamma; _she_ is not Queen.'"
It does not appear that Madame Saint Georges, that person of so much
merit, had done anything to neutralise evil influences.
Throughout the seventeenth century, opinions on the education of girls
were very vacillating because little importance was attached to them.
In 1687, after all the progress accomplished through the double
influence of Port Royal and Madame de Maintenon, Fénelon wrote:
Nothing is more neglected than the education of girls. Fashion and
the caprices of the mothers often decide nearly everything. The
education of boys is considered of eminent importance because of
its bearing upon the public welfare; and while as many errors are
committed in the education of boys as in the education of girls, at
least it is an accepted idea that a great deal of enlightenment is
required for the successful education of a boy.
It was supposed that contact with society would be sufficient to form
the mind and to polish the wit of woman. In this fact lay the cause of
the inequality then noticeable in women of the same class. They were
more or less superior from various points of view, as they had been
more or less advantageously placed to profit by their worldly lessons,
by the spectacle of life, and by the conversation of honest people.
The privileged ones were women who, like Mademoiselle and her
associates, had been accustomed to the social circles where the history
of their times was made by the daily acts of life. Their best teachers
were the men of their own class, who intrigued, conspired, fought, and
died before their eyes,--often for their pleasure. The agitated and
peril-fraught lives of those men, their chimeras, and their romanticism
put into daily practice, were admirable lessons for the future heroines
of the Fronde. To understand the pupils, we must know something of
their teachers. What was the process of formation of those professors
of energy; in what mould was run that race of venturesome and restless
cavaliers who evoked a whole generation of Amazons made in their own
image? The system of the education of France of that epoch is in
question, and it is worthy of a close and detailed examination.
IV
From their infancy, boys were prepared for the ardent life of their
times. They were raised according to a clearly defined and fixed
idea common to rich and poor, to noble and to plebeian. The object
of a boy's education was to make him a man while he was still very
young. The only difference in the opinions of the gentleman and of the
bourgeois was this:
The gentleman believed that action was the best stimulant to action.
The bourgeois thought that the finer human sentiments, the so-called
"humanities," were the only sound foundations for a virile and
practical education. But whatever the method used, in that day, a man
entered upon life at the age when our sons are but just beginning
interminable studies preliminary to their "examinations." At the age
of eighteen, sixteen--even fifteen years,--the De Gassions, the La
Rochefoucaulds, the Omer Talons, and the Arnauld d'Andillys had become
officers, lawyers, or men of business, and in their day affairs bore
little resemblance to modern affairs. In our day men do not enter
active life until they have been aged and fatigued by the march of
years. The time of entrance upon the career of life ought not to be
a matter of indifference to a people. At the age of thirty years a
man no longer thinks and feels as he thought and felt at the age of
twenty. His manner of making war is different; and there is even
more difference in his political action. He has different ambitions.
His inclinations lead him into different adventures. The moments of
history, when the agitators of the nation were young men, glow with
the light of no other epoch. There was then an indefinable quality in
life,--an active principle, more ardent and more vital. Under Louis
XIII. there were scholars to make the unhappy students of our own
emasculated times die of envy. Certain examples of our modern school
become bald before they rise from the benches of their college.
Jean de Gassion, Marshal of France at the age of thirty years, who
"killed men" at the age of thirty-eight years (1647), was the fourth
son, but not the last, of a President of Parliament at Navarre,
who had raised his offspring with great care (having destined him
for the career of "Letters"). The child took such advantage of his
opportunities that before he was sixteen years old he was a consummate
scholar. He knew several of the living languages--German, Flemish,
Italian, and Spanish. Thus prepared for active life, he set out from
Pau astride of his father's old horse. When he had gone four or five
leagues, the old horse gave out. Jean de Gassion continued his journey
on foot. When he reached Savoy, they made war on him. He enlisted as
common soldier, and fought so well that he was promoted cornet. When
peace was declared, he was in France. He determined to go to the King
of Sweden--Gustavus Adolphus,--who was said to be somewhere in Germany.
De Gassion had resolved to offer the King the service of his sword,
and to ask to be allowed to lead the Swedish armies. But as he had no
idea of presenting himself to the King single-handed, he persuaded some
fifteen or twenty cavaliers of his own regiment to go with him, and
embarked with them on the Baltic Sea. And--so runs the story--he just
happened to land where Gustavus Adolphus was walking along the shore.
(Such coincidences are possible only when youths are in their teens;
after the age of twenty, no man need hope for similar experience.) Jean
saluted the King, and addressed him in excellent Latin. He expressed
his desire to be of service. The King was amused; he received the
strange offer amiably, and consented to put the learned stripling
to the test. And so it was that Gassion was enabled to attain to a
colonelcy when he was but twenty-two years old. His early studies had
stood him in good stead; had he not known his Latin, he would have
missed his career. His Ciceronian harangue, poured out fluently just as
the occasion demanded it, attracted the favour of a King who was, by
his own might, a prince of letters.
After the King of Sweden died, Gassion returned to France. With Condé
he won the battle of Rocroy, and, during the siege, died of a bullet
in his head, leaving behind him the reputation of a brilliant soldier
and accomplished man of letters, as virtuous as he was brave. He never
wished to marry. When they spoke to him of marriage, he answered that
he did not think enough of his life to offer a share of it to any one.
This was an expression of pessimism far in advance of his epoch.
La Rochefoucauld, who will never be accused of having been naturally
romantic, offered another example of the miracles performed by youths.
Only once in his life did he play the part of Paladin. He launched
himself in politics before he had a beard. When he was sixteen years
old, he entered upon his grand campaign, bearing the title of "Master
of the Camp."
The following year he was at Court, elbowing his way among all the
parties, busily engaged in opposition to Richelieu. But his politics
did not add anything to his age; he was still an adolescent, far
removed from the enlightened theorist of the _Maximes_.
The peculiarly special savour of the springtime of life was
communicated to his soul at the hour appointed by nature. In him it
was impregnated by a faint perfume of heroism and of poetry. He never
forgot the happiness with which for a week or more he played the fool.
He was then twenty-three years old. Queen Anne of Austria was in the
depths of her disgrace, maltreated and persecuted by her husband and by
Richelieu.
In this extremity [said Rochefoucauld], abandoned by all the world,
devoid of aid, daring to confide in no one but Mademoiselle de
Hautefort--and in me,--she proposed to me to abduct them both and
take them to Brussels. Whatever difficulty I may have seen in such
a project, I can say that it gave me more joy than I had ever had
in my life. I was at an age when a man loves to do extraordinary
things, and I could not think of anything that would give me more
satisfaction than that: to strike the King and the Cardinal with
one blow, to take the Queen from her husband and from the jealous
Richelieu, and to snatch Mademoiselle de Hautefort from the King
who was in love with her!
In truth the adventure would not have been an ordinary one; La
Rochefoucauld assumed its duties with enthusiasm, renouncing them only
when the Queen changed her mind.
Like all his fellows, La Rochefoucauld had his outburst of youth; but
he fell short of its folly. Recalling his extravagant project, he said:
"Youth is a continuous intoxication; it is the fever of Reason."
The memoirs of Arnauld d' Andilly tell us how the sons of the higher
nobility were educated in the year 1600 and thereabout. Arnauld d'
Andilly began to study Greek and Latin at home, under the supervision
of a very learned father. Toward his tenth year his family thought
that the moment had come to introduce into his little head the
meanings and the realities of speculation. The child was destined
for "civil employment." His day was divided into two parts; one half
was devoted to "disinterested study"; the other half to the study of
things practical. So he served his apprenticeship for business by such
a system that his themes and his versions lost none of their rights.
His mornings were consecrated to lessons and tasks. They were long
mornings; the family rose at four o'clock. The little student became a
good Latinist, and even a good Hellenist. He wrote very well in French,
and he was a good reader.
Ten or twelve volumes which belonged to him are still in existence, and
they attest that he knew a great deal more than the graduates of our
modern colleges,--though he knew nothing of the things they aim at. At
eleven o'clock he closed his lexicons, bade adieu to his preceptor and
to the pedagogy, bestrode his horse, and rode to Paris, to the house
of one of his uncles, who had taken it upon himself to teach the boy
everything that he could not learn from his books. Our forefathers
carefully watched their sons' first contact with reality. They tried
not to leave to chance the duties of so important an initiation; and
as a general thing their supervision left ineffaceable traces. Uncle
Claude de la Mothe-Arnauld, Treasurer-General of France, installed his
nephew in his private cabinet and gave him various bundles of endorsed
papers to decipher. The child was obliged to pick out their meaning
and then render a clear analysis of it in a distinct voice. When he
was fifteen years old another uncle, a Supervisor of the National
Finances, caused the student to "put his fist into the dough" in his
own office. At sixteen years of age, "little Arnauld" was "M. Arnauld
d' Andilly"; vested with office under the State, received at Court,
and permitted to assist behind the chair of the King, at the Councils
of Finance, so that he might hear financial arguments, and learn from
the Nation's statesmen how to decide great questions. His education
was not an exceptional one. The sons of the bourgeoisie were raised in
like manner. Attempts to educate boys were more or less successful,
according to the natural gifts of the postulants. Omer Talon,
Advocate-General of the Parliament of Paris, and one of the great
Parliamentary orators of the century, had pursued extensive classical
studies, and "as he spoke, Latin and Greek rushed to his lips." He
had "vast attainments in law," a science much more complicated in the
sixteenth century than in our day. But, learned though he was, he had
not lingered on the benches of his school. He was admitted to the Bar
when he was eighteen years old, and "immediately began to plead and to
be celebrated."
Antoine Le Maïtre, the first "Solitaire" of Port Royal, began his
career by appearing in public as the best known and most important and
influential lawyer in Paris when he was twenty-one years old.
Generally, the nobility sacrificed learning, which it despised, to an
impatient desire to see its sons "in active life." The nobles made
pages of their sons as soon as they were thirteen or fourteen years
old, or else sent them to the "Academy" to learn how to make proper use
of a horse, to fence, to vault, and to dance.[11]
* * * * *
In the eyes of people of quality books and writings were the tools of
plebeians; good enough for professional fine wits, or lawyers' clerks,
but not fit for the nobility.
* * * * *
In the reign of Louis XIII.,[12] M. d'Avenal wrote thus: "Gentlemen
are perfectly ignorant,--the most illustrious and the most modestly
insignificant alike. In this respect, with few exceptions, there is
absolute equality between them."
The Constable, De Montmorency, had the reputation of a man of sound
sense, "though he had no book learning, and hardly knew how to write
his own name." Many of the great lords knew no more; and this ignorance
was not shameful; on the contrary it was desired, affected, gloried in,
and eagerly imitated by the lesser nobility.
"I never sharpen my pen with anything but my sword," proudly declared a
gentleman.
"Ah?" answered a wit; "then your bad writing does not astonish me!"
The exceptions to the rule resulted from the caprices of the fathers;
and they were sometimes found where least expected. The famous
Bassompierre, arbiter of fashion and flower of courtiers, who, at one
sitting, burned more than six thousand letters from women, who wore
habits costing fourteen thousand écus, and could describe their details
twenty years after he had worn them, had been very liberally educated,
and according to a method which as may be imagined, was far in advance
of the methods of his day. He had followed the college course until the
sixteenth year of his age, he had laboured at rhetoric, logic, physics,
and law, and dipped deep into Hippocrates and Aristotle. He had also
studied _les cas de Conscience_. Then he had gone to Italy, where he
had attended the best riding schools, the best fencing schools, a
school of fortifications, and several princely Courts. At the age of
nineteen years he was a superb cavalier and a good musician, he knew
the world, and had made a very brilliant first appearance at Court.
The great Condé, General-in-Chief at the age of twenty-two years,
had followed a college course at the school of Bourges, and had been
"drilled" at the "Academy." He was tried by the fire of many a hard
school. Wherever he went he was preceded by tart letters of instruction
from his father. By his father's orders he was always received and
treated as impartially as any of the lesser aspirants to education;
he was severely "exercised," put on his mettle in various ways, and
compelled to start out from first principles, no matter how well he
knew them. When seven years old he spoke Latin fluently. When he
reached the age of eleven he was well grounded in rhetoric, law,
mathematics, and the Italian language. He could turn a verse very
prettily; and he excelled in everything athletic.
Louis XIII. applauded this deep and thorough study,--perhaps because he
regretted his lost opportunities. He told people that he should "wish
to have ... Monsieur the Dauphin," educated in like manner.[13]
In measure as the century advanced it began to be recognised that a
nobleman could "study" without detracting from his noble dignity.
Louis de Pontis, who started out as a D'Artagnan, and ended at Port
Royal,[14] wished that time could be taken to instruct the youth of the
nation. Answering some one who had asked his advice as to the education
of two young lords of the Court, he wrote[15]:
I will begin by avowing that I do not share the sentiments of those
who wish for their children only so much science as is "needed"--as
they call it--"for a gentleman"; I do not see things in that light.
I should demand more science.
Since science teaches man how to reason and to speak well in
public, is it not necessary to men, who, by the grandeur of their
birth, their employment, and their duties, may need it at any
moment, and who make use of it in their numerous meetings with
the enlightened of the world? There are several personages who
hold that the society of virtuous and talented women expands and
polishes the mind of a young cavalier more than the conversation of
men of letters; but I am not of their opinion....
Notwithstanding this declaration, Pontis desired that great difference
should be established between the treatment of a child training for
the robes and the treatment of one training for military service. "The
first ought never to end his studies; it is sufficient for the second
to study until his fifteenth or sixteenth year; after that time he
ought to be sent to the Academy...."
In this opinion Pontis echoed the general impression. At the time
when La Grande Mademoiselle was born, the man of quality no longer
had a right to be "brutal,"--in other words, to betray coarseness of
nature. New customs and new manners exacted from the man of noble
birth tact and good breeding, not science. But it was requisite that
the nobleman's mind should be "formed" by the influence and discourse
of a man of letters, so that he might be capable of judging witty and
intellectual works ("works of the mind").
Marshal Montmorency,[16] son of the Constable, who "hardly knew how to
write his own name," had always in his employ cultured and intellectual
people, who "made verses" for him on a multitude of such subjects as
it was befitting his high estate that he should know; such subjects
as were calculated to give him an air of intelligence and general
information. His intellectual advisers informed him what to think and
what to say of the current questions of the day.[17] It was good form
for great and noble houses to entertain at least one _autheur_. As
there were no public journals or reviews, the _autheur_ took the place
of literary chronicles and literary criticism. He talked of the last
dramatic sketch, or of the last new novel.
It was not long before another step in advance was taken, by which
every nobleman was permitted to entertain his own personal _autheur_,
and to compose "works of the mind" for himself. But he who succumbed to
the epidemic (_cacoëthes scribendi_), owed it to his birth and breeding
to hide his malady, or to make excuses for it.
Mlle. de Scudéry puts in the mouth of _Sapho_ (herself) in _Le Grand
Cyrus_[18]:
Nothing is more inconvenient than to be intellectual or to be
treated as if one were so, when one has a noble heart and a
certain degree of birth; for I hold that it is an indubitable fact
that from the moment one separates himself from the multitude,
distinguishing one's self by the enlightenment of one's mind; when
one acquires the reputation of having more mind than another, and
of writing well enough--in prose or in verse--to be able to compose
books, then, I say, one loses one half of one's nobility--if
one has any--and one is not one half as important as another of
the same house and of the same blood, who has not meddled with
writings....
About the time this opinion saw the light, Tallemant des Réaux wrote to
M. de Montausier, husband of the beautiful Julie d'Angennes, and one of
the satellites of the Hôtel de Rambouillet: "He plys the trade of a man
of mind too well for a man of quality--or at least he plays the part
too seriously ... he has even made translations...."
This mention is marked by one just feature: the man who wrote, who
could write, or who indulged in writing, was supposed to have judgment
enough to keep him from attaching importance to his works. The fine
world had regained the taste for refinement lost in the fracas of the
civil wars; but in the higher classes of society was still reflected
the horror of the preceding generations for pedants and for pedantry.
Ignorant or learned, half-grown boys were cast forward by their hasty
education into their various careers when they had barely left the
ranks of infancy. They were reckless, still in the flower of their
giddy youth; but they were enthusiastic and generous. France received
their high spirits very kindly. Deprived of the good humour, and
stripped of the illusions furnished by the young representatives of
their manhood, the times would have been too hard to be endured. The
traditions of the centuries when might was the only right still weighed
upon the soul of the people. One of those traditions exacted that--from
his infancy--a man should be "trained to blood." A case was cited where
a man had his prisoners killed by his own son,--a child ten years old.
One exaction was that a man should never be conscious of the sufferings
of a plebeian.
France had received a complete inheritance of inhuman ideas, which
protected and maintained the remains of the savagery that ran, like a
stained thread, through the national manners, just falling short of
rendering odious the gallant cavaliers. All that saved them from the
disgust aroused by the brutal exercise of the baser "rights" was the
bright ray of poetry, whose dazzling light gleamed amidst their sombre
faults.
They were quarrelsome, but brave. Perchance as wild as outlaws, but
devoted, gay, and loving. They were extraordinarily lively, because
they were--or had been but a short time before--extraordinarily young,
with a youth that is not now, nor ever shall be.
They inspired the women with their boisterous gallantry. In the higher
classes the sexes led nearly the same life. They frequented the same
pleasure resorts and revelled in the same joys. They met in the lanes
and alleys, at the theatre (_Comédie_), at balls, in their walks, on
the hunt, on horseback, and even in the camps. A woman of the higher
classes had constantly recurring opportunities to drink in the spirit
of the times. As a result the ambitious aspired to take part in public
life; and they shaped their course so well, and made so much of their
opportunities, that Richelieu complained of the importance of women in
the State. They were seen entering politics, and conspiring like men;
and they urged on the men to the extremes of folly.
Some of the noblewomen had wardrobes full of disguises; and they ran
about the streets and the highways dressed as monks or as gentlemen.
Among them were several who wielded the sword in duel and in war, and
who rode fearlessly and well. They were all handsome and courageous,
and even in the abandon of their most reckless gambols they found means
to preserve their delicacy and their grace. Never were women more
womanly. Men adored them, trembling lest something should come about
to alter their perfection. Their fear was the cause of their desperate
and stubborn opposition to the idea of the education of girls, then
beginning to take shape among the elder women.
I cannot say that the men were not in the wrong; but I do say that I
understand and appreciate their motives. Woman, or goddess, of the
order of the nobles of the time of Louis XIII., was a work of art, rare
and perfect; and to tremble for her safety was but natural!
It happened that La Grande Mademoiselle came to the age to profit by
instruction just when polite circles were discussing the education
of girls. The governess whose duty it had been to guide her mind was
caught between two opposing forces: the defendants of the ancient
ignorance and the first partisans of the idea of "_enlightenment for
all_."
V
_Les Femmes Savantes_ might have been written under Richelieu.
_Philamente_ had not awaited the advent of Molière to protest against
the ignorance and the prejudice that enslaved her sex. When the piece
appeared, more than half a century had elapsed since people had
quarrelled in the little streets about woman's position,--what she
ought to know, and what she ought not to know. But if the piece had
been written long before its first appearance, the treatment of the
subject could not have been the same. It would have been necessary
to agree as to what woman ought to be in her home and in her social
relations; and at that time they were just beginning to disagree
on that very subject. Nearly all men thought that things ought to
be maintained in the existing conditions. The nobles had exquisite
mistresses and incomparable political allies; the bourgeois had
excellent housekeepers; and to one and all alike, noble and bourgeois,
it seemed that any instruction would be superfluous; that things
were perfect just as they were. The majority of the women shared the
opinions of the men. The minority, looking deeper into the question,
saw that there might be a more serious and more intellectual way of
living to which ignorance would be an obstacle; but at every turn they
were met by men stubbornly determined that women should not be made
to study. Such men would not admit that there could be any difference
between a cultivated woman and "_Savante_,"--the term then used for
"blue-stocking." It must be confessed that there was some justice in
their judgment. For a reason which escapes me, when knowledge attempted
to enter the mind of a woman it had great trouble to make conditions
with nature and simplicity. It was not so easy! Even to-day certain
preparations are necessary,--appointment of commandants, the selection
of countersigns, establishment of a picket-line--not to say a deadline.
We have _précieuses_ in our own day, and their pretensions and their
grimaces have been lions in our path whenever we have attempted the
higher instruction of our daughters; the truly _précieuses_, they who
were instrumental in winning the cause of the higher education of
women--they who, under the impulsion given by the Hôtel de Rambouillet,
worked to purify contemporary language and manners--were not ignorant
of the baleful affectation of their sisters, nor of the extent of its
compromising effect upon their own efforts. Mlle. de Scudéry, who knew
"nearly everything that one could know" (by which was probably meant
"everything fit to be known"), and who piqued herself upon being not
less modest than she was wise, could not be expected to share, or to
take part in, and in the mind of the public be confounded with, the
female _Trissotins_ whose burden of ridicule she felt so keenly. She
would not allow herself to resemble them in any way when she brought
them forth in _Grand Cyrus_, where the questions now called "feminist"
were discussed with great good sense.
_Damophile_, who affects to imitate _Sapho_, is only her caricature.
_Sapho_ "does not resemble a '_Savante_'"; her conversation is natural,
gallant, and easy (commodious).
_Damophile_ always had five or six teachers. I believe that the least
learned among them taught her astrology.
She was always writing to the men who made a profession of science.
She could not make up her mind to have anything to say to people who
did not know anything. Fifteen or twenty books were always to be seen
on her table; and she always held one of them in her hand when any one
entered the room, or when she sat there alone; and I am assured that
it could be said without prevarication that one saw more books in her
cabinet than she had ever read, and that at _Sapho's_ house one saw
fewer books than she had read.
More than that, _Damophile_ used only great words, which she pronounced
in a grave and imperious voice; though what she said was unimportant;
and _Sapho_, on the contrary, used only short, common words to express
admirable things. Besides that, _Damophile_, believing that knowledge
did not accord with her family affairs, never had anything to do with
domestic cares; but as to _Sapho_, she took pains to inform herself of
everything necessary to know in order to command even the least things
pertaining to the household.
_Damophile_ not only talked as if she were reading out of a book, but
she was always talking about books; and, in her ordinary conversation,
she spoke as freely of unknown authors as if she were giving public
lessons in some celebrated academy.
She tries ... with peculiar and strange carefulness, to let it be
known how much she knows, or thinks that she knows. And that, too,
the first time that a stranger sees her. And there are so many
obnoxious, disagreeable, and troublesome things about _Damaphile_,
that one must acknowledge that if there is nothing more amiable nor
more charming than a woman who takes pains to adorn her mind with a
thousand agreeable forms of knowledge,--when she knows how to use
them,--nothing is as ridiculous and as annoying as a woman who is
"stupidly wise."
Mlle. de Scudéry raged when people, who had no tact, took her for
a _Damophile_, and, meaning to compliment her, consulted her "on
grammar," or "touching one of Hesiod's verses." Then the vials of her
wrath were poured out upon the "_Savantes_" who gave the prejudiced
reason for condemning the education of woman, and who provoked annoying
and ridiculous misconception by their insupportable pedantry; when
there were so many young girls of the best families who did not even
learn their own language, and who could not make themselves understood
when they took their pens in hand.
"The majority of women," said Nicanor, "seem to try to write so
that people will misunderstand them, so strange is their writing
and so little sequency is there in their words."
"It is certain," replied Sapho, "that there are women who speak
well who write badly; and that they do write badly is purely their
own fault.... Doubtless it comes from the fact that they do not
like to read, or that they read without paying any attention to
what they are doing, and without reflecting upon what they have
read. So that although they have read the same words they use when
they write, thousands and thousands of times, when they come to
write they write them all wrong. And by putting some letters where
other letters ought to be, they make a confused tangle which no one
can distinguish unless he is well used to it."
"What you say is so true," answered Erinne, "that I saw it proved
no longer ago than yesterday. I visited one of my friends, who has
returned from the country, and I carried her all the letters she
wrote to me while she was away, so that she might read them to me
and let me know what was in them."
Mademoiselle de Scudéry did not exaggerate; our great-grandmothers
did not see the utility of applying a knowledge of spelling to their
letters. In that respect each one extricated herself by the grace of
God.
The Marchioness of Sablé, who was serious and wise, and, according to
the testimony of _Sapho_, "the type of the perfect _précieuse_" had
peculiar ways of her own in her spelling. She wrote, _J'hasse, notre
broulerie votre houbly_. Another "_précieuse_," Madame de Brégy, whose
prose and verse both appeared in print, wrote to Madame de Sablé, when
they were both in their old age:
Je vous diré que je vieus d'aprendre que samedi, Monsieur, Madame,
et les poupons reviene a Paris, et que pour aujourd'hui la Rayue
et Madame de Toscane vout a Saint-Clou don la naturelle bauté sera
reausé de tout les musique possible et d'un repas magnifique don je
quiterois tous les gous pour une écuelle non pas de nantille, mes
pour une devostre potage; rien n'étan si délisieus que d'an mauger
en vous écoutan parler. (19th September, 1672.)
It is but just to add that as far as orthography was concerned many of
the men were women. The following letter of the Duke of Gesvres, "first
gentleman of Louis XIV.," has no reason to envy the letter of the old
Marchioness.
(Paris, this 20th September, 1677.) Monsieur me trouvant oblige
de randre vuue bonne party de l'argan que mais enfant out pris de
peuis quil sont en campane Monsieur cela m'oblije a vous suplier
très humblement Monsieur de me faire la grasse de Commander
Monsieur quant il vous plaira que l'on me pay le capitenery
de Movsaux monsieur vous asseurant que vous m'oblijeres fort
sansiblement Monsieur, comme ausy de me croire avec toute sorte de
respec Monsieur vastre très humble et très obeissant serviteur.
Enough is as good as a feast! Though we stand in no superstitious awe
of orthography, we can but laud Mademoiselle de Scudéry for having
crossed lances in its favour. And well might she wish that to the first
elements of an education might be added a certain amount of building
material suitable for a foundation so solid that something more serious
than dancing steps and chiffons might at a later date be introduced
into the brains of young girls.
Seriously, [she said] is there anything stranger than the way
they act when they prepare to enter upon the ordinary education
of woman? One does not wish women to be coquettish or gallant,
and yet they are permitted to learn carefully everything that
has anything to do with gallantry; though they are not permitted
to know anything that might fortify their virtue or occupy their
minds. All the great scoldings given them in their first youth
because they are not proper[19]--that is to say dressed in good
taste, and because they do not apply themselves to their dancing
lessons and their singing lessons--do they not prove what I say?
And the strangest of all is that this should be so when a woman
cannot, with any propriety, dance more than five or six years
of all the years of her life! And this same person who has been
taught to do nothing but to dance is obliged to give proof of
judgment to the day of her death; and though she is expected to
speak properly, even to her last sigh, nothing is done--of all
that might be done--to make her speak more agreeably, nor to act
with more care for her conduct; and when the manner in which these
ladies pass their lives is considered, it might be said that they
seem to have been forbidden to have reason and good sense, and that
they were put in the world only that they might sleep, be fat, be
handsome, do nothing, and say nothing but silly things.... I know
one who sleeps more than twelve hours every day, who takes three or
four hours to dress herself, or, to speak more to the point: not to
dress herself--for more than half of the time given to dressing is
passed either in doing nothing or in doing over what has been done.
Then she employs fully two or three hours in consuming her divers
repasts; and all the rest of the time is spent receiving people to
whom she does not know what to say, or in paying visits to people
who do not know what to say to her.
In spite of her strictness, Mlle. de Scudéry was no advocate of the
idea which makes a woman her husband's servant, or installs her as the
slave of the stew-pan. Whenever she was urged to "tell precisely what
a woman ought to know," the problem was so new to her that she did not
know how to answer it. She evaded it, rejecting its generalities. She
had only two fixed ideas: that science was necessary to women; and
that the women who attained it must not let it be known that they had
attained it. She expressed her two opinions clearly:
It [science] serves to show them the meaning of things; it makes
it possible for them to listen intelligently when their mental
superiors are talking--even to talk to the point and to express
opinions--but they must not talk as books talk; they must try
to speak as if their knowledge had come naturally, as if their
inherent common sense had given them an understanding of the things
in question.
Mademoiselle had in her mind one woman whom she would have liked to set
up as a pattern for all other women. That one woman knew Latin, and
because of her sense and propriety, was esteemed by Saint Augustine,
and yet no one had ever thought of calling her a "_Savante_."
Mlle. de Scudéry was very grateful to the charming Mme. de Sévigné,
because she plead the cause of woman's education by so fine an example,
and she depicted her admirable character with visible complaisance,
under the name of Clarinte.[20]
Her conversation is easy, diverting and natural. She speaks to the
point, and evinces clear judgment; she speaks well; she even has
some spontaneous expressions, so ingenuous and so witty that they
are infinitely pleasing.... Clarinte dearly loves to read; and
what is better, without playing the wit, she is admirably quick to
seize the hidden meaning of fine ideas. She has so much judgment
that, though she is neither severe, nor shy, she has found the
means to preserve the best reputation in the world.... What is most
marvellous in this person is that, young as she is, she cares for
her household as prudently as if she had had all the experience
that time can give to a very enlightened mind; and what I admire
still more, is that whenever it is necessary she can do without
the world, and without the Court; she is as happy in the country,
she can amuse herself as well there, as if she had been born in
the woods.... I had nearly forgotten to tell you that she writes
as she speaks; that is to say, most agreeably and as gallantly as
possible.
The programme used for the distribution of studies by means of which
the De Sévignés were fabricated is not revealed. Nature herself must
have furnished a portion of the plan. As far as we can judge the part
played by education was restricted to the adoption of some of the
suggestions of very rich moral endowments.
Mlle. de Chantal had been admirably directed by her uncle, the Abbé
de Coulanges, and, aside from the cares of the profession which
now presides over the education of woman, it is probable that more
efficient means could not be found for the proper formation of the
character of a girl than it was Mademoiselle de Chantal's good fortune
to enjoy.
Ménage and Chapelain had been her guides in rhetoric. She had read
Tacitus and Virgil in the original all her life. She was familiar with
Italian and with Spanish, and had ancient and modern history at her
tongue's end,--also the moralists and the religious writers.
These serious and well-grounded foundations, which she continually
strengthened and renewed until death, did not prevent her from
"adoring" poetry, the drama, and the superior novels,--in short, all
things of enlightenment and worth wherever she found them and under
whatever form. She was graceful in the dance; she sang well,--her
contemporaries said that her manner of singing was "impassioned."
[Illustration: MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ
FROM AN ENGRAVING OF THE PAINTING BY MUNTZ]
The Abbé Coulanges had raised her so carefully that she was orderly;
and, unlike the majority, she liked to pay her debts. She was a perfect
type of woman. She even made a few mistakes in orthography, taking one,
or more, letter, or letters, for another, or for others. In short, she
made just the number of errors sufficient to permit her to be a writer
of genius without detracting from her air of distinguished elegance, or
from the obligations and the quality of her birth.
There were others at Court and in the city who confirmed their right
to enlightenment, thereby justifying the theses of Mademoiselle de
Scudéry. But a large number of women gave the lie to her theories
by their resemblance to _Damophile_. Of these latter was "the
worthy Gournay," Montaigne's "daughter by alliance," who, from the
exalted heights of her Greek and Latin, and in a loud, insistent
voice, discoursed like a doctor of medicine on the most ticklish of
subjects,--subjects far from pleasing when rolled out of the mouth
of a woman, even when so displaced in the name of antiquity and all
that is venerable! (For in these names "the good Gournay" evoked
them.) There was another pedant, the Viscountess d'Auchy, who had
"founded conferences" in her own house; the people of the fine world
flocked there to smother as they listened while it was proved, for
their edification, that the Holy Trinity had natural reasons for its
existence. On those "foundations" the Innate Idea also was proved by
demonstrative reason by collecting and by analysing the ideas of young
children concerning philosophy and theology. The lady who founded the
conferences had bought some manuscript _Homilies on the Epistles of St.
Paul_, of a doctor of theology. She had had them imprinted and attached
to portraits of herself. Thus accoutred for their mission, they were
circulated with great success, and their proceeds formed the endowment
fund of the _Conférence_ Library.
"The novelty of seeing a great lady of the Court commenting on the most
obscure of the apostles caused every one to buy the book."[21] It ended
by the Archbishop of Paris intimating to the "Order of the Conferences"
that they "would better leave Theology to the Sorbonne."
Mlle. Des Jardins declaimed her verses in the salons with great
"contortions" and with eyes rolling as if in death; and she was not at
all pleased when people preferred Corneille's writings to her own.
Mlle. Diodée frightened her hearers so that they took to their heels
when she began to read her fine thoughts on Zoroaster or on Hermes
Trismegistus. Another learned lady would speak of nothing but solar or
lunar eclipses and of comets.
The pedantry of this high order of representative woman transported the
"honest man" with horror. The higher the birth of the man the greater
his fear lest by some occult means he might be led to slip his neck
into the noose of a "_Savante_." But there was one counter-irritant
for this virulent form of literary eruption. The young girls of the
highest nobility were all extremely ignorant. Mlle. de Maillé-Brézé,
niece of Cardinal de Richelieu, had not an idea of the most limited
degree of the knowledge of books when she married the great Condé
(1641). She knew nothing whatever. It was considered that ignorance
carried to such length proved that neglect of instruction had gone
too far, and when the great Condé went on his first campaign, friends
seized the opportunity to add a few facets to the uncut jewel. She was
turned and turned about, viewed in different lights, and polished so
that her qualities could be seen to the best advantage. "The year after
her marriage," says Mlle. de Scudéry, "she was sent to the Convent of
the Carmelite Nuns of Saint Denis, to be taught to learn to read and
write, during the absence of Monsieur her husband."
The _Contes de Perrault_--faithful mirror of the habits of those
days--teaches us what an accomplished princess ought to be like. All
the fairies to be found in the country had acted as godmothers to the
_Belle-au-Bois-dormant_,
so that each one of them could bring her a gift ... consequently
the princess had acquired every imaginable perfection.... The
youngest fairy gave her the gift of being the most beautiful
woman in the world; the one who came next gave her the spirit
of an angel; the third endowed her with power to be graceful in
everything that she did; the fourth gave her the art of dancing
like a fairy; the fifth the art of singing like a nightingale;
and the sixth endowed her with the power to play all kinds of
instruments to perfection.
Perrault had traced his portraits over the strongly defined lines of
real life. La Grande Mademoiselle was trained after the manner of the
_Belle-au-Bois-dormant_. Her governess had had too much experience
to burden her with a science that would have made her redoubtable in
the eyes of men; so she had transferred to the fairies the task of
providing her young charge with a suitable investiture. Unhappily
for her eternal fame, when she distributed her powers of attorney
some of the fairies were absent; so Mademoiselle neither sang like a
nightingale, nor displayed classic grace in all her actions. But her
resemblance to Perrault's heroines was striking. The fairies empowered
to invest her with mind and delicacy of feeling had been present at
her baptism, and they had left indisputable proof of the origin of her
ideas. Like their predecessors, the elves of the _Contes_, they had
never planned for anything less than the marriage of their god-daughter
to the King's son. By all that she saw and heard, Mademoiselle knew
that Providence had not closed an eye at the moment of her creation.
She knew that her quality was essential. She knew that it was written
on high that she should marry the son of a great King.
Her life was a conscientious struggle to "accomplish the oracle"; and
the marriages that she missed form the weft of her history.
VI
The first of the _Mémoires_ show us the Court of Louis XIII. and the
affairs of the day as seen by a little girl. This is an aspect to
which historians have not accustomed us; and as a natural result of
the infantine point of view the horizons are considerably narrowed.
The little Princess did not know that anything important was taking
place in Germany. She could not be ignorant of the fact that Richelieu
was engaged in a struggle with the high powers of France; she read the
general distress in the clouded faces surrounding her. But in her mind
she decided that it was nothing but one of her father's quarrels with
the Cardinal. The judgments she rendered against the high personages
whose houses she frequented were dictated by purely sentimental
considerations. "Some she liked; some she did not like"; consequently
the former gained, and the latter lost. Many contestants were
struggling before her young eyes; Louis XIII. was among the winners.
He was a good uncle, very affectionate to his niece, and deeply
grateful that she was nothing worse than a girl. He could never rid
himself of the idea that his brother might have endowed him with an
heir. He had Mademoiselle brought to the Louvre by the gallery along
the river, and allowed himself to be cheered by her turbulence and
uncurbed indiscretions.
Anne of Austria exhibited a deep tenderness for Mademoiselle; but no
one can deceive a child. "I think that all the love she showed me
was nothing but the effect of what she felt for Monsieur," writes
Mademoiselle; and further on she formally declares that the Queen,
believing herself destined to a near widowhood, had formed the "plan"
of marrying Monsieur. Whatever the Queen's plans may have been, it
is certain that she caressed the daughter for love of the father.
Anne of Austria never forgave Mademoiselle for the part that she had
played before her birth, in the winter of 1626-1627, when the Duchess
of Orleans so arrogantly promised to bring forth a Dauphin. Monsieur
had no reason to fear the scrutiny of a child. He was a charming
playfellow; gay, complaisant, fond of his daughter, at least for the
moment,--no one could count upon the future!
Cardinal de Richelieu could not gain anything by thoughtful criticism.
To the little Princess he was the Croquemitaine of the Court. When we
think of his ogre face--spoil sport that he was! as he appeared to
the millions of French people who were incapable of understanding his
policy--the silhouette traced by the hand of Mademoiselle appears in
a new light, and we are forced to own that its profound and simple
ignorance is instructive.
Marie de Médicis had managed to disappear from the Luxembourg and from
Paris, after the _Journée des Dupes_ (11 November, 1630), and her
little granddaughter had not noticed her departure. She writes: "I was
still so young that I do not remember that I ever saw her." The case
was not the same after the departure of Monsieur. He had continually
visited the Tuileries, and when he came no more the child knew it well
enough. She understood that her father had been punished, and she
was not permitted to remain ignorant of the identity of the insolent
personage who had placed him on the penitential stool. Mademoiselle,
then less than four years old, was outraged in all her feelings by the
success of Richelieu. She made war upon him in her own way; and, dating
from that day, became dear to the people of Paris, who had always loved
to vex and to humble the Government. She wrote with a certain pride:
"On that occasion my conduct did not at all answer to my years. I did
not want to be amused in any way; and they could not even make me go to
the assemblies at the Louvre." As she had no better scapegoat, her bad
humour was vented on the King. She constantly growled at him, demanding
that he should bring back her "papa." But Mademoiselle was never able
to pout to such purpose that she could stay away from the palace long,
for she was a true courtier, firmly convinced that to be away from
Court was to be in a desert, no matter how many servants and companions
might surround her. She soon mended her broken relations with the
assemblies and the collations of the Louvre, and could not refrain from
"entering into the joy of her heart" when "Their Majesties" sent word
to her guardians to take her to Fontainebleau. But she never laid down
her arms where Richelieu was concerned. She knew all the songs that
were written against him.
Meanwhile Monsieur had not taken any steps to make himself
interesting. As soon as he had crossed the French frontier he entered
upon a pleasure debauch which rendered him unfit for active service,
for a time at least. He paid for his high flight in Spanish money. In
1632 he further distinguished himself by entering France at the head
of a foreign army. On that occasion he caused the death of the Duke of
Montmorency, who was executed for "rebellion."
Immediately after the Duke's execution, it was discovered that Monsieur
had secretly married a sister of the Duke of Lorraine. He, Monsieur,
crowned his efforts by signing a treaty with Spain (12 May, 1634), for
which act France paid by yielding up strips of French territory.
But to his daughter Monsieur was always the victim of an impious
persecution. Speaking of the years gorged with events so closely
concerning her own life, she says:
Many things passed in those days. I was only a child; I had no part
in anything, and could not notice anything; All that I can remember
is that at Fontainebleau (5 May, 1663) I saw the Ceremony of the
Chevaliers of the Order. During the ceremony they degraded from the
Order Monsieur the Duke d'Elbœuf, and the Marquis de la Vieu Ville.
I saw them tear off and break the arms belonging to their rank,--a
rank equal to all the others; and when I asked the reason they told
me they had insulted them "because they had followed Monsieur."
Then I wept. I was so wounded by this treatment that I would have
retired from Court; and I said that I could not look on this action
with the submission that would become me.
The day after the ceremony an incident exciting much comment added
to Mademoiselle's grief. Her enemy, the Cardinal, took part in the
promotion of the Cordons Bleus. On this occasion Louis XIII. wished to
exalt his Minister by giving him a distinguishing mark of superiority.
He wished to distinguish him, and him only, by giving him a present.
His choice of a present fell upon an object well fitted to evoke the
admiration of a child. The chevaliers of the _Saint Esprit_ were at
a banquet. At dessert they brought to Richelieu the King's gift, an
immense rock composed of various delicate confitures. From the centre
of the rock jetted a fountain of perfumed water. Given under solemn
circumstances and to a prince of the Church, it was a singular present.
It attracted remark, its familiarity tended to give colour to the
rumours circulating to the effect that an alliance then in process of
incubation would eventually unite the House of France and the family of
a very powerful Minister. The people voiced the current rumour volubly;
they said that "Gaston's marriage with a Lorraine" would never be
recognised, and that the young Prince would buy his pardon by marrying
the niece of the Cardinal. Mademoiselle heard the rumours and her heart
swelled with anguish at the thought of her father's dishonour.
I was not so busy with my play that I did not listen attentively
when they spoke of the "accommodating ways" of Monsieur! The
Cardinal de Richelieu, who was first minister and master of
affairs, had made up his mind that it should be so,--that he
should marry _that one!_ and he had expressed his wishes with such
shameful suggestions that I could not hear them mentioned without
despair. To make peace with the King, Monsieur must break his
marriage with Princesse Marguerite d'Orléans, and marry Mlle. de
Combalet, niece of the Cardinal, now Madame d'Aguillon! From the
time I first heard of the project I could not keep from weeping
when it was spoken of; and, in my wrath, to avenge myself, I sang
all the songs against the Cardinal and his niece that I knew.
Monsieur did not let himself be "arranged" to suit the Cardinal.
He came back to France without the assistance of the ridiculous
condition. But how it was done I do not know. I cannot say anything
about it, because I had no knowledge of it.
If it is true that Mademoiselle did not know the details of the
quarrels in which the House of France engaged during her childhood,
she was not inquisitive. Her knowledge in that respect had been at the
mercy of her own inclination. By the thoughtful care of Richelieu, all
the correspondence and all the official reports exposing the Court
miseries were placed where all might read who ran. Richelieu had
divined the power of the press over public opinion, although in that
day there was no press in France. There were no journals to defend
the Government. The _Mercure Française_[22] was not a journal; it
appeared once a year, and contained only a brief narration of "the
most remarkable things that had come to pass" in the "four parts of
the world." Renaudot's _Gazette_[23] was hardly a journal, though
it appeared every eight days, and numbered Louis XIII. among its
contributors. Louis furnished its military news. Richelieu and "Father
Joseph" furnished its politics. Neither Renaudot nor his protectors
had any idea of what we call a "premier Paris" or an "article de
fond"; they had never seen such things and they would not have been
capable of compassing such inventions. The _Gazette_ was not a sheet
of official information; it did not contain matter enough for one page
of the _Journal des Débats_. But the necessity of saying something to
France was a crying one. It had become absolutely necessary to put
modern royalty in communication with the nation, and to explain to the
people at large the real meaning of the policy of the Prime Minister.
The people must be taught why wars, alliances, and scaffolds were
necessary. Something must be done to defend France against the attacks
of Marie de Médicis and the cowardly Gaston. At that time placards
and pamphlets rendered the services now demanded of the journals. By
means of the placards the King could speak directly to the people and
take them to witness that he was in difficulty, and that he was trying
to do his best. In his public letters he confided to them his family
chagrins, and the motives of his conduct toward the foreign powers. His
correspondence with his mother and his brothers was printed as fast
as it was written or received by him. Apologies for his conduct were
supported by a choice of documents. From time to time the pamphlets
were collected and put in volumes--the volumes which were the
ancestors of our "yellow books."
I have before me one of these volumes, dated 1639, without name of
editor or publisher. It bears the title: _Recueil de divers pièces pour
servir a l'histoire_. Two thirds of its space are consecrated to the
King's quarrels with his family. Mademoiselle must have learned from it
many things which she has not the air of suspecting. Perhaps she found
it convenient or agreeable to be ignorant of them. In the pages of
this instructive volume none of her immediate relations appear to any
advantage. Louis XIII. is invariably dry and bombastic, or constrained
and affected; he shows no trace of emotion when, in his letter of 23
February, 1631, he informs the people that
being placed in the extremity of choosing between our mother and
our minister we did not even hesitate, because they have embittered
the Queen our very honoured lady and mother against our very dear
and very beloved cousin, Cardinal de Richelieu; there being no
entreaty, no prayer or supplication, nor any consideration, public
or private, that we have not put forward to soften her spirit;
our said cousin recognising what he owes her, by reason of all
sorts of considerations, having done all that he could do for her
satisfaction; the reverence that he bears her having carried him to
the point of urging us and supplicating us, divers times, to find
it good that he should retire from the management of our affairs;
a request which the utility of his past services and the interests
of our authority have not permitted us to think of granting.... And
recognising the fact that none of the authors of these differences
continue to maintain their disposition to diverge from our royal
justice, we have not found a way to avoid removing certain persons
from our Court, nor even to avoid separating ourselves, though
with unutterable pain, from the Queen, our very honoured lady and
mother, during such time as may be required for the softening of
her heart....
Another letter, from the King to his mother, is revolting in its
harshness. After her departure from France, Marie de Médicis addressed
to him some very tart pages in which she accused Richelieu of having
had designs on her life. In the same letter she represented herself as
flying from her son's soldiers:
I will leave you to imagine my affliction when I saw myself in
flight, pursued by the cavalry with which they had threatened
me! so that I would be frightened and run the faster out of your
kingdom; by that means constraining me to press on thirty leagues
without either eating or drinking, to the end that I might escape
from their hands. (Avesnes, 28 July, 1631.)
Instead of feeling pity for the plaints of the old woman who realised
that she had been conquered, Louis XIII. replied:
Madame, I am the more annoyed by your resolution to retire from my
state because I know that you have no real reason for doing so.
The imaginary prison, the supposititious persecutions of which you
complain, and the fears that you profess to have felt at Compiègne
during your life there, were as lacking in foundation as the
pursuit that you pretend my cavalry made when you made your retreat.
After these words, the King delivered a pompous eulogy on the Cardinal
and ended it thus:
You will permit me, an it please you, to tell you, Madame, that
the act that you have just committed, and all that has passed
during a period more or less recent, make it impossible for me to
be ignorant of your intentions in the past, and the action that I
have to expect from you in the future. The respect that I owe to
you hinders me from saying any more.
It is true that Marie de Médicis received nothing that she did not
deserve; but it may be possible that it was not for her son to speak to
her with brutality.
In their way Gaston's letters are _chefs-d'œuvre_. They do honour
to the psychological sensibility of the intelligent _névrosé_.
Monsieur knew both the strength and the weakness of his brother. He
knew him to be jealous, ulcerated by the consciousness of his own
insignificance--an insignificance brought into full relief by the
importance of the superior Being then hard at work making "of a France
languishing a France triumphant"[24]; and with marvellous art he found
the words best qualified to irritate secret wounds.
His letters open with insinuations to the effect that Richelieu had a
personal interest in maintaining the enmity between "the King and his
own brother," so that the King, "having no one to defend him," could be
held more closely in his, Richelieu's, grasp.
I beseech ... your Majesty ... to have the gracious prudence to
reflect upon what has passed, and to examine more seriously the
designs of those who have been the architects of these plans; if
you will graciously examine into this matter you will see that
there are interests at stake which are not yours,--interests of
a nature opposed to your interests, and which aim at something
further, and something far in advance of anything that you have
thought of up to the present time (March 23, 1631).
In the following letter Monsieur addresses himself directly to Louis
XIII.'s worst sentiments and to his kingly conscience. He feigns to be
deeply grieved by the deplorable condition of his brother, who, as he
says, is reduced, notwithstanding
"the very great enlightenment of his mind" to the plight of a
puppet ... nothing but the shadow of a king, a being deprived of
his authority, lacking in power as in will, counted as nothing in
his own kingdom, devoid even of the external lustre ordinarily
attached to the rank of a sovereign.
Monsieur declares that Richelieu has left the King
"nothing but the name and the figure of a king," _and that for a
time only_; for as soon as he has ridded _himself of you ... and of
me! ... he means to take the helm and steer the Ship of State in
his own name_.
Monsieur depicted the new "Mayor of the Palace" actually reigning in
overburdened, crushed, and oppressed France,
whom he has ruined and whose blood he has sucked pitilessly and
without shame. In his own person he has consumed more than two
hundred millions since he took the rule of your affairs ... and
he expends daily, in his own house, ten times more than you do in
yours.... Let me tell you what I have seen! In your kingdom not one
third of your subjects eat bread made of wheat flour; another third
eats bread made of oats; and another third not only is reduced
to beggary, but it is languishing in need so crying that some are
actually starving to death; those who are not dying of hunger are
prolonging their lives with acorns, herbs, and like substances,
like the lower animals. And they who are least to be pitied among
these last are living on bran and on blood which they pick up in
the gutters in front of the butchers' shops. I have seen these
things with my own eyes, and in different parts of the country,
since I left Paris.
In this Monsieur told the truth. The peasant had come to that point
of physical degradation. But his sufferings could not be diminished
by provoking a civil war, and Richelieu did not fail to make the
fact plain in the polemics of the _Recueil_, written under his
supervision--when it was not written in his own hand. He (Richelieu)
defended his policy tooth and nail, he justified his millions, his
accumulated official honours.
One of Monsieur's letters bears copious notes made throughout its
length and breadth in the Cardinal's own hand. Without any of the
scruples of false shame, he inspired long factums to the glory of the
Prime Minister of France.
In the pages inspired by him there are passages of peculiar inhumanity.
In one place, justifying the King for the treatment inflicted upon his
mother, he says that "the pain of the nine months that she carried him
would have been sold by her at too high a price, had the King, because
of it, been forced to let her set fire to his kingdom."[25]
Other passages are equally heartless: "Do they blame the Prime Minister
for his riches?--and if the King had seen fit to give him more? The
King is free to give or to take away. Can he not act his pleasure; who
has the right to say him nay?"
The _Recueil_ shows passages teeming with cynical and pampered pride.
In favour of himself Richelieu wrote:
The production of these great geniuses is not an ordinary
bissextile work. Sometimes the revolution of four of Nature's
centuries are required for the formation of a mind of such
phenomenal proportions, in which are united all the excellencies,
any one of which would be enough to set far above the ordinary
character of man the being endowed with them. I speak not only of
the virtues that are in some sort the essence of the profession
made by their united representative types,--Pity, Wisdom, Prudence,
Moderation, Eloquence, Erudition, and like attributes,--I speak of
other virtues, the characteristic qualities of another and separate
order, like those composing the perfections of a chief of war ...
etc.
Among the official documents in the volume just quoted are instruments
whose publication would have put any man but Gaston d'Orléans under
ground for the rest of his days, among other things, his treaty of
peace (1632), signed at Béziers (20th September) after the battle
of Castelnaudary, where the Duc de Montmorency had been beaten and
taken before his eyes. In that treaty Monsieur had pledged himself to
abandon his friends,--not to take any interest in those who had been
allied with him "on these occasions," and "not to pretend that he had
any cause for complaint when the King made them submit to what they
deserved." He promised "to love, especially, his cousin Richelieu." In
recompense for this promise and the other articles of the treaty the
King re-established his brother "in all his rights." As we know, the
treaty of Béziers ended nothing. Gaston saw all his partisans beheaded
as he recrossed the frontier. He did not enter France to remain there
until October, 1634. Then he went home "on the faith" _of the King's
declaration_, which closes the volume. By this declaration Monsieur was
again re-established in the enjoyment of all his rights, appanages,
pensions, and appointments. For him this was the important article. As
Richelieu took the trouble to have all his monuments of egotism and
barrenness of heart re-imprinted, it is probable that he did not intend
to let the country forget them. In that case he attained his ends.
The public had formed its opinion, and in consequence it took no
further interest in the royal family, always excepting Anne of Austria,
who had retired among the shadows.
Marie de Médicis was now free to cry aloud in her paroxysms of fury.
Gaston could henceforth pose as a martyr, and Louis XIII., withered
by melancholy, dried remnant of his former pompous dignity, might be
blown into a corner or be borne away by the wind like a dead leaf in
autumn, and not a soul in France would hail it by the quiver of an
eyelash. If Richelieu had hoped that profit would accrue to him from
the royal unpopularity he had counted without the great French host.
Despite the fact that his importance and the terror he inspired had
increased tenfold, he also had become tainted by the insignificance of
the royal family. But to all the people he seemed the ogre dreaded by
Mademoiselle in her infancy, though indisputedly an unnatural ogre,
possessing genius far beyond the reach of the normal man. He was
universally looked upon as a leader of priceless value to a country in
its hour of crisis, and as a companion everything but desirable. He
appalled the people. His first interviews with Gaston after the young
Prince's return to France were terrible. Monsieur was defenceless; the
Cardinal was pitiless.
"Mademoiselle had run ahead to meet her father. In her innocence she
had rejoiced to find him unchanged." Richelieu also believed that
Monsieur had not changed, and he was all the more anxious to get him
out to his (Richelieu's) château at Rueil. He pretended that there was
to be a fête at the château. Monsieur did not leave Rueil until he had
opened his heart to the Cardinal, just as he had done in regard to the
affair Chalais.
Turned, and re-turned, by his terrible cousin, the unhappy wretch
denounced mother and friends,--absent or present,--those who had
plotted to overthrow the prime ministry and those who had (according to
Gaston's story) tried to assassinate the Cardinal on such a day and
in such a place. "Not," said Richelieu in his _Mémoires_,--"not that
Monsieur recounted these things of his own accord. He did not do that;
but the Cardinal asked him if it was not true that such a person had
said such and such things, and he confessed, very ingenuously, that it
was."
Truly the fête at Rueil had sinister results for the friends of
Monsieur.
Monsieur retired to Blois, but he often returned to Paris, and
whenever he returned he fulfilled his fatherly duties in his own
fashion, romping and chattering with Mademoiselle. He amused himself
by listening to her songs against Richelieu, and for her pleasure he
organised a _corps-de-ballet_ of children. All the people of the Court
flocked to the palace to witness the ballet.
On the occasion of another ballet danced at the Louvre he displayed
himself to Mademoiselle in all his glory (18th February, 1635). The
King, the Queen, and the principal courtiers of their suite were among
the dancers.
This last solemnity left mingled memories, both good and bad, in
Mademoiselle's mind. One of her father's most faithful companions in
exile was to have danced in the ballet. During a rehearsal, Richelieu
had him arrested and conducted to the Wood of Vincennes, "where he died
very suddenly."[26] The rôle in which he should have acted was danced
by one of the other courtiers, and therefore Gaston did not appear to
be affected.
The _Gazette_ informed the public that the fête had "succeeded
admirably"; that every one had carried away from the place so teeming
with marvels the same idea that Jacob had entertained when, having
looked upon the angels all the night, he believed that the earth
touched the confines of heaven! But, at least, there was one person for
whom the sudden disappearance of Puylaurens had spoiled everything.
Mademoiselle had "liked him and wished him well." He had won her heart
by giving her bonbons, and she felt that the ugly history reflected
upon her father. "I leave it," she said, "to people better instructed
and more enlightened than I am to speak of what Monsieur did afterward
to Puylaurens' prison."
The following year she had to swallow an insult on her own account. The
lines which appeared in one of the gazettes of July, 1636, must have
seemed insupportable to a child full of unchecked pride.
"The 17th, Mademoiselle, aged nine years and three months, was baptised
in the Louvre, in the Queen's chamber, by the Bishop of Auxerre, First
Almoner to the King, having for godmother and godfather the Queen and
the Cardinal Duke (_Richelieu_), and was named Anne Marie."
Mention of this little event is made in Retz's _Mémoires_. "M. le
Cardinal was to hold at the font Mademoiselle, who, as you may judge,
had been baptised long before; but the ceremonies of the baptism had
been deferred."
This godfather, who was not a prince, was a humiliation to
Mademoiselle, and to crown her distress he thought that he ought to
make himself agreeable to his god-daughter.
By his intention to be amiable he "made her beside herself" because he
treated her--at nine years!--as if she had been a little girl. "Every
time that he saw me he told me that that spiritual alliance obliged
him to take care of me, and that he would arrange a marriage for me (a
discourse that he addressed to me, talking just as they do to children
to whom they incessantly repeat the same thing)."
A journey through France, which she made in 1637, "put balm on the
wounds of her pride." They chanted the _Te Deum_, the Army Corps
saluted her, a city was illuminated, and the nobility offered her
fêtes. She "swam in joy"; for thus she had always thought that the
appearance of a person of her quality should be hailed. She ended her
tour in Blois where Monsieur, the ever good father, desired that he,
in person, should be the one to initiate his child in the morality
of princes, which virtue in those aristocratic times had nothing in
common with the bourgeois's morality. For the moment he was possessed
of an insignificant mistress, a young girl of Tours called "Louison."
Monsieur took his daughter to Tours so that he might present his
mistress to her. Mademoiselle declared herself satisfied with her
father's choice. She thought that Louison had "a very agreeable face,
and a great deal of wit for a girl of that quality who had never been
to Court." But Mme. de Saint Georges saw the new relations with an
anxious eye; she submitted her scruples to Monsieur:
Madame de Saint Georges ... asked him if the girl was good,
because, otherwise, though she had been honoured by his good
graces, she should be glad if she would not come to my house.
Monsieur gave her every assurance and told her that he would not
have wished for the girl himself without that condition. In those
days I had such a horror of vice that I said to her: "Maman (I
called her thus), if Louison is not virtuous, even though my Papa
loves her I will not see her at all; or if he wishes me to see her
I will not receive her well." She answered that she was really
a very good girl, and I was very glad of it, for she pleased me
much--so I saw her often.
Mademoiselle did not suspect that there was anything comical in this
passage; had she done so she would not have written it, because she was
not one of those who admit that it is sometimes permissible to smile at
the great.
On her return from her journey she resumed her ordinary life.
I passed the winter in Paris as I had passed my other winters.
Twice a week I went to the assemblies given by Mme. the Countess
de Soissons at the Hôtel de Brissac. At these assemblies the usual
diversions were comedies [plays] and dancing. I was very fond of
dancing and, for love of me, they danced there very often....
There were also assemblies with comedies at the Queen's, at
Richelieu's, and at a number of personages', and Mademoiselle herself
received at the Tuileries.
The night of the 23d-24th January (1636) [reports the _Gazette_]
Mademoiselle in her lodgings at the Tuileries, gave a comedy and
a ball to the Queen, where the Good Grace of this princess in the
dawn of her life, gave proof of what her noontide is to be. The
24th February, Monsieur gave a comedy and a collation to His Royal
Highness of Parma at Mademoiselle his daughter's, in her apartments
at the Tuileries.
Mademoiselle passed the days and the nights in fêtes. Her studies did
not suffer by it because she never studied and never knew anything of
study outside of reading and writing, making a courtesy, and carefully
observing the rules of a minute etiquette.
It is probable that she owed the little that she knew to several months
of forced retreat in a convent, when she was nine years old. She made
herself so intolerable to every one,--it is she who tells it,--she was
so vexatious, with her "grimaces" and her "mockeries," that they put
her in a cloister to try to discipline her and to correct her faults;
the plan succeeded: "They saw me return ... wiser, and better than I
had been." Yes, more sober, better behaved, and a little less ignorant,
but not much less. The following letter, bearing the date of her
maturity, shows more clearly than all the descriptions in the world,
the degree of instructions which satisfied the seventeenth century's
ideas of the education of a princess. The letter is addressed to
Colbert ("a Choisy ce 5 Août 1665"):
Monsieur, le sieur Segrais qui est de la cademy et qui a bocoup
travalie pour la gloire du Roy et pour le public, aiant este oublie
lannee passée dans les gratifications que le Roy a faicts aux baus
essprit ma prie de vous faire souvenir de luy set un aussi homme de
mérite et qui est a moi il ya long tams jespere que cela ne nuira
pas a vous obliger a avoir de la consideration pour luy set se que
je vous demande et de une croire, monsieur Colbert, etc.
This orthography did not hinder Mademoiselle when, under the name
of "Princess Cassandane" she figured in the _Grand Dictionnaire des
Précieuses_; and according to the distinctions established between the
"true _précieuse_" and the "_Savante_" by Mademoiselle de Scudéry, she
had a right to figure there, as had many of her noble contemporaries,
who would have been the shame of the humblest of the schools.
The "true _précieuse_," she who left comets and the Greek language
to the "_Savantes_," applied herself to the task of penetrating the
mysteries of the heart. That was her science, and from certain points
of view it was worth as much as any other.
La Grande Mademoiselle devoted her talents and her life to the
perfection of her particular art. Keeping well within the limits
that she herself had set, she made a special study of the hearts of
princesses and of everything concerning them; and she professed that
she had established, definitely, the only proper methods by which
persons of her quality should, bound in duty to themselves, look upon
love, and upon glory.
The wells from which she drew her spiritual draughts were not
exclusively her own; she shared their benefits with all honest people,
of either sex, engaged in completing the sentimental education by the
essential principle of life.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: _Mémoires de Gaston._]
[Footnote 2: _Mémoires de Gaston._]
[Footnote 3: _Mémoires de Gaston._]
[Footnote 4: _Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier._]
[Footnote 5: Sauval (1620-1670), _Histoire et recherches sur les
antiquités de Paris_.]
[Footnote 6: The gate of the "Conférence" was built at the time the
great improvements were begun, in 1633. It was built after the grand
plans of Cardinal de Richelieu and according to his own instructions
(Gamboust).]
[Footnote 7: Piganiol de la Force (1673-1753), _Description of the City
of Paris_, etc.]
[Footnote 8: _Estat de la France_ (Collection Danjou).]
[Footnote 9: _Extraits des comptes et dépenses du roi pour l'année
1616_ (Collection Danjou).]
[Footnote 10: _Mémoires de Mathieu Molé._]
[Footnote 11: Letter written by Pontis.]
[Footnote 12: _Richelieu et la monarchie absolue._]
[Footnote 13: _Mémoires_ of Lenet.]
[Footnote 14: See his _Mémoires_.]
[Footnote 15: A few years before his death, which occurred in 1670.]
[Footnote 16: Beheaded in 1632, aged thirty-seven years.]
[Footnote 17: Tallemant.]
[Footnote 18: The first volume of _Le Grand Cyrus_ appeared in 1649;
the last in 1653.]
[Footnote 19: Mademoiselle de Scudéry uses the word _propre_, meaning
"elegant," etc.]
[Footnote 20: In _Clélie_.]
[Footnote 21: Tallemant.]
[Footnote 22: The first number bears date 1605.]
[Footnote 23: The first number appeared May 1, 1631.]
[Footnote 24: _Recueil_, etc. _Discours sur plusieurs points importants
de l'état present des affaires de France._]
[Footnote 25: _Recueil_, etc. _Avertissement aux provinces sur les
nouveaux mouvements du royaume_, by the Sieur de Cléonville (1631).]
[Footnote 26: _Mémoires_ of Mademoiselle.]