My son loves his eldest daughter better than all the rest of his
children, because he has had the care of her since she was seven years
old. She was at that time seized with an illness which the physicians
did not know how to cure. My son resolved to treat her in his own way.
He succeeded in restoring her to health, and from that moment his love
seemed to increase with her years. She was very badly educated, having
been always left with femmes de chambre. She is not very capricious, but
she is haughty and absolute in all her wishes.
[Her pride led her into all sorts of follies. She once went through
Paris preceded by trumpets and drama; and on another occasion she
appeared at the theatre under a canopy. She received the Venetian
Ambassador sitting in a chair elevated upon a sort of a platform.
This haughtiness, however, did not prevent her from keeping very bad
company, and she would sometimes lay aside her singularities and
break up her orgies to pass some holy days at the Carmelites.]
From the age of eight years she has had entirely her own way, so that it
is not surprising she should be like a headstrong horse. If she had been
well brought up, she would have been a worthy character, for she has very
good sense and a good natural disposition, and is not at all like her
mother, to whom, although she was very severely treated, she always did
her duty. During her mother’s last illness, she watched her like a hired
nurse. If Madame de Berri had been surrounded by honest people, who
thought more of her honour than of their own interest, she would have
been a very admirable person. She had excellent feelings; but as that
old woman (Maintenon) once said, “bad company spoils good manners.” To
be pleasing she had only to speak, for she possessed natural eloquence,
and could express herself very well.
Her complexion is very florid, for which she often lets blood, but
without effect; she uses a great quantity of paint, I believe for the
purpose of hiding the marks of the small-pox. She cannot dance, and
hates it; but she is well-grounded in music. Her voice is neither strong
nor agreeable, and yet she sings very correctly. She takes as much
diversion as possible; one day she hunts, another day she goes out in a
carriage, on a third she will go to a fair; at other times she frequents
the rope-dancers, the plays, and the operas, and she goes everywhere
‘en echarpe’, and without stays. I often rally her, and say that she
fancies she is fond of the chase, but in fact she only likes changing her
place. She cares little about the result of the chase, but she likes
boar-hunting better than stag-hunting, because the former furnishes her
table with black puddings and boars’ heads.
I do not reckon the Duchesse de Berri among my grandchildren. She is
separated from me, we live like strangers to each other, she does not
disturb herself about me, nor I about her. (7th January, 1716.)
Madame de Maintenon was so dreadfully afraid lest the King should take a
fancy to the Duchesse de Berri while the Dauphine was expected, that she
did her all sorts of ill offices. After the Dauphine’s death she
repaired the wrong; but then, to tell the truth, the King’s inclination
was not so strong.
If the Duchesse de Berri was not my daughter-in-law, I should have no
reason to be dissatisfied with her; she behaves politely to me, which is
all that I can say. (25th Sept., 1716.)
She often laughs at her own figure and shape. She has certainly good
sense, and is not very punctilious. Her flesh is firm and healthy, her
cheeks are as hard as stone. I should be ungrateful not to love her, for
she does all sorts of civil things towards me, and displays so great a
regard for me that I am often quite amazed at it. (12th April, 1718.)
She is magnificent in her expenditure; to be sure she can afford to be
so, for her income amounts to 600,000 livres. Amboise was her jointure,
but she preferred Meudon.
She fell sick on the 28th March, 1719. I went to see her last Sunday,
the 23rd May, and found her in a sad state, suffering from pains in her
toes and the soles of her feet until the tears came into her eyes. I
went away because I saw that she refrained from crying out on my account.
I thought she was in a bad way. A consultation was held by her three
physicians, the result of which was that they determined to bleed her in
the feet. They had some difficulty in persuading her to submit to it,
because the pain in her feet was so great that she uttered the most
piercing screams if the bedclothes only rubbed against them. The
bleeding, however, succeeded, and she was in some degree relieved. It
was the gout in both feet.
The feet are now covered with swellings filled with water, which cause
her as much pain as if they were ulcers; she suffers day and night.
Whatever they may say, there has been no other swelling of the feet since
those blisters appeared. (13th June.)
The swelling has now entirely disappeared, but the pain is greater than
before. All the toes are covered with transparent blisters; she cries
out so that she may be heard three rooms off. The doctors now confess
they do not know what the disorder is. (20th June.) The King’s surgeon
says it is rheumatic gout. (11th July.) I believe that frequent and
excessive bathing and gluttony have undermined her health. She has two
fits of fever daily, and the disease does not abate. She is not
impatient nor peevish; the emetic given to her the day before yesterday
causes her much pain; it seems that from time to time rheumatic pains
have affected her shoulders without her taking much notice of them. From
being very fat, as she was, she has become thin and meagre. Yesterday
she confessed, and received the communion. (18th July.) She was bled
thrice before she took the emetic. (Tuesday, 18th July.) She received
the last Sacrament with a firmness which deeply affected her attendants.
Between two and three o’clock this night (19th July) she died. Her end
was a very easy one; they say she died as if she had gone to sleep. My
son remained with her until she lost all consciousness, which was about
an hour before her death. She was his favourite daughter. The poor
Duchesse de Berri was as much the cause of her own death as if she had
blown her brains out, for she secretly ate melons, figs and milk; she
herself confessed, and her doctor told me, that she had closed her room
to him and to the other medical attendants for a fortnight that she might
indulge in this way. Immediately after the storm she began to die.
Yesterday evening she said to me: “Oh, Madame! that clap of thunder has
done me great harm;” and it was evident that it had made her worse.
My son has not been able to sleep. The poor Duchesse de Berri could not
have been saved; her brain was filled with water; she had an ulcer in the
stomach and another in the groin; her liver was affected, and her spleen
full of disease. She was taken by night to St. Denis, whither all her
household accompanied her corse. They were so much embarrassed about her
funeral oration that it was resolved ultimately not to pronounce one.
With all her wealth she has left my son 400,000 livres of debt to pay.
This poor Princess was horribly robbed and pillaged. You may imagine
what a race these favourites are; Mouchi, who enjoyed the greatest
favour, did not grieve for her mistress a single moment; she was playing
the flute at her window on the very day that the Princess was borne to
St. Denis, and went to a large dinner party in Paris, where she ate and
drank as if nothing had happened, at the same time talking in so
impertinent a manner as disgusted all the guests. My son desired her and
her husband to quit Paris.
My son’s affliction is so much the greater since he perceives that,
if he had been less complying with his beloved daughter, and if he had
exercised somewhat more of a parent’s authority, she would have been
alive and well at this time.
That Mouchi and her lover Riom have been playing fine tricks; they had
duplicate keys, and left the poor Duchess without a sou. I cannot
conceive what there is to love in this Riom; he has neither face nor
figure; he looks, with his green-and-yellow complexion, like a water
fiend; his mouth, nose and eyes are like those of a Chinese. He is more
like a baboon than a Gascon, which he is. He is a very dull person,
without the least pretensions to wit; he has a large head, which is sunk
between a pair of very broad shoulders, and his appearance is that of a
low-minded person; in short, he is a very ugly rogue.
And yet the toad does not come of bad blood; he is related to some of
the best families. The Duc de Lauzun is his uncle, and Biron his nephew.
He is, nevertheless, unworthy of the honour which was conferred on him;
for he was only a captain in the King’s Guard. The women all ran after
him; but, for my part, I find him extremely disagreeable; he has an
unhealthy air and looks like one of the Indian figures upon a screen.
He was not here when Madame de Berri died, but was with the army, in the
regiment which had been bought for him. When the news of the Duchess’s
death reached him the Prince de Conti went to seek Riom, and sang a
ridiculous song, my son was a little vexed at this, but he did not take
any notice of it.
There can be no doubt that the Duchess was secretly married to Riom; this
has consoled me in some degree for her loss. I had heard it said before,
and I made a representation upon the subject to my granddaughter.
She laughed, and replied: “Ah, Madame, I thought I had the honour of
being so well known to you that you could not believe me guilty of so
great a folly; I who am so much blamed for my pride.”
This answer lulled my suspicions, and I no longer believed the story.
The father and mother would never have consented to this marriage; and
even if they had sanctioned such an impertinence I never would!
[The Duchess, with her usual violence, teased her father to have her
marriage made public; this was also Riom’s most ardent desire, who
had married her solely from ambitious motives. The Regent had
despatched Riom to the army for the purpose of gaining time. One
daughter was the result of the connection between Riom and the
Duchesse de Berri, who was afterwards sent into a convent at
Pontoisse.]
The toad had made the Princess believe that he was a Prince of the House
of Aragon, and that the King of Spain unjustly withheld from him his
kingdom; but that if she would marry him he could sue for his claim
through the treaties of peace. Mouchi used to talk about this to the
Duchess from morning to night; and it was for this reason that she was so
greatly in favour.
That Mouchi is the granddaughter of Monsieur’s late surgeon. Her mother,
La Forcade, had been appointed by my son the gouvernante of his daughter
and son, and thus the young Forcade was brought up with the Duchesse de
Berri, who married her to Monsieur Mouchi, Master of the Wardrobe to the
Duke, and gave her a large marriage-portion. While the King lived the
Princess could not visit her much; and it was not until after his death
that she became the favourite, and was appointed by the Duchess second
dame d’atour.