DE BOURBON.
I knew a German gentleman who has now been dead a long time (1718), who
has sworn to me positively that the Duchess is not the daughter of the
King, but of Marechal de Noailles. He noted the time at which he saw the
Marshal go into Montespan’s apartment, and it was precisely nine months
from that time that the Duchess came into the world. This German, whose
name was Bettendorf, was a brigadier in the Body Guard; and he was on
guard at Montespan’s when the captain of the first company paid this
visit to the King’s mistress.
The Duchess is not prettier than her daughters, but she has more grace;
her manners are more fascinating and agreeable; her wit shines in her
eyes, but there is some malignity in them also. I always say she is like
a very pretty cat, which, while you play with it, lets you feel it has
claws. No person has a better carriage of the head. It is impossible to
dance better than the Duchess and her daughters can; but the mother
dances the best. I do not know how it is, but even her lameness is
becoming to her. The Duchess has the talent of saying things in so
pleasant a manner that one cannot help laughing. She is very amusing and
uncommonly good company; her notions are so very comical. When she
wishes to make herself agreeable to any one she is very insinuating, and
can take all shapes; if she were not also treacherous, one might say
truly that nobody is more amiable than the Duchess; she understands so
well how to accommodate herself to people’s peculiar habits that one
would believe she takes a real interest in them; but there is nothing
certain about her. Although her sense is good, her heart is not.
Notwithstanding her ambition, she seems at first as if she thought only
of amusing and diverting herself and others; and she can feign so
skilfully that one would think she had been very agreeably entertained in
the society of persons, whom immediately upon her return home she will
ridicule in all possible ways.
La Mailly complained to her aunt, old Maintenon, that her husband was in
love with the Duchess; but this husband, having afterwards been
captivated by an actress named Bancour, gave up to her all the Duchess’s
letters, for which he was an impertinent rascal. The Duchess wrote a
song upon Mailly, in which she reproached her, notwithstanding her airs
of prudery, with an infidelity with Villeroi, a sergeant of the Guard.
In the Duchess’s house malice passes for wit, and therefore they are
under no restraint. The three sisters--the Duchess, the Princesse de
Conti, and Madame d’Orleans--behave to each other as if they were not
sisters.
The Princess is a very virtuous person, and is much displeased at her
daughter-in-law’s manner of life, for Lasso is with her by day and by
night; at the play, at the Opera, in visits, everywhere Lasso is seen
with her.