Madame de Maintenon at Loggerheads with Madame de Thianges.--The Mint of
the D’Aubigne Family.--Creme de Negresse, the Elixir of Long
Life.--Ninon’s Secret for Beauty.--The King Would Remain Young or Become
So.--Good-will of Madame de Maintenon.
This letter was not, in my eyes, a masterpiece, but neither was it from a
vulgar hand. For a moment I suspected Madame de Maintenon. She was
named in it, it is true, as though by the way, but her interest in it was
easy to discover, since the writer dared to try to induce me to sell her,
to give up to her, my superintendence. I communicated my suspicions to
the Marquise de Thianges. She said to me: “We must see her,--her face
expresses her emotions very clearly; she is not good at lying; we shall
easily extract her secret, and make her blush for her stratagem.”
Ibrahim, faithful to his old friendship for me, had recently sent me
stuffs of Asia and essences of the seraglio, under the pretence of
politeness and as a remembrance. I wrote two lines to the Marquise,
engaging her to come and sacrifice half an hour to me to admire with me
these curiosities. Suspecting nothing, she came to my apartments, when
she accepted some perfumes, and found all these stuffs divine. My
sister, Madame de Thianges, said to her:
“Madame, I do not wish to be the last to congratulate you on that
boundless confidence and friendship that our Queen accords you.
Assuredly, no one deserves more than you this feeling of preference; it
appears that the princess is developing, and that, at last, she is taking
a liking for choice conversation and for wit.”
“Madame,” answered the lady in waiting, “her Majesty does not prefer me
to any one here. You are badly informed. She has the goodness to accord
to me a little confidence; and since she finds in me some facility in the
Spanish tongue, of which she wishes to remain the idolater all her life,
she loves to speak that tongue with me, catching me up when I go wrong
either in the pronunciation or the grammar, as she desires to be
corrected herself when she commits some offence against our French.”
“You were born,” added Madame de Thianges, “to work at the education of
kings. It is true that few governesses or tutors are as amiable. There
is a sound in your voice which goes straight to the heart; and what
others teach rudely or monotonously, you teach musically and almost
singing. Since the Queen loves your French and your Spanish, everything
has been said; you are indispensable to her. Things being so, I dare to
propose to you, Madame, a third occupation, which will suit you better
than anything else in the world, and which will complete the happiness of
her Majesty.
“Here is Madame de Montespan, who is growing disgusted with grandeur,
after having recognised its emptiness, who is enthusiastically desiring
to go and enjoy her House of Saint Joseph, and wishes to get rid of her
superintendence forthwith, at any cost.”
“What!” said Madame de Maintenon. Then to me, “You wish to sell your
office without having first assured yourself whether it be pleasing to
the King? It appears to me that you are not acting on this occasion with
the caution with which you are generally credited.”
“What need has she of so many preliminary cautions,” added the Marquise,
“if it is to you that she desires to sell it? Her choice guarantees the
consent of the princess; your name will make everything easy.”
“I reason quite otherwise, Madame la Marquise,” replied the former
governess of the princes; “the Queen may have her ideas. It is right and
fitting to find out first her intention and wishes.”
“Madame, madame,” said my sister then, “everything has been sufficiently
considered, and even approved of. You will be the purchaser; you desire
to buy, it is to you that one desires to sell.”
Madame de Maintenon began to laugh, and besought the Marquise to believe
that she had neither the desire nor the money for that object.
“Money,” answered my sister, “will cause you no trouble on this occasion.
Money has been coined in pour family.”
[Constant d’Aubigne, father of Madame de Maintenon, in his wild youth,
was said to have taken refuge in a den of comers.--Ed. Note]
Madame de Maintenon, profoundly moved, said to the Marquise:
“I thought, madame, that I had come to see Madame de Montespan, to look
at her stuffs from the seraglio, and not to receive insults. All your
teasing affects me, because up to to-day I believed in your kindly
feeling. It has been made clear to me now that I must put up with this
loss; but, whatever be your injustice towards me, I will not depart from
my customs or from my element. The superintendence of the Queen’s
Council is for sale, or it is not; either way, it is all the same to me.
I have never made any claim to this office, and I never shall.”
These words, of which I perceived the sincerity, touched me. I made some
trifling excuses to the lady in waiting, and, tired of all these
insignificant mysteries, I went and took the anonymous letter from my
bureau and showed it to the governess.
She read it thoughtfully. After having read it, she assured me that this
script was a riddle to her.
Madame de Maintenon, on leaving us, made quite a deep courtesy to my
sister, which caused me pain, preserving an icy gravity and exaggerating
her salutation and her courtesy.
When we were alone, I confessed to the Marquise de Thianges that her
words had passed all bounds, and that she could have reached her end by
other means.
“I cannot endure that woman,” she answered. “She knows that you have
made her, that without you she would be languishing still in her little
apartment in the Maree; and when for more than a year she sees you
neglected by the King and almost deserted, she abandons you to your
destiny, and does not condescend to offer you any consolation. I have
mortified her; I do not repent of it in the least, and every time that I
come across her I shall permit myself that gratification.
“What is she thinking of at her age; with her pretensions to a fine
figure, an ethereal carriage, and beauty? And yet it must be admitted
that her complexion is not made up. She has the sheen of the lily
mingled with that of the rose, and her eyes exhibit a smiling vivacity
which leaves our great coquettes of the day far behind!”
“She is nature unadorned as far as her complexion goes, believe me,” said
I to my sister. “During my constant journeys she has always slept at my
side, and her face at waking has always been as at noon and all day long.
She related to us once at the Marechale d’Albret’s, where I knew her,
that at Martinique--that distant country which was her cradle--an ancient
negress, well preserved and robust, had been kind enough to take her into
her dwelling. This woman led her one day into the woods. She stripped
of its bark some shrub, after having sought it a long time. She grated
this bark and mixed it with the juice of chosen herbs. She wrapped up
all this concoction in half a banana skin, and gave the specific to the
little D’Aubigne.
“This mess having no nasty taste, the little girl consented to return
fifteen or twenty times into the grove, where her negress carefully
composed and served up to her the same feast.
“‘Why do you care to give me this green paste?’ the young creole asked
her one day.
“The old woman said: ‘My dear child, I cannot wait till you have enough
sense to learn to understand these plants, for I love you as if you were
my own daughter, and I want to leave you a secret which will cause you to
live a long time. Though I look as I do, I am 138 years old already. I
am the oldest person in the colony, and this paste that I make for you
has preserved my strength and my freshness. It will produce the same
effect on my dear little girl, and will keep her young and pretty too for
a long time.’
“This negress, unhappily, fell asleep one day under a wild pear-tree in
the Savannah, and a crocodile came out of the river hard by and devoured
her.”
“I have heard tell,” replied my sister, “that Mademoiselle d’Aubigne,
after the death of her mother, or husband, was bound by the ties of a
close friendship with Ninon de l’Enclos, whose beauty made such a
sensation among the gallants, and still occupies them.
“One was assured, you know, that Ninon possesses a potion, and that in
her generosity to her friend, the fair Indian, she lent her her phial of
elixir.”
“No, no,” said I to the Marquise, “that piece of gallantry of Ninon is
only a myth; it is the composition of Martinique, or of the negress,
which is the real recipe of Madame de Maintenon. She talked of it one
day, when I was present, in the King’s carriage. His Majesty said to
her: ‘I am astonished that, with your natural intelligence, you have not
kept in your mind the nature of this Indian shrub and herbs; with such a
secret you would be able to-day to make many happy, and there are some
kings, who, to grow young again, would give you half their empire.’
“‘I am not a worshipper of riches,’ said this mistress of talk; ‘bad
kings might offer me all the treasures and crowns they liked, and I would
not make them young again.’
“‘And me, madame,’ said the prince, ‘would you consent to make me young
again?’
“‘You will not need it for a long time,’ she replied, cleverly, with a
smile; ‘but when the moment comes, or is near, I should set about it with
zeal.’
“The whole carriage applauded this reply, and the King took the hand of
the Marquise and insisted on kissing it.”