The Duc de Lauzun died on the 19th of November, at the age of ninety
years and six months. The intimate union of the two sisters I and he had
espoused, and our continual intercourse at the Court (at Marly, we had a
pavilion especially for us four), caused me to be constantly with him,
and after the King's death we saw each other nearly every day at Paris,
and unceasingly frequented each other's table. He was so extraordinary a
personage, in every way so singular, that La Bruyere, with much justice,
says of him in his "Characters," that others were not allowed to dream as
he had lived. For those who saw him in his old age, this description
seems even more just. That is what induces me to dwell upon him here.
He was of the House of Caumont, the branch of which represented by the
Ducs de la Force has always passed for the eldest, although that of
Lauzun has tried to dispute with it.
The mother of M. de Lauzun was daughter of the Duc de la Force, son of
the second Marechal Duc de la Force, and brother of the Marechale de
Turenne, but by another marriage; the Marechale was by a first marriage.
The father of M. de Lauzun was the Comte de Lauzun, cousin-german of the
first Marechal Duc de Grammont, and of the old Comte de Grammont.
M. de Lauzun was a little fair man, of good figure, with a noble and
expressively commanding face, but which was without charm, as I have
heard people say who knew him when he was young. He was full of
ambition, of caprice, of fancies; jealous of all; wishing always to go
too far; never content with anything; had no reading, a mind in no way
cultivated, and without charm; naturally sorrowful, fond of solitude,
uncivilised; very noble in his dealings, disagreeable and malicious by
nature, still more so by jealousy and by ambition; nevertheless, a good
friend when a friend at all, which was rare; a good relative; enemy even
of the indifferent; hard upon faults, and upon what was ridiculous,
which he soon discovered; extremely brave, and as dangerously bold.
As a courtier he was equally insolent and satirical, and as cringing as a
valet; full of foresight, perseverance, intrigue, and meanness, in order
to arrive at his ends; with this, dangerous to the ministers; at the
Court feared by all, and full of witty and sharp remarks which spared
nobody.
He came very young to the Court without any fortune, a cadet of Gascony,
under the name of the Marquis de Puyguilhem. The Marechal de Grammont,
cousin-german of his brother, lodged him: Grammont was then in high
consideration at the Court, enjoyed the confidence of the Queen-mother,
and of Cardinal Mazarin, and had the regiment of the guards and the
reversion of it for the Comte de Guiche, his eldest son, who, the prince
of brave fellows, was on his side in great favour with the ladies, and
far advanced in the good graces of the King and of the Comtesse de
Soissons, niece of the Cardinal, whom the King never quitted, and who was
the Queen of the Court. This Comte de Guiche introduced to the Comtesse
de Soissons the Marquis de Puyguilhem, who in a very little time became
the King's favourite. The King, in fact, gave him his regiment of
dragoons on forming it, and soon after made him Marechal de Camp, and
created for him the post of colonel-general of dragoons.
The Duc de Mazarin, who in 1669 had already retired from the Court,
wished to get rid of his post of grand master of the artillery;
Puyguilhem had scent of his intention, and asked the King for this
office. The King promised it to him, but on condition that he kept the
matter secret some days. The day arrived on which the King had agreed to
declare him. Puyguilhem, who had the entrees of the first gentleman of
the chamber (which are also named the grandes entrees), went to wait for
the King (who was holding a finance council), in a room that nobody
entered during the council, between that in which all the Court waited,
and that in which the council itself was held. He found there no one but
Nyert, chief valet de chambre, who asked him how he happened to come
there. Puyguilhem, sure of his affair, thought he should make a friend
of this valet by confiding to him what was about to take place. Nyert
expressed his joy; then drawing out his watch, said he should have time
to go and execute a pressing commission the King had given him. He
mounted four steps at a time the little staircase, at the head of which
was the bureau where Louvois worked all day--for at Saint-Germain the
lodgings were little and few--and the ministers and nearly all the Court
lodged each at his own house in the town. Nyert entered the bureau of
Louvois, and informed him that upon leaving the council (of which Louvois
was not a member), the King was going to declare Puyguilhem grand master
of the artillery, adding that he had just learned this news from
Puyguilhem himself, and saying where he had left him.
Louvois hated Puyguilhem, friend of Colbert, his rival, and he feared his
influence in a post which had so many intimate relations with his
department of the war, the functions and authority of which he invaded
as much as possible, a proceeding which he felt Puyguilhem was not the
kind of man to suffer. He embraces Nyert, thanking him, dismisses him as
quickly as possible, takes some papers to serve as an excuse, descends,
and finds Puyguilhem and Nyert in the chamber, as above described. Nyert
pretends to be surprised to see Louvois arrive, and says to him that the
council has not broken up.
"No matter," replied Louvois, "I must enter, I have something important
to say to the King;" and thereupon he enters. The King, surprised to see
him, asks what brings him there, rises, and goes to him. Louvois draws
him into the embrasure of a window, and says he knows that his Majesty is
going to declare Puyguilhem grand master of the artillery; that he is
waiting in the adjoining room for the breaking up of the council; that
his Majesty is fully master of his favours and of his choice, but that he
(Louvois) thinks it his duty to represent to him the incompatibility
between Puyguilhem and him, his caprices, his pride; that he will wish to
change everything in the artillery; that this post has such intimate
relations with the war department, that continual quarrels will arise
between the two, with which his Majesty will be importuned at every
moment.
The King is piqued to see his secret known by him from whom, above all,
he wished to hide it; he replies to Louvois, with a very serious air,
that the appointment is not yet made, dismisses him, and reseats himself
at the council. A moment after it breaks up. The King leaves to go to
mass, sees Puyguilhem, and passes without saying anything to him.
Puyguilhem, much astonished, waits all the rest of the day, and seeing
that the promised declaration does not come, speaks of it to the King at
night. The King replies to him that it cannot be yet, and that he will
see; the ambiguity of the response, and the cold tone, alarm Puyguilhem;
he is in favour with the ladies, and speaks the jargon of gallantry; he
goes to Madame de Montespan, to whom he states his disquietude, and
conjures her to put an end to it. She promises him wonders, and amuses
him thus several days.
Tired of this, and not being able to divine whence comes his failure, he
takes a resolution--incredible if it was not attested by all the Court of
that time. The King was in the habit of visiting Madame de Montespan in
the afternoon, and of remaining with her some time. Puyguilhem was on
terms of tender intimacy with one of the chambermaids of Madame de
Montespan. She privately introduced him into the room where the King
visited Madame de Montespan, and he secreted himself under the bed. In
this position he was able to hear all the conversation that took place
between the King and his mistress above, and he learned by it that it was
Louvois who had ousted him; that the King was very angry at the secret
having got wind, and had changed his resolution to avoid quarrels between
the artillery and the war department; and, finally, that Madame de
Montespan, who had promised him her good offices, was doing him all the
harm she could. A cough, the least movement, the slightest accident,
might have betrayed the foolhardy Puyguilhem, and then what would have
become of him? These are things the recital of which takes the breath
away, and terrifies at the same time.
Puyguilhem was more fortunate than prudent, and was not discovered. The
King and his mistress at last closed their conversation; the King dressed
himself again, and went to his own rooms. Madame de Montespan went away
to her toilette, in order to prepare for the rehearsal of a ballet to
which the King, the Queen, and all the Court were going. The chambermaid
drew Puyguilhem from under the bed, and he went and glued himself against
the door of Madame de Montespan's chamber.
When Madame de Montespan came forth, in order to go to the rehearsal of
the ballet, he presented his hand to her, and asked her, with an air of
gentleness and of respect, if he might flatter himself that she had
deigned to think of him when with the King. She assured him that she had
not failed, and enumerated services she had; she said, just rendered him.
Here and there he credulously interrupted her with questions, the better
to entrap her; then, drawing near her, he told her she was a liar, a
hussy, a harlot, and repeated to her, word for word, her conversation
with the King!
Madame de Montespan was so amazed that she had not strength enough to
reply one word; with difficulty she reached the place she was going to,
and with difficulty overcame and hid the trembling of her legs and of her
whole body; so that upon arriving at the room where the rehearsal was to
take place, she fainted. All the Court was already there. The King, in
great fright, came to her; it was not without much trouble she was
restored to herself. The same evening she related to the King what had
just happened, never doubting it was the devil who had so promptly and so
precisely informed Puyguilhem of all that she had said to the King. The
King was extremely irritated at the insult Madame de Montespan had
received, and was much troubled to divine how Puyguilhem had been so
exactly and so suddenly instructed.
Puyguilhem, on his side, was furious at losing the artillery, so that the
King and he were under strange constraint together. This could last only
a few days. Puyguilhem, with his grandes entrees, seized his opportunity
and had a private audience with the King. He spoke to him of the
artillery, and audaciously summoned him to keep his word. The King
replied that he was not bound by it, since he had given it under secrecy,
which he (Puyguilhem) had broken.
Upon this Puyguilhem retreats a few steps, turns his back upon the King,
draws his sword, breaks the blade of it with his foot, and cries out in
fury, that he will never in his life serve a prince who has so shamefully
broken his word. The King, transported with anger, performed in that
moment the finest action perhaps of his life. He instantly turned round,
opened the window, threw his cane outside, said he should be sorry to
strike a man of quality, and left the room.
The next morning, Puyguilhem, who had not dared to show himself since,
was arrested in his chamber, and conducted to the Bastille. He was an
intimate friend of Guitz, favourite of the King, for whom his Majesty had
created the post of grand master of the wardrobe. Guitz had the courage
to speak to the King in favour of Puyguilhem, and to try and reawaken the
infinite liking he had conceived for the young Gascon. He succeeded so
well in touching the King, by showing him that the refusal of such a
grand post as the artillery had turned Puyguilhem's head, that his
Majesty wished to make amends far this refusal. He offered the post of
captain of the King's guards to Puyguilhem, who, seeing this incredible
and prompt return of favour, re-assumed sufficient audacity to refuse it,
flattering himself he should thus gain a better appointment. The King
was not discouraged. Guitz went and preached to his friend in the
Bastille, and with great trouble made him agree to have the goodness to
accept the King's offer. As soon as he had accepted it he left the
Bastille, went and saluted the King, and took the oaths of his new post,
selling that which he occupied in the dragoons.
He had in 1665 the government of Berry, at the death of Marechal de
Clerembault. I will not speak here of his adventures with Mademoiselle,
which she herself so naively relates in her memoirs, or of his extreme
folly in delaying his marriage with her (to which the King had
consented), in order to have fine liveries, and get the marriage
celebrated at the King's mass, which gave time to Monsieur (incited by M.
le Prince) to make representations to the King, which induced him to
retract his consent, breaking off thus the marriage. Mademoiselle made a
terrible uproar, but Puyguilhem, who since the death of his father had
taken the name of Comte de Lauzun, made this great sacrifice with good
grace, and with more wisdom than belonged to him. He had the company of
the hundred gentlemen, with battle-axes, of the King's household, which
his father had had, and he had just been made lieutenant-general.
Lauzun was in love with Madame de Monaco, an intimate friend of Madame,
and in all her Intrigues: He was very jealous of her, and was not pleased
with her. One summer's afternoon he went to Saint-Cloud, and found
Madame and her Court seated upon the ground, enjoying the air, and Madame
de Monaco half lying down, one of her hands open and outstretched.
Lauzun played the gallant with the ladies, and turned round so neatly
that he placed his heel in the palm of Madame de Monaco, made a pirouette
there, and departed. Madame de Monaco had strength enough to utter no
cry, no word!
A short time after he did worse. He learnt that the King was on intimate
terms with Madame de Monaco, learnt also the hour at which Bontems, the
valet, conducted her, enveloped in a cloak, by a back staircase, upon the
landing-place of which was a door leading into the King's cabinet, and in
front of it a private cabinet. Lauzun anticipates the hour, and lies in
ambush in the private cabinet, fastening it from within with a hook, and
sees through the keyhole the King open the door of the cabinet, put the
key outside (in the lock) and close the door again. Lauzun waits a
little, comes out of his hiding-place, listens at the door in which the
King had just placed the key, locks it, and takes out the key, which he
throws into the private cabinet, in which he again shuts himself up.
Some time after Bontems and the lady arrive. Much astonished not to find
the key in the door of the King's cabinet, Bontems gently taps at the
door several times, but in vain; finally so loudly does he tap that the
King hears the sound. Bontems says he is there, and asks his Majesty to
open, because the key is not in the door. The King replies that he has
just put it there. Bontems looks on the ground for it, the King
meanwhile trying to open the door from the inside, and finding it double-
locked. Of course all three are much astonished and much annoyed; the
conversation is carried on through the door, and they cannot determine
how this accident has happened. The King exhausts himself in efforts to
force the door, in spite of its being double-locked. At last they are
obliged to say good-bye through the door, and Lauzun, who hears every
word they utter, and who sees them through the keyhole, laughs in his
sleeve at their mishap with infinite enjoyment.