I have elsewhere related Lauzun's humours, his notable wanton tricks, and
his rare singularity.
He enjoyed, during the rest of his long life, intimacy with the King,
distinction at the Court, great consideration, extreme abundance, kept up
the state of a great nobleman, with one of the most magnificent houses of
the Court, and the best table, morning and evening, most honourably
frequented, and at Paris the same, after the King's death: All this did
not content him. He could only approach the King with outside
familiarity; he felt that the mind and the heart of that monarch were on
their guard against him, and in an estrangement that not all his art nor
all his application could ever overcome. This is what made him marry my
sister-in-law, hoping thus to re-establish himself in serious intercourse
with the King by means of the army that M. le Marechal de Lorge commanded
in Germany; but his project failed, as has been seen. This is what made
him bring about the marriage of the Duc de Lorge with the daughter of
Chamillart, in order to reinstate himself by means of that ministry;
but without success. This is what made him undertake the journey to Aix-
la-Chapelle, under the pretext of the waters, to obtain information which
might lead to private interviews with the King, respecting the peace;
but he was again unsuccessful. All his projects failed; in fact, he
unceasingly sorrowed, and believed himself in profound disgrace--even
saying so. He left nothing undone in order to pay his court, at bottom
with meanness, but externally with dignity; and he every year celebrated
a sort of anniversary of his disgrace, by extraordinary acts, of which
ill-humour and solitude were oftentimes absurdly the fruit. He himself
spoke of it, and used to say that he was not rational at the annual
return of this epoch, which was stronger than he. He thought he pleased
the King by this refinement of attention, without perceiving he was
laughed at.
By nature he was extraordinary in everything, and took pleasure in
affecting to be more so, even at home, and among his valets. He
counterfeited the deaf and the blind, the better to see and hear without
exciting suspicion, and diverted himself by laughing at fools, even the
most elevated, by holding with them a language which had no sense. His
manners were measured, reserved, gentle, even respectful; and from his
low and honeyed tongue, came piercing remarks, overwhelming by their
justice, their force, or their satire, composed of two or three words,
perhaps, and sometimes uttered with an air of naivete or of distraction,
as though he was not thinking of what he said. Thus he was feared,
without exception, by everybody, and with many acquaintances he had few
or no friends, although he merited them by his ardor in seeing everybody
as much as he could, and by his readiness in opening his purse. He liked
to gather together foreigners of any distinction, and perfectly did the
honours of the Court. But devouring ambition poisoned his life; yet he
was a very good and useful relative.
During the summer which followed the death of Louis XIV. there was a
review of the King's household troops, led by M. le Duc d'Orleans, in the
plain by the side of the Bois de Boulogne. Passy, where M. de Lauzun had
a pretty house, is on the other side. Madame de Lauzun was there with
company, and I slept there the evening before the review. Madame de
Poitiers, a young widow, and one of our relatives, was there too, and was
dying to see the review, like a young person who has seen nothing, but
who dares not show herself in public in the first months of her mourning.
How she could be taken was discussed in the company, and it was decided
that Madame de Lauzun could conduct her a little way, buried in her
carriage. In the midst of the gaiety of this party, M. de Lauzun arrived
from Paris, where he had gone in the morning. He was told what had just
been decided. As soon as he learnt it he flew into a fury, was no longer
master of himself, broke off the engagement, almost foaming at the mouth;
said the most disagreeable things to his wife in the strongest, the
harshest, the most insulting, and the most foolish terms. She gently
wept; Madame de Poitiers sobbed outright, and all the company felt the
utmost embarrassment. The evening appeared an age, and the saddest
refectory repast a gay meal by the side of our supper. He was wild in
the midst of the profoundest silence; scarcely a word was said. He
quitted the table, as usual, at the fruit, and went to bed. An attempt
was made to say something afterwards by way of relief, but Madame de
Lauzun politely and wisely stopped the conversation, and brought out
cards in order to turn the subject.
The next morning I went to M. de Lauzun, in order to tell him in plain
language my opinion of the scene of the previous evening. I had not the
time. As soon as he saw me enter he extended his arms, and cried that I
saw a madman, who did not deserve my visit, but an asylum; passed the
strongest eulogies upon his wife (which assuredly she merited), said he
was not worthy of her, and that he ought to kiss the ground upon which
she walked; overwhelmed himself with blame; then, with tears in his eyes,
said he was more worthy of pity than of anger; that he must admit to me
all his shame and misery; that he was more than eighty years of age; that
he had neither children nor survivors; that he had been captain of the
guards; that though he might be so again, he should be incapable of the
function; that he unceasingly said this to himself, and that yet with all
this he could not console himself for having been so no longer during the
many years since he had lost his post; that he had never been able to
draw the dagger from his heart; that everything which recalled the memory
of the past made him beside himself, and that to hear that his wife was
going to take Madame de Poitiers to see a review of the body-guards, in
which he now counted for nothing, had turned his head, and had rendered
him wild to the extent I had seen; that he no longer dared show himself
before any one after this evidence of madness; that he was going to lock
himself up in his chamber, and that he threw himself at my feet in order
to conjure me to go and find his wife, and try to induce her to take pity
on and pardon a senseless old man, who was dying with grief and shame.
This admission, so sincere and so dolorous to make, penetrated me. I
sought only to console him and compose him. The reconciliation was not
difficult; we drew him from his chamber, not without trouble, and he
evinced during several days as much disinclination to show himself, as I
was told, for I went away in the evening, my occupations keeping me very
busy.
I have often reflected, apropos of this, upon the extreme misfortune of
allowing ourselves to be carried away by the intoxication of the world,
and into the formidable state of an ambitious man, whom neither riches
nor comfort, neither dignity acquired nor age, can satisfy, and who,
instead of tranquilly enjoying what he possesses, and appreciating the
happiness of it, exhausts himself in regrets, and in useless and
continual bitterness. But we die as we have lived, and 'tis rare it
happens otherwise. This madness respecting the captaincy of the guards
so cruelly dominated M. de Lauzun, that he often dressed himself in a
blue coat, with silver lace, which, without being exactly the uniform of
the captain of, the body-guards, resembled it closely, and would have
rendered him ridiculous if he had not accustomed people to it, made
himself feared, and risen above all ridicule.
With all his scheming and cringing he fell foul of everybody, always
saying some biting remark with dove-like gentleness. Ministers,
generals, fortunate people and their families, were the most ill-treated.
He had, as it were, usurped the right of saying and doing what he
pleased; nobody daring to be angry with him. The Grammonts alone were
excepted. He always remembered the hospitality and the protection he had
received from them at the outset of his life. He liked them; he
interested himself in them; he was in respect before them. Old Comte
Grammont took advantage of this and revenged the Court by the sallies he
constantly made against Lauzun, who never returned them or grew angry,
but gently avoided him. He always did a good deal for the children of
his sisters.
During the plague the Bishop of Marseilles had much signalised himself by
wealth spent and danger incurred. When the plague had completely passed
away, M. de Lauzun asked M. le Duc d'Orleans for an abbey for the Bishop.
The Regent gave away some livings soon after, and forgot M. de
Marseilles. Lauzun pretended to be ignorant of it, and asked M. le Duc
d'Orleans if he had had the goodness to remember him. The Regent was
embarrassed. The Duc de Lauzun, as though to relieve him from his
embarrassment, said, in a gentle and respectful tone, "Monsieur, he will
do better another time," and with this sarcasm rendered the Regent dumb,
and went away smiling. The story got abroad, and M. le Duc d'Orleans
repaired his forgetfulness by the bishopric of Laon, and upon the refusal
of M. de Marseilles to change, gave him a fat abbey.
M. de Lauzun hindered also a promotion of Marshal of France by the
ridicule he cast upon the candidates. He said to the Regent, with that
gentle and respectful tone he knew so well how to assume, that in case
any useless Marshals of France (as he said) were made, he begged his
Royal Highness to remember that he was the oldest lieutenant-general of
the realm, and that he had had the honour of commanding armies with the
patent of general. I have elsewhere related other of his witty remarks.
He could not keep them in; envy and jealousy urged him to utter them, and
as his bon-mots always went straight to the point, they were always much
repeated.
We were on terms of continual intimacy; he had rendered me real solid
friendly services of himself, and I paid him all sorts of respectful
attentions, and he paid me the same. Nevertheless, I did not always
escape his tongue; and on one occasion, he was perhaps within an inch of
doing me much injury by it.
The King (Louis XIV.) was declining; Lauzun felt it, and began to think
of the future. Few people were in favour with M. le Duc d'Orleans;
nevertheless, it was seen that his grandeur was approaching. All eyes
were upon him, shining with malignity, consequently upon me, who for a
long time had been the sole courtier who remained publicly attached to
him, the sole in his confidence. M. de Lauzun came to dine at my house,
and found us at table. The company he saw apparently displeased him; for
he went away to Torcy, with whom I had no intimacy, and who was also at
table, with many people opposed to M. le Duc d'Orleans, Tallard, among
others, and Tesse.
"Monsieur," said Lauzun to Torcy, with a gentle and timid air, familiar
to him, "take pity upon me, I have just tried to dine with M. de Saint-
Simon. I found him at table, with company; I took care not to sit down
with them, as I did not wish to be the 'zeste' of the cabal. I have come
here to find one."
They all burst out laughing. The remark instantly ran over all
Versailles. Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine at once heard it, and
nevertheless no sign was anywhere made. To have been angry would only
have been to spread it wider: I took the matter as the scratch of an ill-
natured cat, and did not allow Lauzun to perceive that I knew it.
Two or three years before his death he had an illness which reduced him
to extremity. We were all very assiduous, but he would see none of us,
except Madame de Saint-Simon, and her but once. Languet, cure of Saint-
Sulpice, often went to him, and discoursed most admirably to him. One
day, when he was there, the Duc de la Force glided into the chamber:
M. de Lauzun did not like him at all, and often laughed at him. He
received him tolerably well, and continued to talk aloud with the cure.
Suddenly he turned to the cure, complimented and thanked him, said he had
nothing more valuable to give him than his blessing, drew his arm from
the bed, pronounced the blessing, and gave it to him. Then turning to
the Duc de la Force, Lauzun said he had always loved and respected him as
the head of his house, and that as such he asked him for his blessing.
These two men, the cure and the Duc de la Force, were astonished, could
not utter a word. The sick man redoubled his instances. M. de la Force,
recovering himself, found the thing so amusing, that he gave his
blessing; and in fear lest he should explode, left the room, and came to
us in the adjoining chamber, bursting with laughter, and scarcely able to
relate what had happened to him.
A moment after, the cure came also, all abroad, but smiling as much as
possible, so as to put a good face on the matter. Lauzun knew that he
was ardent and skilful in drawing money from people for the building of a
church, and had often said he would never fall into his net; he suspected
that the worthy cure's assiduities had an interested motive, and laughed
at him in giving him only his blessing (which he ought to have received
from him), and in perseveringly asking the Duc de la Force for his. The
cure, who saw the point of the joke, was much mortified, but, like a
sensible man, he was not less frequent in his visits to M. de Lauzun
after this; but the patient cut short his visits, and would not
understand the language he spoke.
Another day, while he was still very ill, Biron and his wife made bold to
enter his room on tiptoe, and kept behind his curtains, out of sight, as
they thought; but he perceived them by means of the glass on the chimney-
piece. Lauzun liked Biron tolerably well, but Madame Biron not at all;
she was, nevertheless, his niece, and his principal heiress; he thought
her mercenary, and all her manners insupportable to him. In that he was
like the rest of the world. He was shocked by this unscrupulous entrance
into his chamber, and felt that, impatient for her inheritance, she came
in order to make sure of it, if he should die directly. He wished to
make her repent of this, and to divert himself at her expense. He
begins, therefore; to utter aloud, as though believing himself alone, an
ejaculatory orison, asking pardon of God for his past life, expressing
himself as though persuaded his death was nigh, and saying that, grieved
at his inability to do penance, he wishes at least to make use of all the
wealth he possesses, in order to redeem his sins, and bequeath that
wealth to the hospitals without any reserve; says it is the sole road to
salvation left to him by God, after having passed a long life without
thinking of the future; and thanks God for this sole resource left him,
which he adopts with all his heart!
He accompanied this resolution with a tone so touched, so persuaded, so
determined, that Biron and his wife did not doubt for a moment he was
going to execute his design, or that they should be deprived of all the
succession. They had no desire to spy any more, and went, confounded, to
the Duchesse de Lauzun, to relate to her the cruel decree they had just
heard pronounced, conjuring her to try and moderate it. Thereupon the
patient sent for the notaries, and Madame Biron believed herself lost.
It was exactly the design of the testator to produce this idea. He made
the notaries wait; then allowed them to enter, and dictated his will,
which was a death-blow to Madame de Biron. Nevertheless, he delayed
signing it, and finding himself better and better, did not sign it at
all. He was much diverted with this farce, and could not restrain his
laughter at it, when reestablished. Despite his age, and the gravity of
his illness, he was promptly cured and restored to his usual health.
He was internally as strong as a lion, though externally very delicate.
He dined and supped very heartily every day of an excellent and very
delicate cheer, always with good company, evening and morning; eating of
everything, 'gras' and 'maigre', with no choice except that of his taste
and no moderation. He took chocolate in the morning, and had always on
the table the fruits in season, and biscuits; at other times beer, cider,
lemonade, and other similar drinks iced; and as he passed to and fro, ate
and drank at this table every afternoon, exhorting others to do the same.
In this way he left table or the fruit, and immediately went to bed.
I recollect that once, among others, he ate at my house, after his
illness, so much fish, vegetables, and all sorts of things (I having no
power to hinder him), that in the evening we quietly sent to learn
whether he had not felt the effects of them. He was found at table
eating with good appetite.
His gallantry was long faithful to him. Mademoiselle was jealous of it,
and that often controlled him. I have heard Madame de Fontenelles ( a
very enviable woman, of much intelligence, very truthful, and of singular
virtue), I have heard her say, that being at Eu with Mademoiselle,
M. de Lauzun came there and could not desist from running after the
girls; Mademoiselle knew it, was angry, scratched him, and drove him from
her presence. The Comtesse de Fiesque reconciled them. Mademoiselle
appeared at the end of a long gallery; Lauzun was at the other end, and
he traversed the whole length of it on his knees until he reached the
feet of Mademoiselle. These scenes, more or less moving, often took
place afterwards. Lauzun allowed himself to be beaten, and in his turn
soundly beat Mademoiselle; and this happened several times, until at
last, tired of each other, they quarrelled once for all and never saw
each other again; he kept several portraits of her, however, in his house
or upon him, and never spoke of her without much respect. Nobody doubted
they had been secretly married. At her death he assumed a livery almost
black, with silver lace; this he changed into white with a little blue
upon gold, when silver was prohibited upon liveries.
His temper, naturally scornful and capricious, rendered more so by prison
and solitude, had made him a recluse and dreamer; so that having in his
house the best of company, he left them to Madame de Lauzun, and withdrew
alone all the afternoon, several hours running, almost always without
books, for he read only a few works of fancy--a very few--and without
sequence; so that he knew nothing except what he had seen, and until the
last was exclusively occupied with the Court and the news of the great
world. I have a thousand times regretted his radical incapacity to write
down what he had seen and done. It would have been a treasure of the
most curious anecdotes, but he had no perseverance, no application. I
have often tried to draw from him some morsels. Another misfortune. He
began to relate; in the recital names occurred of people who had taken
part in what he wished to relate. He instantly quitted the principal
object of the story in order to hang on to one of these persons, and
immediately after to some other person connected with the first, then to
a third, in the manner of the romances; he threaded through a dozen
histories at once, which made him lose ground and drove him from one to
the other without ever finishing anything; and with this his words were
very confused, so that it was impossible to learn anything from him or
retain anything he said. For the rest, his conversation was always
constrained by caprice or policy; and was amusing only by starts, and by
the malicious witticisms which sprung out of it. A few months after his
last illness, that is to say, when he was more than ninety years of age,
he broke in his horses and made a hundred passades at the Bois de
Boulogne (before the King, who was going to the Muette), upon a colt he
had just trained, surprising the spectators by his address, his firmness,
and his grace. These details about him might go on for ever.
His last illness came on without warning, almost in a moment, with the
most horrible of all ills, a cancer in the mouth. He endured it to the
last with incredible patience and firmness, without complaint, without
spleen, without the slightest repining; he was insupportable to himself.
When he saw his illness somewhat advanced, he withdrew into a little
apartment (which he had hired with this object in the interior of the
Convent of the Petits Augustins, into which there was an entrance from
his house) to die in repose there, inaccessible to Madame de Biron and
every other woman, except his wife, who had permission to go in at all
hours, followed by one of her attendants.
Into this retreat Lauzun gave access only to his nephews and brothers-in-
law, and to them as little as possible. He thought only of profiting by
his terrible state, of giving all his time to the pious discourses of his
confessor and of some of the pious people of the house, and to holy
reading; to everything, in fact, which best could prepare him for death.
When we saw him, no disorder, nothing lugubrious, no trace of suffering,
politeness, tranquillity, conversation but little animated, indifference
to what was passing in the world, speaking of it little and with
difficulty; little or no morality, still less talk of his state; and this
uniformity, so courageous and so peaceful, was sustained full four months
until the end; but during the last ten or twelve days he would see
neither brothers-in-law nor nephews, and as for his wife, promptly
dismissed her. He received all the sacraments very edifyingly, and
preserved his senses to the last moment: The morning of the day during
the night of which he died, he sent for Biron, said he had done for him
all that Madame de Lauzun had wished; that by his testament he gave him
all his wealth, except a trifling legacy to the son of his other sister,
and some recompenses to his domestics; that all he had done for him since
his marriage, and what he did in dying, he (Biron) entirely owed to
Madame de Lauzun; that he must never forget the gratitude he owed her;
that he prohibited him, by the authority of uncle and testator, ever to
cause her any trouble or annoyance, or to have any process against her,
no matter of what kind. It was Biron himself who told me this the next
day, in the terms I have given. M. de Lauzun said adieu to him in a firm
tone, and dismissed him. He prohibited, and reasonably, all ceremony; he
was buried at the Petits Augustins; he had nothing from the King but the
ancient company of the battle-axes, which was suppressed two days after.
A month before his death he had sent for Dillon (charged here with the
affairs of King James, and a very distinguished officer general), to whom
he surrendered his collar of the Order of the Garter, and a George of
onyx, encircled with perfectly beautiful and large diamonds, to be sent
back to the Prince.
I perceive at last, that I have been very prolix upon this man, but the
extraordinary singularity of his life, and my close connexion with him,
appear to me sufficient excuses for making him known, especially as he
did not sufficiently figure in general affairs to expect much notice in
the histories that will appear. Another sentiment has extended my
recital. I am drawing near a term I fear to reach, because my desires
cannot be in harmony with the truth; they are ardent, consequently
gainful, because the other sentiment is terrible, and cannot in any way
be palliated; the terror of arriving there has stopped me--nailed me
where I was--frozen me.
It will easily be seen that I speak of the death (and what a death!) of
M. le Duc d'Orleans; and this frightful recital, especially after such a
long attachment (it lasted all his life, and will last all mine),
penetrates me with terror and with grief for him. The Regent had said,
when he died he should like to die suddenly: I shudder to my very marrow,
with the horrible suspicion that God, in His anger, granted his desire.