Whether the Princesse des Ursins was informed of this sharp repartee, or

whether she despaired already of success, she changed about; and judging

that this interregnum in the Palace of Medina-Celi could not last for

ever, resolved to assure herself of the King by a Queen who should owe to

her such a grand marriage, and who, having no other support, would throw

herself into her arms by gratitude and necessity. With this view she

explained herself to Alberoni, who, since the death of the Duc de

Vendome, had remained at Madrid charged with the affairs of Parma; and

proposed to him the marriage of the Princess of Parma, daughter of the

Duchess and of the late Duke of Parma, who had married the widow of his

brother.

Alberoni could with difficulty believe his ears. An alliance so

disproportioned appeared to him so much the more incredible, because he

thought the Court of France would never consent to it, and that without

its consent the marriage could not be concluded. The Princess in

question was the issue of double illegitimacy; by her father descended

from a pope, by her mother from a natural daughter of Charles Quint. She

was daughter of a petty Duke of Parma, and of a mother, entirely

Austrian, sister of the Dowager Empress and of the Dowager Queen of Spain

(whose acts had excited such disapproval that she was sent from her exile

at Toledo to Bayonne), sister too of the Queen of Portugal, who had

induced the King, her husband, to receive the Archduke at Lisbon, and to

carry the war into Spain. It did not seem reasonable, therefore, that

such a Princess would be accepted as a wife for the King of Spain.

Nothing of all this, however, stopped the Princesse des Ursins; her own

interest was the most pressing consideration with her; the will of the

King of Spain was entirely subject to her; she felt all the change

towards her of our King and of Madame de Maintenon; she no longer hoped

for a return of their favour; she believed that she must look around for

support against the very authority which had established her so

powerfully, and which could destroy her; and occupied herself solely in

pushing forward a marriage from which she expected everything by making

the same use of the new queen as she had made of the one just dead. The

King of Spain was devout, he absolutely wanted a wife, the Princesse des

Ursins was of an age when her charms were but the charms, of art; in a

word, she set Alberoni to work, and it may be believed she was not

scrupulous as to her means as soon as they were persuaded at Parma that

she was serious and not joking. Orry, always united with Madame des

Ursins, and all-powerful, by her means, was her sole confidant in this

important affair.

At that time the Marquis de Brancas was French ambassador at Madrid. He

had flattered himself that Madame des Ursins would make him one of the

grandees of Spain. Instead of doing so she simply bestowed upon him the

order of the Golden Fleece. He had never pardoned her for this.

Entirely devoted to Madame de Maintenon, he became on that very account

an object of suspicion to Madame des Ursins, who did not doubt that he

cherished a grudge against her, on account of the favour he had missed.

She allowed him no access to her, and had her eyes open upon all he did.

Brancas in like manner watched all her doings. The confessor, Robinet,

confided to him his fears respecting Madame des Ursins, and the chiefs of

a court universally discontented went and opened their hearts to him,

thinking it was France alone which could set to rights the situation of

Spain.

Brancas appreciated all the importance of what was told him, but warned

by the fate of the Abbe d’Estrees, fearing even for his couriers, he took

the precaution of sending word to the King that he had pressing business

to acquaint him with, which he could not trust to paper, and that he

wished to be allowed to come to Versailles for a fortnight. The reply

was the permission asked for, accompanied, however, with an order to

communicate en route with the Duc de Berwick, who was about to pass to

Barcelona.

Madame des Ursins, who always found means to be informed of everything,

immediately knew of Brancas’s projected journey, and determined to get

the start of him. At once she had sixteen relays of mules provided upon

the Bayonne road, and suddenly sent off to France, on Holy Thursday,

Cardinal del Giudice, grand inquisitor and minister of state, who had

this mean complaisance for her. She thus struck two blows at once; she

got rid, at least for a time, of a Cardinal minister who troubled her,

and anticipated Brancas, which in our Court was no small point.

Brancas, who felt all the importance of arriving first, followed the

Cardinal on Good Friday, and moved so well that he overtook him at

Bayonne, at night while he was asleep; Brancas passed straight on,

charging the Commandant to amuse and to delay the Cardinal as long as

possible on the morrow; gained ground, and arrived at Bordeaux with

twenty-eight post-horses that he had carried off with him from various

stations, to keep them from the Cardinal. He arrived in Paris in this

manner two days before the other, and went straight to Marly where the

King was, to explain the business that had led him there. He had a long

audience with the King, and received a lodging for the rest of the visit.

The Cardinal del Giudice rested four or five days at Paris, and then came

to Marly, where he was introduced to the King. The Cardinal was somewhat

embarrassed; he was charged with no business; all his mission was to

praise Madame des Ursins, and complain of the Marquis de Brancas. These

praises of Madame des Ursins were but vague; she had not sufficient

confidence in the Cardinal to admit to him her real position in our

Court, and to give him instructions accordingly, so that what he had to

say was soon all said; against the Marquis de Brancas he had really no

fact to allege, his sole crime that he was too sharp-sighted and not

sufficiently devoted to the Princess.

The Cardinal was a courtier, a man of talent, of business, of intrigue,

who felt, with annoyance, that for a person of his condition and weight,

such a commission as he bore was very empty. He appeared exceedingly

agreeable in conversation, of pleasant manners, and was much liked in

good society. He was assiduous in his attentions to the King, without

importuning him for audiences that were unnecessary; and by all his

conduct, he gave reason for believing that he suspected Madame des

Ursins’ decadence in our Court, and sought to gain esteem and confidence,

so as to become by the support of the King, prime minister in Spain; but

as we shall soon see, his ultramontane hobbies hindered the

accomplishment of his measures. All the success of his journey consisted

in hindering Brancas from returning to Spain. This was no great

punishment, for Brancas had nothing more to hope for from Madame des

Ursins, and was not a man to lose his time for nothing.

Up to this period not a word had been said to the King (Louis XIV.) by

the King of Spain upon the subject of his marriage; not a hint had been

given that he meant to remarry, much less with a Parma princess. This

proceeding, grafted upon the sovereignty claimed by the Princesse des

Ursine, and all her conduct with the King of Spain since the death of the

Queen, resolved our King to disgrace her without appeal.

A remark upon Madame des Ursins, accompanied by a smile, escaped from the

King, generally so complete a master of himself, and appeared enigmatical

to such an extent, although striking, that Torcy, to wham it was

addressed, understood nothing. In his surprise, he related to Castries

what the King had said; Castries told it to Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans,

who reported it to M. d’Orleans and to me. We racked our brains to

comprehend it, but in vain; nevertheless such an unintelligible remark

upon a person like Madame des Ursins, who up to this time had been on

such good terms with the King and Madame de Maintenon, did not appear to

me to be favourable. I was confirmed in this view by what had just

happened with regard to her sovereignty; but I was a thousand leagues

from the thunderbolt which this lightning announced, and which only

declared itself to us by its fall.

It wits not until the 27th of June that the King was made acquainted by

the King of Spain with his approaching marriage. Of course, through

other channels, he had not failed to hear of it long before. He passed

in the lightest and gentlest manner in the world over this project, and

the mystery so long and so complete! with which it had been kept from

him, stranger, if possible, than the marriage itself. He could not

hinder it; but from this moment he was sure of his vengeance against her

who had arranged and brought it about in this manner. The disgrace of

Madame des Ursine was in fact determined on between the King and Madame

de Maintenon, but in a manner a secret before and since, that I know

nobody who has found out by whom or how it was carried out. It is good

to admit our ignorance, and not to give fictions and inventions in place

of what we are unacquainted with.

I know not why, but a short time after this, the Princesse des Ursine

conceived such strong suspicion of the lofty and enterprising spirit of

the Princess of Parma that she repented having made this marriage; and

wished to break it off. She brought forward; therefore, I know not what

difficulties, and despatched a courier to Rome to Cardinal Acquaviva, who

did the King of Spain’s business there, ordering him to delay his journey

to Parma, where he had been commanded to ask the hand of the Princess,

and to see her provisionally espoused. But Madame des Ursins

had changed her mind too late. The courier did not find Acquaviva at

Rome. That Cardinal was already far away on the road to Parma, so that

there were no means of retreat.

Acquaviva was received with great honour and much magnificence; he made

his demand, but delayed the espousals as long as he could, and this

caused much remark. The marriage, which was to have been celebrated on

the 25th of August, did not take place until the 15th of September.

Immediately after the ceremony the new Queen set out for Spain.

An envoy from Parma, with news of the marriage of the Princess, arrived

at Fontainebleau on the 11th October, and had an audience with the King.

This was rather late in the day: For dowry she had one hundred thousand

pistoles, and three hundred thousand livres’ worth of jewels. She had

embarked for Alicante at Sestri di Levante. A violent tempest sickened

her of the sea. She landed, therefore, at Monaco, in order to traverse

by land Provence, Languedoc, and Guienne, so as to reach Bayonne, and see

there the Queen Dowager of Spain; sister of her mother, and widow of

Charles II. Desgranges, master of the ceremonies, was to meet her in

Provence, with orders to follow her, and to command the governors,

lieutenants-general, and intendants to follow her also, and serve her,

though she travelled incognito.

The new Queen of Spain, on arriving at Pau, found the Queen Dowager, her

aunt, had come expressly from Bayonne to meet her. As they approached

each other, they both descended at the same time, and after saluting,

mounted alone into a beautiful caleche that the Queen Dowager had brought

with her, and that she presented to her niece. They supped together

alone. The Queen Dowager conducted her to Saint-Jean Pied-de-Port (for

in that country, as in Spain, the entrances to mountain passes are called

ports). They separated there, the Queen Dowager making the Queen many

presents, among others a garniture of diamonds. The Duc de Saint-Aignan

joined the Queen of Spain at Pau, and accompanied her by command of the

King to Madrid. She sent Grillo, a Genoese noble, whom she has since

made grandee of Spain, to thank the King for sending her the Duc de

Saint-Aignan, and for the present he brought with him. The officers of

her household had been named by Madame des Ursins.

The Queen of Spain advanced towards Madrid with the attendants sent to

accompany her. She was to be met by the King of Spain at Guadalaxara,

which is about the same distance from Madrid as Paris is from

Fontainebleau. He arrived there, accompanied by the attendants that the

Princesse des Ursins had placed near him, to keep him company, and to

allow no one else to approach him. She followed in her coach, so as to

arrive at the same time, and immediately afterwards he shut himself up

alone with her, and saw nobody until he went to bed. This was on the

22nd of December. The next day the Princesse des Ursins set out with a

small suite for a little place, seven leagues further, called Quadraque,

where the Queen was to sleep that night. Madame des Ursins counted upon

enjoying all the gratitude that the queen would feel for the unhoped-for

grandeur she had obtained by her means; counted upon passing the evening

with her, and upon accompanying her next day to Guadalaxara. She found,

upon arriving at Quadraque, that the Queen had already reached there.

She at once entered into a lodging that had been prepared for her,

opposite that of the Queen. She was in a full Court dress. After

adjusting it in a hurried manner, she went to the Queen. The coldness

and stiffness of her reception surprised her extremely. She attributed

it in the first place to the embarrassment of the Queen, and tried to

melt this ice. Everybody withdrew, in order to leave the two alone.

Then the conversation commenced. The Queen would not long allow Madame

des Ursins to continue it; but burst out into reproaches against her for

her manners, and for appearing there in a dress that showed want of

respect for the company she was in. Madame des Ursins, whose dress was

proper, and who, on account of her respectful manners and her discourse,

calculated to win the Queen, believed herself to be far from meriting

this treatment, was strangely surprised, and wished to excuse herself;

but the Queen immediately began to utter offensive words, to cry out, to

call aloud, to demand the officers of the guard, and sharply to; command

Madame des Ursins to leave her presence. The latter wished to speak and

defend herself against the reproaches she heard; but the Queen,

increasing her fury and her menaces, cried out to her people to drive

this mad woman from her presence and from the house; and absolutely had

her turned out by the shoulders. Immediately afterwards, she called

Amenzaga, lieutenant of the body-guard, and at the same time the ecuyer

who had the control of her equipages. She ordered the first to arrest

Madame des Ursins, and not quit her until he had placed her in a coach,

with two sure officers of the guard and fifteen soldiers as sentinels

over her; the second she commanded to provide instantly a coach and six,

with two or three footmen, and send off in it the Princesse des Ursins

towards Burgos and Bayonne, without once stopping on the road. Amenzago

tried to represent to the Queen that the King of Spain alone had the

power to give such commands; but she haughtily asked him if he had not

received an order from the King of Spain to obey her in everything,

without reserve and without comment. It was true he had received such an

order, though nobody knew a word about it.

Madame des Ursins was then immediately arrested, and put into a coach

with one of her waiting-women, without having had time to change her

costume or her head-dress, to take any precaution against the cold, to

provide herself with any money or other things, and without any kind of

refreshment in the coach, or a chemise; nothing, in fact, to change or to

sleep in! She was shipped off thus (with two officers of the guard; who

were ready as soon as the coach), in full Court dress, just as she left

the Queen. In the very short and tumultuous interval which elapsed, she

sent a message to the Queen, who flew into a fresh passion upon not being

obeyed, and made her set out immediately.

It was then nearly seven o’clock in the evening, two days before

Christmas, the ground all covered with snow and ice, and the cold extreme

and very sharp and bitter, as it always is in Spain. As soon as the

Queen learned that the Princesse des Ursins was out of Quadraque, she

wrote to the King of Spain, by an officer of the guards whom she

despatched to Guadalaxara. The night was so dark that it was only by

means of the snow that anything could be seen.

It is not easy to represent the state of Madame des Ursins in the coach.

An excess of astonishment and bewilderment prevailed at first, and

suspended all other sentiment; but grief, vexation, rage, and despair,

soon followed. In their turn succeeded sad and profound reflections upon

a step so violent, so unheard-of, and so unjustifiable as she thought.

Then she hoped everything from the friendship of the King of Spain and

his confidence in her; pictured his anger and surprise, and those of the

group of attached servitors, by whom she had surrounded him, and who

would be so interested in exciting the King in her favour. The long

winter’s night pissed thus; the cold was, terrible, there was nothing to

ward it off; the coachman actually lost the use of one hand. The morning

advanced; a halt was necessary in order to bait the horses; as for the

travellers there is nothing for them ever in the Spanish inns. You are

simply told where each thing you want is sold. The meat is ordinarily

alive; the wine, thick, flat, and strong; the bread bad; the water is

often worthless; as to beds, there are some, but only for the mule-

drivers, so that you must carry everything with you, and neither Madame

des Ursins nor those with her had anything whatever. Eggs, where they

could find any, were their sole resource; and these, fresh or not, simply

boiled, supported them during all the journey.

Until this halt for the horses, silence had been profound and

uninterrupted; now it was broken. During all this long night the

Princesse des Ursins had had leisure to think upon the course she should

adopt, and to compose her face. She spoke of her extreme surprise, and

of the little that had passed between her and the Queen. In like manner

the two officers of the guard accustomed, as was all Spain, to fear and

respect her more than their King, replied to her from the bottom of that

abyss of astonishment from which they had not yet arisen. The horses

being put to, the coach soon started again. Soon, too, the Princesse des

Ursins found that the assistance she expected from the King did not

arrive. No rest, no provisions, nothing to put on, until Saint-Jean de

Luz was reached. As she went further on, as time passed and no news

came, she felt she had nothing more to hope for. It may be imagined what

rage succeeded in a woman so ambitious, so accustomed to publicly reign,

so rapidly and shamefully precipitated from the summit of power by the

hand that she herself had chosen as the most solid support of her

grandeur. The Queen had not replied to the last two letters Madame des

Ursins had written to her. This studied negligence was of bad augury,

but who would have imagined treatment so strange and so unheard of?

Her nephews, Lanti and Chalais, who had permission to join her, completed

her dejection. Yet she was faithful to herself. Neither tears nor

regrets, neither reproaches nor the slightest weakness escaped her; not a

complaint even of the excessive cold, of the deprivation of all things,

or of the extreme fatigue of such a journey. The two officers who

guarded her could not contain their admiration.

At Saint-Jean de Luz, where she arrived on the 14th of January, 1715, she

found at last her corporeal ills at an end. She obtained a bed, change

of dress, food, and her liberty. The guards, their officers, and the

coach which had brought her, returned; she remained with her waiting-maid

and her nephews. She had leisure to think what she might expect from

Versailles. In spite of her mad sovereignty scheme so long maintained,

and her hardihood in arranging the King of Spain’s marriage without

consulting our King, she flattered herself she should find resources in a

Court she had so long governed. It was from Saint-Jean de Luz that she

despatched a courier charged with letters for the King, for Madame de

Maintenon, and for her friends. She briefly gave us an account in those

letters of the thunderbolt which had fallen on her, and asked permission

to come to the Court to explain herself more in detail. She waited for

the return of her courier in this her first place of liberty and repose,

which of itself is very agreeable. But this first courier despatched,

she sent off Lanti with letters written less hastily, and with

instructions. Lanti saw the King in his cabinet on the last of January,

and remained there some moments. From him it was known that as soon as

Madame des Ursins despatched her first courier, she had sent her

compliments to the Queen Dowager of Spain at Bayonne, who would not

receive them. What cruel mortifications attend a fall from a throne!

Let us now return to Guadalaxara.

CHAPTER LXV

The officer of the guards, whom the Queen despatched with a letter for

the King of Spain as soon as Madame des Ursins was out of Quadraque,

found the King upon the point of going to bed. He appeared moved, sent a

short reply to the Queen, and gave no orders. The officer returned

immediately. What is singular is, that the secret was so well kept that

it did not transpire until the next morning at ten o’clock. It may be

imagined what emotion seized the whole Court, and what divers movements

there were among all at Guadalaxara. However, nobody dared to speak to

the King, and much expectation was built upon the reply he had sent to

the Queen. The morning passed and nothing was said; the fate of Madame

des Ursins then became pretty evident.

Chalais and Lanti made bold to ask the King for permission to go and join

the Princess in her isolation. Not only he allowed them to do so, but

charged them with a letter of simple civility, in which he told her he

was very sorry for what had happened; that he had not been able to oppose

the Queen’s will; that he should continue to her her pensions, and see

that they were punctually paid. He was as good as his word: as long as

she lived she regularly received them.

The Queen arrived at Guadalaxara on the afternoon of the day before

Christmas day, at the hour fixed, and as though nothing had occurred.

The King received her in the same manner on the staircase, gave her his

hand, and immediately led her to the chapel, where the marriage was at

once celebrated; for in Spain the custom is to marry after dinner. After

that he led her to her chamber, and straightway went to bed; it was

before six o’clock in the evening, and both got up again for the midnight

mass. What passed between them upon the event of the previous evening

was entirely unknown, and has always remained so. The day after

Christmas day the King and Queen alone together in a coach, and followed

by all the Court, took the road for Madrid, where there was no more talk

of Madame des Ursins than if the King had never known her. Our King

showed not the least surprise at the news brought to him by a courier

despatched from Guadalaxara by the Duc de Saint-Aignan, though all the

Court was filled with emotion and affright after having seen Madame des

Ursins so triumphant.

Let us now look about for some explanations that will enable us to pierce

this mystery--that remark to Torcy which escaped the King, which Torcy

could not comprehend, and which he related to Castries, who told it to

Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans, from whom I learned it! Can we imagine

that a Parma princess brought up in a garret by an imperious mother,

would have dared to take upon herself, while six leagues from the King of

Spain whom she had never seen, a step so bold and unheard-of, when we

consider against whom directed, a person possessing the entire confidence

of that King and reigning openly? The thing is explained by the order,

so unusual and so secret, that Amenzago had from the King of Spain to

obey the Queen in everything, without reserve and without comment; an

order that became known only at the moment when she gave orders to arrest

Madame des Ursins and take her away.

Let us remark, too, the tranquillity with which our King and the King of

Spain received the first intelligence of this event; the inactivity of

the latter, the coldness of his letters to Madame des Ursins, and his

perfect indifference what became of a person who was so cherished the day

before, and who yet was forced to travel deprived of everything, by roads

full of ice and snow. We must recollect that when the King banished

Madame des Ursins before, for opening the letter of the Abbe d’Estrees,

and for the note she sent upon it, he did not dare to have his orders

executed in the presence of the King of Spain. It was on the frontier of

Portugal, where our King wished him to go for the express purpose, that

the King of Spain signed the order by which the Princesse des Ursins was

forced to withdraw from the country. Now we had a second edition of the

same volume. Let me add what I learnt from the Marechal de Brancas, to

whom Alberoni related, a long while after this disgrace, that one evening

as the Queen was travelling from Parma to Spain, he found her pacing her

chamber, with rapid step and in agitation muttering to herself, letting

escape the name of the Princesse des Ursins, and then saying with heat,

“I will drive her away, the first thing.” He cried out to the Queen and

sought to represent to her the danger, the madness, the inutility of the

enterprise which overwhelmed him: “Keep all this quiet,” said the Queen,

“and never let what you have heard escape you. Not a word! I know what

I am about.”

All these things together threw much light upon a catastrophe equally

astonishing in itself and in its execution, and clearly show our King to

have been the author of it; the King of Spain a consenting party and

assisting by the extraordinary order given to Amenzago; and the Queen the

actress, charged in some mariner by the two Kings to bring it about. The

sequel in France confirmed this opinion.

The fall of the Princesse des Ursins caused great changes in Spain. The

Comtesse d’Altamire was named Camarera Mayor, in her place. She was one

of the greatest ladies in all Spain, and was hereditary Duchess of

Cardonne. Cellamare, nephew of Cardinal del Giudice, was named her grand

ecuyer; and the Cardinal himself soon returned to Madrid and to

consideration. As a natural consequence, Macanas was disgraced. He and

Orry had orders to leave Spain, the latter without seeing the King. He

carried with him the maledictions of the public. Pompadour, who had been

named Ambassador in Spain only to amuse Madame des Ursins, was dismissed,

and the Duc de Saint-Aignan invested with that character, just as he was

about to return after having conducted the Queen to Madrid.

In due time the Princesse des Ursins arrived in Paris, and took up her

quarters in the house of the Duc de Noirmoutiers, her brother, in the Rue

Saint-Dominique, close to mine. This journey must have appeared to her

very different from the last she had made in France, when she was Queen

of the Court. Few people, except her former friends and those of her

formal cabal, came to see her; yet, nevertheless, some curious folks

appeared, so that for the first few days there was company enough; but

after that, solitude followed when the ill-success of her journey to

Versailles became known. M. d’Orleans, reunited now with the King of

Spain, felt that it was due to his interest even more than to his

vengeance to show in a striking manner, that it was solely owing to the

hatred and artifice of Madame des Ursins that he had fallen into such

disfavour on account of Spain, and had been in danger of losing his head.

Times had changed. Monseigneur was dead, the Meudon cabal annihilated;

Madame de Maintenon had turned her back upon Madame des Ursins; thus M.

d’Orleans was free to act as he pleased. Incited by Madame la Duchesse

d’Orleans, and more still by Madame, he begged the King to prohibit

Madame des Ursins from appearing anywhere (Versailles not even excepted)

where she might meet Madame la Duchesse de Berry, Madame, Monsieur le

Duc, and Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans, who at the same time strictly

forbade their households to see her, and asked the persons to whom they

were particularly attached to hold no intercourse with her. This made a

great stir, openly showed that Madame des Ursins had utterly lost the

support of Madame de Maintenon and the King, and much embarrassed her.

I could not feel that M. d’Orleans was acting wrong, in thus paying off

his wrongs for the injuries she had heaped upon him, but I represented to

him, that as I had always been an intimate friend of Madame des Ursins,

putting aside her conduct towards him and making no comparison between my

attachment for him and my friendship for her, I could not forget the

marks of consideration she had always given me, particularly in her last

triumphant journey (as I have already explained), and that it would be

hard if I could not see her. We capitulated then, and M. le Duc and

Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans permitted me to see her twice--once

immediately; once when she left--giving my word that I would not see her

three times, and that Madame de Saint-Simon should not see her at all;

which latter clause we agreed to very unwillingly, but there was no

remedy. As I wished at least to profit by my chance, I sent word to

Madame des Ursins, explaining the fetters that bound me, and saying that

as I wished to see her at all events at my ease since I should see her so

little, I would let pass the first few days and her first journey to

Court, before asking her for an audience.

My message was very well received; she had known for many years the terms

on which I was with M. d’Orleans; she was not surprised with these

fetters, and was grateful to me for what I had obtained. Some days after

she had been to Versailles, I went to her at two o’clock in the day. She

at once closed the door to all comers, and I was tete-a-tete with her

until ten o’clock at night.

It may be imagined what a number of things were passed in review during

this long discourse. Our eight hours of conversation appeared to me like

eight moments. She related to me her catastrophe, without mixing up the

King or the King of Spain, of whom she spoke well; but, without violently

attacking the Queen, she predicted what since has occurred. We separated

at supper time, with a thousand reciprocal protestations and regret that

Madame de Saint-Simon could not see her. She promised to inform me of

her departure early enough to allow us to pass another day together.

Her journey to Versailles did not pass off very pleasantly. She dined

with the Duchesse de Luders, and then visited Madame de Maintenon; waited

with her for the King, but when he came did not stop long, withdrawing to

Madame Adam’s, where she passed the night. The next day she dined with

the Duchesse de Ventadour, and returned to Paris. She was allowed to

give up the pension she received from the King, and in exchange to have

her Hotel de Ville stock increased, so that it yielded forty thousand

livres a-year. Her income, besides being doubled, was thus much more

sure than would have been a pension from the King, which she doubted not

M. d’Orleans, as soon as he became master, would take from her. She

thought of retiring into Holland, but the States-General would have

nothing to do with her, either at the Hague, or at Amsterdam. She had

reckoned upon the Hague. She next thought of Utrecht, but was soon out

of conceit with it, and turned her regards towards Italy.

The health of the King, meanwhile, visibly declining, Madame des Ursins

feared lest she should entirely fall into the clutches of M. d’Orleans.

She fully resolved, therefore, to make off, without knowing, however,

where to fix herself; and asked permission of the King to come and take

leave of him at Marly. She came there from Paris on Tuesday, the 6th of

August, so as to arrive as he left dinner, that is, about ten o’clock.

She was immediately admitted into the cabinet of the King, with whom she

remained tete-a-tete full half an hour. She passed immediately to the

apartments of Madame de Maintenon, with whom she remained an hour; and

then got into her coach and returned to Paris. I only knew of this

leave-taking by her arrival at Marly, where I had some trouble in meeting

her. As chance would have it, I went in search of her coach to ask her

people what had become of her, and was speaking to them when, to and

behold! she herself arrived. She seemed very glad to see me, and made me

mount with her into her coach, where for little less than an hour we

discoursed very freely. She did not dissimulate from me her fears; the

coldness the King and Madame de Maintenon had testified for her through

all their politeness; the isolation she found herself in at the Court,

even in Paris; and the uncertainty in which she was as to the choice of a

retreat; all this in detail, and nevertheless without complaint, without

regret, without weakness; always reassured and superior to events, as

though some one else were in question. She touched lightly upon Spain,

upon the ascendency the Queen was acquiring already over the King, giving

me to understand that it could not be otherwise; running lightly and

modestly over the Queen, and always praising the goodness of the King of

Spain. Fear, on account of the passers-by, put an end to our

conversation. She was very gracious to me; expressed regret that we must

part; proceeded to tell me when she should start in time for us to have

another day together; sent many compliments to Madame de Saint-Simon; and

declared herself sensible of the mark of friendship I had given her, in

spite of my engagement with M. d’Orleans. As soon as I had seen her off,

I went to M. d’Orleans, to whom I related what I had just done; said I

had not paid a visit, but had had simply a meeting; that it was true I

could not hinder myself from seeking it, without prejudice to the final

visit he had allowed me. Neither he nor Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans

complained. They had fully triumphed over their enemy, and were on the

point of seeing her leave France for ever, without hope in Spain.

Until now, Madame des Ursins amused by a residue of friends, increased by

those of M. de Noirmoutiers with whom she lodged and who had money, had

gently occupied herself with the arrangement of her affairs, changed as

they were, and in withdrawing her effects from Spain. The fear lest she

should find herself in the power of a Prince whom she had so cruelly

offended, and who showed, since her arrival in France, that he felt it,

hurried all her measures. Her terror augmented by the change in the King

that she found at this last audience had taken place since her first.

She no longer doubted that his end was very near; and all her attention

was directed to the means by which she might anticipate it, and be well

informed of his health; this she believed her sole security in France.

Terrified anew by the accounts she received of it, she no longer gave

herself time for anything, but precipitately set out on the 14th August,

accompanied as far as Essonne by her two nephews. She had no time to

inform me, so that I have never seen her since the day of our

conversation at Marly in her coach. She did not breathe until she

arrived at Lyons.

She had abandoned the project of retiring into Holland, where the States-

General would not have her. She herself, too, was disgusted with the

equality of a republic, which counterbalanced in her mind the pleasure of

the liberty enjoyed there. But she could not resolve to return to Rome,

the theatre of her former reign, and appear there proscribed and old, as

in an asylum. She feared, too, a bad reception, remembering the quarrels

that had taken place between the Courts of Rome and Spain. She had lost

many friends and acquaintances; in fifteen years of absence all had

passed away, and she felt the trouble she might be subjected to by the

ministers of the Emperor, and by those of the two Crowns, with their

partisans. Turin was not a Court worthy of her; the King of Sardinia had

not always been pleased with her, and they knew too much for each other.

At Venice she would have been out of her element.

Whilst agitated in this manner, without being able to make up her mind,

she learned that the King was in extreme danger, a danger exaggerated by

rumour. Fear seized her lest he should die whilst she was in his realm.

She set off immediately, therefore, without knowing where to go; and

solely to leave France went to Chambery, as the nearest place of safety,

arriving there out of breath, so to say.

Every place being well examined, she preferred Genoa; its liberty pleased

her; there was intercourse there with a rich and numerous nobility; the

climate and the city were beautiful; the place was in some sort a centre

and halting-point between Madrid, Paris, and Rome, with which places she

was always in communication, and always hungered after all that passed

there. Genoa determined on, she went there. She was well received,

hoped to fix her tabernacle there, and indeed stayed some years. But at

last ennui seized her; perhaps vexation at not being made enough of. She

could not exist without meddling, and what is there for a superannuated

woman to meddle with at Genoa? She turned her thoughts, therefore,

towards Rome. Then, on sounding, found her course clear, quitted Genoa,

and returned to her nest.

She was not long there before she attached herself to the King and Queen

of England (the Pretender and his wife), and soon governed them openly.

What a poor resource! But it was courtly and had a flavour of occupation

for a woman who could not exist without movement. She finished her life

there remarkably healthy in mind and body, and in a prodigious opulence,

which was not without its use in that deplorable Court. For the rest,

Madame des Ursins was in mediocre estimation at Rome, was deserted by the

Spanish, little visited by the French, but always faithfully paid by

France and Spain, and unmolested by the Regent. She was always occupied

with the world, and with what she had been, but was no longer; yet

without meanness, nay, with courage and dignity.

The loss she experienced in January, 1720, of the Cardinal de la

Tremoille, although there was no real friendship between them, did not

fail, to create a void in her. She survived him three years, preserved

all her health, her strength, her mind until death, and was carried off,

more than eighty years of age, at Rome, on the 5th of December, 1722,

after a very short illness.

She had the pleasure of seeing Madame de Maintenon forgotten and

annihilated in Saint-Cyr, of surviving her, of seeing at Rome her two

enemies, Giudice and Alberoni, as profoundly disgraced as she,--one

falling from the same height, and of relishing the forgetfulness, not to

say contempt, into which they both sank. Her death, which, a few years

before, would have resounded throughout all Europe, made not the least

sensation. The little English Court regretted her, and some private

friends also, of whom I was one. I did not hide this, although,--on

account of M. le Duc d’Orleans, I had kept up no intercourse with her;

for the rest, nobody seemed to perceive she had disappeared. She was,

nevertheless, so extraordinary a person, during all the course of her

long life, everywhere, and had so grandly figured, although in various

ways; had such rare intellect, courage, industry, and resources; reigned

so publicly and so absolutely in Spain; and had a character so sustained

and so unique, that her life deserves to be written, and would take a

place among the most curious fragments of the history of the times in

which she lived.

CHAPTER LVI

But I must return somewhat now, in order to make way for a crowd of

events which have been pressing forward all this time, but which I have

passed by, in going straightforward at once to the end of Madame des

Ursins’ history.

On Monday, the 30th April, 1714., the King took medicine, and worked

after dinner with Pontchartrain. This was at Marly. About six o’clock,

he went to M. le Duc de Berry, who had had fever all night. M. le Duc de

Berry had risen without saying anything, had been with the King at the

medicine-hour, and intended to go stag-hunting; but on leaving the King’s

chamber shivering seized him, and forced him to go back again. He was

bled while the King was in his chamber, and the blood was found very bad;

when the King went to bed the doctors told him the illness was of a

nature to make them hope that it might be a case of contagion. M. le Duc

de Berry had vomited a good deal--a black vomit. Fagon said,

confidently, that it was from the blood; the other doctors fastened upon

some chocolate he had taken on the Sunday. From this day forward I knew

what was the matter. Boulduc, apothecary of the King, and extremely

attached to Madame de Saint-Simon and to me, whispered in my ear that M.

le Duc de Berry would not recover, and that, with some little difference,

his malady was the same as that of which the Dauphin and Dauphine died.

He repeated this the next day, and never once varied afterwards; saying

to me on the third day, that none of the doctors who attended the Prince

were of a different opinion, or hid from him what they thought.

On Tuesday, the 1st of May, the Prince was bled in the foot at seven

o’clock in the morning, after a very bad night; took emetics twice, which

had a good effect; then some manna; but still there were two accesses.

The King went to the sick-room afterwards, held a finance council, would

not go shooting, as he had arranged, but walked in his gardens. The

doctors, contrary to their custom, never reassured him. The night was

cruel. On Wednesday; the 2nd of May, the King went, after mass, to M. le

Duc de Berry, who had been again bled in the foot. The King held the

Council of State, as usual, dined in Madame de Maintenon’s rooms, and

afterwards reviewed his Guards. Coettenfao, chevalier d’honneur of

Madame la Duchesse de Berry, came during the morning to beg the King, in

her name, that Chirac, a famous doctor of M. d’Orleans, should be allowed

to see M. le Duc de Berry. The King refused, on the ground that all the

other doctors were in accord, and that Chirac, who might differ with

them, would embarrass them. After dinner Mesdames de Pompadour and La

Vieuville arrived, on the part of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, to beg the

King that she might be allowed to come and see her husband, saying that

she would come on foot rather than stay away. It would have been better,

surely, for her to come in a coach, if she so much wished, and, before

alighting, to send to the King for permission so to do. But the fact is,

she had no more desire to come than M. de Berry had to see her. He never

once mentioned her name, or spoke of her, even indirectly. The King

replied to those ladies by saying that he would not close the door

against Madame la Duchesse de Berry, but, considering the state she was

in, he thought it would be very imprudent on her part to come. He

afterwards told M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans to go to

Versailles and hinder her from coming. Upon returning from the review

the King went again to see M. le Duc de Berry. He had been once more

bled in the arm, had vomited all day much blood too--and had taken some

Robel water three times, in order to stop his sickness. This vomiting

put off the communion. Pere de la Rue had been by his side ever since

Tuesday morning, and found him very patient and resigned.

On Thursday, the 3rd, after a night worse than ever, the doctors said

they did not doubt that a vein had been broken in the stomach. It was

reported that this accident had happened by an effort M. de Berry made

when out hunting on the previous Thursday, the day the Elector of Bavaria

arrived. His horse slipped; in drawing the animal up, his body struck

against the pommel of the saddle, so it was said, and ever since he had

spit blood every day. The vomiting ceased at nine o’clock in the

morning, but the patient was no better. The King, who was going stag-

hunting, put it off. At six o’clock at night M. de Berry was so choked

that he could no longer remain in bed; about eight o’clock he found

himself so relieved that he said to Madame, he hoped he should not die;

but soon after, the malady increased so much that Pere de la Rue said it

was no longer time to think of anything but God, and of receiving the

sacrament. The poor Prince himself seemed to desire it.

A little after ten o’clock at night the King went to the chapel, where a

consecrated Host had been kept prepared ever since the commencement of

the illness. M. le Duc de Berry received it, with extreme unction, in

presence of the King, with much devotion and respect. The King remained

nearly an hour in the chamber, supped alone in his own, did not receive

the Princesses afterwards, but went to bed. M. le Duc d’Orleans, at ten

o’clock in the morning, went again to Versailles, as Madame la Duchesse

de Berry wished still to come to Marly. M. le Duc de Berry related to

Pere de la Rue, who at least said so, the accident just spoken of; but,

it was added, “his head was then beginning to wander.” After losing the

power of speech, he took the crucifix Pere de la Rue held, kissed it, and

placed it upon his heart. He expired on Friday, the 4th of May, 1714, at

four o’clock in the morning, in his twenty-eighth year, having been born

at Versailles, the last day of August, 1686.

M. le Duc de Berry was of ordinary height, rather fat, of a beautiful

blonde complexion, with a fresh, handsome face, indicating excellent

health. He was made for society, and for pleasure, which he loved; the

best, gentlest, most compassionate and accessible of men, without pride,

and without vanity, but not without dignity or self-appreciation. He was

of medium intellect, without ambition or desire, but had very good sense,

and was capable of listening, of understanding, and of always taking the

right side in preference to the wrong, however speciously put. He loved

truth, justice, and reason; all that was contrary to religion pained him

to excess, although he was not of marked piety. He was not without

firmness, and hated constraint. This caused it to be feared that he was

not supple enough for a younger son, and, indeed, in his early youth he

could not understand that there was any difference between him and his

eldest brother, and his boyish quarrels often caused alarm.

He was the most gay, the most frank, and consequently the most loved of

the three brothers; in his youth nothing was spoken of but his smart

replies to Madame and M. de la Rochefoucauld. He laughed at preceptors

and at masters--often at punishment. He scarcely knew anything except

how to read and write; and learned nothing after being freed from the

necessity of learning. This ignorance so intimidated him, that he could

scarcely open his mouth before strangers, or perform the most ordinary

duties of his rank; he had persuaded himself that he was an ass and a

fool; fit for nothing. He was so afraid of the King that he dared not

approach him, and was so confused if the King looked hard at him, or

spoke of other things than hunting, or gaming, that he scarcely

understood a word, or could collect his thoughts. As may be imagined,

such fear does not go hand in hand with deep affection.

He commenced life with Madame la Duchesse de Berry as do almost all those

who marry very young and green. He became extremely amorous of her;

this, joined to his gentleness and natural complaisance, had the usual

effect, which was to thoroughly spoil her. He was not long in perceiving

it; but love was too strong for him. He found a woman proud, haughty,

passionate, incapable of forgiveness, who despised him, and who allowed

him to see it, because he had infinitely less head than she; and because,

moreover, she was supremely false and strongly determined. She piqued

herself upon both these qualities, and on her contempt for religion,

ridiculing M. le Duc de Berry for being devout; and all these things

became insupportable to him. Her gallantries were so prompt, so rapid,

so unmeasured, that he could not help seeing them. Her endless private

interviews with M. le Duc d’Orleans, in which everything languished if he

was present, made him furious. Violent scenes frequently took place

between them; the last, which occurred at Rambouillet, went so far that

Madame la Duchesse de Berry received a kick * * * * , and a menace that

she should be shut up in a convent for the rest of her life; and when M.

le Duc de Berry fell ill, he was thumbing his hat, like a child, before

the King, relating all his grievances, and asking to be delivered from

Madame la Duchesse de Berry. Hitherto I have only alluded to Madame la

Duchesse de Berry, but, as will be seen, she became so singular a person

when her father was Regent, that I will here make her known more

completely than I have yet done.

She was tall, handsome, well made, with, however, but little grace, and

had something in her, eyes which made you fear what she was. Like her

father and mother, she spoke well and with facility. Timid in trifles,

yet in other things terrifyingly bold,--foolishly haughty sometimes, and

sometimes mean to the lowest degree,--it may be said that she was a model

of all the vices, avarice excepted; and was all the more dangerous

because she had art and talent. I am not accustomed to over-colour the

picture I am obliged to present to render things understood, and it will

easily be perceived how strictly I am reserved upon the ladies, and upon

all gallantries, not intimately associated with what may be called

important matters. I should be so here, more than in any other case,

from self-love, if not from respect for the sex and dignity of the

person. The considerable part I played in bringing about Madame la

Duchesse de Berry’s marriage, and the place that Madame de Saint-Simon,

in spite of herself and of me, occupied in connection with her, would be

for me reasons more than enough for silence, if I did not feel that

silence would throw obscurity over all the sequel of this history. It is

then to the truth that I sacrifice my self-love, and with the same

truthfulness I will say that if I had known or merely suspected, that the

Princess was so bad as she showed herself directly after her marriage,

and always more and more since, she would never have become Duchesse de

Berry.

I have already told how she annoyed M. le Duc de Berry by ridiculing his

devotion. In other ways she put his patience to severe trials, and more

than once was in danger of public exposure. She partook of few meals in

private, at which she did not get so drunk as to lose consciousness, and

to bring up all she had taken on every side. The presence of M. le Duc

de Berry, of M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans, of ladies with

whom she was not on familiar terms, in no way restrained her. She

complained even of M. le Duc de Berry for not doing as she did. She

often treated her father with a haughtiness which was terrifying on all

accounts.

In her gallantries she was as unrestrained as in other things. After

having had several favourites, she fixed herself upon La Haye, who from

King’s page had become private ecuyer of M. le Duc de Berry. The oglings

in the Salon of Marly were perceived by everybody; nothing restrained

them. At last, it must be said, for this fact encloses all the rest, she

wished La Haye to run away with her from Versailles to the Low Countries,

whilst M. le Duc de Berry and the King were both living. La Haye almost

died with fright at this proposition, which she herself made to him. His

refusal made her furious. From the most pressing entreaties she came to

all the invectives that rage could suggest, and that torrents of tears

allowed her to pronounce. La Haye had to suffer her attacks--now tender,

now furious; he was in the most mortal embarrassment. It was a long time

before she could be cured of her mad idea, and in the meanwhile she

subjected the poor fellow to the most frightful persecution. Her passion

for La Haye continued until the death of M. le Duc de Berry, and some

time after.

M. le Duc de Berry was buried at Saint-Denis on Wednesday, the 16th of

May; M. le Duc d’Orleans was to have headed the procession, but the same

odious reports against him that had circulated at the death of the

Dauphin had again appeared, and he begged to be let off. M. le Duc

filled his place. Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who was in the family

way, kept her bed; and in order that she should not be seen there when

people came to pay her the usual visits of condolence, the room was kept

quite dark. Many ridiculous scenes and much indecent laughter, that

could not be restrained, thus arose. Persons accustomed to the room

could see their way, but those unaccustomed stumbled at every step, and

had need of guidance. For want of this, Pere du Trevoux, and Pere

Tellier after him, both addressed their compliments to the wall; others

to the foot of the bed. This became a secret amusement, but happily did

not last long.

As may be imagined, the death of M. le Duc de Berry was a deliverance for

Madame la Duchesse de Berry. She was, as I have said, in the family way;

she hoped for a boy, and counted upon enjoying as a widow more liberty

than she had been able to take as a wife. She had a miscarriage,

however, on Saturday, the 16th of June, and was delivered of a daughter

which lived only twelve hours. The little corpse was buried at Saint-

Denis, Madame de Saint-Simon at the head of the procession. Madame la

Duchesse de Berry, shortly before this event, received two hundred

thousand livres income of pension; but the establishment she would have

had if the child had been a boy was not allowed her.

CHAPTER LXVII.

It is time now that I should say something about an event that caused an

immense stir throughout the land, and was much talked of even in foreign

parts. I must first introduce, however, a sort of a personage whose

intimacy was forced upon me at this period; for the two incidents are in

a certain degree associated together.

M. d’Orleans for some little time had continually represented to me, how

desirous one of his acquaintances was to secure my friendship. This

acquaintance was Maisons, president in the parliament, grandson of that

superintendent of the finances who built the superb chateau of Maisons,

and son of the man who had presided so unworthily at the judgment of our

trial with M. de Luxembourg, which I have related in its place. Maisons

was a person of much ambition, exceedingly anxious to make a name,

gracious and flattering in manners to gain his ends, and amazingly fond

of grand society.

The position of Maisons, where he lived, close to Marly, afforded him

many opportunities of drawing there the principal people of the Court.

It became quite the fashion to go from Marly to his chateau. The King

grew accustomed to hear the place spoken of, and was in no way

displeased. Maisons had managed to become very intimate with M. le Duc

and M. le Prince de Conti. These two princes being dead, he turned his

thoughts towards M, d’Orleans. He addressed himself to Canillac, who had

always been an intimate friend of M. d’Orleans, and by him soon gained

the intimacy of that prince. But he was not yet satisfied. He wished to

circumvent M. d’Orleans more completely than he could by means of

Canillac. He cast his eye, therefore, upon me. I think he was afraid of

me on account of what I have related concerning his father. He had an

only son about the same age as my children. For a long time he had made

all kinds of advances, and visited them often. The son’s intimacy did

not, however, assist the father; so that at last Maisons made M. le Duc

d’Orleans speak to me himself.

I was cold; tried to get out of the matter with compliments and excuses.

M. d’Orleans, who believed he had found a treasure in his new

acquaintance, returned to the charge; but I was not more docile. A few

days after, I was surprised by an attack of the same kind from M. de

Beauvilliers. How or when he had formed an intimacy with Maisons, I have

never been able to unravel; but formed it, he had; and he importuned me

so much, nay exerted his authority over me, that at last I found I must

give way. Not to offend M. d’Orleans by yielding to another after having

refused to yield to him, I waited until he should again speak to me on

the subject, so that he might give himself the credit of vanquishing me.

I did not wait long. The Prince attacked me anew, maintained that

nothing would be more useful to him than an intimacy between myself and

Maisons, who scarcely dared to see him, except in secret, and with whom

he had not the same leisure or liberty for discussing many things that

might present themselves. I had replied to all this before; but as I had

resolved to surrender to the Prince (after the authority of the Duc de

Beauvilliers had vanquished me), I complied with his wish.

Maisons was soon informed of it, and did not let my resolution grow,

cold. M. le Duc d’Orleans urged me to go and sleep a night in Paris.

Upon arriving there, I found a note from Maisons, who had already sent an

ocean of compliments to me by the Prince and the Duke. This note, for

reasons to be told me afterwards, appointed a meeting at eleven o’clock

this night, in the plain behind the Invalides, in a very mysterious

manner. I went there with an old coachman of my mother’s and a lackey to

put my people off the scent. There was a little moonlight. Maisons in a

small carriage awaited me. We soon met. He mounted into my coach. I

never could comprehend the mystery of this meeting. There was nothing on

his part but advances, compliments, protestations, allusions to the

former interview of our fathers; only such things, in fact, as a man of

cleverness and breeding says when he wishes to form a close intimacy with

any one. Not a word that he said was of importance or of a private

nature.

I replied in the civillest manner possible to the abundance he bestowed

upon me. I expected afterwards something that would justify the hour,

the place, the mystery, in a word, of our interview. What was my

surprise to hear no syllable upon these points. The only reason Maisons

gave for our secret interview was that from that time he should be able

to come and see me at Versailles with less inconvenience, and gradually

increase the number and the length of his visits until people grew

accustomed to see him there! He then begged me not to visit him in

Paris, because his house was always too full of people. This interview

lasted little less than half an hour. It was long indeed, considering

what passed. We separated with much politeness, and the first time he

went to Versailles he called upon me towards the middle of the day.

In a short time he visited me every Sunday. Our conversation by degrees

became more serious. I did not fail to be on my guard, but drew him out

upon various subjects; he being very willing.

We were on this footing when, returning to my room at Marly about midday-

on Sunday, the 29th of July, I found a lackey of Maisons with a note from

him, in which he conjured me to quit all business and come immediately to

his house at Paris, where he would wait for me alone, and where I should

find that something was in question, that could not suffer the slightest

delay, that could not even be named in writing, and which was of the most

extreme importance. This lackey had long since arrived, and had sent my

people everywhere in search of me. I was engaged that day to dine with

M. and Madame de Lauzun. To have broken my engagement would have been to

set the curiosity and the malignity of M. de Lauzun at work. I dared not

disappear; therefore I gave orders to my coachman, and as soon as I had

dined I vanished. Nobody saw me get into my chaise; and I quickly

arrived at Paris, and immediately hastened to Maisons’ with eagerness

easy to imagine.

I found him alone with the Duc de Noailles. At the first glance I saw

two dismayed men, who said to me in an exhausted manner, but after a

heated though short preface, that the King had declared his two bastards

and their male posterity to all eternity, real princes of the blood, with

full liberty to assume all their dignities, honours, and rank, and

capacity to succeed to the throne in default of the others.

At this news, which I did not expect, and the secret of which had

hitherto been preserved, without a particle of it transpiring, my arms

fell. I lowered my head and remained profoundly silent, absorbed in my

reflections. They were soon disturbed by cries which aroused me. These

two men commenced pacing the chamber; stamped with their feet; pushed and

struck the furniture; raged as though each wished to be louder than the

other, and made the house echo with their noise. I avow that so much

hubbub seemed suspicious to me on the part of two men, one so sage and so

measured, and to whom this rank was of no consequence; the other always

so tranquil, so crafty, so master of himself. I knew not why this sudden

fury succeeded to such dejected oppression; and I was not without

suspicion that their passion was put on merely to excite mine. If this

was their design, it succeeded ill. I remained in my chair, and coldly

asked them what was the matter. My tranquillity sharpened their fury.

Never in my life have I seen anything so surprising.

I asked them if they had gone mad, and if instead of this tempest it

would not be better to reason, and see whether something could not be

done. They declared it was precisely because nothing could be done

against a thing not only resolved on, but executed, declared, and sent to

the Parliament, that they were so furious; that M. le Duc d’Orleans, on

the terms he was with the King, would not dare even to whisper

objections; that the Princes of the blood, mere children as they were,

could only tremble; that the Dukes had no means of opposition, and that

the Parliament was reduced to silence and slavery. Thereupon they set to

work to see who could cry the louder and reviled again, sparing neither

things nor persons.

I, also, was in anger, but this racket kept me cool and made me smile.

I argued with them and said, that after all I preferred to see the

bastards princes of the blood, capable of succeeding to the throne, than

to see them in the intermediary rank they occupied. And it is true that

as soon as I had cooled myself, I felt thus.

At last the storm grew calm, and they told me that the Chief-President

and the Attorney-General--who, I knew, had been at Marly very early in

the morning at the Chancellor’s--had seen the King in his cabinet soon

after he rose, and had brought back the declaration, all prepared.

Maisons must, however, have known this earlier; because when the lackey

he sent to me set out from Paris, those gentlemen could not have returned

there. Our talk led to nothing, and I regained Marly in all haste, in

order that my absence might not be remarked.

Nevertheless it was towards the King’s supper hour when I arrived. I

went straight to the salon, and found it very dejected. People looked,

but scarcely dared to approach each other; at the most, a sign or a

whisper in the ear, as the courtiers brushed by one another, was ventured

out. I saw the King sit down to table; he seemed to me more haughty than

usual, and continually looked all around. The news had only been known

one hour; everybody was still congealed and upon his guard.

As soon as the King was seated (he had looked very hard at me in passing)

I went straight to M. du Maine’s. Although the hour was unusual, the

doors fell before me; I saw a man, who received me with joyful surprise,

and who, as it were, moved through the air towards me, all lame that he

was. I said that I came to offer him a sincere compliment, that we (the

Dukes) claimed no precedence over the Princes of the blood; but what we

claimed was, that there should be nobody between the Princes of the blood

and us; that as this intermediary rank no longer existed, we had nothing

more to say, but to rejoice that we had no longer to support what was

insupportable. The joy of M. du Maine burst forth at my compliments, and

he startled me with a politeness inspired by the transport of triumph.

But if he was delighted at the declaration of the King, it was far

otherwise with the world. Foreign dukes and princes fumed, but

uselessly. The Court uttered dull murmurs more than could have been

expected. Paris and the provinces broke out; the Parliament did not keep

silent. Madame de Maintenon, delighted with her work, received the

adoration of her familiars.

As for me, I will content myself with but few reflections upon this most

monstrous, astounding, and frightful determination of the King. I will

simply say, that it is impossible not to see in it an attack upon the

Crown; contempt for the entire nation, whose rights are trodden under

foot by it; insult to all the Princes of the blood; in fact the crime of

high treason in its most rash and most criminal extent. Yes! however

venerable God may have rendered in the eyes of men the majesty of Kings

and their sacred persons, which are his anointed; however execrable may

be the crime known as high treason, of attempting their lives; however

terrible and singular may be the punishments justly invented to prevent

that crime, and to remove by their horror the most infamous from the

infernal resolution of committing it, we cannot help finding in the crime

in question a plenitude not in the other, however abominable it may be:

Yes! to overthrow the most holy laws, that have existed ever since the

establishment of monarchy; to extinguish a right the most sacred--the

most important--the most inherent in the nation: to make succession to

the throne, purely, supremely, and despotically arbitrary; in a word, to

make of a bastard a crown prince, is a crime more black, more vast, more

terrible, than that of high treason against the chief of the State.

CHAPTER LXVIII

But let me now explain by what means the King was induced to arrive at,

and publish this terrible determination.

He was growing old, and though no external change in him was visible,

those near him had for some time begun to fear that he could not live

long. This is not the place to descant upon a health hitherto so good

and so even: suffice it to mention, that it silently began to give way.

Overwhelmed by the most violent reverses of fortune after being so long

accustomed to success, the King was even more overwhelmed by domestic

misfortunes. All his children had disappeared before him, and left him

abandoned to the most fatal reflections. At every moment he himself

expected the same kind of death. Instead of finding relief from his

anguish among those who surrounded him, and whom he saw most frequently,

he met with nothing but fresh trouble there. Excepting Marechal, his

chief surgeon, who laboured unceasingly to cure him of his suspicions,

Madame de Maintenon, M. du Maine, Fagon, Bloin, the other principal

valets sold to the bastard and his former governors,--all sought to

augment these suspicions; and in truth it was not difficult to do so.

Nobody doubted that poison had been used, nobody could seriously doubt

it; and Marechal, who was as persuaded as the rest, held a different

opinion before the King only to deliver him from a useless torment which

could not but do him injury. But M. du Maine, and Madame de Maintenon

also, had too much interest to maintain him in this fear, and by their

art filled him with horror against M. d’Orleans, whom they named as the

author of these crimes, so that the King with this prince before his eyes

every day, was in a perpetual state of alarm.

With his children the King had lost, and by the same way, a princess, who

in addition to being the soul and ornament of his court, was, moreover,

all his amusement, all his joy, all his affection, in the hours when he

was not in public. Never, since he entered the world, had he become

really familiar with any one but her; it has been seen elsewhere to what

extent. Nothing could fill up this great void: The bitterness of being

deprived of her augmented, because he could find no diversion. This

unfortunate state made him seek relief everywhere in abandoning himself

more and more to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine.

They soon managed to obtain possession of him, as it were, entirely;

leaving no art unexhausted in order to flatter, to amuse, to please, and

to interest him. He was made to believe that M. du Maine was utterly

without ambition; like a good father of a family, solely occupied with

his children, touched with the grandeur of his nearness to the King,

simple, frank, upright, and one who after working at his duties all day,

and after giving himself time for prayer and piety, amused himself in

hunting, and drew upon his natural gaiety and cheerfulness, without

knowing anything of the Court, or of what was passing! Compare this

portrait with his real character, and we shall feel with terror what a

rattlesnake was introduced into the King’s privacy.

Established thus in the mind and heart of the King, the opportunity

seemed ripe for profiting by precious time that could not last long.

Everybody smiled upon the project of M. du Maine and Madame de Maintenon.

They had rendered M. d’Orleans odious in the eyes of the King and of the

whole country, by the most execrable calumnies. How could he defend

himself? shut up as the King was, how oppose them? how interfere with

their dark designs? M. du Maine wished not only to be made prince of the

blood, but to be made guardian of the heir to the throne, so as to dwarf

the power of the Regent as much as possible. He flattered himself that

the feeling he had excited against M. d’Orleans in the Court, in Paris,

and in the provinces would be powerfully strengthened by dispositions so

dishonourable; that he should find himself received as the guardian and

protector of the life of the royal infant, to whom was attached the

salvation of France, of which he would then become the idol; that the

independent possession of the young King, and of his military and civil

households, would strengthen with the public applause the power with

which he would be invested in the state by this testament; that the

Regent, reviled and stripped in this manner, not only would be in no

condition to dispute anything, but would be unable to defend himself from

any attempts the bastard might afterwards make against him. M. du Maine

wished in fact to take from M. d’Orleans everything, except the name of

Regent, and to divide all the power between himself and his brother.

Such was his scheme, that the King by incredible art was induced to

sanction and approve.

But the schemers had tough work before they obtained this success.

They found that the King would not consent to their wishes without much

opposition. They hit upon a devilish plan to overpower his resistance.

Hitherto, they had only been occupied in pleasing him, in amusing him,

in anticipating his wishes, in praising him--let me say the word--

in adoring him. They had redoubled their attention, since, by the

Dauphine’s death, they had become his sole resource.

Not being able now to lead him as they wished, but determined to do so at

all cost, they adopted another system, certain as they were that they

could do so with impunity. Both became serious, often times dejected,

silent, furnishing nothing to the conversation, letting pass what the

King forced himself to say, sometimes not even replying, if it was not a

direct interrogation. In this manner all the leisure hours of the King

were rendered dull and empty; his amusements and diversions were made

fatiguing and sad and a weight was cast upon him, which he was the more

unable to bear because it was quite new to him, and he was utterly

without means to remove it. The few ladies who were admitted to the

intimacy of the King knew not what to make of the change they saw in

Madame de Maintenon. They were duped at first by the plea of illness;

but seeing at last that its duration passed all bounds, that it had no

intermission, that her face announced no malady, that her daily life was

in no way deranged, that the King became as serious and as sad as she,

they sounded each other to find out the cause. Fear, lest it should be

something in which they, unknowingly, were concerned, troubled them; so

that they became even worse company to the King than Madame de Maintenon.

There was no relief for the King. All his resource was in the

commonplace talk of the Comte de Toulouse, who was not amusing, although

ignorant of the plot, and the stories of his valets, who lost tongue as

soon as they perceived that they were not seconded by the Duc du Maine in

his usual manner. Marechal and all the rest, astonished at the

mysterious dejection of the Duc du Maine, looked at each other without

being able to divine the cause. They saw that the King was sad and

bored; they trembled for his health, but not one of them dared to do

anything. Time ran on, and the dejection of M. du Maine and Madame de

Maintenon increased. This is as far as the most instructed have ever

been able to penetrate. To describe the interior scenes that doubtless

passed during the long time this state of things lasted, would be to

write romance. Truth demands that we should relate what we know, and

admit what we are ignorant of. I cannot go farther, therefore, or pierce

deeper into the density of these dark mysteries.

What is certain is, that cheerfulness came back all at once, with the

same surprise to the witnesses of it, as the long-continued dejection had

caused them, simply because they understood no more of the end than of

the commencement. The double knowledge did not come to them until they

heard the frightful crash of the thunderbolt which fell upon France, and

astonished all Europe.

To give some idea of the opposition from the King, M. du Maine and Madame

de Maintenon had to overcome, and to show how reluctantly he consented to

their wishes, more than one incident may be brought forward. Some days

before the news transpired, the King, full of the enormity of what he had

just done for his bastards, looked at them in his cabinet, in presence of

the valets, and of D’Antin and D’O, and in a sharp manner, that told of

vexation, and with a severe glance, suddenly thus addressed himself to M.

du Maine:

“You have wished it; but know that however great I may make you, and you

may be in my lifetime, you are nothing after me; and it will be for you

then to avail yourself of what I have done for you, if you can.”

Everybody present trembled at a thunder-clap so sudden, so little

expected, so entirely removed from the character and custom of the King,

and which showed so clearly the extreme ambition of the Duc du Maine, and

the violence he had done to the weakness of the King, who seemed to

reproach himself for it, and to reproach the bastard for his ambition and

tyranny. The consternation of M. du Maine seemed extreme at this rough

sally, which no previous remark had led to. The King had made a clean

breast of it. Everybody fixed his eyes upon the floor and held his

breath. The silence was profound for a considerable time: it finished

only when the King passed into his wardrobe. In his absence everybody

breathed again. The King’s heart was full to bursting with what he had

just been made to do; but like a woman who gives birth to two children,

he had at present brought but one into the world, and bore a second of

which he must be delivered, and of which he felt all the pangs without

any relief from the suffering the first had caused him.

Again, on Sunday, the 27th August, the Chief-President and the Attorney-

General were sent for by the King. He was at Versailles. As soon as

they were alone with him, he took from a drawer, which he unlocked, a

large and thick packet, sealed with seven seals (I know not if by this M.

du Maine wished to imitate the mysterious book with Seven Seals, of the

Apocalypse, and so sanctify the packet). In handing it to them, the King

said: “Gentlemen, this is my will. No one but myself knows its contents.

I commit it to you to keep in the Parliament, to which I cannot give a

greater testimony of my esteem and confidence than by rendering it the

depository of it. The example of the Kings my predecessors, and that of

the will of the King, my father, do not allow me to be ignorant of what

may become of this; but they would have it; they have tormented me; they

have left me no repose, whatever I might say. Very well! I have bought

my repose. Here is the will; take it away: come what may of it, at

least, I shall have rest, and shall hear no more about it.”

At this last word, that he finished with a dry nod, he turned his back

upon them, passed into another cabinet, and left them both nearly turned

into statues. They looked at each other frozen by what they had just

heard, and still more by what they had just seen in the eyes and the

countenance of the King; and as soon as they had collected their senses,

they retired, and went to Paris. It was not known until after dinner

that the King had made a will and given it to them. In proportion as the

news spread, consternation filled the Court, while the flatterers, at

bottom as much alarmed as the rest, and as Paris was afterwards,

exhausted themselves in praises and eulogies.

The next day, Monday, the 28th, the Queen of England came from Chaillot,

where she almost always was, to Madame de Maintenon’s. As soon as the

King perceived her, “Madame,” said he to her, like a man full of

something and angry, “I have made my will; I have been tormented to do

it;” then casting his eyes upon Madame de Maintenon, “I have bought

repose; I know the powerlessness and inutility of it. We can do all we

wish while we live; afterwards we are less than the meanest. You have

only to see what became of my father’s will immediately after his death,

and the wills of so many other Kings. I know it well; but nevertheless

they have wished it; they gave me no rest nor repose, no calm until it

was done; ah, well! then, Madame, it is done; come what may of it, I

shall be no longer tormented.”

Words such as these so expressive of the extreme violence suffered by the

King, of his long and obstinate battle before surrendering, of his

vexation, and uneasiness, demand the clearest proofs. I had them from

people who heard them, and would not advance them unless I were perfectly

persuaded of their exactness.

As soon as the Chief-President and the Attorney-General returned to

Paris, they sent for some workmen, whom they led into a tower of the

Palace of justice, behind the Buvette, or drinking-place of the grand

chamber and the cabinet of the Chief-President. They had a big hole made

in the wall of this tower, which is very thick, deposited the testament

there, closed up the opening with an iron door, put an iron grating by

way of second door, and then walled all up together. The door and the

grating each had three locks, the same for both; and a different key for

each of the three, which consequently opened each of the two locks, the

one in the door and the one in the grating. The Chief-President kept one

key, the Attorney-General another, and the Chief-Greffier of the

Parliament the third. The Parliament was assembled and the Chief-

President flattered the members as best he might upon the confidence

shown them in entrusting them with this deposit.

At the same time was presented to the Parliament an edict that the Chief-

President and the Attorney-General had received from the hand of the

Chancellor at Versailles the same morning the King had given them his

will, and the edict was registered. It was very short. It declared that

the packet committed to the Chief-President and to the Attorney-General

contained the will of the King, by which he had provided for the

protection and guardianship of the young King, and had chosen a Regency

council, the dispositions of which--for good reasons he had not wished to

publish; that he wished this deposit should be preserved during his life

in the registry of the Parliament, and that at the moment when it should

please God to call him from the world, all the chambers of the

Parliament, all the princes of the royal house, and all the peers who

might be there, should assemble and open the will; and that after it was

read, all its dispositions should be made public and executed, nobody to

be permitted to oppose them in any way.

Notwithstanding all this secrecy, the terms of the will were pretty

generally guessed, and as I have said, the consternation was general.

It was the fate of M. du Maine to obtain what he wished; but always with

the maledictions of the public. This fate did not abandon him now, and

as soon as he felt it, he was overwhelmed, and Madame de Maintenon

exasperated, and their attentions and their care redoubled, to shut up

the King, so that the murmurs of the world should not reach him. They

occupied themselves more than ever to amuse and to please him, and to

fill the air around him with praises, joy, and public adoring at an act

so generous and so grand, and at the same time so wise and so necessary

to the maintenance of good order and tranquillity, which would cause him

to reign so gloriously even after his reign.

This consternation was very natural, and is precisely why the Duc du

Maine found himself deceived and troubled by it. He believed he had

prepared everything, smoothed everything, in rendering M. d’Orleans so

suspected and so odious; he had succeeded, but not so much as he

imagined. His desires and his emissaries had exaggerated everything;

and he found himself overwhelmed with astonishment, when instead of the

public acclamations with which he had flattered himself the will would be

accompanied, it was precisely the opposite.

It was seen very clearly that the will assuredly could not have been made

in favour of M. d’Orleans, and although public feeling against him had in

no way changed, no one was so blind as not to see that he must be Regent

by the incontestable right of his birth; that the dispositions of the

testament could not weaken that right, except by establishing a power

that should balance his; and that thus two parties would be formed in the

state the chief of each of which would be interested in vanquishing the

other, everybody being necessitated to join one side or other, thereby

running a thousand risks without any advantage. The rights of the two

disputants were compared. In the one they were found sacred, in the

other they could not be found at all. The two persons were compared.

Both were found odious, but M. d’Orleans was deemed superior to M. du

Maine. I speak only of the mass of uninstructed people, and of what

presented itself naturally and of itself. The better informed had even

more cause to arrive at the same decision.

M. d’Orleans was stunned by the blow; he felt that it fell directly upon

him, but during the lifetime of the King he saw no remedy for it.

Silence respectful and profound appeared to him the sole course open;

any other would only have led to an increase of precautions. The King

avoided all discourse with him upon this matter; M. du Maine the same.

M. d’Orleans was contented with a simple approving monosyllable to both,

like a courtier who ought not to meddle with anything; and he avoided

conversation upon this subject, even with Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans,

and with anybody else. I was the sole person to whom he dared to unbosom

himself; with the rest of the world he had an open, an ordinary manner,

was on his guard against any discontented sign, and against the curiosity

of all eyes. The inexpressible abandonment in which he was, in the midst

of the Court, guaranteed him at least from all remarks upon the will. It

was not until the health of the King grew more menacing that he began to

speak and be spoken to thereon.

As for M. du Maine, despite his good fortune, he was not to be envied At

Sceaux, where he lived, the Duchesse du Maine, his wife, ruined him by

her extravagance. Sceaux was more than ever the theatre of her follies,

and of the shame and embarrassment of her husband, by the crowd from the

Court and the town, which abounded there and laughed at them. She

herself played there Athalie (assisted by actors and actresses) and other

pieces several times a week. Whole nights were passed in coteries,

games, fetes, illuminations, fireworks, in a word, fancies and fripperies

of every kind and every day. She revelled in the joy of her new

greatness--redoubled her follies; and the Duc du Maine, who always

trembled before her, and who, moreover, feared that the slightest

contradiction would entirely turn her brain, suffered all this, even

piteously doing the honours as often as he could without ceasing in his

conduct to the King.

However great might be his joy, whatever the unimaginable greatness to

which he had arrived, he was not tranquil. Like those tyrants who have

usurped by their crimes the sovereign power, and who fear as so many

conspiring enemies all their fallen citizens they have enslaved--he felt

as though seated under that sword that Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,

suspended by a hair over his table, above the head of a man whom he

placed there because he believed him happy, and in this manner wished to

make him feel what passed unceasingly in himself. M. du Maine, who

willingly expressed in pleasantry the most serious things, frankly said

to his familiars, that he was “like a louse between two fingernails” (the

Princes of the blood and the peers), by which he could not fail to be

cracked if he did not take care! This reflection troubled the excess of

his pleasure, and that of the greatness and the power to which so many

artifices had elevated him. He feared the Princes of the blood as soon

as they should be of age to feel the infamy and the danger of the wound

he had given them; he feared the Parliament, which even under his eyes

had not been able to dissimulate its indignation at the violence he had

committed against the most holy and the most inviolable laws; he even

feared the Dukes so timid are injustice and tyranny!

CHAPTER LXIX

Let me return to Maisons. Five days after the King’s will had been

walled up, in the manner I have described, he came to me and made a

pathetic discourse upon the injustice done to M. le Duc d’Orleans by this

testament, and did all he could to excite me by railing in good set terms

against dispositions intended to add to the power and grandeur of the

bastards.

When he had well harangued, I said he had told me nothing new; that I saw

the same truths as he with the same evidence; that the worst thing I

found was that there was no remedy.

“No remedy!” he exclaimed, interrupting me, with his sly and cunning

laugh; “courage and ability can always find one for everything, and I am

astonished that you, who have both, should have nothing to suggest while

everybody is going to confusion.”

I asked him how it was possible to suppress a will registered by edict; a

document solemn and public deposited with ceremony in the very depths of

the palace, with precautions known to everybody--nature and art combining

to keep it in safety?

“You are at a loss to know!” replied Maisons to me. “Have ready at the

instant of the King’s death sure troops and sensible officers, all ready

and well instructed; and with them, masons and lock-smiths--march to the

palace, break open the doors and the wall, carry off the will, and let it

never be seen.”

In my extreme surprise I asked him, what he expected would be the fruit

of such violence? I pointed out that to seize by force of arms a public

and solemn document, in the midst of the capital, in despite of all--all

law and order, would be to put weapons into the hands of the enemies of

M. le Duc d’Orleans, who assuredly would be justified in crying out

against this outrage, and who would find the whole country disposed to

echo their cries. I said too, that if in the execution of such an odious

scheme a sedition occurred, and blood were shed, universal hatred and

opprobrium would fall upon the head of M, le Duc d’Orleans, and

deservedly so.

We carried on our discussion a long time, but Maisons would in no way

give up his scheme. After leaving me he went to M. le Duc d’Orleans and

communicated it to him. Happily it met with no success with the Duke,

indeed, he was extremely astonished at it; but what astonished us more

was, that Maisons persisted in it up to his death, which preceded by some

few days that of the King, and pressed it upon M. le Duc d’Orleans and

myself till his importunity became persecution.

It was certainly not his fault that I over and over again refused to go

to the Grand Chamber of the Parliament to examine the place, as Maisons

wished me to do; I who never went to the Parliament except for the

reception of the peers or when the King was there. Not being able to

vanquish what he called my obstinacy, Maisons begged me at the least to

go and fix myself upon the Quai de la Megisserie, where so much old iron

is sold, and examine from that spot the tower where the will was; he

pointed it out to me; it looked out upon the Quai des Morforidus, but was

behind the buildings on the quai. What information could be obtained

from such a point of view may be imagined. I promised to go there, not

to stop, and thus awake the attention of the passers-by, but to pass

along and see what was to be seen; adding, that it as simply out of

complaisance to him, and not because I meant to agree in any way to his

enterprise. What is incomprehensible is, that for a whole year Maisons

pressed his charming project upon us. The worst enemy of M. le Duc

d’Orleans could not have devised a more rash and ridiculous undertaking.

I doubt whether many people would have been found in all Paris

sufficiently deprived of sense to fall in with it. What are we to think

then of a Parliamentary President of such consideration as Maisons had

acquired at the Palace of justice, at the Court, in the town, where he

had always passed for a man of intellect, prudent, circumspect,

intelligent, capable, measured? Was he vile enough, in concert with M.

du Maine, to open this gulf beneath our feet, to push us to our ruin, and

by the fall of M. le Duc d’Orleans--the sole prince of the blood old

enough to be Regent--to put M. le Duc du Maine in his place, from which

to the crown there was only one step, as none are ignorant, left to be

taken? It seems by no means impossible: M. du Maine, that son of

darkness, was, judging him by what he had already done, quite capable of

adding this new crime to his long list.

The mystery was, however, never explained. Maisons died before its

darkness could be penetrated. His end was terrible. He had no religion;

his father had had none. He married a sister of the Marechal de Villars,

who was in the same case. Their only son they specially educated in

unbelief. Nevertheless, everything seemed to smile upon them. They had

wealth, consideration, distinguished friends. But mark the end.

Maisons is slightly unwell. He takes rhubarb twice or thrice,

unseasonably; more unseasonably comes Cardinal de Bissy to him, to talk

upon the constitution, and thus hinder the operation of the rhubarb; his

inside seems on fire, but he will not believe himself ill; the progress

of his disease is great in a few hours; the doctors, though soon at their

wits’ ends, dare not say so; the malady visibly increases; his whole

household is in confusion; he dies, forty-eight years of age, midst of a

crowd of friends, of clients, without the power or leisure to think for a

moment what is going to happen to his soul!

His wife survives him ten or twelve years, opulent, and in consideration,

when suddenly she has an attack of apoplexy in her garden. Instead of

thinking of her state, and profiting by leisure, she makes light of her

illness, has another attack a few days after, and is carried off on the

5th of May, 1727, in her forty-sixth year, without having had a moment

free.

Her son, for a long time much afflicted, seeks to distinguish himself and

acquire friends. Taking no warning from what has occurred, he thinks

only of running after the fortune of this world, and is surprised at

Paris by the small-pox. He believes himself dead, thinks of what he has

neglected all his life, but fear suddenly seizes him, and he dies in the

midst of it, on the 13th of September, 1731, leaving an only son, who

dies a year after him, eighteen months old, all the great wealth of the

family going to collateral relatives.

These Memoirs are not essays on morality, therefore I have contented

myself with the most simple and the most naked recital of facts; but I

may, perhaps, be permitted to apply here those two verses of the 37th

Psalm, which appear so expressly made for the purpose: “I have seen the

impious exalted like the cedars of Lebanon: Yea, he passed away, and, lo,

he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.”

But let me leave this subject now, to treat of other matters. On Friday,

the last day of August, I lost one of the best and most revered of

friends, the Duc de Beavilliers. He died at Vaucresson after an illness

of about two months, his intellect clear to the last, aged sixty-six

years, having been born on the 24th of Oct 1648.

He was the son of M. de Saint-Aignan, who with honour and valour was

truly romantic in gallantry, in belles-lettres, and in arms. He was

Captain of the Guards of Gaston, and at the end of 1649 bought of the Duc

de Liancourt the post of first-gentleman of the King’s chamber. He

commanded afterwards in Berry against the party of M. le Prince, and

served elsewhere subsequently. In 1661 he was made Chevalier of the

Order, and in 1661 Duke and Peer. His first wife he lost in 1679. At

the end of a year he married one of her chambermaids, who had been first

of all engaged to take care of her dogs. She was so modest, and he so

shamefaced, that in despite of repeated pressing on the part of the King,

she could not be induced to take her tabouret. She lived in much

retirement, and had so many virtues that she made herself respected all

her life, which was long. M. de Beauvilliers was one of the children of

the first marriage. I know not what care M. and Madame de Saint-Aignan

took of the others, but they left him, until he was six or seven years of

age, to the mercy of their lodge-keeper. Then he was confided to the

care of a canon of Notre Dame de Clery. The household of the canon

consisted of one maid-servant, with whom the little boy slept; and they

continued to sleep together until he was fourteen or fifteen years old,

without either of them thinking of evil, or the canon remarking that the

lad was growing into a man. The death of his eldest brother called

M. de Beauvilliers home. He entered the army, served with distinction at

the head of is regiment of cavalry, and was brigadier.

He was tall, thin, had a long and ruddy face, a large aquiline nose, a

sunken mouth, expressive, piercing eyes, an agreeable smile, a very

gentle manner but ordinarily retiring, serious, and concentrated. B

disposition he was hasty, hot, passionate, fond of pleasure. Ever since

God had touched him, which happened early in his life, he had become

gentle, mildest, humble, kind, enlightened, charitable, and always full

of real piety and goodness. In private, where he was free, he was gay,

joked, and bantered pleasantly, and laughed with good heart. He liked to

be made fun of there was only the story of his sleeping with the canon’s

servant that wounded his modesty, and I have seen him embarrassed when

Madame de Beauvilliers has related it,--smiling, however, but praying her

sometimes not to tell it. His piety, which, as I have said, commenced

early in life, separated him from companions of his own age. At the army

one day, during a promenade of the King, he walked alone, a little in

front. Some one remarked it, and observed, sneeringly, that “he was

meditating.” The King, who heard this, turned towards the speaker, and,

looking at him, said, “Yes, ‘tis M. de Beauvilliers, one of the best men

of the Court, and of my realm.” This sudden and short apology caused

silence, and food for reflection, so that the fault-finders remained in

respect before his merit.

The King must have entertained a high regard for him, to give him, in

1670, the very delicate commission he entrusted to him. Madame had just

been so openly poisoned, the conviction was so complete and so general

that it was very difficult to palliate it. Our King and the King of

England, between whom she had just become a stronger bond, by the journey

she had made into England, were penetrated by grief and indignation, and

the English could not contain themselves. The King chose the Duc de

Beauvilliers to carry his compliments of condolence to the King of

England, and under this pretext to try to prevent this misfortune

interfering with their friendship and their union, and to calm the fury

of London and the nation. The King was not deceived: the prudent

dexterity of the Duc de Beauvilliers brought round the King of England,

and even appeased London and the nation.

M. de Beauvilliers had expressed a wish to be buried at Montargis, in the

Benedictine monastery, where eight of his daughters had become nuns.

Madame de Beauvilliers went there, and by an act of religion, terrible to

think of, insisted upon being present at the interment. She retired to

her house at Paris, where during the rest of her life she lived in

complete solitude, without company or amusement of any kind. For nearly

twenty years she remained there, and died in 1733, seventy-five years of

age, infinitely rich in alms and all sorts of good works.

The King taxed the infantry regiments, which had risen to an excessive

price. This venality of the only path by which the superior grades can

be reached is a great blot upon the military system, and stops the career

of many a man who would become an excellent soldier. It is a gangrene

which for a long time has eaten into all the orders and all the parties

of the state, and under which it will be odd if all do not succumb.

Happily it is unknown, or little known, in all the other countries of

Europe!

Towards the end of this year Cardinal d’Estrees died in Paris at his

abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, nearly eighty-seven years of age, having

always enjoyed perfect health of body and mind until this illness, which

was very short, and which left his intellect clear to the last. It is

proper and curious to pause for a moment upon a personage, all his life

of importance, and who at his death was Cardinal, Bishop of Albano, Abbe

of Longpont, of Mount Saint-Eloi, of Saint-Nichoas-aux-Bois, of La

Staffarde in Piedmont (where Catinat gained a celebrated battle before

being Marechal of France), of Saint-Claude in Franche-Comte, of Anchin in

Flanders, and of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in Paris. He was also Commander

of the Order of the promotion of 1688.

Merit, aided by the chances of fortune, made out of an obscure family of

the Boulonais country, a singularly illustrious race in the fourth

generation, of which Mademoiselle de Tourbes alone remains. The

Cardinal, brother of the last Marechal d’Estrees, their uncle, used to

say; that he knew his fathers as far as the one who had been page of

Queen Anne, Duchess of Brittany; but beyond that he knew nothing, and it

was not worth while searching. Gabrielle d’Estrees, mistress of Henry

IV., whose beauty made her father’s fortune, and whose history is too

well known to be here alluded to, was sister of the Cardinal’s father,

but died thirty years before he was born. It was through her that the

family became elevated. The father of Cardinal d’Estrees was

distinguished all his life by his merit, his capacity, and the authority

and elevated posts he held. He was made Marshal of France in 1626, and

it is a thing unique that he, his son, and his grandson were not only

Marshals of France, but all three were in succession seniors of that

corps for a long time.

The Cardinal d’Estrees was born in 1627, and for forty years lived with

his father, profiting by his lessons and his consideration. He was of

the most agreeable manners, handsome, well made, full of humour, wit, and

ability; in society the pleasantest person in the world, and yet well

instructed; indeed, of rare erudition, generous, obliging, dignified,

incapable of meanness, he was with so much talent and so many great and

amiable qualities generally loved and respected, and deserved to be. He

was made Cardinal in 1671, but was not declared until after many delays

had occurred. These delays much disturbed him. It was customary, then,

to pay more visits. One evening the Abbe de la Victoire, one of his

friends, and very witty, arrived very late at a supper, in a house where

he was expected. The company inopportunely asked him where he had been,

and what had delayed him.

“Alas!” replied the Abbe, in a tone of sadness, “where have I been? I

have been all day accompanying the body of poor M. de Laon.” [The

Cardinal d’Estrees was then Bishop and Duke of Laon.]

“M. de Laon!” cried everybody, “M. de Laon dead! Why, he was quite well

yesterday. ‘Tis dreadful. Tell us what has happened.”

“What has happened?” replied the Abbe, still with the same tone. “Why,

he took me with him when he paid his visits, and though his body was with

me, his spirit was at Rome, so that I quitted him very wearied.” At this

recital grief changed into merriment.

That grand dinner at Fontainebleau for the Prince of Tuscany, at which

the Prince was to be the only guest, and yet never received his

invitation from the Cardinal, I have already mentioned. He was

oftentimes thus absent, but never when business or serious matters were

concerned, so that his forgetfulness was amusing. He never could bear to

hear of his domestic affairs. Pressed and tormented by his steward and

his maitre d’hotel to overlook their accounts, that he had not seen for

many years, he appointed a day to be devoted to them. The two financiers

demanded that he should close his door so as not to be interrupted; he

consented with difficulty, then changed his mind, and said that if

Cardinal Bonzi came he must be admitted, but that it was not likely he

would come on that particular day. Directly afterwards he sent a trusty

servant to Cardinal Bonzi, entreating him to come on such and such a day,

between three and four o’clock, conjuring him not to fail, and begging

him above all to come as of his own accord, the reason to be explained

afterwards. On the appointed day Cardinal d’Estrees told his porter to

let no one enter in the afternoon except Cardinal Bonzi, who assuredly

was not likely to come, but who was not to be sent away if he did. His

people, delighted at having their master to themselves all day without

interruption, arrived about three o’clock; the Cardinal quitted his

family and the few friends who had that day dined with him, and passed

into a cabinet where his business people laid out their papers. He said

a thousand absurdities to them upon his expenditure, of which he

understood nothing, and unceasingly looked towards the window, without

appearing to do so, secretly sighing for a prompt deliverance. A little

before four o’clock, a coach arrived in the court-yard; his business

people, enraged with the porter, exclaimed that there will then be no

more opportunity for working. The Cardinal in delight referred to the

orders he had given. “You will see,” he added, “that it is Cardinal

Bonzi, the only man I excepted, and who, of all days in the world, comes

to-day.”

Immediately afterwards, the Cardinal was announced, and the intendant and

maitre d’hotel were forced to make off with their papers and their table.

As soon as he was alone with Bonzi, he explained why he had requested

this visit, and both laughed heartily. Since then his business people

have never caught him again, never during the rest of his life would he

hear speak of them.

He must have had honest people about him; for every day his table was

magnificent, and filled at Paris and at the Court with the best company.

His equipages were so, also; he had numberless domestics, many gentlemen,

chaplains, and secretaries. He gave freely to the poor, and to his

brother the Marechal and his children (who were not well off), and yet

died without owing a crown to a living soul.

His death, for which he had been long prepared, was fine-edifying and

very Christian-like. He was universally regretted. A joke of his with

the King is still remembered. One day, at dinner, where he always paid

much attention to the Cardinal, the King complained of the inconvenience

he felt in no longer having teeth.

“Teeth, sire!” replied the Cardinal; “why, who has any teeth?”

The joke is that the Cardinal, though old, still had very white and very

beautiful teeth, and that his mouth, large, but agreeable, was so shaped

that it showed them plainly in speaking. Therefore the King burst out

laughing at this reply, and all present also, including the Cardinal, who

was not in the slightest degree embarrassed. I might go on forever

telling about him, but enough, perhaps, has been already said.

The commencement of the new year, 1715, was marked by the death of

Fenelon, at Cambrai, where he had lived in disgrace so many years. I

have already said something about him, so that I have now but little to

add. His life at Cambrai was remarkable for the assiduity with which he

attended to the spiritual and temporal wants of his flock. He was

indefatigable in the discharge of his functions, and in endeavouring to

gain all hearts. Cambrai is a place much frequented; through which many

people pass. During the war the number of wounded soldiers he had

received into his house or attended to in the hospitals passes all

belief. He spared nothing for them, neither physical comforts nor

spiritual consolations. Thus it is incredible to what an extent he

became the idol of the whole army. His manners, to high and low, were

most affable, yet everywhere he was the prelate, the gentleman, the

author of “Telemachus.” He ruled his diocese with a gentle hand, in no

way meddled with the Jansenists; he left all untouched. Take him for all

in all, he had a bright genius and was a great man. His admiration true

or feigned for Madame Guyon remained to the last, yet always without

suspicion of impropriety. He had so exactly arranged his affairs that he

died without money, and yet without owing a sou to anybody.

VOLUME 10.

CHAPTER LXX

The reign of Louis XIV. was approaching its conclusion, so that there is

now nothing more to relate but what passed during the last month of his

life, and scarcely so much. These events, indeed, so curious and so

important, are so mixed up with those that immediately followed the

King’s death, that they cannot be separated from them. It will be

interesting and is necessary to describe the projects, the thoughts, the

difficulties, the different resolutions, which occupied the brain of the

Prince, who, despite the efforts of Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine,

was of necessity about to be called to the head of affairs during the

minority of the young King. This is the place, therefore, to explain all

these things, after which we will resume the narrative of the last month

of the King’s life, and go on to the events which followed his death.

But, as I have said, before entering upon this thorny path, it will be as

well to make known, if possible, the chief personage of the story, the

impediments interior and exterior in his path, and all that personally

belonged to him.

M. le Duc d’Orleans was, at the most, of mediocre stature, full-bodied

without being fat; his manner and his deportment were easy and very

noble; his face was broad and very agreeable, high in colour; his hair

black, and wig the same. Although he danced very badly, and had but ill

succeeded at the riding-school, he had in his face, in his gestures, in

all his movements, infinite grace, and so natural that it adorned even

his most ordinary commonplace actions. With much ease when nothing

constrained him, he was gentle, affable, open, of facile and charming

access; the tone of his voice was agreeable, and he had a surprisingly

easy flow of words upon all subjects which nothing ever disturbed, and

which never failed to surprise; his eloquence was natural and extended

even to his most familiar discourse, while it equally entered into his

observations upon the most abstract sciences, on which he talked most

perspicuously; the affairs of government, politics, finance, justice,

war, the court, ordinary conversation, the arts, and mechanics. He could

speak as well too upon history and memoirs, and was well acquainted with

pedigrees. The personages of former days were familiar to him; and the

intrigues of the ancient courts were to him as those of his own time.

To hear him, you would have thought him a great reader. Not so. He

skimmed; but his memory was so singular that he never forgot things,

names, or dates, cherishing remembrance of things with precision; and his

apprehension was so good, that in skimming thus it was, with him,

precisely as though he had read very laboriously. He excelled in

unpremeditated discourse, which, whether in the shape of repartee or

jest, was always appropriate and vivacious. He often reproached me, and

others more than he, with “not spoiling him;” but I often gave him praise

merited by few, and which belonged to nobody so justly as to him; it was,

that besides having infinite ability and of various kinds, the singular

perspicuity of his mind was joined to so much exactness, that he would

never have made a mistake in anything if he had allowed the first

suggestions of his judgment. He oftentimes took this my eulogy as a

reproach, and he was not always wrong, but it was not the less true.

With all this he had no presumption, no trace of superiority natural or

acquired; he reasoned with you as with his equal, and struck the most

able with surprise. Although he never forgot his own position, nor

allowed others to forget it, he carried no constraint with him, but put

everybody at his ease, and placed himself upon the level of all others.

He had the weakness to believe that he resembled Henry IV. in

everything, and strove to affect the manners, the gestures, the bearing,

of that monarch. Like Henry IV. he was naturally good, humane,

compassionate; and, indeed, this man, who has been so cruelly accused of

the blackest and most inhuman crimes, was more opposed to the destruction

of others than any one I have ever known, and had such a singular dislike

to causing anybody pain that it may be said, his gentleness, his

humanity, his easiness, had become faults; and I do not hesitate to

affirm that that supreme virtue which teaches us to pardon our enemies he

turned into vice, by the indiscriminate prodigality with which he applied

it; thereby causing himself many sad embarrassments and misfortunes,

examples and proofs of which will be seen in the sequel.

I remember that about a year, perhaps, before the death of the King,

having gone up early after dinner into the apartments of Madame la

Duchesse d’Orleans at Marly, I found her in bed with the megrims,

and M. d’Orleans alone in the room, seated in an armchair at her pillow.

Scarcely had I sat down than Madame la Duchesse began to talk of some of

those execrable imputations concerning M. d’Orleans unceasingly

circulated by Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine; and of an incident

arising therefrom, in which the Prince and the Cardinal de Rohan had

played a part against M. d’Orleans. I sympathised with her all the more

because the Duke, I knew not why, had always distinguished and courted

those two brothers, and thought he could count upon them. “And what will

you say of M. d’Orleans,” added the Duchesse, “when I tell you that since

he has known this, known it beyond doubt, he treats them exactly the same

as before?”

I looked at M. d’Orleans, who had uttered only a few words to confirm the

story, as it was being told, and who was negligently lolling in his

chair, and I said to him with warmth:

“Oh, as to that, Monsieur, the truth must be told; since Louis the

Debonnaire, never has there been such a Debonnaire as you.”

At these words he rose in his chair, red with anger to the very whites of

his eyes, and blurted out his vexation against me for abusing him, as he

pretended, and against Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans for encouraging me

and laughing at him.

“Go on,” said I, “treat your enemies well, and rail at your friends. I

am delighted to see you angry. It is a sign that I have touched the sore

point, when you press the finger on it the patient cries. I should like

to squeeze out all the matter, and after that you would be quite another

man, and differently esteemed.”

He grumbled a little more, and then calmed down. This was one of two

occasions only, on which he was ever really angry with me.

Two or three years after the death of the King, I was chatting in one of

the grand rooms of the Tuileries, where the Council of the Regency was,

according to custom, soon to be held, and M. d’Orleans at the other end

was talking to some one in a window recess. I heard myself called from

mouth to mouth, and was told that M. d’Orleans wished to speak to me.

This often happened before the Council. I went therefore to the window

where he was standing. I found a serious bearing, a concentrated manner,

an angry face, and was much surprised.

“Monsieur,” said he to me at once, “I have a serious complaint against

you; you, whom I have always regarded as my best of friends.”

“Against me! Monsieur!” said I, still more surprised. “What is the

matter, then, may I ask?”

“The matter!” he replied with a mien still more angry; “something you

cannot deny; verses you have made against me.”

“I--verses!” was my reply. “Why, who the devil has been telling you such

nonsense? You have been acquainted with me nearly forty years, and do

you not know, that never in my life have I been able to make a single

verse--much less verses?”

“No, no, by Heaven,” replied he, “you cannot deny these;” and forthwith

he began to sing to me a street song in his praise, the chorus of which

was: ‘Our Regent is debonnaire, la la, he is debonnaire,’ with a burst of

laughter.

“What!” said I, “you remember it still!” and smiling, I added also,

“since you are revenged for it, remember it in good earnest.” He kept on

laughing a long time before going to the Council, and could not hinder

himself. I have not been afraid to write this trifle, because it seems

to me that it paints the man.

M. d’Orleans loved liberty, and as much for others as for himself. He

extolled England to me one day on this account, as a country where there

are no banishments, no lettres de cachet, and where the King may close

the door of his palace to anybody, but can keep no one in prison; and

thereupon related to me with enjoyment, that besides the Duchess of

Portsmouth, Charles the Second had many subordinate mistresses; that the

Grand Prieur, young and amiable in those days, driven out of France for

some folly, had gone to England to pass his exile and had been well

received by the King. By way of thanks, he seduced one of those

mistresses, by whom the King was then so smitten, that he sued for mercy,

offered money to the Grand Prieur, and undertook to obtain his

reconciliation in France. The Grand Prieur held firm. Charles

prohibited him the palace. He laughed at this, and went every day to the

theatre, with his conquest, and placed himself opposite the King. At

last, Charles, not knowing what to do to deliver himself from his

tormentor, begged our King to recall him, and this was done. But the

Grand Prieur said he was very comfortable in England and continued his

game. Charles, outraged, confided to the King (Louis XIV.) the state he

was thrown into by the Grand Prieur, and obtained a command so absolute

and so prompt, that his tormentor was afterwards obliged to go back into

France.