may be accomplished by personal solicitation when written applications
are of little or no avail. The Cardinal de Rohan too had a reputation for
gallantry; and as for the countess herself, she tells us in her “Memoirs”
that “her face, if not exactly handsome, had a certain piquancy about it
which, combined with her vivacity (Beugnot admits her smile was perfectly
enchanting), supplied in her the want of beauty so far as to lay her open
to the importunities of designing men.” She therefore sought an audience
of the grand almoner, and, finding that this would be accorded her,
called upon young Beugnot the day before to beg three things of him—his
carriage, his servant to follow her, and himself to accompany her. “All
these,” said she, “are indispensable, since there are only two good ways
of asking alms—at the church door, and in a carriage.” “I did not,”
observes Beugnot, “raise any difficulties as to the first two points,
but I peremptorily refused my arm, as I could only have presented myself
with her before the Cardinal de Rohan in the character of her advocate,
after his eminence had been notified of my coming, and had given his
permission.”[37] Madame was, therefore, constrained to present herself at
the cardinal’s hôtel without any other escort beyond the footman lent to
her by her friend.
At the first interview Madame de la Motte had with the cardinal, the
latter, as might have been expected from his well-known character
for gallantry, proved incapable of resisting the countess’s artful
allurements, and she, bent on completing the conquest which she felt she
had made, was careful on the occasion of subsequent visits to the Hôtel
de Strasbourg, to pay the utmost attention to her toilet—decking herself
out in her finest feathers, putting on her most coquettish airs, and
making the magnificent saloons of the Rue Vielle-du-Temple redolent with
the odour of her perfumes.[38]
VII.
1783.
OSCILLATES BETWEEN PARIS AND VERSAILLES.—SENDS OUT BEGGING LETTERS AND
PETITIONS.—FAINTS IN MADAME’S SALLE D’ATTENTE.—DESPAIR.
At the time the countess was engaged in setting her snares for the
Cardinal de Rohan, she dined one day with our young Bar-sur-Aube
advocate, who saw that she was in most excellent spirits, which every
now and then exhaled in malicious remarks respecting their common
acquaintances. “I tried in vain,” says Beugnot, “to lead her to more
serious talk. Irritated at last, I threatened to abandon her entirely
to her folly. She answered me gaily that she no longer had need of me.
My brow contracted; she saw that she was likely to lose me, and took
the trouble to explain to me that I had been exceedingly useful to her
in unravelling the particulars of her claim, in composing ‘mémoires’
and petitions for her—in a word, in all the duties of an advocate—but
that she had now arrived at a point where she required counsel of a
different kind. She wanted some one who could point out to her the way
of getting at the queen and the _contrôleur-général_, and who knew
equally well what was necessary to be done as to be left undone—in a
word, one who was alike capable of concocting a good intrigue, and of
carrying it successfully through. It was necessary that I should now
hear from her lips, without making an ugly grimace with my own, that in
an affair of this kind she looked upon me as the most foolish of men;
she had, indeed, already taken several steps without asking my advice.
Her husband’s condition, she went on to say, was one of ridicule to all
the world, and consequently an obstacle to her advancement. She had made
him enter as supernumerary into the Count d’Artois’ body-guard, which
would give him a sort of standing, which the gendarmerie did not. She had
found means, moreover, to get him to Versailles to perform his duties
there, and where, at least, he would not be so sorry a sight as he was
in the country. She observed that she was about to reside at Versailles
herself, in order to secure an opportunity of getting at the queen, and
of interesting her majesty in her favour. This was the first time,”
remarks Beugnot, “that she pronounced the name of her sovereign in my
presence.”[39]
At Versailles, which at this period was crowded with intriguers and
adventurers, living for the most part by their wits, the countess
resided, first of all with the widow Bourgeois, in the Place Dauphine,
whence she speedily removed to the Hôtel de Jouy, in the Rue des
Récollets, a long narrow street leading on to the immense Place
d’Armes, in front of the château. Some of its houses—built in strict
accordance with the edict promulgated by the _grand monarque_ at the
time a new Versailles was springing up in the neighbourhood of his vast
palace, namely, only a single storey high, with attics, and roofed with
slate—evidently date back to the days of Louis XIV. The Hôtel de Jouy,
where the countess had her quarters, is now an ordinary dwelling-house,
lofty and narrow, with a certain air of respectability about it, situated
at the far end of the street (No. 23),[40] in an opposite direction to
the château.
Having next to nothing to live upon, it is not to be wondered at that the
De la Mottes were soon deeply in debt The countess, it is true, converted
her apartment into a kind of office, whence she periodically sent forth
letters of supplication to the nobility for relief, and petitions to the
crown praying for the restoration of the Saint-Remi domains; but although
she urged her suit with audacious pertinacity, the result seems to have
fallen far short of her expectations. Fortunately for her there was
always the Cardinal de Rohan to fall back upon, and the snares which she
laid for him appear to have been set to some purpose, for ere six months
had gone by, Madame de la Motte had so far improved her acquaintance
with the grand almoner, who even assisted her in the composition of her
petitions and memorials,[41] as to become convinced—in accordance with
the rule she had laid down, that alms could be only effectively asked
for at the church-door or from a carriage—that a more respectable lodging
was indispensable to enable her to profit by the opportunities which this
intercourse seemed to open out to her. There were, moreover, other and
most pressing reasons for quitting the Hôtel de Reims. The De la Mottes
were fifteen hundred and eighty francs in debt to their landlord, who
had latterly not only lodged, but boarded them; in addition to which
the countess had quarrelled with the landlady, and had attempted, it
was said, to throw her downstairs.[42] The result was a police case,
and their ejectment from the premises. A “spacious _appartement_” the
rent of which was twelve hundred francs, was therefore hired by them
in Paris, in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles (No. 13), at that time a quiet
and very respectable street leading out of the Rue Saint-Louis, now the
Rue Turenne, and consisting entirely of private houses, within sight,
too, of the Place Royale, where three centuries ago stood the ancient
Palais des Tournelles, at the tournament in front of which Madame de la
Motte’s royal ancestor, Henri de Valois, lost his life, and almost in a
direct line (in an opposite direction to the Rue de la Verrerie) with
the cardinal’s hôtel, from which it was distant only a couple of short
streets, or some five or six minutes’ walk. Owing to their straitened
means the De la Mottes were unable to furnish their new _appartement_
until the month of May, 1783, and in the meantime madame, when not at
Versailles, was obliged to live _au cinquième_ with the mother of her
_femme de chambre_,[43] and yet she pretends that at this time she kept
five servants, male and female, and a couple of carriages.[44]
This was mere vain boasting. She was not yet in a position to ask alms
from a carriage, but was still obliged to send her begging letters
through the post, or be herself the bearer of them. One of these
missives, written at this particular epoch, and evidently addressed
to some person in an official position—possibly to M. d’Ormesson, the
then controller-general, or to M. de Breteuil, minister of the king’s
household—has been preserved, and furnishes a fair specimen of her style
of appeal to persons in power—a little flattery, more or less hypocrisy,
allusions to her high descent, and a covert threat or two. We extract its
main passages, which we have translated as closely as the bad handwriting
and worse spelling of the original document admitted of our doing.
“You have done me the honour, sir, of informing me that you
have caused to be remitted to M. Lenoir several notes which I
have sent you; but I believed that you, sir, would have had the
goodness to oblige me, who am more sensible than any one of
the confidence which the king has in you. You are too just to
see any harm in there being granted me so small a sum as has,
to my knowledge, just been accorded to a person who is not so
much to be pitied as I, nor with so much right. I cannot think
who it is that has usurped the place due to my misfortunes....
I know that M. de Forge [intendant of the royal fisheries and
forests, of which one or more of the Valois estates was part]
is very much opposed to my having the estate which I ask by
right; still I cannot conceive that it matters to him whether
I or another am tenant of the king.... I have the honour of
assuring you that I had yesterday only a single livre (franc),
consequently I may well hope to improve my fortunes.... It
is you, sir, and your good faith that console me. I am very
sensible that you are not unmindful of my misfortunes. I
believe that you told me you would speak to M. de Vergennes.
I have inquired if this matter is under his control, and am
assured it is on you alone that it depends. I recommend myself,
therefore, to your kindness.... It is not my intention to offer
a menace to any one in declaring that I shall end by throwing
myself at the feet of the king, and acquainting him with all
my misfortunes. If you, sir, cannot lend me your assistance,
I beg you to have the goodness to cause to be returned to
me the documents which I have had the honour to send you. I
shall see, on the day of the audience, whether it will not be
possible for me to change my lot, and for my efforts to get
me accorded the trifling sum I have asked. M. Lenoir sent me
yesterday a safe conduct, which M. Amelon requested of him on
my behalf, for a large sum which I have owed these two years
past, but which has not yet reduced me to sell my furniture,
and thereby cause scandals which would assuredly have been
aimed at me. Nevertheless, there is no help for it; I shall
be forced to make away with it so that I may live. God has not
yet determined my fate, and, if Providence does not show pity
on me, people will have to reproach themselves at seeing me
come to a most miserable end. I am not ashamed to tell you,
sir, that I am going out into the world to beg. I have borrowed
from the Baron de Clugny, of the Ministry of Marine, three
hundred livres to enable me to live, which, counting on your
goodness, I have promised to return him in a week’s time. No
one, sir, has so much reason to complain as I have—my husband
without a post, my sister for a long time on my hands, has, of
course, contributed to my debts. People may do as they please
with me; still, I say it is frightful to abandon a relation of
a king, whom he has himself recognised, and who is in the most
frightful position. You will, doubtless, sir, consider me very
unreasonable, but I cannot keep myself from complaining, since
not even the smallest grace is accorded me. I am no longer
surprised that so many people are driven into crime, and I can
say, moreover, that it is religion alone that keeps me from
doing wrong....
“I have the honour to be, with all the attachment of which you
are deserving, Sir,
“Your very humble, very obedient Servant,
“COUNTESS DE VALOIS DE LA MOTTE.
“Paris, May 16th, 1783.”[45]
Unless she desired to have a couple of strings to her bow, we can hardly
imagine the “safe conduct” referred to in the foregoing letter being
required by Madame de la Motte, since in her Memoirs she tells us that
the Countess de Provence interested herself to procure for her an _arrêt
de surséance_, or writ under the king’s sign manual, which not only
protected the person named in it from arrest, but saved him or her from
being harassed by suits at law as well. Madame de la Motte at the same
time obtained a “safe conduct” for her husband, the count. Convenient
documents, both of these, for individuals of their stamp. The count’s
“safe conduct” was not procured before there was pressing need of it,
for at this time the ex-gendarme was hiding from his creditors in a
little _auberge_ at Brie-Comte-Robert,[46] famous now-a-days for its
beautiful roses, a score or so of miles from Paris on the Lyons road,
and close to the Abbey of Jarcy, where his sister-in-law, Mademoiselle
de Saint-Remi, afterwards went to reside. The chances are that he had
already lost his post in the Count d’Artois’ body-guard, although Madame
de la Motte pretended that the countess was her protectress, and that the
count used to notice her “in a particular manner” whenever she went to
church at Versailles—a notice which, by the way, it has been insinuated,
subsequently ripened into a too familiar intimacy.[47]
The furniture which, on the guarantee of a Jew, the De la Mottes
eventually succeeded in obtaining for their new _appartement_ in the
Rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles, was far from splendid, and it was, moreover,
every now and then being sent to some neighbour, notably to Burlandeux,
the count’s barber, to save it from being taken in execution,[48] and
not unfrequently to the pawnbrokers to provide the family with meat
and bread.[49] The countess of course kept up her intimacy with the
cardinal, on whose liberality, or call it charity if you will, she could
to a certain extent depend. If we believe the cardinal’s statement, the
donations he bestowed upon her at this period were far from being of that
prodigal character which the countess afterwards asserted them to have
been, and were more consistent with his character of priest and grand
almoner than that of lover and man of gallantry, which latter Madame
de la Motte openly insinuated was the nature of the cardinal’s then
relations towards her. The cardinal asserted that four or five louis at a
time, and at irregular and somewhat distant intervals, was the extent of
the benefactions she received from him; but he was forced to admit that
he had given her twenty-five louis on one occasion, and it eventually
oozed out that he had also made himself personally liable to a Jew
money-lender of Nancy for five thousand five hundred livres (francs),
a debt contracted by the count when he was stationed at Lunéville, and
which amount the cardinal of course eventually had to pay.[50] These
facts would seem to prove that at this period the countess had succeeded
in ensnaring her victim, preparatory to making him, as she afterwards
did, her dupe and then her instrument.
Madame de la Motte was very much in the habit of exaggerating the amount
of the charitable gifts bestowed upon her by members of the royal
family and some few of the French nobility, and even claimed to have
received certain apocryphal sums from persons of distinction who never
once assisted her. The reason for this will be apparent enough in the
course of our narrative. In the memorials and reports published in 1786
are various disclaimers on the part of people of rank, among others the
Duke de Chartres (afterwards Orléans Égalité), the Duke de Penthièvre,
the Duke de Choiseul, the _contrôleur-général_, &c., showing that these
exceedingly liberal benefactors, as the countess had made them out to
be, had either given nothing at all, or else that a huge disparity
existed between the sum really given and the amount pretended to have
been received. Her friend, Beugnot, moreover, speaks at this period
of sundry treats of an evening on the Boulevards, consisting of cakes
and beer, a beverage for which she had a particular liking, while, as
regards cakes, she would devour two or three dozen of these at a sitting,
making it evident that she had dined but lightly on these occasions, if,
indeed, she had dined at all.[51] She, however, most astonished Beugnot
by the voracity of her appetite when she dined with him, as she every
now and then did, at the “_Cadran bleu_” a noted tavern in the Champs
Élysées, whence on a memorable occasion, some eight years later, five
hundred and odd Marseillais, who had marched up to Paris in defence of
their fellow “patriots,” and whose march inspired the composition of
the world-renowned Marseillaise hymn, rushed forth on the grenadiers
of the Filles Saint-Thomas section, and drove them pell-mell over the
drawbridge of the Tuileries. Other friends of the countess’s tell, too,
of frequent loans of ten, fifteen, or twenty livres at a time, all of
which is tolerable evidence of semi-starvation and penury rather than of
an abundance or even a sufficiency of means.
Spite, nevertheless, of the limited nature of their resources, there is
no doubt but that when the De la Mottes had regularly settled down in the
Rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles, they made pretensions to something like display.
They borrowed, for instance, a service of silver plate of a friend—a
M. de Vieilleville; and according to the countess’s own statement, M.
de Calonne, at one of the interviews she succeeded in obtaining with
him just after his appointment to the office of _contrôleur-général_,
plainly told her that she was only “shamming poverty,” and commenced
twitting her respecting her hôtel at Paris, her cabriolet, her coach,
her travelling-carriage, and her servants in livery. To convince Calonne
that whatever might be her style of living, she was nevertheless in great
pecuniary difficulties, she took him one day the tickets for numerous
articles of furniture pledged by her at the Mont de Piété, and by this
ruse succeeded in securing some small amount of official sympathy, which
developed itself in a gift of six hundred livres from the royal treasury,
on the express condition, however, that she was to make no further
appeals.
Soon after the countess had become regularly resident in the Rue
Neuve-Saint-Gilles, she was a frequent attendant at mass at a convent
of Minimes, on the opposite side of the way, which has long since been
demolished, and barracks for gendarmerie erected on its site, but the
remembrance of which is still preserved in the nomenclature of several
of the adjacent streets. A certain Father Loth having his eye upon
so interesting an addition to the common fold, made her an offer of
a key by means of which she might let herself into the chapel to the
ten o’clock mass, attended, as he explained to her, only by persons
of her own condition. The countess accepted the offer, and a kind of
acquaintanceship sprang up between Father Loth and her, which resulted
in the former becoming a constant visitor at the De la Mottes, and
insinuating himself into the confidence of the family; and subsequently,
when brighter days dawned upon them, officiating as a sort of steward of
their household.
Although the countess went constantly to Versailles, in the hope of
obtaining by some lucky chance access to the queen, she seems to have
been baffled in all her efforts. She had scraped acquaintance with
Desclos, one of the queen’s pages, at a man-midwife’s at Versailles,[52]
and was on gossiping terms with the gatekeeper of the Little Trianon,
but could make no further advance at court, until by a lucky chance
she one day succeeded in penetrating into the apartments of one of the
princesses. Here, whilst waiting among other visitors for her turn to be
introduced, she suddenly fell down like a person fainting from weakness,
and otherwise exhibited symptoms of great suffering. Her poverty being
known, there was instantly a rumour afoot that sheer hunger was the
cause of this debility. The incident produced considerable excitement
in the court circle, and news reaching the ears of the Countess de
Provence that a lady of rank had fainted in the _salle d’attente_, from
lack of sustenance, she flew to her assistance, and after treating her
with all the tenderness that humanity dictated, gave her some twelve or
fifteen louis to relieve her necessities. The countess, much affected
by the occurrence, is said to have mentioned it on the following day to
Marie-Antoinette, who was about to yield to the impression it made upon
her sensibility; but Louis XVI., who had received so many of Madame de la
Motte’s petitions, and had been sufficiently bored thereby, had conceived
a strong prejudice against both her and her pretensions, and pronounced
her swoon to be a mere ruse to extort money. The result was that the
queen closed her purse-strings, and Madame de la Motte took little or
nothing by her move. Most persons in her situation, after this signal
failure, would have considered their struggle for court favour as fairly
concluded, but it was far from being so with her. She was one of those
indomitable spirits gifted with a pertinacity which no mere rebuff could
check, no disappointment discourage.
For some time past the countess had made a point of laying siege to one
controller-general after another—first to M. Joly de Fleury, then to M.
d’Ormesson, and finally to M. de Calonne, in whose antechamber she was
a constant attendant, and whom she so pestered with her petitions and
memorials and personal appeals for relief, spite of the understanding
come to when the six hundred livres were given to her, that she became
at length a kind of terror to the minister, who showered gold around
him with easy facility from a bankrupt exchequer, while, as a courtier
said, “All the world held out its hand, but I held out my hat.” To rid
himself of the countess’s importunities, and urged by Madame Elisabeth
and the Countess de Provence (who since the fainting scene had taken
some kind of interest in her) to do something towards her relief, M. de
Calonne obtained an augmentation of seven hundred livres (twenty-eight
pounds) to the De la Motte pension. Instead, however, of feeling in
any degree grateful for this act of favour, the countess tells us that
when the minister communicated the intelligence to her she indignantly
refused this “pitiful addition,” as she called it, “to her income.”
Visions of the restoration of the Essoyes, Fontette and Verpilière
estates had been floating before her eyes, and in the heat of her passion
she exclaimed, “I will oblige you, sir, to speak of my demands to the
king. Tell him, sir, that I will fix myself in this house”—the palace of
Versailles—“until he thinks proper to provide me with another home.” And
the irate countess in accordance with her threat did actually remain for
several hours, but at last took her departure, because, as she naïvely
remarks, her further stay there “would have answered no purpose.”[53]