Fine Couples Make Fine Children.--The Dauphine of Bavaria.--She
Displeases Madame de Montespan.--First Debut Relating to Madame de
Maintenon, Appointed Lady-in-waiting.--Conversation between the Two
Marquises.
The King, in his moments of effusion and abandonment (then so full of
pleasantness), had said more than once: "If I have any physical beauty, I
owe it to the Queen, my mother; if my daughters have any beauty, they owe
it to me: it is only fine couples who get fine children."
When I saw him decided upon marrying Monseigneur le Dauphin, I reminded
him of his maxim. He fell to smiling, and answered me: "Chance, too,
sometimes works its miracles. My choice for my son is a decided thing;
my politics come before my taste, and I have asked for the daughter of
the Elector of Bavaria, whose portrait I will show you. She is not
beautiful, like you; she is prettier than Benedicte, and I hope that she
will not bite Monseigneur le Dauphin in her capricious transports."
The portrait that the King showed me was a flattering one, as are, in
general, all these preliminary samples. For all that, the Princess
seemed to me hideous, and even disagreeable, especially about her eyes,
that portion of the face which confirms the physiognomy and decides
everything.
"Monseigneur will never love that woman," I said to the King. "That
constrained look in the pupil, those drooping eyes,--they make my heart
ache."
"My son, happily," his Majesty answered, "is not so difficult as you and
I. He has already seen this likeness, and at the second look he was
taken; and as we have assured him that the young person is well made, he
cries quits with her face, and proposes to love her as soon as he gets
her."
"God grant it!" I added; and the King told me, more or less in detail, of
what important personages he was going to compose his household. The
eternal Abbe Bossuet was to become first chaplain, as being the
tutor-in-chief to the Dauphin; the Duchesse de Richelieu, for her great
name, was going to be lady of honour; and the two posts of ladies in
waiting were destined for the Marquise de Rochefort, wife of the Marshal,
and for Madame de Maintenon, ex-governess of the Duc du Maine. The
gesture of disapproval which escaped me gave his Majesty pain.
"Why this air of contempt or aversion?" he said, changing colour. "Is it
to the Marechale de Rochefort or the Marquise de Maintenon that you
object? I esteem both the one and the other, and I am sorry for you if
you do not esteem them too."
"The Marechale de Rochefort," I replied, without taking any fright, "is
aged, and almost always sick; a lady of honour having her appearance will
make a contrast with her office. As to the other, she still has beauty
and elegance; but do you imagine, Sire, that the Court of Bavaria and the
Court of France have forgotten, in so short a time, the pleasant and
burlesque name of the poet Scarron?"
"Every one ought to forget what I have forgotten," replied the King, "and
what my gratitude will not, and cannot forget, I am surprised that you,
madame, should take pleasure in forgetting."
"She has taken care of my children since the cradle, I admit it with
pleasure," said I to his Majesty, without changing my tone; "you have
given her a marquisate for recompense, and a superb hotel completely
furnished at Versailles. I do not see that she has any cause for
complaint, nor that after such bounty there is more to add."
"Of eight children that you have brought into the world, madame, she has
reared and attended perfectly to six," replied the King. "The estate of
Maintenon has, at the most, recompensed the education of the Comtes de
Vegin, whose childhood was so onerous. And for the remainder of my
little family, what have I yet done that deserves mention?"
"Give her a second estate and money," I cried, quite out of patience,
"since it is money which pays all services of that nature; but what need
have you to raise her to great office, and keep her at Court? She dotes,
she says, on her old chateau of Maintenon; do not deprive her of this
delight. By making her lady in waiting, you would be disobliging her."
"She will accept out of courtesy," he said to me, putting on an air of
mockery. And as the time for the Council was noted by him on my clock,
he went away without adding more.
Since M. le Duc du Maine had grown up, and Mademoiselle de Nantes had
been confided to the Marquise de Montchevreuil, Madame de Maintenon
continued to occupy her handsome apartment on the Princes' Court. There
she received innumerable visits, she paid assiduous court to the Queen,
who had suddenly formed a taste for her, and took her on her walks and
her visits to the communities; but this new Marquise saw me rarely. Since
the affair of the vine-grower, killed on the road, she declared that I
had insulted her before everybody, and that I had ordered her imperiously
to return to my carriage, as though she had been a waiting-maid, or some
other menial. Her excessive sensibility readily afforded her this
pretext, so that she neglected and visibly overlooked me.
As she did not come to me, I betook myself to her at a tolerably early
hour, before the flood of visitors, and started her on the history of the
lady in waiting.
"His Majesty has spoken of it to me," she said, "as of a thing possible;
but I do not think there is anything settled yet in the matter."
"Will you accept," I asked her, "supposing the King to insist?"
"I should like a hundred times better," she replied, "to go and live in
independence in my little kingdom of Maintenon, and with my own hands
gather on my walls those velvet, brilliant peaches, which grow so fine in
those districts. But if the King commands me to remain at Court, and
form our young Bavarian Princess in the manners of this country, have I
the right, in good conscience, to refuse?"
"Your long services have gained you the right to desire and take your
retirement," I said to her; "in your place, I should insist upon the
necessities of my health. And the Court of France will not fall nor
change its physiognomy, even if a German or Iroquois Dauphine should
courtesy awry, or in bad taste."
Madame de Maintenon began to laugh, and assured me that "her post as lady
in waiting would be an actual burden, if the King had destined her for it
in spite of herself, and there should be no means of withdrawing from
it."
At this speech I saw clearly that things were already fixed. Not wishing
to call upon me the reproaches of my lord, I carried the conversation no
further.