Court throughout the _ancien régime_. Her object was to insinuate
herself, so to speak, into fortune, by making herself useful to some
great person. She sought an interview with the Comte de Guiche, and
gained his confidence by assuring him that she would win him the favour
of Madame. The means she employed did not at first meet with the
slightest success. Madame refused to read the letters Guiche sent her
through the maid of honour, or to hold any communication with him. But
Montalais was not disheartened. By dint of continually harping to her
mistress on the subject of the Count she succeeded in creating a certain
impression on her mind; and one day, just as Madame was leaving
Fontainebleau for Paris, Montalais with a mischievous air flung into her
coach all Guiche's unopened letters. As the journey was tedious and
Madame had nothing better to do she read the billets. The originality of
their style, which was so obscure as to suggest that the writer had no
idea what he meant, amused her. The whim seized her to reply--and the
flirtation began.
As her heart was not involved in the flirtation, her interest in her
curious lover would no doubt speedily have waned. But love of
excitement, the natural gaiety of her disposition, and the life she led
with Monsieur, whose jealousy might more accurately be described as a
malicious espionage, inclined Madame to coquetry. Moreover, the
unexpected end to her flirtation with the King had created a sort of
blank in her life; she was easily _ennuyée_, and when in this mood, like
the Duchesse de Longueville, the pleasures she sighed for were not
innocent. Her jaded gaiety required a fresh stimulant, and this the
flirtation with Guiche gave her. The sense of the danger they both ran
from detection pleased her as a child is pleased in playing with fire.
Letters passed between them every day, four of Guiche's to Madame's one.
One day Guiche disguised himself as an old woman and, aided by
Montalais, visited his mistress. The skill with which he evaded
recognition by Madame's ladies while he told them their fortunes would
have done credit to a Rochester. But success may sometimes invite
disaster.
Montalais, believing that with persons of such consequence she was
pulling the strings of an intrigue that would govern the State, wished
to give an air of importance to an affair in which she was interested.
So, under the pledge of the strictest secrecy, she confided to La
Vallière all that had passed between Guiche and Madame. Poor La
Vallière, who had sworn never to hide anything from her royal lover,
kept the secret till it endangered her own happiness. For Louis, talking
one day to his mistress about Madame, noticed that she became confused,
whereupon he instantly suspected that something important was being
hidden from him. As the unfortunate girl, whom he had seduced and was
later to abandon heartlessly, could not deny that she had a secret from
him and, owing to her promise to Montalais, would not betray it, the
King left her in a passion, swearing never to see her again. But when
twenty-four hours had elapsed and she neither saw nor heard from the man
she loved as few kings have been loved, Mademoiselle de la Vallière lost
her head and fled to a convent. Louis, however, was no sooner informed
of her flight than he went after her; and at the sight of him the
beautiful girl, whom the loss of her virtue and the loss of her lover
had between them nearly driven mad, rushed to his arms and told him all
she knew.
[Illustration: MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIÈRE.]
The surprise of Madame--who had no idea that La Vallière was acquainted
with her secrets--may be imagined when Louis coldly informed her that he
was aware of her indiscretions. For her, the flirtation with which she
had amused herself might easily have had serious consequences; but she
was quick to discover the loop-hole by which she, and even Guiche--for
she was not base enough to leave him to his fate--might escape. It was
in Louis' infatuation for La Vallière that she discovered her
opportunity. To him it was necessary that his mistress's flight should
be hushed up by her return to the Court of Madame in the position from
which she had fled. And as the cunning Madame would only agree to this
on the condition that Guiche, whom she promised not to see again, should
not be molested, ruin was thus averted.
At this point the Louis-Vallière intrigue became disentangled from
that of Guiche-Madame, and wandered off into another and more intricate
labyrinth, where after many adventures it was finally devoured by the
dragon Montespan; while the Affaire Guiche-Madame, having anointed its
wounds with the oil of intrigue, picked itself up and went on its
perilous way more vigorously than ever.
It began its new lease of life, however, with an indiscretion. The Comte
de Guiche had a friend to whom he was in the habit of confiding all his
secrets, and who now appeared on the scene to play the part of villain
as consummately as ever it was interpreted. This individual was the
famous or infamous Marquis de Vardes, one of the most polished and
attractive men at Court. He was something of a Chevalier de Gramont on
an inferior scale. His epigrams and _bons mots_ were proverbial, and the
dexterity with which he could turn an awkward situation to his advantage
was unrivalled. He was quite universally popular, and even Louis allowed
him to take an occasional liberty with him.
"De Vardes!" wrote Madame de Sévigné to her daughter; "toujours de
Vardes! He is the gospel according to the day!"
This brilliant and popular Marquis was, however, as proficient in
intrigue as Mademoiselle de Montalais herself, and utterly devoid of
principle. The confidences of Guiche and perhaps, too, the fascination
of Madame, had inspired him with the desire to win her heart. To achieve
his end it was necessary that his friend Guiche should be got out of
the way. On learning that the King knew of Madame's flirtation, he went
to Guiche's father, the Maréchal de Gramont, and so cleverly worked on
the old man's fears that he himself went to Louis and begged his Majesty
to order his son to join his regiment in Lorraine. This the King
willingly did, but when the news of Guiche's departure reached Madame,
believing that Louis had not kept his word to her, she broke hers to
him. Guiche persuaded her to grant him a farewell interview, and
Montalais undertook to arrange matters. But while the Comte de Guiche,
skilfully smuggled into the palace, was saying good-bye to Madame, who
should be unexpectedly announced but Monsieur! The ever-vigilant
Montalais had only time to whisper a warning, and the high-flown Guiche
was obliged to fling dignity to the winds and escape like some
ridiculous _bourgeois_ lover in a similar predicament. When Monsieur
entered his wife's apartment the Comte de Guiche was in the chimney!
This expedient, however, did not prevent the _dénouement_ to which the
foolish flirtation was now hurrying. Two of Madame's women, who were
jealous of Montalais, having seen her smuggle Guiche into their
mistress's bedroom, promptly went off to Anne of Austria and told her
what they knew. Such a piece of news was too much for Anne to keep to
herself, so she imparted it, with the usual exaggeration with which one
embroiders a sensation, to Monsieur. His revenge was characteristic.
Having packed Montalais out of the palace the next morning before his
wife was awake, he went off to Henrietta Maria and complained of her
daughter's conduct. But, thanks to Madame, the disagreeable notoriety
this affair might have created was again averted. She frankly confessed
to having acted foolishly, promised to treat Guiche for the future with
the indifference she felt towards him, and begged her husband's
forgiveness. Monsieur, disarmed by such straightforward conduct, and
satisfied with having humbled his wife, agreed to a reconciliation,
which, however, was not of long duration. As he had sense enough to
understand that a scandal would damage him as much as Madame, he
suffered Guiche to depart quietly for Lorraine, and contented himself
with insisting on the dismissal of Montalais.
The ground was now cleared for Vardes. His plans to make himself master
of Madame by love if possible, otherwise by blackmail, were most
skilfully laid. As it was, above all, necessary that he should not
excite the jealousy of Monsieur against himself, he set to work to
excite it against the young Prince de Marsillac, the eldest son of La
Rochefoucauld. He succeeded so well that Marsillac was banished from the
Court, and Monsieur treated Vardes with almost as much favour as he did
his _mignon_, the Chevalier de Lorraine. Having been informed by his
friend Guiche of all that had passed between him and Madame, Vardes was
led to believe that the passion was mutual, and in his treacherous
determination to supplant Guiche he did not hesitate to paint the absent
lover in the worst possible light.
But in turning Madame's indifference to Guiche into prejudice, Vardes
made the mistake of keeping his memory alive. Deceived by Vardes'
amiable and insinuating manners, and believing him to be her friend,
Madame distinguished him with certain confidences that he interpreted as
signs of a growing affection. Vardes was, however, rudely disillusioned
at the very moment he fancied victory within grasp. One night, at some
Court function, the conversation in the _entourage_ of Madame chanced to
turn on the Comte de Guiche, who from Lorraine had gone to Poland, where
he was covering himself with glory and wounds. Among the stories told of
him, it was related that in a battle, in which some of the fingers of
his right hand had been shot off, a bullet had struck him on the breast,
and that death was only averted by a "portrait he wore next his heart."
Madame, remembering all that had passed between herself and Guiche, had
no doubt the charmed portrait was her own, and, in spite of the
prejudice against him that had been subtly instilled into her mind, she
was sufficiently touched by what she heard to exclaim to Vardes that
"she believed she liked the Comte de Guiche more than she thought."
Realising that he had failed, Vardes now resolved to be revenged on both
Madame and Guiche.
At the time of her arrest Mademoiselle de Montalais had managed to save
Guiche's letters to Madame, of which she had the care, from falling into
the hands of Monsieur. These she carried with her to her convent prison,
whence she had sent them for safer keeping, as she thought, to her
lover, Malicorne. This man showed them to a certain Manicamp, a supposed
friend of the Comte de Guiche, from whom Vardes artfully got possession
of them. And from this rape of the letters sprung a numerous progeny of
little intrigues, by means of which, in the usual French fashion, a
crowd of minor persons set to work to weave the threads of their own
fortunes into the general pattern of Vardes-Guiche-Madame.
To enumerate all the adventures of this precious crew would require a
book almost as long as the "Vicomte de Bragelonne." Perhaps only a Dumas
could unravel all the threads of this curious tangle. And what a tangle
it was! Think of the incriminating correspondence passing from a
Montalais' hand to those of a Malicorne and a Manicamp, who wrote a
libel on Madame and Guiche, printed in Holland, and bought up, all save
one copy, by Madame's father-confessor, who travelled secretly to
Holland for the purpose and had adventures not a few. Think of Vardes'
forged letters from the Queen of Spain to ruin Madame--letters lost by
the forgers. Think of the Comte de Guiche returning from Poland and
discovering his friend's treachery; think of Guiche's attempts to clear
himself in Madame's eyes--attempts in which the whole Gramont family
lent a hand with daily consultations at the house of the famous
Philibert and his La Belle Hamilton--attempts in which masked balls and
lackey's liveries play a prominent part. If one thinks of the
possibilities of such incidents, one will get some idea of the
adventures the Affaire Guiche-Madame had to encounter. To stop it, once
started, not even Vardes himself, had he wished, had the power. Like a
Juggernaut, it continued to advance, crushing all who got in its way,
the innocent and the evil alike.
So cleverly had Vardes schemed, it seemed impossible that Madame, still
unaware of his villainy, could escape destruction. She carried on an
intimate correspondence with her brother, Charles II., in which neither
concealed their thoughts of the people around them. One of these
letters, not very flattering to Louis, Vardes got possession of and
showed the King, to whom as gentleman of the bedchamber he had easy
access. But this fatal shot missed fire owing to the treachery of his
chief ally--his mistress, Olympe Mancini, Comtesse de Soissons. This
woman, believing that Vardes' hatred of Madame was but a mask to conceal
a passion as wild as Guiche's for the Princess, had a quarrel with her
lover, on whom in a fit of jealousy she revenged herself by having an
_éclaircissement_ with Madame. Horrified at the plot of which she was to
be the victim, Madame went straight to the King and explained to him
what she had learnt. Louis accepted her interpretation of the letter to
her brother, and Vardes was sent to the Bastille.
But now the Comtesse de Soissons, realising that her jealousy had not
only utterly lost her her lover but freed her rival, resolved to be
revenged on the Comte de Guiche. She had one of his letters, in which,
in his romantic way, he had offered to make his regiment swear
allegiance to Madame. But the day was long past when Olympe Mancini
could make Louis XIV. eager to fulfil her requests. To the mortification
and terror of the Comtesse, he went to consult Madame. By this time
Madame's gaiety was sobered by experience; she had come to see the
incredible folly of a woman of her position flirting with Guiche and
making friends with a Vardes. Whatever affection she may have had for
the Comte de Guiche was at an end, and she wished him out of the way.
But she was shrewd enough to detect an enemy in the Comtesse de
Soissons, and she resolved to save Guiche at her expense as the lesser
of two evils. Louis was induced to pardon him if it could be proved that
his faults were small in comparison to those of his enemies. As Madame
now held all the court-cards in the game, this was easy to do. She gave
the King a full and frank account of her flirtation with Guiche from its
beginning, as well as the complications to which it had led, and wrote
to Guiche to do the same, "assuring him that she had found plain dealing
the best security against Court machinations." The indignation of Louis
was aroused, and he lost no time in venting his anger. Vardes was taken
from the Bastille--the _ancien régime's_ prison for such persons as we
nowadays call "first-class misdemeanants"--and immured in a dungeon at
Montpelier. It was nearly thirty years before he saw the Court of France
again.
A much milder punishment was meted out to the Comtesse de Soissons. She
was forced to retire into the country for a time; but, far from having a
wholesome effect on her lawless spirit, this temporary exile seemed to
have assisted its degeneration. When she returned to Court she took to
poisoning, or was at least suspected of being implicated in the "Poison
Affair," whereupon Louis had to banish her altogether from the country.
She died in great misery, after a sensational vagabond life, just as the
star of her son, Prince Eugene of Savoy, began to rise over Europe.
As for the Comte de Guiche, he and his Dulcinea never met again, in
spite of all his attempts, in the last of which, disguised as a footman,
he fainted in the very presence of Madame. Louis once more obliged him
to carry his high-flown, imaginary passion off to the war then raging,
in which, after a short but brilliant career, he perished. Of all those
who had been entangled in this intrigue Madame alone succeeded in
escaping with colours flying. But though the King's confidence in his
brilliant sister-in-law was fully restored, and she was admitted to the
secret councils of the Cabinet--a distinction that no other woman,
save Madame de Maintenon, enjoyed in this reign--she could not win
happiness. Monsieur was a constant thorn in her flesh. Perhaps it would
have been impossible to overcome the resentment of his petty,
contemptible nature; but Madame's attempt merely served to whet his
dislike into hatred. Rightly guessing that his favourite, the Chevalier
de Lorraine, fomented the discord between them, she determined that this
man should be banished. The necessary excuse for effecting an object so
thoroughly justifiable was provided for her by Louis, who disliked the
Chevalier de Lorraine quite as much as she did herself. Instead of
remonstrating with his brother on his behaviour, the King gave the
Chevalier a lecture on the subject, who, by declaring that henceforth he
would be answerable for Monsieur's good conduct, fell into the trap set
for him.
"What!" said Louis haughtily, "you answerable to me for _my_ brother? Do
you think that I choose to have such a guarantee? But, be it so, I shall
hold you to your word."
As opportunities of objecting to Monsieur's conduct were innumerable,
the Chevalier's impertinent boast was soon put to the test. One day,
accordingly, without any warning, Louis sent to arrest him. He was
seized in a room in which he was closeted with Monsieur, who fell into
such a paroxysm of grief and rage as to give the widest publicity to a
disagreeable scandal.
But the Chevalier de Lorraine in a dungeon at the Château d'If, or in
exile in Italy, was even more dangerous to Madame's domestic happiness
than when at the Palais Royal. From the day of his favourite's disgrace
to his wife's strange death a few months later, Monsieur was an
impossible husband for any woman to live with. He seemed now to have but
two objects in life, to be possessed of two burning desires which dwelt
in him evilly like demons. One was the return of his Chevalier, the
other the death of Madame.
The vindictive animosity that Monsieur displayed towards his wife was
still further whetted by a singular mark of favour which Louis bestowed
on his sister-in-law. Wishing to detach Charles II. from the alliances
he had formed, the King of France thought that he could not find a more
suitable instrument to accomplish his design than the insinuating
Madame, whose relations with her brother were, as Vardes had proved to
him, of the most cordial description. The Princess, when the subject was
explained to her, willingly undertook to go to England and negotiate
with Charles in person, having, according to one authority, the ulterior
object of persuading her brother to afford her his protection in the not
unlikely event of her separating from her husband, whose conduct was
becoming more and more insupportable. Whether this was so or not,
considering the character of Monsieur, it was extremely undesirable that
he should be acquainted with the secret of her mission. Hereupon he
availed himself of his conjugal rights with characteristic pettiness
and forbade her to leave France. But Louis was not to be thwarted in a
matter of such importance to him by his brother's paltry rancour, and he
sternly told Monsieur "that she _should_ go and that he would have no
more obstacles thrown in his way."
Madame consequently departed, accompanied by a brilliant suite which
included the Comte and Comtesse de Gramont and Anthony Hamilton. Charles
and his whole Court went to Dover to meet her, and in his eagerness to
see his sister again the King, like an impatient schoolboy, rowed out
into the Channel to welcome her. The business transacted during this
brief visit need not detain us here. On the ability she showed in
negotiating the "Traité de Madame" her fame chiefly rests. When the
articles of this treaty were made public she was censured as a traitress
who had sold her country to France, and English historians generally
have ever since accused her of an utter lack of principle. But
considering that she was, in spite of her birth, far more French than
English, the obloquy that attaches to her name seems to us to have been
inspired more by a prejudice against the whole House of Stuart than by a
love of fairness. At the time, however, her reception in England was not
only brilliant but cordial, and proved that her popularity had not waned
since her last visit. The ten or twelve days she passed at Dover were,
perhaps, the brightest of her life. Certainly she never knew a happy day
afterwards.
Whether she was as successful in the personal as she was in the
political object of her mission is not known. All accounts on the
subject are at variance; some declare that she came back from Dover
radiant, others depressed. At any rate, the reception she met with from
her husband was well calculated to damp the gayest spirits. Monsieur
began at once to reproach her in regard to the Chevalier de Lorraine;
"he told her plainly that he knew his favourite's banishment was her
doing, that she should have no peace till she had him recalled, and even
threatened her with worse if she did not comply with his wishes." As the
recall of the Chevalier meant her humiliation, she refused to yield. The
relations between them were at their worst when one morning, three weeks
after her arrival at St. Cloud, as she finished drinking a glass of
chicory-water she was seized with violent intestinal pains.
Her first exclamation was that she was poisoned. Every one in the palace
was terrified, except Monsieur. He did not appear in the least put out.
Word was despatched to Louis at Versailles, who immediately sent Vallot,
his own physician, to St. Cloud. Shortly after he followed himself,
accompanied by the Queen and La Grande Mademoiselle. When they arrived
they were told, to their horror, that Madame was dying. They found her
writhing on a couch, pale, dishevelled, and scarcely recognisable from
the convulsive movements that distorted her features. No one, with the
exception of her maids of honour who hung over her weeping, appeared
the least alarmed. At the sight of the King she uttered a piercing cry
and said she felt "a fire in her stomach." The doctors looked on in
silence, without attempting to alleviate her sufferings.
"But," said Louis to them, "is it possible you will let a woman die like
this without doing something?"
Vallot replied that the illness was not fatal. "It is," he explained, "a
sort of colic which may last nine, ten, or even twenty-four hours at the
most."
And people continued to go and come in the room, laugh and talk with an
inhuman indifference that must have been heart-rending to the unhappy
woman.
La Grande Mademoiselle was astonished that no one had thought of
speaking to her of the state of her soul.
"At this moment," she writes, "Monsieur entered. I said to him, 'Madame
is not in a fit state to die, and she should be confessed.'
"He answered that I was right, and told me that her confessor was a
Capuchin who was good for nothing except to do her honour by appearing
in public in her coach that people might see she had one.
"'A different sort of man,' he added, 'is needed to speak to her about
death. Whom could we get that would sound well to put in the _Gazette_?'
"'At such a time,' I said, 'the best qualification that a confessor
could have was to be a pious man.'
"'Ah, I have it!' he replied; 'the Abbé Bossuet is the man. He has just
been nominated for the bishopric of Condom.'"
Hereupon Louis, disgusted at such callousness, and unable to support the
sight of Madame's sufferings, took an affectionate leave of her and
hastened back to Versailles.
Bossuet was sent for, but in the meantime the rumour "_Madame se
meurt!_" had reached Paris, and a host of persons flocked to St. Cloud.
Among them were the great Condé and the old Maréchal de Gramont, father
of the Comte de Guiche, who went to her bathed in tears. "She told him
pathetically that he was losing a good friend, that she was dying, and
at first she thought she had been poisoned by mistake." Then turning to
her sincerest friend, whose simple narrative of her death should have
made all others superfluous, she said with something of her old gaiety--
"'Madame de La Fayette, my nose has shrunk already.'