FESTIVITIES OF THE COURT.
1661-1664
Influence and reputation of Mazarin.--Character of M.
Fouquet.--Information given by M. Colbert.--Appearance of Louis
XIV.--Charles II., King of England, and family.--The Princess
Henrietta.--Marriage of Philip.--Fascinations of Henrietta.--Grief
of Maria Theresa.--The queen-mother appealed to.--Mademoiselle de
la Valliere.--Visit to the palace of Blois.--Fascination
of Louis.--Louise captivated.--Festivities at
Fontainebleau.--Discussion of the court ladies.--Vexation of
Louise.--Discovery by Louis.--Louis and Mademoiselle de
Valliere.--Sudden interruption of festivities.--Attentions of
Louis.--Anecdote.--The lottery and the bracelets.--The palace of
Vaux.--Splendor of the palace.--Rebuke of Louis.--Magnificent
scenes.--Continued festivities.--Significant motto.--Fouquet
in danger.--Intervention of Louise.--M. Fouquet
imprisoned.--Continued gayety at court.--Important
dispatches.--The king's orders.--Relationship of the French and
Spanish courts.--The apology of Philip IV.--Conduct of M.
Crequi.--The Pope humbled.--Remorse of de la Valliere.--Illness
of Anne of Austria.--Trials of Mademoiselle de la
Valliere.--Disappointment.--Flight of Mademoiselle de la
Valliere.--Seeks admission to the convent, and is
denied.--Reproaches of the queen-mother.--Fury of Louis.--Power
of Louis over Mademoiselle de la Valliere.--Return of Mademoiselle
de la Valliere to the court.--Reinstated.--Resolve of
Louis.--Versailles.--Extravagance of the king.--Magnificent fetes.
Cardinal Mazarin was exceedingly unpopular both with the court and the
masses of the people. Haughty, domineering, avaricious, there was
nothing in his character to win the kindly regards of any one. His
death gave occasion to almost universal rejoicing. Indeed, it was with
some difficulty that the king repressed the unseemly exhibition of
this joy on the part of the court. The cardinal, as we have mentioned,
had been for many years virtually monarch of France. He, in the name
of the king, imposed the taxes, appointed the ministry, issued all
orders, and received all reports. The accountability was so entire to
him that the monarch, immersed in pleasure, had but little to do with
reference to the affairs of the realm.
Immediately upon the death of Mazarin, the king summoned to his
presence Tellier, minister of War, Lionne, minister of State, and
Fouquet, minister of the Treasury. He informed them that he should
continue them in office, but that henceforth he should dispense with
the services of a prime minister, and that they would be responsible
to him alone. The young king was then twenty-two years of age. He was
very poorly educated, had hitherto developed no force of character,
and appeared to all to be simply a frivolous, pompous, self-conceited
young man of pleasure.
Fouquet had held the keys of the treasury. When the king needed money
he applied to him for a supply. The almost invariable reply he
received was,
"Sire, the treasury is empty, but his eminence will undoubtedly
advance to your majesty a loan."
The money came, the king little cared where from while reveling in
luxury, and dancing and flirting with the beauties who crowded his
court.
Fouquet was an able but thoroughly unprincipled man. He had grown
enormously rich by robbing the treasury. The king disliked him. But
Fouquet knew that the king could not dispense with his services. He
was a marvelously efficient financier, and well knew how to wrench
gold from the hands of the starving millions. The property he had
acquired by fraud was so great that he often outvied the king in the
splendor of his establishments. Conscious of his power, he doubted not
that he should still be able to hold the king, in a measure, subject
to his control.
Scarcely had Louis returned from his brief conference with his
ministers to his cabinet at the Louvre, ere the secretary of the
deceased cardinal, M. Colbert, entered, and requested a private
audience. He informed the king, to his astonishment and inexpressible
delight, that the cardinal had concealed fifteen millions of money
(three millions of dollars) in addition to the sums mentioned in his
will; that it was doubtless his intention that this money should
immediately replenish the utterly exhausted treasury of his majesty.
The king was overjoyed. He could scarcely believe the intelligence.
Concealing the tidings from Fouquet, he speedily and secretly
recovered the money from the several places in which it had been
deposited. Fifteen millions of francs would be a large sum at any
time, but two hundred years ago it was worth three or four times as
much as now. Fouquet was utterly bewildered in attempting to imagine
where the king had obtained the sums he was so lavishly expending.
Louis XIV. by nature and by education was excessively fond of the pomp
and the punctilios of court etiquette. As this new era of independence
dawned upon him, it was his first and most anxious object to regulate
even to the minutest details the ceremonies of the court. He was of
middling stature. High-heeled shoes added between two and three inches
to his height. His hair was very fine and abundant, and he wore it
long, in masses of ringlets upon his shoulders. Deep blue eyes, a fair
complexion, and well moulded features formed an unusually handsome
countenance. He was stately in his movements, pompous in his
utterance, and every word of every sentence was pronounced slowly and
with distinct enunciation, as if an oracle were giving out its
responses.
There was no resemblance morally, intellectually, or physically
between the king and his only brother Philip. They did not love each
other. During their whole lives there had been one perpetual struggle
on the part of the king to domineer over his brother, and on the part
of Philip to resist that domination. Philip was gentle in
disposition, effeminate in manners, and, though a voluptuary in his
tastes, a man of chivalric courage. As Duke of Orleans he had large
wealth, many retainers, and feudal privileges, which invested him with
power which even the king was compelled to respect.
Charles II. was now King of England. The whole nation had apparently
received him with exultation. Suddenly, from being a penniless and
crownless wanderer, he had become a sovereign, second in rank and
power to no other sovereign in Europe. His mother Henrietta, his
widowed sister the Princess of Orange, and his younger sister
Henrietta, of course, shared in the prosperity and elevation of
Charles. They were no longer pensioners upon the charity of their
French relatives, but composed the royal family of the British court.
It will be remembered how cruelly Louis treated his young cousin in
the ball-room in the days of her adversity. Charles in those days had
solicited of Mazarin the hand of his niece, Mary Mancini. But the
proud cardinal promptly rejected the offer of a wandering prince,
without purse or crown. Very soon after Charles II. ascended the
throne of England, Mazarin hastened to inform him that he was ready
to confer upon him his niece. Charles, a profligate fellow, declined
the proffered alliance, to the great chagrin of the haughty cardinal.
Prosperity is sometimes a great beautifier. The young Princess
Henrietta, upon whom the sun of prosperity was now shining in all its
effulgence, seemed like a new being, radiantly lovely and self
reliant. Philip fell desperately in love with her. With a form of
exquisite symmetry, with the fairest complexion and lovely features,
she suddenly found herself the sister of a monarch, transformed into
the principal ornament, almost the central attraction, of the court.
She went to England to attend the coronation of her brother. She then
returned to Paris. On the 31st of March, 1661, she was married to
Philip in the Palais Royal, in the presence of the royal family and
the prominent members of the court.
A few weeks after this the whole court removed to Fontainebleau. Here
a month was spent in an incessant round of festivities. The fickle
king, as soon as his brother had married Henrietta, saw in her new
personal beauty and mental charms. It is not improbable that she
almost unconsciously, in order to avenge the past neglect of the
king, had studied all courtly graces, all endearments of manner, all
conversational charms, that she might compel the king to do justice to
the fascinations of person and character with which she was conscious
of being richly endowed. Unhappily, she was triumphantly successful;
perhaps far more so than she had intended. The changeful and
susceptible king became completely entranced. He was continually by
her side, exasperating Philip by his gallantry, and keenly wounding
the feelings of his young queen.
The marriage of the king with Maria Theresa had been merely a matter
of state policy. The connection had not been inspired by any ardent
affection on either side. Though the king treated her with great
politeness as the Queen of France, her enthusiastic nature claimed a
warmer sentiment from her young husband. When she saw the attentions
to which she was entitled lavished upon Henrietta, the wife of his
brother, her affectionate heart was chilled. She became reserved,
wept, sought retirement, withdrawing from all those gayeties in which
her husband attracted the attention of the whole court by his
undisguised admiration for Henrietta. At last her secret anguish so
far overcame her that she threw herself, trembling and in tears, at
the feet of Anne of Austria, and confided to her the grief of her
heart.
The queen-mother could not have been surprised at this avowal. Her
eyes were open to that which all the court beheld; and, besides,
Philip had already complained to his mother that Louis was endeavoring
to rob him of the love of his bride. The remonstrances of the
queen-mother were of no avail. The selfish king, ever seeking only his
own pleasure, cared little for the wreck of the happiness of others.
He devoted himself with increasing assiduity to the society of
Henrietta, frequently held his court in her apartments, and instituted
a series of magnificent fetes in her honor.
Philip, then Duke of Orleans, and in the enjoyment of magnificent
revenues and of much independent feudal power as brother of the king,
was designated in the court as _Monsieur_. There was at that time in
the court a young lady, one of Henrietta's maids of honor,
Mademoiselle de la Valliere. Her romantic career, which subsequently
rendered her famous throughout Europe, merits a brief digression.
Louise Francoise, daughter of the Marquis de la Valliere, was born at
Tours in the year 1644. She was, consequently, seventeen years of age
at the time of which we write. Her father died in her infancy. Her
mother, left with an illustrious name and a small income, took for a
second husband a member of the court, Gaston, duke of Orleans, to whom
we have previously alluded, who was brother of Louis XIII. and uncle
of the king. He resided at Blois.
As the king and court were on their way to the frontiers of Spain for
the marriage of Louis with Maria Theresa, it will be remembered that
he stopped for a short visit to his uncle at his magnificent palace of
Blois. This grand castle, with its gorgeous architectural
magnificence, its shaded parks and blooming gardens, was to Louise and
her many companions an earthly paradise. Here, in an incessant round
of pleasures, she had passed her girlhood.
The sight of the young monarch, so graceful in figure, so handsome in
features, so marvelously courteous in bearing, aroused all the
enthusiasm of the susceptible young maiden of sixteen. He was her
sovereign, as well as to her eyes the most fascinating specimen of a
man. She felt as though she were gazing upon a superior, almost a
celestial being. She dreamed not of having fallen in love with him.
The feeling of admiration, and almost of adoration, was altogether too
elevated for earthly passion. In the presence of the king she was but
an obscure child. In the crowded assemblage of wealth, and rank, and
beauty which greeted the king at Blois, Louise was unnoticed. The king
went on his way, leaving an impression on the heart of the young girl
which could never be effaced. She thought it would be heaven to live
in his presence, to watch his movements, to listen to his words, even
though no word were addressed to her.
Soon after this the Duke of Orleans died. His court was broken up.
Louise was appointed to a place as one of the maids of honor of the
Princess Henrietta. She joined the court of _Madame_ in Paris just
before their departure for Fontainebleau, to which place, of course,
she accompanied them.
Here, in the midst of scenes of most brilliant festivities, Louise
feasted her eyes with the sight of the king. Louis was exceedingly
fond of exhibiting his grace as a dancer. Among these entertainments,
the king took part in a ballet with Henrietta, he, in very
picturesque dress, representing the goddess Ceres. At the close of the
ballet, Louise, bewildered by the scene, and oppressed by inexplicable
emotions, proposed to three of her lady companions that they should
take a short walk into the dim recesses of the forest. It was a
brilliant night, and the cool breeze fanned their fevered cheeks. As
the four young ladies retired, one of the companions of the king
laughingly suggested to him that they should follow them, and learn
the secret of their hearts.
The ladies seated themselves at the foot of a large tree, where they
began to discuss the scenes and actors of the evening. The king and
his companion, concealed at a short distance, heard every word they
uttered. Louise was for a time silent, but, being appealed to upon
some subject, with very emphatic utterance remarked that she wondered
that they could see any body, or think of any body but the king, when
he was present. Upon her companions rallying her for being so much
carried away by the splendors of royalty, she declared "that it was
not the king, as a _king_, who excited her admiration, but it was
Louis, as the most perfect of men; that his crown added nothing to
his splendor of person or mind."
The king could not see the speaker; he could only hear her
enthusiastic and impassioned voice. The parties returned to the
chateau. Louise was very much chagrined that she should have allowed
herself so imprudently to express her feelings. She knew that the
conversation would be repeated, and feared that she should become a
subject of ridicule for the whole court. In the interesting account
which she gives of these events in her autobiography, she says that
she retired to her room and wept bitterly.
The next morning Louise repaired to the apartments of Henrietta. She
was surrounded by her suite of ladies. The king was already there. As,
with his accustomed gallantry, he passed down the room addressing a
few words to each, he approached Louise. Her heart throbbed violently.
He had never spoken to her before.
In response to his question, "And what did you think of the ballet
last night?" she, greatly agitated, attempted an answer. The king
observed her confusion, and instantly recognized her voice. It was the
same which he had heard the evening before in the forest expressing
such enthusiastic admiration for his person. The king started, and
fixed his eyes so intently upon her as to increase her embarrassment
and attract the observation of all around. With a profound bow the
king passed on, but again and again was seen to turn his eyes to the
blushing girl. From that time Mademoiselle de la Valliere became the
object of the marked and flattering attention of the king.
The unaffected timidity and modesty of her demeanor, her brilliant
complexion, large and languishing blue eyes, and profusion of flaxen
hair, were enough of themselves to excite the admiration of one so
enamored of beauty as was Louis XIV. But, in addition to this, the
self-love of Louis was gratified by the assurance that Louise admired
him for his personal qualities, and not merely for his kingly crown.
As the king was well aware of the gossip with which the court was
filled in view of his devotion to Madame Henrietta, he perhaps deemed
it expedient, by special attention to Louise, to divert the current of
thought and conversation.
A few days after this a great hunt took place in the park. It was a
hot summer's day. At the close of the hunt a table was spread loaded
with delicacies. As the king and the courtiers, in the keenest
enjoyment of the merry scene, were partaking of the sumptuous repast,
almost unobserved a thunder-cloud arose, and there descended upon them
a flood of rain so deluging that the company scattered in all
directions for shelter. Louise running, she knew not where, soon found
the king by her side. Politely taking her by the hand, he hurried her
to a large tree, whose dense canopy of leaves promised some protection
from the shower. There they stood, the young and handsome king, the
beautiful maiden, the rain falling upon them in floods. It is
interesting to record that the homage which rank paid to beauty was
such that the king stood bareheaded, with his plumed hat in his hand,
engaged during the hour the rain descended in animated conversation.
After this it was observed that in the evening drives in the park he
would ride on horseback for a short time by the carriage of the queen,
or of the Princess Henrietta, and would then gallop to the coach of
Louise.
He soon commenced a daily correspondence with her. Louis was by no
means a well-educated man. In fact, he might be almost regarded as
illiterate; but his letters were written with so much delicacy of
sentiment and elegance of expression, that Louise was embarrassed in
knowing how to return suitable replies. She was mortified at the
thought of having her awkward letters compared with the elegant
epistles which she received. In her embarrassment, she applied to the
Marquis of Dangeau, a man of superior talents and culture, to write
her responses for her.
Louise was a very noble girl, frank, sincere, confiding. On one
occasion, when the king was complimenting her upon the rare beauty of
her letters, the artless child confessed that she was not the author
of them, but that they were written by the Marquis of Dangeau. The
king smiled, and had the grace to admit that his letters to her were
written by the same individual!
It had become a common entertainment of the court to put up in a
lottery some beautiful article of jewelry. On one occasion the king
drew a very costly pair of bracelets. All were looking with some
curiosity to see to whom he would present them. Pausing for a moment,
the king admiringly contemplated the sparkling gems, and then,
threading his way through the throng of ladies, advanced to
Mademoiselle de la Valliere, who stood a little apart, and placed them
in her hands. Henrietta turned pale, and bit her lip with vexation.
The queen, Maria Theresa, looked on with a marble smile, which
revealed nothing of her feelings. Louise was embarrassed, but with
admirable tact she assumed that the king had merely presented them to
her for inspection. After carefully examining them, she handed them
back to him, saying, with a courtesy, "They are indeed very
beautiful." Louis, instead of receiving them, said, with a stately
bow, "In that case, mademoiselle, they are in hands too fair to resign
them," and returned to his seat.
As we have mentioned, the minister of the treasury was rolling in
ill-gotten wealth. His palace of Vaux,[I] upon which he had expended
fifteen millions of francs, eclipsed in splendor the royal palaces of
Fontainebleau and Saint Germain. The king disliked him as a man. He
knew very well that he was robbing the treasury, and it was annoying
to have a subject live in state surpassing that of the sovereign. M.
Fouquet very imprudently invited Louis and all his court to a
magnificent fete at his chateau. All the notabilities of France were
bidden to this princely festival, which the minister resolved should
surpass, in splendor, any thing that France had hitherto witnessed.
[Footnote I: The chateau of Vaux was a spacious and magnificent palace
in the small village of Maincy, about three miles from Melun. M.
Fouquet purchased it, and expended enormous sums in enlarging the
buildings, ornamenting the gardens, and decorating the walls with
paintings. His expenditures were so lavish that the chateau exceeded
in magnificence any of the royal palaces.]
The king, with an imposing escort, reached the gates of the chateau.
Fouquet met him there, and conducted him and all the court, first, to
the park. Here a spectacle of splendor presented itself which
astonished the king. Notwithstanding all he had heard of the
gorgeousness of his minister's palace, he was still not prepared for
such a scene of luxury and enchantment. Instead of being gratified, he
turned to Fouquet, and said to him bitterly,
"I shall never again, sir, venture to invite you to visit me. You
would find yourself inconvenienced."
Fouquet felt the keen rebuke. For a moment he turned pale. He soon,
however, rallied, and did all in his power to gratify his guests by
the gorgeous spectacles and sumptuous entertainments of his more than
regal home. The king, led by his host, passed through all the
apartments of the chateau, and acknowledged that in its interior
adornings there was not probably another edifice in Europe which could
equal it in magnificence.
[Illustration: CHATEAU DE VAUX.]
In the evening there was a ball in the grand saloon of the castle. The
king having danced several times with Louise, she became fatigued, and
expressed the desire to leave, for a short time, the heated room.
Louis drew her arm through his own, and, conducting her through the
magnificent suite of apartments, which had already excited his
displeasure, pointed out to her the armorial bearings of the proud
minister, which were conspicuous in every room. The shield represented
a squirrel ascending the topmost branches of a tree, with the motto
"_quo non ascendam_."
Neither the king nor his fair companion understood Latin. Just then
the king's secretary, M. Colbert, entered. He hated Fouquet. He had
already detected the minister in many falsifications of the treasury
accounts, and had explained the robbery to the king. Louis had been
for some time contemplating the arrest of Fouquet, but hardly dared,
as yet, to strike one so powerful.
As M. Colbert entered, Louise inquired of him the significance of the
motto.
"It signifies," he replied, "_to what height may I not attain_, and
this significance is well understood by those who know the boldness of
the squirrel or that of his master."
Just at that moment another courtier came up, who remarked, "Your
majesty has probably not observed that in every instance the squirrel
is pursued by a serpent."
The king turned pale with anger, and ordered the captain of his
musketeers to attend him. Louise understood full well what this meant.
She threw herself at his feet, and entreated him not to sully his
reputation by arresting a man whose guest he was, and who was
entertaining him and his court with the highest honors. With the
greatest difficulty, the king was dissuaded from immediate action. For
a time he smothered his vengeance, and the court returned to
Fontainebleau.
The king's displeasure not only remained unabated, but increased with
added evidence of the pride, display, and fraudulent transactions of
his minister. At length he ordered him to be secretly arrested,
conveyed in close confinement to Angers, while a seal was placed on
all his property. But for the interposition of the kind-hearted
Louise, the degraded minister would have lost his life. It was easy
for the king, immersed in pleasure, to forget the miserable. M.
Fouquet was left in his imprisonment, almost as entirely lost to the
world as if he had been consigned to the _oubliettes_ of the Bastile.
Soon after this, the 1st of November, 1661, Maria Theresa gave birth
to a dauphin. Louis was greatly elated. Still, the pride which he
took in the child as the heir to the throne did not secure for his
neglected wife any more tenderness of regard. He treated her with
great courtesy, while his affections were vibrating between Henrietta
and Louise. Every thing seemed to combine to magnify the power of the
king. Still, the pleasure-loving monarch, while apparently wholly
resigning himself to the career of a voluptuary, was with instinctive
sagacity striving to undermine the resources of the haughty nobility,
and to render his own court the most magnificent in Europe.
For several months the court continued immersed in gayety. Dancing, in
all variety of costumes, was the great amusement of the king. There
were balls every evening. Mademoiselle de la Valliere became more and
more the object of the marked attentions of Louis. All his energies
seemed absorbed in the small-talk of gallantry; still there were
occasional indications that there were latent forces in the mind of
the king which events might yet develop.
One evening the king was attending a brilliant ball in the apartments
of Henrietta. As he was earnestly engaged in conversation with the
beautiful Louise, some important dispatches were placed in his hands.
He seated himself at a table to examine them. Many eyes watched his
countenance as he silently perused the documents. It was observed at
one moment that he turned deadly pale, and bit his lip with vexation.
Having read the dispatches to the end, he angrily crushed them in his
hand, and said to several of the officers of the court who were around
him,
"Our embassador in London has been publicly insulted by the Spanish
embassador." Then turning to M. Tellier, the Minister of War, he said,
"Let my embassador at Madrid leave that city immediately. Order the
Spanish envoy to quit Paris within twenty-four hours. The conferences
at Flanders are at an end. Unless Spain publicly recognizes the
superiority of our crown, she may prepare for a renewal of the war."
These orders of the king created general consternation. It was
virtually inaugurating another war, with all its untold horrors. M.
Tellier seemed thunderstruck. The king, perceiving his hesitation,
said to him imperiously,
"Do you not understand my orders? I wish you immediately to assemble
the council. I will meet them in an hour."
The king then returned to the ladies, and entered into trifling
small-talk with them, as if nothing of moment had occurred.
It seems that a dispute had arisen in London between the French and
Spanish embassadors upon the point of precedence. This had led to a
bloody encounter in the streets between the retinues of the two
ministers. The French were worsted. The Spaniards gained the contested
point.
The King of Spain was the brother of Anne of Austria. His first wife,
the mother of Maria Theresa, was sister of Louis XIII., and
consequently aunt of Louis XIV. Thus there was a peculiar bond of
relationship between the French and Spanish courts. Still Louis was
unrelenting in the vigorous action upon which he had entered. In
addition to the hostile measures already adopted, a special messenger
was sent to Philip IV. to inform him that, unless he immediately
recognized the supremacy of the French court, and made a formal
apology for the insult offered the French minister, war would ensue.
The Spanish king, unwilling, for so trivial a cause, to involve the
two nations in a bloody conflict, very magnanimously yielded to the
requirements demanded by the hot blood and wounded pride of his
son-in-law. In the presence of all the foreign ministers and the
assembled court at Fontainebleau, the Spanish embassador made a humble
apology, and declared that never again should the precedence of the
embassador of France be denied.
A very similar difficulty occurred a short time after at Rome. The
French embassador there, the Duke of Crequi, an old feudal noble,
accompanied by troops of retainers armed to the teeth, had, by his
haughty bearing, become extremely unpopular both with the court and
the people of Rome. The myrmidons of the duke were continually engaged
in night-brawls with the police. On one occasion they even attacked,
sword in hand, the Pope's guard, and put them to flight. The brother
of Pope Alexander VII., who hated Crequi, instigated the guard to take
revenge. In an infuriated mob, they surrounded the palace of the
embassador, and fired upon his carriage as it entered his court-yard.
A page was killed, and several other attendants wounded. Crequi
immediately left the city, accusing the Pope of instigating the
outrage.
Louis XIV. demanded reparation, and the most humble apology. The
proud Pope was not disposed to yield to his insolent demands. Affairs
assumed so threatening an aspect, that the Pope ordered two of the
guard, one an officer, to be hung, and the Mayor of Rome, who was
accused of having instigated the outrage, to be banished. This
concession, however, by no means satisfied the irascible Louis. He
commenced landing troops in Italy, threatening to besiege Rome. The
Pope appealed to the Roman Catholic princes of Germany for aid. They
could not come to his rescue, for they were threatened with war by the
Turks. The unhappy Pope was thus brought upon his knees. He was
compelled to banish from Rome his own brother, Don Mario Chigi, and to
send an embassador to Paris with the most humble apology.
These events were but slight episodes in the gay life of the
pleasure-loving king. He was still reveling in an incessant round of
feasting and dancing, flitting with his gay court from one to another
of his metropolitan and rural palaces.
There are few so stern as not to feel emotions of sympathy rather than
of condemnation for Louise de la Valliere. She was a child of
seventeen, exposed to all the fascinations and temptations of the most
luxurious court then upon the globe. But God has implanted in every
bosom a sense of right and wrong. She wept bitterly over her fall. Her
remorse was so great that she withdrew as far as possible from
society, and the anguish of her repentance greatly embarrassed her
royal lover.
Henrietta was greatly annoyed at the preference which the king had
shown for Louise over herself. She determined to drive the unfortunate
favorite from the court. Anne of Austria, with increasing years, was
growing oblivious of her own youthful indiscretions, and was daily
becoming more stern in her judgments. A cancer had commenced its
secret ravages upon her person. Its progress no medical skill could
arrest. She tried to conceal the terrible secret which was threatening
her with the most loathsome and distressing of deaths. In this mood of
mind the haughty queen sent for the weeping Louise to her room.
Trembling in every nerve, the affrighted child attended the summons.
She found Anne of Austria with Henrietta by her side. The queen,
without assigning any cause, sternly informed her that she was
banished from the court of France, and that suitable attendants would
immediately convey her to a distant castle. Upon Louise attempting to
make some inquiry why she was thus punished, the haughty queen sternly
interrupted her with the reply "that France could not have two
queens."
Louise staggered back to her room overwhelmed with despair. Both God
and man will declare that, whatever fault there might have been in the
relations then existing between the king and this unprotected girl,
the censure should have rested a thousand fold more heavily upon the
king than upon his victim. And yet Louise was to be driven in ignominy
from the court, to enter into a desolated world utterly ruined.
Through the remainder of the day no one entered her apartment. She
spent the hours in tears and in the fever of despair. In the evening
Louis himself came to her room and found her exhausted with weeping.
He endeavored to ascertain the cause of her overwhelming distress.
She, unwilling to be the occasion of an irreconcilable feud between
the mother and the son, evaded all his inquiries. He resorted to
entreaties, reproaches, threats, but in vain. Irritated by her
pertinacious refusal, he suddenly left her without speaking a word of
adieu.
Louise seemed now truly to be alone in the world, without a single
friend left her. But she then recalled to mind that she had formerly
entered into an agreement with the king that, in case of any
misunderstanding arising between them, a night should not pass without
an attempt at reconciliation. A new hope arose in her mind that the
king would either return, or send her a note to inform her that his
anger no longer continued.
"And so she waited and watched, and counted every hour as it was
proclaimed from the belfry of the palace. But she waited and watched
in vain. When at length, after this long and weary night, the daylight
streamed through the silken curtains of her chamber, she threw herself
upon her knees, and praying that God would not cast away the victim
who was thus rejected by the world, she hastened, with a burning cheek
and a tearless eye, to collect a few necessary articles of clothing,
and throwing on her veil and mantle, rushed down a private staircase
and escaped into the street. In this distracted state of mind she
pursued her way to Chaillot,[J] and reached the convent of the
Sisters of St. Mary, where she was detained some time in the parlor.
At length the grating was opened and a portress appeared. On her
request to be admitted to the abbess, she informed her that the
community were all at their devotions, and could not see any one.
[Footnote J: Chaillot was a village on the banks of the Seine, about a
mile and a half from the Tuileries, near the present bridge of Jena.
The nuns of the order of St. Mary had a celebrated convent here, where
persecuted grandeur often sought an asylum. Within the walls of this
convent the widowed queen of Charles I. and daughter of Henry IV. died
in the year 1669.]
"It was in vain that the poor fugitive entreated and asserted her
intention of taking the vows. She could extort no other answer, and
the portress withdrew, leaving her sitting on a wooden bench desolate,
heart-sick. For two hours she remained motionless, with her eyes fixed
upon the grating, but it continued closed. Even the dreary refuge of
this poor and obscure convent was denied her. Even the house of
religion had barred its doors against her. She could bear up no
longer. From the previous evening she had not tasted food, and the
fatigue of body and anguish of mind which she had undergone, combined
with this unaccustomed fast, had exhausted her slight remains of
strength. A sullen torpor gradually overcame her faculties, and
eventually she fell upon the paved floor cold and insensible."[K]
[Footnote K: Louis XIV. and the Court of France, vol. ii., p. 125.]
The king had probably passed a very uncomfortable night. Early in the
morning he learned that Louise had disappeared. Much alarmed, he
hastened to the apartments of Madame Henrietta in the Tuileries. She
unfeelingly expressed entire ignorance of the movements of
Mademoiselle de la Valliere. He immediately repaired to the rooms of
his mother. She was unable to give him any information respecting the
lost favorite. Bitterly, however, she reproached her son with his want
of self-control in allowing himself to cherish so strong an attachment
to Mademoiselle de la Valliere. She accused him of having no mastery
over himself.
The king's eyes flashed with indignation. He was fully convinced that
his mother was in some way the cause of the departure of Louise.
Angrily he replied,
"It may be so that I do not know how to control myself, but I will at
least prove that I know how to control those who offend me."
Turning upon his heel, he left the apartment. By some means he
obtained a clew to the retreat of Louise. Mounting his horse,
accompanied by a single page, he galloped to the convent of Chaillot.
As there had been no warning of his approach, the grating still
remained closed. He arrived just after the poor girl had fallen from
the wooden bench upon the tesselated floor of the cold and cheerless
anteroom. Her beautiful form lay apparently lifeless before him. Tears
fell profusely from his eyes. He chafed her hands and temples. In
endearing terms he entreated her to awake. Gradually she revived.
Frankly she related the cause of her departure, and entreated him to
permit her to spend the remainder of her saddened life buried in the
cloisters of the convent.
The king insisted, with all his authority as a monarch, and with all
his persuasive influence as a man, that Louise should return with him
to the Louvre. He was inspired with the double passion of love for
her, and anger against those who had driven her from his court.
Louise, saddened in heart and crushed in spirit, with great reluctance
at last yielded to his pleadings. The page was dispatched for a
carriage. Seated by the side of the king, Mademoiselle de la Valliere
returned to the palace, from which she supposed a few hours before she
had departed forever. Louis immediately repaired to the apartment of
Madame Henrietta, and so imperiously insisted that Louise should be
restored to her place as one of her maids of honor, that his
sister-in-law dared not refuse. The influence of Anne of Austria was
now nearly at an end. She was dying of slow disease, and,
notwithstanding all her efforts to conceal the loathsome malady which
was devouring her, she was compelled to spend most of her time in the
seclusion of her own chamber.
Louis XIV., in the exercise of absolute power, with all the court
bowing before him in the most abject homage, had gradually begun to
regard himself almost as a God. He had never recovered from the
mortification which he had experienced at the palace of Vaux, in
finding a subject living in splendor which outvied that of the crown.
He determined to rear a palace of such extraordinary magnificence that
no subject, whatever might be his resources, could equal it. For some
time he had been looking around for the site of the building, which
he had resolved should, like the Pyramids, be a monument of his reign,
and excite the wonder and admiration of future ages.
About twelve miles from Paris there was a little village of
Versailles, surrounded by an immense forest, whose solemn depths
frequently resounded with the baying of the hounds of hunting-parties,
as the gayly dressed court swept through the glades.
On one occasion, Louis XIV., in the eagerness of the chase, became
separated from most of the rest of the party. Night coming on, he was
compelled, and the few companions with him, to take refuge in a
windmill, where they remained till morning. The mill was erected upon
the highest point of ground. The king caused a small pavilion to be
erected there for his accommodation, should he again chance to be
overtaken by night or a storm. Pleased with the position, the king ere
long removed the pavilion, and ordered his architect, Lemercier, to
erect upon the spot an elegant chateau according to his own taste. A
landscape gardener was also employed to ornament the grounds. The
region soon was embellished with such loveliness as to charm every
beholder. It became the favorite rural resort of the king.
The chateau and its grounds soon witnessed a series of festivities,
the fame of which resounded through all Europe. Republican America
will ponder the fact, which the aristocratic courts of Europe ignored,
that these entertainments of boundless extravagance were at the
expense of the overtaxed and starving people. That king and courtiers
might riot in luxury, the wives and daughters of peasants were
harnessed by the side of donkeys to drag the plow.
Early in the spring of 1664, the king, accompanied by his court of six
hundred individuals, gentlemen and ladies, with a throng of servants,
repaired to Versailles. The personal expenses of all the guests were
defrayed by the king with the money which he wrested from the people.
With almost magical rapidity, the artificers reared cottages, stages,
porticoes, for the exhibition of games, and the display of splendor
scarcely equaled in the visions of Oriental romances.
The first entertainment was a tournament. The cavaliers were
gorgeously dressed in the most glittering garb of the palmiest days of
feudalism, magnificently mounted with wondrous trappings, with their
shields and devices, with their attendant pages, equerries, heralds
at arms. Among them all the king shone pre-eminent. His dress, and the
housings of his charger, embellished with the crown jewels, glittered
with a profusion of costly gems which no one else could equal.
The queen, with three hundred ladies of the court, brilliant in
beauty, and in the most attractive dress, sat upon a platform, beneath
triumphal arches, to view the procession as it passed. The gleaming
armor of the cavaliers, their prancing steeds, the waving of silken
banners, and the flourish of trumpets, presented a spectacle such as
no one present had ever conceived of before.
The tilting did not cease till evening. Suddenly the blaze of four
thousand torches illumined the scene with new brilliance. Tables were
spread for a banquet, loaded with every delicacy.
"The tables were served by two hundred attendants, habited as dryads,
wood deities, and fawns. Behind the tables, which were in the form of
a vast crescent, an orchestra arose as if by magic. The tables were
illuminated by five hundred girandoles. A gilt balustrade inclosed the
whole of the immense area."