Once a Queen, Always a Queen.--An Anonymous Letter.--The Queen's
Confidence.--She Has a Sermon Preached against Madame de Montespan.--Who
the Preacher was.--One Scandal May Avert Another.
I related how, near La Fere, at the time of the Flanders campaign, Madame
de la Valliere's coach, at the risk of offending the Queen, left the main
road and took a short cut across country, so as to get on ahead, and
arrive before anybody else. By this the Duchess thought to give her
royal friend a great mark of her attachment. On the contrary, it was the
first cause for that coolness which the King afterwards displayed.
"Fain would he be beloved, yet loved with tact."
The very next day his Majesty, prevailed upon La Valliere to say that
such a style of travelling was too fatiguing for her. She had the honour
of dining with the Queen, and then she returned to the little chateau of
Versailles, so as to be near her children.
The King arranged with Madame de Montausier, lady-in-waiting to the
Queen, that I should use her rooms to dress and write in, and that his
Majesty should be free to come there when he liked, and have a quiet chat
with me about matters of interest.
The Queen, whom I had managed to please by my amusing talk, always kept
me close to her side, both when taking long walks or playing cards. At a
given signal, a knock overhead, I used to leave the Queen, excusing
myself on the score of a headache, or arrears of correspondence; in
short, I managed to get away as best I could.
The King left us in order to capture Douai, then Tournay, and finally the
whole of Flanders; while the Queen continued to show me every sign of her
sincere and trustful friendship.
In August, on the Day of Our Lady, while the King was besieging Lille, a
letter came to the Queen, informing her that her husband had forsaken
Madame de la Valliere for her Majesty's lady-in-waiting, the Marquise de
Montespan. Moreover, the anonymous missive named "the prudent Duchesse
de Montausier" as confidante and accomplice.
"It is horrible--it is infamous!" cried the Queen, as she flung aside the
letter. "I shall never be persuaded that such is the case. My dear
little Montespan enjoys my friendship and my esteem; others are jealous
of her, but they shall not succeed. Perhaps the King may know the
handwriting; he shall see it at once!" And that same evening she
forwarded the letter to him.
The Comte de Vegin had been born, and the Queen was absolutely ignorant
of his existence. My pregnancy with the Duc du Maine had likewise
escaped her notice, owing to the large paniers which I took to wearing,
and thus made the fashion. But the Court is a place where the best of
friends are traitors. The Queen was at length convinced, after long
refusing to be so, and from that day forward she cordially detested me.
While the King was conquering Holland, she instructed her chief almoner
to have a sermon of a scandalous sort to be preached, which, delivered
with all due solemnity in her presence, should grieve and wound me as
much as possible.
On the day appointed, a preacher, totally unknown to us, gets into the
pulpit, makes a long prayer for the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and then,
rising gracefully, bows low to the Queen. Raising his eyes to heaven, he
makes the sign of the cross and gives out the following text: "Woman,
arise and sin no more. Go hence; I forgive thee."
As he uttered these words, he looked hard at my pew, and soon made me
understand by his egordium how interesting his discourse would be to me.
Written with rare grace of style, it was merely a piece of satire from
beginning to end,--of satire so audacious that it was constantly levelled
at the King.
The orator brought before us in succession lifelike portraits of the
Queen, of her august spouse, of my children, of M. de Montespan, and of
myself. Upon some he lavished praise; others he vehemently rebuked;
while to others he gave tender pity. Anon he caused the lips of his
hearers to curl in irony, and again, roused their indignation or touched
them to tears.
Any one else would have been bored by such a rigmarole; it rather amused
me.
That evening, and for a week afterwards, nothing else but this sermon was
talked of at Versailles. The Queen had received complete satisfaction.
Before me she was at pains not to laugh, and I was pleased to see that
her resentment had almost disappeared.
Upon his return, the King was for punishing such an offence as this.
Things are not easily hidden from him; his Majesty desired to know the
name and rank of the ecclesiastic. The entire Court replied that he was
a good-looking young Franciscan.
The chief almoner, being forced to state the monastery from which the
preacher came, mentioned the Cordeliers of Paris. There it transpired
that the monk told off by the prior for this enterprise had been too
frightened to execute it, and had sent, as his deputy, a young actor from
Orleans,--a brother of his, who thus could not say no.
So, as it happened, Queen Maria Theresa and her chief almoner (an
exemplary person) had caused virtue to be preached to me by a young
play-actor! The King dared not take further proceedings in so strange a
matter, for fear lest one scandal might beget a far greater one. It was
this that caused Madame Cornuel to remark, "The pulpit is in want of
comedians; they work wonders there!"