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_By ARVEDE BARINE_
=The Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle
1627-1652=
Authorized English Version. Octavo. Fully
Illustrated. (By mail, $3.25.) Net, $3.00
=Louis XIV. and La Grande Mademoiselle
1652-1693=
Authorized English Version. Octavo. Fully
Illustrated. (By mail, $3.25.) Net, $3.00
=_G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS_=
=_New York_= =_London_=
[Illustration: Cliche Braun, Clement & Cie. =MADEMOISELLE DE
MONTPENSIER= She is holding the portrait of her father, Gaston D'Orleans
From the painting by Pierre Bourgnignon in the Musee de Versailles. By
permission of Messrs. Hachette & Co.]
Louis XIV
and
La Grande Mademoiselle
1652-1693
By
Arvede Barine
Author of "The Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle"
_Authorised English Version_
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1905
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE
In the volume entitled _The Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle_ I have
tried to present the conditions of France during the period in which the
ancient liberties of the people and the turbulent society which had
abused its privileges suffered, in the one case death, in the other
extinction.
As is always the case, a lack of proper discipline had prepared the way
for absolute rule, and the young King who was about to assume full power
was an enigma to his subjects. The nearest relatives of Louis had always
found him impenetrable. The Grande Mademoiselle had been brought up side
by side with her cousin, but she was entirely ignorant of his real
character, knowing only that he was silent and appeared timid. In her
failure to understand the King, Mademoiselle showed herself again a true
child of her century.
At the moment in which the Prince assumed full power, his true
disposition, thoughts, and beliefs were entirely hidden from the public,
and Saint-Simon has contributed to this ignorance by prolonging it to
posterity. Louis XIV. was over fifty when this terrible writer appeared
at Court. The _Memoires_ of Saint-Simon present the portrait of a man
almost old; this portrait however is so powerful, so living that it
obliterates every other. The public sees only the Louis of Saint-Simon;
for it, the youthful King as he lived during the troubled and passionate
period of his career, the period that was most interesting, because most
vital, has never existed.
The official history of the times aids in giving a false impression of
Louis XIV., figuring him in a sort of hieratic attitude between an idol
and a manikin. The portraits of Versailles again mask the Louis of the
young Court, the man for whose favour Moliere and the Libertines fought
with varying chances of success.
In the present volume I have tried to raise a corner of this mask.
The _Memoires_ of Louis XIV., completely edited for the first time
according to any methodical plan in 1860, have greatly aided me in this
task. They abound in confessions, sometimes aside, sometimes direct, of
the matters that occupied the thoughts of the youthful author. The
Grande Mademoiselle, capable of neither reserve nor dissimulation, has
proved the next most valuable guide in the attempt to penetrate into the
intimate life of Louis. As related by her, the perpetual difficulties
with the Prince throw a vivid light upon the kind of incompatibility of
temper which existed at the beginning of the reign between absolute
power and the survivors of the Fronde.
How the young King succeeded in directing his generation toward new
ideas and sentiments and how the Grande Mademoiselle, too late carried
away by the torrent, became in the end a victim to its force, will be
seen in the course of the present volume, provided, that is, that I have
not overestimated my powers in touching upon a subject very obscure,
very delicate, with facts drawn from a period the most frequently
referred to and yet in some respects the least comprehended of the
entire history of France.
A. B.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Exile--Provincial Life--Conversation at Saint-Fargeau--Sentiment
towards Nature in the Seventeenth Century--Differences
between Mademoiselle and her Father--Mademoiselle Returns
to Court 1-57
CHAPTER II
The Education of Louis XIV.--Manners--Poverty--Charity--Vincent
de Paul, a Secret Society--Marriage of Louis XIV.--His
Arrival at Power on the Death of Mazarin--He Re-educates
Himself 58-119
CHAPTER III
Mademoiselle at the Luxembourg--Her Salon--The "Anatomies"
of the Heart--Projects of Marriage, and New Exile--Louis
XIV. and the Libertines--Fragility of Fortune in Land--_Fetes
Galantes_ 120-184
CHAPTER IV
Increasing Importance of the Affairs of Love--The Corrupters of
Morals--Birth of Dramatic Music and its Influence--Love
in Racine--Louis XIV. and the Nobility--The King is
Polygamous 185-236
CHAPTER V
The Grande Mademoiselle in Love--Sketch of Lauzun and their
Romance--The Court on its Travels--Death of Madame--Announcement
of the Marriage of Mademoiselle--General Consternation--Louis
XIV. Breaks the Affair 237-303
CHAPTER VI
Was Mademoiselle secretly Married?--Imprisonment of Lauzun--Splendour
and Decadence of France--_La Chambre Ardente_--Mademoiselle
Purchases Lauzun's Freedom--Their Embroilment--Death
of the Grande Mademoiselle--Death of Lauzun--Conclusion 304-377
INDEX 379
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
MADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER _Frontispiece_
She is holding the portrait of her father, Gaston d'Orleans.
From the painting by Pierre Bourguignon in the
Musee de Versailles. By permission of Messrs. Hachette
& Co.
ANNE MARIE LOUISE D'ORLEANS, DUCHESSE DE MONTPENSIER 4
From the enamel by Petitot in the South Kensington Museum.
CARDINAL DE RETZ 24
Showing him in his coadjuteur days. After the painting
by Deveria.
JULIUS HARDOUIN MANSART 26
After the painting by Vivien.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE 54
From an engraving by Grevedon.
LOUIS XIV. AS A BOY, DEDICATING HIS CROWN 62
After the painting by Greg Huret.
LOUIS XIV. AS A YOUNG MAN 72
From a chalk drawing in the British Museum Print Room.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD 130
From the engraving by Hopwood after the painting by Petitot.
HELENE LAMBERT, MADAME DE MOTTEVILLE 150
After the painting by De Largilliere.
LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE 154
From the engraving by Flameng after the painting by
Petitot.
JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT 170
After the painting by Champaign.
"PLEASURES OF THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT."
SCENE ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE PLAY, BEFORE
THE KING AT VERSAILLES 172
From the engraving by Israel Silvestre.
"PLEASURES OF THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT." SECOND DAY 174
From the engraving by Israel Silvestre.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES 176
From the engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1664.
THE FRONT OF THE LOUVRE IN COURSE OF ERECTION 178
From the engraving by S. le Clerc, 1677.
JEAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN MOLIERE 180
After the painting by Noel Coypel.
MADAME HENRIETTE D'ORLEANS 194
From the painting by Mignard in the National Portrait
Gallery. (Photograph by Walker, London.)
MADAME DE MONTESPAN 200
From the engraving by Flameng after the painting by Mignard.
LA VOISIN 206
From a print in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
JEAN BAPTISTE DE LULLI 216
After a contemporary print by Bonnart.
BOILEAU 220
After the painting by H. Rigaud.
Duc de Lauzun 244
By permission of Messrs. Hachette & Co.
MADAME DE SEVIGNE 282
From the painting by Pietro Mignard in the Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. (Photograph by Alinari.)
VIEW OF THE PALACE AND GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES 330
From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1673.
VIEW OF THE RESIDENCE OF COLBERT, SHOWING ALSO HIS SEAL 332
From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1675.
VIEW OF THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES, SHOWING THE
FOUNTAIN OF THE DRAGON 334
From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1676.
DUCHESSE DE LA VALLIERE AND HER CHILDREN 336
From the painting by P. Mignard in the possession of the
Marquise d'Oilliamson.
LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE, IN THE GARB OF THE ORDER
OF THE CARMELITES 338
After the painting by D. Plaats.
MADAME DE MAINTENON 340
After the painting by P. Mignard in 1694.
LOUIS XIV. AND LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
CHAPTER I
Exile--Provincial Life--Conversation at
Saint-Fargeau--Sentiment towards Nature in the Seventeenth
Century--Differences between Mademoiselle and her
Father--Mademoiselle Returns to Court.
The Fronde was an abortive revolution. It was condemned in advance, the
leaders having never clearly known what ends they were seeking. The
consequences of its failure proved to be of profound importance to
France. The civil disorders existing between 1648 and 1652 were the last
efforts of the French against the establishing of absolute monarchy, to
the strengthening of which the entire regency of Anne of Austria had
tended. The end of these disorders signified that the nation, wearied
and discouraged, had accepted the new regime. The result was a great
transformation, political and moral, so great that the Fronde may be
considered as clearly marking a separation between two periods of French
history--a deep abyss as it were between the times which precede and
those which follow.
The leaders of the Fronde had been dispersed by the return of the King
to his capital on October 21, 1652. When the exiles returned, some
sooner, some later, the last after the Peace of the Pyrenees (November
7, 1659), so great a change had taken place in ideas and customs that
more than one exile felt himself in a strange land.
It was necessary to adjust oneself to the new atmosphere. It was very
much the same situation--though the Frondeurs were under much lighter
accusations--as that experienced by the _emigres_ returning under the
Consulate. The Princess, the events of whose heroic years have been
related, offers an excellent example of this condition.
When the Grande Mademoiselle, who had urged on the civil war in order to
force Louis XIV. into marriage with herself, obtained at the end of five
years, permission to return to Court, she brought with her the old
undisciplined habits which were no longer in fashion, and in the end
incurred much that was disagreeable. Exile had not weakened her pride.
According to a celebrated formula, she had learned nothing, she had
forgotten nothing; she remained that person of impulse of whom Mme. de
Sevigne said, "I do not care to mix myself with her impetuosities."[1]
Far be it from me to reproach Mademoiselle! All honour be to her who
stood firm in the age of servility which succeeded the Fronde! In other
respects exile had been most healthful for her. She had been obliged to
seek in herself resources the finding of which surprised her.
Mademoiselle naively admires herself in her _Memoires_[2] for never
having experienced a single moment of ennui "in the greatest desert in
the world," and surely she deserves praise, as her first experiences at
Saint-Fargeau would have crushed most women.
The reader will be convinced of this if he imagines himself in her
company the night of arrival in the early days of November, 1652. At the
end of _The Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle_ we left her weeping without
shame before her entire suite. Her dream of glory had evaporated.
Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans would never be queen of France. She would
take no more cities; pass no more troops at review to the sound of
trumpet and cannon. Three weeks previous, the great Conde had treated
her as a companion in arms. She rejoiced the soldiers by her martial
carriage, and any one of them would have been not only surprised but
very indignant if it had been suggested that she was capable of being
almost as cowardly as her father, the "_triste_ Gaston."
Now all that was finished, even the romantic flight. While playing
hide-and-seek with imaginary pursuers, the Grande Mademoiselle had
fallen into a state of physical and moral prostration. The heroine of
Orleans and of Porte Saint-Antoine sobbed like a little child because
she "had too much grief" and was "too afraid"[3]; the aspect of her
future home had taken away the last remnants of courage.
The Chateau of Saint-Fargeau, begun under Hugh Capet and often repaired,
particularly during the fifteenth century, seemed more like a fortress
than a peaceful dwelling. Its heavy mass dominated the valley of the
Loing, a region of great and dense forests, with few clearings. Itself
enveloped with brushwood and protected by deep moats, the chateau
harmonised well with the surroundings. Its windows opened at a great
height above the ground, and its towers were strong. The body of the
building was massive and bare, united by strong ramparts forming an
_enceinte_ irregular with severe appearance.
The _ensemble_ was imposing, never smiling. Saint-Fargeau, long
uninhabited, was almost a ruin filled with rats at the time when
Mademoiselle presented herself as a fugitive. She was shown into a room
with a prop in the centre. Coming from the palace of the Tuileries, this
sight overwhelmed her, and made her realise the depth of her fall. She
had an access of despair: "I am most unfortunate to be absent from
Court, to have only a dwelling as ugly as this, and to realise that this
is the best of my chateaux." Her fear became terror when she discovered
that doors and windows were lacking. A report came from a valet that she
was sought for imprisonment, and she was too confused to reflect that
if the King had ordered her arrest locks would have been useless.
[Illustration: =ANNE MARIE LOUISE D'ORLEANS, DUCHESSE DE MONTPENSIER=
From the enamel by Petitot in the South Kensington Museum]
She continued her journey to reach a little chateau, situated two
leagues from Saint-Fargeau, which was reported safer. "Imagine," says
she, "with what pleasure I made the extra journey. I had risen two hours
before daylight; I had ridden twenty-two miles upon a horse already worn
out with previous travel. We arrived at our destination at three in the
morning; I went to bed in haste." The crisis was short. The next day it
was explained to Mademoiselle that Saint-Fargeau had two exits in case
of alarm. She returned in consequence on the fourth day, and there was
no more question of grief, nor even ill-temper; from that moment the
place was "good and strong."
The Princess adapted herself to the glassless windows, the broken
ceilings, the absence of doors, and all the rest. The great ladies of
the seventeenth century were fortunately not too particular.
Mademoiselle encamped in a cellar while the apartment above was being
repaired, and was forced to borrow a bed. She recovered all her gaiety
before the comicality of the situation: "for the first cousin of the
King of France." "Happily for me," wrote she, "the bailiff of the
chateau had been recently married; therefore he possessed a new bed."
The bed of Madame the Bailiff was the great resource of the chateau. It
was returned as soon as the Princess received her own from Paris, but it
was again used to give a resting-place to the Christmas guests, many of
whom appeared--a fact to the credit of the French nobility--as soon as
it was known where the illustrious unfortunate was passing her period of
banishment.
Mademoiselle did not know how to provide for these guests and the most
important were lodged with the bailiff. The Duchess of Sully and her
sister, the Marquise of Laval, came together for a prolonged sojourn and
performed the office of shuttle between the cellar in which the Grande
Mademoiselle held her court and "the new bed of the city of
Saint-Fargeau." Ladies of quality arriving at this time lodged where
they could with small regard to comfort, and this condition lasted until
the chateau was put in order. Every one suffered but nobody complained.
There was a certain elegance in this haughty fashion of ignoring
comfort, the importance of which in our own days seems in comparison
rather bourgeois, in the worst sense of the word.
Gradually all was arranged. The chateau was restored, the apartments
enlarged.[4] The overgrowth of the approaches gave place to a terrace
from which to the surprise of all a charming view was discovered. The
Saint-Fargeau of the Capets and of the first Valois, "a place so wild,"
says Mademoiselle, "that when I arrived, only herbs fit for soup were to
be found," became a beautiful residence, hospitable and animated.
The mistress of the place loved open air and movement, as did all the
French nobility before an absolute monarchy, in the interest of order
and peace, had trained them to rest tranquilly in the salons of
Versailles. Muscular decadence commenced with the French at the epoch
when it became the fashion to pass the days in silk stockings and
practising bows, under punishment of being excluded from all society.
Violent exercises were abandoned or made more gentle.[5] Attention was
paid only to what gave majestic grace to the body in harmony with the
Versailles "Galerie of Mirrors."
The bourgeoisie were eager to imitate the people of quality, and the
higher classes paid for their fine manners or their attempts at fine
manners with the headaches and nervous disorders of the eighteenth
century. The taste for sport has only reappeared in France during our
own times. We are now witnessing its resurrection.
This taste, however, was still lively immediately after the Fronde, and
Mademoiselle abandoned herself to it with passion. She ordered from
England a pack of hounds and hunters. She possessed many equipages. With
a game of marl before the chateau, indoor games for rainy days, violins
from the Tuileries to play for dancing, it would be difficult to find a
court more brisk, more constantly in joyous movement.
Mademoiselle, whom nothing tired, set an example, and seasoned these
"games of action" with _causeries_, some of which happily have been
preserved for us by Segrais,[6] her Secretary of the Commandments.
Thanks to him, we know, even admitting that he may have slightly
rearranged his reports, what they talked about at the court of
Saint-Fargeau, and one cannot fail to be somewhat surprised. He tells us
all sorts of things of which we never should have dreamed, things that
we have never imagined as subjects of interest in the seventeenth
century. In this age which believed itself entirely indifferent towards
nature, conversation nevertheless fell ceaselessly upon the beauties of
landscape. People paused to admire "points of view," sought them, and
endeavoured to explain why they were beautiful. The reasons given were,
that those who knew how to enjoy a large forest and "the beautiful
carpet of moss at the feet," actually preferred landscapes made more
intelligible through the intervention of man. A desert pleased them less
than an inhabited country, a wild landscape less than sunny collections
of cultivated fields and orchards symmetrically planted, recalling "the
agreeable variety of parterres made by the ingenuity of man."
Mademoiselle praises in her _Memoires_ the view from the end of the
terrace. She attempts to describe it and fails. Segrais also tries in
vain. It was impossible at that epoch. The vocabulary did not exist
which could furnish words to describe a landscape. The creation of our
descriptive vocabulary is one of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's[7] greatest
glories. In compensation, Segrais knew very well how to explain why the
beauty of the view, about which he had so ineffectively written, pleased
him and his companions. He said that, arranged by chance, it conformed
to the rules of classic pictures and in no way appeared the sole work of
nature. Neither the valley of the Loing nor the immense marsh which
closed this side of the chateau, nor the island in the midst of this
marsh, with clumps of trees, nor the church and small height which could
be perceived, seemed placed without human intervention. "And this,"
writes Segrais, "is so well represented in those excellent landscapes of
the great artists, that all who look upon it believe that they have seen
the marsh, church, and little island in a thousand pictures."
Literature, imaginative literature at least, also held a considerable
place in the conversation. Mademoiselle, who had read nothing before her
sojourn at Saint-Fargeau, was anxious to make up for lost time. "I am a
very ignorant creature," writes she, at the beginning of her exile,
"detesting reading and having seen only the gazettes. Henceforth I am
going to apply myself and see if it be possible to like a thing from
deliberate determination."
Success surpassed her hopes; she conceived a passion for reading. In the
winter of 1652-1653, during which there were few distractions, and the
chateau was given over to workmen; when the bad weather and the rough
roads rendered Saint-Fargeau unapproachable, and left the castle
solitary, she read, or listened to reading while plying her needle,
without being bored.
I laboured from morning till night at my work and descended
from my chamber only to dine or to be present at mass. The
winter weather was so bad that walking was impossible. If there
ever was a moment of fine weather I rode, or if the ground was
too frozen I walked a little to watch my workmen. While I sewed
some one read to me, and it was at this period that I began to
love reading as I have done ever since.
At the end of some years of banishment her "erudition" struck Dr. Huet,
who met her at the baths of Forges. "She loves history passionately,"
says he in his _Memoires_, "but above all, romances, so-called. While
her women were dressing her hair, she desired me to read aloud, and no
matter what the subject, it provoked a thousand questions on her part.
In this I well recognised the acuteness of her mind."
The fashionable romances easily pleased a Princess who had a grandeur of
soul and loved to meet it in others. They were the works of
Gomberville,[8] of La Calprenede, and of Mlle. de Scudery, in which the
sheepfolds and dove-cotes of l'Astree had yielded to the heroic
adventures and grand sentiments of princes warlike and proud, who,
notwithstanding their exotic names, were the same who resisted under
Richelieu, and lead the Fronde under Mazarin. The generations born in
the first third of the century were charmed with the resemblance to
their own heroes which these tales offered them. They went wild with
delight over Scythe, Oroondate, or the Grand Cyrus, as they were
fascinated with Saint-Preux and Lelia, and many readers remained
faithful till death to these writers who had so well expressed the
ideals of their youth.
At sixty, La Rochefoucauld re-read La Calprenede. Mme. de Sevigne was a
grandmother when she found herself "glued" to _Cleopatre_. "The beauty
of the sentiments," writes she, "and the violence of the passions, the
grandeur of the events, and the marvellous successes of the redoubtable
swords, all enchain me as if I were still a little child. The sentiments
are of a perfection which satisfy my conception of beautiful souls."[9]
Realism and Naturalism have in the present day destroyed the capacity
for enthusiasm for heroes of romance. One's imagination can hardly be
kindled by a Coupeau or a Nana, nor even by a Madame Bovary, whatever
may be the literary value of the works in which they figure. For the
little court of Saint-Fargeau it was hardly possible to speak calmly of
the favourite heroes. One day, followed by a numerous assemblage,
Mademoiselle drove in the fresh valley of the Loing and descended from
her chariot under the tall willows which bordered the little river. It
was spring and the sun was radiant. The new grass and the growing leaves
offered a picture so "laughing" that nothing else could at first be
spoken of. While walking, the conversation finally turned upon romance,
and each fought for the favourite hero. The discussion was waxing warm
when the Princess, who had hardly spoken, intervened to moderate its
ardour. After avowing that she had read but little, she gave an eulogium
upon Roman history, or rather what it might become, better comprehended
in the hands of a learned writer, and criticised the custom of giving
French manners to Greeks, Persians, or Indians.
Mademoiselle desired greater "historic truth" and what might be
designated as more local colour. Why not frankly take characters from
French contemporaries? "I am astonished," she said in ending, "that so
many people of intelligence who have created for us such worthy
Scythians and such generous Parthians have not taken the same pleasure
in imagining as accomplished French cavaliers or princes: whose
adventures would not have been less pleasing." After a moment's
silence, objections were advanced. The idea of writing a romance upon
the "war of Paris" seemed very daring. One young lady very naively urged
that the author would not know how to name his characters. "The French,"
said she, "naturally love foreign names. Arabaze, Iphidamante, Crosmane,
are beautiful names; Rohan, Lorraine, Montmorency, are nothing of the
kind."
The old Mme. de Choissy, with the authority given by her noted
intelligence, tried to prove that in an imaginative recital both time
and space must be distant. One Marquise appeared wearied of the kings
and emperors of romance, and desired heroes taken from the middle class.
Another, Mme. de Mauny, who was supposed[10] to have invented the
expression "_s'encanailler_" asserted that it was forbidden to heroes of
romance to do or say anything derogatory to pure sentiment, which was
possible to those of "high birth only." Mademoiselle maintained the
necessity of observation and truth for the tale, but she admitted that
the author of a great romance, writing as a "poet," had the right to
imagine events, instead of servilely copying them. "The tale," said she,
"relates things as they are, the romance as they should be."
This distinction neither lacks acuteness nor a certain justice, and we
should like to know how much Segrais had contributed to it. No one
having replied to this last remark, the Princess remounted her carriage,
and gave the order to follow the pack of hounds, which had just started
a hare a few steps off. She was obeyed, in spite of the obstacles which
the country presented, and she returned to the chateau, very well
satisfied with her afternoon.
At Saint-Fargeau they talked more frequently of love than of either
literature or the beauties of nature. Love is a subject of which women
never weary, and about which they always have something to say.
Mademoiselle lent herself completely to such conversation; it was she
who one day posed a question the subtlety of which the Hotel Rambouillet
might have enjoyed. "Whose absence causes the greater anguish, a lover
who should be loved or one who should not be?"
She consented to admit the ideas of l'Astree upon the fatality of
passion, on the condition that the effects should be limited to
personages of romance, or in real life to those of humble birth. Segrais
makes her say without protest in a tale[11] ascribed to her "Man is not
free to love or not to love as he pleases." In the depths of her soul,
in her most intimate thoughts, Mademoiselle had never been further from
comprehending love, never had she more energetically refused for it any
beauty, any grandeur. One of her ladies, the gracious Frontenac, with
her eyes "filled with light," had made a marriage of inclination, an act
absurd, base, and shameful in the judgment of Mademoiselle, her
mistress. The marriage turned out badly. M. de Frontenac was eccentric.
His young wife at first feared, then hated him, and at Saint-Fargeau
there passed between the couple tragi-comic scenes, of which no one
could be ignorant.
Mademoiselle had just commenced her _Memoires_.[12] She eagerly relates
the conjugal quarrels of M. and Mme. de Frontenac with more details than
it would be suitable to repeat, and this was the opportunity for an
outburst against the folly of trying to found marriage upon the most
fickle of human feelings. She writes:
I have always had a strong aversion for even legitimate love.
This passion appears to me unworthy of a noble soul; but I am
now confirmed in this opinion, and I comprehend well that
reason has but little to do with affairs of passion. Passion
passes quickly, is never, in fact, of long duration. One may be
unhappy for life in entering upon marriage for so transient a
feeling, but on the other hand, happy if one marries for reason
and other imaginable considerations, even if physical aversion
exists; for I believe that one often loves more with this
aversion conquered.
The principle may be sage, but the Grande Mademoiselle is too sure of
her fact. This "even if aversion exists" is difficult to digest. The
Princess was nearing her thirtieth year, when she treated love with
contempt, and nothing had yet warned her of the imprudence of defying
nature; so she believed herself well protected.
In the spring of 1683, the rumour had spread that she and M. le Prince
de Conde had promised to marry, in the expectation and hope of being
soon relieved of the Princess de Conde, now a hopeless invalid, and that
the imagination of Mademoiselle, for lack of heart, pressed her
"furiously" in this affair. The Parisian salons had discovered no other
explanation for the hostile attitude which she persisted in maintaining
towards the Court of France, which she had so much interest in
conciliating. It was inconceivable that without some reason of this kind
she should compromise herself as she did, for a Prince who had become an
alien and whom she might never again see. Why betray news through
letters which always fell into the hands of Mazarin? Why leave to Conde,
now a Spanish General, the companies raised under the Fronde with the
funds of Mademoiselle and bearing her name? Either she had lost her
senses or one might expect some romantic prank, which could only be
unravelled by marriage.
"Have you told everything?" demanded Mademoiselle of the old Countess de
Fiesque, her former governess, one morning, when this last poured out
the comments of the world. "No," said the good woman. Her mistress let
her proceed, then expressed herself as indignant that she should have
been believed capable of marrying on account of a sudden passion; the
other reproaches had not touched her.
She declared that M. le Prince had never spoken of marriage, that it
would be time to think of this if Madame la Princesse should die, when
M. le Prince should be pardoned, when he should formally demand her
hand, and the King should approve the affair.
I believe [continued she] that I should marry him finding in
his personality only what is grand, heroic, and worthy of the
name I bear. But that I should marry like a young lady of
romance, that he should come to seek me upon a palfrey
destroying all barriers in the road; and on the other hand that
I should mount another palfrey like Mme. Oriane[13]; I assure
you this would not suit my temper, and I am very indignant
against those people who have thought it possible.
At this point the Princess was silent. It would have been the moment to
confess the true key to her conduct; but one must avow that, in spite of
her fine words and her expressed contempt for lovers, she was after all
a true Princess of romance, led by her imagination.
The idea of making war upon the King from the bottom of a cellar had
amused her, and still more the thinking of herself as the price of peace
between her cousin and Conde, and she had not wished to look further.
While the tempest gathered over her head, the great preoccupation of
Mademoiselle was the installation of a theatre in her dilapidated
chateau, in which the country workmen had not yet succeeded in arranging
a suitable bedroom for her. She could no longer live without the comedy;
the theatre must come first. It was ready in February, 1653, and
inaugurated immediately by a wandering troop, engaged for the season.
The hall was commodious, but very cold. The court of Saint-Fargeau
descended from its garrets entirely muffled, the ladies in fur hoods.
The country people, only too delighted to be invited to shiver in such
good company, hastened from distances of ten leagues. Mademoiselle was
perfectly contented: "I listened to the play with more pleasure than
ever before."
We no longer understand what it means to love truly the theatre.
According to the gazette of Loret, the opening piece was a pastoral,
"half gay, half moral." Mademoiselle loved this sort, slightly out of
fashion; Segrais has preserved an agreeable reminiscence of a summer's
evening passed in the forest, with the natural background of high trees,
listening to an ancient "Amaryllis" repolished and arranged for the
stage by some penny-a-liner.
Mademoiselle loved, what is more, everything pertaining to the theatre
from tragedy to trained dogs. One reads in a little squib written by her
as a pastime,[14] and printed for the diversion of her friends,
"Comedians are essentials--at least for the French and Italians.
Jugglers, rope dancers, _buveurs d'eau_, without forgetting marionettes
and bell players, dogs trained to leap, and monkeys as examples to our
own; violins and merry-andrews and good dancers." This skit should not
be taken too seriously, but it well accords with the account left us by
an eye-witness of one of the representations at Saint-Fargeau. The piece
was called _Country Pleasures_, an operetta. The greatest applause fell
neither to the Goddess Flora, nor to the "melancholy lover," but to two
children disguised as monkeys, and executing songs with the "cadence
which belongs to those animals."
Twice a week, the pleasures and cares of Saint-Fargeau were varied by
the arrival of messengers bringing letters and gazettes. News not to be
trusted to the post was received through guests from Paris or by special
messengers. The news consisted mainly of political events, but it fell
to the exiles to discover the springs and to draw the morals from the
facts. This talent of divining, possessed in a high degree by the
Parisians, has never passed the _banlieue_. It cannot be carried away.
Mademoiselle herself had never attained the art. Even at the Tuileries
she used to say: "I can never guess anything." Once in her place of
refuge, she comprehended nothing of the real significance of passing
events. For those who were not Provincials there was nothing clearer
than the conduct of the Court of France, after its return to the
capital. Mademoiselle had fled from the Tuileries October 21, 1652. The
next day the young King held a _Lit de Justice_, in which the Parliament
was forbidden to occupy itself with the general affairs of the kingdom.
Banishments and pursuits immediately commenced, but the gazettes hardly
referred to them. From their pages one might have gathered that Paris
was entirely absorbed in its pleasures.
The post of November brought to Saint-Fargeau description of the first
Court ball and some lines on a new _Lit de Justice_ (November 13th), in
which the Prince de Conde and his adherents had been declared criminals
"de lese majeste." The December number of the _Gazette_ gave news of the
arrest of Retz, who had rallied before the end of the Fronde, and the
account of a great marriage with enumeration of gifts and names of
donors, exactly as in our modern journals. The January number was made
interesting by the accounts of the several successes of Turenne over
Conde and the Spanish troops, and by the news of the death of an ancient
aunt of Mademoiselle who had been in retreat for seven or eight years.
The necrological article took a larger space in the gazette of Loret
than that absorbed by the warlike and political news together.
The third of the following month the revolutionary era was closed by the
triumphal return of Mazarin. Louis XIV. travelled three leagues to meet
him,
_Encor qu'il fait un temps etrange
Temps de vent, de pluie et de fange_,
and took him back in his own carriage to the Louvre, where a sumptuous
festival, fireworks, and homage, more or less sincere, from the crowds
of courtiers, awaited him.
The attention of the Parisians was at once directed to a grand ballet
with mechanical devices and changes of scene, danced three times by the
King and the flower of his nobility,[15] before a public analogous to
that of the free representations of July 14th in Paris. Places were
reserved for the Court and its guests, who really made part of the
spectacle, but otherwise all entered who desired. The crowd besieged the
doors to see what will probably never again be witnessed: a monarch
sufficiently sure of his prestige to dare to pirouet, costumed as a
mythological divinity, or stagger as a thief who had drunk too much,
before the _canaille_ of his capital.
The following day, a journalist bitterly bewails in his paper having
seen nothing at all, although he had stood in line three hours and
waited eight hours in the hall. This journalist exacted and obtained
consideration; at the second representation, the chronicler before
carelessly treated was lead in ceremony to the "reserved places." He was
not yet content, not being in front. He showed himself, however, a good
fellow and wrote an article admiring all, even a scene in which the joke
to-day seems somewhat inhuman. It was a dance of cripples, the
contortions of these miserable beings causing much laughter.
Of the abuses which gave rise to the Fronde, no living soul breathed a
word. Not one of these abuses had disappeared. For the most part they
had been aggravated by the general disorder; but France resembled an
invalid who had so far found only charlatans for physicians; it was
weary of remedies. "The people of Paris," wrote Andre d'Ormesson, "were
disgusted with Princes and did not longer wish to feed upon war."
One might say the same of the Provinces. They remained for the most part
troubled and miserable, their hate now turning against the nobility,
with whom the four years of anarchy had brought back the manners of the
feudal brigands. Deceived on all sides, betrayed by all its pretended
saviours, the country began again to put its faith in the central power.
It was only necessary that this last should regain its strength day by
day, and it was clear to the Parisians as well as to the Provinces that
the first use royalty would make of convalescence would be to cripple
the nobility so that a revival of the Fronde would be impossible.
The period had passed in which the King could be aided by the nobles
according to their own methods not his, as at the time in which they had
fought against him, to deliver him from his first minister. Louis XIV.
wished now to be served in his own way, which was to be obeyed, and he
felt the strength to impose obedience. It required all the naivete of
Mademoiselle to be able to imagine that she could make the King as an
old Frondeur admit the distinctions between M. le Prince whose success
one had the right to desire, and the Spanish soldiers led by this same
Prince in whom one must not be interested. She had so little realisation
of the change which had taken place in sentiments, from the date of her
exile, that she did not even attempt to conceal her grief at the news of
the victory at Arras brought back by Turenne, August 27, 1654.
The Grande Mademoiselle believed herself in accord with her King and
country when she wrote in her _Memoires_: "I have not desired the
Spaniards to gain advantage over the French, but I do wish that M. le
Prince might do so and I cannot persuade myself that this is against the
service of the King." It was then four months since the young monarch
had entered, whip in hand, into his Parliament and forbade it to mix
itself with his affairs; but his cousin had no more comprehended this
warning than the others which had preceded it. It had not once occurred
to her that the cadet branches of the royal family were amongst the
vanquished and that the relations of the King of France, very far from
being in a position to dictate to him, would henceforth be the most
strictly held in leash of all his subjects. Only the approach of the
great revolution gave them an opportunity to regain their importance and
we know how much Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were able to
congratulate themselves over this fact.
Monsieur Gaston undertook to bring his daughter to a realisation of the
truth. It had been said that as long as he lived bitter experiences
would come to Mademoiselle through this dangerous Prince.
Gaston d'Orleans had disappeared from the stage at the end of the
Fronde, like a true hero of comedy. His wife said, half weeping, half
laughing, that he seemed to her a Tewlin, a celebrated comic actor who
filled the role designated to-day as the "king of operetta."
The return of the Court to Paris had been announced to the Luxembourg by
a letter from Louis XIV. This news had entirely upset Monsieur and he
blustered with so much appearance of truth that Mademoiselle had once
more been convinced. "He was so completely beside himself," relates de
Retz, "that one would judge from his manner of speaking, that he was
already on horseback, completely armed and ready to cover with blood the
plains of St. Denis and Grenelle."
Madame was terrified; she endeavoured to pacify him, but the more she
tried the more vigorously he threatened to annihilate everything. His
martial ardour vanished when he received a decree of banishment (October
21, 1652). It was at the date the King was entering Paris, and cannon
were heard on all sides, the populace, according to the custom of the
times, firing in the air as a sign of joy. Nothing, however, could
persuade Monsieur, old Parisian as he was, that these charges did not
come from the King's guards, and that the palace was not being besieged.
[Illustration: =CARDINAL DE RETZ= Showing him in his Coadjuteur days.
After the painting by Deveria.]
He was overcome with terror; moved to and fro with agitation; sent
constantly to inquire what was going on, and finally hastened his
departure, which should not have taken place till the next day before
dawn. He drew a free breath only upon arriving at the valley of
Chevreuse. No one dreamed of retaining him--on the contrary, Mazarin,
who governed France from the depths of his exile, was resolved to have
no more trouble with him. "Let his Royal Highness depart with his
appanage,"[16] wrote he. His Royal Highness having arrived at the
Chateau of Limours, Michel Le Tellier, Secretary of State and War,
hastened to find him, and it was a repetition of the former scenes with
Richelieu.
In his final adieus to public life, Gaston d'Orleans denounced Retz as
before he had denounced Chalais, Montmorency, Cinq-Mars, and many
others. When he had said all that he wished, thus preparing the arrest
of the Cardinal, who was to astonish Mademoiselle by arriving at
Saint-Fargeau, the King permitted him to retire to Blois.[17] Monsieur
obeyed with ill-grace; he felt that they were burying him alive.
This was not the first time that he had dwelt at Blois in spite of
himself. The forced sojourn made at that place under Louis XIII. had not
been disagreeable, constraint aside, because he was not definitely
limited, and he succeeded, being young and gay, in living like "a little
king of Yvetot." He had rebuilt according to his own taste (1635-1638)
a portion of the chateau after the plans of Francois Mansard, "the
cleverest architect of his times,"[18] the uncle of the builder of the
Palace of Versailles.
Chambord served him for a country-seat, near at hand, and fruitful for
the kitchen garden, with forests teeming with game for hunting-grounds,
and amiable people for subjects, who had guarded a monarchical faith and
considered themselves much honoured when the brother of the King deigned
to flatter them and their daughters.
Saint-Fargeau was steep and gloomy; Blois, on the contrary, with its sky
full of caresses, showed itself the worthy forerunner of the Angevine
gentleness:
Coteaux riants y sont des deux cotes,
Coteaux non pas si voisins de la nue,
Qu'en Limousin, mais coteaux enchantes,
Belles maisons, beaux parcs et bien plantes,
Pres verdoyants donc ce pays abonde,
Vignes et bois, tant de diversites
Qu'on croit d'abord etre en un autre monde.[19]
It is a tourist of the time who so speaks, La Fontaine, who visited
Blois in 1663, and described it to his wife in a letter half prose, half
verse. The city had charmed him on account of its beautiful situation
and the amiable manners of its inhabitants: "Life is very polished
here, possibly has always been so, the climate and the beauty of the
country contributing to its charm; probably the sojourn of Monsieur or
the number of pretty women has caused this politeness."
[Illustration: =JULIUS HARDOUIN MANSART= After the painting by Vivien]
As a man of taste, La Fontaine had admired the portion of the chateau of
Francis I., without regularity and order; as a good liver he had
appreciated the excellent breakfast at the inn. As a good traveller, he
had gossiped sufficiently with the people of the place to realise how
happy they were under the gentle reign of Gaston.
The traces of the civil wars had been quickly effaced in these fertile
and populous provinces. La Fontaine gaily retook his route towards
Amboise; he saw the smile of France, and he was made to enjoy it.
In this first time of peaceful enjoyment one of the great pleasures of
Monsieur was to pass through his domains as an idle prince; descending
here from his carriage to chase a stag, stopping there his boat to dine
upon the grass, inviting himself into any dwellings belonging to either
nobles or bourgeoisie in which he found pretty women.
He embarked one day on one of those covered boats which the pictures of
the seventeenth century show us. They were called "galiotes," and were
used in voyaging upon rivers and canals. "Monsieur," relates an
eye-witness, "had commanded a second boat in which he put a quantity of
provisions, and the officers of his _menage_, those of the kitchen as
well as the wardrobe; the horses were led along the bank."
He took ten or twelve of his suite with himself, and when he reached
some beautiful and agreeable island, he disembarked and ordered dinner
and supper to be served under the shade.
"Certainly one might say that all cares were banished from our society,
that life went on without restraint, playing, drinking, eating, sleeping
at will, that time meant nothing; at last the master, although son and
brother of great kings, had put himself in the rank of his
servants."[20]
Thus they drifted down the stream as far as Brittany. The weather was
perfect. The chateaux of the Loire defiled before the galiote. These
people travelled as if they were poets.
As soon, however, as Richelieu permitted, Gaston rushed to Paris and
again plunged into politics; which meant to him only cowardice and
betrayals, but which nevertheless fascinated him. This was his favourite
vice which nothing would have induced him to correct, for politics gave
him a round of new sensations. To hold the life of a friend in one's
hand, knowing in advance that he will be delivered to the executioner,
and at the same time bitterly to bewail his loss; to realise also that
the present grief will surely vanish and that one can joyously take
another life in the hand,--such events evidently make days most
interesting, when neither conscience nor heart are tender. These
excitements had filled the public career of Gaston, and when he found
himself again in his chateau of Blois, almost twenty years after the
radiant voyage down the Loire, for ever deprived, according to all
probabilities, of the strong emotions whose savour Le Tellier had
permitted him to taste for the last time in the interview at Limours,
existence appeared to him intolerably pale and empty.
The good which he could do and actually was doing, did not interest him;
he bitterly regretted the evil no longer in his power.
No one, even amongst his enemies, has ever accused him of being wicked.
Only physicians can analyse such morbid natures. Monsieur had commenced
by struggling against ennui. He had collected a fine library and had
attracted literary people to his court, in the hopes of refinding the
taste for literature which had animated his youth. He recalled his
collections of objects of art and curiosities, continued them and began
new. Nothing, however, really interested him, except a botanical garden
with which he occupied himself with pleasure.
Everything seemed infinitely puerile to a man who had contributed so
long to the making of history; it had become impossible for him to
attach any importance to the little verses of his "beaux esprits," or to
become impassioned over impaled birds or even an antique medal.
Weary of war, he threw himself into devotion. The gazette of Loret made
this fact part of the official news of France and kept the country
informed of his progress in the path of piety. The first sign which he
gave of his conversion was to correct himself of a fault which had
formerly brought from Richelieu useless remonstrances. This Prince with
so refined a taste, cursed and swore abominably. The habit had been
caught by those near him; we know that Mademoiselle herself used lively
words in moments of irritation. In December, 1652, oaths and blasphemies
were severely forbidden at the court of Blois, and Monsieur insisted
upon obedience.
To-day, reports the gazette[21]:
Aucun de ceux qui sont a lui,
Quelque malheur qui lui survienne,
N'oserait jurer la mordienne.
One learns, afterwards, that these fine beginnings were not belied, and
that Monsieur was now "less often at home than in the church." The
Parisians and the Court of France had much difficulty in believing that
repentance should have come to a spirit so free and so skeptical. His
piety would have been entirely estimable "if his laziness had not in
some portion aided his virtue." But however this may be, the devotion of
Gaston was not the less sincere. He reformed his life, and succeeded in
finding, at the foot of the altar, not perhaps contentment, but some
patience and resignation.
This did not come, however, for a long time; the beginning of his
definite exile was filled with miserable agitations and complaints
without dignity. Madame rejoined him with their little flock of
daughters.[22] This Princess did not add to the animation of the
chateau. Entirely occupied with her own health, she lived shut up,
without any other distraction than that of eating from morning till
night, "in order to cure her melancholies," relates the Grande
Mademoiselle, "but which really increases her ills." She gave no orders,
only sent for her daughters ten minutes in the morning and evening,
never spoke to them except to say "Hold yourselves erect, raise your
head"; this was her sole instruction. She never saw them again during
the day and never inquired what they were doing.
The governess in her turn neglected her pupils, who were abandoned to
the care of inferiors. Their father found nothing to criticise in these
educational methods; Anne of Austria had not brought up her sons very
differently. Besides, Monsieur was a submissive husband. He considered
his wife's judgment good, and that she possessed much more intelligence
than was indicated by her large, frightened eyes.
"This one," said Tallemant, "is a poor idiot, who nevertheless has
intelligence." Mme. de Motteville judged her exactly the same. Madame
was not loved because she was not amiable, but no one was astonished at
her ascendancy over her husband.
Gaston's court, contrary to that of his daughter, was almost deserted.
Disgrace for this couple had been the signal for general abandonment.
During the first years, Gaston took the trouble to entertain his guests;
he became again, for some hours, the incomparable talker, who knew a
thousand beautiful tales and found charming methods of telling them.[23]
Chapelle and Bachaumont were received at the chateau on their passage to
Blois in 1656, and brought back the pleasantest remembrances of the
dinners of the Duc d'Orleans.
La d'une obligeante maniere,
D'un visage ouvert et riant,
Il nous fit bonne et grande chere,
Nous donnant a son ordinaire
Tout ce que Blois a de friand.
"The table arrangements were the neatest possible, not even a crumb of
bread was allowed on the table. Well polished glasses of all sorts stood
upon the buffet, and ice was abundant. The hall was prepared for the
evening dance, all the beauties of the neighbouring cities invited, all
the violins from the provinces collected."[24] After a short time,
however, the effort of entertaining became a burden upon Monsieur. He
cared for nothing but repose, and he would have passed the remainder of
his days in sleeping with open eyes, if it had not been for his daughter
of Saint-Fargeau, the terrible Mademoiselle, from whom he had separated
at Paris after a painful explanation, and who had never left him in
peace since that time.
She had commenced by coming to seek him in spite of frequent commands,
to which she paid not the least attention. The Grande Mademoiselle,
openly allied to Conde, was a compromising guest for a Prince possessed
at this epoch with the desire to retake his place near the throne. In
vain she declared that she had recalled her troops from the army of the
Prince, her father knew very well that she was mocking him, and received
her coldly on the evening of her first arrival (December, 1652). "He
came to meet me at the door of his room, and said, 'I do not dare to
come out because I have a swollen cheek.'" A moment after Monsieur heard
from afar a joyous voice; it was Mademoiselle relating the adventures
during her flight to Saint-Fargeau. Monsieur could hold out no longer.
He approached, made her recommence, and laughed with the others. The ice
was broken. The fourth day, however, he said to Prefontaine, the man of
confidence of Mademoiselle, while walking in the park of Chambord, "I
love my daughter very much, but I have many obligations, and shall be
easier if she stays here but little."
Mademoiselle departed the next day. The following month (January, 1653),
Monsieur and Madame made a sojourn at Orleans. In spite of new orders,
Mademoiselle came to pass a day with them. "I did not wait for escort,"
wrote she, "I departed suddenly from Saint-Fargeau and went to
Orleans."
This determination to impose herself upon people whom she saw with but
little pleasure, is difficult to explain. Monsieur and Madame, who
feared her, welcomed her, and her father said in bidding her farewell,
"The affairs of your minority have never been settled. I wish to close
this business. Give orders for this to your people."
Mademoiselle did not wait for a second request. "In consequence I wrote
to Paris, then to Blois, a host of writings which were somewhat
wearisome." Monsieur had his own projects. It was the single opportunity
to extract a little money for the daughters by his second wife.
These young princesses had nothing to expect from their own mother, and
very little from their father, whose pensions and appointments were
destined to disappear with him. Madame was preoccupied with this
situation.
For a long time [reports one of their intimates][25] Madame has
skilfully urged Monsieur to think of his affairs, and to put
some solid property aside for her children, telling him that he
possessed nothing in the world not reversible to the crown in
case he had no male children, and that their daughters would be
left to the mercy of the court and the ministers for their
subsistence.
Until Gaston's disgrace, Madame had obtained nothing, and for cause. Her
husband ruined himself at play; he had been seen to lose a half-million
francs to the famous Chevalier de Gramont. He reformed only at Blois,
too late to begin to save; his debts crushed him, and his pensions were
paid most irregularly. The fortune of Mademoiselle presented itself as
the sole means of floating the House of Orleans, and the accounts of her
minority were the troubled waters in which it was proposed to fish.
Monsieur did not suspect how much the exile and the influence of
Prefontaine had changed his daughter.
The Prefontaine type has disappeared with the ancient regime. There is
no place in our democratic society for these men at once servants and
friends; friends however who remained in the background. Persons of this
kind were frequently met with in the great families of former times, and
nothing appeared more natural than the dog-like devotion to their
masters, always exacting and often ungrateful. The Grande Mademoiselle
was not ungrateful but she was violent, and it was always upon the
patient Prefontaine that she vented her anger. He was the counsellor,
the factotum shrewd and firm, to whom all affairs came, the confidant
who knew her most secret projects of marriage without ceasing to be the
domestic of no account.
His mistress could do nothing without him, and she does not even tell
us--she who loses herself in the smallest details when they concerned
people of quality in her suite--at what date this precious man entered
her service. She mentions him for the first time in 1651, without
saying who he is or where he comes from. From that date she never ceased
to speak of him as long as the troubled times lasted, but left him in
the shadow nevertheless in her _Memoires_. When we have said that he was
a gentleman, that there was no reason for his devotion to Mademoiselle
but his own choice, we have told all we know about him. He had found the
affairs of his mistress in a very bad condition, and so he warned her;
Monsieur, her father, had been a negligent guardian and what is more an
untrustworthy one. At first Mademoiselle would not listen to
Prefontaine. It was at Paris in the midst of the fire of the Fronde, and
she had other things to think of.
Prefontaine returned to the charge at Saint-Fargeau, where time
abounded, and was better received. A new sentiment had awakened in
Mademoiselle. She commenced to love money. She took interest in her
affairs, and skilfully applied herself to economising with so much
success that she would have soon risen to be a Countess Pimbesche.
Ideas of order and economy, rarely found with princesses of this epoch,
occurred to her. "It is not sufficient," said she one day to
Prefontaine, "to have an eye upon my legal affairs and the increase of
my revenues; but it is also necessary to supervise the expenses of my
house. I am convinced that I am robbed, and to prevent this, I wish to
be accounted to as if I were a private person."
This was not beneath a great Princess. Examination proved that she _was_
robbed by her people. After being assured of this, she took upon herself
the duty of supervising all the accounts twice a week, "even to the
smallest."
She knew the price of everything; "who could have predicted when I lived
at Court, that I should ever know how much bricks, lime, plaster,
carriages cost, what are the daily wages of the workmen, in fine all the
details of a building, and that every Saturday I should myself settle
the accounts: every one would have been skeptical." And still more the
people at large; it was really almost incredible. She quickly perceived
that Monsieur had not taken his duties as guardian very seriously. It
was in his belief both the right and duty of the chief of the Orleans
family to advance the general interests of the House, even at the
expense of individual members. The daughter by the first marriage was
enormously rich. What could be more just than to use her fortune for the
common good? What more natural than to throw upon her the burden of
debts contracted to add to the eclat of the family? or to give a little
of her superfluity to her young sisters in view of their establishment?
Gaston sent to his daughter for signature an act conceived in this
spirit, and received the clearest refusal. Very respectfully but with
firmness Mademoiselle assured him that henceforth she intended to hold
to her legal rights, which guaranteed the integrity of her fortune.
Monsieur threw himself into a great rage, but knew not what more to do.
Politics gave him unexpected aid. A gentleman sent as courier by Conde
into France had just been arrested. Among other letters was found one
without address, but evidently destined for Mademoiselle and most
compromising for her.
Mazarin charged the Archbishop of Embrun to take a copy of this to
Gaston. The dispatch in which the prelate renders account of his mission
has been preserved. Here is one of the significant passages:
BLOIS, March 31, 1653.
MONSEIGNEUR:
I arrived Sunday evening in this city where I was received most
warmly by Monsieur.... Immediately upon arrival I had a
conference of an hour with him alone in his cabinet. I pointed
out to him through the letter addressed to Mademoiselle her
relations to M. le Prince, the Spaniards, and M. de Lorraine,
which were all visibly marked in the letter. He declared
himself very ill satisfied with Mademoiselle, but that the
Queen knew that they had never been eight hours at a time
together: and that at this moment she was trying to cause
trouble in demanding account of his care of her wealth when he
was guardian, and that it was thus impossible to doubt his
anger. I told him that I had orders to beseech his Royal
Highness to make two observations upon the letter; the first:
that Mademoiselle as long as she enjoyed the free possession of
her immense wealth could assist any party she pleased, and that
the King in order to check this had resolved to place
administrators or a commission over her property to preserve it
for her own use, but without permitting its abuse. His Royal
Highness should be left the choice of these commissioners.
The second remark was, that it was to be feared, according to
the news in the letter, that if M. le Prince advanced,
Mademoiselle would join him, and that the King in this
difficulty demanded counsel of him as the person most
interested in the conduct of Mademoiselle. Gaston replied: that
he had ordered his daughter to join him at Orleans, Tuesday of
Holy Week; and he would bring her back to Blois, and keep her
near him.
I have also, my Lord, talked over the same subjects with Madame
as with Monsieur, knowing that she was very intelligent, and
also that Monsieur deferred much to her opinions.
Mazarin took no action upon this communication of the Archbishop of
Embrun.
It was sufficient to intimate to Monsieur that he was authorised not to
worry himself about a rebel, and Gaston on his side asked nothing
better.
Sure of being for the present under Court protection, he poured forth
bitter words and threats against this disobedient and heartless
daughter, who forgot her duty. Sometimes he wrote to her that "if she
did not willingly give everything he demanded he would take possession
of all the property and only give her what he pleased."
Sometimes he cast fire and flame between her and the public: "She does
not love her sisters; says they are beggars; that after my death she
will see them demand alms, without giving a penny. She wishes to see my
children in the poor-house," and other sentiments of the same kind,
which were repeated at Saint-Fargeau.
Mademoiselle herself dreamed one day that Monsieur thought of enclosing
her in a convent, "that this was the intention of the King," and that
she must prepare for his coming. At the same time she was warned from
Paris that her father had promised the Court to arrest her as soon as
she arrived at Blois. Things reached such a pass that Gaston could no
longer hear the name of his daughter without flying into a passion.
The Princess had at first showed herself fearless. Knowing that the
letter of Conde did not have any address, she denied that it was meant
for her and took a high hand with her father; "I assert that they cannot
take away my property unless I am proved either mad or criminal and I
know very well that I am neither one nor the other."
Reflection, however, diminished her assurance. The idea of "being
arrested" terrified her, and it was this fate, in the opinion of her
ladies, which awaited her at Blois--for which reason Monsieur, having
previously forbidden her to come, now ordered her to meet him.
She wept torrents of tears; she was ill when she was obliged to obey and
she confesses that on arriving at Blois she quite lost her head from
terror. It was the story of the hare and the frogs. The projects of
Gaston, whatever they may have been, vanished at sight of this agitated
person and he had no other thought than of calming his daughter and
avoiding scenes.
For this he exerted all his grace, which was much, and forced
Mademoiselle, reassured and calmed, to acknowledge that her father could
be "charming."
The days rolled by and the question of their differences was not touched
upon. "I wanted one day to speak to him about my affairs and he fled and
would pay no attention."
Mademoiselle felt the delights of a country covered with superb chateaux
in which she was feted, and amiable cities which fired cannon in her
honour. She made excursions during a large part of the summer (1653) and
finally separated from her father most amicably. Eight days after, the
situation however was more sombre than before her departure for Blois.
The demands of Monsieur had not diminished, his language became still
more hard and menacing.
These differences lasted many years. Mademoiselle lets it be understood
that it was a question of considerable sums. She relates sadly the
progress of the ill-will of her father; how painful her sojourn at Blois
had been, so that she wept from morning till night; how without the
influence of Prefontaine she would have retired into a Carmelite
convent; "not to be a religieuse, God having never given me that
vocation, but to live away from the world for some years." The ennui of
the cloister life would have been compensated by the thought that it was
an economical one. "I should save much money," said she; and this
thought consoled her. Once it was believed that an amicable solution was
imminent. The father and daughter had submitted themselves to the
arbitration of the maternal grandmother of Mademoiselle, the old Mme.
de Guise, who had made them promise in writing to sign "all that she
wished without reading the stipulations."
The only result was a more definite embroilment. Mme. de Guise[26] "was
devoted to her House,"[27] that ambitious and intriguing House of
Lorraine into which she had married, and with which she was again
connected through the second wife of Gaston, sister of the Duke
Henri.[28] When Mademoiselle, after "signing without reading," realised
the force of the "transaction" into which she had been led by her
grandmother, she declared that Mme. de Guise had despoiled her with
shocking bad faith, in order that her half-sisters, the little
Lorraines, should no longer be menaced with the "poor-house." The love
of family had extinguished with Mme. de Guise, as with Monsieur, all
considerations of justice and sense of duty towards her own
granddaughter. All this happened at Orleans in the month of May, 1655.
Mademoiselle, indignant, ran to her grandmother:
I told her that it was evident that she loved the House of
Lorraine better than the House of Bourbon; that she was right
in seeking to give money to my sisters, that they would have
little from Madame, and this showed me, indeed, to be a lady of
great wealth, enough to provide for others, and that
the fortune of my family should be established upon what could be
seized from me; but as I was so much above them that they could
receive my benefactions, it would serve them better to depend upon
my liberality rather than to attempt to swindle me; that this would
be better before both God and man.
This scene lasted three hours. The same day Monsieur was warned that
Mademoiselle refused to be "duped." He gave a precipitate order for
departure, and declined to receive his daughter. In the disorder that
ensued Madame almost went dinnerless and appeared much disconcerted.
The attendants intervened to save appearances at least, and a formal
leave was taken, but this was all; the complete rupture was consummated.
Upon the return to Saint-Fargeau, Mademoiselle at once learned that
Monsieur had taken away her men of business, including the indispensable
Prefontaine, and had left her without even a secretary. This gives a
vision of the authority possessed by the chief of a family, and its
limitations, with the princely houses of this epoch. We perceive how
much better the fortune of Mademoiselle was defended against her father
than her person and her independence. Monsieur did not dare to take away
her money without a free and formal assent; he knew that if things were
not done regularly "in a hundred years the heirs of Mademoiselle could
torment the children of Monsieur." In revenge for this disability he
tyrannised over her household. And here he was in his full right.
He could shut her up in a convent or in the Chateau of Amboise, as many
counselled him to do, and this again would be within his legal powers.
If he did nothing of the kind, it was only because, being nervous and
impressionable, he dreaded feminine tears.
Mademoiselle realised that she was at his mercy; it did not occur to her
to contest the parental authority--outside of the question of money. She
wept, "suffered much," but she did not attempt to save Prefontaine.
The years which followed were sad ones for her. Until this time she had
had but two days of grief a week, those upon which the courier arrived,
on account of the business letters which must be read and answered. She
confined herself to her study to conceal her red eyes, but her
correspondence once sent off, "I only thought," says she, "of amusing
myself."
Conditions changed when she was forced to understand that Monsieur, that
father so contemptible, from whom she had suffered so much since her
infancy, but so amiable that she admired and loved him notwithstanding,
had no kind of affection for her. Very sensitive, in spite of her
brusqueness, Mademoiselle experienced a profound grief at this
reflection. Her temper gave way in a moment in which the young ladies of
her suite, commencing to find the exile long, and to regret Paris, were
ill-disposed to patience. There was coldness, frictions, and finally
that domestic war, the account of which fills a large space in the
_Memoires_ of Mademoiselle.
Petty griefs, small intrigues, and much gossip rendered insupportable to
one another persons condemned to daily intercourse. Affairs became so
strained between some of the parties that communication was impossible,
and this state of things lasted until the most discontented, Mmes. de
Fiesque and de Frontenac, had formed the determination to return to
Paris.
These quarrels had the effect of spoiling for Mademoiselle
Saint-Fargeau, inclining her to submission to the Court; but mere
mention is sufficient, and we shall not again refer to them.
Mademoiselle commenced to be convinced of the imprudence of being at
odds with the Court and her father at the same time. Her obstinacy in
sustaining Conde had ended by seriously vexing Mazarin. The nobility
felt this attitude and showed less fondness for the Princess. In 1655
she approached to six leagues from Paris. She counted much upon
visitors; very few appeared. "I was responsible for so many illnesses,"
says she wittily, "for all those who did not dare to confess that they
feared to embroil themselves with the Court, feigned maladies or
accidents in extraordinary numbers."
The third day she received an order to "return." This misadventure
enlightened her; Mademoiselle admitted the necessity of making peace
with royalty. Just at this period the Prince de Conde grew less
interesting to her, as his chances of becoming a widower diminished.
Mme. la Princesse became gradually re-established in health, and each of
her steps towards recovery made Mademoiselle a little less warm for M.
le Prince. This latter perceived the change, and at once altered his
tone. "There is no rupture," says the Duc d'Aumale, "but one can
perceive the progress of the coolness and its accordance with _certain_
news."
A letter from Conde, received after the journey to the environs of
Paris, gave warning of the end of a friendship which on one side at
least was entirely political.
BRUSSELS, March 6, 1655.
... As to this change which you declare to perceive in me, you do me
much injustice and it seems to me that I have more right to reproach you
than you me. Since your long silence the tone of your letters plainly
indicates how different your present sentiments are from those of past
times. This is not true of my own; they remain always the same and if
you believe otherwise and if you lend faith to the rumours which my
enemies start, it is my misfortune, not crime; for I protest there is
nothing in them, that affairs are not in this state, and if they were I
should never listen to a proposition without full consideration for your
interests and satisfaction, also not without your consent and
participation.
You will recognise the truth of this statement through my conduct and
not one of my actions will ever give the lie to the words which I now
give you, even if you should have forgotten all the fine sentiments you
had when you came to see our army, which I can hardly consider possible
for a generous person like you.
I knew that you came to Lesigny and that, the Court disapproving
of this, you received orders to return, which fact gave me much
displeasure.
Mademoiselle did not longer want a pretext for withdrawing her pin from
the game. The embroilment with her father furnished it. She immediately
prayed Conde to write to her no more. "It is necessary to hold back,"
said she to herself, "and if I am able without baseness to come into
accord with the Cardinal Mazarin, I will do it in order to withdraw
myself from the persecutions of his Royal Highness."
Some days later the Comte de Bethune transmitted to the Cardinal
overtures of peace from the Grande Mademoiselle. The Cardinal desired
pledges. She sent a recall for the companies from the Spanish army, upon
which M. le Prince without warning "held the soldiers and put the
officers in prison."
In vain the indignation of Mademoiselle. "It is seven or eight years,"
wrote Conde to one of the agents, "since I have really had the favour of
Mademoiselle; I formerly possessed her good graces, but if she now
wishes to withdraw them I must accept, without desperation."[29] Here is
a man liberated rather than grieved.
Thus failed, one after the other, the menaces directed by the Fronde
against royalty. The project of alliance between the two cadet branches
of the House of Bourbon had been inspired in Mademoiselle by the desire
to marry. Few of the ideas of all those which menaced the throne which
had entered into the brain of the revolutionary leaders seemed so
dangerous and caused so much care to Mazarin. We must recollect that he
would have been ready, in order to appease the cadet branches, to marry
the little Louis XIV. to his great cousin.
Reassured at length by the promises of Mademoiselle, who engaged herself
to have nothing more to do with M. le Prince, Mazarin took the trouble
to overcome his wrath and permitted her to expect the recompense for her
submission.
In general, Mazarin had shown himself easy with the repentant Frondeurs.
The Prince de Conti had been feted at the Louvre in 1654. It is true
that he accepted the hand of a niece of Mazarin in marriage, Anne Marie
Martinozzi, on conditions which put him in bad odour with the public.
"This marriage," wrote d'Ormesson,[30] "is one of the most signal marks
of the inconsistency of human affairs and the fickleness of the French
character to be seen in our times."
After Conti, another Prince, Monsieur, in person, entirely submerged as
he was in laziness and devotions, exerted himself sufficiently to come
to Court. The welcome involved conditions which contained nothing hard
nor unusual for Gaston d'Orleans; it cost him nothing but the
abandonment of some last friends. In truth, he received but little in
exchange. When he came to salute the King everyone made him feel that he
was already "in the ranks of the dead," according to the expression of
Mme. de Motteville. The ill-humour caused by this impression quickly
sent him back to Blois, which was precisely what was wished.
It was the men of business who profited above all by this
reconciliation. They had greater freedom to harass Mademoiselle, and
left her neither time nor repose. Their end was to make her execute the
transaction signed at Orleans, but she held her own, without counsel or
secretary. She only suffered from an enormous labour, of which her
minority accounts were only a chapter, and not the most considerable.
The administration of the immense domains had fallen entirely upon
herself. It was now Mademoiselle who opened the mass of letters arriving
from her registers, foresters, controllers, lawyers, farmers, and single
subjects--in short, from all who in the principalities of Dombes or of
Roche-sur-Yonne, in the duchies of Montpensier or of Catellerault, had
an account to settle with her, an order to demand of her, or a claim to
submit.
It was Mademoiselle herself who replied; she who followed the numerous
lawsuits necessitated by the paternal management; she who terminated the
great affair of Champigny, of which the echo was wide-spread on account
of the rank of the parties and of the remembrances awakened by the
pleaders.
Champigny was a productive territory situated in Touraine, and an
inheritance of Mademoiselle. Richelieu had despoiled her of it when she
was only a child, through a forced exchange for the Chateau of
Bois-le-Vicomte, in the environs of Meaux.
Become mistress of her own fortune, Mademoiselle summoned the heirs of
the Cardinal to give restitution, and had just gained her suit when
Monsieur took away Prefontaine. The decree returning Champigny to her
allowed her also damages, the amount to be decided by experts, for
buildings destroyed and woods spoiled. Mademoiselle estimated that these
damages might reach a large sum; she knew that with her father at Blois
the rumour ran that she had been placed in cruel embarrassments and that
it would be repeated to all comers that she had obtained almost nothing
from this source. This report excited her to action. The moment arrived;
Mademoiselle went to Champigny, and remained there during several weeks,
spending entire days upon the heels of eighteen experts, procurers,
lawyers, gentlemen, masons, carpenters, wood merchants, collected
together to value the damages. She had long explanations with that "good
soul Madelaine," counsellor of the Parliament, and charged with
directing the investigation, who was confounded at the knowledge of the
Princess. He said to her: "You know our business better than we
ourselves, and you talk of affairs like a lawyer." Operations finished,
Mademoiselle had the pleasure of writing to Blois that this doubtful
affair from which she was supposed to receive only "50,000 francs,
really amounted to 550,000." She came out less generously from her
litigation with her father. Mazarin rendered Mademoiselle the bad
service of having her suit introduced by the King's counsellor. A decree
confirmed the decision of Mme. de Guise, and there was nothing to do but
to obey. Mademoiselle signed, "furiously" weeping, the act which
despoiled her, and submitted with despair to the departure for Blois.
She was going to visit her father, after having the thought flash
through her mind that he could order her assassination. It is said there
had been some question of this at Blois. "Immersed in melancholy
reveries, I dreamed that his Royal Highness was a son of the Medicis,
and I even reflected that the poison of the Medicis must have already
entered my veins and caused such thoughts."
Her father, on the other hand, was going to overwhelm her with
tenderness after having permitted it to be said without protest that
Mademoiselle was preparing a trap, with the purpose of poisoning one of
his gentlemen.
Considering the times and the family, this was a situation only a little
"strained"; but Mademoiselle was so little a "Medicis" that she made her
journey a prey to a poignant grief, which was plainly to be read upon
her countenance by the attendants at her arrival at Blois.
"Upon my arrival I felt a sudden chill. I went directly to the chamber
of Monsieur; he saluted me and told me he was glad to see me. I replied
that I was delighted to have this honour. He was much embarrassed."
Neither the one nor the other knew what more to say. Mademoiselle
silently forced back her tears. Monsieur, to give himself composure,
caressed the greyhounds of his daughter, La Reine and Madame Souris.
Finally he said: "Let us go to seek Madame."
"She received me very civilly and made many friendly remarks. As soon as
I was in my own chamber, Monsieur came to see me and talked as if
nothing disagreeable had passed between us." A single quarter of an hour
had sufficed to bring back to him his freedom of spirit, and he made an
effort to regain the affections of his daughter.
She had never known him to continue to be severe; Monsieur counted upon
this fact. He was attentive, flattered her weaknesses great and small,
amused her with projects of marriage, and treated her greyhounds as
personages of importance; he could be seen at midnight in the lower
court in the midst of the dunghill, inquiring about Madame Souris, who
had met with an accident. He did still better; he wrote to Mazarin
asking for an accommodation with Mademoiselle.
After the rupture with Conde, it was evident from signs not to be
mistaken that the hour was approaching in which the all-powerful
minister would pardon the heroine of Orleans and of Porte Saint-Antoine.
In the month of July, 1656, Mademoiselle went to the baths of Forges, in
Normandy. She had passed in sight of Paris; had sojourned in the suburbs
without anxiety, and her name this time had not made "every one ill."
Visitors had flocked. Mademoiselle had entertained at dinner all the
princesses and duchesses then in Paris; and she drew the conclusion,
knowing the Court and the courtiers, that her exile was nearing an end.
"In truth," says she, "I do not feel as much joy at the thought as I
should have believed. When one reaches the end of a misery like mine,
its remembrance lasts so long and the grief forms such a barrier against
joy that it is long before the wall is sufficiently melted to permit
happiness to be again enjoyed."
Nevertheless the news of the letter from her father to Mazarin put her
in a great agitation. The Court of France was then in the east of France
where Turenne made his annual campaign against M. le Prince and the
Spaniards. Mademoiselle resolved to approach in order to sooner receive
the response of the Cardinal.
She quitted Blois as she had arrived there, a stranger. One single thing
could have touched her: the recall of Prefontaine and of her other
servitors struck down for having been faithful. This Monsieur had
absolutely refused; his exaggerated politeness and his grimaces of
tenderness had only the result of alienating his daughter. She felt
that he detested her and she no longer loved him.
Upon the route to Paris she doubled the length between her
stopping-places. Impatience gained as she neared the end and the
"barrier of grief" permitted itself gradually to be penetrated by joy.
She again saw, in passing, Etampes[31] and its ruins, which already
dated back five years and were found untouched by La Fontaine in 1663.
So long and difficult in certain regions was the uplifting of France,
after the wars of the Fronde, never taken very seriously by historians,
doubtless because too many women were concerned in them.
"We looked with pity at the environs of Etampes," wrote La Fontaine.[32]
"Imagine rows of houses without roofs, without windows, pierced on all
sides; nothing could be more desolate and hideous." He talked of it
during an entire evening, not having the soul of a heroine of the
Fronde, but Mademoiselle had traversed with indifference these same
ruins in which the grass flourished in default of inhabitants to wear it
away. No remorse, no regret, however light, for her share in the
responsibility for the ruin of this innocent people, had touched her
mind, and yet she was considered to possess a tender heart.
[Illustration: =JEAN DE LA FONTAINE= From an engraving by Grevedon]
She learned at Saint-Cloud that she had been invited to rejoin the Court
at Sedan. Mademoiselle took a route through Reims. She thus traversed
Champagne, which had been a battle-field during the more than twenty
years of the wars with Spain[33]; and which appeared the picture of
desolation. The country was depopulated, numbers of villages burned, and
the cities ruined by pillage and forced contributions of war.
More curious in regard to things which interest _la canaille_,
Mademoiselle might have heard from the mouths of the survivors that of
all the enemies who had trampled upon and oppressed this unfortunate
people, the most cruel and barbarous had been her ally, the Prince de
Conde, with whom were always found her own companies. She would not the
less have written in her _Memoires_, entirely unconsciously, apropos of
her trouble in obtaining pardon from the Court: "I had really no
difference with the Court, and I was criminal only because I was the
daughter of his Royal Highness."
We have hardly the right to reproach her with this monstrous phrase. To
betray one's country was a thing of too frequent occurrence to cause
much embarrassment. The only men of this epoch who reached the point of
considering the common people[34] and attaching the least importance to
their sufferings were revolutionary spirits or disciples of St. Vincent
de Paul.
Mademoiselle had no leaning towards extremes. Neither her birth nor the
slightly superficial cast of her mind fostered free opinions. During her
journey in Champagne, she was delighted to hear again the clink of arms
and the sound of trumpets. Mazarin had sent a large escort. The
skirmishers of the enemy swept the country even to the environs of
Reims. A number of the people of the Court, seizing the occasion, joined
themselves to her, in order to profit by her gens d'armes and light
riders.
Colbert also placed himself under her protection with chariots loaded
with money which he was taking to Sedan, and this important convoy was
surrounded by the same "military pomp, as if it had guarded the person
of the King."
The great precautions were, perhaps, on account of the chariots of
money; the honours, however, were for Mademoiselle, and they much
flattered her vanity. The commandant of the escort demanded the order
from her. When she appeared the troops gave the military salute. A
regiment which she met on her route solicited the honour of being
presented to her. She examined it closely, as a warlike Princess who
understood military affairs, and of whom the grand Conde had said one
day, apropos of a movement of troops, that "Gustavus Adolphus could not
have done better." A certain halt upon the grass in a meadow through
which flowed a stream left an indelible impression. Mademoiselle offered
dinner this day to all the escort and almost all the convoy. The sight
of the meadow crowded with uniformed men and horses recalled to her the
campaigns of her fine heroic times. "The trumpets sounded during dinner;
this gave completely the air of a true army march." She arrived at Sedan
intoxicated by the military spectacle of her route, and her entry showed
this. Considering her late exile the lack of modesty might well be
criticised. The Queen, Anne of Austria, driving for pleasure in the
environs of Sedan, saw a chariot appear with horses at full gallop
surrounded by a mass of cavalry: "I arrived in this field at full speed
with gens d'armes and light riders, their trumpets sounding in a manner
sufficiently triumphant."
The entire Court of France recognised the Grande Mademoiselle before
actually seeing her. Exile had not changed her, and this entrance truly
indicated her weaknesses.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Letter of January 19, 1689.]
[Footnote 2: _Memoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier._ Edited by
Cheruel.]
[Footnote 3: _Memoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier._ Edited by
Cheruel.]
[Footnote 4: The Chateau of Saint-Fargeau still exists, but the interior
has been transformed since a great fire which occurred in 1752; the
apartments of Mademoiselle no longer remain. Cf. _Les Chateaux
d'Ancy-le-Franc, de Saint-Fargeau_, etc., by the Baron Chaillou des
Barres.]
[Footnote 5: Cf. _Les Sports et jeux d'exercice dans l'ancienne France_,
by J. J. Jusserand.]
[Footnote 6: LES NOUVELLES FRANCAISES, ou _Les divertissements de la
princesse Aurelie_, by Segrais, Paris, 2 vols., 1656-1657. The last of
the "Nouvelles francaises," _Floridon, ou l'amour imprudent_, is the
history of the intrigues in the harem which led to the death of Bajazet.
Racine had certainly read it when he wrote his tragedy.]
[Footnote 7: See _Bernardin de Saint-Pierre_, in the Collection of
Grands ecrivains. Paris, Hochette.]
[Footnote 8: His _Polexandre_ had appeared, 1629-1637; his last romance,
_La Jeune Alcidiane_, in 1651; _Cassandre_ and _Cleopatre_, by La
Calprenede, in 1642-1647. _Arlamene, ou le Grand Cyrus_, by Mlle. de
Scudery, was published 1649-1653.]
[Footnote 9: Letters of the 12th and 15th of July, 1671, to Mme. de
Grignan.]
[Footnote 10: See _Le dictionnaire des Precieuses_, by Somaize.]
[Footnote 11: _Eugenie, ou la force du destin._]
[Footnote 12: Mademoiselle commenced her _Memoires_ shortly after her
arrival at Saint-Fargeau. She interrupted them in 1660, resumed them in
1677, and definitely abandoned them in 1688, five years before her
death.]
[Footnote 13: Oriane was the mistress of Amadis.]
[Footnote 14: _La relation de l'Isle imaginaire_, printed in 1659, also
_L'histoire de la Princesse de Paphlagonie_. We shall again refer to
them.]
[Footnote 15: These representations took place in the grand hall of the
Petit Bourbon, near the Louvre. (Cf. _L'Histoire de Paris_, by
Delaure.)]
[Footnote 16: Letter of October 12th, to the Abbe Foucquet.]
[Footnote 17: _Memoires de Montglat._]
[Footnote 18: _Memoires du Marquis de Sourches._ Cf. _L'Histoire du
chateau de Blois_, by La Saussaye.]
[Footnote 19: Letter of September 3, 1663.]
[Footnote 20: Nicolas Goulas, _Memoires_.]
[Footnote 21: Gazette of August 22, 1654.]
[Footnote 22: Four, but the last died at an early age.]
[Footnote 23: _Memoires de Bussy-Rabutin._]
[Footnote 24: _Voyage de Chapelle et de Bachaumont._]
[Footnote 25: _Memoires de Nicolas Goulas._]
[Footnote 26: Saint-Simon, _Ecrits inedits_.]
[Footnote 27: Henriette-Catherine, Duchesse de Joyeuse, first married to
Henri de Bourbon, Duc de Montpensier, by whom she had Marie de Bourbon,
mother of Mademoiselle; married for the second time to Charles de
Lorraine, Duc de Guise, by whom she had several children.]
[Footnote 28: Henri de Lorraine reigned from 1608 to 1624.]
[Footnote 29: Letter of August 10, 1657, to the Comte d'Auteuil.]
[Footnote 30: Andre d'Ormesson died in 1665, dean of the Council of
State. Some fragments of his memoirs have been published by Cheruel, in
the course of the Journal of his son, Olivier d'Ormesson.]
[Footnote 31: Turenne had conquered the troops of the Prince at Etampes
(May, 1652), upon the occasion of a review in honour of Mademoiselle and
of the disorder which resulted. See _The Youth of La Grande
Mademoiselle_. Some weeks later, he besieged the town.]
[Footnote 32: Letter to his wife, August 3, 1663.]
[Footnote 33: Richelieu had declared war with Spain March 26, 1635.]
[Footnote 34: The phrase is by Bussy-Rabutin.]