The marriage of Louis XIV. with old Maintenon proves how impossible it is
to escape one's fate. The King said one day to the Duc de Crequi and to
M. de La Rochefoucauld, long before he knew Mistress Scarron, "I am
convinced that astrology is false. I had my nativity cast in Italy, and
I was told that, after living to an advanced age, I should be in love
with an old ----- to the last moment of my existence. I do not think
there is any great likelihood of that." He laughed most heartily as he
said this; and yet the thing has taken place.
The history of Theodora, in Procopius, bears a singular resemblance to
that of Maintenon. In the history of Sweden, too, there is a similar
character in the person of Sigbritta, a Dutch woman, who lived during the
reign of Christian IL, King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, who bears so
great a likeness to Maintenon that I was struck with it as soon as I read
it. I cannot imagine how they came to permit its publication. It is
fortunate for the Abbe Vertot, who is the author, that the King does not
love reading, otherwise he would certainly have been sent to the
Bastille. Several persons thought that the Abbe had invented it by way
of a joke, but he swears by all that is good that he found it in the
annals of Sweden. The old woman cannot have read it either, for she is
too much occupied in reading the letters written to her from Paris,
relating all that is going on there and at the Court. Sometimes the
packets have consisted of twenty or thirty sheets; she kept them or
showed them to the King, according as she liked or disliked the persons.
She was not deficient in wit, and could talk very well whenever she
chose. She did not like to be called La Marquise, but preferred the
simpler and shorter title of Madame de Maintenon.
She did not scruple to display openly the hatred she had for me. For
example, when the Queen of England came to Marly, and went out on foot or
in the carriage with the King, on their return the Queen, the Dauphine,
the Princess of England, and all the Princesses, went into the King's
room; I alone was excluded.
It was with great regret that I gave up my Maids of Honour. I had four,
sometimes five of them, with their governess and sub-governess; they
amused me very much, for they were all very gay. The old woman feared
there might be some among them to whom the King might take a fancy, as he
had done to Ludre and Fontange. I only kept my Maids of Honour a year
after the death of Monsieur.--[1702]--The King was always fond of the
sex, and if the old woman had not watched him very narrowly he would have
slipped through her fingers in spite of all his devotion.
She hated the Dauphine because the latter would not let her treat her
like a child, but wished to keep a Court and live as became her rank.
This the old woman could not and would not endure. She loved to set all
things in confusion, as she did afterwards with the second Dauphine, in
the hope of compelling the King to recognize and proclaim her as Queen;
but this the King never would do, notwithstanding all her artifices.--
[Other writers including Madame de Montespan put it just the opposite way
that the King wished to proclaim Maintenon Queen and she refused. D.W.]
Nobody at Court used perfumery except that old woman; her gloves were
always scented with jessamine. The King could not bear scent on any
other person, and only endured it in her because she made him believe
that it was somebody else who was perfumed.
If Madame des Ursins had not been protected by Madame de Maintenon, she
would have been ruined at Court long before the Queen of Spain dismissed
her, for in his heart the King disliked her excessively; but all those
who were supported by Madame de Maintenon were sure to triumph.
The old woman took great pains to conceal from the King all that could
give him pain; but she did not scruple to torment him incessantly about
the Constitution and those illegitimate children, whom she wished to
raise higher than the King desired. She teased him also with her hatred
of my son and myself, for he had no dislike to us.
Neither the Queen nor the first Dauphine nor myself ever received a
farthing; but this old Maintenon took money on all sides, and taught the
second Dauphine to do the same. Her example was followed by all the
others.
In the time of the Queen and the first Dauphine, everything at Court was
conducted with modesty and dignity. Those persons who indulged in secret
debaucheries at least kept up a respect for appearances; but from the
time that Maintenon's reign began, and the King's illegitimate children
were made a part of the Royal Family, all was turned topsy-turvy.
When she once conceived a hatred against any person it was for life, and
she never ceased secretly to persecute them, as I have personally
experienced. She has laid many snares for me, which by the help of
Providence I have always avoided. She was terribly annoyed by her first
husband, who kept her always shut up in his chamber. Many people say,
too, that she hastened the passage of poor Mansart into the other world.
It is quite certain that he was poisoned by means of green peas, and that
he died within three hours of eating them. She had learnt that on the
same day M. de Torcy was going to show the King certain papers
containing an account of the money which she had received from the post
unknown to His Majesty. The King never knew anything of this adventure
nor of that of Louvois, because, as people had no fancy for being
poisoned, they held their tongues.
Before she got into power, the Church of France was very reasonable;
but she spoiled everything by encouraging such follies and superstitions
as the rosaries and other things. When any reasonable men appeared, the
old woman and the Confessor had them banished or imprisoned. These two
persons were the causes of all the persecutions which the Lutherans and
those of the reformed religion underwent in France. Pere La Chaise, with
his long ears, began this worthy enterprise, and Pere Letellier completed
it; France was thus ruined in every way.
The Duchesse de Bourbon was taught by her mother and her aunt, Mesdames
de Montespan and De Thiange, to ridicule everybody, under the pretext of
diverting the King. The children, who were always present, learnt
nothing else; and this practice was the universal dread of all persons in
the Court; but not more so than that of the gouvernante of the children
(Madame de Maintenon). Her habit was to treat things very seriously, and
without the least appearance of jesting. She used to speak ill of
persons to the King through charity and piety, for the sole purpose of
correcting the faults of her neighbours; and under this pretext she
filled the King with a bad opinion of the whole Court, solely that he
might have no desire for any other company than that of herself and her
creatures, who were alone perfect and without the slightest defect. What
rendered her disclosures the more dangerous was that they were frequently
followed by banishment, by 'lettres-de-cachet', and by imprisonment.
When Montespan was in power, at least there was nothing of this sort.
Provided she could amuse herself at the expense of all around her, she
was content.
I have often heard Madame de Maintenon say, jestingly, "I have always
been either too far from, or too near to, greatness, to know exactly what
it is."
She could not forgive the King for not having proclaimed her Queen. She
put on such an appearance of humility and piety to the Queen of England
that she passed for a saint with her. The old woman knew very well that
I was a right German, and that I never could endure unequal alliances.
She fancied, therefore, that it was on my account the King was reluctant
to acknowledge his marriage with her, and this it was that made her hate
me so profoundly. From the time of the King's death and our departure
from Versailles my son has never once seen her.
She would never allow me to meddle with anything, because she feared it
would give me an opportunity of talking to the King. It was not that she
was jealous lest he should be fond of me, but she feared that, in
speaking according to my usual custom, freely and without restraint,
I should open the King's eyes and point out to him the folly of the life
he was leading. I had, however, no such intention.
All the mistresses the King had did not tarnish his reputation so much as
the old woman he married; from her proceeded all the calamities which
have since befallen France. It was she who excited the persecution
against the Protestants, invented the heavy taxes which raised the price
of grain so high, and caused the scarcity. She helped the Ministers to
rob the King; by means of the Constitution she hastened his death; she
brought about my son's marriage; she wanted to place bastards upon the
throne; in short, she ruined and confused everything.
Formerly the Court never went into mourning for children younger than six
years of age; but the Duc du Maine having lost a daughter only one year
old, the old woman persuaded the King to order a mourning, and since that
time it has been always worn for children of a year old.
The King always hated or loved as she chose to direct; it was not,
therefore, surprising that he could not bear Montespan, for all her
failings were displayed to him by the old woman, who was materially
assisted in this office by Montespan's eldest son, the Duc du Maine.
In her latter years she enjoyed a splendour which she could never have
dreamed of before; the Court looked upon her as a sort of divinity.
The old lady never failed to manifest her hatred of my son on all
occasions. She liked my husband no better than myself; and my son and my
daughter and her husband were equally objects of her detestation. She
told a lady once that her greatest fault was that of being attached to
me. Neither my son nor I had ever done her any injury. If Monsieur
thought fit to tell his niece, the Duchess of Burgundy, a part of
Maintenon's history, in the vexation he felt at her having estranged the
Princess from him, and not choosing that she should behave affectionately
to her great-uncle, that was not our fault. She was as jealous of the
Dauphine as a lover is of his mistress.
She was in the habit of saying, "I perceive there is a sort of vertigo at
present affecting the whole world." When she perceived that the harvest
had failed, she bought up all the corn she could get in the markets, and
gained by this means an enormous sum of money, while the poor people were
dying of famine. Not having a sufficient number of granaries, a large
quantity of this corn became rotten in the boats loaded with it, and it
was necessary to throw it into the river. The people said this was a
just judgment from Heaven.
My son made me laugh the other day. I asked him how Madame de Maintenon
was.
"Wonderfully well," he replied.
"That is surprising at her age," I said.
"Yes," he rejoined, "but do you not know that God has, by way, of
punishing the devil, doomed him to exist a certain number of years in
that ugly body?"
Montespan was the cause of the King's love for old Maintenon. In the
first place, when she wished to have her near her children, she shut her
ears to the stories which were told of the irregular life which the hussy
had been leading; she made everybody who spoke to the King about her,
praise her; her virtue and piety were cried up until the King was made to
think that all he had heard of her light conduct were lies, and in the
end he most firmly believed it. In the second place, Montespan was a
creature full of caprice, who had no control over herself, was
passionately fond of amusement, was tired whenever she was alone with the
King, whom she loved only, for the purposes of her own interest or
ambition, caring very little for him personally. To occupy him, and to
prevent him from observing her fondness for play and dissipation, she
brought Maintenon. The King was fond of a retired life, and would
willingly have passed his time alone with Montespan; he often reproached
her with not loving him sufficiently, and they quarrelled a great deal
occasionally. Goody Scarron then appeared, restored peace between them,
and consoled the King. She, however, made him remark more and more the
bitter temper of Montespan; and, affecting great devotion, she told the
King that his affliction was sent him by Heaven, as a punishment for the
sins he had committed with Montespan. She was eloquent, and had very
fine eyes; by degrees the King became accustomed to her, and thought she
would effect his salvation. He then made a proposal to her; but she
remained firm, and gave him to understand that, although he was very
agreeable to her, she would not for the whole world offend Heaven. This
excited in the King so great an admiration for her, and such a disgust to
Madame de Montespan, that he began to think of being converted. The old
woman then employed her creature, the Duc du Maine, to insinuate to his
mother that, since the King had taken other mistresses, for example,
Ludres and Fontange, she had lost her authority, and would become an
object of contempt at Court. This irritated her, and she was in a very
bad humour when the King came. In the meantime, Maintenon was
incessantly censuring the King; she told him that he would be damned if
he did not live on better terms with the Queen. Louis XIV. repeated this
to his wife, who considered herself much obliged to Madame de Maintenon:
she treated her with marks of distinction, and consented to her being
appointed second dame d'atour to the Dauphine of Bavaria; so that she had
now nothing to do with Montespan. The latter became furious, and related
to the King all the particulars of the life of Dame Scarron. But the
King, knowing her to be an arrant fiend, who would spare no one in her
passion, would not believe anything she said to him. The Duc du Maine
persuaded his mother to retire from Court for a short time in order that
the King might recall her. Being fond of her son, and believing him to
be honest in the advice he gave her, she went to Paris, and wrote to the
King that she would never come back. The Duc du Maine immediately sent
off all her packages after her without her knowledge; he even had her
furniture thrown out of the window, so that she could not come back to
Versailles. She had treated the King so ill and so unkindly that he was
delighted at being rid of her, and he did not care by what means. If she
had remained longer, the King, teased as he was, would hardly have been
secure against the transports of her passion. The Queen was extremely
grateful to Maintenon for having been the means of driving away Montespan
and bringing back the King to the marriage-bed; an arrangement to which,
like an honest Spanish lady, she had no sort of objection. With that
goodness of heart which was so remarkable in her, she thought she was
bound to do something for Madame de Maintenon, and therefore consented to
her being appointed dame d'atour. It was not until shortly before her
death that she learnt she had been deceived by her. After the Queen's
death, Louis XIV. thought he had gained a triumph over the very
personification of virtue in overcoming the old lady's scruples; he used
to visit her every afternoon, and she gained such an influence over him
as to induce him to marry.
Madame la Marechale de Schomberg had a niece, Mademoiselle d'Aumale, whom
her parents had placed at St. Cyr during the King's life. She was ugly,
but possessed great wit, and succeeded in amusing the King so well that
the old Maintenon became disturbed at it. She picked a quarrel with her,
and wanted to send her again to the convent. But the King opposed this,
and made the old lady bring her back. When the King died, Mademoiselle
d'Aumale would not stay any longer with Madame de Maintenon.
When the Dauphine first arrived, she did not know a soul. Her household
was formed before she came. She did not know who Maintenon was; and when
Monsieur explained it to her a year or two afterwards, it was too late to
resist. The Dauphin used at first to laugh at the old woman, but as he
was amorous of one of the Dauphine's Maids of Honour, and consequently
was acquainted with the gouvernante of the Maids of Honour,
Montchevreuil, a creature of Maintenon's, that old fool set her out in
very fair colours. Madame de Maintenon did not scruple to estrange the
Dauphin from the Dauphine, and very piously to sell him first Rambure and
afterwards La Force.
18th April, 1719--To-day I will begin my letter with the story of Madame
de Ponikau, in Saxony. One day during her lying-in, as she was quite
alone, a little woman dressed in the ancient French fashion came into the
room and begged her to permit a party to celebrate a wedding, promising
that they would take care it should be when she was alone. Madame de
Ponikau having consented, one day a company of dwarfs of both sexes
entered her chamber. They brought with them a little table, upon which a
good dinner, consisting of a great number of dishes, was placed, and
round which all the wedding guests took their seats. In the midst of the
banquet, one of the little waiting-maids ran in, crying,
"Thank Heaven, we have escaped great perplexity. The old ----- is dead."
It is the same here, the old is dead. She quitted this world at St.
Cyr, on Saturday last, the 15th day of April, between four and five
o'clock in the evening. The news of the Duc du Maine and his wife being
arrested made her faint, and was probably the cause of her death, for
from that time she had not a moment's repose or content. Her rage, and
the annihilation of her hopes of reigning with him, turned her blood.
She fell sick of the measles, and was for twenty days in great fever.
The disorder then took an unfavourable turn, and she died. She had
concealed two years of her age, for she pretended to be only eighty-four,
while she was really eighty-six years old. I believe that what grieved
her most in dying was to quit the world, and leave me and my son behind
her in good health. When her approaching death was announced to her, she
said, "To die is the least event of my life." The sums which her nephew
and niece De Noailles inherited from her were immense; but the amount
cannot be ascertained, because she had concealed a large part of her
wealth.
A cousin of hers, the Archbishop of Rouen, who created so much trouble
with respect to the Constitution, followed his dear cousin into the other
world exactly a week afterwards, on the same day, and at the same hour.
Nobody, knows what the King said to Maintenon on his death bed. She had
retired to St. Cyr before he died. They fetched her back, but she did
not stay, to the end. I think the King repented of his folly in having
married her, and, indeed, notwithstanding all her contrivances, she could
not persuade him to declare their marriage. She wept for the King's
death, but was not so deeply afflicted as she ought to have been. She
always flattered herself with the hope of reigning together with the Duc
du Maine.
From the beginning to the end of their connection, the King's society was
always irksome to her, and she did not scruple to say so to her own
relations. She had before been much accustomed to the company of men,
but afterwards dared see none but the King, whom she never loved, and his
Ministers. This made her ill-tempered, and she did not fail to make
those persons who were within her power feel its effects. My son and I
have had our share of it. She thought only of two things, her ambition
and her amusement. The old sorceress never loved any one but her
favourite, the Duc du Maine. Perceiving that the Dauphine was desirous
of acting for herself and profiting by the king's favour, that she
ridiculed her to her attendants, and seemed not disposed to yield to her
domination, she withdrew her attention from her; and if the Dauphine had
not possessed great influence with the King, Maintenon would have turned
round upon her former favourite; she was therefore very soon consoled for
this Princess's death. She thought to have the King entirely at her
disposal through the Duc du Maine, and it was for this reason that she
relied so much upon him, and was so deeply afflicted at his imprisonment.
She was not always so malicious, but her wickedness increased with her
years. For us it had been well that she had died twenty years before,
but for the honour of the late King that event ought to have taken place
thirty-three years back, for, if I do not mistake, she was married to the
King two years after the Queen's death, which happened five-and-thirty
years ago.
If she had not been so outrageously inveterate against me, she could have
done me much more injury with the King, but she set about it too
violently; this caused the King to perceive that it was mere malice, and
therefore it had no effect. There were three reasons why she hated me
horribly. The first was, that the King treated me favourably. I was
twenty-five years of age when she came into power; she saw that, instead
of suffering myself to be governed by her, I would have my own way, and,
as the King was kind to me, that I should undeceive him and counsel him
not to suffer himself to be blindly led by so worthless a person. The
second reason was that, knowing how much I must disapprove of her
marriage with the King, she imagined I should always be an obstacle to
her being proclaimed Queen; and the third was, that I had always taken
the Dauphine's part whenever Maintenon had mortified her. The poor
Dauphine did not know what to do with Maintenon, who possessed the King's
heart, and was acquainted with all his intentions. Notwithstanding all
the favour she enjoyed, the old lady was somewhat timid. If the Dauphine
could have summoned courage to threaten Maintenon, as I advised her, to
hint that her previous life was well known, and that unless she behaved
better to the Dauphine the latter would expose her to the King, but that
if, on the contrary, she would live quietly and on good terms, silence
should be kept, then Maintenon would have pursued a very different
conduct. That wicked Bessola always prevented this, because then she
would have had no more tales to tell.
One day I found the Dauphine in the greatest distress and drowned in
tears, because the old woman had threatened to make her miserable, to
have Madame du Maine preferred to her, to make her odious to the whole
Court and to the King besides. I laughed when she told me all this.
"Is it possible," I said, "with so much sense and courage as you possess
that you will suffer this old hag to frighten you thus? You can have
nothing to fear: you are the Dauphine, the first person in the kingdom;
no one can do you any mischief without the most serious cause. When,
therefore, they threaten you, answer boldly: 'I do not fear pour menaces;
Madame de Maintenon is too much beneath me, and the King is too just to
condemn without hearing me. If you compel me I will speak to him myself,
and we shall see whether he will protect me or not.'"
The Dauphine was not backward in repeating this word for word. The old
woman immediately said, "This is not your own speech; this proceeds from
Madame's bad advice; you have not courage enough to think thus for
yourself; however, we shall see whether Madame's friendship will be
profitable to you or not." But from that time forth she never threatened
the Princess. She had introduced the name of the Duchesse du Maine
adroitly enough in her threats to the Dauphine, because, having educated
the Duke, she thought her power at Court unlimited, and wished to chew
that she could prefer the last Princess of the blood before the first
person in France, and that therefore it was expedient to submit to her
and obey her. But Bessola, who was jealous of me, and could not bear
that the Dauphine should confide in me, had been bought over by the old
woman, to whom she betrayed us, and told her all that I had said to
console the Princess; she was commissioned, besides, to torment and
intimidate her mistress as much as possible, and acquitted herself to
a miracle, terrifying her to death, and at the same time seeming to act
only from attachment, and to be entirely devoted to her. The poor
Dauphine never distrusted this woman, who had been educated with her, and
had accompanied her to France; she did not imagine that falsehood and
perfidy existed to such an extent as this infernal creature carried them.
I was perfectly amazed at it. I opposed Bessola, and did all I could to
console the Dauphine and to alleviate her vexation. She told me when she
was dying that I had prolonged her life by two years by inspiring her
with courage. My exertions, however, procured for me Maintenon's cordial
hatred, which lasted to the end of her life. Although the Dauphine might
have something to reproach herself with, she was not to be taken to task
for it by that old woman, for who had ever led a less circumspect life
than she? In public, or when we were together, she never said anything
unpleasant to me, for she knew that I would not have failed to answer her
properly, as I knew her whole life. Villarceaux had told me more of her
than I desired to know.
When the King was talking to me on his death-bed she turned as red as
fire.
"Go away, Madame," said she; "the King is too much affected while he
talks to you; it may do him harm. Pray go away."
As I went out she followed me and said, "Do not think, Madame, that I
have ever done you an ill turn with the King."
I answered her with tears, for I thought I should choke with grief:
"Madame, do not let us talk upon that subject," and so quitted her.
That humpbacked old Fagon, her favourite, used to say that he disliked
Christianity because it would not allow him to build a temple to
Maintenon and an altar to worship her.
The only trait in her character that I can find to praise is her conduct
to Montchevreuil; although she was a wicked old devil, Maintenon had
reason to love her and be kind to her, for she had fed and clothed her
when Maintenon was in great want.
I believe the old woman would not procure for Madame de Dangeau the
privilege of the tabouret, only because she was a German and of good
family. She once had two young girls from Strasbourg brought to Court,
and made them pass for Countesses Palatine, placing them in the office of
attendants upon her nieces. I did not know a word of it until the
Dauphine came to tell it me with tears in her eyes.
I said to her, "Do not disturb yourself, leave me alone to act; when I
have a good reason for what I do, I despise the old witch."
When I saw from my window the niece walking with these German girls,
I went into the garden and met them. I called one of them, and asked her
who she was. She told me, boldly, that she was a Countess Palatine of
Lutzelstein.
"By the left hand?" I asked.
"No," she replied, "I am not illegitimate; the young Count Palatine
married my mother, who is of the house of Gehlen."
"In that case," I said, "you cannot be Countess Palatine; for we never
allow such unequal marriages to hold good. I will tell you, moreover,
that you lie when you say that the Count Palatine married your mother;
she is a -----, and the Count has married her no more than a hundred
others have done; I know her lawful husband is a hautboy-player. If you
presume, in future, to pass yourself off as a Countess Palatine I will
have you stripped; let me never again hear anything of this; but if you
will follow my advice, and take your proper name, I shall not reproach
you. And now you see what you have to choose between."
The girl took this so much to heart that she died some days afterwards.
As for the second, she was sent to a boarding-house in Paris, where she
became as bad as her mother; but as she changed her name I did not
trouble myself any further about her.
I told the Dauphine what I had done, who was very much obliged to me,
and confessed she should not have had courage enough to do it herself.
She feared that the King would be displeased with me; but he only said
to me, jestingly, "One must not play tricks with you about your family,
for it seems to be a matter of life or death with you."
I replied, "I hate lies."
There was a troop of Italian players who had got up a comedy called "The
Pretended Prude." When I learnt they were going to represent it, I sent
for them and told them not to do so. It was in vain; they played it, and
got a great deal of money by it; but they were afterwards sent away in
consequence. They then came to me and wanted me to intercede for them;
but I said, "Why did you not take my advice?" It was said they hit off
the character of Maintenon with the most amusing fidelity. I should have
liked to see it, but I would not go lest the old woman should have told
the King that I had planned it out of ill-will to her.