Produced by David Widger
MEMOIRS OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN
Written by Herself
Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Madame de Montespan----Etching by Mercier
Hortense Mancini----Drawing in the Louvre
Madame de la Valliere----Painting by Francois
Moliere----Original Etching by Lalauze
Boileau----Etching by Lalauze
A French Courtier----Photogravure from a Painting
Madame de Maintenon----Etching by Mercier from Painting by Hule
Charles II.----Original Etching by Ben Damman
Bosseut----Etching by Lalauze
Louis XIV. Knighting a Subject----Photogravure from a Rare Print
A French Actress----Painting by Leon Comerre
Racine----Etching by Lalauze
BOOK 1.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
Historians have, on the whole, dealt somewhat harshly with the
fascinating Madame de Montespan, perhaps taking their impressions from
the judgments, often narrow and malicious, of her contemporaries. To help
us to get a fairer estimate, her own "Memoirs," written by herself, and
now first given to readers in an English dress, should surely serve.
Avowedly compiled in a vague, desultory way, with no particular regard to
chronological sequence, these random recollections should interest us, in
the first place, as a piece of unconscious self-portraiture. The cynical
Court lady, whose beauty bewitched a great King, and whose ruthless
sarcasm made Duchesses quail, is here drawn for us in vivid fashion by
her own hand, and while concerned with depicting other figures she really
portrays her own. Certainly, in these Memoirs she is generally content
to keep herself in the background, while giving us a faithful picture of
the brilliant Court at which she was for long the most lustrous ornament.
It is only by stray touches, a casual remark, a chance phrase, that we,
as it were, gauge her temperament in all its wiliness, its egoism, its
love of supremacy, and its shallow worldly wisdom. Yet it could have
been no ordinary woman that held the handsome Louis so long her captive.
The fair Marquise was more than a mere leader of wit and fashion. If she
set the mode in the shape of a petticoat, or devised the sumptuous
splendours of a garden fete, her talent was not merely devoted to things
frivolous and trivial. She had the proverbial 'esprit des Mortemart'.
Armed with beauty and sarcasm, she won a leading place for herself at
Court, and held it in the teeth of all detractors.
Her beauty was for the King, her sarcasm for his courtiers. Perhaps
little of this latter quality appears in the pages bequeathed to us,
written, as they are, in a somewhat cold, formal style, and we may assume
that her much-dreaded irony resided in her tongue rather than in her pen.
Yet we are glad to possess these pages, if only as a reliable record of
Court life during the brightest period of the reign of Louis Quatorze.
As we have hinted, they are more, indeed, than this. For if we look
closer we shall perceive, as in a glass, darkly, the contour of a subtle,
even a perplexing, personality.
P. E. P.
HISTORIC COURT MEMOIRS.
MADAME DE MONTESPAN.
CHAPTER I.
The Reason for Writing These Memoirs.--Gabrielle d'Estrees.
The reign of the King who now so happily and so gloriously rules over
France will one day exercise the talent of the most skilful historians.
But these men of genius, deprived of the advantage of seeing the great
monarch whose portrait they fain would draw, will search everywhere among
the souvenirs of contemporaries and base their judgments upon our
testimony. It is this great consideration which has made me determined
to devote some of my hours of leisure to narrating, in these accurate and
truthful Memoirs, the events of which I myself am witness.
Naturally enough, the position which I fill at the great theatre of the
Court has made me the object of much false admiration, and much real
satire. Many men who owed to me their elevation or their success have
defamed me; many women have belittled my position after vain efforts to
secure the King's regard. In what I now write, scant notice will be
taken of all such ingratitude. Before my establishment at Court I had
met with hypocrisy of this sort in the world; and a man must, indeed, be
reckless of expense who daily entertains at his board a score of insolent
detractors.
I have too much wit to be blind to the fact that I am not precisely in my
proper place. But, all things considered, I flatter myself that
posterity will let certain weighty circumstances tell in my favour. An
accomplished monarch, to greet whom the Queen of Sheba would have come
from the uttermost ends of the earth, has deemed me worthy of his
entertainment, and has found amusement in my society. He has told me of
the esteem which the French have for Gabrielle d'Estrees, and, like that
of Gabrielle, my heart has let itself be captured, not by a great king,
but by the most honest man of his realm.
To France, Gabrielle gave the Vendome, to-day our support. The princes,
my sons, give promise of virtues as excellent, and will be worthy to
aspire to destinies as noble. It is my desire and my duty to give no
thought to my private griefs begotten of an ill-assorted marriage. May
the King ever be adored by his people; may my children ever be beloved
and cherished by the King; I am happy, and I desire to be so.