CONNUBIAL BLISS.
The Duc de Maine was invested with the principality of Dombes and the
county of Eu. The deeds were signed in Madame de Montespan's apartments
at Versailles.
The sacrifice once made nothing could exceed the ecstasy of
Mademoiselle. After a separation of many years, Lauzun would be
restored to her arms! He was free—he would be with her in a few days!
The exquisite certainty of bliss intoxicated her senses.
On her return to the Luxembourg she flew to her room, and took a hand
mirror from her toilette. She gazed at herself in it attentively; she
asked herself, as she had already done a hundred times before, "Can
he still love me? Are my eyes bright? Are my cheeks rosy? Is my hair
abundant as in the old days when Lauzun praised it?"
The examination satisfied her. Joy had effaced the wrinkles, and
brought a passing bloom back to her face. She overlooked her grey
locks, those she could powder. Her lips parted into a smile. While she
was still looking at herself, and turning her head in various positions
in order to catch the light, a page entered, and announced, "Monsieur
de Baraille" (he was a friend of Lauzun). Baraille's sudden entrance
startled her. She turned round abruptly, stumbled against a chair, and
the mirror, an oval of rock crystal set in a gold frame, dropped from
her hand.
"Ah! Monsieur de Baraille," she cried, looking at the fragments which
strewed the floor, "why did you come in so suddenly? This is a dreadful
omen."
* * * * *
Mademoiselle de Montpensier is at Choisy. The agitation of her mind is
indescribable. She has the gravest reasons for displeasure. Lauzun is
in France, but shows no desire to see her.
At last he makes his appearance. He is dressed in an old uniform,
which he had worn before his imprisonment; it was now too short, and
too small for him, and shabby and torn. His hair, of a reddish shade,
has fallen off during his long imprisonment, and he wears a black wig
with flowing curls, which covers his shoulders. He enters her cabinet,
by the gallery, hung with the portraits of her ancestors. At sight of
him Mademoiselle springs to her feet, and opens her arms to embrace
him. Lauzun throws himself on the ground before her. She raises him,
covers him with kisses, murmuring words of fond endearment into his ear.
For a few moments each, overcome by widely different feelings, remains
speechless. Lauzun examines her curiously. This inspection does
not seem satisfactory. He knits his brow, and slightly shrugs his
shoulders. Altogether his manner is far from reassuring. He does not
care to conceal his surprise at the change he sees in the royal lady
beside him. She is now sixty, her face is pinched and lined by age; her
form bent and attenuated. She has put powder on her grey hair, which is
decked with ribbons, and rouge upon her shrivelled cheeks, in a vain
effort to appear young. But even her blind infatuation can no longer
deceive her. She is old and she knows it.
"I must ask your pardon," says Lauzun at last, breaking an awkward
pause, "for having been so long on the road to Paris to join you. My
health is very delicate, it is weakened by long confinement. I was ill
at Amboise." (The truth being that he had been engaged in a violent
flirtation with the wife of the governor, the Marquise d'Alluye.
Mademoiselle had been informed of this.)
As Lauzun speaks, Mademoiselle raises her eyes, and looks him in the
face. It was the same deep harmonious voice, full of subtle melody,
that had once charmed her ear, like a cadence of sweet music. There
were the same clear eyes, whose glance ruled her destiny. Those eyes
that had haunted her day and night for so many years, through the mists
of time and absence. There were the features whose every turn she
had studied with unutterable tenderness; those lips which had parted
to utter words on which hung her very life. There before her was her
Lauzun,—the object of such longing desire, such torturing suspense;
of such eager strivings, of such willing self-sacrifice. But oh, how
changed!
Now the scales had fallen from her eyes. For the first time she saw
him as he was. He was her Lauzun no longer. She felt that she was
repugnant to him. An agony of grief welled up within her; she could
have screamed for very bitterness of soul in the wild impulse of her
despair. But at this supreme moment her pride came to her support.
Should she let him mock the strivings of her tortured spirit? gauge
the abyss of her misery with his cold steely eye? No; mortal as were
the wounds his cruelty had inflicted, they should still be sacred. She
would say nothing. As she looks at him (and, looking at him, gazes also
through the long vista of years that his presence recalls) she composes
her countenance to an unnatural calmness, and she replies to him, in a
voice almost as careless as his own—
"It gives me infinite pain to hear that you have been ill, but I
rejoice to see you so perfectly restored. I never saw you looking
better in my life."
[Illustration: MADAME DE MAINTENON.]
A glare of anger passed into Lauzun's eyes, and he frowned. Again there
was a long and awkward pause.
"You have laid out a great deal of money here at Choisy," he says with
a sneer, his eyes wandering round. "I think you have been ill-advised
to purchase this place. It is a mere _guinguette_, lying in a hole.
What a useless building it is—so ill designed too!" and he casts his
eyes contemptuously down the suite of rooms, the doors of which are
open.
"Some people think it is not good enough for me," answers Mademoiselle,
with forced calmness, although her lips tremble in spite of herself.
"Have you paid for it, madame?" asks Lauzun, with the utmost
impertinence.
"I have paid for it," replies the Princess.
Lauzun now rises, and strides up and down the cabinet. He strolls into
the adjoining gallery, eying the precious ornaments with which the
tables are covered. He takes the most valuable articles in his hands
and carefully examines them, holding them up against the light. Then
he returns, stands opposite Mademoiselle, and examines her features
with a stare of cynical scrutiny. She grows crimson under this insolent
inspection, but says nothing.
"You would have done much better to have given me the money you have
squandered here. I have suffered great misery."
"I have given you too much already, Monsieur de Lauzun," replies
Mademoiselle, in an unsteady voice, for his heartless greed smote her
to the very soul.
"I fear you are horribly cheated," adds Lauzun, not noticing her reply.
Again he walks up and down the room. "I could manage matters much
better for you. Will you make me your treasurer?"
He speaks eagerly, and there is a hungry gleam in his eye that bodes
ill for Mademoiselle's revenues.
"No, I will not," answers Mademoiselle, firmly. "If you want to know,
I have paid for this place forty thousand livres. I sold my string of
pearls to purchase it."
"Oh! you have sold your string of pearls without consulting me?"
interrupts Lauzun with an offended air. "What waste! What folly!"
He stops in his pacing up and down the room, and fixes his eyes upon
her in another silent scrutiny.
"I see you still wear coloured ribbons in your hair. Surely, at your
age, this is ridiculous."
"The Queen does the same."
"Are you not older than the Queen?"
"I am old, Monsieur de Lauzun," replies Mademoiselle, stung to the
quick, yet speaking with dignity; "but persons of my rank dress
according to established etiquette. Have you nothing more to say to me,
Lauzun?" she says, in a low voice.
She can bear no more; her pride and her fortitude are rapidly forsaking
her. She feels she is breaking down, spite of herself. She longs
inexpressibly to fold Lauzun in her arms, to tell him all her love; to
beseech him to return it, even ever so little a return, for that vast
treasure she offers. But she is withheld by absolute shame.
"I have made great sacrifices to restore you to liberty, Lauzun," she
continues, timidly, her voice almost failing her, and not daring to
look up at him for fear of encountering his chilling gaze. "I have
made many sacrifices. I understood that you approved of them." Lauzun
does not answer. Mademoiselle speaks humbly now, for what is money,
contempt, insult to her, so that he would love her, only a little? "I
have also made arrangements with Colbert to pay your debts."
"I am obliged to you," replies Lauzun, with a sneer. "Let me tell you,
however," and he advances close to where she is sitting and fixes his
eyes fiercely upon her—"Let me tell you I would rather command the
Royal Dragoons and be back again at Court in attendance on the King,
than have all the money you have, or ever can give me."
Mademoiselle turns very faint, and clasps her hands. Her eyes close, as
if she is going to swoon. Lauzun contemplates her unmoved. He does not
offer her the smallest assistance.
"Good God!" she exclaims after a while, "how much I am to be pitied! I
have despoiled myself and you are ungrateful."
"Louise," says Lauzun, feeling he has gone too far, stooping and trying
to kiss her hand, "spare me hysterics. Let us talk business."
"We have talked nothing else," cries Mademoiselle, her indignation
rising at his heartless indifference. "Not a word of affection has
come from your lips," her voice grows thick and tears rush into her
eyes. Spite of herself, she is rapidly giving way. It was the old fight
between heart and no heart, man who feels nothing, woman who feels
everything.
"I want my place at Court," says Lauzun, abruptly. "Will you use your
influence to reinstate me? Else, I would rather have remained in prison
at Pignerol." He speaks in a tone of the bitterest reproach.
"I will do what I can," Mademoiselle answers in a husky voice.
"Do what you can!" retorts Lauzun, turning upon her savagely, "do what
you can! _Morbleu_, if you answer me like that, I will tell you the
truth. You have ruined me—you have destroyed my reputation—lost me my
position. Louise d'Orléans, I wish I had never seen you!"
"It is false," returns Mademoiselle, in a loud voice, her passion
rising at his injustice; "it is false. I have not injured you—the King
will tell you so himself." Lauzun is growing more and more defiant,
almost threatening. His hand rests on the hilt of his sword. This
is too much even for her to bear. "If you have nothing more to say,
Monsieur de Lauzun, leave me." She speaks with the habit of command
long years have given her.
"I will not go," cries he; "you have no right to order me. _Am I
not your husband?_" Lauzun hisses out these last words, more like a
venomous serpent than a man. He grasps the arm of Mademoiselle, who
shrinks away from him. His whole bearing is wild and menacing. "You
leave me without money, you who have lost me all I value in the world;
you, who are old enough to be my mother!" Mademoiselle covers her
face with her hands, she cowers before him. "Can you deny it? Instead
of providing me with a proper residence and equipage when I came out
of prison, I have not even a carriage of my own. I am in miserable
lodgings with Rollinde, one of your people, while _you_—you live in a
palace. I have no money to pay my debts."
"It is false," she replies, rising and facing him boldly. "I _have_
paid your debts. If you have fresh ones they are gambling debts. Those
I refuse to pay."
"But you shall!" roars Lauzun, stamping his foot and raising his hand
as if to strike her. "I am your husband. I have a right to all you
have."
"I will pay no more," shrieks Mademoiselle, now excited beyond fear.
"Go to your friends, those ladies you love so well, Madame de Montespan
and the others." She clenches her fist as the bitter pangs of jealousy
shoot through her soul. "I will not pay such debts," she repeats; then
she draws herself up, and faces him with a courage he has never seen in
her before. It calms him instantly.
"Look at these diamond buttons you sent me. They are vile. You have
such splendid jewels!" He lifts up his lace ruffles and displays a pair
of solitaire diamonds of great beauty, which fasten his wristbands. He
is as fawning and eager as a beggar.
"I will give you other diamonds," answers Mademoiselle with composure.
"But what I do for you in future depends on your own conduct, Monsieur
de Lauzun, or rather Duc de Montpensier, for such I have created you."
There was a depth of irony in thus addressing him by his title at this
particular moment.
"Well, madame, as you please," answers Lauzun, contemptuously scanning
her all over. "If I am not satisfied I shall go abroad and command
foreign armies. I will go _anywhere_ to rid myself of you. I hope never
to see you again," and a look of undisguised hatred flashes from his
eyes.
"You need not go far to rid yourself of me," cries Mademoiselle,
incensed beyond bounds. "Leave me instantly, ungrateful man! You have
sufficiently outraged me. In the presence too of my great ancestors,"
she adds, and with a stately action she extends her hand towards
the portraits which hang around; "those ancestors, one of whose
time-honoured titles I have given you. You might, I think, have chosen
a more suitable spot for your insults," and she measures him from head
to foot. Then with an imperious gesture she points to the door.
Still they met, Mademoiselle still clung to Lauzun. In the month of
September they are together at Choisy for a few days. Lauzun has
enormous gambling debts and wants money, therefore he is come. On
returning one evening from hunting he sees Mademoiselle seated under
the shade of one of the fine old elms in the park, her favourite tree.
She is in tears. It is nine o'clock at night, she has long awaited his
return; now it is nearly dark. Lauzun gallops up to where she sits.
He dismounts, gives his horse into the hands of a servant, and casts
himself on the grass besides her. By so doing he splashes her dress
with mud, but he offers no apology. He unfastens the heavy hunting
boots he wears, and endeavours to draw them off, but he does not
succeed. Then he turns suddenly round and thrusts them into her face.
"Here, Louise d'Orléans," he says, "make yourself useful; take off my
boots." Mademoiselle betrays no emotion, she only rises and returns to
the house.
They never met again. A brief record remained of her existence,
graven on the tomb, where she lay, among "the daughters of France,"
unloved—unmourned; a sad example, that riches to a woman are too often
a curse. The brief record is as follows:—
"Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, eldest daughter of Gaston de France:
Souveraine Princesse de Dombes, Princesse Dauphine d'Auvergne, Comtesse
d'Eu, Duchesse de Montpensier; died 1693, aged sixty-six."