Produced by David Widger

MEMOIRS OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN

Written by Herself

Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.

BOOK 7.

CHAPTER XXXVII

The King Takes Luxembourg Because It Is His Will.—Devastation of the
Electorate of Treves.—The Marquis de Louvois.—His Portrait.—The
Marvels Which He Worked.—The Le Tellier and the Mortemart.—The King
Destines De Mortemart to a Colbert.—How One Manages Not to Bow.—The
Dragonades.—A Necessary Man.—Money Makes Fat.—Meudon.—The Horoscope.

This journey to Flanders did not keep the King long away from his capital. And, withal, he made two fine and rich conquests, short as the space of time was. The important town of Luxembourg was necessary to him. He wanted it. The Marechal de Crequi invested this place with an army of thirty thousand men, and made himself master of it at the end of a week.

Immediately after the King marched to the Electorate of Treves, which had belonged, he said, to the former kingdom of Austrasia. He had no trouble in mastering it, almost all the imperial forces being in Hungary, Austria, and in those cantons where the Ottomans had called for them. The town of Treves humbly recognised the King of France as its lord and suzerain. Its fine fortifications were levelled at once, and our victories were, unhappily, responsible for the firing, pillage, and devastation of almost the whole Electorate. For the Duke of Crequi, faithful executor of the orders of Louvois, imagined that a sovereign is only obeyed when he proves himself stern and inflexible.

In the first years of my favour, the Marquis de Louvois enjoyed my entire confidence, and, I must admit, my highest esteem. Independently of his manners, which are, when he wishes, those of the utmost amiability, I remarked in him an industrious and indefatigable minister, an intelligent man, as well instructed in the mass as in details; a mind fertile in resources, means, and expedients; an administrator, a jurist, a theologian, a man of letters and of affairs, an artist, an agriculturist, a soldier.

Loving pleasure, yet knowing how to despise it in favour of the needs of the State and the care of affairs, this minister concentrated in his own person all the other ministries, which moved only by his impulse and guiding hand.

Did the King, followed by his whole Court, arrive in fearful weather by the side of some vast and swollen river, M. de Louvois, alighting from his carriage, would sweep the horizon with a single glance. He would designate on the spot the farms, granaries, mills, and chateaux necessary to the passage of a fastidious king on his travels. A general repast, appropriate and sufficient, issued at his voice as it had been from the bowels of the earth. An abundance of mattresses received provisionally the more or less delicate forms, stretched out in slumber or fatigue. And in the depth of the night, by the light of a thousand flaring torches, a vast bridge, constructed hastily, in spite of wind and rain, permitted the royal carriage and the host of other vehicles to cross the stream, and find on the further bank succulent dishes and voluptuous apartments.

This prodigious energy, which created results by pulverising obstacles, had rendered the minister not only agreeable but precious to a young sovereign, who, unable to tolerate delays and resistance, desired in all things to attain and succeed. The King, without looking too closely at the means, loved the results which were the consequences of such a genius, and he rewarded with a limitless confidence the intrepid and often culpable zeal of a minister who procured him hatred.

When the passions of the conqueror, owing to success, grew calm, he studied more tranquilly both his own desires and his coadjutor's. The King by nature is neither inhuman nor savage, and he knew that Louvois was like Phalaris in these points. Then he was at as much pains to repress this unpopular humour as he had shown indifference before in allowing it to act.

The Marquis de Louvois (who did not like me) had lavished his incense upon me, in order that some fumes of it might float up to the prince. He saw me beloved and, as it were, almost omnipotent; he sought my alliance with ardour. The family of Le Tellier is good enough for a judicial and legal family; but what bonds are there between the Louvois and the Mortemart? No matter: ambition puts a thick bandage over the eyes of those whom it inspires; the Marquis wished to marry his daughter to my nephew, De Mortemart!!!

I communicated this proposition to the King. His Majesty said to me: "I am delighted that he has committed the grave fault of approaching any one else than me about this marriage. Answer him, if you please, that it is my province alone to marry the daughters, and even the sons of my ministers. Louvois has thus far helped me to spend enormous sums. M. Colbert has assisted me to heap up treasure. It is for one of the Colberts that I destine your nephew; for I have made up my mind that the three sisters shall be duchesses."

In effect, his Majesty caused this marriage; and the Marquis de Louvois had the jaundice over it for more than a fortnight.

Since that time his assiduities have been enlightened. He puts respect into his reverences; and when our two coachmen carried our equipages past each other on the same, road, he read some documents in order to avoid saluting me.

In the affair of the Protestants, he caused what was at first only anxiety, religious zeal, and distrust to turn into rebellion. In order to make himself necessary, he proposed his universal and permanent patrols and dragoons. He caused certain excesses to be committed in order to raise a cry of disorder; and a measure which could have been effective without ceasing to be paternal became, in his hands, an instrument of dire persecution.

Madame de Maintenon, having learnt that Louvois, to exonerate himself, was secretly designating her as the real author of these rigorous and lamentable counsels, made complaint of it to the King, and publicly censured his own brother, who, in order to make himself agreeable to the Jesuits, to Bossuet, and to Louvois, had made himself a little hero in his provincial government.

The great talents of M. de Louvois, and the difficulty of replacing him, became his refuge and safeguard. But, from the moment that he no longer received the intimate confidence of the King, and the esteem of the lady in waiting who sits upon the steps of the throne, he can only look upon himself at Versailles as a traveller with board and lodging.

His revenues are incalculable. The people, seeing his enormous corpulence, maintain, or pretend, that he is stuffed with gold. His general administration of posts alone is worth a million. His other offices are in proportion.

His chateau of Meudon-Fleury, a magical and quite ideal site, is the finest pleasure-house that ever yet the sun shone on. The park and the gardens are in the form of an amphitheatre, and are, in my opinion, sublime, in a far different way from those of Vaux. M. Fouquet, condemned to death, in punishment for his superb chateau, died slowly in prison; the Marquis de Louvois will not, perhaps, die in a stronghold; but his horoscope has already warned that minister to be prepared for some great adversity. He knows it; sometimes he is concerned about it; and everything leads one to believe that he will come to a bad end. He has done more harm than people believe.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The Reformed Religion and Painting on Enamel—Petitot and
Heliogabalus.—Theological Discussion with the Marquise.—The King's
Intervention.—Louis XIV. Renders His Account to the Christian and Most
Christian Painter.—The King's Word Is Not to Be Resisted.—Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes.

At the moment when the first edicts, were issued against the public exercise of the Reformed Religion, the famous and incomparable Petitot, refusing all the supplications of France and of Europe, executed for me, in my chateau of Clagny, five infinitely precious portraits, upon which it was his caprice only to work alternately, and which still demanded from him a very great number of sittings. One of these five portraits was that of the King, copied from that great and magnificent picture of Mignard, where he was represented at the age of twenty, in the costume of a Greek hero, in all the lustre of his youth. His Majesty had given me this little commission for more than a year, and I desired, with all my heart, to be able soon to fulfil his expectation. He destined this miniature for the Emperor of China or the Sultan.

I went to see M. Petitot at Clagny. When he saw me he came to me with a wrathful air, and, presenting me his unfinished enamel, he said to me: "Here, madame, is your Greek hero; his new edicts finish us, but, as for me, I shall not finish him. With the best intentions in the world, and all the respect that is due to him, my just resentment would pass into my brush; I should give him the traits of Heliogabalus, which would probably not delight him."

"Do you think so, monsieur?" said I to my artist. "Is it thus you speak of the King, our master,—of a King who has affection for you, and has proved it to: you so many times?"

"My memory, recalls to me all that his munificence: has done for my talent in a thousand instances," went on the painter; "but his edicts, his cruel decrees, have upset my heart, and the persecutor of the true Christians no longer merits my consideration or good-will."

I had been ignorant hitherto of the faith which this able man professed; he informed me that he worshipped God in another fashion than ours, and made common cause with the Protestants.

"Well," said I to him then, "what have you to complain of in the new edicts and decrees? They only concern, so far, your ministers,—I should say, your priests; you are not one, and are never likely to be; what do these new orders of the Council matter to you?"

"Madame," resumed Petitot, "our ministers, by preaching the holy gospel, fulfil the first of their duties. The King forbids them to preach; then, he persecutes them and us. In the thousand and one religions which exist, the cause of the priests and the sanctuary becomes the cause of the faithful. Our priests are not imbecile Trappists and Carthusians, to be reduced to inaction and silence. Since their tongues are tied, they are resolved to depart; and their departure becomes an exile which it is our duty to share. If you will entrust me with your portraits which have been commenced, with the exception of that of Heliogabalus, I will finish them in a hospitable land, and shall have the honour of sending them to you, already fired and in all their perfection."

Petitot, until this political crisis, had only exhibited himself to me beneath an appearance of simplicity and good-nature. Now his whole face was convulsed and almost threatening; when I looked at him he made me afraid. I did not amuse myself by discussing with him matters upon which we were, both of us, more or less ignorant. I did all that could be done to introduce a little calm into his superstitious head, and to gain the necessary time for the completion of my five portraits. I was careful not to confide to the King this qualification of Heliogabalus; but as his intervention was absolutely necessary to me, I persuaded him to come and spend half an hour at this chateau of Clagny, which he had deserted for a long time past.

"Your presence," I said to him, "will perhaps take the edge off the theological irritation of your fanatical painter. A little royal amenity, a little conversation and blandishment, a la Louis XIV., will seduce his artistic vanity. At the cost of that, your portrait, Sire, will be terminated. It would not be without."

The surprise of his Majesty was extreme when he had to learn and comprehend that the prodigious talent of Petitot was joined to a Huguenot conscience, and this talent spoke of expatriating itself. "I will go to Clagny to-morrow," replied the prince to me; and he went there, in fact, accompanied by the Marquise de Montchevreuil and Madame la Dauphine, in an elaborate neglige.

"Good-day, Monsieur Petitot," said the monarch to our artist, who rose on seeing him enter. "I come to contemplate your new masterpieces. Is my little miniature near completion?"

"Sire," replied Petitot, "it will not be for another six weeks. All these affairs and decrees have deprived me of many hours; my heart is heavy over it!"

"And why do you busy yourself with these discussions, with which your great talent has no concern?" said the King to him, gently.

"Sire, it is my religion that is more concerned than ever. I am a
Christian, and my law is dear to me."

"And I am Most Christian," answered his Majesty, smiling. "I profess the religion, I keep the law that your ancestors and mine kept before the Reformation."

"Sire, this reform has been adopted by a great number of monarchs,—a proof that the Reformation is not the enemy of kings, as is said."

"Yes, in the case of wise and honest men like yourself, my good friend Petitot; but just as all your brothers have not your talents, so they have not your rectitude and loyalty, which are known to me."

"Sire, your Majesty overwhelms me; but I beg you to be persuaded that my brothers have been calumniated."

"Yes, if one is to accuse them in the mass, my dear Petitot; but there are spoil-alls amongst your theologians; intercepted correspondences depose to it. The allied princes, having been unable to crush me by their invasions and artillery, have recourse to internal and clandestine manoeuvres. Having failed to corrupt my soldiers, they have essayed to corrupt my clergy, as they did at Montauban and La Rochelle, in the days of Cardinal Richelieu."

"Sire, do not believe in any such manoeuvres; all your subjects love and admire you, whatever be their faith and communion."

"Petitot, you are an admirable painter and a most worthy man. Do not answer me, I beg you. If I believed you had as much genius and aptitude for great affairs as for the wonders of the brush, I would make you a Counsellor of State on the instant, and a half-hour spent with me and my documents and papers of importance would be sufficient to make you believe and think as I do touching what has been discussed between us. Madame de Montespan, in great alarm, has told me that you wished to leave me. You leave me, my good friend! Where will you find a sky so pure and soft as the sky of France? Where will you find a King more tenderly attached to men of merit, more particularly, to my dear and illustrious Petitot?"

At these words, pronounced with emotion, the artist felt the tears come into his eyes. He bent one knee to the ground, respectfully kissed the hand of the monarch, and promised to complete his portrait immediately.

He kept his word to us. The King's miniature and my four portraits were finished without hesitation or postponement; and Petitot also consented to copy, for his Majesty, a superb Christine of Sweden, a full-length picture, painted by Le Bourdon. But at the final revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he thought his conscience, or rather his vanity, compromised, and quitted France, although the King offered to allow him a chaplain of his communion, and a dispensation from all the oaths, to Petitot himself, to Boyer, his brother-in-law, and the chaplain whom they had retained with them.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Lovers' Vows.—The Body-guards.—Racine's Phedre.—The
Pit.—Allusions.—The Duel.—M. de Monclar.—The Cowled Spy.—He Escapes
with a Fright.—M. de Monclar in Jersey.—Gratitude of the
Marquise.—Happy Memory.

Lovers, in the effervescence of their passion, exaggerate to themselves the strength and intensity of their sentiments. The momentary, pleasure that this agreeable weakness causes them to feel, brings them, in spite of themselves, to promise a long duration of it, so that they swear eternal fidelity, a constancy, proof against all, two days after that one which shone on their most recent infidelity. I had seen the King neglect and abandon the amiable La Valliere, and I listened to him none the less credulously and confidently when he said to me: "Athenais, we have been created for each other: if Heaven were suddenly to deprive me of the Queen, I would have your marriage dissolved, and, before the altar and the world, join your destiny, to mine."

Full of these fantastic ideas, in which my hope and desire and credulity were centred, I had accepted those body-guards of state who never left my carriage. The poor Queen had murmured: I had disdained her murmurs. The public had manifested its disapproval: I had hardened myself and fought against the insolent opinion of that public. I could not renounce my chimera of royalty, based on innumerable probabilities, and I used my guards in anticipation, and as a preliminary.

One of them, one day, almost lost his life in following my carriage, which went along like a whirlwind. His horse fell on the high road to Versailles; his thigh was broken, and his body horribly bruised. I descended from my carriage to see after him. I confided him, with the most impressive recommendations, to the physician or surgeon of Viroflai, who lavished on him his attentions, his skill and zeal, and who sent him back quite sound after a whole month of affectionate care.

The young Baron de Monclar (such was the name of this guard) thought himself happy in having merited my favour by this accident, and he remained sincerely and finally attached to me.

At the time of the temporary triumph of Mademoiselle de Fontanges, the spell which was over my eyes was dissipated. The illusions of my youth were lost, and I saw, at last, the real distance which divided me from the steps of the throne. The health of a still youthful Queen seemed to me as firm and unalterable then as it appeared to me weak and uncertain before. The inconstancy of the monarch warned me of what might be still in store for me, and I resolved to withdraw myself, voluntarily and with prudence, within the just limits of my power.

M. le Prince de Luxembourg was one of my friends, and in command; I begged him to send me his guards no longer, but to reserve them for the reigning divinity, who had already more than once obtained them.

In these latter days, that is to say, since the eminent favour of the lady in waiting, having become the friend, and no longer the spouse of the prince, I frequently retired from this sight, so repugnant to me, and went and passed entire weeks at Paris, where the works on my large hotel, that had been suspended for divers reasons, were being resumed.

A debutante, as beautiful as she was clever, was drawing the entire capital to the Comedie Francaise. She obtained especial applause in the difficult part of Phedre. My friends spoke marvels of it, and wished to take me there with them. Their box was engaged. We arrived as the curtain was going up. As I took my seat I noticed a certain stir in the orchestra and pit. The majority of glances were directed at my box, in which my apparition had attracted curiosity. I carried my fan to my face, under the pretext of the excessive glow of the lights. Immediately several voices were to be heard: "Take away the fan, if you please." The young and foolish applauded this audacity; but all the better part disapproved.

The actress mentioned came on the scene and brought the incident to an end. Although deeply moved by what had occurred, I paid great attention to the magnificent part of Phedre, which often excited my admiration and profound pity. At some passages, which every one knows by heart, two or three insolent persons abandoned themselves to a petty war of allusions, and accenting these aggressive phrases with their applause, succeeded in directing general attention to me. Officers of the service noticed this beginning of disorder, and probably were concerned at my embarrassment. Some Gardes Francais were called within the barrier of the parterre in order to restrain the disturbers. Suddenly a very lively quarrel broke out in the centre. Two young men with great excitement had come to blows, and soon we saw them sally forth with the openly expressed intention of settling their quarrel on the field.

Was it my name, or a contest as to the talent of the actress, which caused this commotion? My nephew, De Mortemart, was concerned for me, and the Comte de Marcilly assured us that all these wrangles were solely with regard to the wife of Theseus.

Between the two pieces our company learnt that a gentleman from the provinces had insulted my name, and a body-guard, out of uniform, had taken this insult for himself; they had gone out to have an explanation.

The following day a religious minim of the House of Chaillot came to inform me of the state of affairs. The Baron de Monclar, of the body-guards of the King, had taken sanctuary in their monastery, after having killed, in lawful duel, beneath the outer walls of the Bois du Boulogne, the imprudent young man who, the night before, at the play, had exposed me to the censure of the public. M. de Monclar was quite prepared for the inflexible severity of the King, as well as for the uselessness of my efforts. He only begged me to procure him a disguise of a common sort, so that he might immediately embark from the neighbourhood of Gainville or Bordeaux, and make for England or Spain; every moment was precious.

The sad position in which M. de Monclar had put himself in my behalf filled me with sorrow. I gave a long sigh, and dried my first tears. I racked my sick and agitated head for the reply I ought to make to the good monk, and, to my great astonishment, my mind, ordinarily so prompt and active, suggested and offered me no suitable plan. This indecision, perhaps, rendered the worthy ambassador impatient and humiliated me; when, to end it, I made up my mind to request that M. de Monclar be secretly transferred from the House of Chaillot to my dwelling, where I should have time and all possible facilities to take concert with him as to the best means of action.

Suddenly raising my eyes to the monk of Chaillot, I surprised in his a ferocious look of expectation. This horrible discovery unnerved me,—I gave a cry of terror; all my lackeys rushed in. I ordered the traitor to be seized and precipitated from the height of my balcony into the gardens. His arms were already bound ruthlessly, and my people were lifting him to throw him down, when he eluded their grasp, threw himself at my feet, and confessed that his disguise was assumed with the intent to discover the sanctuary of the Baron de Monclar, the assassin of his beloved brother. "It is asserted, madame," added this man, rising, "that the Baron is confided to the Minim Fathers of Chaillot. I imagined that you were informed of it, and that by this means my family would succeed in reaching him."

"If he has killed the nobody who yesterday insulted me so unjustly," I said then to this villain who was ready for death, "he has done a virtuous act, but one which I condemn. I condemn it because of the law of the Prince, which is formal, and because of the dire peril into which he has run; for that my heart could almost praise and thank him. I was ignorant of his offence; I am ignorant of his place of refuge. Whoever you may be,—the agent of a family in mourning, or of a magistrate who forgets what is due to me,—leave my house before my wrath is rekindled. Depart, and never forget what one gains by putting on the livery of deceit in order to surprise and betray innocence."

My people conducted this unworthy man to the outer gate, and refused to satisfy some prayers which he addressed to them to be released from his disagreeable bonds. The public, with its usual inconsequence, followed the monk with hooting, without troubling as to whether it were abusing a vile spy or a man of worth.

We waited for a whole month without receiving any news of our guard. At last he wrote to me from the island of Jersey, where he had been cast by a storm. I despatched the son of my intendant, who knew him perfectly; I sent him a letter of recommendation to his Majesty the King of England, who had preserved me in his affections, and to those matters of pure obligation, which I could not refrain from without cruelty, I added a present of a hundred thousand livres, which was enough to furnish an honourable condition for my noble and generous cavalier in the land of exile.

The humour of my heart is of the kind which finishes by forgetting an injury and almost an outrage; but a service loyally rendered is graven upon it in uneffaceable characters, and when (at the solicitation of the King of England) our monarch shall have pardoned M. de Monclar, I will search all through Paris to find him a rich and lovely heiress, and will dower him myself, as his noble conduct and my heart demand.

I admire great souls as much as I loathe ingratitude and villainy.

CHAPTER XL.

Parallel between the Diamond and the Sun.—Taste of the Marquise for
Precious Stones.—The King's Collection of Medals.—The Crown of
Agrippina.—The Duchess of York.—Disappointment of the Marquise.—To
Lend Is Not to Give.—The Crown Well Guarded.—Fright of the
Marquise.—The Thief Recognised.—The Marquise Lets Him Hang.—The
Difference between Cromwell and a Trunkmaker.—Delicate
Restitutions.—The Bourbons of Madame de Montespan.

The diamond is, beyond contradiction, the most beautiful creation of the hands of God, in the order of inanimate objects. This precious stone, as durable as the sun, and far more accessible than that, shines with the same fire, unites all its rays and colours in a single facet, and lavishes its charms, by night and day, in every clime, at all seasons; whilst the sun appears only when it so pleases; sometimes shining, sometimes misty, and shows itself off with innumerable pretensions.

From my tenderest childhood, I was notable amongst all my brothers and sisters for my distinct fondness for precious stones and diamonds. I have made a collection of them worthy of the Princes of Asia; and if my whole fortune were to fail me to-day, my pearls and diamonds, being left to me, would still give me opulence. The King, by a strange accident, shares this taste with me. He has in his third closet two huge pedestals, veneered in rosewood, and divided within, like cabinets of coins, into several layers. It is there that he has conveyed, one by one, all the finest diamonds of the Crown. He consecrates to their examination, their study, and their homage, the brief moments that his affairs leave him. And when, by his ambassadors, he comes to discover some new apparition of this kind in Asia or Europe, he does all that is possible to distance his competitors.

When he loved me with a tender love, I had only to wish and I obtained instantly all that could please me, in rare pearls, in superfine brilliants, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies. One day, his Majesty allowed me to carry home the famous crown of Agrippina, executed with admirable art, and formed of eight sprays of large brilliants handsomely mounted. This precious object occupied me for several days in succession, and the more I examined the workmanship, the more I marvelled at its lightness and excellence, which was so great that our jewellers, compared with those of Nero and Agrippina, were as artisans and workmen.

The King, having never spoken to me again of this ornament, I persuaded myself that he had made me a present of it,—a circumstance which confirmed me in the delusions of my hope. I thought then that I ought not to leave in its light case an article of such immense value, and ordered a strong and solid casket in which to enshrine my treasure.

The imperial crown having been encased and its clasps well adjusted by as many little locks of steel, I shut the illustrious valuable in a cupboard in which I had a quantity of jewelry and precious stones. This beautiful crown was the constant object of my thoughts, my affections and my preference; but I only looked at it myself at long intervals, every six months, very briefly, for fear of exciting the cupidity of servants, and exposing the glory of Agrippina to some danger.

When the Princess of Mantua passed through France on her way to marry the Duke of York, whose first wife had left him a widower, the King gave a brilliant reception to this young and lovely creature, daughter of a niece of Cardinal Mazarin.

The conversation was uniformly most agreeable, for she spoke French with fluency, and employed it with wit. There was talk of open-work crowns and shut crowns. The Marquis de Dangeau, something of a savant and antiquary, happened to remark that, under Nero, that magnificent prince, the imperial crown had first been wrought in the form of an arch, such as is seen now.

The King said then: "I was ignorant of that fact; but the crown of the Empress, his mother, was not closed at all. The one which belongs to me is authentic; Madame la Marquise will show it to us:"

A gracious invitation in dumb show completed this species of summons, and I was obliged to execute it. I returned to the King in the space of a few minutes, bringing back in its new case the fugitive present, which a monarch asked back again so politely and with such a good grace.

The crown of Agrippina, being placed publicly on a small round table, excited general attention and admiration. The Italian Princess, Madame de Maintenon, the Duc de Saint Aignan, and Dangeau himself went into raptures over the rare perfection of these marvellously assorted brilliants. The King, drawing near, in his turn examined the masterpiece with pleasure. Suddenly, looking me in the face, he cried:

"But, madame, this is no longer my crown of Agrippina; all the diamonds have been changed!"

Imagine my trouble, and, I must say, my confusion! Approaching the wretched object, and casting my eyes over it with particular attention, I was not slow in verifying the King's assertion. The setting of this fine work had remained virtually the same; but some bold hand had removed the antique diamonds and substituted—false!

I was pale and trembling, and on the verge of swooning. The ladies were sorry for me. The King did me the honour of declaring aloud that I had assuredly been duped, and I was constrained to explain this removal of the crown into a more solid and better case for its preservation.

At this naive explanation the King fell to laughing, and said to the young Princess: "Madame, you will relate, if you please, this episode to the Court of London, and you will tell the King, from me, that nothing is so difficult to preserve now as our crowns; guards and locks are no more of use."

Then, addressing me, his Majesty said, playfully:

"You should have entrusted it to me sooner; I should have saved it. It is said that I understand that well."

My amour-propre, my actual honour, forbade me to put a veil over this domestic indignity. I assembled all my household, without excepting my intendant himself. I was aggrieved at the affront which I had met with at the King's, and I read grief and consternation on all faces. After some minutes' silence, my intendant proposed the immediate intervention of authority, and made me understand with ease that only the casket-maker could be the culprit.

This man's house was visited; he had left Paris nearly two years before. Further information told us that, before disposing of his property, he had imprudently indulged in a certain ostentation of fortune, and had embarked for the new settlements of Pondicherry.

M. Colbert, who is still living, charged our governor to discover the culprit for him; and he was sent back to us with his hands and feet bound.

Put to the question, he denied at first, then confessed his crime. One of my chamber—maids, to whom he had made feigned love, introduced him into my house while I was away, and by the aid of this imprudent woman he had penetrated into my closets. The crown of Agrippina, which it had been necessary to show him because of the measures, had become almost as dear to him as to myself; and his ambition of another kind inspired him with his criminal and fatal temerity.

He did no good by petitioning me, and having me solicited after the sentence; I let him hang, as he richly deserved.

The King said on this occasion: "This casketmaker has, at least, left us the setting, but M. Cromwell took all."

The fortunate success of this affair restored me, not to cheerfulness, but to that honourable calm which had fled far away from me. I made a reflection this time on my extreme imprudence, and understood that all the generosities of love are often no more than loans. I noticed amongst my jewels a goblet of gold, wrought with diamonds and rubies, which came from the first of the Medici princesses. I waited for the King's fete to return this magnificent ornament to him nobly. I had a lily executed, all of emeralds and fine pearls; I poured essence of roses into the cup, placed in it the stem of the lily, in the form of a bouquet for the prince, and that was my present for Saint Louis's day.

I gave back to the King, by degrees, at least three millions' worth of important curiosities, which were like drops of water poured into the ocean. But I was anxious that, if God destined me to perish by a sudden death, objects of this nature should not be seen and discovered amid my treasure.

As to my other diamonds, either changed in form or acquired and collected by myself, I destine them for my four children by the King. These pomps will have served to delight my eyes, which are pleased with them, and then they will go down to their first origin and source, belonging again to the Bourbons whom I have made.

CHAPTER XLI.

The Duchesse de Lesdiguieres.—Her Jest.—"The Chaise of
Convenience."—Anger of the Jesuits.—They Ally Themselves with the
Archbishop of Paris.—The Forty Hours' Prayers.—Thanks of the Marquise
to the Prelate.—His Visit to Saint Joseph.—Anger of the Marquise.—Her
Welcome to the Prelate.

The insult offered me at the Comedie Francaise by a handful of the thoughtless immediately spread through the capital, and became, as it is easy to imagine, the talk of all the salons. I was aware that the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres was keenly interested in this episode, and had embellished and, as it were, embroidered it with her commentaries and reflections. All these women who misconduct themselves are pitiless and severe. The more their scandalous conduct brands them on the forehead, the more they cry out against scandal. Their whole life is bemired with vice, and their mouth articulates no other words than prudence and virtue, like those corrupt and infected doctors who have no indulgence for their patients.

The Duchesse de Lesiguieres, for a long time associated with the Archbishop of Paris, and known to live with that prelate like a miller with his wife, dared to say, in her salon that my presence at Racine's tragedy was, at the least, very useless, and the public having come there to see a debutante, certainly did not expect me.

The phrase was repeated to me, word for word by my sister De Thianges, who did not conceal her anger, and wished to avenge me, if I did not avenge myself. The Marquise then informed me of another thing, which she had left me in ignorance of all along, from kind motives chiefly, and to prevent scandal.

"You remember, my sister," said the Marquise to me, "a sort of jest which escaped you when Pere de la Chaise made the King communicate, in spite of all the noise of his new love affair and the follies of Mademoiselle de Fontanges? You nicknamed that benevolent Jesuit 'the Chaise of Convenience.' Your epigram made all Paris laugh except the hypocrites and the Jesuits. Those worthy men resolved to have full satisfaction for your insult by stirring up the whole of Paris against you. The Archbishop entered readily into their plot, for he thought you supplanted; and he granted them the forty Hours' Prayers, to obtain from God your expulsion from Court. Harlay, who is imprudent only in his debauches, preserved every external precaution, because of the King, whose temper he knows; he told the Jesuits that they must not expect either his pastoral letter or his mandate, but he allowed them secret commentaries, the familiar explanations of the confessional; he charged them to let the other monks and priests into the secret, and the field of battle being decided, the skirmishes began. With the aid and assistance of King David, that trivial breastplate of every devotional insult, the preachers announced to their congregations that they must fast and mortify themselves for the cure of King David, who had fallen sick. The orators favoured with some wit embellished their invectives; the ignorant and coarse amongst the priests spoiled everything. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed for a whole week in the churches, and it ended by an announcement to Israel, that their cry had reached the firmament, that David had grown cold to Bathsheba (they did not add, nevertheless, that David preferred another to Bathsheba with his whole heart). But the Duchesse de Fontanges gave offence neither to the Archbishop of Paris nor to the Jesuits. Her mind showed no hostility. The beauty was quite incapable of saying in the face of the world that a Jesuit resembled a 'Chaise of Convenience.'

"The Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, covered with rouge and crimes, has put herself at the head of all these intrigues," added my sister; "and without having yet been able to subdue herself to the external parade of devotion, she has allowed herself to use against you all the base tricks of the most devout hypocrites."

"Let me act," I said to my sister; "this lady's good offices call for a mark of my gratitude. The Forty Hours' Prayer is an attention that is not paid to every one; I owe M. de Paris my thanks."

I went and sat down at my writing-table, and wrote this fine prelate the following honeyed missive:

I have only just been informed, monseigneur, of the pains you have been at with God for the amelioration of the King and of myself. The gratitude which I feel for it cannot be expressed. I pray you to believe it to be as pure and sincere as your intention. A good bishop, as perfect and exemplary as yourself, is worthy of taking a passionate interest in the regularity of monarchs, and ours must owe you the highest rewards for this new mark of respect which it has pleased you to give him. I will find expressions capable of making him feel all that he owes to your Forty Hours' Prayer, and to that Christian and charitable emotion cast in the midst of a capital and a public. To all that only your mandate of accusation and allegorical sermons are lacking. Cardinals' hats, they say, are made to the measure of strong heads; we will go seek, in the robing-rooms of Rome, if there be one to meet the proportions of your ability. If ladies had as much honourable influence over the Vicar of Jesus Christ as simple bishops allow them, I should solicit, this very day, your wished-for recompense and exaltation. But it is the monarch's affair; he will undertake it. I can only offer you, in my own person, M. Archbishop of Paris, my prayers for yours. My little church of Saint Joseph has not the same splendour as your cathedral; but the incense that we burn there is of better quality than yours, for I get it from the Sultan of Persia. I will instruct my little community to-morrow to hold our Forty Hours' Prayer, that God may promptly cure you of your Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who has been damning you for fourteen years.

Deign to accept these most sincere reprisals, and believe me, without reserve, Monsieur the Archbishop,

THE MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN.

This letter cast the camp into alarm. There were goings and comings between the Episcopal Palace and the Jesuits of the Rue Saint Antoine, and from this professed house to their College of Louis le Grand. The matadores of the society were of opinion that I should be conciliated by every possible means, and it was arranged that the Archbishop should pay me a visit at Saint Joseph's, on the earliest possible occasion, to exculpate his virtuous colleagues and make me accept his disclaimers. He came, in effect, the following week. I made him wait for half an hour in the chapel, for half an hour in my parlour, and I ascended into my carriage, almost in his presence, without deigning either to see or salute him.

The mother of four legitimised princes was not made to support such outrages, nor to have interviews with their insolent authors.

Alarms, anxieties of consciences, weak but virtuous, have always found me gentle, and almost resigned; the false scruples of hypocrites and libertines will never receive from me aught but disdain and contempt.

CHAPTER XLII.

The Verse of Berenice.—Praises of Boileau.—The King's Aversion to
Satirical Writers.—The Painter Le Brun.—His Bacchus.—The
Waterbottle.—The Pyramid of Jean Chatel Injurious to the Jesuits.—They
Solicit Its Demolition.—Madame de Maintenon's Opposition.—Political
Views of Henri IV. on This Matter.—The Jesuits of Paris Proclaim the
Dedication of Their College to Louis the Great.—The Gold Pieces.

Whatever be the issue of a liaison which cannot probably be eternal, I have too much judgment and equity to deny the King the great talents which are his by nature, or to dispute the surname of Great which has been given him in his lifetime, and which the ages to come must surely preserve. But here I am writing secret Memoirs, where I set down, as in a mirror, the most minute traits of the personages whom I bring on the stage, and I wish to relate in what manner and with what aim this apotheosis affected the mind of those who flattered the prince in their own interest.

The painters and sculptors, most artful of courtiers in their calling, had already represented the King, now with the attributes of Apollo, now in the costume of the god Mars, of Jupiter Tonans, Neptune, lord of the waves; now with the formidable and vigorous appearance of the great Hercules, who strangled serpents even in his cradle.

His Majesty saw all these ingenious allegories, examined them without vanity, with no enthusiasm, and seemed to regard them as accessories inherent to the composition, as conventional ornaments, the good and current small change of art. The adulations of Racine, in his "Berenice," having all a foundation of truth, please him, but chiefly for the grace of the poetry; and he sometimes recited them, when he wished to recall and quote some fine verse.

The praises of Boileau, although well versified, had not, however, the fortune to please him. He found those verses too methodical for poetry; and the poet, moreover, seemed to him somewhat a huckster, and in bad taste. The satirists might do what they liked, they never had his friendship. Perhaps he feared them.

When Le Brun started preparing the magnificent cradle of the great gallery, he composed for the ceiling rich designs or cartoons, which in their entirety should represent the victories and great military or legislative achievements of the prince. His work being finished, he came to present it to his Majesty, who on that day was dining with me. In one of the compartments the painter had depicted his hero in the guise of Bacchus; the King immediately took up a bottle of clear water and drank a big glass. I gave a great peal of laughter, and said to M. le Brun, "You see, monsieur, his Majesty's decision in that libation of pure water."

M. le Brun changed his design, seeing the King had no love for Bacchus, but he left the Thundering Jove, and all the other mythological flatteries, in regard to which no opinion had been given.

The Jesuits for a long time past had groaned at seeing, exactly opposite the Palace,—[In the midst of the semicircle in front of the Palais de Justice. ]—in the centre of Paris, that humiliating pyramid which accused them of complicity with, or inciting, the famous regicide of the student, Jean Chatel, assassin of Henri IV. Pere de la Chaise, many times and always in vain, had prayed his Majesty to render justice to the virtues of his order, and to command the destruction of this slanderous monument. The King had constantly refused, alleging to-day one motive, to-morrow another. One day, when the professed House of Paris came to hand him a respectful petition on the subject, his Majesty begged Madame de Maintenon to read it to him, and engaged us to listen to it with intelligence, in order to be able to give an opinion.

The Jesuits said in this document that the Parliament, with an excessive zeal, had formerly pushed things much too far in this matter. "For that Jean Chatel, student with the Jesuit Fathers, having been heard to say to his professor that the King of Navarre, a true Huguenot, ought not to reign over France, which was truly Catholic, the magistrates were not, therefore, justified in concluding that that Jesuit, and all the Jesuits, had directed the dagger of Jean Chatel, a madman."

The petition further pointed out that "the good King Henri IV., who was better informed, had decided to recall the Society of Jesus, had reestablished it in all his colleges, and had even chosen a confessor from their ranks.

"This fearful pyramid, surcharged with wrathful inscriptions," added the petition, "designates our Society as a perpetual hotbed of regicidal conspiracy, and presents us to credulous people as an association of ambitious, thankless and corrupt assassins!"

[This monument represented a sort of small square temple, built of Arcueil stone and marble. Corinthian fluted pillars formed its general decoration, and enshrined the four fulminatory inscriptions. Independently of the obelisk, the cupola of this temple bore eight allegorical statues, of which the one was France in mourning; the second, Justice raising her sword, and the others the principal virtues of the King. On the principal side these words occurred: "Passer-by, whosoever thou be, abhor Jean Chatel, and the Jesuits who beguiled his youth and destroyed his reason."—EDITOR'S NOTE.]

"In the name of God, Sire, do away with this criminal and dangerous memento of old passions, unjust hatreds, and the spirit of impiety which, after having led astray magistrates devoid of light, serves to-day only to beguile new generations, whom excess of light blinds," etc., etc.

When this letter was finished, the King said:

"I have never seen, the famous pyramid; one of these days I will escape, so that I can see it without being observed." And then his Majesty asked me what I thought of the petition. I answered that I did not understand the inconsistency of M. de Sully, who, after consenting to the return of the Jesuits, had left in its place the monument which accused and branded them. I put it on Sully, the minister, because I dared not attack Henri IV. himself.

The King answered me: "There are faults of negligence such as that in every government and under the best administrations. King Henri my grandfather was vivacity itself. He was easily irritated; he grew calm in the same way. For my part, I think that he pardoned the Jesuits, as he had the Leaguers, in the hope that his clemency would bring them all into peaceful disposition; in which he was certainly succeeding when a miscreant killed him."

Madame de Maintenon, begged to give her opinion, expressed herself in these terms: "Sire, this petition cannot be other than extremely well done, since a society of clever minds have taken the work in hand. We have not the trial of Jean Chatel before our eyes, with his interrogatories; it is impossible for us, then, to pronounce on the facts. In any case, there is one thing very certain: the Jesuits who are living at present are innocent, and most innocent of the faults of their predecessors.

"The sentences and anathemas which surcharge the pyramid, as they say, can in no way draw down upon them the anger of passers-by and the populace, for these inscriptions, which I have read, are in bad Latin. This monument, which is very rich and even elegant in itself, is placed upon the site of the destroyed house of the assassin Chatel. The most ignorant of your Parisians knows this circumstance, which he has learnt from family traditions. It is good that the people see every day before their eyes this solitary pyramid, which teaches how King's assassins are punished and what is done with the houses in which they were born.

"King Henri IV., for all his gaiety, had wits enough for four; he left the pyramid standing, like those indulgent people who compromise a great lawsuit, but do not on that account destroy the evidence and documents.

"This monument, besides, is the work of the Parliament of Paris; that illustrious assembly has raised it, and perhaps your Majesty might seem to accuse justice by destroying what it has once done for a good cause."

The King smiled at the conclusions of the lady in waiting, and said to both of us: "This is between us three, I pray you, ladies; I will keep Pere de la Chaise amused with promises some day."

Madame de Maintenon, for a brief time in her first youth a Calvinist, cherished always in the bottom of her heart a good share of those suspicions that Calvin's doctrine is careful to inspire against the Jesuits.

On the other hand, she retained amongst the Parliament a large number of friends whom she had known formerly at M. Scarron's, the son of a counsellor of the chamber. I understood that in those circumstances she was well pleased to prove to the gentlemen of Parliament that the interests of their house were kept in good hands, and that she would not abandon her friends of the Place Royale and the Marais for all the Jesuits and all the pyramids in the world.

The Parliament, which was informed of her conduct and fidelity, bore her infinite good-will for it. The first president, decorated with his blue riband, came; to express his formal thanks, and begged her to accept in perpetuity a key of honour to the High Chamber.

[In famous and unusual causes, princes, ambassadors, and keys of honour came and occupied the lanterns, that is to say, elegant and well furnished tribunes, from which all that passed in the grand hall of the Parliament could be seen.]

The Jesuits, for perseverance and tenacity, can be compared with spiders who repair, or start again every instant at a damaged or broken thread. When these good fathers knew that their petition had not triumphed offhand, they struck out for some new road to reach the generous heart of the monarch. Having learnt that an alderman, full of enthusiasm, had just proposed in full assembly at the Hotel de Ville to raise a triumphal monument to the Peacemaker of Europe, and to proclaim him Louis the Great at a most brilliant fete, the Jesuit Fathers cleverly took the initiative, and whilst the Hotel de Ville was deliberating to obtain his Majesty's consent, the College of Clermont, in the Rue Saint Jacques, brought out its annual thesis, and dedicated it to the King,—Louis the Great (Ludovico Magno).

On the following day the masons raised scaffolding before the great door of the college, erased the original inscription—which consisted of the words: "College of Clermont"—to substitute for it, in letters of gold: "Royal College of Louis the Great." These items of news reached Versailles one after the other. The King received them with visible satisfaction, and if only Pere de la Chaise had known how to profit at the time by the emotion and sentiment of the prince, he would have carried off the tall pyramid as an eagle does a sparrow. The confessor, a man of great circumspection, dared not force his penitent's hand; he was tactful with him in all things, and the society had the trouble of its famous cajolery without gaining anything more at the game than compliments and gold pieces in sufficient plenty.

Some days afterwards the monarch, of his own accord and without any incentive, remembered the offensive and mortifying pyramid; but Madame de Maintenon reminded him that it was desirable to wait, for scoffers would not be wanting to say that this demolition was one of the essential conditions of the bargain.

The King relished this advice. At the Court one must make haste to obtain anything; but to be forgotten, a few minutes' delay is sufficient.

[This pyramid was taken down two or three years before the Revolution by the wish of Louis XVI., after having stood for two hundred years.—EDITOR'S NOTE.]

CHAPTER XLIII.

Little Opportune.—M. and Madame Bontems.—The Young Moor Weaned.—The
Good Cure.—The Blessed Virgin.—Opportune at the Augustinians of
Meaux.—Bossuet Director.—Mademoiselle Albanier and Leontine.—Flight of
Opportune.—Her Threats of Suicide.—Visit of the Marquise.—Prudence of
the Court.

The poor Queen had had several daughters, all divinely well made and pretty as little Cupids. They kept in good health up to their third or fourth year; they went no further. It was as though a fate was over these charming creatures; so that the King and Queen trembled whenever the accoucheurs announced a daughter instead of a son.

My readers remember the little negress who was born to the Queen in the early days,—she whom no one wanted, who was dismissed, relegated, disinherited, unacknowledged, deprived of her rank and name the very day of her birth; and who, by a freak of destiny, enjoyed the finest health in the world, and surmounted, without any precautions or care, all the difficulties, perils, and ailments of infancy.

M. Bontems, first valet de chambre of the cabinets, served as her guardian, or curator; even he acted only through the efforts and movements of an intermediary. It was wished that this young Princess should be ignorant of her birth, and in this I agree that, in the midst of crying injustice, the King kept his natural humanity. This poor child not being meant, and not being able, to appear at Court, it was better, indeed, to keep her from all knowledge of her rights, in order to deprive her, at one stroke, of the distress of her conformation, the hardship of her repudiation, and the despair of captivity. The King destined her for a convent when he saw her born, and M. Bontems promised that it should be so.

At the age of three, she was withdrawn from the hands of her nurse, and Madame Bontems put her to be weaned in her own part of the world. Opportune,—[She was born on Sainte Opportune's Day.]—clothed and nourished like the other children of the farmer, who was her new patron, played with them in the barns or amongst the snow; she followed them into the orchards and fields; she filled, like them, her little basket with acorns that had been left after the crop was over, or ears of corn that the gleaners had neglected, or withered branches and twigs left by the wood-cutters for the poor. Her nude, or semi-nude, arms grew rough in the burning sun, and more so still in the frosts. Her pretty feet, so long as the fine season lasted, did not worry about being shod, and when November arrived with its terrors, Opportune took her little heeled sabots like the other country children. M. and Madame Bontems wrote every six months to inquire if she were dead, and each time the answer came that the little Moor was in wonderful health.

The pastor of the neighbouring hamlet felt pity for this poor child, who was sometimes tormented by her companions on account of her colour. The good cure even went so far as to declare, one day when there was a sermon, that the Virgin Mary, if one was to believe respectable books, was black from head to foot, which did not prevent her from being most beautiful in the sight of God and of men.

This good cure taught the gentle little orphan to read and pray. He often came to her farm to visit her, and probably he knew her birth; he was in advanced age, and he died. Then Opportune was placed with the Augustinian ladies of Meaux, where Bossuet charged himself with the task of instructing her well in religion and of making her take the veil.

The lot of this young victim of pride and vain prejudices touched me in spite of myself, and often I made a firm resolution to take her away from her oppressors and adopt her in spite of everybody. The poor Queen, forgetting our rivalry, had taken all my children into her affections. Why should not I have shown a just recognition by protecting an innocent little creature animated with her breath, life, and blood,—a child whom she would have loved, I do not doubt, if she had been permitted to see and recognise her? This idea grew so fixed in my mind, that I resolved to see Opportune and do her some good, if I were able.

The interest of my position had led me once to assure myself of the neighbourhood of the King by certain little measures, not of curiosity but of surveillance. I had put with M. Bontems a young man of intelligence and devotion, who, without passing due limits, kept me informed of many things which it is as well to know.

When I knew, without any doubt, the new abiding-place of Opportune, I secretly sent to the Augustinians of Meaux the young and intelligent sister of my woman of the bedchamber, who presented herself as an aspirant for the novitiate. They were ignorant in the house of the relations of Mademoiselle Albanier with her sister Leontine Osselin, so that they wrote to each other, but by means of a cipher, and under seal, addressing their missives to a relative.

Albanier lost no time in informing us that the little Opportune had begun to give her her confidence, and that the nuns took it in very good part, believing them both equally called to take the veil in their convent. Opportune knew, though in a somewhat vague way, to what great personage she owed her life, and it appeared that the good cure had informed her, out of compassion, before he left this world. Albanier wrote to Leontine:

"Tell Madame la Marquise that Opportune is full of wit; she resembles M. le Duc du Maine as though she were his twin; her carriage is exactly that of the King; her body is built to perfection, and were it not for her colour, the black of which diminishes day by day, she would be one of the loveliest persons in France; she is sad and melancholy by temperament, but as I have succeeded in attracting her confidence, and diverting her as much as one can do in a purgatory like this, we dance sometimes in secret, and then you would think you saw Mademoiselle de Nantes dance and pirouette.

"When any one pronounces the name of the King, she trembles. She asked me to-day whether I had seen the King, if he were handsome, if he were courteous and affable. It seemed to me as though she was already revolving some great project in her brain, and if I am not mistaken, she has quite decided to scale the fruit-trees against our garden wall and escape across country.

"M. Bossuet, in his quality of Bishop of Meaux, has the right of entry into this house; he has come here three times since my arrival; he has given me each time a little tap on my check in token of goodwill, and such as one gets at confirmation; he told me that he longs to see me take the veil of the Ursulines, as well as my little scholar; it is by that name he likes to call her.

"Opportune answers him with a stately air which would astound you; she only calls him monsieur, and when told that she has made an error, and that she should say monseigneur, she replies with great seriousness, 'I had forgotten it.'"

Mademoiselle Albanier, out of kindness to me, passed nearly two years in this house, which she always called her purgatory, but the endeavours of the superior and of M. Bossuet becoming daily more pressing, and her health, which had suffered, being unable to support the seclusion longer, she made up her mind to retire.

Her departure was a terrible blow to the daughter of the Queen. This young person, who was by nature affectionate, almost died of grief at the separation. We learnt that, after having been ill and then ailing for several weeks, she found the means of escaping from the convent, and of taking refuge with some lordly chatelaine. M. de Meaux had her pursued, but as she threatened to kill herself if she were taken back to the Abbey of Notre Dame, the prelate wrote to M. Bontems, that is to say, to the real father, and poor Opportune was taken to Moret, a convent of Benedictines, in the forest of Fontainebleau. There they took the course of lavishing care, and kindness, and attentions on her. But as her destiny, written in her cradle, was an irrevocable sentence, she was finally made to take the veil, which suited her admirably, and which she wears with an infinite despair.

I disguised myself one day as a lady suitor who sought a lodging in the house. I established myself there for a week, under the name of the Comtesse de Clagny, and I saw, with my own eyes, a King's daughter reduced to singing matins. Her air of nobility and dignity struck me with admiration and moved me to tears. I thought of her four sisters, dead at such an early age, and deplored the cruelty of Fate, which had spared her in her childhood to kill her slowly and by degrees.

I would have accosted her in the gardens, and insinuated myself into her confidence, but the danger of these interviews, both for her and me, restrained what had been an ill-judged kindness. We should both have gone too far, and the monarch would have been able to think that I was opposing him out of revenge, and to give him pain.

This consideration came and crushed all my projects of compassion and kindness. There are situations in life where we are condemned to see evil done in all liberty, without being able to call for succour or complain.