When they were all somewhat composed, Isarn entered into a summary of the affairs to be regulated. At the first pause, Lauzun interrupted. "He said coldly, that having been kept for six years and a portion of a seventh in a very restricted prison, and not having heard any business details for so long a time, and having met no one, his mind had become so 'sealed,' and his intelligence so clouded, that it was impossible for him to comprehend anything I was saying." He added affectionate words for his sister, touching sentiments upon his grief at having displeased the King, and, as if overcome by the remembrance of his much-loved master, he carried his handkerchief to his eyes, "where it remained a long time."
This spectacle provoked such an outburst of tears and groans that it was impossible to continue the conference. Lauzun "withdrew with Saint-Mars without speaking." The sister was carried away in a dead faint. The Chevalier de Lauzun, ill with emotion, retired for the night, and Isarn shared in the general affliction. At the following sessions, Lauzun repeated that he comprehended nothing that his advocate said, but he gave him at the same time some instructions, "with much judgment and clearness." Touching scenes followed. One day, after having obtained permission, the prisoner asked if his mother were living, and there was, in this case, no need of pretence to make the scene impressive. At the last interview, he charged his sister to implore the pity of the King and the pardon of Louvois, in humble and submissive terms, which showed a man conquered, crushed, and henceforth inoffensive.
It may be through compassion, it may be, as was hinted, through some new and mysterious combination, that this appeal produced a relaxation in the prison discipline, which ended in a half-freedom. Lauzun was permitted to give dinners, to buy saddle horses, "to ride in the court and on the bastions."[274] At length arrived a detachment of musketeers, charged to conduct him to the baths of Bourbon, under pretext that he was suffering with one of his arms.
He quitted Pignerol April 22, 1681. Foucquet had died March 23, 1680. This left to Saint-Mars only a single man of note; the Man with the Iron Mask had been in the fortress some time at this date.
Robinson Crusoe, leaving his island, was not more of a stranger to the course of events than a state prisoner after years of life in a dungeon. Foucquet had believed in listening to Lauzun that he was mentally deranged. When it was the fate of the latter to again come in contact with ordinary life, he found much difficulty in placing himself in the current. The history of France had been lengthened by a chapter while he was raging in his dungeon. The intimate story of Court life, the most important for an ancient favourite desirous of regaining a foothold, would have filled a volume with its tragi-comic complications. At first glance, the chapter of national history was dazzling. The war with Holland had given to France, Franche-Comté; to Louis XIV., a glory and power which had raised him in European opinion above all other sovereigns.
In the eyes of strangers, he was more than a king, he was the King, the incarnation of the monarchical idea, the Prince who had made France the mistress of the civilised world.
Never, in modern Europe [says a German historian[275] who always considers the interests of France as opposed to those of Germany] has there been a development of military power over land and sea, for attack and defence, so extraordinary as that to which France had attained during the war, and preserved during the ensuing peace; never before had a single will exercised so extended a command over troops so well trained and yet so submissive.
France was admired and feared. "Louis XIV.," says Ranke again, "reduced several of the German princes individually, and the Empire at large, to a degree of abasement to which they had not fallen during centuries." Spain itself was menaced with the loss of its independence. Europe recognised that in "the history of the world there were few periods in which civilisation had so rapidly advanced and literature was so brilliant as that under Louis XIV."
Such was France viewed from without, during the years which separated the peace of Nimèguen (1679) from the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). This brilliant picture showed, however, some shadows; the vanquished guarded a deep resentment, and the former allies were detached without always being replaced by new ones; but the country considered itself sufficiently strong to support its isolation.
Seen from within, France presented to the superficial observer an appearance of prosperity. Upon a closer examination, however, it could be predicted that the lean years were approaching. Many provinces had fallen back into misery. There was a general discontent, the disaffection made rapid progress; the idea of centralised and absolute power, so well received at first, was beginning to pall upon the community. Four years after the death of Mazarin and the arrival to power of Louis XIV. keen-sighted men became anxious.
Olivier d'Ormesson, like all the world at first under the influence of the charm of the young King, wrote in 1665 (March): "No one dares protest, although all suffer and have their hearts filled with despair; every one says that it is impossible for this state of things to last, the conduct of affairs being too unjust and violent."[276] Olivier d'Ormesson had personal griefs. He had been disgraced for having shown himself too independent at the time of the prosecution of Foucquet, and he was also one of those old politicians, liberal after their own fashion, who held firmly to the privileges belonging to their class, and who were not accustomed to see criticisms of the King punished more severely than blasphemies against the Deity. In 1668, a poor old man from Saint-Germain was accused "of having said that the King was a tyrant, and that there still existed some Ravaillacs and people of courage and virtue." He was condemned to have his tongue cut out and to be sent to the galleys. "It is said," adds d'Ormesson, "that cutting out the tongue is a new punishment, and that it was formerly the custom simply to pierce the tongue of blasphemers." From the point of view of the times, the opinion of d'Ormesson is a little too advanced.
But the same criticism cannot be made of Colbert, then enjoying great favour and naturally a man of severity. In 1666 Colbert warned Louis XIV., in an almost brutal memorial, that through his extravagances he was leading France to ruin.
The memorial commenced by declaring that he (Colbert) did not wish stinginess where it was a matter concerning a good army or fleet, or in sustaining the suitable magnificence of his master in foreign lands, or in any useful expenditures, among which he included the proper representation of a great sovereign. He affirmed that in all these matters he would rather urge a certain lavishness, and this was the truth. But he could not share in the responsibility for the enormous leakage by which the public wealth was being exhausted, for the millions squandered in fantastic camps, in fêtes costing incredible sums,[277] and in insane gambling debts.[278]
The memorial mentions also pensions and other gratifications given out freely, and makes other specifications, of which one merits some details, for it is curious, but rarely referred to, and according to Colbert led to the most dangerous consequences. As will be understood, nothing other than actual war cost France so dearly under Louis XIV., as the monarch's passion for playing at soldier in the presence of beautiful ladies. This mania at first glance appears innocent enough, only rather childish.
Colbert pointed out the inevitable effects. The King assembled armies to afford to the "ladies" the spectacle of a camp or the simulation of a siege, or the troops were reviewed in places agreeable for women, instead of awaiting him in their barracks.
The result was, that the perpetual marching of troops to and fro was causing the exhaustion of the provinces, for "it is sufficient to say that such a city or halting-place has suffered within six months a hundred different impositions of troops, and that there are but few places which have not been obliged to stand at least fifty."
The troops lived as they liked, entering and departing from their various lodging-places. "It can be affirmed distinctly that these places were left in a condition to which they would have been brought by a long war." If the King knew "how many peasants of Champagne, and the other provinces lying near the frontier, are passing and arranging to pass to other countries," he would comprehend that this state of affairs could not last.
The most delicate reproof was yet to be made, and Colbert approached it courageously. Serious ridicule had fallen upon the great monarch for these fantastic games for the benefit of his "ladies," not only with the French, but also among foreigners only too ready to seize an occasion for unfriendly comment.
Louis had just installed a camp at Moret, motley and smart, with pretty tents for the Amazons. "It is said," wrote d'Ormesson, "that the siege of Moret will be made in due form, in order to show the 'ladies' the method of taking places by assault. People in general, disgusted and annoyed, treat this review as childish trifling for a King, and it is badly thought of in foreign countries."
Olivier d'Ormesson did not display great merit in writing his comments in his journal for his eyes alone, but Colbert wrote for the King and had still many criticisms to add.
"It is further advisable for your Majesty to know two things which no one has before dared to report: one that there has been a poster in Paris, bearing the words Louis XIV. will give an exhibition of Marionettes in the plain at Moret; the other, the publication of a libel, still more bitter, upon the distinguished deeds of the fantastic captains." The King read the memorial and re-read it in the presence of Colbert, but the following year saw a new camp, in which the royal tent, composed of six sumptuous rooms, "was filled with cavaliers gorgeously attired, and better fitted to attract the enemy than to make him flee."[279] Colbert did not succeed, even in time of war, in preventing a single trip to the frontier with a long train of women in rare apparel, and mistresses for whose accommodation it was necessary to put masons at work at every halting-place.
From Louvois, March 7, 1671:
"Arrange chamber marked V for Mme. de Montespan, opening a door in the place marked 1. ... Mme. de La Vallière will lodge in the chamber marked Y, in which a door must be made in the place marked 3N...." The expense of the numerous doors, with many others equally irregular, entered into the budget of the Minister of War.
How was it possible to keep the budget accounts? How reduce unnecessary expenses? Colbert himself was obliged in his budget of the Marine to give space to the "ladies." In 1678, Mme. de Montespan conceived the fantasy of fitting out a privateer, a vessel belonging to the King, be it understood, manned with the royal sailors. Some weeks later, a second and third vessel were sent out in the same manner as privateers, always at the King's expense, "by Mme. de Montespan and the Comtesse de Soissons."[280] Including everything, the taste of Louis XIV. for conversation and the society of women, without mentioning the rest of his follies, probably cost France more than all the buildings erected by the Grand Monarch, but the one outlay can be calculated, and the other not.
The large expenses of Versailles and of Marly are often alluded to, while the unfortunate peasants, who fled across the frontier after every military spectacle offered to the "ladies," are forgotten. Louis XIV. was incapable of keeping accounts; that is his sole excuse. It is strange, however, that a man so methodical, having a mind so steady, so well regulated, had never been able to comprehend that figures are figures, and that no one is able to make two crowns out of one. Colbert never succeeded in controlling the waste of his master, even in cases when the added profusion in no way increased the pleasure, and appears to us as a mere barbarous lavishness.
It is known that in the seventeenth century the repasts were abundant. Those of Louis XIV. were excessively so. In 1664, the King, having invited the Pope's legate to dine with him tête-à-tête, those in attendance counted the dishes; there were eighty, not including thirty-eight for dessert. This was certainly excessive, and Colbert had said in the Memorial of 1660, "I declare to your Majesty ... that a useless meal, costing a thousand crowns, gives me an incredible pain."
But the lavishness of fifteen years later was far greater. On January 16, 1680, the King married Mlle. de Blois, his daughter by La Vallière, to Prince Louis-Armand de Conti, nephew of the great Condé. "The wedding festival was royal," wrote Bussy-Rabutin; "there were seven hundred dishes on a single table, served in five courses, that is to say, one hundred and forty dishes to each course." Mme. de Sévigné points the moral. "The young husband was ill the entire night. It would be a temptation to say 'Well deserved!'"
If, from the incensed and suffering people, the attention is turned towards the Court, the difference between without and within is perhaps as clearly marked, although more difficult to define. Without, there is splendour, adulations given and received; within, a profound moral misery; with some, debauch and poverty; with others, discouragement and bitterness. Mme. de Sévigné, in a letter of 1680, has unconsciously painted, in six lines, the state of degradation to which the King had systematically reduced the nobility of France, lined up, as it were, to catch purses thrown to them January 12: "The King is enormously liberal in truth; it is not needful to despair; one may not be a valet, but in making one's court, something may fall upon one's head. What is certain is that far from him [the King], all seems valueless; formerly it was otherwise."
If souls were debased under Louis, he must be held in large part responsible. The same can be said in regard to the deterioration of manners and morals. France, before the time of Louis XIV., was accustomed enough to both mistresses and bastards, but not to the prerogatives of second wives conferred on the first, nor the legitimatising of adulteries which encouraged his subjects to consider no longer seriously either law or morality. The example of the master ended in deadening consciences already somewhat feeble, and husbands might be seen encouraging their wives, the mothers of their daughters, to imitate La Vallière and de Montespan.
Louis had been in some degree punished for having played sultan. Polygamy cannot exist without some discomfort, in a land in which women have any position. Few men, even upon the stage, have had so many quarrels with their mistresses, quarrels often violent, humiliating, as well as painful, as this majestic monarch, before whom the universe trembled. Royalty does not exist before a jealous mistress, and Louis XIV. was faithful only to one, Mme. de Maintenon.
The young King had been spoiled by Louise de La Vallière, who was gentleness itself, and whom love inclined to pardon all. None of the other mistresses really loved Louis, except perhaps Marie Mancini. Louis did not really please women; it was only the King for whose favour they disputed.
Mlle. de La Vallière had entered the Carmelite convent in 1674. Left alone upon the "breach," Mme. de Montespan defended the situation like a lioness. She was naturally sharp-tempered, and her fits of anger were often ungovernable,[281] as witnesses say, and Louis did not possess the force which innocence alone gives. Among the rivals who contended with Mme. de Montespan, many, in spite of her efforts, succeeded in enjoying their year, or at least their day. When she became enraged, and the King was forced to bend his neck under the tempest, "she often scolded him and he did not assert himself."[282] This was his method of expiation. The ephemeral reign of Mlle. de Fontanges came. She also was passionate, and she treated the King with "more authority than the others."[283] Louis called Mme. de Maintenon to his aid, and charged her to appease these furies. Stormy scenes began to weary him.
It had been remarked since 1675 that Louis aspired to moments of "repose and of liberty." Mme. de Montespan, with all her intelligence, could not comprehend that there comes a time of life at which men can no longer live in the midst of tempests, and this error was the cause of her ruin.
The King acquired the habit of fleeing for refuge to Mme. de Maintenon, where he found an atmosphere of peace and enjoyed refreshing conversation.
It was the first time that an intelligent woman had spoken seriously to him, without seeking to attract a declaration of love, nor to divert him with trifles, but to distract him agreeably from his work, and also to make him reflect upon certain subjects which did not always appeal to him. For example, what the sinner who had taken the wife of another might expect in the next world. She recalled to him the fact that there was a police in heaven as in the palaces of the King of France, and she asked him: "What would you say if some one should tell your Majesty that one of the musketeers you love had seduced a married woman, and that this woman was actually living with him? I am certain that before evening this man would depart from the palace, never to return, however late it might be."[284]
The King laughed. He had never been more in love with Mme. de Montespan,—this happened in 1675, before the Jubilee, which separated them three or four months,—but he was not vexed with Mme. de Maintenon; already he "could not live without her."[285] One may or may not feel sympathy with this last, but it is certain that without her, without the empire that she knew how to gain over a prince ardent for pleasure, but by no means a veritable libertine, Louis XIV. might have ended shamefully. To every one their deserts. The Queen Marie-Thérèse was right in according her friendship to Mme. de Maintenon, who secured for her, somewhat late it is true, a certain consideration and some affectionate demonstration to which the poor Queen was not accustomed.
When the King had passed forty, tranquillity became a need. He believed he had assured it by giving to Mme. de Montespan her official dismissal as the recognised mistress. The date of this event is known. March 29, 1679, the Comtesse de Soissons was prayed to yield to the ancient favourite her charge as superintendent of the palace of the Queen, a position which afforded a kind of regulated retreat. The next day, Mme. de Montespan wrote to the Duc de Noailles to announce to him this arrangement, and she added: "Truly this is very bearable. The King only comes into my room after mass and after supper. It is much better to see each other rarely with pleasure than often with boredom." The world was not deceived: "I really believe," wrote Bussy (April 11th), "that the King, just as he is, has given this position for past favours."
From Mme. de Scudéry to Bussy, October 29, 1679: "A diversion has been established for Mme. de Montespan for this winter, and provided that she can do without love, she will retain the consideration of the King. This is all that an honest man can do when he ceases to love." Bussy responded, November 4th: "If Mme. de Montespan is wise she will dream only of cards and will leave the King in peace on the subject of love; for it is impossible through complaints and scoldings to lure back unfaithful lovers."
Mme. de Montespan was not wise. In the hope of bringing the King back to her arms by force, she redoubled the disagreeable scenes. At this moment, an obscure past, filled with vague and frightful events, rose against her, and the expiation for having too much loved became almost tragic in its character.
La Voisin, the poisoner, cannot be forgotten, nor the prosecution in 1668, which had revealed to the young King the connection of his new mistress with the world of malefactors. This affair was stifled, but the evil continued in its subterranean influence. The merchants of love philters and of poisons and the priests of satanic rites saw their clients increasing in number year by year. When the crimes finally came to the surface, and Louis established (March 7, 1679) the "Chambre ardente" to purify France from the gangrene, so many Parisians were connected in one way or another with the accused that the King had against him a powerful current of opinion. This is, perhaps, the most significant feature of the sad affair. Instead of being crushed with shame in learning how many were compromised, the higher classes were indignant against the equal justice which refused to give them special consideration. They murmured loudly, and for once the people were with them, for the populace remained staunch to the sorcerers. The clamours were so menacing that the judges of the "Chambre ardente" felt themselves in danger: "I know," wrote Bussy-Rabutin on April 1st, "the chamber instituted to examine the 'corrupters,' and also know that Messieurs de Bezons and de La Reynie do not pass from Paris to Vincennes without an escort of the Kings Guards."[286] Louis XIV. was obliged several times to strengthen the resolution of these judges; sometimes in openly commanding them to "judge truly"[287] without any distinction of person, condition, or sex; sometimes by assuring them through official letter of his "protection."[288]
The first executions before the Chambre ardente took place in February, 1679, and the list of the names of those arrested or of those to whom notices of warrants to appear as witnesses had been served, a list which made so great an excitement on account of the aristocrats included,[289] is dated January 23, 1680. It had been at least four months before,[290] that there had come to the ears of the King, as some one was reading to him the account of the last examinations, two familiar names. Who is Mlle. des Œillets, ancient "follower" of Mme. de Montespan? Who is Cato, her maid, and what had they to do with La Voisin and with those like her? These same names again appearing in the list of January 6, 1680, the King, while declaring that the witnesses must certainly have lied,[291] ordered the Procurer-General, M. Robert, "to pay strict attention to this particular case."
This was done, with the result that Louis was forced to ask himself if the woman whom he adored above all others, and who had borne him seven children, was a vile "corrupter"; if this perfect body for which he had risked the safety of his soul had taken part in the ignoble ceremonies of the infamous Guibourg? If, discontented with the thought of sharing his favours with rivals, she might not in an access of jealousy have tried to poison him, the King? He sought the truth, but did not find it. In waiting further developments, Louis led his mistress with him wherever he might go, and she was always making a disturbance of some sort. The King grew less patient; that was the only difference.
From Bussy-Rabutin, May 18, 1680:
"The King ... as he was mounting into his carriage with the Queen had some rough words with Mme. de Montespan, about the scents with which she deluged herself, which made his Majesty ill. The King at first spoke politely, but as she responded sharply, his Majesty grew warm." On the 25th, Mme. de Sévigné noted another "serious embroilment." This time Colbert succeeded in reconciling them. The situation grew painful. A long series of letters and mémoires have been found in which La Reynie discusses for the King the charges accumulated against Mme. de Montespan. The picture is given of the doubts and fluctuations of an honest man whose responsibilities somewhat rankle in his breast, and who sees an equal peril in dishonouring the throne and in permitting a guilty woman to remain near the King. Louis passed through many successive stages of conviction during the prosecution. The further the examination proceeded, the stronger became the presumption of guilt, without, however, bringing positive proofs.
On July 12, 1680, La Reynie summed up for his master the history of the "petition to be used in poisoning the King." On October 11th he declared that he should be ruined in the affair, and supplicated his Majesty to reflect whether it would be for the "welfare of the State," to make these "horrors" public. In the month of May following, he avowed that he had erred on some points and that there was more evil than at first appeared. The marvellous control that Louis possessed over himself prevented outward betrayal; but certainly these uncertainties, these inferior conflicts, and it is to be hoped some sense of shame and remorse, became chastisements for his faults. On her side, Mme. de Montespan, in spite of the secret of her possible guilt being well guarded both at Court and by the judges and police, could not be ignorant that Mlle. des Œillets had been interrogated, confronted with witnesses, and imprisoned for life in the general Hospital at Tours.[292] Mme. de Montespan then knew that she had been denounced, but with what proof? What did the King think? What curious meetings between these two beings must have taken place. What conversations during which the King and his mistress were closely observing each other.
Court life, nevertheless, pursued its monotonous course, and Mme. de Montespan continued to figure in positions of honour. In March, 1689, she goes to meet the Dauphin[293] with the rest of the Court, and it is she who has charge of the choice and arrangement of the wedding presents, "being the woman in the world," wrote Mademoiselle, "who knows the best forms." In July, the King led her to Versailles with her sister, Mme. de Thianges, and her niece, the beautiful Duchesse de Nevers. This lady the mother and aunt were cynically offering to the Monarch.[294] In February, 1681, "a lottery was opened at Mme. de Montespan's, of which the largest prize was one hundred thousand francs, and there were a hundred others offered of one hundred pistoles each." In July, 1682, the Chambre ardente was suddenly suppressed. Of the three hundred accused, thirty-six people of no importance had been executed, one hundred sent to the galleys, or to prisons, or convents, or exiled; the noted among them always gaining some concessions. The dungeons of Paris and Vincennes were crowded. The smaller fry were released, and the remainder were scattered, without any other trial, through the provincial prisons, to await a death rarely slow in coming to relieve their misery.
From Louvois to M. de Chauvelin, Intendant, December 16, 1682, announcing the arrival of one of these convoys:
Above all, please take care to prevent any of these gentlemen from proclaiming aloud, a thing which has already occurred, any of the absurd statements connected with Mme. de Montespan, which have been proved to be absolutely without foundation. Threaten a punishment so severe at the first utterance that they will not dare to breathe a word further.
This letter ended the connection of Mme. de Montespan with the affair of the "corrupters of morals" or the poisoners. She was saved, but was this due to proofs of innocence or to reasons of State, to the refusal of Louis to credit the testimony of an Abbé Guibourg or Lesage, or to the remnants of an old tenderness? The few men with whom it had been necessary to share the secrets which would respond to these questions were so perfectly mute that contemporaries suspected nothing. They saw the ancient favourite a little neglected, but always dreaming of the possibility of reasserting herself, as the many pages of the Mémoires of Mademoiselle testify. All this was in the natural course of events.
One single indication of what Louis XIV. thought at the bottom of his soul is possessed; a letter from the King to Colbert, who knew all. Mademoiselle had prayed Mme. de Montespan to solicit some favour for Lauzun. The King charged Colbert to reply for him (October, 1681): "You will politely explain to her that I always receive the marks of her friendship and confidence with pleasure, and that I am very vexed when it is not possible to do what she desires, but at this time I can do no more than I have already done."[295] Did he believe the mistress innocent or had he pardoned her?
The first preoccupation of Lauzun, in returning to the world, must have been to make clear to himself through legitimate or illegitimate means the chronology of the King's love affairs, a history so essential for the comprehension of the interior life of the Court.
The main facts for this record have been already given in the preceding chapter. The returned prisoner had afterwards to learn all that Mademoiselle had accomplished for him during his captivity, and of what the public thought of her efforts, and he recognised that no one in France except Segrais doubted the fact of their marriage. That the marriage had taken place before his imprisonment was the prevalent belief, which was never really shaken. It again came to light in the eighteenth century. The historian Anquetil saw at Tréport, in 1744, an old person of more than seventy years of age, who resembled the portraits of the Grande Mademoiselle and did not know from whence came her pension.[296] This person believed herself to be the daughter of the Duchesse de Montpensier, and local tradition confirmed this conviction. There were, however, no absolute proofs, and it will be seen further on how this question of the marriage with Lauzun is brought up over and over again in the biography of the Grande Mademoiselle, with a monotony slightly fatiguing and without it being possible to ever obtain a clear response.
Whatever the fact may be, the Princess gave a very fine example of constancy and fidelity. She lived for ten years absorbed in a single thought. The Mémoires for the year 1673 say: "I remember nothing which has taken place during the past winter. My grief occupies me so much that I have but little interest in the actions of others." To liberate Lauzun had become a fixed idea, and she attached herself to the steps of the King and to those of Mme. de Montespan, without permitting herself to remember the ill that they had committed, as it was they alone who could loosen the bonds. The more they showed themselves inexorable, the more Mademoiselle redoubled her assiduities. In 1676 she enjoyed for the brief space of two hours the delusion that Louis XIV. at length, at the end of ten years, was moved with a feeling of compassion. The news of the attempted escape of Lauzun had just been received. "I learned that the King had listened to the account with some sign of humanity, I can hardly say of pity. If he had felt this, would he [Lauzun] still be there?"
The Princess wrote to the King, but received no response; and again four years rolled by. Mme. de Montespan was no longer favourite. The courtiers considered it shrewd to neglect her. Better inspired, Mademoiselle continued to stand fast by her, and the result proved the wisdom of this course, in the dramatic moment, for Louis, of the affair of the corrupters. It was in the spring of 1680, while denunciations were falling upon the fallen favourite as upon all those connected with La Voisin, that Mademoiselle remarked by certain movements and a change of tone that something was stirring between Mme. de Montespan and the fortress of Pignerol:
I went to her daily and she appeared touched by the thought of M. de Lauzun.... She often said to me: "But think how you can make yourself agreeable to the King, that he may accord to you what you desire so dearly." She threw out such suggestions from time to time, which advised me that they were thinking of my fortune.
The phrase of a friend came back to her: "But you should let them hope that you will make M. de Maine your heir." She recalled other hints which at first had passed unnoticed, and understood that a bargain was offered.
The monarch and his ancient favourite had agreed between them to sell to Mademoiselle the freedom of the man she loved so deeply. What was to be the price? This was not yet disclosed. It was some time before Mademoiselle comprehended, and then she was so disconcerted that she said nothing. She felt that the combat was not an equal one between herself, from whom passion had taken away all judgment, and Mme. de Montespan, who was perfectly calm, and she hesitated, fearing some snare: "Finally, I resolved to make M. de Maine my heir, provided that the King would send for Lauzun and consent that I should marry him." Some third person brought these conditions to Mme. de Montespan and was received with open arms. Louis XIV. thanked his cousin graciously without making any allusion to the condition; he could always assert that he had made no promise.
Mademoiselle wished that he would at least give her some news of Lauzun. Mme. de Montespan responded to her insistence: "It is necessary to have patience," and affairs remained at this point.
At the end of some weeks, Mademoiselle perceived that she was no longer free. She had counted upon taking her time and having sureties before proceeding further. An immediate execution of the deed of gift was insisted upon, and she was so harassed that she no longer felt at liberty to breathe freely.
"The King must not be played with," declared Mme. de Montespan; "when a promise is made it must be kept." "But," objected Mademoiselle, "I wish the freedom of M. de Lauzun, and suppose that after what I have done I should find myself deceived, and my friend should not be liberated?" Louvois was then sent to frighten her, or Colbert in order to compass some concession. It was no longer a matter of testament.
A donation while living[297] was exacted, of the Principality of Dombes and of the Comté of Eu without reference to the rest, and this assignment was obtained, in spite of complaints and the bitterest tears; "for they were demanding precisely what had been given to Lauzun, and Mademoiselle could not without difficulty resolve to despoil her lover." She finally comprehended that the King would not cease persecuting her until she consented, and, feeling no hope of diminishing the demands,[298] she yielded.
The gift to the Duc de Maine was signed February 2, 1681. It gave some agreeable days to Mademoiselle. The King assured her of his gratitude. "At supper he regarded me pleasantly and conversed with me; this was most charming." Nevertheless, Lauzun did not appear. One day Mme. de Montespan informed the Princess that the King would never permit Lauzun to be Duc de Montpensier, and that it would be necessary to have a secret marriage. The Princess cried out: "What! Madame, I am to permit him to live with me as my husband with no marriage ceremony! Of what will the world think me capable?"
This passage in the Mémoires apparently fixes the date of marriage after the return of Lauzun from his captivity. There exist, however, a number of moral proofs against this later date.
Some time after this conversation, in the beginning of April, 1681, the Court being at Saint-Germain, Mme. de Montespan announced to Mademoiselle the immediate departure of Lauzun for the Baths of Bourbon, and she then drew her, slightly against her will, to the end of the terrace, far from indiscreet ears. "When we were in the Val, which is a garden at the end of the Park of Saint-Germain, she said to me, 'The King has asked me to tell you that he does not wish you to dream of ever marrying M. de Lauzun, at least, officially.'"
Mademoiselle had been tricked.
"Upon this, I began to weep and to talk about the gifts I had made, only on the one condition. Mme. de Montespan said, 'I have promised nothing.' She had gained what she wished, and was willing enough to bear anything I might say." In the evening it was necessary to assume a delighted air and thank the King for Lauzun's freedom; a single sign of ill-humour and Mademoiselle ran the risk of receiving nothing in exchange for her millions.
There remained the task of forcing Lauzun to renounce the gifts formerly presented to him. Mme. de Montespan took the route to Bourbon, where "she found greater difficulty than she had anticipated." Her demands so surpassed the expectations of the late prisoner that he revolted. There were many disputes, many despatches, and many delays,[299] at the end of which the obstinate one, having been reimprisoned,[300] was so harassed with threats and promises that he finally yielded. His signature was given; he believed himself free. Instead of liberty, he received an order of exile to Amboise. He also had been duped. This affair is odious from beginning to end.
Mademoiselle was Lauzun's resource and providence. She compensated him as far as might be with a fresh devotion, in which Saint-Fargeau figured as an item, and found means to pay him nearly 300,000 francs[301] over what the King would have been obliged to give him if he had not been sent to Pignerol. With much difficulty, the importunities of Mademoiselle obtained the desired permission for the ex-prisoner to salute the King and afterward to dwell where it pleased him, on the single condition that he would not approach the Court. Access to this was strictly forbidden; but what would it have mattered, when he would have humbled himself before his master?
Alas! the charm was broken, and for ever. In March, 1682, at the single interview granted, Lauzun threw himself ten times, consecutively, at the feet of Louis XIV.—the King himself relates this—and employed all his grace, all his flatteries, without succeeding in breaking the ice.
Received coolly and dismissed without delay, there was nothing left but to fall back upon Mademoiselle. They had not yet met, and it is a terrible test of devotion to meet after eleven years, and to endeavour to again open the page closed by misfortune. The Grande Mademoiselle of the time previous to the imprisonment at Pignerol singularly resembled the Hermione of Racine, in her jealousy and violence. The one of 1682 was not yet a tranquil person, but Hermione was an old woman, and Pyrrhus a licentious greybeard, who was endeavouring to recompense himself for the time lost in prison.
Years had not made Lauzun in love with his benefactress, and he arrived to meet her well resolved to finish simply with expressions of gratitude and of love. Mademoiselle was well aware of his infidelities. The grief, mingled with irritation, which she felt displayed itself in a sort of stiffness and embarrassment. The great joy she had anticipated in again seeing her lover, she did not realise.
She had existed ten long years for this moment, and when it came, she desired to escape. She went to await Lauzun at Mme. de Montespan's, a first piece of absurdity. "M. de Lauzun," say her Mémoires, "arrived after his interview with the King; he wore an old undress uniform with short waistcoat, almost in rags, and a very ugly wig.[302] He sank at my feet with much grace. Then Mme. de Montespan led us into a cabinet, and said, 'You will be glad to speak together.' She then went away, and I followed her." A second ridiculous action! Lauzun profited by the delay to salute the rest of the royal family. On returning, he found his Princess with Mme. de Montespan and did not see her an instant alone: "He told me that he had been cordially received, and that this he owed to me; that I was his only source of good, the one from which he received all. He made certain amiable propositions, and in thus acting he was only wise. I was silent; I was astonished."
This interview finished, Lauzun considered himself free from his obligations and returned to Paris with a peaceful conscience. Mademoiselle dared not follow him too quickly. The fourth day they were at Choisy, a new mansion that Mademoiselle had built two leagues from Sceaux. Lauzun regarded the Princess while she was having her head adorned with flame-coloured ribbons. "He said, 'I was astonished to see the Queen with many-coloured ribbons on her head.' 'You must find it wrong, then, that I should wear them, who am older?' He did not reply. I told him that rank permitted the decoration for a longer period." Mademoiselle had at first written, "People of my rank are always young," but had effaced the phrase. Lauzun knew well how to restore her to a good-humour, and he let himself be scolded, escaping towards evening to return to his pleasures.
The fifth day they again disputed. Lauzun was in the wrong; he had spoken of his visits to Choisy as duties. Mademoiselle, however, injured her cause with sharpness. "I see clearly," said she, "that in this world people who do good are mocked, as they are bores." Lauzun, vexed, demanded, "How much longer is this pleasantry to last?" "As long as I please; I have the right to say all I wish, and you are bound to listen." Lauzun showed "much impatience to depart," and this was not altogether unnatural, considering the nature of man. At another interview, it was the lover who was the first to show irritation. To be no longer of any importance in the world of society, to be two steps from the Court without being free to enter, this was more than he could bear. He accused Mademoiselle of having managed very badly and having only done harm; "if she had not interfered with his affairs," he would have come out of prison under better conditions. Mme. de Montespan overheard the accusation and was very indignant at this injustice and ingratitude, and the Princess united with her in reproaches. It would be difficult to find a clear moment in the midst of these frequent quarrels, in which the pair would have desired to marry, if they had not done so before Pignerol. Here is again a moral proof to add to the others.
About every two days, Lauzun became metamorphosed, and was again for some hours, or at least minutes, for Mademoiselle the former "little man" whose eccentricities gave an indescribable charm, difficult to explain, but impossible to deny. He had not the least trouble in again captivating his mistress. As soon as he assumed the sweet and submissive air and the enigmatical smile which she had so dearly loved (even combined with the manners which she sometimes distrusted, "of being acquainted with everything without speaking or copying"), Mademoiselle fell anew under the charm and could refuse nothing. But this happy state of affairs never lasted. The time to obtain from her some new concession, another service, and the exaggerated manner of the convict dragging his chain reappeared. He loved to exasperate her jealousy. If nothing better offered, "he amused himself with grisettes,"[303] even after the royal family had received him as cousin "understood," if not avowed, and when all Paris was congratulating Mademoiselle on his happy release.
Other serious difficulties arose from the fact of Lauzun considering the money of Mademoiselle as his own. Choisy appeared to him a useless expense; he found much fault with its management. "The terraces cost immense sums," said he one day while walking in the grounds; "what good are they?" The Princess had sold in his absence a chain of pearls. "Where is the money?" demanded Lauzun. He wished to hold the purse strings, and no longer to be a "beggar." It astonished him that Mademoiselle had not thought of preparing for him, before his arrival, "a beautiful apartment," of organising his establishment, of placing one of her carriages at his disposal.
He complained openly in the social world that she left him without a penny; that she had only given him some diamonds, worth perhaps one thousand pistoles in all—and what stones, so "ugly"!—and that he had immediately sold them to obtain means of "subsistence." This is the perpetual complaint of the youthful husband, who wishes to be recompensed for the devotion lavished upon an elderly wife. The "beautiful apartment" existed and awaited him, but it was at the Château of Eu; the King would not tolerate his presence at the Luxembourg.
Those who had the good fortune to visit Eu before the fire of 1902 will not have forgotten the flight of Loves on the ceiling of a chamber situated above that belonging to Mademoiselle. The Chamber of the Loves was the one designed for Lauzun, who failed, however, to honour the symbol. After a delay of three weeks, he no sooner arrived than he committed the unpardonable imprudence of running after the village girls, under the very eyes of Mademoiselle. This was too much. The mistress of the château beat Lauzun, scratched his face, and turned him out of doors. There he should stay. He was sufficiently shrewd to desire an accommodation. The Comtesse de Fiesque served as intermediary.
In the Château of Eu there was a long gallery filled with family portraits. Mademoiselle appeared at one end; "he [Lauzun] was at the other, and he crept along on his knees the entire length of the gallery, till he reached the feet of Mademoiselle."[304] Possibly they forgave each other sincerely, but when friction once exists between married couples it continues, whether in the palace of princes or in the huts of charcoal burners. Such scenes, more or less stormy, occurred again in the future. Lauzun grew weary of being beaten, and in his turn used force with the Princess, and this happened several times. In the end, disgusted with each other, they fought for the last time and separated, never to meet again.
The final quarrel is related in detail in the Mémoires of Mademoiselle. It happened in the spring of 1684. France was at war with Spain. On April 22d the King departed to join his army, refusing to permit Lauzun to accompany him, who imagined, rightly or wrongly, that Mademoiselle was responsible for the prohibition, and was indignant. He went to the Luxembourg, where a reception of raillery exasperated him still further:
I met him laughing, and said: "You must retire to Saint-Fargeau; you will be a laughing stock if you remain at Paris, as you were not permitted to go with the King, and I shall be very vexed if it is believed that it is I who have caused you to remain behind." He replied: "I am going away, and bid you farewell; I shall never see you again." I said: "It would have been better if we had never met; but better late than never." "You have ruined my career," replied he; "you might as well have cut my throat; it is your fault that I am not with the King; you asked him to leave me behind." "Oh, that is false; he will tell you so himself." Lauzun grew more and more angry, and I remained very calm. I said to him: "Adieu, then"; and I entered my boudoir. I remained there some time; on returning, I found him still there. The ladies present said: "Do you not wish to play cards?" I approached him, saying: "This is too much; keep your promise; go away." He finally withdrew.
This rupture made a great scandal. Dangeau, who had followed the King to the frontier, noted on May 6th, in his journal: "The news comes from Paris that Mademoiselle has forbidden M. de Lauzun to appear again before her." Thus ends meanly and miserably, with a scene worthy of Dickens, the most famous passion of the century, after that of Chimène and Rodrigue. The first interest in the affair abated, the hero of the romance sank into obscurity. Mademoiselle cast herself into an ecstasy of pious devotion, from which the virtue of pardoning the offences of others was apparently excluded.
Lauzun sought some support to which to attach himself, and did not easily find it. He realised too late that one could not quarrel with impunity with a princess of the blood. He made attempts at reconciliation, which Mademoiselle repulsed; she had loved with too much ardour not to be capable of furious hate. The career of both lovers appeared to be finished, when the fantastic star which had guided Lauzun towards so many adventures, marvellous if not always agreeable, led him to England during the autumn of 1688. He sought a more hospitable court, he found a revolution and glory. "I admire the star of M. de Lauzun," wrote Mme. de Sévigné, "which again brings its light over the horizon when it was supposed to be for ever extinguished" (December 24, 1688).
The name of Lauzun was actually again on the lips of all. He had saved the Queen of England and her son, and had brought them to Calais at great risk, and suddenly assumed the pose of a true hero, wrongly despised and persecuted. "It is long," at once said Louis, "since Lauzun has seen my writing. I believe that he will rejoice at receiving a letter from me." The royal missive bore to the former favourite more than the pardon for the past; it spoke of "impatience to see him again."[305] Mademoiselle considered this an outrage against herself; the ministers and courtiers, a menace. (December 27th): "He [Lauzun] has found the road again to Versailles by way of London; but he alone is joyful." The Princess is indignant at the thought that the King is again content with him, and that he can return to Court.[306]
In vain the King sent Seignelay to say to his cousin, as a sort of excuse and consolation: "After such services rendered by Lauzun, it is my duty to see him." Mademoiselle grew angry, and said, "This is then the gratitude I receive for having despoiled myself for the sake of the King's children." One of the friends of M. de Lauzun was charged to present her with a letter. She threw it into the fire unread.[307] When it was realised that she was not to be appeased, people ceased to concern themselves with her and her bad temper. Lauzun re-entered in triumph the Court of France, and Bussy-Rabutin, in a letter to Mme. de Sévigné,[308] summed up the record of his career (February 2, 1689): "We have seen him in favour, we have seen him submerged, and now behold he is again riding the waves. Do you remember a childish game in which one says, 'I have seen him alive, I have seen him dead, I have seen him alive after his death'? This tells his history."
The "second volume of the romance" offers to those interested an account of the solemn conferring upon the little Lauzun, in the church of Notre Dame, by King James II., of the Order of the Garter. To this chapter succeeds one less brilliant. Lauzun received the appointment as commander of the French troops sent to Ireland to sustain the cause of legitimate monarchy. He lacked the necessary qualifications for this post. He astonished his officers with his incapacity, and made them blush by displaying "a longing to return to France,"[309] which was not heroic.
Louis XIV. consented to make Lauzun Duke, upon "the urgent prayer"[310] of their Britannic Majesties, but his opinion once formed never changed. The King never again employed the new Duke in any official capacity, and this omission was always bitterly resented.
As a result of many years of reflection, Mademoiselle at length arrived at the conviction, an accepted commonplace, that happiness is not for the prominent upon this earth. Without actually compensating her for her troubles, this discovery brought a certain consolation. She had, at this period, as neighbour in Normandy, a young and charming woman called the Comtesse de Bayard, who became in the following century the godmother of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and who furnished her godson with material[311] afterwards woven into tales made charming by his delicately sentimental language. One of these tales by Saint-Pierre is founded upon the romance of the Grande Mademoiselle. Mme. de Bayard liked to recall how, in their lonely walks, the Princess would linger to make the villagers relate the tales of their loves and marriages; how her eyes would fill with tears, and how, returning into the Château of Eu, she would say that she would have been happier in a hut.
To tears succeeded a certain childishness; the execrable Court life had educated her only for a puerile old age, and she hastened to Versailles from time to time, fearing to miss a tournament or some spectacle of this kind. On March 15, 1693, she was seized at Paris with a disease of the bladder which rapidly increased in severity.[312] The Luxembourg was besieged with seekers after news; the fear of losing the Grande Mademoiselle had aroused anew her popularity. Monsieur and Madame, who loved her, came to nurse her. Lauzun begged to be admitted, but was refused. The condition grew rapidly worse, and the physicians, not knowing what to do, administered five doses of an emetic, the fashionable remedy that winter for all diseases, with the result that she soon saw the mournful procession of the royal family defile around her bed, the sure sign that all hope had passed.
The Princess died on April 15th, at the age of sixty-six years, and was buried at Saint-Denis with much pomp. In the midst of the ceremony, an urn, in which through a curious arrangement the entrails were enclosed, "broke with a frightful noise and emitted a sudden and intolerable odour."[313] Some women fainted, while the rest of those present gained the open air by running. "All was soon perfumed and decorum was re-established," but this occurrence became the jest of Paris. It was fated that the Grande Mademoiselle should always arouse a little ridicule, even at her interment.
Lauzun went into deep mourning, and made, on the day of the funeral, an offer of marriage, to prove that he was really a widower. Having, on this occasion, been refused, he married (1695) the younger daughter of the Maréchal de Lorges and became the brother-in-law of Saint-Simon.
Mme. de Lauzun was a child of fourteen,[314] to whom Lauzun, with his sixty-three years, appeared so old that she had accepted him in the expectation of being quickly a widow.
She flattered herself that at the end of "two or three years at most"[315] she would find herself independent, rich, and, above all, a duchess, and this idea captivated her. But Lauzun could never be counted upon. His wife was obliged to endure him for nearly thirty years, passed in suffering torments from morning till night from the loving husband. The King had said to the Maréchal de Lorges, in learning of the marriage of his youngest daughter: "You are bold to take Lauzun into your family; I trust that you may not repent it." Repentance was prompt and bitter. Mademoiselle was right, it was impossible to live with Lauzun. It was through miracles of patience that his new wife bore to the end, and miracles should never be exacted in wedded life. The mean little calculation at the beginning had been amply expiated by the time that Mme. de Lauzun finally became a widow. Even to the end, Lauzun had remained one of the ornaments and curiosities of the Court of France, noted for his grand manner, the eccentricities of his habits, the splendour of his habitation, and for the indescribable elegance and ease of conversation and bearing, which at that time was not to be acquired at Versailles.
At ninety he himself drove, and sometimes with fiery animals. One day, when he was training a fresh colt in the Bois de Boulogne, the King, Louis XIV., passed. Lauzun executed before him a "hundred capers" and filled the spectators with admiration, by his "address, his strength, and his grace."[316] He still often enjoyed "pretty" moments. But there was a reverse side to the medal: the malignant dwarf "frightened all who approached him with his wicked wit and his hateful tricks." From afar, Lauzun is very amusing under this aspect; he excelled in buffoonery. In extreme age, he suffered from a malady which almost killed him. One day, when he was very ill, he perceived reflected in a mirror the forms of two of his heirs who entered the chamber on tiptoe, fancying themselves concealed behind the curtains, to ascertain with their own eyes how long they were to be forced to wait. Lauzun feigned to perceive nothing and began to pray in a loud voice as one who believes himself alone. He demanded pardon of God for his past life, and lamented that his time for repentance was so short. He exclaimed that there was only a single way to secure his safety, which was to devote the wealth which God had given him to paying for his sins, and this he engaged to do with all his heart. He promised to leave to the hospital all that he possessed, without abstracting a single penny. He made this declaration with so much fervour and with so penetrating an accent that his heirs fled away in despair, to relate the misfortune to Mme. de Lauzun. This scene properly terminates the career of this extraordinary personage, unscrupulous and malignant to the last. Lauzun died in 1723, at over ninety years of age.
Mademoiselle was the last to disappear of the grand figures belonging to the time of the Fronde. Retz, Condé, Turenne, La Rochefoucauld, Mme. de Chevreuse, Mme. de Longueville, had departed before her.
The only one of the ancient rebels which could not perish, the Hôtel de Ville of Paris, had been suppressed from history by royal ordinance for the period corresponding to the Fronde. The accounts of the prosecutions of the Council recorded the revolutionary sentiments which prevailed at the capital during the civil war. The King ordered all the registers[317] to be destroyed, and the destruction included every record relating to public affairs for the years 1646-1653.
It may be said without too much calumniating the heart of Louis XIV. that the death of his cousin afforded a certain relief. She was too lively a reminder of the execrable period which he did his best to banish from his own memory as well as from that of the public. Saint-Simon, newly arrived at the Court at the date of the death of Mademoiselle, had time to convince himself that she was in the eyes of the King always the unpardoned and unpardonable heroine of the combat of the Porte Saint-Antoine. "I heard him reproach his cousin once at supper, joking it is true, but a little roughly, for having turned the cannon of the Bastile upon his troops."
The royal rancour extended to the city of Paris, eternal cradle of French revolutions. Not being able to suppress the capital, Louis XIV. banished himself from its gates. On May 6, 1682, unfortunate date for the French monarchy, the Court installed itself definitely at Versailles, and henceforth left this place only for sojourns at the various country seats, as Fontainebleau and Marly. Paris was abandoned, left to do penance. Not only did Louis XIV. desert this city as a place of residence, but he visited it rarely. It was remarked that he often made long detours rather than to pass through Paris. The nobility and ministers followed the King to Versailles. Royalty and the capital turned their backs on each other.
Another important event influenced the ideas of Court decorum and propriety. The Queen Marie-Thérèse dying in 1683 (July 30), Louis XIV. in the course of the winter following formally married Mme. de Maintenon. The physiognomy of the Court, what Saint-Simon would have called the bark (écorce), entirely changed its character. At the moment of ending this long study it is, then, a different world to which adieu must be said from the one which was found at the beginning, and the transformation did not end with the "bark." The principal cause of the change, the establishment of absolute monarchy, had acted violently upon France in shaking the nation to its depths, as do all changes not developing from national tradition.
Absolute monarchy was not a French tradition. It was an importation from Spain. Anne of Austria, who did not understand any other régime, had educated her son to accept her ideas and habits of thought, and the substitution of king for minister was, at the death of Mazarin, accomplished without shock. It was, however, a real coup d'état.
Before Louis XIV. the royal power, without being submitted to precise limitations, from time to time hurled itself against certain rights, themselves often loosely defined. There existed privileges of the Parliament, others of the State, together with those of the nobles, and others belonging to bodies and individuals, which when united left the King of France in a situation resembling that in which Gulliver found himself, when the Liliputians bound him with hundreds of minute threads. Each single thread was of no consequence; through the compression of all together every movement was paralysed. Louis XIV. resolutely broke the numerous threads which had trammelled the power of his predecessors. He freed himself in suppressing the ancient liberties of France. No student of history can be ignorant of the material results, so splendid at first, so disastrous in the end; but certain moral consequences of his government have been perhaps less clearly remarked.
The French aristocracy ceased from the second generation to be a nursery for men of action. This was the result desired from the policy of keeping it chained to the steps of the throne. The end had been attained at the date of the King's death. Saint-Simon, who cannot be suspected of hostility towards the nobility, certifies to this. When the Duke arrived at power under the Regent, his brain swarming with projects for replacing the aristocrats in positions of importance, and when he sought great names with which to fill great posts, he realised that he was too late. The "nursery" was empty. The difficulty, say the Mémoires
lay in the ignorance, the frivolity, and the lack of application of a nobility which had been accustomed to lives of frivolity and uselessness; a nobility that was good for nothing but to let itself be killed, and that reached the battle-field itself only through the force of heredity. For the remainder of the time, it was content to stagnate in an existence without a purpose. It had delivered itself over to idleness and felt keen disgust for all education, excepting that relating to military matters. The result was a general incapacity and unfitness for affairs.