[214] Letter to Mme. de Sévigné, dated February 2, 1669.

[215] Mémoires et Réflexions of the Marquis de la Fare.

[216] The sister of the Grand Condé. Upon her part in the Fronde, see The Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle.

[217] M. de Saint-Paul began toward this time to bear the name of de Longueville.

[218] This conversation, which gives the key to the conduct of Lauzun, is reported in Le Perroquet or Les amours de Mademoiselle, an anonymous recital printed by M. Livet following the Histoire amoureuse des Gaules (Paris, Jannet, 1857); and in the Histoire de Mademoiselle et du Comte de Losun (Bibl. Saint-Geneviève MS. 3208), not always sources to be relied on, but to be trusted here.

[219] War between relatives for the succession.

[220] Lettres historiques. Pellison accompanied the Court as historiographer.

[221] Plaques: pieces of embossed silver, at the lower part of which was placed a chandelier.

[222] Mémoires of Mademoiselle.

[223] De La Vallière à Montespan, by Jean Lemoine and André Lichtenberger.

[224] Emmanuel II. de Crussol, Duc d'Uzès. He married the daughter of the Duc de Montausier and of Julie d'Angennes.

[225] Probably the uncle by marriage of Bussy-Rabutin.

[226] Romecourt was Lieutenant of the King's Guards.

[227] It is evident that these last were carried in the private carriages, ready for any accident.

[228] Gazette de Renaudot.

[229] Captain of the Body Guard. Afterward, Duc de Noailles, and Marshal of France.

[230] First physician to the King.

[231] Histoire de Madame Henriette d'Angleterre.

[232] Mme. de Sévigné to Bussy-Rabutin. Letter of July 6, 1670.

[233] Mme. de Sévigné to Bussy-Rabutin (letter dated January 15, 1687), speaking of Condé's death.

[234] Charles d'Harcourt, chevalier, afterward Comte de Beuvron, was one of those whom rumour accused of having contributed to the death of Madame.

[235] Monsieur had two daughters by his first marriage; Marie-Louise d'Orléans, who married, in 1679, Charles II. of Spain, and Anne-Marie de Valois, married, in 1684, to Victor-Amédée II., Duc de Savoie.

[236] Cf. Mémoires de Louis XIV. "for the year 1666." Edited by Charles Dreyss.

[237] Cf. Segraisiana.

[238] Mémoires de l'Abbé de Choisy.

[239] Don Miguel de Iturrieta to Don Diego de la Torre. Archives de la Bastille.

[240] Mme. de Montespan et Louis XIV., by P. Clément.

[241] Histoire etc. (Bibl. Sainte-Geneviève, MS. 3208). The same version is found with slight variations in Le Perroquet, etc.

[242] Mémoires de la Fare.

[243] Letter dated January 26, 1680.

[244] Second son of Louis XIV. He died young.

[245] Cf. for this chapter, the Mélanges of Philibert Delamare (Bibl. Nationale, French MS. 23,251), the Journal of d'Ormesson, and generally the memoirs, correspondences, pamphlets, and songs of the period.

[246] Philibert Delamare, loc. cit.

[247] Journal of Olivier d'Ormesson.

[248] Letter to Coulanges, December 31st. The letter announcing the marriage, too well known to quote, is dated the 15th.

[249] Mémoires de la Fare.

[250] Ancient Governor of the King, who had kept a strong affection for his pupil.

[251] Philibert Delamare, loc. cit.

[252] Mme. de Maintenon, Lettres historiques et édifiantes; cf. Mémoire de Mlle. d'Aumale, published by M. le Comte d'Haussonville.

[253] The Abbé de Choisy relates the same scene, but attributes it to the Princesse de Carignan (Marie de Bourbon-Soissons, 1666-1692).

[254] The French Chargé d'Affaires in Sweden and Germany, Archives de la Bastille.

[255] Philibert Delamare, loc. cit.

[256] This exclusion probably refers to the Prince de Condé, with whom an alliance would have been considered a danger to the peace of France.

[257] La Correspondance de Pomponne (Bibl. de l'Arsenal, 4712, 1598, 11. F.), fol. 373. M. Chéruel in the appendix to volume iv. of the Mémoires de Mademoiselle, and M. Livet in l'Histoire amoureuse des Gaules, have published this letter after an inexact copy.

[258] Letter dated December 24, 1670.

[259] Letter dated December 31, ——.

[260] Souvenirs et Correspondance.

[261] Philibert Delamare, loc. cit.

[262] Letter dated December 24, 1670.

[263] Correspondance de Bussy-Rabutin, published by Ludovic Lalanne.

[264] M. du Honsett, Ancient Intendant of Finance. He had just purchased the office of Chancellor of Monsieur.

[265] Letter dated April 1, 1671.

[266] Letter dated January 13, 1672.

[267] Mémoires de La Fare. Cf. the Mémoires de Choisy, Segraisiana, etc.

[268] Louvois had visited Pignerol the preceding year.

[269] The authorities quoted in this and the following chapter, upon the captivity of Lauzun, are in part unpublished and drawn from the Archives of the Minister of War, in part borrowed from the Archives de la Bastille, by M. Ravaisson. See also a collection of historic documents of 1829: Histoire de la Détention des Philosophes, by J. Delort.

[270] Mme. de Montespan and Mlle. de La Vallière were designated briefly "les Dames."

[271] This letter has been lost or destroyed.

[272] Louvois to Saint-Mars, March 2, 1676.

[273] The letter from Saint-Mars (March 23, 1680) giving an account of the communications between the dungeons has never been found, any more than that telling of the flight of Lauzun.

[274] Louvois to Saint-Mars, November 28, 1679.

[275] Leopold von Ranke, Histoire de France.

[276] Journal d'Olivier Lefèvre d'Ormesson.

[277] Two years after this warning Louis XIV. gave at Versailles, in honour of Mme. de Montespan, a fête for which special buildings were created. The ballroom, only used one night, was marble and porphyry; the rest in accordance.

[278] A loss of more than 100,000 crowns was not rare at the gaming table of the King. March 6, 1670, Mme. de Montespan lost 400,000 pistoles in one night; at eight in the morning she regained 500,000. The pistole is worth about ten francs. In 1682, three years after her disgrace, she lost at one time 700,000 crowns which she did not regain. The King paid her debts.

[279] Letter of Mme. de Châtrier, attached to the House of Condé; De La Vallière à Montespan, by Jean Lemoine and André Lichtenberger.

[280] Letter from Colbert to the Intendant de Rochefort (April 16, 1678).

[281] Mémoires de la Fare.

[282] Mémoires de Mlle. de Montpensier.

[283] Mémoires de l'Abbé de Choisy.

[284] Souvenirs sur Mme. de Maintenon.—Les Cahiers de Mlle. d'Aumale, with an introduction by M. G. Hanotaux.

[285] Ibid.

[286] Letter to the Marquis de Trichateau.

[287] Note by La Reynie (December 27, 1679). The documents of the Affaire des poisons form more than 1300 pages of the Archives de la Bastille, and they are not complete. Certain especial depositions, particularly compromising for Mme. de Montespan, are lacking, and were probably burned by order of Louis XIV.

[288] Louvois to Boucherat, President of the Chambre, February 4, 1680.

[289] It included the Comtesse de Soissons, the Marquise d'Alluye (the King saved both), the Duc de Luxembourg (victim of an error), the Vicomtesse de Polignac, the Marquis de Feuquières, the Princesse de Tingry, the Maréchale de la Ferté, the Duchesse de Bouillon, etc.

[290] Cf. Archives de la Bastille, the "Note autographe" of La Reynie, dated September 17, 1679. Was this the first time that these names had appeared? The destruction of portions of the testimony through the orders of the King does not permit the real truth to be disclosed.

[291] Louvois to M. Robert, January 15, 1680.

[292] She died there September 8, 1686. Cato seems to have been dismissed, although she had been placed with Mme. de Montespan by La Voisin.

[293] Marie-Anne-Christine de Bavière, coming to marry the Grand Dauphin.

[294] Cf. Les souvenirs de Mme. de Caylus and—among others—the letter of Mme. de Sévigné dated July 17, 1680.

[295] Mme. de Montespan et Louis XIV.

[296] Louis XIV., sa Cour et le Régent, by Anquetil (Paris, 1789).

[297] The gift to be enjoyed only after the death of Mademoiselle.

[298] Mémoires de Saint-Simon.

[299] Saint-Simon, Écrits inédits.

[300] At Chalon-sur-Saône.

[301] Exactly, according to the official figures, 284,940 francs.

[302] The coat called a brevet, because it could only be worn with a brevet from the King, was changed every year. It was thus very out of fashion at the end of twelve years. Lauzun had worn a wig at Pignerol, to protect his head against the dampness of his dungeon.

[303] Écrits inédits, Saint-Simon.

[304] Saint-Simon, Mémoires. Saint-Simon takes his details from an eye-witness.

[305] Saint-Simon, Écrits inédits.

[306] Sévigné.

[307] Mémoires de la Cour de France, by Mme. de La Fayette.

[308] Sévigné, January 6, 1689.

[309] Letter of M. d'Amfreville, general-officer of the marine to Seignelay, in the Histoire de Louvois, by Camille Rousset.

[310] Saint-Simon, Écrits inédits.

[311] Œuvres completes, of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (Paris, 1830), vol. i.; Essai sur la Vie by Aimé-Martin.

[312] Cf. the Gazette for 1693, and the series of the Mercure Galant monthly periodical, founded in 1672 by Donneau de Visé.

[313] Saint-Simon, Mémoires.

[314] Saint-Simon says fifteen. He is mistaken; the act of marriage says fourteen.

[315] Mémoires, Saint-Simon.

[316] Saint-Simon, Mémoires.

[317] The royal ordinance is dated July 7, 1668. Louis XIV. was ever ignorant of the fact that the councillors of the Hôtel de Ville had passed nights in copying what was to be burned, so that the documents supposed to be destroyed still exist.

[318] From La Rivière to Bussy-Rabutin.

[319] Relation de la Cour de France, by Ézéchiel Spanheim, envoy extraordinary from Brandenbourg.