The description of the physique was a rule of the Portraits, not even the religieuses believing that it should be dispensed with.

Among the Portraits is found one of an Abbess who visited Mademoiselle, the inspiring Marie-Éléonore de Rohan, a person much esteemed on account of her mother, the famous Duchesse de Montbazon, but very disconcerting, notwithstanding, for our modern ideals of monastic life.

She divided herself between the cloister and the world, sufficiently edifying when it was needful, lively and brilliant the remainder of the time, and as natural in the one rôle as in the other. The Abbess composed works of piety for her nuns,—among others La Morale de Salomon, many times re-edited, and the Paraphrases des sept Psaumes de la Pénitence. The lady of society placed herself before her mirror and wrote without a shade of embarrassment: "I have some haughtiness in my physiognomy and some modesty. I have too large a nose, a mouth not disagreeable, lips suitable, and teeth neither beautiful nor ugly." This "nose too large" shocked the savant Huet. In reproducing the portrait of Mme. l'Abbesse, he wrote: "As the beauty of the nose is one to which I am very sensitive, permit, Madame, that I should begin with yours. It is large; it is white, slightly aquiline, and gives something spirituel to your smile."

Another phrase of Huet's gives us a vision of how these pseudo-religieuses, whose species was destined to disappear with the reform of convents, a not regrettable fact, accommodated the convent garb with coquetry: "One cannot imagine," pursued the future bishop, "more beautiful hair than yours; it is ash colour, blond, curls in a very agreeable manner, and admirably suits your face, as far as I have been able to judge, when it has escaped by chance, in spite of your care to conceal it."

After the body comes the temper, tastes, qualities, and defects of the mind. Here lies the lasting interest of the Portraits. It is valuable to know from first hand, through its own confidences, that this aristocratic society, from which the King exacted the complete sacrifice of its independence, hated nothing more than restraint, and did not hesitate to say so. Men and women, speaking for themselves, return constantly to this point, and always in the same terms: "I hate restraint. Restraint is insupportable to me." "I have an aversion for all that is called restraint." "I suffer oppression impatiently and I passionately love liberty."

From the point of view of absolute monarchy and the discipline which it wished to impose upon the Court, the French nobility had very bad habits. This nobility professed love of the chivalric virtues, and hatred of anything resembling baseness or disloyalty. In this, it was sincere, only we must admit that opinions are constantly changing even in relation to morals, and that to-day, we might have difficulty in agreeing with a gentleman of 1660 as to what is loyal or base and what is not. Honour commanded the gentleman to avenge offences against himself without too closely examining into the methods of so doing. Custom authorised him to be unjust and to act with bad faith towards the lowly, common, and feeble, in particular when money was owed. Honesty was a bourgeois virtue. Mademoiselle considered it unworthy that people of quality should abuse their authority to "ruin miserable creditors," but she was an exception.

The obligations of "honour" were extending to all conditions. Vatel was praised for having killed himself because the fish did not rise. "It was said," wrote Mme. de Sévigné, "that this sort of honour was a strength."

It was not the same with another sentiment which filled the plays of Corneille and which is constantly referred to in all the writings of the time. General consent reserved for people of quality the privilege of having ideas of "Glory and of the 'Beautiful' or the True," which led, according to Huet's definition, to the desire for grand things. The desire for "true glory," which is carefully distinguished from what he called the "halo of glory," was the aristocratic sentiment "par excellence." Even among the authors of the Portraits, every one was not considered to possess the high capacity for strongly feeling this longing.

In spite of the prevailing licentiousness of the Court, there still remained in this brilliant society many pure women. At the same time, virtue was not particularly honoured. It was a matter of personal taste, the nobility only attaching a secondary and conventional importance to its practice. The women "pure," or those who were supposed so to be, received praise from friendly pens. The others were not looked at askance, except by the Jansenists and other sombre spirits.

The young Comtesse de Fiesque, with whom Mademoiselle had been embroiled at Saint-Fargeau, had a well-established reputation for gallantry. The anonymous author of her Portrait makes allusion to this, and hastens to add, "Truly this does her no harm." No harm at all! Mademoiselle did not think of it when Mme. de Fiesque came to demand pardon for her impertinences: "She threw herself on her knees before me; I raised her up and embraced her; she wept with joy. She is a worthy woman, only too easily led away, but good at heart."

Naturally men spoke very freely of women; it was like the crowing of cocks. An anonymous writer, who might have been the poet Racan,[102] represents himself as "very ugly, very stammering, and very disagreeable, very grumbling besides and untruthful," and goes on, "I am very bold with women and quite as successful as if I were good-looking and possessed the most agreeable qualities in the world to make myself well received. I have indeed found myself sometimes as you see me..." There is still greater contempt expressed for women in the following passage from the Portrait of La Rochefoucauld by himself: "Formerly I was a little galant; now not at all, although still youthful. I have renounced all flirtations. I am only astonished that there should still be so many worthy people who occupy themselves in culling these 'little flowers.'" Considering Mme. de Longueville, this statement is rather hard. I would remark in passing, that La Rochefoucauld was forty-five[103] at the moment in which he found himself somewhat "young to renounce flirtations." Molière, however, was soon to make all Paris laugh at the expense of Arnolphe,[104] who indulged in love affairs at the age of forty-two. Shall we conclude that Molière attempted to lessen the limit of the age of love, or was it only in the theatre that fashion exacted young lovers? I leave this question to the clever. It is not without importance in the history of sentiments.

The fashion of Portraits lasted but little more than two years with those who were its sponsors; as soon as the custom reached the bourgeoisie, the people of quality abandoned it. The very lively taste developed in the middle class, in their turn, for this diversion proved of real service to literature. The imitators of the "Galerie" learned, as previously the creators of the game had done, to know the "interior of people."[105] "The anatomies" of their own hearts, imperfect as they were, habituated them to discern the "qualities and temper of people,"[106] and thus a large public was prepared to comprehend the women of Racine.

Mademoiselle was one of the first to profit by the "soul studies" which she had brought into favour. There remains a little passage in a portion of her Mémoires, written after 1660, which clearly indicates this. Progress is equally marked in a little romance with a key, entitled Histoire de la Princesse de Paphlagonie, which was composed and printed at Bordeaux in 1659, during the prolonged sojourn of the Court at that place.

This is not the only imaginative work for which this facile pen[107] is responsible, but it is the only one worthy of notice. The subject is without interest; Mademoiselle has incorporated in a literary tale the absurd quarrels of her household: "I made a little history which was finished in three days, by writing in the evening after returning from the Queen." In compensation, there are in the Princesse de Paphlagonie some sketches after nature, written with a firm and live touch, a novelty with Mademoiselle. A passage upon the blue room of Mme. de Rambouillet will prove a great aid in any attempt to reconstruct an elegant interior under Louis XIV., if the experiment should ever be made as has been suggested of playing the comedies of Molière in the true "chamber" of Philaminte or of Célimène. Others have spoken of the rooms in which Mme. de Rambouillet received. The harmonious decoration and the scholarly disorder have been before described, yet no one but Mademoiselle has given us the intimate atmosphere of the sanctuary, with its measured and discreet light, its luxury of flowers, its objects of art, and its small but choice library betraying the tastes and the preferences of the divinity of the place. The description resembles more nearly the salon of an intelligent woman of the twentieth century than a suite of the Château of Versailles.

The guests of Mademoiselle profited also by the refinement of her tastes. She enforced one single rule in her salon: cards were banished. No one was exposed to the danger of being ruined, as was the case in the circle of the King, who encouraged heavy play. It did not displease Louis XIV. to be the Providence of the losers, this again being a method of keeping his nobles in hand. His cousin in no way shared in such considerations. She said: "I hate to play cards," and only played when it was impossible to avoid doing so. She did not at all like to lose. It was remarked that the Luxembourg had gained in gaiety with the exclusion of gambling games. "There is a hundred times as much laughter," relates the Abbé de Choisy,[108] at this date very young and a frequent guest at the palace of the Luxembourg, where he met numerous companions of his own age.

The three daughters of the old Madame, Mlles. d'Orléans, d'Alençon, and de Valois,[109] were always with their step-sister. They escaped from their deserted apartment to run towards the noise and movement; their life was too sad with Madame and her eternal "vapours." Relegated to their chambers as at Blois, with some childish companions, among whom was Louise de La Vallière,[110] still unknown, they lived in a state of distrust of their almost invisible mother, who never addressed a word to them except in scolding.

At least, with Mademoiselle one had the right to move. Young people had great freedom. Little games were organised. Parties of hide and seek and blind-man's-buff were enjoyed. "As I had violin players, it was easy to dance in any room sufficiently distant from Madame." The Abbé de Choisy adds a gracious detail: "There were violinists, but ordinarily they were silent and we danced to singing. It is so charming to dance to the sound of the voice." While the young moved gaily about, their elders had also their little games.

Everything yielded, however, to the unequalled pleasure of conversation. Among those who gave éclat to the Luxembourg, the names of La Rochefoucauld, Segrais, Mme. de Lafayette, and Mme. de Sévigné may be mentioned. Mademoiselle herself often led the conversation, beating the drums a little, her fashion in everything, but also with a certain spontaneity which she always displayed.

Conversation was, during more than a century, even to the time of the Revolution, to be the great delight of intelligent France, and this pleasure rendered incomparable service to the French language, which had rather deteriorated during the first periods of the seventeenth century. It was immediately perceived that the worst fault for a talker was to speak like a book, and the French owe to this simple observation the lesson which taught them to become the first in the world for vivacity and naturalness in the art of conversation. The habitués of the Luxembourg only regretted that the conversation did not oftener turn upon love. But, in this respect, Mademoiselle was not as complaisant as at Saint-Fargeau. We have seen that, in practice, she closed her eyes; this simplified life. For her own pleasure, she preferred other topics; this particular one became at length insupportable to her. "I am much criticised," says she in her Portrait, "because the verses I like the least, are those which are passionate, for I have not a tender soul." Besides, she had really nothing more to say upon the subject of love. She had just made her profession of faith in a correspondence with Mme. de Motteville, who, while awaiting something better, circulated a manuscript in which one reads, "Its conditions are shameful; it is robbery and unjust, without faith and without equity. It is an impiety; it mocks the holy sacrament. Marriage adjusts nothing: everything is given to man."

"Let us escape from slavery," cried Mademoiselle. "Let there be at least one corner of the globe in which one can say that women are their own mistresses." Every one has the right to despise love and marriage, provided only that one does not insist on applying this sentiment only to others. The youth of the Luxembourg knew too well that Mademoiselle sought with an increasing ardour that "slavery" against which in conversation or in writing she called her sex to revolt. Her intimate friends realised that she was inventing illusions, under the influence of a possible possession which induced a belief in their reality. She had believed in an eager tenderness on the part of the little Monsieur who had married some one else. After the restoration of the Stuarts (April, 1660), she imagined (the recital is fully given in her Mémoires) that the King, Charles II., whom she had refused with disdain when he was only a poor pretender, had no other intention in remounting the throne than again to demand her hand, and that she would nobly respond: "I do not deserve this, having rejected your suit when you were in disgrace. The remembrance of this would always rest on our two hearts and would prevent true happiness." This fine response has been quoted a hundred times. Unfortunately, it is very clearly proved through the testimony of English documents[111] that Mademoiselle had no occasion to make it.

Advances, alas! had come from one side only and had been ill received. "I very much desire the marriage of Mademoiselle," wrote Lady Derby[112] to her sister-in-law, Mme. de la Trémouille, through whom passed the "insinuations," "but the King has a great aversion to it on account of the contempt which she has shown him. I have spoken of her to Marquis d'Ormond, but I have met with little encouragement." In another letter: "I have proposed Mademoiselle, but I have little hope. If the King looks for wealth, we can hardly expect greater than with Mademoiselle. But I fear that having been despised in his poverty, he may be little disposed to regard such a marriage." Charles II. would listen to nothing; he had guarded a grudge against his cousin. On the other hand, there is every appearance of truth when she states that the old Duc Charles III. de Lorraine,[113] had demanded her "on his knees" for a youth of eighteen, Prince Charles de Lorraine, his nephew, who became afterwards one of the most famous Austrian generals. It was a question, as can well be understood, of a political combination.

Unfortunately, Prince Charles himself had another project, better suited to his age. He was in love with the eldest daughter of Madame, Marguerite d'Orléans, who returned his affection with all her heart. The youthful society of the Luxembourg accuses Mademoiselle of having, through jealousy, caused this project to fail. "The affair had been advanced," relates that gossip, the Abbé de Choisy, "but the old Mademoiselle had talked and cackled so much that she spoiled everything." She was desperate at the thought of her younger sisters, beggars compared to herself, marrying under her very eyes. Marguerite d'Orléans made, out of spite, a marriage which turned out badly,[114] but through which Mademoiselle in no way profited. Owing to a singular change of desire, from the day on which it had depended upon herself to marry Prince Charles, she had only felt contempt for this little prince "sans forts."[115]

These caprices made the King impatient, who ended by making negotiations with Lorraine without any longer occupying himself with his cousin. Louis XIV. still retained the old monarchical principles in relation to the marriage of princesses. He regarded them simply from the point of view of politics; questions to be settled by governments and into which sentiments must not be permitted to intrude. The idea that every human being has a right to happiness did not belong to his times, and if it had been suggested, the King would have surely condemned it, for it insisted upon individual interests as opposed to those of the community, the rights of which appeared specially sacred to the people of the seventeenth century.

Louis XIV. did not believe for himself that he had the right to accept only the agreeable duties belonging to his "trade of king," since he had undertaken an existence devoted to strenuous labour, when it would have been so pleasant to do nothing. According to his principle, the higher the position of an individual, the more it was fitting that he should sacrifice his own desires to the public good. Mademoiselle had the honour of being his first cousin; he had firmly resolved to marry her, or not to marry her, to bestow her hand upon a hero or a monster, according as he should judge it useful to "the service of the King." There was a certain grandeur in this fashion of recognising relationship.

It had not occurred to the King that Mademoiselle would ever have the audacity to resist him. It can be said that any real understanding between the two was an impossibility. Mademoiselle had lived too long in the midst of the opposition to yield to the notion of absolute royal power without limitations and including all possible persons. Louis XIV. had a too profound faith in the doctrine of the divine right of kings to refuse for himself any of the prerogatives devolving upon him. Both these opinions represented Frenchmen at large; but for the moment Mademoiselle was being borne along by the ebbing tide, Louis XIV. by the rising one.

This Prince had entered the world at an opportune moment to profit by a doctrine which, according to a happy expression, seemed made for him as he for it. After the Reform, the enforcing the old theory of the divine origin of power had a beneficial result. The populace in many a country and province had found themselves as much interested as the sovereigns in suppressing the political power of the Pope outside of his own States, and resenting his interference in the affairs of other countries.

In France, in the sixteenth century, one meets with Calvinist theologians amongst the writers who claimed that princes received their power directly from God, and from God alone. The immediate consequence of this doctrine was to heighten the éclat of royalty. Princes became images of divinity, and even something more; Louis XIV., not yet five, heard himself spoken of as the "Divinity made visible." Two years later, the Royal Catechism[116] explained to him that he was "Vice-Dieu." Twenty years later Louis XIV. was "Dieu," without any qualification, and Bossuet himself declared it from the pulpit. On April 2, 1662, preaching at the Louvre and speaking of the duties of kings, Bossuet cried: "O Gods of nations and of lands, you must die like mortals; nevertheless, until Death, you are Gods."

When a man hears such statements without shrinking, he is quite ready to accept all the consequences. "Kings," writes an anonymous person, "are absolute lords of all who breathe in any portion of their empire."[117]

Louis XIV. has very clearly formulated the same thought in his Mémoires: "The one who has given kings to men has wished that they should be respected as his lieutenants, reserving for himself alone the right to examine their conduct. It is the divine wish that any one born a subject should obey without question."[118] It must be added that Louis had arrived at these conclusions under a pressure of public opinion, which had become impatiently desirous of giving to monarchy the strength needed to place the shattered land again in a condition of order.

On the death of Mazarin, France resembled a large establishment whose cupboards, confided to a negligent steward, had not during an entire generation been put in order. A flash of vivid hope passed through France on seeing its young monarch, vigorously aided by Colbert, put the broom to the mass of abuses and inequities which bore the name of administration, and show himself resolved, in spite of resistance, to introduce into the great public services order and moral cleanliness.

This was not finished without tears and grinding of teeth, not without some injustice also, as in the case of Foucquet, assuredly culpable, but paying for many others, of whom Mazarin was the first. But this cleansing was accomplished. First, the finances were attacked, with the happy result that people paid less and that the imposts returned more; then justice,—law reform was commenced in 1665, and the "grands jours" of Auvergne were opened the same year; the army,—the soldiers, paid regularly, committed fewer disorders, and the nobility learned, willingly or not, military obedience.

At the same time, industry and commerce increased to such an extent that, from 1668, orders flooded Paris "from the entire world" for a vast number of articles which ten years previous had been imported. The ambassador from Venice, Giustiniani, writes this statement to his government.

The strong will of the master had put the country in motion. Louis XIV. was confirmed in his high opinion of absolute monarchy. The same year in which Bossuet had encouraged him to believe himself above ordinary humanity, the King decided, with a perfectly equable conscience, to marry the Grande Mademoiselle to a veritable monster, in the interest of a political combination which he held at heart, for he returns to it several times in his Mémoires. His father-in-law, Philippe IV., menaced the independence of Portugal.[119] Louis XIV. hesitated to assist Portugal openly, on account of the treaty of the Pyrénées.[120] On the other hand, he considered double-dealing more honest to the Spaniards than their conduct might be to him if opportunity permitted. "I cannot doubt that they would have been the first to violate the treaty of the Pyrénées on a thousand points, and I should believe myself failing in my duty to the State, if, through being more scrupulous, I should permit them freely to ruin Portugal, and to fall back upon me with their entire strength."

It seemed to him that he could conciliate all by aiding Portugal secretly, and Turenne had no repugnance to this course. This kind of action was then called, and is often still designated, sagacious statesmanship.

Such being the situation, Turenne came one afternoon to seek Mademoiselle in her cabinet. The account of this interview has been preserved for us by the Princess, and we can this time trust her accuracy. Her Mémoires are in accord with contemporary witnesses. It was towards the end of the winter of 1662. Turenne seated himself at the corner of the fireplace and began with tender protestations. "As I am somewhat brusque, I at once demanded of him, 'What is the question?' He replied: 'I wish to marry you.' I interrupted him, saying: 'That is not easy; I am content with my condition.'

"'I will make you Queen. Listen to me. Let me tell you everything, and afterward you can speak. I wish to make you Queen of Portugal.' 'Fi!' cried I to myself, 'I do not wish it.' He went on: 'Maidens of your quality have no desires; they must act as the King wills.'"

The monarch whose mention makes Mademoiselle cry "Fi!" was called Alphonse VI., and was not yet twenty. At twenty-three, the Abbé de Saint-Romain,[121] our envoy to Portugal, reported that he could neither read nor write. In compensation, he pulled the ears and tore out the hair of those who approached him, and this was in his "good days"; in the bad ones, he struck, indifferently with his feet, hands, or sword, any one who vexed him. His subjects no longer dared to pass through the streets at night, because one of his diversions was to charge at them suddenly in the "darkness and to try to spit them."

In person, Alphonse VI. was a fat little barrel, paralysed in one limb, "gluttonous and dirty," almost always drunk, and vomiting after his meals. He wore six or seven coats one over the other, amongst which "a petticoat of three hundred taffetas, embroidered with pistol shots"; upon his head, a hood falling over his eyes, several caps over this, one of which covered the ears, and an "English bonnet" over all. "His body," pursues the Abbé, "smells horribly, and he has always bad ulcers in the softer portions ... and these offences could not be supported if he did not bathe once daily in winter, twice in other seasons." Fear obliged him to make "seventeen people always sleep in his chamber."

Turenne, however, forced himself to gild this rather bitter pill. He pointed out to Mademoiselle how useful it would be and for what reasons to have a French princess on the throne of Portugal. He promised her, knowing her special weakness, that she should be absolute mistress of the "great and powerful army"; that the King would give it entirely over to her by degrees. Without doubt, Alphonse VI. was a paralytic, "but," asserted Turenne, "this does not appear when he is dressed; he only slightly drags one leg, and is a little awkward with his arm. So much the better, if his intelligence also is a little slow. It is not known whether or not he has any wit; after all, it is only good form for husbands to be gay."

"But," replied Mademoiselle, "to be the link of a perpetual war between France and Spain seems to me a very undesirable position." The situation would be still worse if, as she was convinced would be the case, the two crowns should arrive at an accommodation.

"A truly beautiful future: to have a drunken and paralytic husband, whom the Spaniards would chase from his kingdom, and to return to France to demand alms, when all my wealth has been dissipated, and to remain only the queen of some little village. It is good to be Mademoiselle in France with five hundred thousand francs of income, and nothing to demand of the Court. Thus placed, it is foolish to move. If the Court becomes weariness, one can retire to one's château in the country, in which a little private court of one's own can be held. It is very diverting also to build new houses. Finally, as mistress of one's own wishes one is happy, for one does what one wills."

"But," returned Turenne, "remaining Mademoiselle, even admitting all that you have said, you are still subject to the King. He commands what he wills; when his wishes are refused, he scolds; a thousand disagreeable things are felt at Court; often the King goes farther, he chases people away. When they are content in one place, he sends them to another. He orders journeys from one end of the kingdom to the other. Sometimes, he imprisons recalcitrants in their own homes, or sends them into convents, and in the end, obedience must come. What can you reply to this?"

"That people of your station do not menace those of mine," cried Mademoiselle in anger; "that I know what I must do; that if the King says anything contrary, I will see what I shall respond to him."

She forbade Turenne to mention this affair again, and withdrew. "Five or six days later, he again addressed me." At this time, some common friends were present. Mademoiselle grew anxious. How far was Turenne the authorised messenger of the King? She wrote to the latter to provoke an explanation. No response. She confided her trouble to the Queen Mother, who confined herself to these words: "If the King wishes this, it is a terrible pity; he is master; as for me, I have nothing to say in the matter."

"I was in frightful haste," adds Mademoiselle, "that the time for the Baths of Forges should come, and that I might go away." The season arrived. It was needful to take leave of the King. She wished to have the Court plainly understand her intention: "'Sire, if your Majesty is thinking of my establishment, here is M. de Béziers, who will go to Turin; he can negotiate my marriage with M. de Savoie.'—'I will think of you when it suits me, and marry you when it will be of service to me,' in a dry tone which much frightened me. After this, he saluted me very coldly, and I went away and I took my waters."

Mademoiselle had the imprudence both to talk and write. Bussy-Rabutin even pretends that "she had written a letter to the King of Spain, which was intercepted," suggesting a fête in his neighbourhood; but this is difficult to believe, however inconsiderate Mademoiselle sometimes was.

From Forges, Mademoiselle went to the Château d'Eu, which she had bought a short time before. It was at this place, October 15, 1662, that she received from the King commands to return to Saint-Fargeau, "until new orders." Upon the route she met letters from every one.

To be banished for having refused to marry Alphonse VI.,—the country was not yet ready for these consequences of the new régime. It was soon known that Mademoiselle had ordered from Paris "needles, canvas, and silk," as if she expected to have on her hands plenty of spare time. But if affairs remained at this point, she was not paying too dearly for the pleasure of escaping being made Queen of Portugal. This was her own opinion, and she became very amiable.

The departure of Mademoiselle did not leave a large vacuum in the young Court; there was at the official ceremonies one princess the less, and this was all. For the new generation had passed with the King to the front ranks; the Grande Mademoiselle was now only the "old Mademoiselle," as Abbé de Choisy called her. The youthful loves and the pleasures belonging to twenty years had nothing to do with her, nor, what is more, with the Queen Mother, who had in old age become a preacher, and who now belonged to the "dévots" grouped under her protection.

Molière by his impiety scandalised these pious people who considered it wicked for the King to have mistresses.

The question still waiting to be solved was, on which side the master would definitely range himself. For the moment, Louis XIV. leaned very strongly towards the friends of good-nature and of his joyous freedom. Would he be gained over by these? Would the logic of events and ideas lead him to shake off the trammel of religious practices, then that of belief, in the fashion of Hugues de Lionne, of the Bussy-Rabutins, of the Guiche, of the Roquelaure, of the Vardes, and a hundred other "Libertins," who only saw in the practices of religion a collection of silly tricks? The obtaining an answer to this query was really the important affair of the year 1662, a much more serious interest than any preoccupation in regard to the chronicle of the doings at the Luxembourg or at Saint-Fargeau.

The young Queen was anxious; she scented danger, but she knew only how to groan and weep, without comprehending that red eyes and a grumbling tone were not the best attractions for retaining a husband. She had not even the consolation of being pitied, having only made the one friend, Anne of Austria, who in default of something better, forced herself to preserve some illusions upon the melancholy of the little Queen's destiny.

It would have been hard to find a better creature than Marie-Thérèse, fresh and round, who leapt with joy the day following her marriage, and related ingenuously to Mme. de Motteville her little romance. Marie-Thérèse had always remembered that her mother,[122] who died when she was only six, had repeated that she desired to see her Queen of France; that this was the only possible happiness, or, if not attained, nothing remained but a convent. The little Princess had grown up with the thought of France. Louis XIV. had been the Prince Charmant of her infant dreams. When she knew that a French lord came "post haste" to demand her hand for his master, it seemed to her entirely natural. She had spied from a window the arrival of M. de Gramont.[123] He had passed by very quickly, followed by many other Frenchmen, decorated with gold and silver, and covered with feathers and ribbons of all colours. One might have said, "a parterre of flowers, bearing the royal demand," related the young Queen, becoming poetical for the first and last time in her life.

Once married, Marie-Thérèse had demanded of her husband the promise that they should never be separated, either by day or night, if it possibly could be avoided. Louis XIV. promised and kept his word, but it was a useless precaution.

According to Mme. de Motteville and Mme. de Maintenon,[124] the Queen did not know how to conduct herself toward her husband. She was stupid in her manner of showing her devotion; if the King wanted her, she would refuse to sacrifice a prayer in order to be with him. She had also an "ill-directed" jealousy; if the King did not desire her company, she did not sufficiently distinguish, in her complaints, against those who wiled him away, between Mlle. de La Vallière and the Council of Ministers. Her ill temper was discouraging. If the King led her with him, she complained of everything; if he did not, there were floods of tears. If the dinner was not to her taste she sulked; if it pleased her, tormented herself: "Everything will be eaten, nothing will be left for me." "And the King jeered at her," added Mademoiselle, having the honour, through her birth, of being often found amongst those who "eat everything."

Marie-Thérèse was good, generous, virtue itself, she had a violent passion for her husband, and with all this she was a person to be avoided. Mme. de Maintenon summed up the situation in saying that "the Queen knew how to love but not how to please; the reverse of the King, who possessed qualities for pleasing all, without being capable of a strong affection. All women except his own wife were agreeable to him."

Free-thinkers and debauchees did not have to consider Marie-Thérèse; she had not a shadow of influence over her husband. For different reasons, neither Monsieur, the brother of the King, nor the wife of Monsieur were any obstacles. Much has been said of the seductive power of Mme. Henrietta of England[125]; of her irresistible grace, her delicate beauty, and her special charm. These characteristics, very rare with a great princess, had proved of great value during her youth of humiliating poverty, when she was reduced to living as a "private person." She had then met with "all celebrities, all civility, and all humanity, even upon ordinary conditions,[126] and nothing perhaps had contributed more to make her love men and adore women." Her faults were great, but they were not weighed against her, on account of that gift of pleasing which was in her and which circumstances had developed. Madame was a hidden evil influence, and an openly dangerous one. She could become the centre of low Court intrigues, without losing, or even risking, the loss of her empire over hearts. To this first good fortune was united that of having Bossuet to shelter her memory.

Henrietta of England has traversed "centuries protected by his [Bossuet's] funeral oration," as she passed through her life protected by the fascination with which nature endows certain women, by no means always the best ones.

Monsieur since our last encounter with him had not improved. He had, as might be said, publicly and without shame, established himself in vice, and in vice of the worst kind. Marriage had done nothing for him. "The miracle of inflaming the heart of this prince," discreetly explains Mme. de La Fayette, "was reserved for no woman belonging to the social world."[127] Delivered over to a crowd of very exacting favourites who never left him a moment free from domestic complications, Monsieur had, according to the expressive word of his mother, become indisputably an intriguer. Between Madame and himself, their court was a place of inconceivable agitation, a sink of lies and calumnies, of small perfidies, and little treasons, which make one sick, even when related by Mme. de La Fayette.

Truly, I hardly know whether or not in writing her Histoire de Madame Henriette this latter has rendered a service to her dear Princess. With the exception of the first pages, before the marriage, and of the beautiful death scene at the end, the rest is a tissue of nothings so contemptible in every respect that the book falls from one's hands: and this is all that the author of the Princesse de Clèves has found to say about a person so prominent; of a sister-in-law to whom Louis XIV. confided political secrets and whom he loved almost too dearly.

Among all the personages belonging to the royal family, the Libertins had only to consider the Queen Mother, their declared enemy, and the King himself, as yet too reserved for it to be divined how he contemplated accommodating pleasure and religion. It had not taken long to perceive that he would not restrain himself in pleasure. He was married, June 9, 1660. A year later commenced the series of mistresses imposed upon the royal household and upon France, they and their children, in a fashion which recalls Oriental polygamy rather than the manners of the Occident. Louis XIV. had felt himself incapable of a virtuous life. One day, when his mother, profiting by the tenderness awakened by a reconciliation—they had not spoken for some time to each other—represented the scandal of his liaison with Mlle. de La Vallière, he responded cordially with tears of grief which proceeded from the bottom of his heart, where were still some remains of his former piety,—"that he knew his wrong; that he felt sometimes the pain and shame of it; that he had tried his best not to offend God and not to yield to his passions, but he was forced to confess that they were stronger than his reason, that he could not resist their violence, and that he no longer felt any desire so to do."[128]

This conversation took place in July, 1664. The following autumn, the King having found the Queen, his wife, in tears in her oratoire on account of a too-well founded jealousy, he gave her the hope of finding him at thirty "a good husband,"—a somewhat cynical suggestion.

He not only had "violent passions," but he had not discovered any reasons for restraining himself in regard to women. One reads in his Mémoires, which were written for the dauphin to see, a passage worthy of Lord Chesterfield, in which he gives his son his ideas upon the subject of kings' mistresses.

The page referred to relates to the year 1667, in which commenced the war of the Dévolution:[129]

Before departing for the army, I sent an edict to Parliament. I raised to a Duchy the territory of Vaujours in favour of Mlle. de La Vallière and recognised a daughter of mine by her. For, resolving in accompanying the army not to remain apart from possible perils, I thought it just to assure to the child the honour of her birth, and to give to her mother an establishment suitable to the affection which since her sixth year I had felt for her. I might have done well not to mention this attachment, the example of which is not good to follow; but having drawn much instruction from the failings of others, I have not wished to deprive you of the lessons you may learn from mine.