My Cousin:

It consoles me much to find you in the state of mind which your letter shows. I willingly forget the past and permit you not only to pass through Paris, but also either to dwell there, or to choose any other place of residence which may be agreeable to you, and even to come here in case you wish it, if you assure me that your conduct will always give me reason for cherishing you and for treating you properly as a personage so nearly related.

I thank you for the affection with which you write to me of the Queen's pregnancy and pray, etc.

Louis.

Some days later Mademoiselle was en route for Fontainebleau, well resolved to show herself. She was transported with joy at having recovered liberty of movement, but the Court at this time inspired her with terror. The ground had become too slippery for a person of her temperament, loving so much her independence and rebellious to all discipline.

CHAPTER IV.

And there was reason for entertaining another project. While she was in penitence at Eu, one of the little sisters, Mlle. de Valois, had married the Duc de Savoie, Charles Emmanuel II., and had died (January 14, 1664), at the end of some months of wedded life. The widowhood of princes is rarely a matter of long duration. The King had immediately arranged to offer the millions of the Grande Mademoiselle to the Duc de Savoie, it being of first importance to bring back this territory to France, and to recompense the King of Portugal by giving him one of the princesses of Nemours.[163]

The new combination was well known in the political world. One reads in the journal of Olivier d'Ormesson on the date of June 4, 1664: "M. Le Pelletier[164] tells me of the return of Mlle. d'Orléans, and that the King had written to her with his own hand, permitting her to come back, without saying anything to the Queen Mother; but this was with the Savoie marriage in sight." Louis XIV. had not resigned himself without effort to the idea of procuring so fine an establishment for an ancient Frondeuse. It may be seen through a letter from the grand Condé to the Queen of Poland that the royal rancour had yielded for reasons of State:

Fontainebleau, June 3, 1664.

Mademoiselle having written to the King about the pregnancy of the Queen, his Majesty has himself responded, which is a mark of softened feelings, and every one believes that she will return and that his Majesty will consent to her marriage with M. de Savoie, which up to this time he has not desired, because he preferred that of Mlle. d'Alençon[165]: but as she is very ugly, and as an additional distinction is badly marked with small-pox, he has reason to believe that M. de Savoie will not be willing to espouse her; and he fears that there may be a question of a union with the Austrian House, and thus I believe, in spite of his own dislikes, he will wish to hasten the marriage of Mademoiselle which, however, is not so certain as it appears.[166]

There was no danger of pouts in regard to this prospective husband; this the King well understood. Mademoiselle arrived at Fontainebleau during the first fortnight of June, 1664. The entire Court had met her upon the highway.

Mademoiselle was the first to whom the King had yielded since assuming the reins of government. This was a glory; she, indeed, felt it and held her head high. Louis XIV. had the good taste to ignore this attitude. He greeted her graciously and limited his vengeance to teasing her during the few days she passed with him. "Confess," said he to her, "that you are very bored." She cried, "I assure you not at all, and I often think that the Court is very much deceived if it believes me disenchanted, for I have not experienced a moment's dulness."

The King, however, believed only what pleased him. One evening, after the play, he led her upon a little terrace and spoke in these terms: "The past must be forgotten. Be persuaded that you will receive all good treatment from me in the future, and that I am contemplating your establishment. Naturally, M. de Savoie is a better match than formerly; his mother is dead. He will recognise the difference between your sister and yourself. Thus you will be very happy and I shall work seriously to accomplish this." The King's discourse was followed by an exchange of effusions. "We embraced each other, my cousin and I," said the King in reappearing before his Court, and the signal word was at once comprehended.

The Grande Mademoiselle passed an almost triumphal week at Fontainebleau. The repose of provincial life was hard to bear in comparison. The King, the ministers, and the ambassadors all worked for the marriage. There was nothing to do but to leave them to act. Mademoiselle wished to aid. To commence she undertook to reduce to silence the old Madame, who was outraged by her eagerness to replace her younger sister.

Dissatisfactions grew into quarrels and Louis XIV. was forced to intervene, and to silence all these women. He wrote to Mademoiselle:

My Cousin:

I cannot prevent my aunt's people from talking, but I hardly believe that she would say that I have promised her protection against you.

I love you and consider you, as much as the most pressing desires which pass through your brain are capable of inspiring me, and assuredly it is my intention to give you pleasure in every degree possible. I only avow that you can do much on your part in facilitating things a little; this is my only request, and having nothing to add to so sincere an explanation of my sentiments, I finish this letter, praying God, etc.

Written at Fontainebleau, July 12, 1664.

Signed: Louis.[167]

It was beyond the strength of Mademoiselle to abstain from interference. Her anxiety to be the fly on the wheel drew upon her a new letter from the King. The tone is that of a very impatient man.

My Cousin:

I see clearly by your last letter that you are not accurately informed of what is passing in Piedmont; for I have been obliged to be very badly satisfied with my ambassador, in that he has executed my orders with so much warmth that the Duc de Savoie complains through his despatches to Count Carrocio of apparently being forced into an action which should be the freest, even to the smallest particular. Judge by this fact if the conduct proposed and suggested to you is wise?

I perceive even malice in those who give you such advice; for their desire is to put you in such a state of mind that if the affair fail it is I who am to blame.

I see that you are already persuaded that success depends upon my simple wish expressing my desire on one side or the other, but I am not resolved to conduct myself according to the caprices of those people.

I have told you that I sincerely wish your satisfaction and I again affirm it. The friendship alone which I have for you would give me this feeling, and I realise also that the scheme is beneficial for me.

You must not doubt, therefore, that I will do all which will be really useful in furthering the affair; as for the means, it is not too much to say that I see better what should be done than those who speak and write to you. However, I pray God, etc.

At Vincennes, September 2, 1664.

Signed; Louis.

The King spoke the truth: the Duc de Savoie did not want the Grande Mademoiselle. Charles Emmanuel had never digested the affront received upon the journey to Lyons, from which he had seen his sister return Duchess of Parma when he had imagined to receive her as Queen of France.[168] He was not averse to revenging himself on Louis XIV. by refusing a princess of his family whose age above all "made him afraid, for he desired children."[169]

He had also an account to regulate with Mademoiselle, who had disdained him at the time in which she was young and beautiful. At this distant date, Charles Emmanuel, although her junior by seventeen years, had not concealed the fact that he would have been ready to marry her, "so much did he esteem her person and also her great wealth."[170]

But it was with the Duc de Savoie as with the Prince of Wales, and later with the Prince de Lorraine:

Having become less exacting with years, Mademoiselle at length found a man who did not disdain to play the part of substitute for his betters.

The Duke remained firm, and it was again a Nemours,[172] sister of the Queen of Portugal, who inherited the husband destined for the Grande Mademoiselle.

Equally difficult, the same fate fell upon Mademoiselle as upon the marriageable daughter in La Fontaine: she was to be reduced to wed a cadet of Gascony, the malotru of the fable. I believe that La Fontaine had Mademoiselle in his mind when writing La Fille. It has been queried whether this subject was not borrowed from the Epigram of Martial. There is no need for so distant a search. On July 8, 1664, La Fontaine had been appointed "gentleman-in-waiting to the dowager Duchesse d'Orléans."[173] He was, therefore, in a position to be well informed concerning the projects for marriage which failed, and the ridiculous actions of the daughter of the house. We possess his confidences upon the household of the Luxembourg, on the one side of the apartments of Madame, on the other those of Mademoiselle, in an epistle dedicated to Mignon, the little dog of his mistress.

For La Fontaine, the Luxembourg was the palace in which there was no place for lovers. The tender passion was forbidden chez Madame, where it was necessary to be contented with the "pious smiles" of Mme. de Crissé, the original of the Countess de Pimbesche, and to bear in mind the presence of an old Capuchin become Bishop of Bethléem in Nivernais,[174] who supervised the conversations. "Speak low," says the letter Pour Mignon.

There was not even the resource of fleeing to the "Divinity" opposite. Under that shelter, lovers were less well regarded year by year, and La Fontaine divined why: the antipathy always evinced by Mademoiselle was now doubled by envy.

The check in regard to the Savoie marriage had brought on a painful crisis in the life of this poor unattached heroine. For the first time, she had been made to feel that she had passed the marriageable age, and she was one of those unfortunates who cannot easily resign themselves to the fall from the purely feminine portion of existence.

The revolt against nature frequently causes whimsicalities; a terrible injustice toward those doleful creatures who often have asked no better than to obey nature's laws in becoming wives and mothers. Nervous maladies give to the soul-tragedy a burlesque outside, and the world laughs without comprehending. Mademoiselle was one of these unfortunates. La Fontaine had well discovered it when he wrote:

It is very difficult to relate the decline of the Grande Mademoiselle without provoking a smile at least, and it would be a pity, however, if this proud figure should leave the even slight impression of that of Bélise. She was left disabled, without aim in life, at the very moment in which women in general were being excluded from action, after having been slightly intoxicated with power under Anne of Austria. Men had at that time encouraged women to enter into public life. Thanks to masculine complicity, feminine influence and power had mounted high, and the weaker sex enjoyed one of the most romantic moments of its entire history.

The habit of treating women as the equals of men had been fully formed when the will of a monarch who distrusted them precipitated the sex from its giddy height.

It has been seen à propos of La Vallière with what contempt Louis XIV. spoke of women in his Mémoires. Upon this subject he had truly Oriental ideas, approaching those held by his Spanish ancestors, inherited by them from the Moors. Louis could not do without women, but he wanted them only for amusement. He did not really believe them capable of giving anything else, judging them inferior and dangerous, perhaps in remembrance of Marie Mancini, who had almost enticed him into a crime against royalty.

Hardly had the King come to power when all who had issued from their sphere must re-enter it. Love was the only affair of importance in which women were permitted to share. Louis XIV. made no exception in favour of his mistresses. Mme. de Montespan tyrannised a little over him in spite of his fine theories. The others, however, were looked upon only in the light of beautiful and amusing creatures.

When, towards the end of the reign, Mme. de Maintenon had the glory of again raising the sex to the position of being esteemed by the King, she alone benefited. In general, nothing was gained for women at large; the impression in regard to their true position had been too deep. Suddenly reduced to an existence with a narrow horizon, women found it colourless and mean. They demanded love, since this was all that was left to them to supply those violent emotions to which they had become accustomed in the camps and councils. As the result of this new attitude many strange events occurred, but they were little noticed as long as the Queen Mother remained of this world. Anne of Austria succeeded in saving appearances, if in nothing else. Once dead, there came the downfall, and strange things became frightful ones.

It was at Versailles in the midst of the Bengal fires of the "Île enchantée" that the Queen Mother felt the first pangs of the cancer which finally caused her death.

Paris followed with grief the course of her illness. Anne of Austria, remaining without influence, had again become popular. "She preserves harmony," wrote d'Ormesson, "and although she cannot be credited with much good, she still prevents much that is evil" (June 5, 1665). It is known that it was owing to her that a certain decency was maintained at the Court of France; that without her, Louis XIV. and his sister-in-law Henrietta would not have perceived in time that they already cared too much for each other and that the rumour of this was "making much noise at Court."[175]

The Queen Mother was forced to open eyes which wished to remain closed. She had spoken frankly, and her plainness had perhaps saved the kingdom of France from an ineffaceable stain. Such service cannot be forgotten by honest people. To gratitude was added a sincere admiration for her courage under suffering. The poor woman endured without complaint, and with an incredible tranquillity, nine months of sharp pain increased by the barbarous remedies applied by a crowd of quacks.

In the royal family, the sentiments were mixed. Louis XIV., as Mme. de Motteville had well remarked, was a man full of "contradictions." He cherished his mother. During a previous malady, a short time before the cancer declared itself, he had cared for her night and day with a devotion and also a skill which astonished the attendants.

The thought of now losing her gave him seasons of stifling sobs. At the same time, his mother was a little too much of a personage. She troubled him by her clairvoyance. He experienced a certain relief at the knowledge that the time was approaching when she would no longer be able to watch his course of life. In all probability, he was himself ignorant of this feeling, but it was apparent to observers. When she was actually dying, affection bore away all other considerations, and the King almost fainted. Hardly was she interred when the pleasure of feeling himself entirely free again became ascendant.

The attachment of Monsieur for his mother was his best emotion. His grief possessed no hidden relief and forced him to be always near the invalid's bed. "The odour was so frightful," reports Mademoiselle, "that after seeing the wound dressed it was impossible to sup." Monsieur passed all his time in the chamber and tried to demonstrate his tenderness. Sometimes most ridiculous ideas occurred to him; but he was not the less touching, through his never-failing tears, on account of his sincerity.

At length, Anne of Austria herself sent her son away. Monsieur returned to his pleasures and forgot his grief in them; he would not have been Philippe Duc d'Anjou if he had acted differently. When the end drew near, timid and submissive as he was, he would not be sent away. The King withdrew, obeying the custom which forbids princes, as formerly gods, to witness death. Louis twice told his brother not to remain longer, and only received the response "that he could not obey him in this, but he promised that it was the only point, during his entire life, on which he would ever disobey."[176]

A cry of Monsieur piercing the walls announced to Louis that the end had come.

The young Queen Marie-Thérèse, who was losing all, justified the reputation of "fool" which the Court gave her. She permitted herself to be persuaded that her position would be made higher, through all the privileges left to her by the death of the Queen Mother, and she was more than half consoled by this chimera.

Mademoiselle scrupulously observed the proprieties; which is all that can be said. Anne of Austria had emphasised in a solemn hour the tenacity of the rancour against her niece. The evening before death, she took farewell of all. Two only appeared forgotten; "I was astonished, after all that had passed," relates Mademoiselle, "that she did not say a word to M. le Prince or to me, who were both there, especially slighting me who was brought up near her." It was precisely on account of "all that had passed." Anne of Austria gave a good example to the King: she expired without pardoning the leaders of the Fronde.

Great changes followed this death. Louis XIV. lost his mother January 20, 1660; on the 27th of the same month, a deputation came from Parliament "to pay their compliments to the King." D'Ormesson was of this body. "I went afterwards," says his Journal, "to mass with the King, at which there were present the Queen, M. le Dauphin, Monsieur and Mlle. de La Vallière, whom the Queen has taken near her, through complaisance for the King, in which she shows her wisdom." Louis XIV. officially presented his mistress to the people, and assigned her rank immediately below that of his legitimate wife. During his mother's life he would not have dared to do this.

Two months later he was delivered from the Cabale des Dévots, and from its intrusive observations, through the disappearance of the Compagnie du Saint Sacrement. It does not appear impossible that the death of the Queen may have slightly hastened this event. Anne of Austria had been acquainted with the society for a long period,[177] and had testified for it during many years of absolute devotion. She had guarded it from Mazarin. She did more: there is proof that she deceived her minister for the sake of the Compagnie. The situation changed with the death of the Cardinal. There is nothing to warrant the belief that Anne of Austria, whether restrained by fear or by some scruple, was willing, after the death of Mazarin, to deceive Louis XIV. for the sake of a secret society.

Actively pursued by Colbert, who divined an occult force behind the adversaries to his power, the Compagnie fell back upon its habitual protector, and had the bitter disappointment of beseeching in vain. The devotion of Anne of Austria was henceforth to be a silent one. As long as she remained on earth, all hope was not lost; she might be brought back to the bosom of the fold, and better success might be looked for another time. Her death caused the final disorganisation. The society had not, during a long period, dared to reunite. Deprived of the mother of the King, it practically yielded. It dissolves and vanishes into thin air. Its register stops April 8, 1666. Have the records of the various prosecutions been destroyed or scattered? Have all the documents been destroyed through prudence? Suppositions are free. It is with this mysterious brotherhood as with those water-courses which disappear under the ground. Their traces are lost. It even happens that they bear another name when they again spring to the surface. Such without doubt has been the fate of the "Compagnie du Saint Sacrement," for the sectarian spirit which has been its most significant mark has never lost its rights in the land; in our own days we still see it placing itself in France at the service of very different schools of thought and belief.

In this beginning of April (1666) in which the Cabale des Dévots had avowed itself vanquished, the Court was struck with the animation of the King.

"A journey was made to Mouchy," wrote Mademoiselle, "where three days were passed in reviews. The King ordered a quantity of troops to be assembled; he also invited many ladies. All these were in mourning. There was much diversion; the King was in gay spirits; he sang and made verses during the progress." Although these were not the only ones, Louis did not compose many songs during his life.

He enjoyed feeling free from those wearisome persons who had abused the patronage of his mother in creating themselves censors of their sovereign. No one except his confessor and his preachers concerned themselves further with his sins. When Bossuet and Bourdaloue were appointed Court preachers they restrained themselves but little; but Louis XIV. bore their reproaches with equanimity. It was their duty, and Christians of that date, even bad ones, recognised what they owed to the Church, and bent their heads before the pulpit. Bossuet cried out in the presence of the entire Court that "immoral manners are always bad manners," and that "there is a God in heaven who avenges the sins of the people, and who, above all, avenges the sins of Kings."[178] He launched apostrophies at Mlle. de La Vallière: "O creatures, shameful idols, withdraw from this Court. Shadows, phantoms, dissipate yourselves in the presence of the truth; false love, deceitful love, canst thou stand before it?"

Bourdaloue, who found Mme. de Montespan in the place of Mlle. de La Vallière, reproached the King for his "debauches," and openly demanded of him in his sermon if he had kept his promise of rupture: "Have you not again seen this person fatal to your firmness and constancy? Have you no more sought occasions so dangerous for you?"

Mme. de Sévigné went one day to hear him at Saint-Germain, where he preached a Lenten sermon before the King and Queen. She returned confounded and angry at his boldness: "We heard after dinner the sermon of Bourdaloue, who speaks with all his force, launching truths with lowered bridle, attacking adultery on every side; regardless of all, he rides straight on."[179] Louis XIV. accepted these public reproaches without protest; there was, however, but little result.

One effect of the death of the Queen Mother was that rivals to Mlle. de La Vallière were free to appear; also there was a great increase in the number of charlatans and alchemists, who found more easily an aristocratic clientèle. Diviners and sorcerers also played an important rôle in the love life of this society—the most polished in the world.

The practice of the magic arts was at that date considered one of the most flourishing Parisian industries. The inhabitants of the streets little frequented, or of the suburbs, were accustomed to the movement which took place in the early morning, or in the evening at dusk, around certain isolated houses.[180] People of all ranks, on foot, in carriages or in chairs, women masked or muffled, succeeded each other before a closed door, which only opened at a particular sign.

The state of mind which led this crowd to the clairvoyant was to be found in all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest. Public credulity was passing through a period of expansion, apparently very much at odds with the splendid intellect of France at that date, at which, however, those who believe the simple formulas of history will not be astonished. Two of our grand classic writers have left pages which bear witness to the extent of the evil, existing at the very moment in which France became the actual head of Europe.

Molière mocks at occult science and its adepts, through a long play, or rather a libretto for a ballet,[181] which he wrote for the King in 1670, named as we already know, Les Amants Magnifiques. The dramatis personæ are divided into two camps according to a rule of his own, in a fashion very unpleasant for the grandees of this world, Molière allowing them the precedence in folly. It was sufficient for his heroes to be illustrious through rank, to endow them with a blind faith in all conjurers. "The truth of astrology," says the Prince Iphicrate, "is an incontestable fact, and no one can dispute against the certitude of its predictions." This is also the opinion of the Prince Timoclès: "I am sufficiently incredulous in regard to many things, but as for astrology, there is nothing more certain and more constant than the success with which horoscopes may be drawn." The Princess Aristione also agrees, and is anxious in finding that her daughter is less convinced.

This is a commencement of a freedom of thought, and one cannot know to what it may lead: "My daughter," says the mother, "you have a little incredulity which never leaves you."

Disbelief in astrology and sorcery is represented in the play of Molière, figuring in the name of "Clitidas, court jester," and of another person of obscure birth, "Sostrate, general of the army," who takes the part of Clitidas against the calmer prophets and other exploiters of human folly.

There is nothing more agreeable [says he] than all the great promises of this sublime knowledge. To transform everything into gold; to find immortal life; to heal by words; to make oneself beloved by the person of one's desires; to know all the secrets of the future; to call down from the sky at will impressions upon metals which bear happiness to mortals[182]; to command demons; to render armies invisible and soldiers invulnerable—all this is doubtless charming, and there are people who have no trouble in believing in the possibility; it is the easiest thing in the world for some men to be convinced, but for me, I avow that my grosser mind has some difficulty in comprehending and in believing.

La Fontaine has treated the same subject in three of his fables. It is in one of these, Les Devineresses, published in 1678, consequently before the famous drama Les Poisons, in which he shows himself very well acquainted with what the police had not yet been sufficiently clever to discover. He knew marvellously well the existence of the poudre de succession and of the poudre pour l'amour:

The warning was not heeded, and it needed the "burning chamber" of 1680 to make honest people comprehend that "clairvoyant" was too often another name for "seller of poisons." La Fontaine had, however, given no new information about the confidence inspired. This fact was already too well known.

This dangerous agency, of which we have already had a glimpse on the occasion of the first search for Lesage and Mariette, merits some descriptive details. In Paris, during a period of twenty years, it was so mixed up with intrigues and crimes that it exercised a real influence over the morals of the Parisian world and through it over the affairs at Court.

Like a wave of madness it swept over the heads especially of the women. Many of these, even those not directly mingling in political life, were in a state of revolt, inconsolable for having lost the importance acquired during the civil troubles.

Women had been emancipated by the force of affairs. During the actual fighting and the general disorders which ensued, the habit of remaining in the shade of obedience was lost; also the considering themselves only as objects of luxury.

Louis XIV. had undertaken the task of bringing the sex back to the playing of a decorative or utilitarian rôle. It was almost as if to-day we should demand of our daughters, so free, so mingled with the general movement, to return suddenly to the self-effacement and the thousand restraints of our own youth. They would be transported with rage.

In 1666, the larger portion of the clients of the necromancer sought above everything else a secret by the aid of which they might shake off the yoke that had again fallen upon their shoulders. The husband was the natural incarnation of this yoke. It was therefore against him that the revolt was habitually directed. The wives addressed themselves to a clairvoyant. The first consultation was generally innocent enough.

The clairvoyant counselled new-comers to go to the good Saint Denis, always a succour for women unhappy in their domestic life, and to the indefatigable Saint Antoine de Padua. She reserved until later the giving of certain powders, only hinting at their existence, the secret of which had been brought from Italy and which were sought at Paris by both provincials and strangers.

It is now known through contemporaneous documents that arsenic was an element in these powders, and that so many persons accused themselves in confession of having "poisoned some one" that the priests of Nôtre-Dame at length gave warning to the authorities (1673). Did the penitents, especially the women, always speak the truth? Popular imagination is so quickly fired when poisoning is suggested, that it may well be queried whether a portion of the unfortunates were not rather hysterical and victims of hallucinations. It is probable that the true answer will never be known. Physicians at that time were the doctors of Molière, and the science of chemistry did not exist.

With the husband softened or suppressed, the women demanded love to replace emotion in their contracted and faded existence. The task of the necromancer thus consisted in interesting God or the devil in the heart pangs of her client and of arousing an affection in the breast of the man she designated. This was the beginning for the new clients; the end was the black mass with its obscene rites or the bloody mass, for which a small infant was strangled.

All the forms of conjuration were used between the two, every charm, every talisman and many "kinds of powders," not always inoffensive. The consultations were paid for according to the rank or fortune of the clients. In default of money, a jewel was given or even a signed note, the imprudence of which last proceeding it is hardly needful to point out.

In the year of the death of Anne of Austria, one of the clairvoyants most frequented was the wife of a hosier named Antoine Montvoisin, whose shop was situated upon the Pont Marie, which to-day still unites the right bank of the Seine with the isle Saint-Louis. The Pont Marie, as almost all the bridges of Paris at that date, had a double row of houses, with shops beneath, which formed a very animated street. The affairs of Montvoisin, however, had not prospered. He had tried several commercial undertakings without success. He had been dry-goods merchant and jeweller, and had always "lost his shops," according to the expression of his wife, Catherine Montvoisin, familiarly called "the neighbour."

It is under this latter name that she became celebrated in the annals of crime. La Voisin the fortune-teller is the same as La Voisin the poisoner. At the date of the hosiery shop, she had not yet attracted the attention of justice, in spite of her installation, but ill-assured, on the Pont Marie, which obliged her to have a double domicile, or to give rendezvous at the house of her confrère. She gained large sums of money. The price for consultation varied from a single piece to several thousand francs, or from an old rag to a necklace of precious stones, and again she drew something from the acolytes of both sexes who assisted in her wicked works. It was known from herself that her property was held in her own right, her husband having been always unfortunate in business. In spite of this precaution, the money slipped through her fingers. It is true that she had expenses, children to bring up and relatives to support. She said: "I have ten persons to feed," but she was economical for others. La Voisin gave a crown a week to her mother and brought up her daughter as a small shop-keeper. It was she herself who, in company with other miserables of her own kind, spent madly. The position of husband of a poisoner seems to have been a precarious one. Antoine Montvoisin was familiar with the nature of his wife's industry, but his conscience did not forbid his profiting by it for his own comfort. His conscience also permitted him to appropriate to himself money entrusted to him by his wife to execute the orders for the neuvaines. He was as much a free-thinker as any of the Vardes or Guiches, and convinced that the neuvaines were absolutely useless. As to going further, to putting his own "paw in the dish," he was successfully prudent. He was never anxious; but he was actually daily in danger of being poisoned, for La Voisin could not suffer this coward. She would have liked to replace him by a veritable associate, and between the pair, there were perpetual fights for pre-eminence in deceit.

The good man Antoine would certainly have died through poisoning in spite of all his care, if he had not conceived the ingenious idea of uniting himself with an executioner, to whom he confided the situation. It was agreed between the two that, if Montvoisin should die before his wife, the hangman should speak and demand an autopsy. La Voisin became afraid. She tried to poison her husband on a journey, but did not succeed, and finally considered it safer to keep him with her.

She had benefited, as had also the entire corporation, by the hopes awakened in the breasts of many of the pretty women among the aristocracy by the death of the Queen Mother.

Anne of Austria had taken so ill the first digression of her son from the paths of virtue that the aspirants for the succession to Mlle. de La Vallière had preserved a certain discretion. When the rebuffs of the old Queen were no longer to be feared, the passions were unchained and a flock of youthful, ambitious women addressed themselves to the "duties of fashion" in order to arrive at the good graces of the King.[183] The boldest demanded at the same time "something against Mlle. de La Vallière." Amongst these young women was found the Marquise de Montespan, who loved neither her husband nor the King, but who was harrassed by her creditors, was very conscious of her own value, and determined to be "recognised mistress," since this was now a position admitted and classified.

She was as "beautiful as the day," says Saint-Simon, without being "perfectly agreeable";—the correction is by Mme. de La Fayette. She had all the wit possible, was delicious in eccentricities and courtesies. In spite of so much brilliancy, the King rather avoided her and she was reduced to amusing Marie-Thérèse, who admitted her freely, having full confidence in her virtue. The Queen had been deceived by the pious austerities of the young Marquise, by her frequent communions, and by a mass of religious practices which were really actuated by a sincere sentiment, and which Mme. de Montespan preserved as far as she could, notwithstanding the scandals of her after life. Understood in this manner, a sense of duty towards religion did not prevent resorting to sorceresses. It rather led in this direction in giving to the perverse soul "the vague consciousness of something beyond."[184]

Mme. de Montespan became one of the best clients of La Voisin, regarding neither the expense nor the decency of the ceremonies, provided that the devil would make her the beloved of Louis XIV. Faring better than her rivals, she received the value of her money. She began her campaign in the course of the year 1666. The Mémoires of Mademoiselle, very full on this subject, and elsewhere confirmed, inform us that in the spring of 1667, Mme. de Montespan had supplanted La Vallière; it was the young Queen alone who was ignorant of this fact.

Less than two years after, La Voisin had the imprudence to make a disturbance because two of her aids had not acted honestly toward her. One of these was a priest, called Mariette, attached to the Church of Saint Severin. La Voisin made use of him in sacrilegious practices. The other, Lesage, was a sort of Jack of all trades, who recoiled before no abomination. La Voisin accused them of having assaulted one of her clients, Mme. de Montespan, a fact true enough, but useless to proclaim from the housetops.

"The quarrel having made some noise," reports La Reynie, "and the King, having learned that these people were practising impieties and sacrileges, had them watched." Mariette and Lesage were arrested. The examinations have been preserved for us. Here is an essential passage: Mariette avowed without hesitation to having spoken the Gospels "over the heads of various persons," a form of conjuration relatively innocent. The names were demanded. "Over the heads of the Lady de Bougy, Mme. de Montespan, la Duverger, M. de Ravetot, all of which persons Lesage had led to him."[185]

With this information secured, Louis XIV. ordered prosecution:

Saint-Germain, August 16, 1668.

I write this letter to tell you that it is my intention to have the said Mariette and Dubuisson[186] conducted from my château to the Châtelet of the City of Paris, for the continuation of their prosecution.

One may be sure that the King did not lose this inquest from view. Louis XIV. was most eager for police details and this affair touched him too nearly to be forgotten.

At the beginning of the investigation, it was discovered that Mariette was first cousin to the wife of the judge. On account of this connection, the Châtelet estimated that it was for the honour of the magistracy to stifle the affair. He brought every effort to accomplish this and evidently met with practical approbation from the powerful of this world, for history permits us to see numerous irregularities.

La Voisin, returning to her senses, heartily seconded the Justice in his efforts to obtain succour from those in high positions. Mariette and Lesage, after a period of trials and difficulties, were left in peace to occupy themselves with their ambiguous trade. Both of these men figured again in the monster process of 1680, in which they were among those who spread details concerning the abominable practices with which the Mme. de Montespan had been connected during long years. It does not matter here whether these details are additions to the truth or not, for it is only Louis XIV. who interests us, not Mme. de Montespan.

The letter cited above proves all that is necessary, that the King knew, from the year 1668, that his new mistress had connection with the criminal world, and that she had intimate interviews with ignoble persons, submitted to degrading contact, and had practised in their company sacrilegious rites. This monarch who passed for being so delicately keen in matters of punishment showed himself singularly little moved.

Surrounded by free-thinkers without prejudices, himself more or less of a free-thinker, he resembles so little, either morally or physically, the bewigged figure of the end of the reign, and of the Mémoires of Saint-Simon, that he appears as another individual. How easily both proprieties and punishments are put on one side when passion reigns, but how much more alive, how much more of a natural human being, compared to the wooden figure of the portraits of Versailles, is the King as now seen; Louis XIV. is decidedly an enigmatical quantity.

It would be inexact to state that passions had become more lively than they were during the wars of the Fronde, an epoch especially ardent; but they had certainly changed their character, as had the tastes, ideas, literature, and fashions in general. This is the usual course of events, and, as we have seen, the movement was precipitated under the influence of a monarch all-powerful, determined to efface the past.

An artistic event which should not be overlooked had favoured the designs of Louis XIV., in opening unknown perspectives to the curious after new sensations, already numerous in the seventeenth century. Dramatic music made its entry into the modern world. It brought with it, according to the phrase of one of its historians, M. Romain Rolland,[187] an "unlimited power for expressing passion, and with passionate emotion all that remains incommunicable through the medium of language alone." We may or may not love music, but it must be admitted that a creation of this nature will certainly exercise a strong influence over the refined portion of a nation.

French society could not escape. The new art was in train to modify the nervous system, if I dare thus speak, of the world in which flourished, under the royal protection, those rather perilous ideas upon the rights of nature and the fatality of passion. Day by day, new chords were struck upon impressionable hearts. Dramatic music was born in Italy; as might well be. In the year 1597, upon a carnival evening, a rich Florentine entertained a choice audience with a musical tragedy called Dafné, of which the score is lost. According to one of the guests, "the pleasure and astonishment which seized the soul of the auditors before so novel a spectacle could hardly be expressed."

M. Romain Rolland confirms this testimony: "It was like a thunderbolt. All felt themselves in the presence of a new art." In ten years Italian opera reached its full growth, thanks chiefly to a composer of genius, Monteverde, whose Ariane caused an audience of more than six thousand persons to burst into sobs on its first representation.

The art of singing had marched side by side with dramatic music and attained its height almost at once. A famous soprano, Vittori, threw the public into almost inconceivable transports. "Many persons were suddenly forced to loosen their garments in order to breathe, so suffocated were they with emotion."

Everywhere musical theatres were erected. The large cities built several; Venice alone had five, and this number was not sufficient. The opera was given in palaces and private salons; "Bologna possessed more than sixty private theatres, without mentioning the convents and colleges." The clergy were caught in the whirlwind; monks and nuns chanted operas, cardinals became stage managers of scenes, a future pope wrote librettos. It was an epidemic, a frenzy, and Italy did not go mad with impunity. In its beginning, the opera is responsible for grave disorders, both nervous and moral; it became too much of a passion. Mazarin already possessed this taste before his establishment in France. He wished to initiate his adopted country into the joys, almost to be dreaded, which had so suddenly enriched human life, and he brought from Italy one after the other four Italian troupes, the first in 1645, the last a short time before his death.

The result was easy to predict. A spectacle patronised by the Cardinal became a matter of politics. Applauded by the partisans of the minister, derided by his adversaries, the Italian opera met with so strong an opposition that it was necessary to renounce it for the time, but the lesson was not lost.

French composers heretofore devoted to ballets and masquerades had not received unheedingly the revelation of the dramatic style; their ambition was also aroused to express the tempests of the soul, and they began to grope along the new path.

The attempt was not at once successful; but their efforts familiarised the public with the idea of a musical language of passion. In 1664, the song was considered the natural interpreter of love. Molière fixes the date in his Princesse d'Elide, in which Moron does not succeed in gaining the ear of Philis because he speaks, instead of singing his declaration. Philis flees and Moron cries out: "Behold how it is: if I had been able to sing, I should have done better. Most women of to-day only let themselves be courted through the ears; this is the reason that the entire world has become musical, and one can succeed with the fair only by making them listen to little songs and verses. I must learn to sing like others."

It was indeed somewhat different in 1671, when French opera arrived on the scene.[188] It had hardly seen the light when it became, as a result of the association of Quinault with Lulli, a counsellor of voluptuousness.