While the decorations and the dances charmed the eyes, as the "machines" amused by their complications, the words and music, outdoing the Princesse d'Elide,[189] murmured unceasingly with the same caressing languor that no youthful beings have the right, for any motive whatever, to deny to themselves the duty of loving. "Yield, give yourselves up to transports," chants a chorus of Amadis. The thirteen "lyrical tragedies" given by Quinault and Lulli from 1673 to 1686 are all constructed upon this one theme. They gave expression to the one single idea; "Yield! surrender yourselves!" and resulted in producing a certain eloquence from their monotony. When these lyrics are played on the piano,[190] a better means of hearing them failing, one cannot but feel that in spite of their insipidity the continuous appeal to the senses might produce in the end, particularly in the atmosphere of a theatre, a strong effect.

Moralists recognised this. All will remember the violent attack of Boileau upon the opera. To-day we consider this attack as having been too narrowly virtuous, even a little ridiculous. It can be explained, however, in considering what a novelty it was to see people seized with nervous attacks and fits of weeping while listening to singing. Was it the "loose morals" of Quinault which caused these? Was it the new music? In either case, the worthy Boileau was excusable for his alarm.

France had not yet reached the point of excitability which existed in Italy. The French are not a sufficiently musical race for this; but in a less degree, the country submitted to the extraordinary power of the dramatic style. It is known through Mme. de Sévigné that if the French listeners did not invariably "burst into sobs" or "suffocate with emotion," more than one auditor, including herself, wept silently in hearing the fine passages.

Fashion also swayed affairs, and we know of what fashion is capable in France.

Saint Evremond has written a comedy entitled The Operas. In the list of dramatis personæ, one reads: "Mlle. Crisotine become mad through the hearing of operas. Tirsolet, a young man from Lyons, also became mad through operas." A third person relates that "nothing else is spoken of in Paris. Women and even young children knew the operas by heart, and there is hardly a house in which entire scenes are not sung." How nearly France and Italy are approached in this. The Louvre party caught the fashion, the courtiers, being eager to imitate the King, a great admirer of Lulli.

It had happened that Louis remarked during the rehearsals of Alceste "that if he were at Paris when the opera should be played, he would go every day." "This phrase," adds Mme. de Sévigné "is worth a hundred thousand francs to Baptiste."[191] This was no affectation on the part of the King; he really loved music, as can be recognised through unmistakable signs. Louis XIV. had throughout his life the taste and more than a taste for music; to which he added a longing to be himself a performer, a desire that can never be satisfied with the most skilled professional entertainments. As a youth, he played the guitar and took part in ensemble playing. As a man, he found that he had a good voice, and knew how to use it in amateur reunions.

It can even be said that he sang not only at suitable but also at unsuitable moments: the day after the death of his son, the Grand Dauphin, the ladies of the Palace heard with surprise the King singing opera prologues. During his later years, when it was difficult to amuse him, Mme. de Maintenon organized musicales in her salon and Louis always enjoyed these. One evening when she substituted vespers[192] for the scores of Lulli, the King made no criticism and even intoned the vespers. Provided it was music, all kinds were good; but the King showed a certain predilection for the kind which he had seen created, already so rich in new emotions and which bore rare promise for the future of the artistic world, and the monarch possessed all the qualities needed to enjoy it profoundly.

The reader cannot fail to perceive through the witness of his frequent bursts of tears that Louis was of a nervous disposition, somewhat concealed under the cold and calm exterior which he had imposed upon himself. In advancing age, this tendency to tears became almost a malady. Mme. de Maintenon, in a letter dated 1705, writing to a friend of the "vapours" of the King and of his sombre humour, makes the remark that he is "sometimes overcome with weeping which he cannot restrain."

He was a sensualist to whom themes of love were always attractive. "Yield! Surrender!" the King never ceased to repeat on his own behalf to the pretty women of his Court. For the rest, Quinault and Lulli made him choose the subjects for their operas; and Louis had therefore a responsibility for the voluptuousness which exhaled from their works.

Dramatic music has now established itself. The civilised world discovers with delight that this art has an unlimited capacity for expressing passion, and all the passions, even the highest, the purest, and this latter includes love. It has also been recognised that music can speak in its own words outside of the theatre, in a symphony, in a simple sonata, and that there exists no art so benevolent, so reposeful, and so reassuring to troubled souls. In spite of this, in spite of all, moralists have never been willing to throw down their weapons before music. Emanuel Kant was clearly hostile to it; he said, "It enervates man,"[193] and he turned away his disciples from its joys. Tolstoi has been unkind to it in the Kreutzer Sonata.

All forces can become dangerous; it depends on the "use made of them,"[194] and also upon the souls which receive the impulse; they must be of the calibre to support its force.

The action of music upon French society has never, so far as I know, been methodically studied in relation to its effects, both physical and moral. If a historian be found, he will issue from the psychological laboratories, scientifically equipped, in which the observer conceals the physician: on this condition only can he speak with authority.

The Grande Mademoiselle cared but little for music. Nevertheless she extols Lulli in her Mémoires: "He makes the most beatific airs in the world." The glory of Baptiste touched her because he was "her own," arriving from Italy some time before the Fronde. "He came to France with my late uncle the Chevalier de Guise. I had prayed him to bring me an Italian, with whom I could speak and learn the language."

Lulli was only a boy of thirteen at the time that he was brought to France. Between the Italian lessons, he filled the office of cook. Later, admitted among the violins of Mademoiselle, it is related that he was chased away for having satirised his mistress in song. This recalls other events:

I was exiled: he did not wish to live in the country: he demanded leave to go away: I accorded it, and since he has made his fortune, for he is a great merry-andrew.

Lulli always remained a buffoon in the mind of Mademoiselle, although she assisted at his triumphs and survived him.

Mademoiselle preserved the taste for literature formed at Saint-Fargeau. Her name is associated with several incidents, great and small, of the literary history of the times. In 1669, when Tartuffe was definitely authorised, she wished to have it performed in her salon. This fact is noteworthy as the Church still forbade its representation. On August 21, Mademoiselle gave a fête. When most of the guests had departed, "Tartuffe, the fashionable piece, was played before twenty women and numbers of men."[195] Did the end of the phrase contain a slight excuse—"which was the fashionable piece"? However this may be, Mademoiselle could boast to her confessor that she had been "economical" with Molière. The entertainment at the Luxembourg was paid for with three hundred francs given to the actors, the current price being for such a performance five hundred and fifty francs. Thus the virtuous homes evidenced their piety!

On another occasion, Mademoiselle had the honour, if the Abbé d'Olivet may be believed, of supplying Molière with an entire scene ready made: and what a scene! Among the habitués of the salon figured one of the victims of Boileau, the impudent Abbé Cotin, who not finding himself sufficiently étrillé (thrashed) had provoked new retaliations in gossiping about Molière.

One day he brought some verses of his own composition to the palace of the Luxembourg to read them to Mademoiselle. In the midst of her admiration another writer, supposed to be Ménage, entered. Mademoiselle committed the error of showing the verses of the Abbé and, without mentioning the name of the author, of defending the expressed opinions. The result was the scene between Vadius and Trissotin (at first named "Tricotin" lest one should be deceived). It was only needful for Molière to give the touch of genius as in the sonnet to the Princess Uranie and in the verses upon the Carosse Amarante. In these two cases, it is well known that the lines are copied word for word from a volume written by the Abbé Cotin.[196]

Many echoes of the grand literary battle of the century[197] still resounded in the Luxembourg. The success of the first tragedies of Racine irritated that portion of the public, always large, which has a horror of being disturbed in its habits of thought by importunate novelties. Such a disturbance is a punishment to many persons, whether the moving force comes from literature, science, or art. There are many examples of this fixed state of mind to be found in the past century: it will suffice to recall the struggles hardly yet quieted between Pasteur and Wagner.

Racine appeared on the scene as a revolutionary force. He and Molière, sustained by their friend Boileau, presented a dramatic art absolutely new, which was separated by a gulf from that of Corneille and for which nothing had prepared the way. Corneille's predecessors were Mairet, the du Ryers and many others: Racine stood alone. He was the first and the last to make tragedy realistic, with the subject simple, the characters scrupulously true to nature, and the language often audaciously familiar.

Louis XIV. applauded. Racine and the King well comprehended each other. Heinrich Heine has given the reason for this in one of those phrases which throw light upon an entire period: "Racine is the first modern poet, as Louis XIV. was the first modern King."

The young Court applauded cordially with the King. It also belonged to the new régime; but for the old Court, for the survivors of the Hôtel Rambouillet, the tragedy of Racine was as shocking, as displeasing, as were the first realistic romances to the faithful adherents of romanticism, and for the same reasons. In spite of the difficulty so many have, of sympathising with the ideas of the one called a little disdainfully "the gentle Racine," "the elegant Racine," this writer appeared neither gentle nor elegant to three-fourths of the salon, to the "old Court" of the Grande Mademoiselle. The Pyrrhus seemed to them "brutal," the Phèdre, a "madwoman" "the blackness" of Nero or Narcisse entirely beyond what should be permitted on the stage.

Not that the personages of Corneille or of his predecessors acted less wickedly, but their brutes and villains were nevertheless "heroes" and that made all the difference. The personages created by Racine were only "men," simple men, who used words "low and grovelling," bourgeois words, expressions such as "Quoi qu'il en soit, que fais je, que dis-je!"[198] and did not even realise the sense: more than three hundred improper terms have been counted in Andromaque. Racine would have fared better if his poetic methods had not been in some way a criticism upon the cleverness of Corneille. This was the real grievance, obliging the adorers of the old poet to condemn the insolent one.

Mme. de Sévigné, who could not always prevent herself, although "mad with Corneille," from admiring Racine, or from letting him perceive it, hastened to correct herself when this happened. She wrote to her daughter, "Bajazet is beautiful," and added six lines further on, as a person who has a reproach to make, "Believe me, nothing will approach (I do not say surpass) some divine passages of Corneille." Having thus regulated her conscience, she returned to Bajazet to avow that she had "wept more than twenty tears" (letter dated January 15, 1672), but her letter evidently left her with a slight feeling of discomfort. Two months later, she attenuated the praise of the new piece, to which she now accorded only "agreeable things," and declared Corneille to be another order of genius: "My daughter, let us take care not to compare Racine with him, let us well perceive the difference!"

Almost all of Mademoiselle's generation showed themselves as jealous as Mme. de Sévigné for the glory of Corneille. To the admiration inspired by his genius is added the tender gratitude that we guard for works in which live again the ideals of our youth. It is our own thoughts, our fine dreams of early days, that we love in these productions.

The tragedy of Racine signified that the day of Corneille had passed; its success indicated the inroad of new ideas and pointed definitely to the fact that those faithful to the ancient worship had really been relegated to the position of old fogies. This is never an agreeable position when one feels still alive and with no very active realisation that old age is approaching. People of letters are the first to suffer from these revolutions of taste which leave surviving only works of the first rank while the rest are cast away into oblivion.

As we know, the litterateurs who frequented the salon of Mademoiselle were all enemies of Racine, half on account of loyalty to Corneille, half on their own behalf, through an instinct of self-preservation. Besides Ménage and the Abbé Cotin, whom we have lately encountered speaking frankly to each other, besides the amiable Segrais whose literary powers were too light to lead him far, there was the Abbé Boyer, whose tragedies Segrais desired to be pardoned, because he was a "sufficiently good academician," and that worthy old man De Chapelain, illustrious until the day upon which his verses went to press. There was some reason for accusing Mademoiselle of having been the "centre of the opposition to the new poetry."[199] To say this is, however, to exaggerate her rôle. We shall see later that she was far too occupied in living through her own tragedy to be actively interested in those being enacted upon the boards. Loaded with injuries and calumnies by the Vadius and the Trissotins, menaced with thrashings by the aristocratic protectors of these great men of the salon, Racine ran the risk of being crushed, and was saved only by the signal favour of the King. Neither he nor Molière would have accomplished their work if Louis XIV. had not sustained them against all critics. This is a service for which we should not limit our gratitude. The reflection upon this great debt arouses a tenderness towards a Prince with whom we are otherwise not always sympathetic.

It is possible that there was some politics in his attitude. The success of writers so new fell in well with his design of making a tabula rasa of the detested past: but after all the main reason for which protection was accorded was affection.

When Louis XIV. laughed "even till his sides ached"[200] over the École des Femmes, at which amusement the dévots and prudes were indignant, when he saved the Plaideurs, almost hissed in the Hôtel de Bourgogne, by "bursts of laughter, so great that the Court was astonished,"[201] there was no calculation: he was honestly amused, like any one else. It was also a true and frank admiration which caused him to dry his tears at Iphigenie, and to order the repetition of Mithridate. He loved the "new" for two reasons: because he had good taste, and because the heroes of the later writers were of the kind needful for his generation. It has been seen how marvellously Molière and the King understood each other, and the mention of Racine recalls to us the profound phrase of Heine. Racine revealed himself in the Andromaque as the "first modern poet." Hermione and Oreste have only a distant relationship with the heroes of Corneille. They are already "those possessed by love, the great passionates with whom love becomes a malady, who love to the brink of crime, and even till death."

With these characters, it can be said that modern love, profound, tender, melancholy, impregnated with soul, and at the same time troubled by the obscure influences of the nervous life, makes its entrance into French literature. Oreste shows a sadness, a despair, a madness, which a century and a half later burst forth in love romances. Louis XIV. had not waited for Racine for his education in passion. When Marie Mancini fascinated him, he was one of the first examples of the modern type of those "possessed by love," and he had never forgotten this crisis; in fact he never forgot anything. This episode in the life of the young King had been a good apprenticeship for the comprehending of the love of Oreste or of Phédre as the true love malady, as a fatality against which our single will is only a feeble weapon.

Around the King, Mme. Henriette, Mme. de Montespan, all the young Court and some shrewd spirits of the old, with Condé at the head, rendered justice to the truth of the "anatomies of the heart," in the tragedy of Racine. Mademoiselle was incapable of this; she believed too firmly in the superhuman strength of the heroes of Corneille, with whom the will laughs at resistance, whether the opposition arises in the soul or in the exterior world, to admit the fatality of passion. Nevertheless, it was the Grande Mademoiselle herself who was going to demonstrate clearly to all France that it was impossible to escape fate, when this fate points to love. Here we meet the great misfortune of her life!

An atmosphere of passion, and an intimacy with people whose sole occupation was to render themselves attractive, was somewhat dangerous for an old maid, sensitive without realising it. Mademoiselle had the singular desire, which later cost her dearly, to make an ally of Mme. de Montespan and thus to form a part of the chosen society of the Court.

She sought the company of the mistress and received service from her. Mme. de Montespan was her interpreter with the King. In return Mademoiselle endeavoured to calm M. de Montespan who, for serious or for trivial reasons[202] "flew into passions," like a "madman" or "wild person," against Madame his wife. "He is my relative and I scolded him," says the Mémoires of Mademoiselle. As a connoisseur, Mademoiselle hugely enjoyed the original wit of Mme. de Montespan. The pleasure found in returning the ball in conversation was the foundation of the intimacy.

With the growing idleness of the Court, pleasure in pure cleverness increased. The play of the mind was the sole resource against ennui. Wit, no matter at whose expense, became the enjoyment. The wise and prudent Mme. de Maintenon succumbed like Mademoiselle, when her turn came, to the irresistible charm of a conversation which "renders agreeable the most serious matters, and ennobles the most trivial."[203]

During the sharpest quarrel between Mademoiselle and Mme. de Montespan, the enjoyment of the opponent's wit was so keen that they parted with pain. "Mme. de Montespan and I," wrote Mme. de Maintenon in 1681,[204] "have to-day taken a walk, holding each other's arms and laughing heartily; we are not more in accord for this." There can never be too much cleverness, but there is an inconvenience in there being nothing behind the wit, and this is one of the rocks towards which Louis XIV. was pushing the French nobility. He made it impossible for those pacing his antechambers to indulge in any intellectual effort other than that of seeking pretty phrases to amuse the listeners.

A gentleman of quality commences his day at eight in the morning standing in waiting before the door of the king. Salutes are given and returned. The elegants comb their locks, glancing out of the corner of their eyes at those entering. Molière permits us to be present at the "final assault" through verses but little known:

M. le Marquis enters. The chamber is already crowded. He "gains ground step by step," succeeds in seeing the King put on his shoes, for Louis performs this act with his own royal hands, and thus passes the first hour. The exciting event is repeated in the evening when the King takes off his shoes. The Marquis had already, at one o'clock, witnessed the consumption of the royal soup, and two or three times in the course of the day had delighted his eyes with the sight of the King passing to and fro on his way to mass or to take the fresh air.

During the intervals, the courtiers were charged with certain puerile occupations. The round of homages were made to the various members of the royal family and the prominent personages of the day, and there was gambling and other pleasures. The only relief for this complete idleness was to be found in an active campaign if there happened to be a war on hand. Let the courtier be admired for being able under such adverse circumstances to keep his wit awake and alert for attack and response, and also for the capacity of finding the military virtues when again called upon to exercise them.

Fortunately, the latter virtues were deeply ingrained in the breasts of the French gentlemen of this period, and it is not to their discredit if the other faculties, mental and physical, the exercise of which was plainly discouraged by the King, should have so fallen into disuse that their children suffered. The final descendants of four or five generations of those living this absurd life were the émigrés of the great Revolution, all heroes, almost all clever, or at least appearing so, and in general people of wit, but without character. This fact can hardly be too much emphasised: never has a monarch laboured with greater skill and method than Louis XIV. in the successful attempt to annihilate the nobility and to ruin its reputation. This is one of the most serious souvenirs of the wars of the Fronde.

It was with the women as with the men—the same subjection, the same emptiness of life, from which arose the weakness of Mademoiselle for Mme. de Montespan. The situation of recognised mistress "affects nothing"; Mademoiselle had never considered that the virtue of others concerned her. The novelty of the situation, the unexpected prerogatives accruing to the new position, and the habits resulting, gave rise to some of the most curious incidents of the reign, and also strengthened an intimacy which survived many shocks.

As soon as Louis XIV. formally established his mistresses at Court, it had been needful to frame new rules of etiquette. At first these rules were understood rather than formulated, but contemporary writers give evidence of their existence. It was the new regulations which gave scandal, rather than the fact of a weakness too common to all men of all times. The people had found the phrase suitable enough when it ran to gaze on "the three queens" in one carriage; Mlle. de La Vallière and Mme. de Montespan were publicly at the same time occupying the rank of secondary wives to the King. When the royal family made its solemn visits to any of its members who were mortally ill, these two ladies arrived after the King and Queen. Mademoiselle met them at the death-bed of Mme. Henriette; "Mme. de Montespan and La Vallière came." She met them again over the cradle of a daughter of Louis XIV. and of Marie-Thérèse, who died as an infant. "I found her in the last extremity.... We staid almost the entire night watching her die; Mme. de Montespan and Mme. de La Vallière were also there." The latter escaped from such honours as often as she could. Mme. de Montespan liked them better, and added to them. She had placed herself upon the footing of the Queen in regard to ordinary visits, which she never returned. "Never," says Saint-Simon, "not even to Monsieur or Madame or to the Grande Mademoiselle, or to the Hôtel de Condé."

The same hauteur was displayed in the manner of receiving the princes and princesses of the blood, and this "exterior of Queen" followed her into the retreat! All were accustomed to it.

"The habit of respect was preserved without murmur," says again Saint-Simon, who recalled Mme. de Montespan, disgraced and passing her time in penitence, nevertheless continuing to hold court in her convent,[207] with as royal an etiquette as at Saint-Germain or Versailles:

The back of her armchair was formed by the foot-piece of the bed, and there was no other chair in the room. Monsieur and the Grande Mademoiselle had always loved her, and often went to see her; for these, chairs were brought, and also for Madame la Princesse; but Mme. de Montespan did not dream of deranging herself for her own people nor for those they brought with them.... One can judge by this how she received "all the world."

The "all the world," which included some of the most distinguished, contented themselves with small "chairs with backs," or simple camp stools. No one was offended, and "all France came"; I do not know by what fantasy it was considered a duty to make visits from time to time. She spoke to each like a queen holding her court, who honours in "addressing." Marie-Thérèse herself, in the time in which Mme. de Montespan was the actual sovereign, had submitted to the long empire of custom. In 1675, the fourth year of the war in Holland, Louis XIV. being with the army while Mme. de Montespan was at her château at Clagny, one of their sons was "slightly ill."[208] The Queen considered it her duty to visit the child and to comfort the mother. She went to seek Mme. de Montespan, and led her one day to the Trianon, another to dine in some favourite convent, an example which brought the crowd to Clagny and made an end of hesitancy. "The wife of her firm (solide) friend," wrote Mme. de Sévigné, "visited her, and afterward the entire family in turn. She takes precedence of all the Duchesses." (July 3, 1675.)

There had been a time in which this fashion of ignoring rank would have excited the indignation of Mademoiselle; but this time was far distant, farther than she herself realised. In 1667 she had cried very loud because her second sister, Mademoiselle d'Alençon, had made a mésalliance in marrying a simple seigneur, the Duc de Guise, and she had looked very gloomily at the pair. The time had passed for such pride, as the poor woman was herself ready for a worse mésalliance. Her patience was at an end. Her agitation while Louis XIV. was attempting marriage negotiations with the Duc de Savoie must not be forgotten. No prince had thought of her since this affront. She was considered too old. She would not confess this to be the case, but she felt it, and a tempest gathered in the depths of her heart. The storm burst in 1669. It is impossible to say in what measure nature alone was responsible, and what was due to the atmosphere of moral disorder and voluptuousness which Mademoiselle was now inhaling at the Court in the frequent companionship of the favourite. One thing is certain, the Grande Mademoiselle did not try to struggle against the passion which seized her; her attitude was rather that of a person who sought its sway.

CHAPTER V

The Countess then arrived at a couplet on Puyguilhem, better known under the name of Lauzun.[210]

At this place the King interrupted: "If it is wished to vex him, they are wrong, but when people act as he has done, they must be let alone; as for others, they are badly treated." The sudden displeasure of the King at the mention of Puyguilhem caused a general silence, and the song stopped at this point.

The Grande Mademoiselle was present at this scene, and was surprised to discover that she was not indifferent to its import. Up to this time, she had scarcely known Lauzun, who did not belong to her coterie. "It pleased me," says her Mémoires, "to hear the manner in which the King spoke of him; I felt some instinct of the future." This was the first warning of the passion which had already insinuated itself into the depths of her heart; but she did not yet comprehend it. The idea came to her, however, of seizing an occasion to converse with Lauzun. She felt an inclination for this at once. "He has," said she, "a manner of explaining himself which is very extraordinary." Mademoiselle was interested, but she still believed that it was only the conversational capacity which pleased her in the little cadet of Gascony. She began to query, however, why, having been sufficiently content during her five years of exile, she was now so willing to remain a fixture. The year had ended before she found a satisfactory response to this question: "I went in the month of December (the 6th) to Saint-Germain, from which I did not depart. I soon accustomed myself to it. Ordinarily, I only stayed three or four days, and my present long sojourn surprised every one."

On the 31st, she decided at length to return to Paris: "I was very bored there, and could not discover what I had done at Saint-Germain which had so much diverted me." She hastened to rejoin the Court, without knowing why, and commenced again her conversations with Lauzun, but still remained unconscious of any sentiment. She only knew that she was troubled and agitated, and discontented with her condition, and that she felt a desire to marry. The desire dated back a long time, but of late it had become so insistent that Mademoiselle was forced to examine herself seriously.

The passage in which she relates her discovery is charmingly natural and significantly true:

I reasoned with myself (for I did not speak to any one) and I said, 'this is no longer a vague thought; it must have some object.' I did not discover who it was. I sought, I dreamed, but could not find out. Finally, after some days of anxiety, I perceived that it was M. de Lauzun whom I loved, who had glided into my heart. I thought him the most worthy man in the world, the most agreeable; nothing was lacking to make me happy but a husband like him, whom I should love and who would love me devotedly; that heretofore I had never been loved; that it was necessary once in life to taste the sweetness of being adored by some one, which would make worth while the sufferings caused by the pangs of love.

This explanation of her own heart was followed by days of intoxication. Mademoiselle lived in a dream, and all was easy, all was arranged: "It appeared to me that I found more pleasure in seeing him and in talking to him than heretofore; that the days in which he was absent, I was bored, and I believe that the same feeling came to him; that he did not care to confess this, but the pains he took to come wherever he was likely to meet me made the fact clear." In the absence of Lauzun, she sought solitude in order to think of him freely. "I was delighted to be alone in my chamber; I formed plans of what I could do for him which would give him a higher position."

One single thought, characteristic of her generation, came to trouble her happiness; she queried of herself if the great princesses of the theatre of Corneille would have married a cadet of Gascogne. Assuredly, passion blows where it listeth. Corneille had never denied this; but he had maintained that the will should render us masters of our affections, and his plays bear witness that love, even when founded in a just feeling of admiration, can efface itself before the sentiment of the duty owed to rank. Happily, poets, even when they are named Corneille, sometimes contradict themselves, and Mademoiselle, who had seen plays since the days of swaddling clothes, well knew her répertoire. She now recalled for her comfort a passage in the Suite du Menteur which clearly established the "predestination of marriage, and the foresight of God," so that it was a Christian duty to submit without resistance to sentiments sent to us "from the sky."

Although sure of her own memory, which was indeed excellent, Mademoiselle sent in great haste to Paris to secure a copy of the play, and found the page (Act IV.) in which Mélisse confides to Lise his love for Dorante:

How was it possible to doubt for a single instant after having read these verses that there is impiety in disobeying the "commands" to love which come to us from on high? Nevertheless, serious conflicts took place in the soul of the royal pupil of Corneille. Sometimes she represented to herself with vivacity the joys of marriage, among the keenest of which would be the witnessing the vexation of her heirs, who were already beginning to find that she was making them wait too long, and whom she longed to disappoint. Sometimes her mind could only dwell upon the scandal which such a mésalliance would cause, the reprobation of some, and the laughter of others, and then her pride rose in arms. She thus on one day desired the marriage eagerly, while on the next she detested the thought of it, the vacillation depending upon the fact of her having between times seen or not seen M. de Lauzun.

This struggle between the head and the heart was prolonged during several weeks;

finally, after having often passed and repassed the pro and con through my brain, my heart decided the affair, and it was in the Church of Recollects in which I took my final resolution. Never had I felt so much devotion in church, and those who regarded me perceived that I was much absorbed; I believe that God surprised me with His commands. The next day, which was the second of March, I was very gay.

If Mademoiselle had been of the age of Juliet, this would have been a pretty romance. But she was perhaps slightly too mature to play with the grand passion.

The man who was the cause of these agitations is one of the best-known figures of his times. Traces of him are found in all the contemporary writings. The singularity of his personality joined to the prodigies of his luck, good and bad, had made him an object of interest to his contemporaries. It was of him that La Bruyère said: "No one can guess how he lives."[211] The political world, the ministers at the head, observed him with an anxious attention, because he had accomplished the miracle of becoming the favourite of the King, while possessing precisely the defects which Louis XIV. feared the most. Lauzun did not attain the position of such a favourite as the Constable de Luynes under Louis XIII., but he secured sufficient influence to accumulate offices and honours.

Antonin Nompar de Caumont, Marquis de Puyguilhem, later Comte de Lauzun, was born in 1633 (or 1632) of an ancient family of Périgord. His parents had nine children and nothing to give to the younger ones; but their birth assured to this youthful throng access to the Court and hope of aid from it. The third of the boys resembled Poucet in form and also possessed his keenness of mind. It was decided to send him to seek his fortune, not in the forest, as with the hero of the tale, but in the vicinity of the Court of France, the parents being convinced that with his acuteness he would not permit himself to be eaten by the ogre, but would rather succeed in devouring others.

The Maréchal de Gramont, first cousin of the old Lauzun, saw arrive at his mansion a very little man, with the face of "a flayed cat,"[212] surrounded with flaxen hair, who claimed to be fourteen years of age. This grotesque person was as lively as a sparrow and Gascon to the tips of his fingers.

The Marshal kept him and provided for his education. In winter the little man went to the "academy" to learn to dance, to shoot, and to ride. In the summer he campaigned with a cavalry regiment belonging to his uncle. There was apparently no plan for serious study of any kind, nor even any attention paid to making the youth read. Complete ignorance was still accepted among the nobility without remark; there had been little change for the better in this respect since the previous century. The parents of Lauzun had well judged. In a short time the boy had wormed himself into the most imposing mansions, the most sacred chambers. He was seen with the King, he was met in the company of beautiful ladies. The Court and the city became familiar with his furtive and impudent physiognomy, which soon grew haughty and insolent. At eighteen, his father gave him his first military charge. At twenty-four, he possessed a regiment; then suddenly, when the King came to power, he received advancements, favours, an always increasing and inexplicable credit, which aroused for him the hatred of Louvois, for in the frequent discussions in relation to the service, "the favourite always conquered." One of his tricks, which was unparalleled for impudence, and the discovery of which might well have crushed him for ever, ended in proving his strength.