What has become of Madame de Châteauroux? How is she bearing her humiliations and her disgrace? We left her at Metz at the moment when, driven away ignominiously by the Bishop of Soissons, treated as an accursed wretch by the people, overwhelmed by the anathemas of the public conscience, she with great difficulty procured a carriage from Marshal de Belle-Isle in which to return to Paris. Her flight had been painful. She only escaped rough treatment by taking by-roads and going through several villages in disguise and on foot. However, she had not yet submitted. From Bar-le-Duc she wrote to M. de Richelieu:[16] “I can well believe that so long as the King’s head is feeble he will be in a state of great devotion; but as soon as he is a little better, I bet I shall trot furiously through his head, and that in the end he will not be able to resist, and will quietly ask Lebel and Bachelier what has become of me.”

In the same letter the fallen favorite speaks of herself with admiring complacency. “So long as the King is living,” she says, “all the torments they want to inflict on me must be borne with patience. If he recovers, I shall affect him the more on that account, and he will feel the more obliged to make me a public reparation. If he dies, I am not the sort of person to humiliate myself, even if I could gain the kingdom of France by it. Up to now I have conducted myself with dignity; I shall always preserve that inclination; it is the only way to make myself respected, to win back the public and retain the consideration I deserve.” Can one be amazed at the illusions cherished by certain kings when a mere royal mistress has her eyes so thickly bandaged?

Debility succeeded to fever. Sometimes Madame de Châteauroux, intoxicated with pride and vengeance, fancied she was about to resume arrogantly the left-handed sceptre which had just slipped through her fingers; sometimes she cast a disdainful glance at the sorry spectacle of the human comedy, and talked of abandoning everything. She wrote from Sainte-Ménehould to the Duke de Richelieu (August 18, 1744): “All this is very terrible and gives me a furious disgust for the place I lived in despite myself, and, far from desiring to return there some day, as you believe, I am persuaded that even if they wished it I could never consent. All I desire, meanwhile, is that the affront offered me shall be repaired, and not to be dishonored. That, I assure you, is my sole ambition.... Ah! my God, what does all this amount to? I give you my word it is all over so far as I am concerned. I would have to be a great fool to go into it again; and you know how little I was flattered and dazzled by all the grandeurs, and that if I had had my own way, I would not have been there; but the thing is done; I must resign myself and think no more about it.”

These be sage reflections. But the favorite’s philosophy lasted no longer than the King’s repentance. La Rochefoucauld says in his maxims: “The intelligence of the majority of women serves rather to fortify their folly than their reason.” Hardly had she reached Paris when the Duchess felt all her ambitious spites and rages rekindle to new life. She wrote to the Duke de Richelieu: “You have good reason to say it would be fine to make the day of the Dupes come round again; for me, I don’t doubt, it is all the same a Thursday; but patience is needed,—in fact, a great deal of patience. All you have been told about the remarks made at Paris is very true; you could hardly believe how far they have gone; if you had been there at the time, you would have been torn to pieces.... I tell you we shall get through it, and I am persuaded it will be a very fine moment; I should like to be there now, as you can easily believe.”

Evidently, renunciation of earthly vanities was already far in the background. The Duchess wrote again to Richelieu, September 13: “I hope the King’s sickness has not taken away his memory. No one but me has known his heart thus far, and I assure you he has a very good one, very capable of sentiments. I don’t deny that there is something a little singular along with all that, but it does not get the upper hand. He will remain devout, but not a bigot; I love him ten times better; I will be his friend, and then I shall be beyond attack. All that these scamps have done during his illness will only make my destiny more fortunate and secure. I shall no longer have to fear either changes, sickness, or the devil, and we shall lead a delicious life.... Adieu, dear uncle, keep yourself well. For my part, I am really thinking of getting a health like a porter’s, so as to enrage our enemies as long as I can and have time to ruin them; that will happen, you may rely on it.”

Meanwhile all this was accompanied by moral and physical sufferings, convulsions, nervous attacks, inquietudes, and agonizing pains. With her ecstasies and self-abasements, her alternatives of pride and humility, folly and clear-sightedness, ardor and disgust, illusions and discouragement, Madame de Châteauroux is the type of the passionate woman. There is nothing sadder than this correspondence, which is the confession of a soul. One lacks courage to be angry with these avowals so naïve in their immorality. To make such scandals possible a whole century must be corrupted. What one should accuse is not a woman, but an epoch.

Madame de Châteauroux understood the character of Louis XV. very well. She knew beforehand that he would come back to her. He had, in fact, but one idea,—to be reconciled with his mistress. He found camp life insupportable. He consented to witness the taking of Fribourg, but as soon as the city surrendered he returned in haste to Paris. He made his formal entry November 13, 1744, at six in the evening, in one of the coronation carriages. Triumphal arches had been erected with the inscription: Ludovico redivivo et triumphatori. The houses were filled to the roofs with applauding spectators. The monarch alighted at the palace of the Tuileries, where the nobles of the realm were drawn up in double line awaiting him. The next day he went with all the royal family to Notre Dame to render thanks to God. Madame de Châteauroux was hidden amongst the crowd. In the evening she wrote to Richelieu: “I have seen him; he looked joyful and affected, so he is capable of a tender sentiment.... A single voice near me recalled my misfortunes by naming me in a very offensive manner.”

It was neither of his glory, his people, or of God that Louis XV. was thinking, as he came out of Notre Dame. Madame de Châteauroux still occupied his whole attention. She lived very near the Tuileries, in the rue de Bac. That night, when all was quiet in the palace, he crossed the Pont-Royal, and arrived unattended at the favorite’s house, like a criminal who comes to entreat pardon. Madame de Châteauroux received him with arrogance, and imposed severe conditions before absolving him. Louis XV. was ready to agree to everything except the dismissal of Maurepas, a useful and agreeable minister, who worked as well as amused himself, and who had the gift of making business easy. The King then returned to the Tuileries, and presently it was rumored that the Duchesses of Châteauroux and Lauraguais were about to reappear triumphantly at court. The people, who resemble the chorus in Greek tragedies, at once resumed their anathemas. “Since the King is going to take her back,” cried the market-women, “he will never find another ‘Pater’ on the streets of Paris.”

The prudent Duke de Luynes was more circumspect in his speech. He said, apropos of the news of this return to favor: “It has been almost publicly spoken of all over Paris, and Versailles, where little is said ordinarily, has not been absolutely exempt from some remarks concerning it. However, as such remarks serve only to displease, and are moreover useless, those who are wisest have kept silence.”

The thing was done, the arrangement concluded. There had been a compromise between the King and his mistress. Maurepas was not to leave the ministry, but it was he who was charged to bear the King’s excuses to Madame de Châteauroux, rue de Bac, and an invitation to return to Versailles. The minister acquitted himself of this commission November 25. The Duchess, who was sick abed, replied that as soon as she was able to get up she would comply with the King’s orders. That evening she wrote to her friend the Duchess de Boufflers: “I rely too much on your friendship not to acquaint you at once with what concerns me. The King has just sent me word by M. de Maurepas, that he was very much offended by all that occurred at Metz, and the indecency with which I had been treated; that he begged me to forget it, and that, to give him a proof of my having done so, he hoped my sister and myself would have the kindness to resume our apartments at Versailles; that he would give us on all occasions tokens of his protection, his esteem, and his friendship, and that he would restore us to our positions.”

So many emotions had prostrated Madame de Châteauroux. Joy revived her for awhile, but all was over with her; she was never again to see either the palace of Versailles, so greatly longed for, or the King whose love had been so fatal to her. She never left her bed again. A burning fever consumed her; she thought herself poisoned, and suffered horrible tortures in soul and body. Her worst enemies would have pitied her. Her agony lasted eleven days. She had a violent delirium accompanied by convulsive movements, and struggled against death with all the energy of her youth, all the vehemence of her character. In spite of his pretended passion, Louis XV. did not trouble himself to come and bid her adieu. He did not even send directly to inquire about her. Madame de Lauraguais, who had just had a child, was not beside her sister’s bed. The Duchess de Châteauroux died alone, December 8, 1744. The King deserted her; Jesus Christ did not forsake her. At her last hour, she repented like Magdalen, and for the first time in years, the dying sinner knew interior peace. “Père Ségand was with her,” says the Duke de Luynes. “As he was speaking to her of the confidence we ought to have in the Blessed Virgin, she replied that she had always worn a little medal of her, and that she had begged two graces through her intercession,—not to die without the sacraments, and to die on one of her feasts. She had already obtained the first and was presently to obtain the second, for she died on the feast of the Conception.”

At first Louis XV. felt crushed. The Queen herself, who practised on so great a scale the wholly Christian virtue of forgiveness of injuries, the Queen shared sincerely in her husband’s grief. She passed in solitude the evening which had been set apart for a friendly reunion at the house of the Duchess de Luynes. During the night she became frightened, and summoned one of her women: “My God!” cried she, “that poor duchess! If she should return!... I think I see her.”—“Eh! madame,” returned the chambermaid, “if she comes back, it will not be Your Majesty that receives her first visit.”

Barbier in his journal pities, not Madame de Châteauroux, as one might imagine, but Louis XV. He says: “Judicious people praise his sensibility, which is the proof of a good character, but they fear for his health. The common herd are rather pleased than otherwise at this death; they would like to have the King unsentimental and take another one to-morrow.” The Marquis d’Argenson writes to Richelieu: “Our poor master has a look which makes one tremble for his life.” D’Argenson might reassure himself. Louis XV. was far too feeble to suffer a long sorrow. His emotions were keen but transitory. There was but one thing in his character which had any tenacity, and that was ennui. He belonged to the numerous family of egoists. Some of them weep a good deal, but console themselves quickly. Nothing was to be changed in the habits of the master. A few days more and the name of the Duchess de Châteauroux would be no more spoken. There was but one person who truly regretted her, and that was Madame de Mailly, the sister to whom she had shown herself so coldly and pitilessly cruel.

An impression of melancholy and sorrow is what remains from all this. What, in brief, was the fate of the three sisters chosen by royal caprice? One of them, the Countess de Vintimille, died in childbed at the age of twenty-eight, and her death was the direct consequence, the immediate chastisement, of her fault. Another, the Duchess de Châteauroux, breathed her last at the age of twenty-seven, the victim of excessive anguish and humiliation. Her favor, like that of Madame de Vintimille, had lasted only two years. The third, the Countess de Mailly, better treated by Providence, since she had at least time for repentance, lived until she was forty. But her last years were merely one long immolation. She covered herself with ashes; she wore a hair shirt; and if, as she was on her way to church, any passer-by recognized and called her by some insulting name, she would say: “You know me—well, then, pray for me.”

How ephemeral are the pleasures of courts! How sad its sensual enjoyments! How dearly one pays for these swift moments of illegitimate joy and false pride! Ah! I understand why Louis XV. should be dissatisfied with others and with himself. I understand his exhaustion, his discouragement, his remorse, and I am not amazed that, in spite of the clink of glasses, the glitter of chandeliers, and the perfume of flowers, the boudoirs of Versailles sometimes resembled sepulchres.