[96] Her letters from Spain to Madame de Coulanges, are, for attractiveness of style, much superior to those of Madame des Ursins. Letters de Madame de Villars, etc., Paris, 1806 and 1823, and what Madame de Sévigné says of her, letters of October 8, 1679, and February 28, 1680.
[97] The painted portrait that has been shown me, represents her in fact as having the most happy face, with charming blue eyes and beautiful forehead, and a look at once lively and agreeable.
[98] Letter of January 5, 1680.
[99] Letter of November 22, 1688.
[100] Edition of Lebel, vol. xxxix., p. 690.
[101] Varying from our manuscripts: weighed.
[102] An autograph billet, for which we are indebted to the Carmelite ladies.
[103] This fixes the date of the note: it is therefore a little while after the death of Mother Madeleine de Saint-Joseph; that is, in 1637.
[104] Several lines effaced and wholly illegible, and half of a page cut.
[105] Mademoiselle Nicolas, born at Bordeaux, agreeable in person and mind, say our manuscripts, and pleasing to everybody. Having read, when quite a child, the Life of Catherine de Sienne, she devoted herself to imitating her, and joined the Carmelites at nineteen, and died at thirty-three. There is a small portrait of her, very well made, representing her in ecstasy.
[106] Paris, 1774, in-12ᵒ.
[107] Vol. 1st, p. 369.
[108] Ibid., p. 74.
[109] Vol. 1st, p. 79.
[110] Ibid., p. 124.
[111] Vol. 1st, p. 146.
[112] The King of Poland, Wladislas, had just espoused Marie de Gonzague, daughter of the Duke de Nevers, sister of the Palatine. After the death of this first husband, she passed with the crown to his brother Casimir, whom Mademoiselle d’Epernon had refused.
[113] Her mother-in-law, Marie de Cambout, niece of Richelieu, whom the cardinal had married to the Duke d’Epernon, as he had married another of his nieces, Mademoiselle de Brézé, to the Duke d’Enghien. Madame d’Epernon was ill-treated by her husband, and died in retreat, in 1691. She was sister of the Abbé du Cambout de Pontchâteau, a celebrated Jansenist. See two portraits of her among the portraits of Mademoiselle.
[114] It is worth while to see, in the Abbé Montis, the great resistance which Mademoiselle d’Epernon had to overcome from her brother, the Duke de Candale, and especially from her father, who appealed to the parliament and to the pope; the death of the Duke de Candale, his remains carried to the Carmelites; the conversion of the duke through the instrumentality of his daughter, the finest portions of her life and her pious death. She was one of the benefactresses. Histoire manuscrite, vol. 1st, p. 558. “The gifts bestowed by Anne-Marie de Jésus amounted to more than a hundred and fifty thousand livres. Besides this immense sum, the Duke d’Epernon, her father, dying in 1661, without heirs, bequeathed to it a hundred thousand livres over and above the sixteen thousand which he left as a pious legacy. This lord had already assigned to the house, during the life of our very honored Sister Anne-Marie, three thousand livres pension, finding that the sixteen thousand livres, which were regarded as her dowry, was too slender a sum, and sufficient only to endow a lady who had followed her.” The lady here alluded to, and of whom Mademoiselle also speaks, was named Bouchereau. “Being,” says the Abbé Montis (p. 34), “of an agreeable form, she occupied herself with things quite as fragile; but she finally turned her attention to religion, and, desiring to become a nun, and guessing the views of Mademoiselle d’Epernon, she opened her heart to her, and begged to be allowed to follow her, which was readily granted.” Mademoiselle Bouchereau died during her novitiate, before making a profession.
It is through error that, on the faith of the Abbé Mentis, in the abridged Life of the Mother, joined to that of Mademoiselle d’Epernon, p. 291, the learned editor of the works of Bossuet supposes, vol. xxxiv., p. 690, “the beautiful letter on the Mother Agnès is addressed to Madame d’Epernon, prioress of the Carmelites of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques,” for Mademoiselle d’Epernon—it was thus that she was called—and not Madame d’Epernon, was never prioress. Bossuet wrote to the prioress who succeeded the Mother Agnès, either the Mother Claire du Saint-Sacrement, who died as he entered upon his office; or rather to the one who almost immediately took her place, that is, the Mother Marie du Saint-Sacrement; in the world, Madame de La Thuillerie, who took her vows in 1654, was prioress from 1691 to 1700, and died in 1705. Our manuscripts contain several ancient copies of the letter of Bossuet, all bearing the inscription: To the Mother of the Saint-Sacrement.
In 1680, Madame de Sévigné, accompanying Mademoiselle to the Carmelites, there saw Mademoiselle d’Epernon, and found her very much altered. Letter of the 5th of January, 1680: “I was yesterday at the convent of the Carmelites with Mademoiselle, who was good enough to ask Madame Lesdiguières to take me there. We entered this holy place. I was delighted with Mother Agnès. She spoke to me of you, whom she seemed to know through her sister (Madame the Marchioness de Villars). I saw Madame de Stuart, beautiful and contented (she made a profession this very year, say our manuscripts, under the name of Sister Marguerite de Saint-Augustin, and died in 1722). I saw Madame d’Epernon.... More than thirty years had elapsed since we had seen one another: she seemed to be horribly changed.”
And nevertheless, without being a great beauty, she was the worthy sister of the beautiful Candale. The convent of the Carmelites possesses several pictures of her. One is quite large, representing her between forty and fifty, pale and sick, but still agreeable. The best and most perfectly preserved, represents her young and charming. Her figure is delicate and graceful, but of that fragile grace which years do not respect. She is painted with a smile upon her lips, and such as she was in the world. It is probably the portrait of Beaubrun, engraved by Edelinck.
[115] Vol. 1st.
[116] L’Histoire manuscrite, vol. 1st, contains the epitaphs of Michel de Marillac, of Marguerite and Catherine d’Orleans, of Madame the Princess, of the Princess de Conti, etc. When the keeper of the seals, Marillac, was arrested, the Mother Madeleine de Saint-Joseph tried, in every way, to serve and console him in his misfortune. Regardless of the opinion of Richelieu, who was then more powerful than ever, and who was the protector of the order, she caused an exposition of the eucharist during sixty days and sixty nights; procured the offering of a large number of prayers; she wrote often to the pious exile; implored the cardinal to have him treated with less rigor; and after his death earnestly sought and obtained his body from Châteaudun; erected to him a tomb at the base of the sanctuary in the chapel of Saint Thérèse, and composed herself this epitaph: “Here lies Messire Michel de Marillac, keeper of the seals of France, who, having been raised to this and other dignities, has always preserved an esteem for true honors and eternal riches, doing many good works, loving justice, seeking the glory of God, sustaining his Church, succoring the oppressed, giving all that he had to the poor; and when he was, by Providence, deprived of all, he showed his great magnanimity and contempt of earthly things; living contentedly, and journeying on to a holy death, by which he passed from this world to another, in the year of grace 1682.”
[117] Histoire manuscrite, vol. 1st, pp. 491, 492.
[118] Villefore, p. 13.
[119] Villefore, p. 14.
[120] Manuscript of André d’Ormesson, fol. 332, verso.—It was on the occasion of the ballet of the 18th of February, 1635, that the Gazette de France cited, for the first time, the name of Mademoiselle de Bourbon. The extra of the 21st of February, gives a full account of the fête of the 18th. It describes all the scenes of the ballet of the king, names all the great lords who danced in it, and concludes thus: “Such was the grand ballet of the queen, which so delighted all who were present that they were unable to decide which was most charming, the beauties who adorned, the gems with which they glittered, or the figures which represented those sixteen divinities of which it was composed: the queen, Mademoiselle de Bourbon, Mesdames de Longueville (the first wife of the Duke de Longueville), de Montbazon, de Chaulnes, de La Valette, de Retz, Mademoiselle de Rohan, Mesdames de Lyancourt and de Mortemart, Mesdemoiselles de Senecé, de Hautefort, d’Esche, de Vieux-Pont, de Saint-Georges and de La Fayette, who did not quit it until three o’clock in the morning. Every one left this place of marvels with the feelings of Jacob, who, having seen angels in the night, thought that he was standing upon the spot where heaven and earth united.”
[121] Mémoire pour servir à l’histoire de la Société polie en France; Paris, in-8ᵒ, 1835. See also M. Walckenær: Mémoires touchant la Vie et les Ecrits de Madame de Sévigné, vol. 1st, chap. iv. and v.
[122] The very word urbanity is from Balzac, one of the first and most illustrious frequenters of the house.
[123] The Château de Rambouillet, above Versailles, ten leagues from Paris. Francis I. died here.
[124] One to Madame the Duchess d’Aiguillon, relating to a certain water-course: Tallemant, vol. ii., p. 228. The other, her epitaph, preserved by Ménage in his Observations on the Poetry of Malherbe.
[125] Vol. ii., p. 233.
[126] I do not know where M. Rœderer got the idea that Madame de Rambouillet wrote so simply. Here is one of her billets, which could not have led the person to whom it is addressed to speak of simplicity, as M. Rœderer does of the letters of Madame de Rambouillet, and of her daughter to Voiture; we speak from conjecture, for these letters have not been seen by us. The one we give here was found among the manuscripts of Conrart, in the Library of the Arsenal, vol. xiv., in-4ᵒ, p. 53; it is addressed to Godeau, by turns Bishop of Grasse and of Vence:
“Sir:—If my carabineer-poet or poetic carabineer (Arnault, Colonel of Carabineers, a distinguished warrior, a man of great wit, but a satirist, and a person enough like Bussy) was in Paris, I would reply to you in verse, and not in prose; but for myself I have no familiarity with the muses. I return a million thanks for your kind wishes; and in recompense, I wish every moment that you were in a lodge, where I am sure you would sleep better than you do at Vence. It is supported by columns of transparent marble, and was built above the mid-region of the air by Queen Zirfée. The sky there is always serene; clouds darken neither the sight nor the understanding, and thence quite at my ease I have considered the downfall of the terrestrial Angel. It seems to me that on this occasion fortune has shown that it is a slander to say that she favors only the young. And because I am no more the subject of change than my lodge, you may rest assured that I shall continue so as long as I live.
“Sir,
“Your very humble servant,
ↃC (Catherine) de Vivonne.”
June 26, 1642.
[127] The works of Segrais, Amsterdam, 1723, vol. 1st. Mémoires Anecdotes, p. 29.
[128] On Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, Pisani, and his sisters, see Tallemant, vol. ii., pp. 207-262.
[129] Edition of 1659, pp. 118-121.
[130] See Saural, Antiquités de Paris, vol. iii., p. 200, and the plan of Paris by Gomboust. These hôtels, or rather their ruins, have just entirely disappeared, with the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, to the advantage of the Place du Carrousel. May this admirable place preserve its grandeur, so dearly bought, and no transversal building spoil the beautiful harmony of the Louvre and the Tuileries! May also some competent and industrious man, devoted to the study of Paris and its monuments, resolve not to let the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre perish without giving its description and a history faithful to the epoch of its greatest glory.
[131] Mémoires, vol. 1st, p. 18.
[132] Ed. of Amsterdam. Petitot, vol. xxxvi. of the collection, p. 841, proposes to read husesas, from huso, spindle. The true reading seems finezas.
[133] It is very certain that the author of Mirame show some littleness in the ridiculous quarrel raised against The Cid; but it must be acknowledged that he had some State reasons not to be despised. He who had brought about the royal edict against duels could not endure verses in their honor; there was also in The Cid more than one word unfavorable to the prime ministers. Besides, the cardinal loved Corneille; he gave him a good pension, and even performed the marriage ceremony for him. One day Corneille having presented himself more sad and thoughtful than ordinary before the Cardinal Richelieu, the latter asked him if he was working. Corneille replied that he was far from having the tranquillity necessary for composition, that his head was turned with love. It was necessary to explain the whole matter, and he told the cardinal that he was passionately in love with the daughter of Lieutenant General d’Andely, and that he could not obtain her from her father. The cardinal requested this father, so hard to please, to come to him at Paris. He arrived trembling at receiving such an unexpected order, and returned very glad to get off with giving his daughter to a man in such high credit. See the brothers Parfait, History of the French Theatre, vol. v., p. 304.
[134] Works of Balzac, in-fol., vol. ii., p. 419.
[135] Maitre Vincent, etc.
[136] Letter of November 24, 1676.
[137] Third Satire.
[138] Tallemant, ii., p. 295.
[139] Edit. of Saint-Surin, vol. iv., p. 375.
[140] See in the Œuvres diverses of Corneille, ed. of Amsterdam, 1740, p. 174, the elegy containing a declaration of love: it is not dated, but must have been written during the youth of Corneille, and even before his glory, for he does not speak of it, whilst later he uses a very different tone. The lady to whom his elegy is addressed, must have been of good birth, if the young poet is to be believed. He paints finely the passage from admiration to love:
The piece entitled Jalousie, and which is not finished, has parts which seem written by Molière.
Corneille felt a tender sentiment for the Marchioness de B. A. T. (we are ignorant of the name of the person concealed under these initials). He speaks of himself now in a very different manner from that of his youth, and he turns the honors of his glory to the profit of his love:
Corneille bid adieu to her whose love he despairs of obtaining; he yields to younger rivals:
I will not quote, but indicate the stanzas addressed to the same person, and which express the same sentiments in a different meter:
[141] Vol. ii., p. 87. The first edition of Voiture is that given by his nephew, Pinchesne, almost immediately after his death, in 1650, in-4ᵒ, and which is dedicated to Condé. There was already a seventh edition, in-12ᵒ, in 1665. The last and most complete is that, of 1745, 2 vol., small in-8ᵒ. It is this that we shall quote.
[142] Vol. ii., p. 66. It was the ancient hôtel de Gondi, the most magnificent of the times, says again Sauval, Ibid., p. 131. Perelle has engraved the hôtel and the gardens.
[143] Lenet, edit. Michaud, pp. 447 and 450.
[144] One is deceived in expecting to become acquainted with the great Condé, by seeing the celebrated portrait of Nanteuil. This portrait is of 1662. It represents Condé fatigued and grown old, after the civil war. We must look for the conqueror of Rocroy and of Lens, in the portraits of Haret, of Michel Lasne, and especially of Duret.
[145] See farther on.
[146] Mémoires anecdotes, p. 108.
[147] Farther on, chap. iv.
[148] Observe the style in which he writes from Grasse, the 18th December, 1637, to Mademoiselle de Bourbon: “Mademoiselle, I am proud to learn that she, who occupies all hearts, should fear that she is not in my memory. Though it were a temple, you should there have a place; judge, then, whether I have no interest in preserving you in it, in order that you may render it precious, poor and unfaithful as it was before. It is principally at the altar, Mademoiselle, that you are present with me. I truly ask God to add other lilies to those of your crown, but I ask him, also, to mingle with them the love of the thorns of his Son, and to strengthen you in the generous contempt of the grandeur in which I have seen (an allusion to the thought entertained by Mademoiselle de Bourbon of becoming a Carmelite).” Elsewhere, May 3, 1641...... “Our Lord is very good, but he is jealous, and he would prefer that we should never have tasted his spirit, than to become disgusted with it, and suffer it to be quenched. Roses have thorns which defend their beauty, but princesses are in the midst of roses which do not secure them against the temptations which the pleasures of the world inspire....” See Letters of M. Godeau, Bishop of Vence, on different subjects; Paris, 1718, p. 17 and p. 148.
[149] De la Fausseté des Vertus humaines, by M. Esprit; in-12ᵒ, two vol., Paris, 1678.
[150] The most excellent Buildings of France, in-fol., 1607, vol. ii. Many plates of the castle, none of the garden.
[151] Views of the finest Buildings of France, by Perelle.—General view of the Château de Chantilly, of its canals, fountains, and groves, etc.
[152] Bossuet, funeral oration on the great Condé.
[153] Edition Michaud, p. 229.
[154] Œuvres de Sarrazin, at Paris, in-4ᵒ, 1656, p. 231. This first edition was reproduced in two small volumes in 1663, and in 1685. In 1674, appeared the Nouvelles Œuvres de Sarrazin, in two parts, containing prose and verse.
[155] Mademoiselle Chateignier de La Rocheposay, one of the prettiest of women, and much courted by the Duke de Candale, the brother of Mademoiselle d’Epernon.
[156] See the pretty engraving of Parelle.
[157] Edit. of 1745, vol. 1st, etc. Our Aurora, hitherto perfectly unknown, is in fact Mademoiselle de Bourbon herself, according to an old tradition preserved by the manuscript collection of songs, called Recueil de Maurepas, for opposite to the first couplet this note is found: For Mademoiselle de Bourbon, sleeping.
[158] Ibid., p. 170. See also the song to Madame la Princesse, to the air Des Landriri; ibid., p. 129.
[159] See the different views of Ruel, by Parelle.
[160] Paris, in-4ᵒ, 1641.
[161] Reglement donné par une dame de haute qualité à madame sa petit-fille, published first in 1698, reprinted in 1779.
[162] Tallemant, vol. iv., p. 806.
[163] Cotin has made an exact Déscription de Liancourt in his Œuvres galantes, second edition, 1665, pp. 108-115.
[164] Manuscripts of Conrart, in-4ᵒ, vol. xi., p. 443.
[165] Ibid., p. 851.
[166] The cardinal, now old and sick, was as much dreaded by these young girls as the small-pox, from which they had been flying.
[167] Tallemant, vol. ii., p. 337, attributes these couplets to Bachaumont; Madame de Motteville, vol. iii., p. 230, gives them without the author’s name, and they are found with many others in a long mazarinade, entitled, Triolets de Saint-Germain, in-4ᵒ, 1649.
[168] Library of the Arsenal, Belles-Lettres Françaises, No. 70, collection in-fol., entitled: Chansons Notées, vol. ii., p. 66.
[169] Manuscripts of Conrart, in-4ᵒ, vol. xi., p. 848.
[170] Manuscripts of Conrart, in-4ᵒ, vol. xi., p. 848.
[171] Writing in verse had become a great amusement with all this young and ingenious society. Vol. xiii. of the Manuscripts of Conrart, in-fol., p. 337, contains an epistle in verse to the Duke d’Enghien, when he was at Dijon, and only twenty years of age.
[172] Mémoires, vol. vi., p. 105. “This lady did not hate the court. She desired general approbation, and especially the approbation of those who had credit, for naturally she had a greediness for all that is called favor.”—Ibid., p. 167. “According to what I have said of Madame de Montausier, it is easy to judge that she must have been agreeable to the king, not only because she had fine qualities, but because the merit which she possessed was entirely conformed to the fashion of the world. One day that the queen-mother had unwillingly received Mademoiselle de La Vallière, Madame de Montausier applauded this condescension, which had given Queen Maria-Theresa so much pain.”—Ibid. “I cannot help, in this place, mentioning a circumstance which may show how much the hearts and minds of people of court are ordinarily spoiled. At the moment when the queen had commanded me to go and speak to the queen her mother, I met Madame de Montausier, who was rejoicing over the very matter that had thrown the queen into despair. She said to me with an exclamation of joy: Ah! Madame, the queen-mother has done an admirable act in wishing to see La Vallière. See the tact of a very shrewd woman and of a good politician. But, added this lady, she is so feeble that we cannot hope that she will sustain this act as she should. I was truly astonished to see the operations of different sentiments in different persons, and, unwilling to reply, I quitted her.... The Duke de Montausier, who had the reputation of a man of honor, caused in me, about the same time, a similar pain, for, in speaking of the ill-feeling which the queen-mother entertained towards the Countess de Brancas, he said to me these words: Ah! truly the queen is very pleasant to be offended, because Madame de Brancas is so complaisant towards the king as to keep company with Mademoiselle de La Vallière. If she were cunning and wise, she would be very glad that the king was in love with Mademoiselle de Brancas, for, being the daughter of the first officer in her service (the Count de Brancas was chevalier d’honneur of the queen-mother), he, his wife and his daughter, would be of great advantage to her with the king.” When the amours of the king with Madame de Montespan commenced, Madame de Montausier was not more severe, Mémoires de Mademoiselle, vol. v., p. 254: “Madame de Montespan took up her quarters in the room belonging to Madame de Montausier, near that of the king; and it was observed that a sentinel, who had been placed in the passage communicating with the lodging of the king and that of Madame de Montespan, had been removed.... I am told, said the queen, that it is Madame de Montausier who conducts this intrigue, that she deceives me, that the king visits Madame de Montespan in her room. Madame de Montausier said to the queen: Since your Majesty would be made to believe that I give mistresses to the king, what injury may any one expect to escape? The queen replied to her in equivocal terms: I know more than you think; I am not the dupe of any one.” Appearances were all against Madame de Montausier. Also, at a later period, Montespan, who was evil-minded enough to misinterpret the honor done by the king to his wife, made for Madame Montausier a most disagreeable scene. Madame de Montausier complained to the king, who sent for Montespan, for the purpose of putting him in prison. See Mademoiselle, vol. vi., 82: “This affair made a great noise in the world, because it was an extraordinary outrage upon a woman who had thus far sustained an excellent reputation. M. de Montausier was at Rambouillet; he did not know of the affair; they even said that it was concealed from him; others imagined that he knew it, but that it was for his advantage to seem ignorant. A little while after he was made tutor of the Dauphin, etc.”
[173] If it is true, as several contemporaries assure us, and among others, Segrais, that Montausier had served as a model for the Misanthrope, it was because Molière, who did not search things closely, has taken a difficult virtue for reality. But Molière told his secret to no one, and probably there is no secret here except that of genius. The Misanthrope is not the copy of any original. Many originals have been before the great observer, and furnished him with a thousand particular traits; but the entire and complete character of the Misanthrope is his own creation.
[174] Tallemant, vol. ii., p. 243: “Our marquis, seeing that his religion was an obstacle to his designs, changed it. He said that salvation could be obtained in either; but in the change he seems to have consulted his interest.”
[175] Every one called her Elizabeth, and she is thus named in the most authentic printed documents; but in all our manuscripts she never signs herself Elizabeth, but almost always Isabelle. See several or her autograph letters among the papers of Lenet in the National Library. A manuscript piece, the judicial evidence given by Madame de Châtillon before an ecclesiastical commission delegated by the Pope, in the matter of the canonization of the Mother Madeleine de Saint-Joseph, can leave no doubt; Madame de Châtillon deposes thus: “My name is Isabelle Angélique de Montmorency; I am a native of the city of Paris; I am thirty-two years of age, daughter of Henry François de Montmorency, Count de Boutteville and other places, and of Isabelle Angélique de Vienne, his lawful wife; I am widow of Gaspard de Coligny, Duke de Châtillon....” and she signs: “Moy, Isabelle Angélique de Montmorency.”
[176] Lenet, ed. Mich., p. 437.
[177] See long details on this subject in Madame de Motteville, vol. 1st, p. 292, etc.
[178] Œuvres de Voiture, vol. ii., p. 174, Epistle to M. de Coligny.
[179] Œuvres de Sarrazin, in-4ᵒ; Poésies, p. 74.
[180] Madame de Motteville, vol. iii., p. 133, etc.
[181] See on Madame de Montbazon, the chapter which follows, and, on Madame de Châtillon, the Introduction.
[182] We are not very well acquainted with the origin and history of the Du Vigeans. We find a Protestant Vigean in the States-General in 1615, where he performed an active part.—Journal historique et anecdotes de la cour et de Paris, among the manuscript papers of Conrart; in-4ᵒ, vol. xi., p. 238.
[183] Letter of Voiture to Madame Du Vigean, in sending him an elegy which he had made and which she had asked, vol. i., p. 27. It is also Madame Du Vigean whom he designates by the name of the Belle Baronne, in two couplets, at page 120 and 127 of vol. ii. It seems that the Du Vigeans resided at first in the quarter Saint-Germain, as well as Madame d’Aiguillon, and that she afterwards resided in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre.
[184] Tallemant, vol. ii., p. 32, and Library of the Arsenal, Collection of Historical Songs, vol. i., p. 149.
[185] Œuvres, vol. i., pp. 20-25; letter tenth to the Cardinal de La Valette.
[186] Desmarets, Œuvres poétique, in-4ᵒ, 1641, pp. 18-21.
[187] Vol. ii., fol. 801.
[188] Vol. i., p. 181.
[189] Ibid., p. 186.