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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Volume
+I., by Madame La Marquise De Montespan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Volume I.
+       Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.
+
+Author: Madame La Marquise De Montespan
+
+Release Date: September 29, 2006 [EBook #3847]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN
+
+Written by Herself
+
+
+Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Madame de Montespan----Etching by Mercier
+
+Hortense Mancini----Drawing in the Louvre
+
+Madame de la Valliere----Painting by Francois
+
+Moliere----Original Etching by Lalauze
+
+Boileau----Etching by Lalauze
+
+A French Courtier----Photogravure from a Painting
+
+Madame de Maintenon----Etching by Mercier from Painting by Hule
+
+Charles II.----Original Etching by Ben Damman
+
+Bosseut----Etching by Lalauze
+
+Louis XIV. Knighting a Subject----Photogravure from a Rare Print
+
+A French Actress----Painting by Leon Comerre
+
+Racine----Etching by Lalauze
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 1.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+
+
+Historians have, on the whole, dealt somewhat harshly with the
+fascinating Madame de Montespan, perhaps taking their impressions from
+the judgments, often narrow and malicious, of her contemporaries. To help
+us to get a fairer estimate, her own "Memoirs," written by herself, and
+now first given to readers in an English dress, should surely serve.
+Avowedly compiled in a vague, desultory way, with no particular regard to
+chronological sequence, these random recollections should interest us, in
+the first place, as a piece of unconscious self-portraiture.  The cynical
+Court lady, whose beauty bewitched a great King, and whose ruthless
+sarcasm made Duchesses quail, is here drawn for us in vivid fashion by
+her own hand, and while concerned with depicting other figures she really
+portrays her own.  Certainly, in these Memoirs she is generally content
+to keep herself in the background, while giving us a faithful picture of
+the brilliant Court at which she was for long the most lustrous ornament.
+It is only by stray touches, a casual remark, a chance phrase, that we,
+as it were, gauge her temperament in all its wiliness, its egoism, its
+love of supremacy, and its shallow worldly wisdom.  Yet it could have
+been no ordinary woman that held the handsome Louis so long her captive.
+The fair Marquise was more than a mere leader of wit and fashion.  If she
+set the mode in the shape of a petticoat, or devised the sumptuous
+splendours of a garden fete, her talent was not merely devoted to things
+frivolous and trivial.  She had the proverbial 'esprit des Mortemart'.
+Armed with beauty and sarcasm, she won a leading place for herself at
+Court, and held it in the teeth of all detractors.
+
+Her beauty was for the King, her sarcasm for his courtiers.  Perhaps
+little of this latter quality appears in the pages bequeathed to us,
+written, as they are, in a somewhat cold, formal style, and we may assume
+that her much-dreaded irony resided in her tongue rather than in her pen.
+Yet we are glad to possess these pages, if only as a reliable record of
+Court life during the brightest period of the reign of Louis Quatorze.
+
+As we have hinted, they are more, indeed, than this.  For if we look
+closer we shall perceive, as in a glass, darkly, the contour of a subtle,
+even a perplexing, personality.
+
+P. E. P.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORIC COURT MEMOIRS.
+
+MADAME DE MONTESPAN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Reason for Writing These Memoirs.--Gabrielle d'Estrees.
+
+
+The reign of the King who now so happily and so gloriously rules over
+France will one day exercise the talent of the most skilful historians.
+But these men of genius, deprived of the advantage of seeing the great
+monarch whose portrait they fain would draw, will search everywhere among
+the souvenirs of contemporaries and base their judgments upon our
+testimony.  It is this great consideration which has made me determined
+to devote some of my hours of leisure to narrating, in these accurate and
+truthful Memoirs, the events of which I myself am witness.
+
+Naturally enough, the position which I fill at the great theatre of the
+Court has made me the object of much false admiration, and much real
+satire.  Many men who owed to me their elevation or their success have
+defamed me; many women have belittled my position after vain efforts to
+secure the King's regard.  In what I now write, scant notice will be
+taken of all such ingratitude.  Before my establishment at Court I had
+met with hypocrisy of this sort in the world; and a man must, indeed, be
+reckless of expense who daily entertains at his board a score of insolent
+detractors.
+
+I have too much wit to be blind to the fact that I am not precisely in my
+proper place.  But, all things considered, I flatter myself that
+posterity will let certain weighty circumstances tell in my favour. An
+accomplished monarch, to greet whom the Queen of Sheba would have come
+from the uttermost ends of the earth, has deemed me worthy of his
+entertainment, and has found amusement in my society.  He has told me of
+the esteem which the French have for Gabrielle d'Estrees, and, like that
+of Gabrielle, my heart has let itself be captured, not by a great king,
+but by the most honest man of his realm.
+
+To France, Gabrielle gave the Vendome, to-day our support.  The princes,
+my sons, give promise of virtues as excellent, and will be worthy to
+aspire to destinies as noble.  It is my desire and my duty to give no
+thought to my private griefs begotten of an ill-assorted marriage.  May
+the King ever be adored by his people; may my children ever be beloved
+and cherished by the King; I am happy, and I desire to be so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+That Which Often It is Best to Ignore.--A Marriage Such as One Constantly
+Sees.--It is Too Late.
+
+
+My sisters thought it of extreme importance to possess positive knowledge
+as to their future condition and the events which fate held in store for
+them.  They managed to be secretly taken to a woman famed for her talent
+in casting the horoscope.  But on seeing how overwhelmed by chagrin they
+both were after consulting the oracle, I felt fearful as regarded myself,
+and determined to let my star take its own course, heedless of its
+existence, and allowing it complete liberty.
+
+My mother occasionally took me out into society after the marriage of my
+sister, De Thianges; and I was not slow to perceive that there was in my
+person something slightly superior to the average intelligence,--certain
+qualities of distinction which drew upon me the attention and the
+sympathy of men of taste.  Had any liberty been granted to it, my heart
+would have made a choice worthy alike of my family and of myself.  They
+were eager to impose the Marquis de Montespan upon me as a husband; and
+albeit he was far from possessing those mental perfections and that
+cultured charm which alone make an indefinite period of companionship
+endurable, I was not slow to reconcile myself to a temperament which,
+fortunately, was very variable, and which thus served to console me on
+the morrow for what had troubled me to-day.
+
+Hardly had my marriage been arranged and celebrated than a score of the
+most brilliant suitors expressed, in prose and in verse, their regret at
+having lost beyond recall Mademoiselle de Tonnai-Charente.  Such elegiac
+effusions seemed to me unspeakably ridiculous; they should have explained
+matters earlier, while the lists were still open.  For persons of this
+sort I conceived aversion, who were actually so clumsy as to dare to tell
+me that they had forgotten to ask my hand in marriage!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Madame de Montespan at the Palace.--M. de Montespan.--His Indiscreet
+Language.--His Absence.--Specimen of His Way of Writing.--A Refractory
+Cousin.--The King Interferes.--M. de Montespan a Widower.--Amusement of
+the King.--Clemency of Madame de Montespan.
+
+
+The Duc and Duchesse de Navailles had long been friends of my father's
+and of my family.  When the Queen-mother proceeded to form the new
+household of her niece and daughter-in-law, the Infanta, the Duchesse de
+Navailles, chief of the ladies-in-waiting, bethought herself of me, and
+soon the Court and Paris learnt that I was one of the six ladies in
+attendance on the young Queen.
+
+This princess, who while yet at the Escurial had been made familiar
+with the notable names of the French monarchy, honoured me during the
+journey by alluding in terms of regard to the Mortemarts and
+Rochechouarts,--kinsmen of mine.  She was even careful to quote matters
+of history concerning my ancestors.  By such marks of good sense and good
+will I perceived that she would not be out of place at a Court where
+politeness of spirit and politeness of heart ever go side by side, or, to
+put it better, where these qualities are fused and united.
+
+M. le Marquis de Montespan, scion of the old house of Pardaillan de
+Gondrin, had preferred what he styled "my grace and beauty" to the most
+wealthy partis of France.  He was himself possessed of wealth, and his
+fortune gave him every facility for maintaining at Court a position of
+advantage and distinction.
+
+At first the honour which both Queens were graciously pleased to confer
+upon me gave my husband intense satisfaction.  He affectionately thanked
+the Duc and Duchesse de Navailles, and expressed his most humble
+gratitude to the two Queens and to the King.  But it was not long before
+I perceived that he had altered his opinion.
+
+The love-affair between Mademoiselle de la Valliere and the King having
+now become public, M. de Montespan condemned this attachment in terms of
+such vehemence that I perforce felt afraid of the consequences of such
+censure.  He talked openly about the matter in society, airing his views
+thereanent.  Impetuously and with positive hardihood, he expressed his
+disapproval in unstinted terms, criticising and condemning the prince's
+conduct.  Once, at the ballet, when within two feet of the Queen, it was
+with the utmost difficulty that he could be prevented from discussing so
+obviously unfitting a question, or from sententiously moralising upon the
+subject.
+
+All at once the news of an inheritance in the country served to occupy
+his attention.  He did all that he could to make me accompany him on this
+journey.  He pointed out to me that it behoved no young wife to be
+anywhere without her husband.  I, for my part, represented to him all
+that in my official capacity I owed to the Queen.  And as at that time I
+still loved him heartily (M. de Montespan, I mean), and was sincerely
+attached to him, I advised him to sell off the whole of the newly
+inherited estate to some worthy member of his own family, so that he
+might remain with us in the vast arena wherein I desired and hoped to
+achieve his rapid advance.
+
+Never was there man more obstinate or more selfwilled than the Marquis.
+Despite all my friendly persuasion, he was determined to go.  And when
+once settled at the other end of France, he launched out into all sorts
+of agricultural schemes and enterprises, without even knowing why he did
+so.  He constructed roads, built windmills, bridged over a large torrent,
+completed the pavilions of his castle, replanted coppices and vineyards,
+and, besides all this, hunted the chamois, bears, and boars of the
+Nebouzan and the Pyrenees.  Four or five months after his departure I
+received a letter from him of so singular a kind that I kept it in spite
+of myself, and in the Memoirs it will not prove out of place.  Far better
+than any words of mine, it will depict the sort of mind, the logic, and
+the curious character of the man who was my husband.
+
+MONTESPAN,--May 15, 1667.
+
+I count more than ever, madame, upon your journey to the Pyrenees. If you
+love me, as all your letters assure me, you should promptly take a good
+coach and come.  We are possessed of considerable property here, which of
+late years my family have much neglected. These domains require my
+presence, and my presence requires yours. Enough is yours of wit or of
+good sense to understand that.
+
+The Court is, no doubt, a fine country,--finer than ever under the
+present reign.  The more magnificent the Court is, the more uneasy do I
+become.  Wealth and opulence are needed there; and to your family I never
+figured as a Croesus.  By dint of order and thrift, we shall ere long
+have satisfactorily settled our affairs; and I promise you that our stay
+in the Provinces shall last no longer than is necessary to achieve that
+desirable result.  Three, four, five,--let us say, six years.  Well, that
+is not an eternity!  By the time we come back we shall both of us still
+be young.  Come, then, my dearest Athenais, come, and make closer
+acquaintance with these imposing Pyrenees, every ravine of which is a
+landscape and every valley an Eden.  To all these beauties, yours is
+missing; you shall be here, like Dian, the goddess of these noble
+forests.  All our gentlefolk await you, admiring your picture on the
+sweetmeat-box. They are minded to hold many pleasant festivals in your
+honour; you may count upon having a veritable Court.  Here it is that you
+will meet the old Warnais nobility that followed Henri IV. and placed the
+sceptre in his hand.  Messieurs de Grammont and de Biron are our
+neighbours; their grim castles dominate the whole district, so that they
+seem like kings.
+
+Our Chateau de Montespan will offer you something less severe; the
+additions made for my mother twenty years ago are infinitely better than
+anything that you will leave behind you in Paris.  We have here the
+finest fruits that ever grew in any earthly paradise.  Our huge, luscious
+peaches are composed of sugar, violets, carnations, amber, and jessamine;
+strawberries and raspberries grow everywhere; and naught may vie with the
+excellence of the water, the vegetables, and the milk.
+
+You are fond of scenery and of sketching from nature; there are half a
+dozen landscapes here for you that leave Claude Lorrain far behind.  I
+mean to take you to see a waterfall, twelve hundred and seventy feet in
+height, neither more nor less.  What are your fountains at Saint Germain
+and Chambord compared with such marvellous things as these?
+
+Now, madame, I am really tired of coaxing and flattering you, as I have
+done in this letter and in preceding ones.  Do you want me, or do you
+not?  Your position as Court lady, so you say, keeps you near the
+monarch; ask, then, or let me ask, for leave of absence.  After having
+been for four consecutive years Lady of the Palace, consent to become
+Lady of the Castle, since your duties towards your spouse require it.
+The young King, favourite as he is with the ladies, will soon find ten
+others to replace you.  And I, dearest Athenais, find it hard even to
+think of replacing you, in spite of your cruel absence, which at once
+annoys and grieves me.  I am--no, I shall be--always and ever yours, when
+you are always and ever mine.
+
+MONTESPAN.
+
+I hastened to tell my husband in reply that his impatience and ill-humour
+made me most unhappy; that as, through sickness or leave of absence, five
+or six of the Court ladies were away, I could not possibly absent myself
+just then; that I believed that I sufficiently merited his confidence to
+let me count upon his attachment and esteem, whether far or near.  And I
+gave him my word of honour that I would join him after the Court moved to
+Fontainebleau, that is to say, in the autumn.
+
+My answer, far from soothing or calming him, produced quite a contrary
+effect.  I received the following letter, which greatly alarmed and
+agitated me:
+
+Your allegations are only vain pretexts, your pretexts mask your
+falsehoods, your falsehoods confirm all my suspicions; you are deceiving
+me, madame, and it is your intention to dishonour me. My cousin, who saw
+through you better than I did before my wretched marriage,--my cousin,
+whom you dislike and who is no whit afraid of you,--informs me that,
+under the pretext of going to keep Madame de la Valliere company, you
+never stir from her apartments during the time allotted to her by the
+King, that is to say, three whole hours every evening.  There you pose as
+sovereign arbiter; as oracle, uttering a thousand divers decisions; as
+supreme purveyor of news and gossip; the scourge of all who are absent;
+the complacent promoter of scandal; the soul and the leader of sparkling
+conversation.
+
+One only of these ladies became ill, owing to an extremely favourable
+confinement, from which she recovered a week ago. At the outset, the King
+fought shy of your raillery, but in a thousand discreditable ways you set
+your cap at him and forced him to pay you attention.  If all the letters
+written to me (all of them in the same strain) are not preconcerted, if
+your misconduct is such as I am told it is, if you have dishonoured and
+disgraced your husband, then, madame, expect all that your excessive
+imprudence deserves.  At this distance of two hundred and fifty leagues I
+shall not trouble you with complaints and vain reproaches; I shall
+collect all necessary information and documentary evidence at
+headquarters; and, cost me what it may, I shall bring action against you,
+before your parents, before a court of law, in the face of public
+opinion, and before your protector, the King.  I charge you instantly to
+deliver up to me my child.  My unfortunate son comes of a race which
+never yet has had cause to blush for disgrace such as this.  What would
+he gain, except bad example, by staying with a mother who has no virtue
+and no husband?  Give him up to me, and at once let Dupre, my valet, have
+charge of him until my return.  This latter will occur sooner than you
+think; and I shall shut you up in a convent, unless you shut me up in the
+Bastille.
+
+Your unfortunate husband, MONTESPAN.
+
+The officious cousin to whom he alluded in this threatening letter had
+been so bold as to sue for my hand, although possessed of no property.
+Ever since that time he remained, as I knew, my enemy, though I did not
+know, nor ever suspected, that such a man would find pleasure in spying
+upon my actions and in effecting the irrevocable estrangement of a
+husband and a wife, who until then had been mutually attached to each
+other.
+
+The King, whose glance, though very sweet, is very searching, said to me
+that evening, "Something troubles you; what is it?"  He felt my pulse,
+and perceived my great agitation.  I showed him the letter just
+transcribed, and his Majesty changed colour.
+
+"It is a matter requiring caution and tact," added the prince after brief
+meditation.  "At any rate we can prevent his showing you any disrespect.
+Give up the Marquis d'Antin to him," continued the King, after another
+pause.  "He is useless, perhaps an inconvenience, to you; and if deprived
+of his child he might be driven to commit some desperate act."
+
+"I would rather die!" I exclaimed, bursting into tears.
+
+The King affectionately took hold of both my hands, and gently said:
+
+"Very well, then, keep him yourself, and don't give him up."
+
+As God is my witness, M. de Montespan had already neglected me for some
+time before he left for the Pyrenees; and to me this sudden access of
+fervour seemed singularly strange.  But I am not easily hoodwinked; I
+understood him far better and far quicker than he expected. The Marquis
+is one of those vulgar-minded men who do not look upon a woman as a
+friend, a companion, a frank, free associate, but as a piece of property
+or of furniture, useful to his house, and which he has procured for that
+purpose only.
+
+I am told that in England a man is the absolute proprietor of his wife,
+and that if he took her to the public market with a cord round her neck
+and exhibited her for sale, such sale is perfectly valid in the eyes of
+the law.  Laws such as these inspire horror.  Yet they should hardly
+surprise one among a semibarbarous nation, which does nothing like other
+peoples, and which deems itself authorised to place the censer in the
+hands of its monarch, and its monarch in the hands of the headsman.
+
+M. de Montespan came to Paris and instituted proceedings against me
+before the Chatelet authorities.  To the King he sent a letter full of
+provocations and insults.  To the Pope he sent a formal complaint,
+accompanied by a most carefully prepared list of opinions which no lawyer
+was willing to sign.  For three whole months he tormented the Pope, in
+order to induce him to annul our marriage.  Of a truth, our Sovereign
+Pontiff could have done nothing better, but in Rome justice and religion
+always rank second to politics.  The cardinals feared to offend a great
+prince, and so they suffered me to remain the wife of my husband.  When
+he saw that on every side his voice was lost in the desert, and that the
+King, being calmer and more prudent than he, did not deign to pick up the
+glove, his folly reached its utmost limit.  He went into the deepest
+mourning ever seen.  He draped his horses and carriages with black. He
+gave orders for a funeral service to be held in his parish, which the
+whole town and its suburbs were invited to attend.  He declared, verbally
+and in writing, that he no longer possessed a wife; that Madame de
+Montespan had died of an attack of coquetry and ambition; and he talked
+of marrying again when the year of mourning and of widowhood should be
+over.
+
+His first outbursts of wrath were the source of much amusement to the
+King, who naturally was on the side of decorum and averse to hostile
+opinion.  Pranks such as these seemed to him more a matter for mirth than
+fear, and, on hearing the story of the catafalque, he laughingly said to
+me, "Now that he has buried you, it is to be hoped that he will let you
+repose in peace."  But hearing each day of fresh absurdities, his Majesty
+grew at last impatient.  Luckily, M. de Montespan, perceiving that every
+house had closed its doors to him, decided to close his own altogether
+and travel abroad.
+
+Not being of a vindictive disposition, I never would allow M. de Louvois
+to shut him up in the Bastille.  On the contrary I privately paid more
+than fifty thousand crowns to defray his debts, being glad to render him
+some good service in exchange for all the evil that he spoke of me.
+
+I reflected that he had been my husband, my confidant, my friend; that
+his only faults were bad temper, love of sport, and love of wine; that he
+belonged to one of the very first families of France; and that, despite
+all that was said, my son D'Antin certainly was nothing to the King, and
+that the Marquis was his father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Mademoiselle de la Valliere Jealous.--The King Wishes All to Enjoy
+Themselves.--The Futility of Fighting against Fate.--What is Dead is
+Dead.
+
+
+MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE was tall, shapely, and extremely pretty, with
+as sweet and even a temper as one could possibly imagine, which eminently
+fitted her for dreamy, contemplative love-making, such as one reads of in
+idyls and romances.  She would willingly have spent her life in.
+contemplating the King,--in loving and adoring him without ever opening
+her mouth; and to her, the sweet silence of a tete-a-tete seemed
+preferable to any conversation enlivened by wit.
+
+The King's character was totally different.  His imagination was vivid,
+and mere love-making, however pleasant, bored him at last if the charm of
+ready speech and ready wit were wanting.
+
+I do not profess to be a prodigy, but those who know me do me the justice
+to admit that where I am it is very difficult for boredom to find ever so
+small a footing.
+
+Mademoiselle de la Valliere, after having begged me, and begged me often,
+to come and help her to entertain the King, grew suddenly suspicious and
+uneasy.  She is candour itself, and one day, bursting into tears, she
+said to me, in that voice peculiar to her alone, "For Heaven's sake, my
+good friend, do not steal away the King's heart from me!" When
+mademoiselle said this to me, I vow and declare in all honesty that her
+fears were unfounded, and that (for my part at least) I had only just a
+natural desire to gain the good-will of a great prince. My friendship for
+La Valliere was so sincere, so thorough, that I often used to superintend
+little details of her toilet and give her various little hints as to
+attentive conduct of the sort which cements and revives attachments.  I
+even furnished her with news and gossip, composing for her a little
+repertoire, of which, when needful, she made use.
+
+But her star had set, and she had to show the world the touching
+spectacle of love as true, as tender, and as disinterested as any that
+has ever been in this world, followed by a repentance and an expiation
+far superior to the sin, if sin it was.
+
+Moreover, Mademoiselle de la Valliere never broke with me.  She shed
+tears in abundance, and wounded my heart a thousand times by the sight of
+her grief and her distress.  For her sake I was often fain to bid
+farewell to her fickle lover, proud monarch though he was.  But by
+breaking with him I should not have reestablished La Valliere.  The
+prince's violent passion had changed to mere friendship, blended with
+esteem.  To try and resuscitate attachments of this sort is as if one
+should try to open the grave and give life to the dead.  God alone can
+work miracles such as these.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+The Marquis de Bragelonne, Officer of the Guards.--His Baleful Love.--His
+Journey.--His Death.
+
+
+The Marquis de Bragelonne was born for Mademoiselle de la Valliere. It
+was this young officer, endowed with all perfections imaginable, whom
+Heaven had designed for her, to complete her happiness.  Despite his
+sincere, incomparable attachment for her, she disdained him, preferring a
+king, who soon afterwards wearied of her.
+
+The Marquis de Bragelonne conceived a passion for the little La Valliere
+as soon as he saw her at the Tuileries with Madame Henrietta of England,
+whose maid of honour at first she was.  Having made proof and declaration
+of his tender love, Bragelonne was so bold as to ask her hand of the
+princess.  Madame caused her relatives to be apprised of this, and the
+Marquise de Saint-Remy, her stepmother, after all necessary inquiries had
+been made, replied that the fortune of this young man was as yet too
+slender to permit him to think of having an establishment.
+
+Grieved at this answer, but nothing daunted, Bragelonne conferred
+privately with his lady-love, and told her of his hazardous project. This
+project instantly to realise all property coming to him from his father,
+and furnished with this capital, to go out, and seek his fortune in India
+[West Indies.  D.W.]
+
+"You will wait for me, dearest one, will you not?"  quoth he.  "Heaven,
+that is witness how ardently I long to make you happy, will protect me on
+my journey and guard my ship.  Promise me to keep off all suitors, the
+number of whom will increase with your beauty.  This promise, for which I
+desire no other guarantee but your candour, shall sustain me in exile,
+and make me count as nought my privations and my hardships."
+
+Mademoiselle de la Beaume-le-Blanc allowed the Marquis to hope all that
+he wished from her beautiful soul, and he departed, never imagining that
+one could forget or set at nought so tender a love which had prompted so
+hazardous an enterprise.
+
+His journey proved thoroughly successful.  He brought back with him
+treasures from the New World; but of all his treasures the most precious
+had disappeared.  Restored once more to family and friends, he hastened
+to the capital.  Madame d'Orleans no longer resided at the Tuileries,
+which was being enlarged by the King.
+
+Bragelonne, in his impatience, asks everywhere for La Valliere.  They
+tell him that she has a charming house between Saint Germain, Lucienne,
+and Versailles.  He goes thither, laden with coral and pearls from the
+Indies.  He asks to have sight of his love.  A tall Swiss repulses him,
+saying that, in order to speak with Madame la Duchesse, it was absolutely
+necessary to make an appointment.
+
+At the same moment one of his friends rides past the gateway.  They greet
+each other, and in reply to his questioning, this friend informs him that
+Mademoiselle de la Valliere is a duchess, that she is a mother, that she
+is lapped in grandeur and luxury, and that she has as lover a king.
+
+At this news, Bragelonne finds nothing further for him to do in this
+world.  He grasps his friend's hand, retires to a neighbouring wood, and
+there, drawing his sword, plunges it into his heart,--a sad requital for
+love so noble!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+M. Fouquet.--His Mistake.--A Woman's Indiscretion May Cause the Loss of a
+Great Minister.--The Castle of Vaux.--Fairy-land.--A Fearful
+Awakening.--Clemency of the King.
+
+
+On going out into society, I heard everybody talking everywhere about M.
+Fouquet.  They praised his good-nature, his affability, his talents, his
+magnificence, his wit.  His post as Surintendant-General, envied by a
+thousand, provoked indeed a certain amount of spite; yet all such vain
+efforts on the part of mediocrity to slander him troubled him but little.
+My lord the Cardinal (Mazarin.  D.W.) was his support, and so long as the
+main column stood firm, M. Fouquet, lavish of gifts to his protector, had
+really nothing to fear.
+
+This minister also largely profited by the species of fame to be derived
+from men of letters.  He knew their venality and their needs.  His
+sumptuous, well-appointed table was placed in grandiose fashion at their
+disposal.  Moreover, he made sure of their attachment and esteem by fees
+and enormous pensions.  The worthy La Fontaine nibbled like others at the
+bait, and at any rate paid his share of the reckoning by the most profuse
+gratitude.  M. Fouquet had one great defect: he took it into his head
+that every woman is devoid of will-power and of resistance if only one
+dazzle her eyes with gold.  Another prejudice of his was to believe, as
+an article of faith, that, if possessed of gold and jewels, the most
+ordinary of men can inspire affection.
+
+Making this twofold error his starting-point as a principle that was
+incontestable, he was wont to look upon every beautiful woman who
+happened to appear on the horizon as his property acquired in advance.
+
+At Madame's, he saw Mademoiselle de la Valliere, and instantly sent her
+his vows of homage and his proposals.
+
+To his extreme astonishment, this young beauty declined to understand
+such language.  Couched in other terms, he renewed his suit, yet
+apparently was no whit less obscure than on the first occasion.  Such a
+scandal as this well-nigh put him to the blush, and he was obliged to
+admit that this modest maiden either affected to be, or really was,
+utterly extraordinary.
+
+Perhaps Mademoiselle de la Valliere ought to have had the generosity not
+to divulge the proposals made to her; but she spoke about them, so
+everybody said, and the King took a dislike to his minister.
+
+Whatever the cause or the real motives for Fouquet's disgrace, it was
+never considered unjust, and this leads me to tell the tale of his mad
+folly at Vaux.
+
+The two palaces built by Cardinal Mazarin and the castles built by
+Cardinal Richelieu served as fine examples for M. Fouquet.  He knew that
+handsome edifices embellished the country, and that Maecenas has always
+been held in high renown, because Maecenas built a good deal in his day.
+
+He had just built, at great expense, in the neighbourhood of Melun, a
+castle of such superb and elegant proportions that the fame of it had
+even reached foreign parts.  All that Fouquet lived for was show and
+pomp.  To have a fine edifice and not show it off was as if one only
+possessed a kennel.
+
+He spoke of the Castle of Vaux in the Queen's large drawing-room, and
+begged their Majesties to honour by their presence a grand fete that he
+was preparing for them.
+
+To invite the royal family was but a trifling matter,--he required
+spectators proportionate to the scale of decorations and on a par with
+the whole spectacle; so he took upon himself to invite the entire Court
+to Vaux.
+
+On reaching Vaux-le-Vicomte, how great and general was our amazement! It
+was not the well-appointed residence of a minister, it was not a human
+habitation that presented itself to our view,--it was a veritable fairy
+palace.  All in this brilliant dwelling was stamped with the mark of
+opulence and of exquisite taste in art.  Marbles, balustrades, vast
+staircases, columns, statues, groups, bas-reliefs, vases, and pictures
+were scattered here and there in rich profusion, besides cascades and
+fountains innumerable.  The large salon, octagonal in shape, had a high,
+vaulted ceiling, and its flooring of mosaic looked like a rich carpet
+embellished with birds, butterflies, arabesques, fruits, and flowers.
+
+On either side of the main edifice, and somewhat in the rear, the
+architect had placed smaller buildings, yet all of them ornamented in the
+same sumptuous fashion; and these served to throw the chateau itself into
+relief.  In these adjoining pavilions there were baths, a theatre, a
+'paume' ground, swings, a chapel, billiard-rooms, and other salons.
+
+One noticed magnificent gilt roulette tables and sedan-chairs of the very
+best make.  There were elegant stalls at which trinkets were distributed
+to the guests,--note-books, pocket-mirrors, gloves, knives, scissors,
+purses, fans, sweetmeats, scents, pastilles, and perfumes of all kinds.
+
+It was as if some evil fairy had prompted the imprudent minister to act
+in this way, who, eager and impatient for his own ruin, had summoned his
+King to witness his appalling system of plunder in its entirety, and had
+invited chastisement.
+
+When the King went out on to the balcony of his apartment to make a
+general survey of the gardens and the perspective, he found everything
+well arranged and most alluring; but a certain vista seemed to him
+spoiled by whitish-looking clearings that gave too barren an aspect to
+the general coup d'oeil.
+
+His host readily shared this opinion.  He at once gave the requisite
+instructions, which that very night were executed by torchlight with the
+utmost secrecy by all the workmen of the locality whose services at such
+an hour it was possible to secure.
+
+When next day the monarch stepped out on to his balcony, he saw a
+beautiful green wood in place of the clearings with which on the previous
+evening he had found fault.
+
+Service more prompt or tasteful than this it was surely impossible to
+have; but kings only desire to be obeyed when they command.
+
+Fouquet, with airy presumption, expected thanks and praise.  This,
+however, was what he had to hear: "I am shocked at such expense!"
+
+Soon afterwards the Court moved to Nantes; the ministers followed; M.
+Fouquet was arrested.
+
+His trial at the Paris Arsenal lasted several months.  Proofs of his
+defalcations were numberless.  His family and proteges made frantic yet
+futile efforts to save so great a culprit.  The Commission sentenced him
+to death, and ordered the confiscation of all his property.
+
+The King, content to have made this memorable and salutary example,
+commuted the death penalty, and M. Fouquet learned with gratitude that he
+would have to end his days in prison.
+
+Nor did the King insist upon the confiscation of his property, which went
+to the culprit's widow and children, all that was retained being the
+enormous sums which he had embezzled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Close of the Queen-mother's Illness.--The Archbishop of Auch.--The
+Patient's Resignation.--The Sacrament.--Court Ceremony for its
+Reception.--Sage Distinction of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.--Her
+Prudence at the Funeral.
+
+
+As the Queen-mother's malady grew worse, the Court left Saint Germain to
+be nearer the experts and the Val-de-Grace, where the princess frequently
+practised her devotions with members of the religious sisterhood that she
+had founded.
+
+Suddenly the cancer dried up, and the head physician declared that the
+Queen was lost.
+
+The Archbishop of Auch said to the King, "Sire, there is not an instant
+to be lost; the Queen may die at any moment; she should be informed of
+her condition, so that she may prepare herself to receive the Sacrament."
+
+The King was troubled, for he dearly loved his mother.  "Monsieur," he
+replied, with emotion, "it is impossible for me to sanction your request.
+My mother is resting calmly, and perhaps thinks that she is out of
+danger.  We might give her her death-blow."
+
+The prelate, a man of firm, religious character, insisted, albeit
+reverently, while the prince continued to object.  Then the Archbishop
+retorted, "It is not with nature or the world that we have here to deal.
+We have to save a soul.  I have done my duty, and filial tenderness will
+at any rate bear the blame."
+
+The King thereupon acceded to the churchman's wishes, who lost no time in
+acquainting the patient with her doom.
+
+Anne of Austria was grievously shocked at so terrible an announcement,
+but she soon recovered her resignation and her courage; and M. d' Auch
+made noble use of his eloquence when exhorting her to prepare for the
+change that she dreaded.
+
+A portable altar was put up in the room, and the Archbishop, assisted by
+other clerics, went to fetch the Holy Sacrament from the church of Saint
+Germain de l'Auxerrois in the Louvre parish.
+
+The princes and princesses hereupon began to argue in the little closet
+as to the proper ceremony to be observed on such occasions.  Madame de
+Motteville, lady-in-waiting to the Queen, being asked to give an opinion,
+replied that, for the late King, the nobles had gone out to meet the Holy
+Sacrament as far as the outer gate of the palace, and that it would be
+wise to do this on the present occasion.
+
+Mademoiselle de Montpensier interrupted the lady-in-waiting and those who
+shared her opinion.  "I cannot bring myself to establish such a
+precedent," she said, in her usual haughty tone.  "It is I who have to
+walk first, and I shall only go half-way across the courtyard of the
+Louvre.  It's quite far enough for the Holy Wafer-box; what's the use of
+walking any further for the Holy Sacrament?"
+
+The princes and princesses were of her way of thinking, and the
+procession advanced only to the limits aforesaid.
+
+When the time came for taking the Sacred Heart to Val-de-Grace with the
+funeral procession, Mademoiselle, in a long mourning cloak, said to the
+Archbishop before everybody, "Pray, monsieur, put the Sacred Heart in the
+best place, and sit you close beside it.  I yield my rank up to you on
+the present occasion."  And, as the prelate protested, she added, "I
+shall be very willing to ride in front on account of the malady from
+which she died."  And, without altering her resolution, she actually took
+her seat in front.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Cardinal Mazarin.--Regency of Anne of Austria.--Her Perseverance in
+Retaining Her Minister.--Mazarin Gives His Nieces in Marriage.--M. de la
+Meilleraye.--The Cardinal's Festivities.--Madame de Montespan's Luck at a
+Lottery.
+
+
+Before taking holy orders, Cardinal Mazarin had served as an officer in
+the Spanish army, where he had even won distinction.
+
+Coming to France in the train of a Roman cardinal, he took service with
+Richelieu, who, remarking in him all the qualities of a supple,
+insinuating, artificial nature,--that is to say, the nature of a good
+politician,--appointed him his private secretary, and entrusted him with
+all his secrets, as if he had singled him out as his successor.
+
+Upon the death of Richelieu, Mazarin did not scruple to avow that the
+great Armand's sceptre had been a tyrant's sceptre and of bronze.  By
+such an admission he crept into the good graces of Louis XIII., who,
+himself almost moribund, had shown how pleased he was to see his chief
+minister go before him to the grave.
+
+Louis XIII. being dead, his widow, Anne of Austria, in open Parliament
+cancelled the monarch's testamentary depositions and constituted herself
+Regent with absolute authority.  Mazarin was her Richelieu.
+
+In France, where men affect to be so gallant and so courteous, how is it
+that when women rule their reign is always stormy and troublous?  Anne of
+Austria--comely, amiable, and gracious as she was--met with the same
+brutal discourtesy which her sister-in-law, Marie de Medici, had been
+obliged to bear.  But gifted with greater force of intellect than that
+queen, she never yielded aught of her just rights; and it was her strong
+will which more than once astounded her enemies and saved the crown for
+the young King.
+
+They lampooned her, hissed her, and burlesqued her publicly at the
+theatres, cruelly defaming her intentions and her private life.  Strong
+in the knowledge of her own rectitude, she faced the tempest without
+flinching; yet inwardly her soul was torn to pieces.  The barricading of
+Paris, the insolence of M. le Prince, the bravado and treachery of
+Cardinal de Retz, burnt up the very blood in her veins, and brought on
+her fatal malady, which took the form of a hideous cancer.
+
+Our nobility (who are only too glad to go and reign in Naples, Portugal,
+or Poland) openly declared that no foreigner ought to hold the post of
+minister in Paris.  Despite his Roman purple, Mazarin was condemned to be
+hanged.
+
+The motive for this was some trifling tax which he had ordered to be
+collected before this had been ratified by the magistrates and registered
+in the usual way.
+
+But the Queen knew how to win over the nobles.  Her cardinal was
+recalled, and the apathy of the Parisians put an end to these
+dissensions, from which, one must admit, the people and the bourgeoisie
+got all the ills and the nobility all the profits.
+
+As comptroller of the list of benefices, M. le Cardinal allotted the
+wealthiest abbeys of the realm to himself.
+
+Having made himself an absolute master of finance, like M. Fouquet, he
+amassed great wealth.  He built a magnificent palace in Rome, and an
+equally brilliant one in Paris, conferring upon himself the wealthy
+governorships of various towns or provinces.  He had a guard of honour
+attached to his person, and a captain of the guard in attendance, just as
+Richelieu had.
+
+He married one of his nieces to the Prince of Mantua, another to the
+Prince de Conti, a third to the Comte de Soissons, a fourth to the
+Constable Colonna (an Italian prince), a fifth to the Duc de Mercoeur (a
+blood relation of Henri IV.), and a sixth to the Duc de Bouillon. As to
+Hortense, the youngest, loveliest of them all,--Hortense, the
+beauteous-eyed, his charming favourite,--he appointed her his sole
+heiress, and having given her jewelry and innumerable other presents, he
+married her to the agreeable Duc de la Meilleraye, son of the marshal of
+that name.
+
+Society was much astonished when it came out that M. le Cardinal had
+disinherited his own nephew, a man of merit, handing over his name, his
+fortune, and his arms to a stranger.  This was an error; in taking the
+name and arms of Mazarin, young De la Meilleraye was giving up those
+which he ought to have given up, and assuming those which it behove him
+to assume.
+
+[De Mancini, Duc de Nevers, a relative of the last Duc de Nivernois. He
+married, soon after, Madame de Montespan's niece.--Editor's Note]
+
+Nor did he retain the great possessions of the La Meilleraye family.
+Herein, certainly, he did not consult his devotion; since the secret and
+fatherly avowal of M. le Cardinal he had no right whatever to the estates
+of this family.
+
+Beneath the waving folds of his large scarlet robe, the Cardinal showed
+such ease and certainty of address, that he never put one in mind of a
+cardinal and a bishop.  To such manners, however, one was accustomed; in
+a leading statesman they were not unpleasant.
+
+He often gave magnificent balls, at which he displayed all the
+accomplishments of his nieces and the sumptuous splendour of his
+furniture.  At such entertainments, always followed by a grand banquet,
+he was wont to show a liberality worthy of crowned heads.  One day, after
+the feast, he announced that a lottery would be held in his palace.
+
+Accordingly, all the guests repaired to his superb gallery, which had
+just been brilliantly decorated with paintings by Romanelli, and here,
+spread out upon countless tables, we saw pieces of rare porcelain,
+scent-bottles of foreign make, watches of every size and shape, chains of
+pearls or of coral, diamond buckles and rings, gold boxes adorned by
+portraits set in pearls or in emeralds, fans of matchless elegance,--in a
+word, all the rarest and most costly things that luxury and fashion could
+invent.
+
+The Queens distributed the tickets with every appearance of honesty and
+good faith.  But I had reason to remark, by what happened to myself, that
+the tickets had been registered beforehand.  The young Queen, who felt
+her garter slipping off, came to me in order to tighten it.  She handed
+me her ticket to hold for a moment, and when she had fastened her garter,
+I gave her back my ticket instead of her own.  When the Cardinal from his
+dais read out the numbers in succession, my number won a portrait of the
+King set in brilliants, much to the surprise of the Queen-mother and his
+Eminence; they could not get over it.
+
+To me this lottery of the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Changes
+
+[The gallery to which the Marquise alludes is to-day called the
+Manuscript Gallery.  It belongs to the Royal Library in the Rue de
+Richelieu.  Mazarin's house is now the Treasury.]
+
+I brought good luck, and we often talked about it afterwards with the
+King, regarding it as a sort of prediction or horoscope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Marriage of Monsieur, the King's Brother.--His Hope of Mounting a
+Throne.--His High-heeled Shoes.--His Dead Child.--Saint Denis.
+
+
+Monsieur would seem to have been created in order to set off his brother,
+the King, and to give him the advantage of such relief.  He is small in
+stature and in character, being ceaselessly busied about trifles,
+details, nothings.  To his toilet and his mirror, he devotes far more
+time than a pretty woman; he covers himself with scents, with laces, with
+diamonds.
+
+He is passionately fond of fetes, large assemblies, and spectacular
+displays.  It was in order to figure as the hero of some such
+entertainment that he suddenly resolved to get married.
+
+Mademoiselle--the Grande Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de
+Dombes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselle de Saint-Fargeau,
+Mademoiselle de la Roche-sur-Yon, Mademoiselle d'Orleans--had come into
+the world twelve or thirteen years before he had, and they could not
+abide each other.  Despite such trifling differences, however, he
+proposed marriage to her.  The princess, than whom no one more determined
+exists, answered, "You ought to have some respect for me; I refused two
+crowned husbands the very day you were born."
+
+So the Prince begged the Queen of England to give him her charming
+daughter Henrietta, who, having come to France during her unfortunate
+father's captivity, had been educated in Paris.
+
+The Princess possessed an admirable admixture of grace and beauty, wit
+being allied to great affability and good-nature; to all these natural
+gifts she added a capacity and intelligence such as one might desire
+sovereigns to possess.  Her coquetry was mere amiability; of that I am
+convinced.  Being naturally vain, the Prince, her husband, made great use
+at first of his consort's royal coat-of-arms.  It was displayed on his
+equipages and stamped all over his furniture.
+
+"Do you know, madame," quoth he gallantly, one day, "what made me
+absolutely desire to marry you?  It was because you are a daughter and a
+sister of the Kings of England.  In your country women succeed to the
+throne, and if Charles the Second and my cousin York were to die without
+children (which is very likely), you would be Queen and I should be
+King."
+
+"Oh, Sire, how wrong of you to imagine such a thing!" replied his wife;
+"it brings tears to my eyes.  I love my brothers more than I do myself. I
+trust that they may have issue, as they desire, and that I may not have
+to go back and live with those cruel English who slew my father-in-law."
+
+The Prince sought to persuade her that a sceptre and a crown are always
+nice things to have.  "Yes," replied Henrietta slyly, "but one must know
+how to wear them."
+
+Soon after this, he again talked of his expectations, saying every
+minute, "If ever I am King, I shall do so; if ever I am King, I shall
+order this; if ever I am King," etc., etc.
+
+"Let us hope, my good friend," replied the Princess, "that you won't be
+King in England, where your gewgaws would make people call out after you;
+nor yet in France, where they would think you too little, after the
+King."
+
+At this last snub, Monsieur was much mortified.  The very next day he
+summoned his old bootmaker, Lambertin, and ordered him to put extra heels
+two inches high to his shoes.  Madame having told this piece of childish
+folly to the King, he was greatly amused, and with a view to perplex his
+brother, he had his own shoe-heels heightened, so that, beside his
+Majesty, Monsieur still looked quite a little man.
+
+The Princess gave premature birth to a child that was scarcely
+recognisable; it had been dead in its mother's womb for at least ten
+days, so the doctors averred.  Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans, however,
+insisted upon having this species of monstrosity baptised.
+
+My sister, De Thianges, who is raillery personified, seeing how
+embarrassed was the cure of Saint Cloud by the Prince's repeated requests
+for baptism, gravely said to the cleric in an irresistibly comic fashion,
+"Do you know, sir, that your refusal is contrary to all good sense and
+good breeding, and that to infants of such quality baptism is never
+denied?"
+
+When this species of miscarriage had to be buried, as there was urgent
+need to get rid of it, Monsieur uttered loud cries, and said that he had
+written to his brother so that there might be a grand funeral service at
+Saint Denis.
+
+Of so absurd a proposal as this no notice was taken, which served to
+amaze Monsieur for one whole month.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+M. Colbert.--His Origin.--He Unveils and Displays Mazarin's Wealth.--The
+Monarch's Liberality.--Resentment of the Cardinal's Heirs.
+
+
+A few moments before he died, Cardinal Mazarin, through strategy, not
+through repentance, besought the King to accept a deed of gift whereby he
+was appointed his universal legatee.  Touched by so noble a resolve, the
+King gave back the deed to his Eminence, who shed tears of emotion.
+
+"Sire, I owe all to you," said the dying man to the young prince, "but I
+believe that I shall pay off my debt by giving Colbert, my secretary, to
+your Majesty.  Faithful as he has been to me, so will he be to you; and
+while he keeps watch, you may sleep.  He comes from the noble family of
+Coodber, of Scottish origin, and his sentiments are worthy of his
+ancestors."
+
+A few moments later the death-agony began, and M. Colbert begged the King
+to listen to him in an embrasure.  There, taking a pencil, he made out a
+list of all the millions which the Cardinal had hidden away in various
+places.  The monarch bewailed his minister, his tutor, his friend, but so
+astounding a revelation dried his tears.  He affectionately thanked M.
+Colbert, and from that day forward gave him his entire consideration and
+esteem.
+
+M. Colbert was diligent enough to seize upon the millions hidden at
+Vincennes, the millions secreted in the old Louvre, at Courbevoie and the
+other country seats.  But the millions in gold, hidden in the bastions of
+La Fere, fell into the hands of heirs, who, a few moments after the
+commencement of the Cardinal's death-agony, sent off a valet post-haste.
+
+The Cardinal's family pretended to know nothing of this affair; but they
+could never bear M. Colbert nor any of his kinsfolk.  The King, being of
+a generous nature, distributed all this wealth in the best and most
+liberal manner possible.  M. Colbert told him to what use Mazarin meant
+to put all these riches; he hoped to have prevailed upon the Conclave to
+elect him Pope, with the concurrence of Spain, France, and the Holy
+Ghost.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+The Young Queen.--Her Portrait.--Her Whims.--Her Love for the King.--Her
+Chagrin.
+
+
+MARIA THERESA, the King's new consort, was the daughter of the King of
+Spain and Elizabeth of France, daughter of Henri IV.  At the time of her
+marriage she had lost her mother, and it was King Philip, Anne of
+Austria's brother, who himself presented her to us at Saint Jean de Luz,
+where he signed the peace-contract.  The Spanish monarch admired his
+nephew, the King, whose stalwart figure, comely face, and polished
+manners, were, indeed, well calculated to excite surprise.
+
+Anne of Austria had said to him, "My brother, my one fear during your
+journey was lest your ailments and the hardships of travel should hinder
+you from getting back here again."
+
+"Was such your thought, sister?"  replied the good man.  "I would
+willingly have come on foot, so as to behold with my own eyes the superb
+cavalier that you and I are going to give to my daughter."
+
+After the oath of peace had been sworn upon the Gospels, there was a
+general presentation before the two Kings.  Cantocarrero, the Castilian
+secretary of state, presented the Spanish notabilities, while Cardinal
+Mazarin, in his pontifical robes, presented the French.  As he announced
+M. de Turenne, the old King looked at him repeatedly.  "There's one,"
+quoth he, "who has given me many a sleepless night."
+
+M. de Turenne bowed respectfully, and both courts could perceive in his
+simple bearing his unaffected modesty.
+
+On leaving Spain and the King, young princess was moved to tears.  Next
+day she thought nothing of it at all.  She was wholly engrossed by the
+possession of such a King, nor was she at any pains to hide her glee from
+us.
+
+Of all her Court ladies I was the most youthful and, perhaps, the most
+conspicuous.  At the outset the Queen showed a wish to take me into her
+confidence but it was the lady-in-waiting who would never consent to
+this.
+
+When, at that lottery of the Cardinal's, I won the King's portrait, the
+Queen-mother called me into her closet and desired to know how such a
+thing could possibly have happened.  I replied that, during the
+garter-incident, the two tickets had got mixed.  "Ah, in that case," said
+the princess, "the occurrence was quite a natural one.  So keep this
+portrait, since it has fallen into your hands; but, for God's sake, don't
+try and make yourself pleasant to my son; for you're only too fascinating
+as it is.  Look at that little La Valliere, what a mess she has got into,
+and what chagrin she has caused my poor Maria Theresa!"
+
+I replied to her Majesty that I would rather let myself be buried alive
+than ever imitate La Valliere, and I said so then because that was really
+what I thought.
+
+The Queen-mother softened, and gave me her hand to kiss, now addressing
+me as "madame," and anon as "my daughter."  A few days afterwards she
+wished to walk in the gallery with me, and said to me, "If God suffers me
+to live, I will make you lady-in-waiting; be sure of that."
+
+Anne of Austria was a tall, fine, dark woman, with brown eyes, like those
+of the King.  The Infanta, her niece, is a very pretty blonde, blue-eyed,
+but short in stature.
+
+To her slightest words the Queen-mother gives sense and wit; her
+daughter-in-law's speeches and actions are of the simplest, most
+commonplace kind.  Were it not for the King, she would pass her life in a
+dressing-gown, night-cap, and slippers.  At Court ceremonies and on
+gala-days, she never appears to be in a good humour; everything seems to
+weigh her down, notably her diamonds.
+
+However, she has no remarkable defect, and one may say that she is devoid
+of goodness, just as she is devoid of badness.  When coming among us, she
+contrived to bring with her Molina, the daughter of her nurse, a sort of
+comedy confidante, who soon gave herself Court airs, and who managed to
+form a regular little Court of her own.  Without her sanction nothing can
+be obtained of the Queen.  My lady Molina is the great, the small, and
+the unique counsellor of the princess, and the King, like the others,
+remains submissive to her decisions and her inspection.
+
+French cookery, by common consent, is held to be well-nigh perfect in its
+excellence; yet the Infanta could never get used to our dishes.  The
+Senora Molina, well furnished with silver kitchen utensils, has a sort of
+private kitchen or scullery reserved for her own use, and there it is
+that the manufacture takes place of clove-scented chocolate, brown soups
+and gravies, stews redolent with garlic, capsicums, and nutmeg, and all
+that nauseous pastry in which the young Infanta revels.
+
+Ever since La Valliere's lasting triumph, the Queen seems to have got it
+into her head that she is despised; and at table I have often heard her
+say, "They will help themselves to everything, and won't leave me
+anything."
+
+I am not unjust, and I admit that a husband's public attachments are not
+exactly calculated to fill his legitimate consort with joy.  But,
+fortunately for the Infanta, the King abounds in rectitude and
+good-nature.  This very good-nature it is which prompts him to use all
+the consideration of which a noble nature is capable, and the more his
+amours give the Queen just cause for anxiety, the more does he redouble
+his kindness and consideration towards her.  Of this she is sensible.
+Thus she acquiesces, and, as much through tenderness as social tact, she
+never reproaches or upbraids him with anything.  Nor does the King
+scruple to admit that, to secure so good-natured a partner, it is well
+worth the trouble of going to fetch her from the other end of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Madame de la Valliere Becomes Duchess.--Her Family is Resigned.--Her
+Children Recognised by the King.--Madame Colbert Their Governess.--The
+King's Passion Grows More Serious.--Love and Friendship.
+
+
+Out of affection and respect for the Queen-mother, the King had until
+then sought to conceal the ardour of his attachment for Mademoiselle de
+la Valliere.  It was after the six months of mourning that he shook off
+all restraint, showing that, like any private person, he felt himself
+master of his actions and his inclinations.
+
+He gave the Vaujours estate to his mistress, after formally constituting
+it a duchy, and, owing to the two children of his duchy, Mademoiselle de
+la Valliere assumed the title of Duchess.  What a fuss she made at this
+time!  All that was styled disinterestedness, modesty.  Not a bit of it.
+It was pusillanimity and a sense of servile fear.  La Valliere would have
+liked to enjoy her handsome lover in the shade and security of mystery,
+without exposing herself to the satire of courtiers and of the public,
+and, above all, to the reproaches of her family and relatives, who nearly
+all were very devout.
+
+On this head, however, she soon saw that such fears were exaggerated. The
+Marquise de Saint-Remy was but slightly scandalised at what was going on.
+She and the Marquis de Saint-Remy, her second husband, strictly proper
+though they were, came to greet their daughter when proclaimed duchess.
+And when, a few days afterwards, the King declared the rank of the two
+children to the whole of assembled Parliament, the two families of
+Saint-Remy and La Valliere offered congratulations to the Duchess, and
+received those of all Paris.
+
+M. Colbert, who owed everything to the King, entrusted Madame Colbert
+with the education of the new prince and princess; they were brought up
+under the eyes of this statesman, who for everything found time and
+obligingness.  The girl, lovely as love itself, took the name of
+Mademoiselle de Blois, while to her little brother was given the title of
+Comte de Vermandois.
+
+It was just about this time that I noticed the beginning of the monarch's
+serious attachment for me.  Till then it had been only playful badinage,
+good-humoured teasing, a sort of society play, in which the King was
+rehearsing his part as a lover.  I was at length bound to admit that
+chaff of this sort might end in something serious, and his Majesty begged
+me to let him have La Valliere for some time longer.
+
+I have already said that, while becoming her rival, I still remained her
+friend.  Of this she had countless proofs, and when, at long intervals, I
+saw her again in her dismal retreat, her good-nature, unchanging as this
+was, caused her to receive and welcome me as one welcomes those one
+loves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+First Vocation of Mademoiselle de la Valliere.--The King Surprises His
+Mistress.--She is Forced to Retire to a Convent.--The King Hastens to
+Take Her Back.--She Was Not Made for Court Life.--Her Farewell to the
+King.--Sacrifice.--The Abbe de Bossuet.
+
+
+What I am now about to relate, I have from her own lips, nor am I the
+only one to whom she made such recitals and avowals.
+
+Her father died when she was quite young, and, when dying, foresaw that
+his widow, being without fortune or constancy, would ere long marry
+again.  To little Louise he was devotedly attached.  Ardently embracing
+her, he addressed her thus:
+
+"In losing me, my poor little Louise, you lose all.  What little there is
+of my inheritance ought, undoubtedly, to belong to you; but I know your
+mother; she will dispose of it.  If my relatives do not show the interest
+in you which your fatherless state should inspire, renounce this world
+soon, where, separated from your father, there exists for you but danger
+and misfortune.  Two of my ancestors left their property to the nuns of
+Saint Bernard at Gomer-Fontaines, as they are perfectly well aware. Go to
+them in all confidence; they will receive you without a dowry even; it is
+their duty to do so.  If, disregarding my last counsel, you go astray in
+the world, from the eternal abodes on high I will watch over you; I will
+appear to you, if God empower me to do so; and, at any rate, from time to
+time I will knock at the door of your heart to rouse you from your
+baleful slumber and draw your attention to the sweet paths of light that
+lead to God."
+
+This speech of a dying father was graven upon the heart of a young girl
+both timid and sensitive.  She never forgot it; and it needed the fierce,
+inexplicable passion which took possession of her soul to captivate her
+and carry her away so far.
+
+Before becoming attached to the King, she opened out her heart to me with
+natural candour; and whenever in the country she observed the turrets or
+the spire of a monastery, she sighed, and I saw her beautiful blue eyes
+fill with tears.
+
+She was maid of honour to the Princess Henrietta of England, and I filled
+a like office.  Our two companions, being the most quick-witted, durst
+not talk about their love-affairs before Louise, so convinced were we of
+her modesty, and almost of her piety.
+
+In spite of that, as she was gentle, intelligent, and well-bred, the
+Princess plainly preferred her to the other three.  In temperament they
+suited each other to perfection.
+
+The King frequently came to the Palais Royal, where the bright, pleasant
+conversation of his sister-in-law made amends for the inevitable boredom
+which one suffered when with the Queen.
+
+Being brought in such close contact with the King, who in private life is
+irresistibly attractive, Mademoiselle de la Valliere conceived a violent
+passion for him; yet, owing to modesty or natural timidity, it was plain
+that she carefully sought to hide her secret.  One fine night she and two
+young persons of her own age were seated under a large oak-tree in the
+grounds of Saint Germain.  The Marquis de Wringhen, seeing them in the
+moonlight, said to the King, who was walking with him, "Let us turn
+aside, Sire, in this direction; yonder there are three solitary nymphs,
+who seem waiting for fairies or lovers."  Then they noiselessly
+approached the tree that I have mentioned, and lost not a word of all the
+talk in which the fair ladies were engaged.
+
+They were discussing the last ball at the chateau.  One extolled the
+charms of the Marquis d'Alincour, son of Villeroi; the second mentioned
+another young nobleman; while the third frankly expressed herself in
+these terms:
+
+"The Marquis d'Alincour and the Prince de Marcillac are most charming, no
+doubt, but, in all conscience, who could be interested in their merits
+when once the King appeared in their midst?
+
+"Oh, oh!"  cried the two others, laughing, "it's strange to hear you talk
+like that; so, one has to be a king in order to merit your attention?"
+
+"His rank as king," replied Mademoiselle de la Valliere, "is not the
+astonishing part about him; I should have recognised it even in the
+simple dress of a herdsman."
+
+The three chatterers then rose and went back to the chateau.  Next day,
+the King, wholly occupied with what he had overheard on the previous
+evening, sat musing on a sofa at his sister-in-law's, when all at once
+the voice of Mademoiselle de la Beaume-le-Blanc smote his ear and brought
+trouble to his heart.  He saw her, noticed her melancholy look, thought
+her lovelier than the loveliest, and at once fell passionately in love.
+
+They soon got to understand one another, yet for a long while merely
+communicated by means of notes at fetes, or during the performance of
+allegorical ballets and operettas, the airs in which sufficiently
+expressed the nature of such missives.
+
+In order to put the Queen-mother off the scent and screen La Valliere,
+the King pretended to be in love with Mademoiselle de la
+Mothe-Houdancour, one of the Queen's maids of honour.  He used to talk
+across to her out of one of the top-story windows, and even wished her to
+accept a present of diamonds.  But Madame de Navailles, who took charge
+of the maids of honour, had gratings put over the top-story windows, and
+La Mothe-Houdancour was so chagrined by the Queen's icy manner towards
+her that she withdrew to a convent.  As to the Duchesse de Navailles and
+her husband, they got rid of their charges and retired to their estates,
+where great wealth and freedom were their recompense after such pompous
+Court slavery.
+
+The Queen-mother was still living; unlike her niece, she was not
+blindfold.  The adventure of Mademoiselle de la Mothe-Houdancour seemed
+to her just what it actually was,--a subterfuge; as she surmised, it
+could only be La Valliere.  Having discovered the name of her confessor,
+the Queen herself went in disguise to the Theatin Church, flung herself
+into the confessional where this man officiated, and promised him the sum
+of thirty thousand francs for their new church if he would help her to
+save the King.
+
+The Theatin promised to do what the Queen thus earnestly desired, and
+when his fair penitent came to confess, he ordered her at once to break
+off her connection with the Court as with the world, and to shut herself
+up in a convent.
+
+Mademoiselle de la Valliere shed tears, and sought to make certain
+remarks, but the confessor, a man of inflexible character, threatened her
+with eternal damnation, and he was obeyed.
+
+Beside herself with grief, La Valliere left by another door, so as to
+avoid her servants and her coach.  She recollected seeing a little
+convent of hospitalieres at Saint Cloud; she went thither on foot, and
+was cordially welcomed by these dames.
+
+Next day it was noised abroad in the chateau that she had been carried
+off by order of the Queen-mother.  During vespers the King seemed greatly
+agitated, and no sooner had the preacher ascended the pulpit than he rose
+and disappeared.
+
+The confusion of the two Queens was manifest; no one paid any heed to the
+preacher; he scarcely knew where he was.
+
+Meanwhile the conquering King had started upon his quest.  Followed by a
+page and a carriage and pair, he first went to Chaillot, and then to
+Saint Cloud, where he rang at the entrance of the modest abode which
+harboured his friend.  The nun at the turnstile answered him harshly, and
+denied him an audience.  It is true, he only told her he was a cousin or
+a relative.
+
+Seeing that this nun was devoid of sense and of humanity, he bethought
+himself of endeavouring to persuade the gardener, who lived close to the
+monastery.  He slipped several gold pieces into his hand, and most
+politely requested him to go and tell the Lady Superior that he had come
+thither on behalf of the King.
+
+The Lady Superior came down into the parlour, and recognising the King
+from a superb miniature, besought him of his grandeur to interest himself
+in this young lady of quality, devoid of means and fatherless, and
+consented, moreover, to give her up to him, since as King he so
+commanded.
+
+Louise de la Beaume-le-Blanc obeyed the King, or in other words, the
+dictates of her own heart, imprudently embarking upon a career of
+passion, for which a temperament wholly different from hers was needed.
+It is not simple-minded maidens that one wants at Court to share the
+confidence of princes.  No doubt natures of that sort--simple,
+disinterested souls are pleasant and agreeable to them, as therein they
+find contentment such as they greedily prize; but for these unsullied,
+romantic natures, disillusion, trickery alone is in store.  And if
+Mademoiselle de la Beaumele-Blanc had listened to me, she might have
+turned matters to far better account; nor, after yielding up her youth to
+a monarch, would she have been obliged to end, her days in a prison.
+
+The King no longer visited her as his mistress, but trusted and esteemed
+her as a friend and as the mother of his two pretty children.
+
+One day, in the month of April, 1674, his Majesty, while in the gardens,
+received the following letter, which one of La Valliere's pages proffered
+him on bended knee:
+
+SIRE:--To-day I am leaving forever this palace, whither the cruellest of
+fatalities summoned my youth and inexperience.  Had I not met you, my
+heart would have loved seclusion, a laborious life, and my kinsfolk.  An
+imperious inclination, which I could not conquer, gave me to you, and,
+simple, docile as I was by nature, I believed that my passion would
+always prove to me delicious, and that your love would never die.  In
+this world nothing endures. My fond attachment has ceased to have any
+charm for you, and my heart is filled with dismay.  This trial has come
+from God; of this my reason and my faith are convinced.  God has felt
+compassion for my unspeakable grief.  That which for long past I have
+suffered is greater than human force can bear; He is going to receive me
+into His home of mercy.  He promises me both healing and peace.
+
+In this theatre of pomp and perfidy I have only stayed until such a
+moment as my daughter and her youthful brother might more easily do
+without me.  You will cherish them both; of that I have no doubt. Guide
+them, I beseech you, for the sake of your own glory and their well-being.
+May your watchful care sustain them, while their mother, humbled and
+prostrate in a cloister, shall commend them to Him who pardons all.
+
+After my departure, show some kindness to those who were my servants and
+faithful domestics, and deign to take back the estates and residences
+which served to support me in my frivolous grandeur, and maintain the
+celebrity that I deplore.
+
+Adieu, Sire!  Think no more about me, lest such a feeling, to which my
+imagination might but all too readily lend itself, only beget links of
+sympathy in my heart which conscience and repentance would fain destroy.
+
+If God call me to himself, young though yet I am, He will have granted my
+prayers; if He ordain me to live for a while longer in this desert of
+penitence, it will never compensate for the duration of my error, nor for
+the scandal of which I have been the cause.
+
+Your subject from this time forth, LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE.
+
+The King had not been expecting so desperate a resolve as this, nor did
+he feel inclined to hinder her from making it.  He left the Portuguese
+ambassador, who witnessed his agitation, and hastened to Madame de la
+Valliere's, who had left her apartments in the castle at daybreak.  He
+shed tears, being kind of heart and convinced that a body so graceful and
+so delicate would never be able to resist the rigours and hardships of so
+terrible a life.
+
+The Carmelite nuns of the Rue Saint Jacques loudly proclaimed this
+conversion, and in their vanity gladly received into their midst so
+modest and distinguished a victim, driven thither through sheer despair.
+
+The ceremony which these dames call "taking the dress" attracted the
+entire Court to their church.  The Queen herself desired to be present at
+so harrowing a spectacle, and by a curious contradiction, of which her
+capricious nature is capable, she shed floods of tears.  La Valliere
+seemed gentler, lovelier, more modest and more seductive than ever.  In
+the midst of the grief and tears which her courageous sacrifice provoked,
+she never uttered a single sigh, nor did she change colour once.  Hers
+was a nature made for extremes; like Caesar, she said to herself, "Either
+Rome or nothing!"
+
+The Abbe de Bossuet, who had been charged to preach the sermon of
+investiture, showed a good deal of wit by exhibiting none at all.  The
+King must have felt indebted to him for such reserve.  Into his discourse
+he had put mere vague commonplaces, which neither touch nor wound any
+one; honeyed anathemas such as these may even pass for compliments.
+
+This prelate has won for himself a great name and great wealth by words.
+A proof of his cleverness exists in his having lived in grandeur,
+opulence, and worldly happiness, while making people believe that he
+condemned such things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Story of the Queen-mother's Marriage with Cardinal Mazarin Published in
+Holland.
+
+
+Despite the endeavours made by the ministers concerning the pamphlet or
+volume about which I am going to speak, neither they nor the King
+succeeded in quashing a sinister rumour and an opinion which had taken
+deep root among the people.  Ever since this calumny it believes--and
+will always believe--in the twin brother of Louis XIV., suppressed, one
+knows not why, by his mother, just as one believes in fairy-tales and
+novels.  This false rumour, invented by far-seeing folk, is that which
+has most affected the King.  I will recount the manner in which it
+reached him.
+
+Since the disorder and insolence of the Fronde, this prince did not like
+to reside in the capital; he soon invented pretexts for getting away from
+it.  The chateau of the Tuileries, built by Catherine de Medici at some
+distance from the Louvre, was, really speaking, only a little
+country-house and Trianon.  The King conceived the plan of uniting this
+structure with his palace at the Louvre, extending it on the Saint Roch
+side and also on the side of the river, and this being settled, the
+Louvre gallery would be carried on as far as the southern angle of the
+new building, so as to form one whole edifice, as it now appears.
+
+While these alterations were in progress, the Court quitted the Louvre
+and the capital, and took up its permanent residence at Saint Germain.
+
+Though ceasing to make a royal residence and home of Paris, his Majesty
+did not omit to pay occasional visits to the centre of the capital.  He
+came incognito, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a coach, and usually
+went about the streets on foot.  On these occasions he was dressed
+carelessly, like any ordinary young man, and the better to ensure a
+complete disguise, he kept continually changing either the colour of his
+moustache or the colour and cut of his clothes.  One evening, on leaving
+the opera, just as he was about to open his carriage door, a man
+approached him with a great air of mystery, and tendering a pamphlet,
+begged him to buy it.  To get rid of the importunate fellow, his Majesty
+purchased the book, and never glanced at its contents until the following
+day.
+
+Imagine his surprise and indignation!  The following was the title of his
+purchase:
+
+"Secret and Circumstantial Account of the Marriage of Anne of Austria,
+Queen of France, with the Abbe Jules Simon Mazarin, Cardinal of the Holy
+Roman Church.  A new edition, carefully revised.  Amsterdam."
+
+Grave and phlegmatic by nature, the King was always master of his
+feelings, a sign, this, of the noble-minded.  He shut himself up in his
+apartment, so as to be quite alone, and hastily perused the libellous
+pamphlet.
+
+According to the author of it, King Louis XIII., being weak and languid,
+and sapped moreover by secret poison, had not been able to beget any
+heirs.  The Queen, who secretly was Mazarin's mistress, had had twins by
+the Abbe, only the prettier of the two being declared legitimate.  The
+other twin had been entrusted to obscure teachers, who, when it was time,
+would give him up.
+
+The princess, so the writer added, stung by qualms of conscience, had
+insisted upon having her guilty intimacy purified by the sacrament of
+marriage, to which the prime minister agreed.  Then, mentioning the names
+of such and such persons as witnesses, the book stated that "this
+marriage was solemnised on a night in February, 1643, by Cardinal de
+Sainte-Suzanne, a brother and servile creature of Mazarin's."
+
+"This explains," added the vile print, "the zeal, perseverance, and
+foolish ardour of the Queen Regent in defending her Italian against the
+just opposition of the nobles, against the formal charges of the
+magistrates, against the clamorous outcry, not only of Parisians, but of
+all France.  This explains the indifference, or rather the firm resolve,
+on Mazarin's part; never to take orders, but to remain simply 'tonsure'
+or 'minore',--he who controls at least forty abbeys, as well as a
+bishopric.
+
+"Look at the young monarch," it continued, "and consider how closely he
+resembles his Eminence, the same haughty glance; the same uncontrolled
+passion for pompous buildings, luxurious dress and equipages; the same
+deference and devotion to the Queen-mother; the same independent customs,
+precepts, and laws; the same aversion for the Parisians; the same
+resentment against the honest folk of the Fronde."
+
+This final phrase easily disclosed its origin; nor upon this point had
+     his Majesty the slightest shadow of a doubt.
+
+The same evening he sent full instructions to the lieutenant-general of
+police, and two days afterwards the nocturnal vendor of pamphlets found
+himself caught in a trap.
+
+The King wished him to be brought to Saint Germain, so that he might
+identify him personally; and, as he pretended to be half-witted or an
+idiot, he was thrown half naked into a dungeon.  His allowance of dry
+bread diminished day by day, at which he complained, and it was decided
+to make him undergo this grim ordeal.
+
+Under the pressure of hunger and thirst, the prisoner at length made a
+confession, and mentioned a bookseller of the Quartier Latin, who, under
+the Fronde, had made his shop a meeting-place for rebels.
+
+The bookseller, having been put in the Bastille, and upon the same diet
+as his salesman, stated the name of the Dutch printer who had published
+the pamphlet.  They sought to extract more from him, and reduced his diet
+with such severity that he disclosed the entire secret.
+
+This bookseller, used to a good square meal at home, found it impossible
+to tolerate the Bastille fare much longer.  Bound hand and foot, at his
+final cross-examination he confessed that the work had emanated from the
+Cardinal de Retz, or certain of his party.
+
+He was condemned to three years' imprisonment, and was obliged to sell
+his shop and retire to the provinces.
+
+I once heard M. de Louvois tell this tale, and use it as a means of
+silencing those who regretted the absence of the exiled
+Cardinal-archbishop.
+
+As to the libellous pamphlet itself, the clumsy nature of it was only too
+plain, for the King is no more like Mazarin than he is like the King of
+Ethiopia.  On the contrary, one can easily distinguish in the general
+effect of his features a very close resemblance to King Louis XIII.
+
+The libellous pamphlet stated that, on the occasion of the Infanta's
+first confinement, twins were born, and that the prettier of the two had
+been adopted, another blunder, this, of the grossest kind.  A book of
+this sort could deceive only the working class and the Parisian lower
+orders, for folk about the Court, and even the bourgeoisie, know that it
+is impossible for a queen to be brought to bed in secret.  Unfortunately
+for her, she has to comply with the most embarrassing rules of etiquette.
+She has to bear her final birth-pangs under an open canopy, surrounded at
+no great distance by all the princes of the blood; they are summoned
+thither, and they have this right so as to prevent all frauds,
+subterfuges, or impositions.
+
+When the King found the seditious book in question, the Queen, his
+mother, was ill and in pain; every possible precaution was taken to
+prevent her from hearing the news, and the lieutenant-general of police,
+having informed the King that two-thirds of the edition had been seized
+close to the Archbishop's palace, orders were given to burn all these
+horrible books by night, in the presence of the Marquis de Beringhen,
+appointed commissioner on this occasion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans Wishes to be Governor of a Province.--The
+King's Reply.--He Requires a Fauteuil for His Wife.--Another Excellent
+Answer of the King's.
+
+
+In marrying Monsieur, the King consulted only his well-known generosity,
+and the richly equipped household which he granted to this prince should
+assuredly have made him satisfied and content.  The Chevalier de Lorraine
+and the Chevalier de Remecourt, two pleasant and baneful vampires whom
+Monsieur could refuse nothing, put it into his head that he should make
+himself feared, so as to lead his Majesty on to greater concessions,
+which they were perfectly able to turn to their own enjoyment and profit.
+
+Monsieur began by asking for the governorship of a province; in reply he
+was told that this could not be, seeing that such appointments were never
+given to French princes, brothers of the King.
+
+Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans hastened to point out that Gaston, son of Henri
+IV., had had such a post, and that the Duc de Verneuil, natural son of
+the same Henri, had one at the present time.
+
+"That is true," replied the King, "but from my youth upward you have
+always heard me condemn such innovations, and you cannot expect me to do
+the very thing that I have blamed others for doing.  If ever you were
+minded, brother, to rebel against my authority, your first care would,
+undoubtedly, be to withdraw to your province, where, like Gaston, your
+uncle, you would have to raise troops and money.  Pray do not weary me
+with indiscretions of this sort; and tell those people who influence you
+to give you better advice for the future."
+
+Somewhat abashed, the Duc d'Orleans affirmed that what he had said and
+done was entirely of his own accord.
+
+"Did you speak of your own accord," said the King, "when insisting upon
+being admitted to the privy council?  Such a thing can no longer be
+allowed.  You inconsiderately expressed two different opinions, and since
+you cannot control your tongue, which is most undoubtedly your own, I
+have no power over it,--I, to whom it does not want to belong."
+
+Then Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans added that these two refusals would seem
+less harsh, less painful to him, if the King would grant a seat in his
+own apartments, and in those of the Queen, to the Princess, his wife, who
+was a king's daughter.
+
+"No, that cannot be," replied his Majesty, "and pray do not insist upon
+it.  It is not I who have established the present customs; they existed
+long before you or me.  It is in your interest, brother, that the majesty
+of the throne should not be weakened or altered; and if, from Duc
+d'Orleans, you one day become King of France, I know you well enough to
+believe that you would never be lax in this matter.  Before God, you and
+I are exactly the same as other creatures that live and breathe; before
+men we are seemingly extraordinary beings, greater, more refined, more
+perfect.  The day that people, abandoning this respect and veneration
+which is the support and mainstay of monarchies,--the day that they
+regard us as their equals,--all the prestige of our position will be
+destroyed.  Bereft of beings superior to the mass, who act as their
+leaders and supports, the laws will only be as so many black lines on
+white paper, and your armless chair and my fauteuil will be two pieces of
+furniture of the selfsame importance.  Personally, I should like to
+gratify you in every respect, for the same blood flows in our veins, and
+we have loved each other from the cradle upwards.  Ask of me things that
+are practicable, and you shall see that I will forestall your wishes.
+Personally, I daresay I care less about honorary distinctions than you
+do, and in Cabinet matters I am always considered to be simpler and more
+easy to deal with than such and such a one.  One word more, and I have
+done.  I will nominate you to the governorship of any province you
+choose, if you will now consent in writing to let proceedings be taken
+against you, just as against any ordinary gentleman, in case there should
+be sedition in your province, or any kind of disorder during your
+administration."
+
+Hereupon young Philippe began to smile, and he begged the King to embrace
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Arms and Livery of Madame de Montespan.--Duchess or Princess.--Fresh
+Scandal Caused by the Marquis.--The Rue Saint Honore Affair.--M. de
+Ronancour.--Separation of Body and Estate.
+
+
+When leaving, despite himself, for the provinces, M. de Montespan wrote
+me a letter full of bitter insults, in which he ordered me to give up his
+coat-of-arms, his livery, and even his name.
+
+This letter I showed to the King.  For a while he was lost in thought, as
+usual on such occasions, and then he said to me:
+
+"There's nothing extraordinary about the fellow's livery.  Put your
+servants into pale orange with silver lace.  Assume your old crest of
+Mortemart, and as regards name, I will buy you an estate with a pretty
+title."
+
+"But I don't like pale orange," I instantly replied; "if I may, I should
+like to choose dark blue, and gold lace, and as regards crest, I cannot
+adopt my father's crest, except in lozenge form, which could not
+seriously be done.  As it is your gracious intention to give me the name
+of an estate, give me (for to you everything is easy) a duchy like La
+Valliere, or, better still, a principality."
+
+The King smiled, and answered, "It shall be done, madame, as you wish."
+
+The very, next day I went into Paris to acquaint my lawyer with my
+intentions.  Several magnificent estates were just then in the market,
+but only marquisates, counties, or baronies!  Nothing illustrious,
+nothing remarkable!  Duhamel assured me that the estate of Chabrillant,
+belonging to a spendthrift, was up for sale.
+
+"That," said he, "is a sonorous name, the brilliant renown of which would
+only be enhanced by the title of princess."
+
+Duhamel promised to see all his colleagues in this matter, and to find me
+what I wanted without delay.
+
+I quitted Paris without having met or recognised anybody, when, about
+twenty paces at the most beyond the Porte Saint Honor, certain sergeants
+or officials of some sort roughly stopped my carriage and seized my
+horses' bridles "in the King's name."
+
+"In the King's name?"  I cried, showing myself at the coach door.
+
+"Insolent fellows!  How dare you thus take the King's name in vain?"  At
+the same time I told my coachman to whip up his horses with the reins and
+to drive over these vagabonds.  At a word from me the three footmen
+jumped down and did their duty by dealing out lusty thwacks to the
+sergeants.  A crowd collected, and townsfolk and passers-by joined in the
+fray.
+
+A tall, fine-looking man, wrapped in a dressing-gown, surveyed the tumult
+like a philosopher from his balcony overhead.  I bowed graciously to him
+and besought him to come down.  He came, and in sonorous accents
+exclaimed:
+
+"Ho, there! serving-men of my lady, stop fighting, will you?  And pray,
+sergeants, what is your business?"
+
+"It is a disgrace," cried they all, as with one breath.  "Madame lets her
+scoundrelly footmen murder us, despite the name of his Majesty, which we
+were careful to utter at the outset of things.  Madame is a person (as
+everybody in France now knows) who is in open revolt against her husband;
+she has deserted him in order to cohabit publicly with some one else. Her
+husband claims his coach, with his own crest and armorial bearings
+thereon, and we are here for the purpose of carrying out the order of one
+of the judges of the High Court."
+
+"If that be so," replied the man in the dressing-gown, "I have no
+objection to offer, and though madame is loveliness itself, she must
+suffer me to pity her, and I have the honour of saluting her."
+
+So saying, he made me a bow and left me, without help of any sort, in the
+midst of this crazy rabble.
+
+I was inconsolable.  My coachman, the best fellow in the world, called
+out to him from the top of his bog, "Monsieur, pray procure help for my
+mistress,--for Madame la Marquise de Montespan."
+
+No sooner had he uttered these words than the gentleman came back again,
+while, among the lookers-on, some hissing was heard.  He raised both
+hands with an air of authority, and speaking with quite incredible
+vehemence and fire, he successfully harangued the crowd.
+
+"Madame does not refuse to comply with the requirements of justice," he
+added firmly; "but madame, a member of the Queen's household, is
+returning to Versailles, and cannot go thither on foot, or in some
+tumbledown vehicle.  So I must beg these constables or sergeants (no
+matter which) to defer their arrest until to-morrow, and to accept me as
+surety.  The French people is the friend of fair ladies; and true
+Parisians are incapable of harming or of persecuting aught that is
+gracious and beautiful."
+
+All those present, who at first had hissed, replied to this speech by
+cries of "Bravo!"  One of my men, who had been wounded in the scuffle,
+had his hand all bloody.  A young woman brought some lavender-water, and
+bound up the wound with her white handkerchief, amid loud applause from
+the crowd, while I bowed my acknowledgments and thanks.
+
+The King listened with interest to the account of the adventure that I
+have just described, and wished to know the name of the worthy man who
+had acted as my support and protector.  His name was De Tarcy-Ronancour.
+The King granted him a pension of six thousand francs, and gave the Abbey
+of Bauvoir to his daughter.
+
+As for me, I kept insisting with might and main for a separation of body
+and estate, which alone could put an end to all my anxiety.  When a
+decree for such separation was pronounced at the Chatelet, and registered
+according to the rules, I set about arranging an appanage which, from the
+very first day, had seemed to me absolutely necessary for my position.
+
+As ill-luck would have it, the judges left me the name of Montespan,
+which to my husband was so irksome, and to myself also; and the King,
+despite repeated promises, never relieved me of a name that it was very
+difficult to bear.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Armed with beauty and sarcasm
+Conduct of the sort which cements and revives attachments
+Console me on the morrow for what had troubled me to-day
+Depicting other figures she really portrays her own
+In England a man is the absolute proprietor of his wife
+In Rome justice and religion always rank second to politics
+Kings only desire to be obeyed when they command
+Laws will only be as so many black lines on white paper
+Love-affair between Mademoiselle de la Valliere and the King
+Madame de Montespan had died of an attack of coquetry
+Not show it off was as if one only possessed a kennel
+That Which Often It is Best to Ignore
+Violent passion had changed to mere friendship
+When women rule their reign is always stormy and troublous
+Wife: property or of furniture, useful to his house
+Won for himself a great name and great wealth by words
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan,
+Volume I., by Madame La Marquise De Montespan
+
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