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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XIV. and the Regency,
+Book II., by Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
+
+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 Louis XIV. and the Regency, Book II.
+
+Author: Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
+
+Release Date: September 29, 2006 [EBook #3856]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. AND OF THE REGENCY
+
+
+
+Being the Secret Memoirs of the Mother of the Regent,
+MADAME ELIZABETH-CHARLOTTE OF BAVARIA, DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 2.
+
+
+Philippe I., Duc d'Orleans
+Philippe II., Duc d'Orleans, Regent of France
+The Affairs of the Regency
+The Duchesse d'Orleans, Consort of the Regent
+The Dauphine, Princess of Bavaria.
+Adelaide of Savoy, the Second Dauphine
+The First Dauphin
+The Duke of Burgundy, the Second Dauphin
+Petite Madame
+
+
+
+
+SECTION VIII.--PHILIPPE I., DUC D'ORLEANS.
+
+Cardinal Mazarin perceiving that the King had less readiness than his
+brother, was apprehensive lest the latter should become too learned; he
+therefore enjoined the preceptor to let him play, and not to suffer him
+to apply to his studies.
+
+"What can you be thinking of, M. la Mothe le Vayer," said the Cardinal;
+"would you try to make the King's brother a clever man?  If he should be
+more wise than his brother, he would not be qualified for implicit
+obedience."
+
+Never were two brothers more totally different in their appearance than
+the King and Monsieur.  The King was tall, with light hair; his mien was
+good and his deportment manly.  Monsieur, without having a vulgar air,
+was very small; his hair and eye-brows were quite black, his eyes were
+dark, his face long and narrow, his nose large, his mouth small, and his
+teeth very bad; he was fond of play, of holding drawing-rooms, of eating,
+dancing and dress; in short, of all that women are fond of.  The King
+loved the chase, music and the theatre; my husband rather affected large
+parties and masquerades: his brother was a man of great gallantry, and I
+do not believe my husband was ever in love during his life.  He danced
+well, but in a feminine manner; he could not dance like a man because his
+shoes were too high-heeled.  Excepting when he was with the army, he
+would never get on horseback.  The soldiers used to say that he was more
+afraid of being sun-burnt and of the blackness of the powder than of the
+musket-balls; and it was very true.  He was very fond of building.
+Before he had the Palais Royal completed, and particularly the grand
+apartment, the place was, in my opinion, perfectly horrible, although in
+the Queen-mother's time it had been very much admired.  He was so fond of
+the ringing of bells that he used to go to Paris on All Souls' Day for
+the purpose of hearing the bells, which are rung during the whole of the
+vigils on that day he liked no other music, and was often laughed at for
+it by his friends.  He would join in the joke, and confess that a peal of
+bells delighted him beyond all expression.  He liked Paris better than
+any other place, because his secretary was there, and he lived under less
+restraint than at Versailles.  He wrote so badly that he was often
+puzzled to read his own letters, and would bring them to me to decipher
+them.
+
+"Here, Madame," he used to say, laughing, "you are accustomed to my
+writing; be so good as to read me this, for I really cannot tell what I
+have been writing."  We have often laughed at it.
+
+He was of a good disposition enough, and if he had not yielded so
+entirely to the bad advice of his favourites, he would have been the best
+master in the world.  I loved him, although he had caused me a great deal
+of pain; but during the last three years of his life that was totally
+altered.  I had brought him to laugh at his own weakness, and even to
+take jokes without caring for them.  From the period that I had been
+calumniated and accused, he would suffer no one again to annoy me; he had
+the most perfect confidence in me, and took my part so decidedly, that
+his favourites dared not practise against me.  But before that I had
+suffered terribly.  I was just about to be happy, when Providence thought
+fit to deprive me of my poor husband.  For thirty years I had been
+labouring to gain him to myself, and, just as my design seemed to be
+accomplished, he died.  He had been so much importuned upon the subject
+of my affection for him that he begged me for Heaven's sake not to love
+him any longer, because it was so troublesome.  I never suffered him to
+go alone anywhere without his express orders.
+
+The King often complained that he had not been allowed to converse
+sufficiently with people in his youth; but taciturnity was a part of his
+character, for Monsieur, who was brought up with him, conversed with
+everybody.  The King often laughed, and said that Monsieur's chattering
+had put him out of conceit with talking.  We used to joke Monsieur upon
+his once asking questions of a person who came to see him.
+
+"I suppose, Monsieur," said he, "you come from the army?"
+
+"No, Monsieur," replied the visitor, "I have never joined it."
+
+"You arrive here, then, from your country house?"
+
+"Monsieur, I have no country house."
+
+"In that case, I imagine you are living at Paris with your family?"
+
+"Monsieur, I am not married."
+
+Everybody present at this burst into a laugh, and Monsieur in some
+confusion had nothing more to say.  It is true that Monsieur was more
+generally liked at Paris than the King, on account of his affability.
+When the King, however, wished to make himself agreeable to any person,
+his manners were the most engaging possible, and he won people's hearts
+much more readily than my husband; for the latter, as well as my son, was
+too generally civil.  He did not distinguish people sufficiently, and
+behaved very well only to those who were attached to the Chevalier de
+Lorraine and his favourites.
+
+Monsieur was not of a temper to feel any sorrow very deeply.  He loved
+his children too well even to reprove them when they deserved it; and if
+he had occasion to make complaints of them, he used to come to me with
+them.
+
+"But, Monsieur," I have said, "they are your children as well as mine,
+why do you not correct them?"
+
+He replied, "I do not know how to scold, and besides they would not care
+for me if I did; they fear no one but you."
+
+By always threatening the children with me, he kept them in constant fear
+of me.  He estranged them from me as much as possible, but he left me to
+exercise more authority over my elder daughter and over the Queen of
+Sicily than over my son; he could not, however, prevent my occasionally
+telling them what I thought.  My daughter never gave me any cause to
+complain of her.  Monsieur was always jealous of the children, and was
+afraid they would love me better than him: it was for this reason that he
+made them believe I disapproved of almost all they did.  I generally
+pretended not to see this contrivance.
+
+Without being really fond of any woman, Monsieur used to amuse himself
+all day in the company of old and young ladies to please the King: in
+order not to be out of the Court fashion, he even pretended to be
+amorous; but he could not keep up a deception so contrary to his natural
+inclination.  Madame de Fiennes said to him one day, "You are in much
+more danger from the ladies you visit, than they are from you."  It was
+even said that Madame de Monaco had attempted to give him some violent
+proofs of her affection.  He pretended to be in love with Madame de
+Grancey; but if she had had no other lover than Monsieur she might have
+preserved her reputation.  Nothing culpable ever passed between them; and
+he always endeavoured to avoid being alone with her.  She herself said
+that whenever they happened to be alone he was in the greatest terror,
+and pretended to have the toothache or the headache.  They told a story
+of the lady asking him to touch her, and that he put on his gloves before
+doing so.  I have often heard him rallied about this anecdote, and have
+often laughed at it.
+
+Madame de Grancey was one of the most foolish women in the world.  She
+was very handsome at the time of my arrival in France, and her figure was
+as good as her face; besides, she was not so much disregarded by others
+as by my husband; for, before the Chevalier de Lorraine became her lover,
+she had had a child.  I knew well that nothing had passed between
+Monsieur and Grancey, and I was never jealous of them; but I could not
+endure that she should derive a profit from my household, and that no
+person could purchase an employment in it without paying a douceur to
+her.  I was also often indignant at her insolence to me, and at her
+frequently embroiling me with Monsieur.  It was for these reasons, and
+not from jealousy, as was fancied by those who knew nothing about it,
+that I sometimes sharply reprimanded her.  The Chevalier de Lorraine,
+upon his return from Rome, became her declared lover.  It was through his
+contrivances, and those of D'Effiat, that she was brought into the house
+of Monsieur, who really cared nothing about her.  Her continued
+solicitations and the behaviour of the Chevalier de Lorraine had so much
+disgusted Monsieur, that if he had lived he would have got rid of them
+both.
+
+He had become tired of the Chevalier de Lorraine because he had found out
+that his attachment to him proceeded from interested motives.  When
+Monsieur, misled by his favourites, did something which was neither just
+nor expedient, I used to say to him, "Out of complaisance to the
+Chevalier de Lorraine, you put your good sense into your pocket, and
+button it up so tight that it cannot be seen."
+
+After my husband's death I saw Grancey only once; I met her in the
+garden.  When she ceased to be handsome, she fell into utter despair;
+and so great a change took place in her appearance that no one would have
+known her.  Her nose, before so beautiful, grew long and large, and was
+covered with pimples, over each of which she put a patch; this had a very
+singular effect; the red and white paint, too, did not adhere to her
+face.  Her eyes were hollow and sunken, and the alteration which this had
+caused in her face cannot be imagined.  In Spain they, lock up all the
+ladies at night, even to the septuagenary femmes de chambre.  When
+Grancey followed our Queen to Spain as dame d'atour, she was locked up in
+the evening, and was in great grief about it.
+
+When she was dying, she cried, "Ah, mon Dieu, must I die, who have never
+once thought of death?"
+
+She had never done anything but sit at play with her lovers until five or
+six o'clock in the morning, feast, and smoke tobacco, and follow
+uncontrolled her natural inclinations.
+
+When she reached her climacteric, she said, in despair, "Alas, I am
+growing old, I shall have no more children."
+
+This was exceedingly amusing; and her friends, as well as her enemies,
+laughed at it.  She once had a high dispute with Madame de Bouillon.  One
+evening, Grancey chose to hide herself in one of the recesses formed by
+the windows in the chamber of the former lady, who, not thinking she was
+heard, conversed very freely with the Marquise d'Allure, respecting the
+libertine life of Grancey; in the course of which she said several
+strange things respecting the treatment which her lovers had experienced
+from her.  Grancey at length rushed out, and fell to abusing Madame de
+Bouillon like a Billingsgate.  The latter was not silent, and some
+exceedingly elegant discourse passed between them.  Madame de Bouillon
+made a complaint against Grancey; in the first place, for having listened
+to her conversation; and in the second, for having insulted her in her
+own house.  Monsieur reproved Grancey; told her that she had brought this
+inconvenience upon herself by her own indiscretion, and ordered her to be
+reconciled with her adversary.
+
+"How can I," said Grancey, "be reconciled to Madame de Bouillon, after
+all the wicked things she has said about me?"  But after a moment's
+reflection she added, "Yes, I can, for she did not say I was ugly."
+
+They afterwards embraced, and made it up.
+
+          .........................................
+
+Monsieur was taken ill at ten o'clock at night, but he did not die until
+the next day at noon.  I can never think of this night without horror.
+I remained with him from ten at night until five the next morning, when
+he lost all consciousness.--[The Duc d'Orleans died of apoplexy on the
+9th June, 1701]
+
+The Electors of Germany would not permit Monsieur to write to them in the
+same style as the King did.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION IX.--PHILIPPE II., DUC D' ORLEANS, REGENT OF FRANCE.
+
+From the age of fourteen to that of fifteen years, my son was not ugly;
+but after that time he became very much sun-burnt in Italy and Spain.
+Now, however, he is too ruddy; he is fat, but not tall, and yet he does
+not seem disagreeable to me.  The weakness of his eyes causes him
+sometimes to squint.  When he dances or is on horseback he looks very
+well, but he walks horridly ill.  In his childhood he was so delicate
+that he could not even kneel without falling, through weakness; by
+degrees, however, his strength improved.  He loads his stomach too much
+at table; he has a notion that it is good to make only one meal; instead
+of dinner, he takes only one cup of chocolate, so that by supper he is
+extremely hungry and thirsty.  In answer to whatever objections are made
+to this regimen, he says he cannot do business after eating.  When he
+gets tipsy, it is not with strong potations, but with Champagne or Tokay.
+He is not very fond of the chase.  The weakness of his sight arose from
+an accident which befell him at the age of four years, and which was
+something like an apoplexy.  He sees well enough near, and can read the
+smallest writing; but at the distance of half the room he cannot
+distinguish persons without a glass.  He had an application of a powder
+to that eye which is worst, and, although it had caused intolerable pain
+to every other person who had used it, it seemed to have no effect upon
+him, for he laughed and chatted as usual.  He found some benefit from
+this; but W. Gendron was too severe for him.  That physician forbade the
+petits-soupers and the amusements which usually followed them; this was
+not agreeable to my son, and those who used to frequent them to their own
+advantage; they therefore persuaded him to adopt some other remedies
+which almost deprived him of sight.  For the last forty years (1719),
+that is to say since the accident happened, the month of October has
+never elapsed without his health and eyesight being affected towards the
+21st in some way or other.
+
+He was only seventeen years old when he was married.  If he had not been
+threatened with imprisonment in the old castle of Villers-Cotterets, and
+if hopes had not been given him of seeing the Duchesse de Bourbon as he
+wished, they could not have induced him to form this accursed marriage.
+It is my son's unlucky destiny to have for a wife a woman who is desirous
+of ruling everything with her brothers.  It is commonly said, that where
+one sins there one suffers; and thus it has happened to my son with
+respect to his wife and his brothers-in-law.  If he had not inflicted
+upon me the deepest vexation by uniting himself with this low race, he
+might now speak to them boldly.  I never quarrelled with my son; but he
+was angry with me about this marriage, which he had contracted against my
+inclination.
+
+As I sincerely love him, I have forgotten it; and I do not believe that
+we shall ever quarrel in future.  When I have anything to say about his
+conduct, I say it openly, and there is an end of it.  He behaves to me
+very respectfully.  I did all in my power to prevent his marriage; but
+since it did take place, and with his consent, though without mine, I
+wish now only for his tranquillity.  His wife fancies that she has done
+him an honour in marrying him, because he is only the son of the brother
+of a king, while she is the daughter of a king; but she will not perceive
+that she is also the daughter of a -----.  He was obliged to put down all
+his feelings of nobility; and if I had a hundred crowns for as many times
+as he has since repented it, I could almost buy France for the King, and
+pay his debts.  My son visits his wife every day, and when she is in good
+humour he stays with her a long time; but when she is ill-tempered,
+which, unfortunately, happens too often, he goes away without saying
+anything.  I have every reason to be satisfied with him; he lives on very
+good terms with me, and I have no right to complain of his conduct; but I
+see that he does not repose much confidence in me, and I know many
+persons to whom he is more communicative.
+
+I love my son with all my heart; but I cannot see how any one else can,
+for his manners are little calculated to inspire love.  In the first
+place, he is incapable of the passion, or of being attached to any one
+for a long time; in the second, he is not sufficiently polished and
+gallant to make love, but sets about it rudely and coarsely; in the
+third, he is very indiscreet, and tells plainly all that he has done.
+
+I have said to him a hundred times, "I wonder how any woman can run after
+you, whom they ought rather to fly from."
+
+He would reply, laughing, "Ah! you do not know the libertine women of the
+present day; provided they are talked of, they are satisfied."
+
+There was an affair of gallantry, but a perfectly honourable one, between
+him and the Queen of Spain.  I do not know whether he had the good
+fortune to be agreeable to her, but I know he was not at all in love with
+her.  He thought her mien and figure good, but neither her manners nor
+her face were agreeable to him.
+
+He was not in any degree romantic, and, not knowing how to conduct
+himself in this affair, he said to the Duc de Grammont, "You understand
+the manner of Spanish gallantry; pray tell me a little what I ought to
+say and do."
+
+He could not, however, suit the fancy of the Queen, who was for pure
+gallantry; those who were less delicate he was better suited for, and for
+this reason it was said that libertine women used to run after him.
+
+               ...............................
+
+He never denied that he was indiscreet and inconstant.  Being one day
+with me at the theatre, and hearing Valere say he was tired of his
+mistress, "That has been my case often," he cried.  I told him he never
+was in love in his life, and that what he called love was mere
+debauchery.
+
+He replied, "It is very true that I am not a hero of romance, and that I
+do not make love like a Celadon, but I love in my way."
+
+"Your way," I said, "is an extremely gross one."  .  .  .  This made him
+laugh.
+
+He likes the business of his gallantry to be conducted with beat of drum,
+without the least refinement.  He reminds me of the old Patriarchs, who
+were surrounded by women.
+
+                    ............................
+
+All women do not please him alike.  He does not like fine airs so well as
+profligate manners: the opera-house dancers are his favourites.  The
+women run after him from mere interest, for he pays them well.  A
+pleasant enough adventure happened last winter:
+
+A young and pretty woman visited my son in his cabinet; he presented her
+with a diamond of the value of 2,000 Louis and a box worth 200.  This
+woman had a jealous husband, but she had effrontery enough to shew him
+the jewels which she said had been offered to her a great bargain by
+persons who wanted the money, and she begged him not to let such an
+opportunity slip.  The credulous husband gave her the money she asked
+for.  She thanked him, put the box in her dressing-case and the diamond
+on her finger, and displayed it in the best company.
+
+When she was asked where she got the ring and the bog, "M. de Parabere
+gave them to me," she said; and he, who happened to be present, added,
+"Yes, I gave them to her; can one do less when one has for a wife a lady
+of quality who loves none but her husband?"
+
+This caused some mirth; for other people were not so simple as the
+husband, and knew very well where the presents came from.  If my son has
+a queen-sultana, it is this Madame de Parabere.  Her mother, Madame de la
+Vieuville, was dame d'atour to the Duchesse de Berri.--[Marie-Madeline de
+la Vieuville, Comtesse de la Parabere; it was she whom the Regent used to
+call "his little black crow."]--It was there that my son first became
+acquainted with the daughter, who is now a widow: she is of a slight
+figure, dark complexion, and never paints; her eyes and mouth are pretty;
+she is not very sensible, but is a desirable little person.  My son says
+he likes her because she thinks of nothing but amusing herself, and never
+interferes with other affairs.  That would be very well if she were not a
+drunkard, and if she did not make my son eat and drink so much, and take
+him to a farm which she has at Anieres, and where he sometimes sups with
+her and the country folks.  It is said that he becomes a little jealous
+of Parabere, in which case he must love her more than he has done yet.
+I often tell him that, if he really loved, he would not suffer his
+mistresses to run after others, and to commit such frequent infidelities.
+He replied that there was no such thing as love except in romances.  He
+broke with Seri, because, as he said, she wanted him to love her like an
+Arcadian.  He has often made me laugh at his complaining of this
+seriously, and with an air of great affliction.
+
+"Why do you disturb yourself?" I have said to him; "if that is not
+agreeable to you, leave her alone.  You are not obliged to feign a love
+which you do not feel."
+
+This convinces me, however, that my son is incapable of love.  He
+willingly eats, drinks, sings, and amuses himself with his mistresses,
+but to love one of them more than another is not his way.  He is not
+afraid of application; but when he has been actively engaged from morning
+till night he is glad to divert himself at supper with such persons.  It
+is for this reason that Parabere, who is said to be a great fool, is so
+agreeable to him.  She eats and drinks astonishingly, and plays absurd
+tricks, which divert him and make him forget his labour.
+
+My son, it must be allowed, possesses some great qualities.  He has good
+sense, understands several languages, is fond of reading, speaks well,
+has studied much, is learned and acquainted with most of the arts,
+however difficult.  He is a musician, and does not compose badly; he
+paints well, he understands chemistry, is well versed in history, and is
+quick of comprehension.  He soon, however, gets tired of everything.  He
+has an excellent memory, is expert in war, and fears nothing in the
+world; his intentions are always just and fair, and if his actions are
+ever otherwise, it is the fault of others.  His only faults are that he
+is too kind, not sufficiently reserved, and apt to believe people who
+have less sense than himself; he is, therefore, often deceived, for the
+knaves who know his easiness of temper will run all risks with him.  All
+the misfortunes and inconveniences which befall him spring from that
+cause.  His other fault is one not common to Frenchmen, the easiness with
+which women can persuade him, and this often brings him into domestic
+quarrels.  He can refuse them nothing, and even carries his complaisance
+so far as to give them marks of affection without really liking them.
+When I tell him that he is too good, he says, "Is it not better to be
+good than bad?"
+
+He was always extremely weak, too, with respect to lovers, who chose to
+make him their confidant.
+
+The Duc de Saint Simon was one day exceedingly annoyed at this weakness
+of my son, and said to him, angrily, "Ah! there you are; since the days
+of Louis le Debonnaire there has been nobody so debonnaire as yourself."
+
+My son was much amused at it.
+
+When he is under the necessity of saying anything harsh, he is much more
+pained at it than the person who experiences the disgrace.
+
+He is not fond of the country, but prefers living in town.  He is in this
+respect like Madame de Longueville, who was tired to death of being in
+Normandy, where her husband was.
+
+     [The Duc de Longueville was Governor of Normandy; and after the
+     reduction of Bordeaux, in 1652, the Duchesse de Longueville received
+     an order from the Court to repair to her husband.]
+
+Those who were about her said, "Mon Dieu, Madame, you are eaten up with
+ennui; will you not take some amusement?  There are dogs and a beautiful
+forest; will you hunt?"
+
+"No," she replied, "I don't like hunting."
+
+"Will you work?"
+
+"No, I don't like work."
+
+"Will you take a walk, or play at some game?"
+
+"No, I like neither the one nor the other."
+
+"What will you do, then?"  they asked.
+
+"What can I do?"  she said; "I hate innocent pleasures."
+
+My son understands music well, as all the musicians agree.  He has
+composed two or three operas, which are pretty.  La Fare, his Captain of
+the guards, wrote the words.  He had them played in his palace, but never
+would permit them to be represented on the public stage.
+
+When he had nothing to do he painted for one of the Duchess's cabinets
+all the pastoral romance of "Daphnis and Chloe."
+
+     [The designs for the romance of "Daphnis and Chloe" were composed by
+     the Regent, with the advice, and probably the assistance, of Claude
+     Audran, a distinguished painter, whom Lebrun often employed to help
+     him with his large pictures.  He painted a part of the battles of
+     Alexander.  These designs were engraved by Benoit Audran; they
+     embellish what is called "the Regent's edition" of the Pastoral of
+     Longus, which was printed under his inspection in the year 1718.  It
+     is somewhat surprising that Madame should speak so disdainfully of
+     so eminent an artist as Benoit Audran.]
+
+With the exception of the first, he invented and painted all the
+subjects.  They have been engraved by one Audran.  The Duchess thought
+them so pretty that she had them worked in a larger size in tapestry; and
+these, I think, are better than the engravings.
+
+My son's learning has not the least tinge of pedantry.  He knows a
+quantity of facetious stories, which he learnt in Italy and in Spain.
+He does not tell them badly, but I like him better in his more serious
+moods, because they are more natural to him.  When he talks upon learned
+topics it is easy to see that they are rather troublesome to him than
+otherwise.  I often blamed him for this; but he used to reply that it was
+not his fault, that he was ready enough to learn anything, but that when
+he once knew it he no longer took pleasure in it.
+
+He is eloquent enough, and when he chooses he can talk with dignity.  He
+has a Jesuit for his confessor, but he does not suffer himself to be
+ruled by him.  He pretends that his daughter has no influence over him.
+He was delighted when he obtained the command of the Spanish army, and
+was pleased with everything in that country; this procured him the hatred
+of the Princesse des Ursins, who feared that my son would diminish her
+authority and gain more of the confidence of the Spaniards than she
+possessed.
+
+He learned to cook during his stay with the army in Spain.
+
+I cannot tell where he learned so much patience; I am sure it was neither
+from Monsieur nor from me.
+
+When he acted from himself I always found him reasonable; but he too
+often confided in rogues, who had not half his sense, and then all went
+wrong.
+
+My son is like all the rest of his family; when they had become
+accustomed to a thing they suffered it to go its own way.  It was for
+this reason he could not persuade himself to shake off the Abbe Dubois,
+although he knew him to be a rascal.  This Abbe had the impudence to try
+to persuade even me that the marriage he had brought about was an
+excellent one.
+
+"But the honour which is lost in it," said I, "how will you repair that?"
+
+Old Maintenon had made immense promises to him, as well as to my son;
+but, thank God, she kept neither the one nor the other.
+
+It is intolerable that my son will go about day and night with that
+wicked and impertinent Noce I hate that Noce as I hate the devil.  He and
+Brogue run all risks, because they are thus enabled to sponge upon my
+son.  It is said that Noce is jealous of Parabere, who has fallen in love
+with some one else.  This proves that my son is not jealous.  The person
+with whom she has fallen in love has long been a sort of adventurer: it
+is Clermont, a captain in my son's Swiss Guard; the same who preferred
+Chouin to the great Princesse de Conti.  It is said that Noce utters
+whatever comes into his head, and about any persons; this makes my son
+laugh, and amuses him, for Noce has wit and can do this pleasantly,
+enough.  His father was under-governor to my son, who has thus been
+accustomed from his infancy to this wicked rascal, and who is very fond
+of him.  I do not know for what reason, for he is a person who fears
+neither God nor man, and has not a single good point about him; he is
+green, black, and deep yellow; he is ten years older than my son; it is
+incredible how many, millions this mercenary rogue has drawn from him.
+Madame de Berri has told me that Broglie's jokes consist only in saying
+openly, the most horrible things.  The Broglii are of Italian extraction,
+but have been long settled in France.  There were three brothers, the
+elder of whom died in the army; the second was an Abbe, but he cast aside
+his gown, and he is the knave of whom I have been speaking.  The third is
+still serving in the army, and, according to common report, is one of the
+best gentlemen in the world.  My son does not like him so well as his
+good-for-nothing brother, because he is too serious, and would not become
+his buffoon.  My son excuses himself by saying that when he quits
+business he wants something to make him laugh, and that young Broglie is
+not old enough for this; that if he had a confidential business, or a
+warlike expedition to perform, he would prefer him; but that for laughing
+and dissipation of all sorts, his elder brother is more fit.
+
+My son has three natural children, two boys and a girl, of whom only one
+has been legitimated; that is his son by Mademoiselle de Seri,
+
+     [N. de Seri de la Boissiere; the father had been ambassador in
+     Holland.  Mademoiselle de Seri was the Regent's first mistress; he
+     gave her the title of Comtesse d'Argenton.  Her son, the Chevalier
+     d'Orleans, was Grand-Prieur of France.]
+
+who was my Maid of Honour; she was genteel and gay, but not pretty nor of
+a good figure.  This son was called the Chevalier d'Orleans.  The other,
+who is now a lad of eighteen years, is the Abbe de Saint Albin; he had
+this child by Florence, an opera dancer, of a very neat figure, but a
+fool; although to look at her pretty face one would not have thought so.
+She is since dead.  The third of my son's illegitimate children is a girl
+of fourteen years old, whom he had by Desmarets, an actress, who is still
+on the stage.  This child has been educated at a convent at Saint Denis,
+but has not much inclination for a monastic life.  When my son sent for
+her she did not know who she was.
+
+Desmarets wanted to lay another child to my son's account; but he
+replied, "No, that child is too much of a harlequin."
+
+When some one asked him what he meant, he said it was of so many
+different pieces, and therefore he renounced it.
+
+I do not know whether the mother did not afterwards give it to the
+Elector of Bavaria, who had some share in it, and who sacrificed to her
+the most beautiful snuff-box that ever was seen; it was covered with
+large diamonds.
+
+My first son was called the Duc de Valois; but as this name was one of
+evil omen, Monsieur would not suffer my other son to be called so; he
+took, therefore, the title of Duc de Chartres.  After Monsieur's death
+my son took the name of Orleans, and his son that of Chartres.
+
+     [Alesandre-Louis d'Orleans, Duc de Valois, died an infant on the
+     16th of March, 1676; the Regent was born on the 4th of August, 1674.
+     It is unnecessary to mention the unhappy ends of Henri III. and of
+     the three Kings, his sons, who all died without issue.]
+
+My son is too much prejudiced in favour of his nation; and although he
+sees daily that his countrymen are false and treacherous, he believes
+there is no nation comparable to them.  He is not very lavish of his
+praise; and when he does approve of anything his sincerity gives it an
+additional value.
+
+As he is now in his forty-second year the people of Paris do not forgive
+him for running about at balls, like a young fool, for the amusement of
+women, when he has the cares of the kingdom upon his shoulders.  When the
+late King ascended the throne he had reason to take his diversion; it is
+not so now.  Night and day it is necessary to labour in order to repair
+the mischief which the late King, or rather his Ministers, did to the
+country.
+
+When my son gently reproached that old Maintenon for having maligned him,
+and asked her to put her hand upon her heart, and say whether her
+calumnies were true, she replied, "I said it because I believed it."
+
+My son replied, "You could not believe it, because you knew the
+contrary."
+
+She said arrogantly, and yet my son kept his temper, "Is not the Dauphine
+dead?"
+
+"Is it my fault," he rejoined, "that she is dead?  Was she immortal?"
+
+"Well," she replied, "I was so much distressed at the loss that I could
+not help detesting him whom I was told was the cause of it."
+
+"But, Madame," said my son, "you know, from the report which has been
+made to the King, that I was not the cause, and that the Dauphine was not
+poisoned."
+
+"I do know it," she replied, "and I will say nothing more about it."
+
+
+
+
+SECTION X.--THE AFFAIRS OF THE REGENCY.
+
+The old Maintenon wished to have the Duc du Maine made Regent; but my
+son's harangue to the Parliament frustrated her intention.
+
+He was very angry with Lord Stair because he believed that he had done
+him an ill office with the King of England, and prevented the latter from
+entering into the alliance with France and Holland.  If that alliance had
+taken place my son could have prevented the Pretender from beginning his
+journey; but as England refused to do so, the Regent was obliged to do
+nothing but what was stipulated for by the treaty of peace: that is to
+say, not to succour the Pretender with money nor arms, which he
+faithfully performed.  He sent wherever Lord Stair requested.
+
+     [The Duc d'Orleans ordered, in Lord Stair's presence, Contades,
+     Major of the Guard, to arrest the Pretender on his passage through
+     Chateau-Thierry; but, adds Duclos, Contades was an intelligent man,
+     and well acquainted with the Regent's secret intentions, and so he
+     set out resolved not to find what he went in search of.]
+
+He believed that the English people would not be well pleased to see
+their King allied to the Crown of France.
+
+
+                                   1717
+
+The Baron Goertz thought to entrap my son, who, however, did not trust
+him; he would not permit him to purchase a single ship, and it was upon
+this that the Baron had built all his hopes of success.
+
+That tall Goertz, whom I have seen, has an unlucky physiognomy; I do not
+believe that he will die a fair death.
+
+The Memoir of the thirty noblemen has so much angered my son that he will
+hasten to pronounce sentence.
+
+     [Goertz was the Swedish minister, and had been sent into Holland and
+     France to favour the cause of the Pretender.  He was arrested in
+     Holland in 1717, and remained in prison for several months.  He was
+     a very cunning person, and a great political intriguer.  On the
+     death of Charles XII.  he was taken before an extraordinary
+     tribunal, and condemned in an unjust and arbitrary manner to be
+     beheaded, which sentence was executed in, May, 1719.]
+
+
+                                   1718
+
+The whole of the Parliament was influenced against him.  He made a
+remonstrance against this, which was certainly effected at the
+instigation of the eldest bastard and his wife.--[The Duc and Duchesse du
+Maine.]--If any one spoke ill of my son, and seemed dissatisfied, the
+Duchesse du Maine: invited them to Sceaux, and pitied and caressed them
+to hear them abuse my son.  I wondered at his patience.  He has great
+courage, and went steadily on without disturbing himself about anything.
+Although the Parliament of Paris sent to all the other parliaments in the
+kingdom to solicit them to unite with it, none of them did so, but all
+remained faithful to my son.  The libels which were dispersed for the
+purpose of exciting the people against him had scarcely any effect.  I
+believe the plot would have succeeded better if the bastard and his wife
+had not engaged in it, for they were extraordinarily hated at Paris.  My
+son told the Parliament they had nothing to do with the coinage; that he
+would maintain the royal authority, and deliver it to the King when he
+should be of age in the same state as he had found it on his becoming
+Regent.
+
+The Marechale d'Uxelles hated my son mortally, but after the King's
+death he played the fawning dog so completely that my son forgave him and
+took him into favour again.  In the latter affair he was disposed once
+more to follow his natural inclination, but my son, having little value
+for whatever he could do, said, "Well, if he will not sign he may let it
+alone."
+
+When the Marshal saw my son was serious and did not care at all for his
+bravadoes, he became submissive and did what my son desired.
+
+The wife of the cripple, the Duchesse du Maine, resolved to have an
+explanation with my son.  She made a sententious speech, just as if she
+had been on the stage; she asked how he could think that the answer to
+Fitz-Morris's book should have proceeded from her, or that a Princess of
+the blood would degrade herself by composing libels?  She told him, too,
+that the Cardinal de Polignac was engaged in affairs of too much
+importance to busy himself in trifles like this, and M. de Malezieux was
+too much a philosopher to think of anything but the sciences.  For her
+own part, she said she had sufficient employment in educating her
+children as became that royal dignity of which she had been wrongfully
+deprived.  My son only replied to her thus:--
+
+"I have reason to believe that these libels have been got up at your
+house, and by you, because that fact has been attested by persons who
+have been in your service, and who have seen them in progress; beyond
+this no one makes me believe or disbelieve anything."
+
+He made no reply to her last observation, and so she went away.  She
+afterwards boasted everywhere of the firmness with which she had spoken
+to my son.
+
+My son this day (26th of August) assembled the Council of the Regency.
+He had summoned the Parliament by a 'lettre-de-cachet': they repaired to
+the Tuileries in a procession on foot, dressed in scarlet robes, hoping
+by this display to excite the people in their favour; but the mob only
+called out, "Where are these lobsters going?"  The King had caused the
+Keeper of the Seals to make a remonstrance to the Parliament for having
+infringed upon his authority in publishing decrees without his sanction.
+He commanded them to quash the decree, which was done; and to confirm the
+authority of the Keeper of the Seals, which they did also.  He then
+ordered them with some sternness not to interfere with the affairs of the
+Government beyond their province; and as the Duc du Maine had excited the
+Parliament against the King, he was deprived of the care of His Majesty's
+education, and he with his brothers were degraded from the rank of
+Princes of the blood, which had been granted to them.  They will in
+future have no other rank than that of their respective peerages; but the
+Duc du Maine alone, for the fidelity he has always manifested towards the
+King, will retain his rank for his life, although his issue, if he should
+have any, will not inherit it.
+
+[Saint-Simon reports that it was the Comte de Toulouse who was allowed
+to retain his rank.--See The Memoirs of Saint-Simon, Chapter XCIII.--D.W.]
+
+Madame d'Orleans was in the greatest despair, and came to Paris in such a
+condition as moved my pity for her.  Madame du Maine is reported to have
+said, three weeks ago, at a grand dinner, "I am accused of having caused
+the Parliament to revolt against the Duc d'Orleans, but I despise him too
+much to take so noble a vengeance; I will be revenged in another manner."
+
+The Parliament had very notable projects in hand.  If my son had delayed
+four-and-twenty hours longer in removing the Duc du Maine from the King
+it would have been decided to declare His Majesty of full age; but my son
+frustrated this by dismissing the Duke, and degrading him at the same
+time.  The Chief President is said to have been so frightened that he
+remained motionless, as if he had been petrified by a gaze at the head of
+Medusa.  That celebrated personage of antiquity could not have been more
+a fury than Madame du Maine; she threatened dreadfully, and did not
+scruple to say, in the presence of her household, that she would yet find
+means to give the Regent such a blow as should make him bite the dust.
+That old Maintenon and her pupil have also had a finger in the pie.
+
+The Parliament asked pardon of my son, which proves that the Duc and
+Duchesse du Maine were the mainsprings of the plot.
+
+There is reason to believe that the old woman and the former Chancellor
+were also implicated in it.  The Chancellor, who would have betrayed my
+son in so shameful a manner, was under the heaviest obligations to him.
+What has happened is a great mortification to Maintenon, and yet she has
+not given up all hopes.  This makes me very anxious, for I know how
+expertly she can manage poison.  My son, instead of being cautious, goes
+about the town at night in strange carriages, sometimes supping with one
+or another of his people, none of whom are worthy of being trusted, and
+who, excepting their wit, have not one good quality.
+
+Different reports respecting the Duchesse du Maine are abroad; some say
+she has beaten her husband and broken the glasses and everything brittle
+in her room.  Others say she has not spoken a word, and has done nothing
+but weep.  The Duc de Bourbon has undertaken the King's education.  He
+said that, not being himself of age, he did not demand this office
+before, but that being so now he should solicit it, and it was
+immediately given to him.
+
+One president and two counsellors have been arrested.  Before the close
+of the session, the Parliament implored my son to use his good offices
+with the King for the release of their members, and promised that they
+should, if found culpable, be punished by the Parliament itself.  My son
+replied that they could not doubt he should always advise the King to the
+most lenient measures; that His Majesty would not only be gracious to
+them as a body, while they merited it, but also to each individual; that,
+as to the prisoners, they would in good time be released.
+
+That old Maintenon has fallen sick of grief that her project for the Duc
+du Maine has miscarried.
+
+The Duke and the Parliament had resolved to have a bed of justice held,
+where my son should be dismissed, and the Regency be committed to the
+Duke, while at the same time the King's household should be under arms.
+The Duke and the Prince de Conti had long been urging my son without
+knowing all the particulars.  The Duc du Maine has not been banished to
+the country, but has permission to go with his family wherever he
+pleases; he will not, however, remain at Paris, because he no longer
+enjoys his rank; he chooses rather to live at Sceaux, where he has an
+elegant mansion and a fine park.
+
+The little dwarf (the Duchesse du Maine) says she has more courage than
+her husband, her son, and her brother-in-law put together; and that, like
+another Jael, she would kill my son with her own hand, and would drive a
+nail into his head.  When I implored my son to be on his guard against
+her, and told him this, he laughed at my fears and shook his head
+incredulously.
+
+I do not believe that the Devil, in his own person, is more wicked than
+that old Maintenon, the Duc du Maine, and the Duchess.  The latter said
+openly that her husband and her brother-in-law were no better than
+cowards; that, woman as she was, she was ready to demand an audience of
+my son and to plunge a dagger in his heart.  Let any one judge whether I
+have not reason to fear such persons, and particularly, when they, have
+so strong a party.  Their cabal is very considerable; there are a dozen
+persons of consideration, all great noblemen at Court.  The richest part
+of the people favour the Spanish pretensions, as well as the Duc and
+Duchesse du Maine; they wish to call in the King of Spain.  My brother
+has too much sense for them; they want a person who will suffer himself
+to be led as they, please; the King of Spain is their man; and, for this
+reason, they are trying all means to induce him to come.  It is for these
+reasons that I think my son is in so great danger.
+
+My son has not yet released the three rogues of the Parliament, although
+their liberation has been twice petitioned for.
+
+The Duc du Maine and the cabal have made his sister believe that if my
+son should die they would make her Regent, and would aid her with their
+counsel to enable her to become one of the greatest persons in the world.
+They say they mean no violence towards my son, who cannot live long on
+account of his irregularities; that he must soon die or lose his sight;
+and in the latter event he would consent to her becoming Regent.  I know
+a person to whom the Duc du Maine said so.  This put an end to one's
+astonishment, that she should have wished to force her daughter to marry
+the Duc du Maine.
+
+All this gave me great anxiety.  I foresaw it all and said to my son,
+"You are committing a folly, for which I shall have to suffer all my
+life."
+
+He has made great changes; instead of a great number of Councils he has
+appointed Secretaries of State.  M. d'Armenouville is Secretary of State
+for the Navy; M. le Blanc, for the Army; M. de la Vrilliere, for the Home
+Department; the Abbe Dubois, for Foreign Affairs; M. de Maurepas, for the
+Royal Household; and a Bishop for the Church Benefices.
+
+Malezieux and the Cardinal de Polignac had probably as great a share in
+the answer to Fitz-Morris as the Duchesse du Maine.
+
+The Duc de Bourbon and the Prince de Conti assisted very zealously in the
+disgrace of the Duc du Maine.  My son could not bring himself to resolve
+upon it until the treachery had been clearly demonstrated to him, and he
+saw that he should lend himself to his own dishonour if he did not
+prevent the blow.
+
+My son is very fond of the Comte de Toulouse, whom he finds a sensible
+person on all occasions: if the latter had followed the advice of the Duc
+du Maine he would have shared his fate; but he despised his brother's
+advice and followed that of his wife.
+
+My son believes as firmly in predestination as if he had been, like me, a
+Calvinist, for nineteen years.  I do not know how he learnt the affair of
+the Duc du Maine; he has always kept it a great secret.  But what appears
+the most singular to me is that he does not hate his brother-in-law, who
+has endeavoured to procure his death and dishonour.  I do not believe his
+like was ever seen: he has no gall in his composition; I never knew him
+to hate any one.
+
+He says he will take as much care as he can; but that if God has ordained
+that he shall perish by the hands of his enemies he cannot change his
+destiny, and that therefore he shall go on tranquilly.
+
+He has earnestly requested Lord Stair to speak to the King of England
+on your account.--[This passage is addressed to the Princess of
+Wales.]--He says no one can be more desirous than he is that you should
+be reinstated in your father's affection, and that he will neglect no
+opportunity of bringing it about, being persuaded that it is to the
+advantage of the King of England, as well as of yourself, that you should
+be reconciled.
+
+M. Law must be praised for his talent, but there is an astonishing number
+of persons who envy him in this country.  My son is delighted with his
+cleverness in business.
+
+He has been compelled to arrest the Spanish Ambassador, the Prince of
+Cellamara, because letters were found upon his courier, the Abbe Porto
+Carero, who was his nephew, and who has also been arrested, containing
+evidence of a plot against the King and against my son.  The Ambassador
+was arrested by two Counsellors of State.  It was time that this
+treachery should be made public.  A valet of the Abbe Porto Carero having
+a bad horse, and not being able to get on so quick as his master, stayed
+two relays behind, and met on his way the ordinary courier from Poitiers.
+The valet asked him, "What news?"
+
+"I don't know any," replied the postilion, "except that they have
+arrested at Poitiers an English bankrupt and a Spanish Abbe who was
+carrying a packet."
+
+When the valet heard this he instantly took a fresh horse, and, instead
+of following his master, he came back full gallop to Paris.  So great was
+his speed, that he fell sick upon his arrival in consequence of the
+exertion.  He outstripped my son's courier by twelve hours, and so had
+time to apprise the Prince of Cellamara twelve hours before his arrest,
+which gave him time to burn his most important letters and papers.  My
+son's enemies pretend to treat this affair as insignificant to the last
+degree; but I cannot see anything insignificant in an Ambassador's
+attempting to cause a revolt in a whole kingdom, and among the
+Parliament, against my son, and meditating his assassination as well as
+that of his son and daughter.  I alone was to have been let live.
+
+That Des Ursins must have the devil in her to have stirred up Pompadour
+against my son.  He is not any very great personage; but his wife is a
+daughter of the Duc de Navailles, who was my son's governor.  Madame de
+Pompadour was the governess of the young Duc d'Alencon, the son of Madame
+de Berri.  As to the Abbe Brigaut, I know him very well.  Madame de
+Ventadour was his godmother, and he was baptized at the same time with
+the first Dauphin, when he received the name of Tillio.  He has talent,
+but he is an intriguer and a knave.  He pretended at first to be very
+devout, and was appointed Pere de l'Oratoire; but, getting tired of this
+life, he took up the trade of catering for the vices of the Court, and
+afterwards became the secretary and factotum of Madame du Maine, for whom
+he used to assist in all the libels and pasquinades which were written
+against my son.  It would be difficult to say which prated most, he or
+Pompadour.
+
+Madame d'Orleans has great influence over my son.  He loves all his
+children, but particularly his eldest daughter.  While still a child, she
+fell dangerously ill, and was given over by her physicians.  My son was
+in deep affliction at this, and resolved to attempt her cure by treating
+her in his own way, which succeeded so well that he saved her life, and
+from that moment has loved her better than all his other children.
+
+                    ............................
+
+The Abbe Dubois has an insinuating manner towards every one; but more
+particularly towards those of whom he had the care in their childhood.
+
+Two Germans were implicated in the conspiracy; but I am only surprised at
+one of them, the Brigadier Sandrazky, who was with me daily, and in whose
+behalf I have often spoken, because his father served my brother as
+commandant at Frankendahl; he died in the present year.  The other is the
+Count Schlieben, who has only one arm.  I am not astonished at him; for,
+in the first place, I know how he lost his arm; and, in the second, he is
+a friend and servant of the Princesse des Ursins: they expect to take him
+at Lyons.  Sandrazky was at my toilette the day before yesterday; as he
+looked melancholy, I asked him what was the matter?  He replied, "I am
+ill with vexation: I love my wife, who is an Englishwoman, very tenderly,
+and she is no less fond of me; but, as we have not the means of keeping
+up an establishment, she must go into a convent.  This distresses me so
+much that I am really very unwell."
+
+I was grieved to hear this, and resolved to solicit my son for him.
+
+My son sometimes does as is said in Atys,--[The opera of Atys, act ii.,
+scene 3.]--"Vous pourriez aimer et descendre moins bas;" for when Jolis
+was his rival, he became attached to one of his daughter's 'filles de
+chambre', who hoped to marry Jolis because he was rich; for this reason
+she received him better than my son, who, however, at last gained her
+favour.  He afterwards took her away from his daughter, and had her
+taught to sing, for she had a fine voice.
+
+The printed letters of Cellamara disclose the whole of the conspiracy.
+The Abbe Brigaut, too, it is said, begins to chatter about it.  This
+affair has given me so much anxiety that I only sleep through mere
+exhaustion.  My heart beats incessantly; but my son has not the least
+care about it.  I beseech him, for God's sake, not to go about in coaches
+at night, and he promises me he will not; but he will no more keep that
+promise than he did when he made it to me before.
+
+It is now eight days since the Duc du Maine and his wife were arrested
+(29th December).  She was at Paris, and her husband at Sceaux in his
+chateau.  One of the four captains of the King's Guard arrested the
+Duchess, the Duke was arrested only by a lieutenant of the Body Guard.
+The Duchess was immediately taken to Dijon and her husband to the
+fortress of Doullens.  I found Madame d'Orleans much more calm than I had
+expected.  She was much grieved, and wept bitterly; but she said that,
+since her brother was convicted, she must confess he had done wrong; that
+he was, with his wife, the cause of his own misfortune, but that it was
+no less painful to her to know that her own brother had thus been
+plotting against her husband.  His guilt was proved upon three points:
+first, in a paper under the hand of the Spanish Ambassador, the Prince of
+Cellamara, in which he imparted to Alberoni that the Duchesse and the Duc
+du Maine were at the head of the conspiracy; he tells him how many times
+he has seen them, by whose means, and in what place; then he says that he
+has given money to the Duc du Maine to bribe certain persons, and he
+mentions the sum.  There are already two men in the Bastille who confess
+to have received money, and others who have voluntarily stated that they
+conducted the Ambassador to the Duke and Duchess, and negotiated
+everything between the parties.  The greater part of their servants have
+been sent to the Bastille.  The Princess is deeply afflicted; and,
+although the clearest proofs are given of her children's crime, she
+throws all the blame upon the Duke, her grandson, who, she says, has
+accused them falsely, because he hates them, and she has refused to see
+him.  The Duchess is more moderate in her grief.  The little Princesse de
+Conti heartily pities her sister and weeps copiously, but the elder
+Princess does not trouble herself about her uncle and aunt.
+
+The Cardinals cannot be arrested, but they may be exiled; therefore the
+Cardinal de Polignac has been ordered to retire to one of his abbeys and
+to remain there.  It was love that turned his head.  He was formerly a
+great friend of my son's, and he did not change until he became attached
+to that little hussy.
+
+Magni
+
+     [Foucault de Magni, introducteur des ambassadeurs, and son of a
+     Counsellor of State.  Duclos says he was a silly fellow, who never
+     did but, one wise thing, which was to run away.]
+
+has not yet been taken; he flies from one convent to another.  He stayed
+with the Jesuits a long time.
+
+
+
+                                   1719
+
+They say that the Duchesse du Maine used all her persuasions to induce
+her husband to fly; but that he replied, as neither of them had written
+anything with their own hands, nothing could be proved against them;
+while, by flying, they would confess their guilt.  They did not consider
+that M. de Pompadour could say enough to cause their arrest.
+
+The Duchess's fraternal affection is a much stronger passion than her
+love for her children.
+
+A letter of Alberoni's to the lame bastard has been intercepted, in which
+is the following passage: "As soon as you declare war in France spring
+all your mines at once."
+
+What enrages me is that Madame d'Orleans and the Princess would still
+make one believe that the Duc and Duchesse du Maine are totally innocent,
+although proofs of their guilt are daily appearing.  The Duchess came to
+me to beg I would procure an order for her daughter's people, that is,
+her dames d'honneur, her femmes de chambre, and her hair-dresser, to be
+sent to her.  I could not help laughing, and I said, "Mademoiselle de
+Launay is an intriguer and one of the persons by whom the whole affair
+was conducted."
+
+But she replied, "The Princess is at the Bastille."--"I know it," I said;
+"and well she has deserved it."  This almost offended the Princess.
+
+The Duchesse du Maine said openly that she should never be happy until
+she had made an end of my son.  When her mother reproached her with it,
+she did not deny it, but only replied, "One says things in a passion
+which one does not mean to do."
+
+Although the plot has been discovered, the conspirators have not yet been
+all taken.  My son says, jokingly, "I have hold of the monster's head and
+tail, but I have not yet got his body."
+
+I can guess how it happened that the mercantile letters stated my son to
+have been arrested; it is because the conspirators intended to have done
+so, and two days later it would have taken place.  It must have been
+persons of this party, therefore, who wrote to England.
+
+When Schlieben was seized, he said, "If Monsieur the Regent does not take
+pity upon me, I am ruined."
+
+He was for a long time at the Spanish Court, where he was protected by
+the Princesse des Ursins.  He has some wit, can chatter well, and is an
+excellent spy for such a lady.  The persons who had arrested him took him
+to Paris by the diligence, without saying a word.  On reaching Paris the
+diligence was ordered to the Bastille; the poor travellers not knowing
+why, were in a great fright, and expected all to be locked up, but were
+not a little pleased at being set free.  Sandrazky is not very clever; he
+is a Silesian.  He married an Englishwoman, whose fortune he soon
+dissipated, for he is a great gambler.
+
+The Duchesse du Maine has fallen sick with rage, and that old Maintenon
+is said to be afflicted by the affair more than any other person.  It was
+by her fault that they fell into this scrape, for she put it into their
+heads that it was unjust they should not reign, and that the kingdom
+belonged as much to them as King Solomon's did to him.
+
+Madame d'Orleans weeps for her brother by day and night.
+
+They tried to arrest the Duc de Saint-Aignan at Pampeluna; but he
+effected his escape with his wife, and in disguise.
+
+When they carried away the Duc du Maine, he said, "I shall soon return,
+for my innocence will be speedily manifested; but I only speak for
+myself, my wife may not come back quite so soon."
+
+Madame d'Orleans cannot believe that her brother has been engaged in a
+conspiracy; she says it must have been his wife who acted in his name.
+The Princess, on the other hand, believes that her daughter is innocent,
+and that the Duc du Maine alone has carried on the plot.
+
+The factum is not badly drawn up.  Our priest can write well enough when
+he likes; he drew it up, and my son corrected it.
+
+The more the affair is examined, the more clearly does the guilt of the
+Duke and Duchess appear; for three days ago, Malezieux, who is in the
+Bastille, gave up his writing-desk.  The first thing that was found in it
+was a projet, which Malezieux had written at the Duchess's bedside, and
+which Cardinal de Polignac had corrected with his own hand.  Malezieux
+pretends that it is a Spanish letter, addressed to the Duchess, and that
+he had translated it for her, with the assistance of the Cardinal de
+Polignac; and yet the letters of Alberoni to the Prince de Cellamara
+refer so directly to this projet that it is easy to see that they spring
+from the same source.
+
+The Duchesse du Maine has made the Princess believe that the Duke (of
+Bourbon) was the cause of all this business, so that now he dare not
+appear before the latter, although he has always behaved with great
+respect and friendship towards her; while the Duc and Duchesse du Maine,
+on the contrary, have been engaged in a law-suit against her for five
+years.  It was not until after the Princess had inherited the property of
+Monsieur de Vendome, that this worthy couple insinuated themselves into
+her good graces.
+
+The Parliament is reconciled to my son, and has pronounced its decree,
+which is favourable to him, and which is another proof that the Duc du
+Maine had excited it against him.
+
+The Jesuits have probably been also against my son; for all those who
+have declared against the Constitution cannot be friendly to him; they
+have, however, kept so quiet that nothing can be brought against them.
+They are cunning old fellows.
+
+Madame d'Orleans begins to recover her spirits and to laugh again,
+particularly since I learn she has consulted the Premier President and
+other persons, to know whether, upon my son's death, she would become the
+Regent.  They told her that could not be, but that the office would fall
+upon the Duke.  This answer is said to have been very unpalatable to her.
+
+If my son would have paid a price high enough to the Cardinal de
+Polignac, he would have betrayed them all.  He is now consoling himself
+in his Abbey with translating Lucretius.
+
+The King of Spain's manifesto, instead of injuring my son, has been
+useful to him, because it was too violent and partial.  Alberoni must
+needs be a brutal and an intemperate person.  But how could a journeyman
+gardener know the language which ought to be addressed to crowned heads?
+Several thousand copies of this manifesto have been transmitted to Paris,
+addressed to all the persons in the Court, to all the Bishops, in short,
+to everybody; even to the Parliament, which has taken the affair up very
+properly, from Paris to Bordeaux, as the decree shows.  I thought it
+would have been better to burn this manifesto in the post-office instead
+of suffering it to be spread about; but my son said they should all be
+delivered, for the express purpose of discovering the feelings of the
+parties to whom they were addressed, and a register of them was kept at
+the post-office.  Those who were honest brought them of their own accord;
+the others kept them, and they are marked, without the public knowing
+anything about it.  The manifesto is the work of Malezieux and the
+Cardinal de Polignac.
+
+A pamphlet has been cried about the streets, entitled, "Un arret contre
+les poules d'Inde."  Upon looking at it, however, it seems to be a decree
+against the Jesuits, who had lost a cause respecting a priory, of which
+they had taken possession.  Everybody bought it except the partisans of
+the Constitution and of the Spanish faction.
+
+My son is more fond of his daughters, legitimate and illegitimate, than
+his son.
+
+The Duc and Duchesse du Maine rely upon nothing having been found in
+their writing; but Mademoiselle de Montauban and Malezieux have written.
+in their name; and is not what Pompadour has acknowledged voluntarily
+quite as satisfactory a proof as even their own writing?
+
+They have got the pieces of all the mischievous Spanish letters written
+by the same hand, and corrected by that of the Cardinal de Polignac, so
+that there can be no doubt of his having composed them.
+
+A manifesto, too, has been found in Malezieux's papers.  It is well
+written, but not improved by the translation.  Malezieux pretends that he
+only translated it before it was sent hence to Spain.
+
+Mademoiselle de Montauban and Mademoiselle de Launay, a person of some
+wit, who has kept up a correspondence with Fontenelle, and who was 'femme
+de chambre' to the Duchesse du Maine, have both been sent to the
+Bastille.
+
+The Duc du Maine now repents that he followed his wife's advice; but it
+seems that he only followed the worst part of it.
+
+The Duchesse d'Orleans has been for some days past persuading my son to
+go masked to a ball.  She says that his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri,
+and I, make him pass for a coward by preventing him from going to balls
+and running about the town by night as he used to do before; and that he
+ought not to manifest the least symptom of fear.  He replied that he knew
+he should give me great pain by doing so, and that the least he could do
+was to tranquillize my mind by living prudently.  She then said that the
+Duchesse de Berri filled me with unfounded fears in order that she might
+have more frequent opportunities of being with him, and of governing him
+entirely.  Can the Devil himself be worse than this bastard?  It teaches
+me, however, that my son is not secure with her.  I must do violence to
+myself that my suspicions may not be apparent.
+
+My son has not kept his word; he went to this ball, although he denies
+it.
+
+Although it is well known that Maintenon has had a hand in all these
+affairs, nothing can be said to her, for her name does not appear in any
+way.
+
+When my son is told of persons who hate him and who seek his life, he
+laughs and says, "They dare not; I am not so weak that I cannot defend
+myself."  This makes me very angry.
+
+If the proofs against Malezieux are not manifest, and if they do not put
+the rogue upon his trial, it will be because his crime is so closely
+connected with that of the Duchesse du Maine that, in order to convict
+him before the Parliament, he must be confronted with her.  Besides, as
+the Parliament is better disposed towards the Duc and Duchesse du Maine
+than to my son, they might be acquitted and taken out of his hands, which
+would make them worse than they are now.  For this reason it is that they
+are looking for proofs so clear that the Parliament cannot refuse to
+pronounce upon them.
+
+The Duc du Maine writes thus to his sister:
+
+"They ought not to have put me in prison; but they ought to have stripped
+me and put me into petticoats for having been thus led by my wife;" and
+he wrote to Madame de Langeron that he enjoyed perfect repose, for which
+he thanked God; that he was glad to be no longer exposed to the contempt
+of his family; and that his sons ought to be happy to be no longer with
+him.
+
+The King of Spain and Alberoni have a personal hatred against my son,
+which is the work of the Princesse des Ursins.
+
+My son is naturally brave, and fears nothing: death is not at all
+terrible to him.
+
+On the 29th of March the young Duc de Richelieu was taken to the
+Bastille: this caused a great number of tears to be shed, for he is
+universally loved.  He had kept up a correspondence with Alberoni, and
+had got his regiment placed at Bayonne, together with that of his friend,
+M. de Saillant, for the purpose of delivering the town to the Spaniards.
+He went on Wednesday last to the Marquis de Biron, and urged him to
+despatch him as promptly as possible to join his regiment at Bayonne, and
+so prove the zeal which attached him to my son.  His comrade, who passes
+for a coward and a sharper at play, has also been shut up in the
+Bastille.
+
+     [On the day that they were arrested, the Regent said he had that in
+     his pocket which would cut off four heads, if the Duke had so many.
+     --Memoires de Duclos.]
+
+The Duc de Richelieu had the portraits of his mistresses painted in all
+sorts of monastic habits: Mademoiselle de Charolais as a Recollette nun,
+and it is said to be very like her.  The Marechales de Villars and
+d'Estrees are, it is said, painted as Capuchin nuns.
+
+When the Duc de Richelieu was shown his letter to Alberoni, he confessed
+all that concerned himself, but would not disclose his accomplices.
+
+Nothing but billets-doux were found in his writing-case.  Alberoni in
+this affair trusted a man who had formerly been in his service, but who
+is now a spy of my son's.  He brought Alberoni's letter to the Regent;
+who opened it, read it, had a copy made, resealed it, and sent it on to
+its destination.  The young Duc de Richelieu answered it, but my son can
+make no use of this reply because the words in which it is written have a
+concealed sense.
+
+The Princess has strongly urged my son to permit the Duchesse du Maine to
+quit Dijon, under the pretext that the air was unwholesome for her.  My
+son consented upon condition that she should be conducted in her own
+carriage, but under the escort of the King's Guard, from Dijon to
+Chalons-sur-Saone.
+
+Here she thought she should enjoy comparative liberty, and that the town
+would be her prison: she was much astonished to find that she was as
+closely confined at Chalons as at Dijon.  When she asked the reason for
+this rigour she was told that all was discovered, and that the prisoners
+had disclosed the particulars of the conspiracy.  She was immediately
+struck with this; but recovering her self-possession, she said, "The Duc
+de Orleans thinks that I hate him; but if he would take my advice, I
+would counsel him better than any other person."  My son's wife remains
+very tranquil.
+
+On the 17th of April a rascal was brought in who was near surprising my
+son in the Bois de Boulogne a year ago.  He is a dismissed colonel; his
+name is La Jonquiere.  He had written to my son demanding enormous
+pensions and rewards; but meeting with a refusal, he went into Spain,
+where he promised Alberoni to carry off my son, and deliver him into his
+hands, dead or alive.  He brought one hundred men with him, whom he put
+in ambuscade near Paris.  He missed my son only by a quarter of an hour
+in the Bois de Boulogne, which the latter had passed through in his way
+to La Muette, where he went to dine with his daughter.  La Jonquiere
+having thus failed, retired in great vexation to the Low Countries, where
+he boasted that, although he had missed this once, he would take his
+measures so much better in future that people should soon hear of a great
+blow being struck.  This was luckily repeated to my son, who had him
+arrested at Liege.  He sent a clever fellow to him, who caught him, and
+leading him out of the house where they were, he clapped a pistol to his
+throat, and threatened to shoot him on the spot if he did not go with him
+and without speaking a word.  The rascal, overcome with terror, suffered
+himself to be taken to the boat, but when he saw that they were
+approaching the French territory he did not wish to go any further; he
+said he was ruined, and should be drawn and quartered.  They bound him
+and carried him to the Bastille.
+
+I have exhorted my son to take care of himself, and not to go out but in
+a carriage.  He has promised that he will not, but I cannot trust him.
+
+The late Monsieur was desirous that his son's wife should not be a
+coquette.  This was not the particular which I so much disapproved of;
+but I wished the husband not to be informed of it, or that it should get
+abroad, which would have had no other effect than that of convincing my
+son that his wife had dishonoured him.
+
+I must never talk to my son about the conspiracy in the presence of
+Madame d'Orleans; it would be wounding her in the tenderest place; for
+all that concerns her brother is to her the law and the prophets.
+
+My son has so satisfactorily disproved the accusations of that old
+Maintenon and the Duc du Maine, that the King has believed him, and,
+after a minute examination, has done my son justice.  But Madame
+d'Orleans has not conducted herself well in this affair; she has spread
+by means of her creatures many calumnies against my son, and has even
+said that he wanted to poison her.  By such means she has made her peace
+with old Maintenon, who could not endure her before.  I have often
+admired the patience with which my son suffers all this, when he knows it
+just as well as I do.  If things had remained as Madame de Maintenon had
+arranged them at the death of the King, my son would only have been
+nominally Regent, and the Duc du Maine would actually have enjoyed all
+the power.  She thought because my son was in the habit of running after
+women a little that he would be afraid of the labour, and that he would
+be contented with the title and a large pension, leaving her and the Duc
+du Maine to have their own way.  This was her plan, and she fancied that
+her calumnies had so far succeeded in making my son generally despised
+that no person would be found to espouse his cause.  But my son was not
+so unwise as to suffer all this; he pleaded his cause so well to the
+Parliament that the Government was entrusted to him, and yet the old
+woman did not relinquish her hopes until my son had the Duc du Maine
+arrested; then she fainted.
+
+The Pope's nuncio thrusts his nose into all the plots against my son; he
+may be a good priest, but he is nevertheless a wicked devil.
+
+On the 25th of April M. de Laval, the Duchesse de Roquelaure's brother,
+was arrested.
+
+M. de Pompadour has accused the Duc de Laval of acting in concert with
+the Prince de Cellamara, to whom, upon one occasion, he acted as
+coachman, and drove him to the Duchesse du Maine at the Arsenal.  This
+Comte de Laval is always sick and covered with wounds; he wears a plaster
+which reaches from ear to ear; he is lame, and often has his arm in a
+sling; nevertheless, he is full of intrigue, and is engaged night and day
+in writing against my son.
+
+Madame de Maintenon is said to have sent large sums of money into the
+provinces for the purpose of stirring up the people against my son; but,
+thank God, her plan has not succeeded.
+
+The old woman has spread about the report that my son poisoned all the
+members of the Royal Family who have died lately.  She hired one of the
+King's physicians first to spread this report.  If Marechal, the King's
+surgeon, who was present at the opening of the bodies, had not stated
+that there was no appearance of poison, and confirmed that statement to
+the King, this infamous creature would have plunged my innocent son into
+a most deplorable situation.
+
+Mademoiselle de Charolais says that the affair of Bayonne cannot be true,
+for that the Duc de Richelieu did not tell her of it, and he never
+concealed anything from her.  She says, too, that she will not see my
+son, for his having put the Duke into the Bastille.
+
+The Duke walks about on the top of the terrace at the Bastille, with his
+hair dressed, and in an embroidered coat.  All the ladies who pass stop
+their carriages to look at the pretty fellow.
+
+     [This young man, says Duclos, thought himself of some consequence
+     when he was made a State prisoner, and endured his confinement with
+     the same levity which he had always displayed in love, in business,
+     or in war.  The Regent was much amused with him, and suffered him to
+     have all he wanted-his valet de chambre, two footmen, music, cards,
+     etc.; so that, although he was deprived of his liberty, he might be
+     as licentious as ever.]
+
+Madame d'Orleans has been so little disposed to undertake her husband's
+defence in public, that she has pretended to believe the charges against
+him, although no person in the world knows better than she does that the
+whole is a lie.  She sent to her brothers for a counter-poison, so that
+my son should not take her off by those means; and thus she reconciled
+Maintenon, who was at enmity with her.  I learnt this story during the
+year, and I do not know whether my son is aware of it.  I would not say
+anything to him about it, for I did not wish to embroil man and wife.
+
+
+The Abbe Dubois--[Madame probably means the Duc du Maine]--seems to
+think that we do not know how many times he went by night to Madame de
+Maintenon's, to help this fine affair.
+
+My son has been dissuaded from issuing the manifesto.
+
+Madame d'Orleans has at length quite regained her husband; and, following
+her advice, he goes about by night in a coach.  On Wednesday night he set
+off for Anieres, where Parabere has a house.  He supped there, and,
+getting into his carriage again, after midnight, he put his foot into a
+hole and sprained it.
+
+I am very much afraid my son will be attacked by the small-pox.  He eats
+heavy suppers; he is short and fat, and just one of those persons whom
+the disease generally attacks.
+
+The Cardinal de Noailles has been pestering my son in favour of the Duc
+de Richelieu; and as it cannot be positively proved that he addressed the
+letter to Alberoni, they can do no more to him than banish him to
+Conflans, after six months' imprisonment.  Mademoiselle de Charolais
+procured some one to ask my son secretly by what means she could see the
+Duc de Richelieu, and speak with him, before he set off for Conflans.
+
+     [This must have been a joke of Mademoiselle de Charolais; for she
+     had already, together with Mademoiselle Valois, paid the Duke
+     several visits in the Bastille.  When the Duke was sent to Conflans
+     to the Cardinal de Noailles, he used to escape almost every night,
+     and come to see his mistresses.  It was this that determined the
+     Regent to send him to Saint-Germain en Laye; but, soon afterwards,
+     Mademoiselle de Valois obtained from her father a pardon for her
+     lover.---Memoirs de Richelieu, tome iii., p. 171]
+
+My son replied, "that she had better speak to the Cardinal de Noailles;
+for as he was to conduct the Duke to Conflans, and keep him in his own
+house, he would know better than any other person how he might be spoken
+with."  When she learnt that the Duke had arrived at Saint-Germain, she
+hastened thither immediately.
+
+I never doubted for a moment that my son's marriage was in every respect
+unfortunate; but my advice was not listened to.  If the union had been a
+good one, that old Maintenon would not have insisted on it.
+
+Nothing less than millions are talked of on all sides: my sun has made me
+also richer by adding 130,000 livres to my pension.
+
+By what we hear daily of the insurrection in Bretagne, it seems that my
+son's enemies are more inveterate against him than ever.  I do not know
+whether it is true, as has been said, that there was a conspiracy at
+Rochelle, and that the governor intended to give up the place to the
+Spaniards, but has fled; that ten officers were engaged in the plot, some
+of whom have been arrested, and the others have fled to Spain.
+
+I always took the Bishop of Soissons for an honest man.  I knew him when
+he was only an Abbe, and the Duchess of Burgundy's almoner; but the
+desire to obtain a Cardinal's hat drives most of the Bishops mad.  There
+is not one of them who does not believe that the more impertinently he
+behaves to my son about the Constitution, the more he will improve his
+credit with the Court of Rome, and the sooner become a Cardinal.
+
+My son, although he is Regent, never comes to see me, and never quits me,
+without kissing my hand before he embraces me; and he will not even take
+a chair if I hand it to him.  He is not, however, at all timid, but chats
+familiarly with me, and we laugh and talk together like good friends.
+
+
+[Illustration: The Regent and His Mother--166]
+
+
+While the Dauphin was alive La Chouin behaved very ill to my son; she
+embroiled him with the Dauphin, and would neither speak to nor see him;
+in short, she was constantly opposed to him.  And yet, when he learnt
+that she had fallen into poverty, he sent her money, and secured her a
+pension sufficient to live upon.
+
+My son gave me actions to the amount of two millions, which I distributed
+among my household.  The King also took several millions for his own,
+household; all the Royal Family have had them; all the enfans and petits
+enfans de France, and the Princes of the blood.
+
+[This may be stock the M. Law floated in the Mississippi Company.  D.W.]
+
+The old Court is doing its utmost to put people, out of conceit with
+Law's bank.
+
+I do not think that Lord Stair praises my son so much as he used to do,
+for they do not seem to be very good friends.  After having received all
+kinds of civilities from my son, who has made him richer than ever he
+expected to be in his life, he has turned his back upon him, caused him
+numerous little troubles, and annoys him so much that my son would gladly
+be rid of him.
+
+My son was obliged to make a speech at the Bank, which was applauded.
+
+
+                                   1720
+
+They have been obliged to adopt severe measures in Bretagne; four persons
+of quality have been beheaded. One of them, who might have escaped by
+flying to Spain, would not go.  When he was asked why, he said it had
+been predicted that he should die by sea (de la mer).  Just before he was
+executed he asked the headsman what his name was.
+
+"My name is Sea (La Mer)," replied the man.
+
+"Then," said the nobleman, "I am undone."
+
+All Paris has been mourning at the cursed decree which Law has persuaded
+my son to make.  I have received anonymous letters, stating that I have
+nothing to fear on my own account, but that my son shall be pursued with
+fire and sword; that the plan is laid and the affair determined on.  From
+another quarter I have learnt that knives are sharpening for my son's
+assassination.  The most dreadful news is daily reaching me.  Nothing
+could appease the discontent until, the Parliament having assembled, two
+of its members were deputed to wait upon my son, who received them
+graciously, and, following their advice, annulled the decree, and so
+restored things to their former condition.  This proceeding has not only
+quieted all Paris, but has reconciled my son (thank God) to the
+Parliament.
+
+My son wished by sending an embassy to give a public proof how much he
+wished for a reconciliation between the members of the Royal Family of
+England, but it was declined.
+
+The goldsmiths will work no longer, for they charge their goods at three
+times more than they are worth, on account of the bank-notes.  I have
+often wished those bank-notes were in the depths of the infernal regions;
+they have given my son much more trouble than relief.  I know not how
+many inconveniences they have caused him.  Nobody in France has a penny;
+but, saving your presence, and to speak in plain palatine, there is
+plenty of paper.
+
+                    ..........................
+
+It is singular enough that my son should only become so firmly attached
+to his black Parabere, when she had preferred another and had formally
+dismissed him.
+
+Excepting the affair with Parabere, my son lives upon very good terms
+with his wife, who for her part cares very little about it; nothing is so
+near to her heart as her brother, the Duc du Maine.  In a recent quarrel
+which she had with my son on this subject, she said she would retire to
+Rambouillet or Montmartre.  "Wherever you please," he replied; "or
+wherever you think you will be most comfortable."  This vexed her so mach
+that she wept day and night about it.
+
+On the 17th of June, while I was at the Carmelites, Madame de
+Chateau-Thiers came to see me, and said to me, "M. de Simiane is come
+from the Palais Royal; and he thinks it fit you should know that on your
+return you will find all the courts filled with the people who, although
+they do not say anything, will not disperse.  At six o'clock this
+morning they brought in three dead bodies which M. Le Blanc has had
+removed.  M. Law has taken refuge in the Palais Royal: they have done
+him no harm; but his coach man was stoned as he returned, and the
+carriage broken to pieces. It was the coachman's fault, who told them
+'they were a rabble, and ought to be hanged.'" I saw at once that it
+would not do to seem to be intimidated, so I ordered the coach to be
+driven to the Palais Royal. There was such a press of carriages that I
+was obliged to wait a full hour before I reached the rue Saint-Honore;
+then I heard the people talking: they did not say anything against my
+son; they gave me several benedictions, and demanded that Law should be
+hanged.  When I reached the Palais Royal all was calm again.  My son
+came to me, and in the midst of my anxiety he was perfectly tranquil,
+and even made me laugh.
+
+M. Le Blanc went with great boldness into the midst of the irritated
+populace and harangued them.  He had the bodies of the men who had been
+crushed to death in the crowd brought away, and succeeded in quieting
+them.
+
+My son is incapable of being serious and acting like a father with his
+children; he lives with them more like a brother than a father.
+
+The Parliament not only opposed the edict, and would not allow it to
+pass, but also refused to give any opinion, and rejected the affair
+altogether.  For this reason my son had a company of the footguard placed
+on Sunday morning at the entrance of the palace to prevent their
+assembling; and, at the same time, he addressed a letter to the
+Premier-President, and to the Parliament a 'lettre-de-cachet', ordering
+them to repair to Pontoise to hold their sittings.  The next day, when
+the musketeers had relieved the guards, the young fellows, not knowing
+what to do to amuse themselves, resolved to play at a parliament.  They
+elected a chief and other presidents, the King's ministers, and the
+advocates.  These things being settled, and having received a sausage
+and a pie for breakfast, they pronounced a sentence, in which they
+condemned the sausage to be cooked and the pie to be cut up.
+
+All these things make me tremble for my son.  I receive frequently
+anonymous letters full of dreadful menaces against him, assuring me that
+two hundred bottles of wine have been poisoned for him, and, if this
+should fail, that they will make use of a new artificial fire to burn him
+alive in the Palais Royal.
+
+It is too true that Madame d'Orleans loves her brother better than her
+husband.
+
+The Duc du Maine says that if, by his assistance, the King should obtain
+the direction of his own affairs, he would govern him entirely, and would
+be more a monarch than the King, and that after my son's death he would
+reign with his sister.
+
+A week ago I received letters in which they threatened to burn my son at
+the Palais Royal and me at Saint Cloud.  Lampoons are circulated in
+Paris.
+
+My son has already slept several times at the Tuileries, but I fear that
+the King will not be able to accustom himself to his ways, for my son
+could never in his life play with children: he does not like them.
+
+He was once beloved, but since the arrival of that cursed Law he is hated
+more and more.  Not a week passes without my receiving by the post
+letters filled with frightful threats, in which my son is spoken of as a
+bad man and a tyrant.
+
+I have just now received a letter in which he is threatened with poison.
+When I showed it to him he did nothing but laugh, and said the Persian
+poison could not be given to him, and that all that was said about it was
+a fable.
+
+To-morrow the Parliament will return to Paris, which will delight the
+Parisians as much as the departure of Law.
+
+That old Maintenon has sent the Duc du Maine about to tell the members of
+the Royal Family that my son poisoned the Dauphin, the Dauphine, and the
+Duc de Berri.  The old woman has even done more she has hinted to the
+Duchess that she is not secure in her husband's house, and that she
+should ask her brother for a counter-poison, as she herself was obliged
+to do during the latter days of the King's life.
+
+The old woman lives very retired.  No one can say that any imprudent
+expressions have escaped her.  This makes me believe that she has some
+plan in her head, but I cannot guess what it is.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XI.--THE DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS, WIFE OF THE REGENT.
+
+If, by shedding my own blood, I could have prevented my son's marriage,
+I would willingly have done so; but since the thing was done, I have had
+no other wish than to preserve harmony.  Monsieur behaved to her with
+great attention during the first month, but as soon as he suspected that
+she looked with too favourable an eye upon the Chevalier du Roye,
+
+     [Bartholemi de La Rochefoucauld, at first Chevalier de Roye, but
+     afterwards better known by the title of Marquis de La Rochefoucauld.
+     He was Captain of the Duchesse de Berri's Body-Guards, and he died
+     in 1721.]
+
+he hated her as the Devil.  To prevent an explosion, I was obliged daily
+to represent to him that he would dishonour himself, as well as his son,
+by exposing her conduct, and would infallibly bring upon himself the
+King's displeasure.  As no person had been less favourable to this
+marriage than I, he could not suspect but that I was moved, not from any
+love for my daughter-in-law, but from the wish to avoid scandal and out
+of affection to my son and the whole family.  While all eclat was
+avoided, the public were at least in doubt about the matter; by an
+opposite proceeding their suspicions would have been confirmed.
+
+Madame d'Orleans looks older than she is; for she paints beyond all
+measure, so that she is often quite red.  We frequently joke her on this
+subject, and she even laughs at it herself.  Her nose and cheeks are
+somewhat pendant, and her head shakes like an old woman: this is in
+consequence of the small-pox.  She is often ill, and always has a
+fictitious malady in reserve.  She has a true and a false spleen;
+whenever she complains, my son and I frequently rally her about it.
+I believe that all the indispositions and weaknesses she has proceed from
+her always lying in bed or on a sofa; she eats and drinks reclining,
+through mere idleness; she has not worn stays since the King's death;
+she never could bring herself to eat with the late King, her own father,
+still less would she with me.  It would then be necessary for her to sit
+upon a stool, and she likes better to loll upon a sofa or sit in an
+arm-chair at a small table with her favourite, the Duchess of Sforza.  She
+admits her son, and sometimes Mademoiselle d'Orleans.  She is so indolent
+that she will not stir; she would like larks ready roasted to drop into
+her mouth; she eats and walks slowly, but eats enormously.  It is
+impossible to be more idle than she is: she admits this herself; but she
+does not attempt to correct it: she goes to bed early that she may lie
+the longer.  She never reads herself, but when she has the spleen she
+makes her women read her to sleep.  Her complexion is good, but less so
+than her second daughter's.  She walks a little on one side, which Madame
+de Ratzenhausen calls walking by ear.  She does not think that there is
+her equal in the world for beauty, wit, and perfection of all kinds.  I
+always compare her to Narcissus, who died of self-admiration.  She is so
+vain as to think she has more sense than her husband, who has a great
+deal; while her notions are not in the slightest degree elevated.  She
+lives much in the femme-de-chambre style; and, indeed, loves this society
+better than that of persons of birth.  The ladies are often a week
+together without seeing her; for without being summoned they cannot
+approach her.  She does not know how to live as the wife of a prince
+should, having been educated like the daughter of a citizen.  A long time
+had elapsed before she and her younger brother were legitimated by the
+King; I do not know for what reason.
+
+
+     [This legitimation presented great difficulties during the life of
+     the Marquis de Montespan.  M. Achille de Harlai, Procureur-General
+     du Parliament, helped to remove them by having the Chevalier de
+     Longueville, son of the Duke of that name and of the Marechale de la
+     Feste, recognized without naming his mother.  This once done, the
+     children of the King and of Madame de Montespan were legitimated in
+     the same manner.]
+
+When they arrived at Court their conversation was exactly like that of
+the common people.
+
+In my opinion my son's wife has no charms at all; her physiognomy does
+not please me.  I don't know whether my son loves her much, but I know
+she does what she pleases with him.  The populace and the femmes de
+chambre are fond of her; but she is not liked elsewhere.  She often goes
+to the Salut at the Quinze Vingts; and her women are ordered to say that.
+she is a saint, who suffers my son to be surrounded by mistresses without
+complaining.  This secures the pity of the populace and makes her pass
+for one of the best of wives, while, in fact; she is, like her elder
+brother, full of artifice.
+
+She is very superstitious.  Some years ago a nun of Fontevrault, called
+Madame de Boitar, died.  Whenever Madame d'Orleans loses anything she
+promises to this nun prayers for the redemption of her soul from
+purgatory, and then does not doubt that she shall find what she has lost.
+She piques herself upon being extremely pious; but does not consider
+lying and deceit are the works of the Devil and not of God.  Ambition,
+pride and selfishness have entirely spoilt her.  I fear she will not make
+a good end.  That I may live in peace I seem to shut my eyes to these
+things.  My son often, in allusion to her pride, calls her Madame
+Lucifer.  She is not backward in believing everything complimentary that
+is said to her.  Montespan, old Maintenon, and all the femmes de chambre
+have made her believe that she did my son honour in marrying him; and she
+is so vain of her own birth and that of her brothers and sisters that she
+will not hear a word said against them; she will not see any difference
+between legitimate and illegitimate children.
+
+She wishes to reign; but she knows nothing of true grandeur, having been
+educated in too low a manner.  She might live well as a simple duchess;
+but not as one of the Royal Family of France.  It is too true that she
+has always been ambitious of possessing, not my son's heart, but his
+power; she is always in fear lest some one else should govern him.  Her
+establishment is well regulated; my son has always let her be mistress in
+this particular.  As to her children, I let them go on in their own way;
+they were brought here without my consent, and it is for others to take
+care of them.  Sometimes she displays more affection for her brother than
+even for her children.  An ambitious woman as she is, having it put into
+her head by her brother that she ought to be the Regent, can love none
+but him.  She would like to see him Regent better than her husband,
+because he has persuaded her that she shall reign with him; she believes
+it firmly, although every one else knows that his own wife is too
+ambitious to permit any one but herself to reign.  Besides her ambition
+she has a great deal of ill-temper.  She will never pardon either the nun
+of Chelles or Mademoiselle de Valois, because they did not like her
+nephew with the long lips.  Her anger is extremely bitter, and she will
+never forgive.  She loves only her relations on the maternal side.
+Madame de Sforza, her favourite, is the daughter of Madame de Thianges,
+Madame de Montespan's sister, and therefore a cousin of Madame d'Orleans,
+who hates her sister and her nephew worse than the Devil.
+
+I could forgive her all if she were not so treacherous.  She flatters me
+when I am present, but behind my back she does all in her power to set
+the Duchesse de Berri against me; she tells her not to believe that I
+love her, but that I wish to have her sister with me.  Madame d'Orleans
+believes that her daughter, Madame de Berri, loves her less than her
+father.  It is true that the daughter has not a very warm attachment to
+her mother, but she does her duty to her; and yet the more they are full
+of mutual civilities the more they quarrel.  On the 4th of October, 1718,
+Madame de Berri having invited her father to go and sleep at La Muette,
+to see the vintage feast and dance which were to be held on the next day.
+Madame d'Orleans wrote to Madame de Berri, and asked her if she thought
+it consistent with the piety of the Carmelites that she should ask her
+father to sleep in her house.  Madame de Berri replied that it had never
+been thought otherwise than pious that a parent should sleep in his
+daughter's house.  The mother did this only to annoy her husband and
+daughter, and when she chooses she has a very cutting way.  It may be
+imagined how this letter was received by the father and daughter.  I
+arrived at La Muette just as it had come.  My son dare not complain to
+me, for as often as he does, I say to him, "George Dandin, you would have
+it so:"--[Moliere]--he therefore only laughed and said nothing.  I did
+not wish to add to the bitterness which this had occasioned, for that
+would have been to blow a fire already too hot; I confined myself,
+therefore, to observing that when she wrote it she probably had the
+spleen.
+
+She is not very fond of her children, and, as I think, she carries her
+indifference too far; for the children see she does not love them, and
+this makes them fond of being with me.  This angers the mother, and she
+reproaches them for it, which only makes them like her less.
+
+Although she loves her son, she does not in general care so much for her
+children as for her brothers, and all who belong to the House of
+Mortemart.
+
+I was the unintentional cause of making a quarrel between her and the nun
+of Chelles.  At the commencement of the affair of the Duc du Maine, I
+received a letter from my daughter addressed to Madame d'Orleans; and not
+thinking that it was for the Abbess, who bears the same title with her
+mother, I sent it to the latter.  This letter happened, unluckily, to be
+an answer to one of our Nun's, in which she had very plainly said what
+she thought of the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, and ended by pitying her
+father for being the Duke's brother-in-law, and for having contracted an
+alliance so absurd and injurious.  It may be guessed whether my
+daughter's answer was palatable to my daughter-in-law.  I am very sorry
+that I made the mistake; but what right had she to read a letter which
+was not meant for her?
+
+The new Abbess of Chelles has had a great difference with her mother,
+who says she will never forgive her for having agreed with her father to
+embrace the religious profession without her knowledge.  The daughter
+said that, as her mother had always taken the side of the former Abbess
+against her, she had not confided this secret to her, from a conviction
+that she would oppose it to please the Abbess.  This threw the mother
+into a paroxysm of grief.  She said she was very unhappy both in her
+husband and her children; that her husband was the most unjust person in
+the world, for that he kept her brother-in-law in prison, who was one of
+the best and most pious of men--in short, a perfect saint; and that God
+would punish such wickedness.  The daughter replied it was respect for
+her mother that kept her silent; and the latter became quite furious.
+This shows that she hates us like the very Devil, and that she loves none
+but her lame brother, and those who love him or are nearly connected with
+him.
+
+She thinks there never was so perfect a being in the world as her mother.
+She cannot quite persuade herself that she was ever Queen, because she
+knew the Queen too well, who always called her daughter, and treated her
+better than her sisters; I cannot tell why, because she was not the most
+amiable of them.
+
+It is quite true that there is little sympathy between my son's wife and
+me; but we live together as politely as possible.  Her singular conduct
+shall never prevent me from keeping that promise which I made to the late
+King in his last moments.  He gave some good Christian exhortations to
+Madame d'Orleans; but, as the proverb says, it is useless to preach to
+those who have no heart to act.
+
+In the spring of this year (1718) her brothers and relations said that
+but for the antidotes which had been administered to Madame d'Orleans,
+without the knowledge of me or my son, she must have perished.
+
+I had resolved not to interfere with anything respecting this affair; but
+had the satisfaction of speaking my mind a little to Madame du Maine.
+I said to her: "Niece" (by which appellation I always addressed her),
+"I beg you will let me know who told you that Madame d'Orleans had taken
+a counterpoison unknown to us.  It is the greatest falsehood that ever
+was uttered, and you may say so from me to whoever told it you."
+
+She looked red, and said, "I never said it was so."
+
+"I am very glad of it, niece," I replied; "for it would be very
+disgraceful to you to have said so, and you ought not to allow people to
+bring you such tales."  When she heard this she went off very quickly.
+
+Madame d'Orleans is a little inconstant in her friendship.  She is very
+fond of jewels, and once wept for four-and-twenty hours because my son
+gave a pair of beautiful pendants to Madame de Berri.
+
+My son has this year (1719) increased his wife's income by 160,000
+livres, the arrears of which have been paid to her from 1716, so that she
+received at once the sum of 480,000 livres.  I do not envy her this
+money, but I cannot bear the idea that she is thus paid for her
+infidelity.  One must, however, be silent.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XII.--MARIE-ANNE CHRISTINE VICTOIRE OF BAVARIA, THE FIRST DAUPHINE.
+
+She was ugly, but her extreme politeness made her very agreeable.  She
+loved the Dauphin more like a son than a husband.  Although he loved her
+very well, he wished to live with her in an unceremonious manner, and she
+agreed to it to please him.  I used often to laugh at her superstitious
+devotion, and undeceived her upon many of her strange opinions.  She
+spoke Italian very well, but her German was that of the peasants of the
+country.  At first, when she and Bessola were talking together, I could
+not understand a word.
+
+She always manifested the greatest friendship and confidence in me to the
+end of her days.  She was not haughty, but as it had become the custom to
+blame everything she did, she was somewhat disdainful.  She had a
+favourite called Bessola--a false creature, who had sold her to
+Maintenon.  But for the infatuated liking she had for this woman, the
+Dauphine would have been much happier.  Through her, however, she was
+made one of the most wretched women in the world.
+
+This Bessola could not bear that the Dauphine should speak to any person
+but herself: she was mercenary and jealous, and feared that the
+friendship of the Dauphine for any one else would discredit her with
+Maintenon, and that her mistress's liberality to others would diminish
+that which she hoped to experience herself.  I told this person the truth
+once, as she deserved to be told, in the presence of the Dauphine; from
+which period she has neither done nor said anything troublesome to me.
+I told the Dauphine in plain German that it was a shame that she should
+submit to be governed by Bessola to such a degree that she could not
+speak to whom she chose.  I said this was not friendship, but a slavery,
+which was the derision of the Court.
+
+Instead of being vexed at this, she laughed, and said, "Has not everybody
+some weakness?  Bessola is mine."
+
+This wench often put me in an ill-humour: at last I lost all patience,
+and could no longer restrain myself.  I would often have told her what I
+thought, but that I saw it would really distress the poor Dauphine: I
+therefore restrained myself, and said to her, "Out of complaisance to
+you, I will be silent; but give such orders that Bessola may not again
+rouse me, otherwise I cannot promise but that I may say something she
+will not like."
+
+The Dauphine thanked me affectionately, and thus more than ever engaged
+my silence.
+
+When the Dauphine arrived from Bavaria, the fine Court of France was on
+the decline: it was at the commencement of Maintenon's reign, which
+spoilt and degraded everything.  It was not, therefore, surprising that
+the poor Dauphine should regret her own country.  Maintenon annoyed her
+immediately after her marriage in such a manner as must have excited
+pity.  The Dauphine had made her own marriage; she had hoped to be
+uncontrolled, and to become her own mistress; but she was placed in that
+Maintenon's hands, who wanted to govern her like a child of seven years
+old, although she was nineteen.  That old Maintenon, piqued at the
+Dauphine for wishing to hold a Court, as she should have done, turned the
+King against her.  Bessola finished this work by betraying and selling
+her; and thus was the Dauphine's misery accomplished!  By selecting me
+for her friend, she filled up the cup of Maintenon's hatred, who was
+paying Bessola; because she knew she was jealous of me, and that I had
+advised the Dauphine not to keep her, for I was quite aware that she had
+secret interviews with Maintenon.
+
+That lady had also another creature in the Dauphine's household: this was
+Madame de Montchevreuil, the gouvernante of the Dauphine's filles
+d'honneur.  Madame de Maintenon had engaged her to place the Dauphin upon
+good terms with the filles d'honneur, and she finished by estranging him
+altogether from his wife.  During her pregnancy, which, as well as her
+lying-in, was extremely painful, the Dauphine could not go out; and this
+Montchevreuil took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded her to
+introduce the filles d'honneur to the Dauphin to hunt and game with him.
+He became fond, in his way, of the sister of La Force, who was afterwards
+compelled to marry young Du Roure.  The attachment continued,
+notwithstanding this marriage; and she procured the Dauphin's written
+promise to marry her in case of the death of the Dauphine and her
+husband.  I do not know how the late King became acquainted with this
+fact; but it is certain that he was seriously angered at it, and that he
+banished Du Roure to Gascony, his native country.  The Dauphin had an
+affair of gallantry with another of his wife's filles d'honneur called
+Rambures.  He did not affect any dissimulation with his wife; a great
+uproar ensued; and that wicked Bessola, following the directions of old
+Maintenon, who planned everything, detached the Dauphin from his wife
+more and more.  The latter was not very fond of him; but what displeased
+her in his amours was that they exposed her to be openly and constantly
+ridiculed and insulted.  Montchevreuil made her pay attention to all that
+passed, and Bessola kept up her anger against her husband.
+
+Maintenon had caused it to be reported among the people by her agents
+that the Dauphine hated France, and that she urged the imposition of new
+taxes.
+
+The Dauphine was so ill-treated in her accouchement of the Duc de Berri
+that she became quite deformed, although previous to this her figure had
+been remarkably good.  On the evening before she died, as the little Duke
+was sitting on her bed, she said to him, "My dear Berri, I love you very
+much, but I have paid dearly for you."  The Dauphin was not grieved at
+her death; old Montchevreuil had told him so many lies of his wife that
+he could not love her.  That old Maintenon hoped, when this event
+happened, that she should be able to govern the Duke by means of his
+mistresses, which could not have been if he had continued to be attached
+to his wife.  This old woman had conceived so violent a hatred against
+the poor Princess, that I do believe she prevailed on Clement, the
+accoucheur, to treat her ill in her confinement; and what confirms me in
+this is that she almost killed her by visiting her at that time in
+perfumed gloves.  She said it was I who wore them, which was untrue.
+I would not swear that the Dauphine did not love Bessola better than her
+husband; she deserved no such attachment.  I often apprised her mistress
+of her perfidy, but she would not believe me.
+
+The Dauphine used to say, "We are two unhappy persons, but there is this
+difference between us: you endeavoured, as much as you could, to avoid
+coming here; while I resolved to do so at all events.  I have therefore
+deserved my misery more than you."
+
+They wanted to make her pass for crazy, because she was always
+complaining.  Some hours before her death she said to me, "I shall
+convince them to-day that I was not mad in complaining of my sufferings."
+She died calmly and easily; but she was as much put to death as if she
+had been killed by a pistol-shot.
+
+When her funeral service was performed I carried the taper (nota bene)
+and some pieces of gold to the Bishop who performed the grand mass, and
+who was sitting in an arm-chair near the altar.  The prelate intended to
+have given them to his assistants, the priests of the King's chapel; but
+the monks of Saint Denis ran to him with great eagerness, exclaiming that
+the taper and the gold belonged to them.  They threw themselves upon the
+Bishop, whose chair began to totter, and made his mitre fall from his
+head.  If I had stayed there a moment longer the Bishop, with all the
+monks, would have fallen upon me.  I descended the four steps of the
+altar in great haste, for I was nimble enough at that time, and looked on
+the battle at a distance, which appeared so comical that I could not but
+laugh, and everybody present did the same.
+
+That wicked Bessola, who had tormented the Dauphine day and night, and
+had made her distrust every one who approached her, and thus separated
+her from all the world, returned home a year after her mistress's death.
+Before her departure she played another trick by having a box made with a
+double bottom, in which she concealed jewels and ready money to the
+amount of 100,000 francs; and all this time she went about weeping and
+complaining that, after so many years of faithful service, she was
+dismissed as poor as a beggar.  She did not know that her contrivance had
+been discovered at the Customhouse and that the King had been apprised of
+it.  He ordered her to be sent for, showed her the things which she had
+prepared to carry away, and said he thought she had little reason to
+complain of the Dauphine's parsimony.  It may be imagined how foolish she
+looked.  The King added that, although he might withhold them from her,
+yet to show her that she had done wrong in acting clandestinely, and in
+complaining as she had done, he chose to restore her the whole.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XIII.--ADELAIDE OF SAVOY, THE SECOND DAUPHINE.
+
+The Queen of Spain stayed longer with her mother than our Dauphine, and
+therefore was better educated.  Maintenon, who understood nothing about
+education, permitted her to do whatever she pleased, that she might gain
+her affections and keep her to herself.  This young lady had been well
+brought up by her virtuous mother; she was genteel and humorous, and
+could joke very pleasantly: when she had a colour she did not look ugly.
+No one can imagine what mad-headed people were about this Princess, and
+among the number was the Marechale d'Estrees.  Maintenon was very
+properly recompensed for having given her these companions; for the
+consequence was that the Dauphine no longer liked her society.  Maintenon
+was very desirous to know the reason of this, and teased the Princess to
+tell her.  At length she did; and said that the Marechale d'Estrees was
+continually asking her, "What are you always doing with that old woman?
+Why do you not associate with folks who would amuse you more than that
+old skeleton?"  and that she said many other uncivil things of her.
+Maintenon told me this herself, since the death of the Dauphine, to prove
+that it was only the Marechale's fault that the Dauphine had been on such
+bad terms with me.  This may be partly true; but it is no less certain
+that Maintenon had strongly prepossessed her against me.  Almost all the
+foolish people who were about her were relations or friends of the old
+woman; and it was by her order that they endeavoured to amuse her and
+employ her, so that she might want no other society.
+
+The young Dauphine was full of pantomime tricks.  * * * * She was fond,
+too, of collecting a quantity of young persons about her for the King's
+amusement, who liked to see their sports; they, however, took care never
+to display any but innocent diversions before him: he did not learn the
+rest until after her death.  The Dauphine used to call old Maintenon her
+aunt, but only in jest; the fines d'honneur called her their gouvernante,
+and the Marechale de La Mothe, mamma; if the Dauphine had also called
+the old woman her mamma, it would have been regarded as a declaration of
+the King's marriage; for this reason she only called her aunt.
+
+It is not surprising that the Dauphine, even when she was Duchess of
+Burgundy, should have been a coquette.  One of Maintenon's maxims was
+that there was no harm in coquetry, but that a grande passion only was a
+sin.  In the second place, she never took care that the Duchess of
+Burgundy behaved conformably to her rank; she was often left quite alone
+in her chateau with the exception of her people; she was permitted to run
+about arm-in-arm with one of her young ladies, without esquires, or dames
+d'honneur or d'atour.  At Marly and Versailles she was obliged to go to
+chapel on foot and without her stays, and seat herself near the femmes de
+chambre.  At Madame de Maintenon's there was no observance of ranks;
+every one sat down there promiscuously; she did this for the purpose of
+avoiding all discussion respecting her own rank.  At Marly the Dauphine
+used to run about the garden at night with the young people until two or
+three o'clock in the morning.  The King knew nothing of these nocturnal
+sports.  Maintenon had forbidden the Duchesse de Lude to tease the
+Duchess of Burgundy, or to put her out of temper, because then she would
+not be able to divert the King.  Maintenon had threatened, too, with her
+eternal vengeance whoever should be bold enough to complain of the
+Dauphine to the King.  It was for this reason that no one dared tell the
+King what the whole Court and even strangers were perfectly well
+acquainted with.  The Dauphine liked to be dragged along the ground by
+valets, who held her feet.  These servants were in the habit of saying to
+each other, "Come, shall we go and play with the Duchess of Burgundy?"
+for so she was at this time.  She was dreadfully nasty,
+
+                    .............................
+
+She made the Dauphin believe whatever she chose, and he was so fond of
+her that one of her glances would throw him into an ecstacy and make him
+forget everything.  When the King intended to scold her she would put on
+an air of such deep dejection that he was obliged to console her instead;
+the aunt, too, used to affect similar sorrow, so that the King had enough
+to do with consoling them both.  Then, for quietness' sake, he used to
+lean upon the old aunt, and think nothing more about the matter.
+
+The Dauphine never cared for the Duc de Richelieu, although he boasted of
+the contrary, and was sent to the Bastille for it.  She was a coquette,
+and chatted with all the young men; but if she loved any of them it was
+Nangis, who commanded the King's regiment.  She had commanded him to
+pretend to be in love with little La Vrilliere, who, though not so pretty
+nor with so good a presence as the Dauphine, had a better figure and was
+a great coquette.  This badinage, it is said, afterwards became reality.
+The good Dauphin was like the husbands of all frail wives, the last to
+perceive it.  The Duke of Burgundy never imagined that his wife thought
+of Nangis, although it was visible to all the world besides that she did.
+As he was very much attached to Nangis, he believed firmly that his wife
+only behaved civilly to him on his account; and he was besides convinced
+that his favourite had at the same time an affair of gallantry with
+Madame la Vrilliere.
+
+The Dauphin had good sense, but he suffered his wife to govern him; he
+loved only such persons as she loved, and he hated all who were
+disagreeable to her.  It was for this reason that Nangia enjoyed so much
+of his favour, that he, with all his sense, became so perfectly
+ridiculous.
+
+The Dauphine of Burgundy was the person whom the King loved above all
+others, and whom Maintenon had taught to do whatever was agreeable to
+him.  Her natural wit made her soon learn and practise everything.  The
+King was inconsolable for her death; and when La Maintenon saw that all
+she could say had no effect upon his grief, it is said that she told the
+King all that she had before concealed with respect to the Dauphine's
+life, and by this means dissipated his great affliction.
+
+     [This young lady, so fascinating and so dear to the King, betrayed,
+     nevertheless, the secrets of the State by informing her father, then
+     Duke of Savoy, and our enemy, of all the military projects which she
+     found means to read.  The King had the proofs of this by the letters
+     which were found in the Princess's writing case after her death.
+     "That little slut," said he to Madame Maintenon, "has deceived us."
+     Memoires de Duclos, tome i.]
+
+Three years before her death, however, the Dauphine changed greatly for
+the better; she played no more foolish tricks, and left off drinking to
+excess.  Instead of that untameable manner which she had before, she
+became polite and sensible, kept up her dignity, and did not permit the
+younger ladies to be too familiar with her, by dipping their fingers into
+her dish, rolling upon the bed, and other similar elegancies.  She used
+to converse with people, and could talk very well.  It was the marriage
+of Madame de Berri that effected this surprising change in the Dauphine.
+Seeing that young lady did not make herself beloved, and began things in
+the wrong way, she was desirous to make herself more liked and esteemed
+than she was.  She therefore changed her behaviour entirely; she became
+reserved and reasonable, and, having sense enough to discover her
+defects, she set about correcting them, in which she succeeded so as to
+excite general surprise.  Thus she continued until her death, and often
+expressed regret that she had led so irregular a life.  She used to
+excuse herself by saying it was mere childishness, and that she had
+little to thank those young ladies for who had given her such bad advice
+and set her such bad examples.  She publicly manifested her contempt for
+them, and prevailed on the King not to invite them to Marly in future.
+By this conduct she gained everybody's affection.
+
+She was delicate and of rather a weak constitution.  Dr. Chirac said in
+her last illness that she would recover; and so she probably would have
+done if they had not permitted her to get up when the measles had broken
+out upon her, and she was in a copious perspiration.  Had they not
+blooded her in the foot she might have been alive now (1716).
+Immediately after the bleeding, her skin, before as red as fire, changed
+to the paleness of death, and she became very ill.  When they were
+lifting her out of bed I told them it was better to let the perspiration
+subside before they blooded her.  Chirac and Fagon, however, were
+obstinate and laughed at me.
+
+Old Maintenon said to me angrily, "Do you think you know better than all
+these medical men?"
+
+"No, Madame," I replied; "and one need not know much to be sure that the
+inclination of nature ought to be followed; and since that has displayed
+itself it would be better to let it have way, than to make a sick person
+get up in the midst of a perspiration to be blooded."
+
+She shrugged up her shoulders ironically.  I went to the other side and
+said nothing.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XIV.--THE FIRST DAUPHIN.
+
+All that was good in the first Dauphin came from his preceptor; all that
+was bad from himself.  He never either loved or hated any one much, and
+yet he was very wicked.  His greatest pleasure was to do something to vex
+a person; and immediately afterwards, if he could do something very
+pleasing to the same person, he would set about it with great
+willingness.  In every respect he was of the strangest temper possible:
+when one thought he was good-humoured, he was angry; and when one
+supposed him to be ill-humoured, he was in an amiable mood.  No one could
+ever guess him rightly, and I do not believe that his like ever was or
+ever will be born.  It cannot be said that he had much wit; but still
+less was he a fool.  Nobody was ever more prompt to seize the ridiculous
+points of anything in himself or in others; he told stories agreeably;
+he was a keen observer, and dreaded nothing so much as to be one day
+King: not so much from affection for his father, as from a dread of the
+trouble of reigning, for he was so extremely idle that he neglected all
+things; and he would have preferred his ease to all the kingdoms and
+empires of the earth.  He could remain for a whole day, sitting on a sofa
+or in an arm-chair, beating his cane against his shoes, without saying a
+word; he never gave an opinion upon any subject; but when once, in the
+course of the year, he did speak, he could express himself in terms
+sufficiently noble.  Sometimes when he spoke one would say he was
+stupidity itself; at another time he would deliver himself with
+astonishing sense.  At one time you would think he was the best Prince in
+the world; at another he would do all he could to give people pain.
+Nobody seemed to be so ill with him but he would take the trouble of
+making them laugh at the expense of those most dear to him.  His maxim
+was, never to seem to like one man in the Court better than another.
+He had a perfect horror of favourites, and yet he sought favour himself
+as much as the commonest courtier could do.  He did not pride himself
+upon his politeness, and was enraged when any one penetrated his
+intentions.  As I had known him from his infancy I could sometimes guess
+his meaning, which angered him excessively.  He was not very fond of
+being treated respectfully; he liked better not to be put to any trouble.
+He was rather partial than just, as may be shown by the regulations he
+made as to the rank of my son's daughter.  He never liked or hated any
+Minister.  He laughed often and heartily.  He was a very obedient son,
+and never opposed the King's will in any way, and was more submissive to
+Maintenon than any other person.  Those who say that he would have
+retired, if the King had declared his marriage with that old woman, did
+not know him; had he not an old mistress of his own, to whom he was
+believed to be privately married?  What prevented Maintenon from being
+declared Queen was the wise reasons which the Archbishop of Cambray, M.
+de Fenelon, urged to the King, and for which she persecuted that worthy
+man to the day of his death.
+
+If the Dauphin had chosen, he might have enjoyed greater credit with his
+father.  The King had offered him permission to go to the Royal Treasury
+to bestow what favours he chose upon the persons of his own Court; and at
+the Treasury orders were given that he should have whatever he asked for.
+The Dauphin replied that it would give him so much trouble.  He would
+never know anything about State affairs lest he should be obliged to
+attend the Privy Councils, and have no more time to hunt.  Some persons
+thought he did this from motives of policy and to make the King believe
+he had no ambition; but I am persuaded it was from nothing but indolence
+and laziness; he loved to live a slothful life, and to interfere with
+nothing.
+
+At the King of Spain's departure our King wept a good deal; the Dauphin
+also wept much, although he had never before manifested the least
+affection for his children.  They were never seen in his apartment
+morning and evening.  When he was not at the chase the Dauphin passed his
+time with the great Princesse de Conti, and latterly with the Duchess.
+One must have guessed that the children belonged to him, for he lived
+like a stranger among them.  He never called them his sons, but the Duke
+of Burgundy, the Duc d'Anjou, the Duc de Berri; and they, in turn, always
+called him Monseigneur.
+
+I lived upon a very good understanding with him for more than twenty
+years, and he had great confidence in me until the Duchess got possession
+of him; then everything with regard to me was changed: and as, after my
+husband's death, I never went to the chase with the Dauphin, I had no
+further relation with him, and he behaved as if he had never seen or
+known me.  If he had been wise he would have preferred the society of the
+Princesse de Conti to that of the Duchess, because the first, having a
+good heart, loved him for himself; while the other loved nothing in the
+world, and listened to nothing but her taste for pleasure, her interest,
+and her ambition.  So that, provided she attained her ends, she cared
+little for the Dauphin, who by his condescension for this Princess gave a
+great proof of weakness.
+
+In general, his heart was not correct enough to discern what real
+friendship was; he loved only those who afforded him amusement, and
+despised all others.  The Duchess was very agreeable and had some
+pleasant notions; she was fond of eating, which was the very thing for
+the Dauphin, because he found a good breakfast at her house every morning
+and a collation in the afternoon.  The Duchess's daughters were of the
+same character as their mother; so that the Dauphin might be all the day
+in the company of gay people.
+
+He was strongly attached to his son's wife; but when she quarrelled with
+the Duchess her father-in-law changed his opinion of her.  What
+displeased him besides was that the Duchess of Burgundy married his
+younger son, the Duc de Berri, against his inclination.  He was not wrong
+in that, because, although the marriage was to our advantage, I must
+confess that the Dauphin was not even treated with decency in the
+business.
+
+Neither of the two Dauphins or the Dauphines ever interested themselves
+much about their children.  The King had them educated without consulting
+them, appointed all their servants, and was even displeased if they
+interfered with them in any way.  The Dauphin knows nothing of good
+breeding; he and his sons are perfect clowns.
+
+The women of La Halle had a real passion for the first Dauphin; they had
+been made to believe that he would take the part of the people of Paris,
+in which there was not a word of truth.  The people believed that he was
+better hearted than he was.  He would not, in fact, have been wicked if
+the Marechal d'Uxelles, La Chouin and Montespan, with whom he was in his
+youth, as well as the Duchess, had not spoiled him, and made him believe
+that malice was a proof of wit.
+
+He did not grieve more than a quarter of an hour at the death of his
+mother or of his wife; and when he wrapped himself up in his long
+mourning cloak he was ready to choke with laughter.
+
+He had followed his father's example in taking an ugly, nasty mistress,
+who had been fille d'honneur to the elder Princess de Conti: her name is
+Mademoiselle de Chouin, and she is still living at Paris (1719).  It was
+generally believed that he had married her clandestinely; but I would lay
+a wager he never did.  She had the figure of a duenna; was of very small
+stature; had very short legs; large rolling eyes; a round face; a short
+turned-up nose; a large mouth filled with decayed teeth, which made her
+breath so bad that the room in which she sat could hardly be endured.
+
+                    .........................
+
+And yet this short, fat woman had a great deal of wit; and I believe the
+Dauphin accustomed himself to take snuff that he might not be annoyed by
+her bad teeth.  He was very civil to the Marechal d'Uxelles, because he
+pretended to be the intimate with this lady; but as soon as the Dauphin
+was caught, the Marechal ceased to see her, and never once set foot in
+her house, although before that he had been in the habit of visiting her
+daily.
+
+The Dauphin had a daughter by Raisin the actress, but he would never
+acknowledge her, and after his death the Princess Conti took care of her,
+and married her to a gentleman of Vaugourg.  The Dauphin was so tired of
+the Duc du Maine that he had sworn never to acknowledge any of his
+illegitimate children.  This Raisin must have had very peculiar charms to
+make an impression upon a heart so thick as that of the Dauphin, who
+really loved her.  One day he sent for her to Choisy, and hid her in a
+mill without anything to eat or drink; for it was a fast day, and the
+Dauphin thought there was no greater sin than to eat meat on a fast day.
+After the Court had departed, all that he gave her for supper was some
+salad and toast with oil.  Raisin laughed at this very much herself, and
+told several persons of it.  When I heard of it I asked the Dauphin what
+he meant by making his mistress fast in this manner.
+
+"I had a mind," he said, "to commit one sin, but not two."
+
+I cannot bear that any one should touch me behind; it makes me so angry
+that I do not know what I do.  I was very near giving the Dauphin a blow
+one day, for he had a wicked trick of coming behind one for a joke, and
+putting his fist in the chair just where one was going to sit down.  I
+begged him, for God's sake, to leave off this habit, which was so
+disagreeable to me that I would not answer for not one day giving him a
+sound blow, without thinking of what I was doing.  From that time he left
+me alone.
+
+The Dauphin was very much like the Queen; he was not tall, but
+good-looking enough.  Our King was accustomed to say: "Monseigneur (for
+so he always called him) has the look of a German prince."  He had,
+indeed, something of a German air; but it was only the air; for he had
+nothing German besides.  He did not dance well.  The Queen-Dowager of
+Spain flattered herself with the hope of marrying him.
+
+He thought he should recommend himself to the King by not appearing to
+care what became of his brothers.
+
+When the Dauphin was lying sick of the small-pox, I went on the Wednesday
+to the King.
+
+He said to me, sarcastically, "You have been frightening us with the
+great pain which Monseigneur would have to endure when the suppuration
+commences; but I can tell you that he will not suffer at all, for the
+pustules have already begun to dry."
+
+I was alarmed at this, and said, "So much the worse; if he is not in pain
+his state is the more dangerous, and he soon will be."
+
+"What!" said the King, "do you know better than the doctors?"
+
+"I know," I replied, "what the small-pox is by my own experience, which
+is better than all the doctors; but I hope from my heart that I may be
+mistaken."
+
+On the same night, soon after midnight, the Dauphin died.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XV.--THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY, THE SECOND DAUPHIN.
+
+He was quite humpbacked.  I think this proceeded from his having been
+made to carry a bar of iron for the purpose of keeping himself upright,
+but the weight and inconvenience of which had had a contrary effect.
+I often said to the Duke de Beauvilliers he had very good parts, and was
+sincerely pious, but so weak as to let his wife rule him like a child.
+In spite of his good sense, she made him believe whatever she chose.
+She lived upon very good terms with him, but was not outrageously fond,
+and did not love him better than many other persons; for the good
+gentleman had a very disagreeable person, and his face was not the most
+beautiful.  I believe, however, she was touched with his great affection
+for her; and indeed it would be impossible for a man to entertain a more
+fervent passion than he did for his wife.  Her wit was agreeable, and she
+could be very pleasant when she chose: her gaiety dissipated the
+melancholy which sometimes seized upon the devout Dauphin.  Like almost
+all humpbacked men, he had a great passion for women; but at the same
+time was so pious that he feared he committed a grievous sin in looking
+at any other than his own wife; and he was truly in love with her.
+I saw him once, when a lady had told him that he had good eyes, squint
+immediately that he might appear ugly.  This was really an unnecessary
+trouble; for the good man was already sufficiently plain, having a very
+ill-looking mouth, a sickly appearance, small stature, and a hump at his
+back.
+
+He had many good qualities: he was charitable, and had assisted several
+officers unknown to any one.  He certainly died of grief for the loss of
+his wife, as he had predicted.  A learned astrologer of Turin, having
+cast the nativity of the Dauphine, told her that she would die in her
+twenty-seventh year.
+
+She often spoke of it, and said one day to her husband, "The time is
+approaching when I shall die; you cannot remain without a wife as well on
+account of your rank as your piety; tell me, then, I beg of you, whom you
+will marry?"
+
+"I hope," he replied, "that God will not inflict so severe a punishment
+on me as to deprive me of you; but if this calamity should befall me, I
+shall not marry again, for I shall follow you to the grave in a week."
+
+This happened exactly as he said it would; for, on the seventh day after
+his wife's death, he died also.  This is not a fiction, but perfectly
+true.
+
+While the Dauphine was in good health and spirits she often said, "I must
+enjoy myself now.  I shall not be able to do so long, for I shall die
+this year."
+
+I thought it was only a joke, but it turned out to be too true.  When she
+fell sick she said she should never recover.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XVI.--PETITE MADAME.
+
+A cautery which had been improperly made in the nape of the neck had
+drawn her mouth all on one side, so that it was almost entirely in her
+left cheek.  For this reason talking was very painful to her, and she
+said very little.  It was necessary to be accustomed to her way of
+speaking to understand her.  Just when she was about to die her mouth
+resumed its proper place, and she did not seem at all ugly.  I was
+present at her death.  She did not say a word to her father, although a
+convulsion had restored her mouth.  The King, who had a good heart and
+was very fond of his children, wept excessively and made me weep also.
+The Queen was not present, for, being pregnant, they would not let her
+come.
+
+It is totally false that the Queen was delivered of a black child.  The
+late Monsieur, who was present, said that the young Princess was ugly,
+but not black. The people cannot be persuaded that the child is not still
+alive, and say that it is in a convent at Moret, near Fontainebleau.  It
+is, however, quite certain that the ugly child is dead, for all the Court
+saw it die.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Always has a fictitious malady in reserve
+I had a mind, he said, to commit one sin, but not two
+I wished the husband not to be informed of it
+Old Maintenon
+Provided they are talked of, they are satisfied
+That what he called love was mere debauchery
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XIV. and the
+Regency, Book II., by Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
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+The Project Gutenberg Memoirs of Louis XIV. and the Regency, v2
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+Title: The Memoirs of Louis XIV. and the Regency, v2
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+
+MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. AND OF THE REGENCY, v2
+
+Being the Secret Memoirs of the Mother of the Regent,
+MADAME ELIZABETH-CHARLOTTE OF BAVARIA, DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS.
+
+
+
+BOOK 2.
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+Philippe I., Duc d'Orleans
+Philippe II., Duc d'Orleans, Regent of France
+The Affairs of the Regency
+The Duchesse d'Orleans, Consort of the Regent
+The Dauphine, Princess of Bavaria.
+Adelaide of Savoy, the Second Dauphine
+The First Dauphin
+The Duke of Burgundy, the Second Dauphin
+Petite Madame
+
+
+
+SECTION VIII.
+
+PHILIPPE I., DUC D'ORLEANS.
+
+Cardinal Mazarin perceiving that the King had less readiness than his
+brother, was apprehensive lest the latter should become too learned; he
+therefore enjoined the preceptor to let him play, and not to suffer him
+to apply to his studies.
+
+"What can you be thinking of, M. la Mothe le Vayer," said the Cardinal;
+"would you try to make the King's brother a clever man?  If he should be
+more wise than his brother, he would not be qualified for implicit
+obedience."
+
+Never were two brothers more totally different in their appearance than
+the King and Monsieur.  The King was tall, with light hair; his mien was
+good and his deportment manly.  Monsieur, without having a vulgar air,
+was very small; his hair and eye-brows were quite black, his eyes were
+dark, his face long and narrow, his nose large, his mouth small, and his
+teeth very bad; he was fond of play, of holding drawing-rooms, of eating,
+dancing and dress; in short, of all that women are fond of.  The King
+loved the chase, music and the theatre; my husband rather affected large
+parties and masquerades: his brother was a man of great gallantry, and I
+do not believe my husband was ever in love during his life.  He danced
+well, but in a feminine manner; he could not dance like a man because his
+shoes were too high-heeled.  Excepting when he was with the army, he
+would never get on horseback.  The soldiers used to say that he was more
+afraid of being sun-burnt and of the blackness of the powder than of the
+musket-balls; and it was very true.  He was very fond of building.
+Before he had the Palais Royal completed, and particularly the grand
+apartment, the place was, in my opinion, perfectly horrible, although in
+the Queen-mother's time it had been very much admired.  He was so fond of
+the ringing of bells that he used to go to Paris on All Souls' Day for
+the purpose of hearing the bells, which are rung during the whole of the
+vigils on that day he liked no other music, and was often laughed at for
+it by his friends.  He would join in the joke, and confess that a peal of
+bells delighted him beyond all expression.  He liked Paris better than
+any other place, because his secretary was there, and he lived under less
+restraint than at Versailles.  He wrote so badly that he was often
+puzzled to read his own letters, and would bring them to me to decipher
+them.
+
+"Here, Madame," he used to say, laughing, "you are accustomed to my
+writing; be so good as to read me this, for I really cannot tell what I
+have been writing."  We have often laughed at it.
+
+He was of a good disposition enough, and if he had not yielded so
+entirely to the bad advice of his favourites, he would have been the best
+master in the world.  I loved him, although he had caused me a great deal
+of pain; but during the last three years of his life that was totally
+altered.  I had brought him to laugh at his own weakness, and even to
+take jokes without caring for them.  From the period that I had been
+calumniated and accused, he would suffer no one again to annoy me; he had
+the most perfect confidence in me, and took my part so decidedly, that
+his favourites dared not practise against me.  But before that I had
+suffered terribly.  I was just about to be happy, when Providence thought
+fit to deprive me of my poor husband.  For thirty years I had been
+labouring to gain him to myself, and, just as my design seemed to be
+accomplished, he died.  He had been so much importuned upon the subject
+of my affection for him that he begged me for Heaven's sake not to love
+him any longer, because it was so troublesome.  I never suffered him to
+go alone anywhere without his express orders.
+
+The King often complained that he had not been allowed to converse
+sufficiently with people in his youth; but taciturnity was a part of his
+character, for Monsieur, who was brought up with him, conversed with
+everybody.  The King often laughed, and said that Monsieur's chattering
+had put him out of conceit with talking.  We used to joke Monsieur upon
+his once asking questions of a person who came to see him.
+
+"I suppose, Monsieur," said he, "you come from the army?"
+
+"No, Monsieur," replied the visitor, "I have never joined it."
+
+"You arrive here, then, from your country house?"
+
+"Monsieur, I have no country house."
+
+"In that case, I imagine you are living at Paris with your family?"
+
+"Monsieur, I am not married."
+
+Everybody present at this burst into a laugh, and Monsieur in some
+confusion had nothing more to say.  It is true that Monsieur was more
+generally liked at Paris than the King, on account of his affability.
+When the King, however, wished to make himself agreeable to any person,
+his manners were the most engaging possible, and he won people's hearts
+much more readily than my husband; for the latter, as well as my son, was
+too generally civil.  He did not distinguish people sufficiently, and
+behaved very well only to those who were attached to the Chevalier de
+Lorraine * and his favourites.
+
+Monsieur was not of a temper to feel any sorrow very deeply.  He loved
+his children too well even to reprove them when they deserved it; and if
+he had occasion to make complaints of them, he used to come to me with
+them.
+
+"But, Monsieur," I have said, "they are your children as well as mine,
+why do you not correct them?"
+
+He replied, "I do not know how to scold, and besides they would not care
+for me if I did; they fear no one but you."
+
+By always threatening the children with me, he kept them in constant fear
+of me.  He estranged them from me as much as possible, but he left me to
+exercise more authority over my elder daughter and over the Queen of
+Sicily than over my son; he could not, however, prevent my occasionally
+telling them what I thought.  My daughter never gave me any cause to
+complain of her.  Monsieur was always jealous of the children, and was
+afraid they would love me better than him: it was for this reason that he
+made them believe I disapproved of almost all they did.  I generally
+pretended not to see this contrivance.
+
+Without being really fond of any woman, Monsieur used to amuse himself
+all day in the company of old and young ladies to please the King: in
+order not to be out of the Court fashion, he even pretended to be
+amorous; but he could not keep up a deception so contrary to his natural
+inclination.  Madame de Fiennes said to him one day, "You are in much
+more danger from the ladies you visit, than they are from you."  It was
+even said that Madame de Monaco had attempted to give him some violent
+proofs of her affection.  He pretended to be in love with Madame de
+Grancey; but if she had had no other lover than Monsieur she might have
+preserved her reputation.  Nothing culpable ever passed between them; and
+he always endeavoured to avoid being alone with her.  She herself said
+that whenever they happened to be alone he was in the greatest terror,
+and pretended to have the toothache or the headache.  They told a story
+of the lady asking him to touch her, and that he put on his gloves before
+doing so.  I have often heard him rallied about this anecdote, and have
+often laughed at it.
+
+Madame de Grancey was one of the most foolish women in the world.  She
+was very handsome at the time of my arrival in France, and her figure was
+as good as her face; besides, she was not so much disregarded by others
+as by my husband; for, before the Chevalier de Lorraine became her lover,
+she had had a child.  I knew well that nothing had passed between
+Monsieur and Grancey, and I was never jealous of them; but I could not
+endure that she should derive a profit from my household, and that no
+person could purchase an employment in it without paying a douceur to
+her.  I was also often indignant at her insolence to me, and at her
+frequently embroiling me with Monsieur.  It was for these reasons, and
+not from jealousy, as was fancied by those who knew nothing about it,
+that I sometimes sharply reprimanded her.  The Chevalier de Lorraine,
+upon his return from Rome, became her declared lover.  It was through his
+contrivances, and those of D'Effiat, that she was brought into the house
+of Monsieur, who really cared nothing about her.  Her continued
+solicitations and the behaviour of the Chevalier de Lorraine had so much
+disgusted Monsieur, that if he had lived he would have got rid of them
+both.
+
+He had become tired of the Chevalier de Lorraine because he had found out
+that his attachment to him proceeded from interested motives.  When
+Monsieur, misled by his favourites, did something which was neither just
+nor expedient, I used to say to him, "Out of complaisance to the
+Chevalier de Lorraine, you put your good sense into your pocket, and
+button it up so tight that it cannot be seen."
+
+After my husband's death I saw Grancey only once; I met her in the
+garden.  When she ceased to be handsome, she fell into utter despair;
+and so great a change took place in her appearance that no one would have
+known her.  Her nose, before so beautiful, grew long and large, and was
+covered with pimples, over each of which she put a patch; this had a very
+singular effect; the red and white paint, too, did not adhere to her
+face.  Her eyes were hollow and sunken, and the alteration which this had
+caused in her face cannot be imagined.  In Spain they, lock up all the
+ladies at night, even to the septuagenary femmes de chambre.  When
+Grancey followed our Queen to Spain as dame d'atour, she was locked up in
+the evening, and was in great grief about it.
+
+When she was dying, she cried, "Ah, mon Dieu, must I die, who have never
+once thought of death?"
+
+She had never done anything but sit at play with her lovers until five or
+six o'clock in the morning, feast, and smoke tobacco, and follow
+uncontrolled her natural inclinations.
+
+When she reached her climacteric, she said, in despair, "Alas, I am
+growing old, I shall have no more children."
+
+This was exceedingly amusing; and her friends, as well as her enemies,
+laughed at it.  She once had a high dispute with Madame de Bouillon.  One
+evening, Grancey chose to hide herself in one of the recesses formed by
+the windows in the chamber of the former lady, who, not thinking she was
+heard, conversed very freely with the Marquise d'Allure, respecting the
+libertine life of Grancey; in the course of which she said several
+strange things respecting the treatment which her lovers had experienced
+from her.  Grancey at length rushed out, and fell to abusing Madame de
+Bouillon like a Billingsgate.  The latter was not silent, and some
+exceedingly elegant discourse passed between them.  Madame de Bouillon
+made a complaint against Grancey; in the first place, for having listened
+to her conversation; and in the second, for having insulted her in her
+own house.  Monsieur reproved Grancey; told her that she had brought this
+inconvenience upon herself by her own indiscretion, and ordered her to be
+reconciled with her adversary.
+
+"How can I," said Grancey, "be reconciled to Madame de Bouillon, after
+all the wicked things she has said about me?"  But after a moment's
+reflection she added, "Yes, I can, for she did not say I was ugly."
+
+They afterwards embraced, and made it up.
+
+          .........................................
+
+Monsieur was taken ill at ten o'clock at night, but he did not die until
+the next day at noon.  I can never think of this night without horror.
+I remained with him from ten at night until five the next morning, when
+he lost all consciousness.--[The Duc d'Orleans died of apoplexy on the
+9th June, 1701]
+
+The Electors of Germany would not permit Monsieur to write to them in the
+same style as the King did.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION IX.
+
+PHILIPPE II., DUC D' ORLEANS, REGENT OF FRANCE.
+
+From the age of fourteen to that of fifteen years, my son was not ugly;
+but after that time he became very much sun-burnt in Italy and Spain.
+Now, however, he is too ruddy; he is fat, but not tall, and yet he does
+not seem disagreeable to me.  The weakness of his eyes causes him
+sometimes to squint.  When he dances or is on horseback he looks very
+well, but he walks horridly ill.  In his childhood he was so delicate
+that he could not even kneel without falling, through weakness; by
+degrees, however, his strength improved.  He loads his stomach too much
+at table; he has a notion that it is good to make only one meal; instead
+of dinner, he takes only one cup of chocolate, so that by supper he is
+extremely hungry and thirsty.  In answer to whatever objections are made
+to this regimen, he says he cannot do business after eating.  When he
+gets tipsy, it is not with strong potations, but with Champagne or Tokay.
+He is not very fond of the chase.  The weakness of his sight arose from
+an accident which befell him at the age of four years, and which was
+something like an apoplexy.  He sees well enough near, and can read the
+smallest writing; but at the distance of half the room he cannot
+distinguish persons without a glass.  He had an application of a powder
+to that eye which is worst, and, although it had caused intolerable pain
+to every other person who had used it, it seemed to have no effect upon
+him, for he laughed and chatted as usual.  He found some benefit from
+this; but W. Gendron was too severe for him.  That physician forbade the
+petits-soupers and the amusements which usually followed them; this was
+not agreeable to my son, and those who used to frequent them to their own
+advantage; they therefore persuaded him to adopt some other remedies
+which almost deprived him of sight.  For the last forty years (1719),
+that is to say since the accident happened, the month of October has
+never elapsed without his health and eyesight being affected towards the
+21st in some way or other.
+
+He was only seventeen years old when he was married.  If he had not been
+threatened with imprisonment in the old castle of Villers-Cotterets, and
+if hopes had not been given him of seeing the Duchesse de Bourbon as he
+wished, they could not have induced him to form this accursed marriage.
+It is my son's unlucky destiny to have for a wife a woman who is desirous
+of ruling everything with her brothers.  It is commonly said, that where
+one sins there one suffers; and thus it has happened to my son with
+respect to his wife and his brothers-in-law.  If he had not inflicted
+upon me the deepest vexation by uniting himself with this low race, he
+might now speak to them boldly.  I never quarrelled with my son; but he
+was angry with me about this marriage, which he had contracted against my
+inclination.
+
+As I sincerely love him, I have forgotten it; and I do not believe that
+we shall ever quarrel in future.  When I have anything to say about his
+conduct, I say it openly, and there is an end of it.  He behaves to me
+very respectfully.  I did all in my power to prevent his marriage; but
+since it did take place, and with his consent, though without mine, I
+wish now only for his tranquillity.  His wife fancies that she has done
+him an honour in marrying him, because he is only the son of the brother
+of a king, while she is the daughter of a king; but she will not perceive
+that she is also the daughter of a -----.  He was obliged to put down all
+his feelings of nobility; and if I had a hundred crowns for as many times
+as he has since repented it, I could almost buy France for the King, and
+pay his debts.  My son visits his wife every day, and when she is in good
+humour he stays with her a long time; but when she is ill-tempered,
+which, unfortunately, happens too often, he goes away without saying
+anything.  I have every reason to be satisfied with him; he lives on very
+good terms with me, and I have no right to complain of his conduct; but I
+see that he does not repose much confidence in me, and I know many
+persons to whom he is more communicative.
+
+I love my son with all my heart; but I cannot see how any one else can,
+for his manners are little calculated to inspire love.  In the first
+place, he is incapable of the passion, or of being attached to any one
+for a long time; in the second, he is not sufficiently polished and
+gallant to make love, but sets about it rudely and coarsely; in the
+third, he is very indiscreet, and tells plainly all that he has done.
+
+I have said to him a hundred times, "I wonder how any woman can run after
+you, whom they ought rather to fly from."
+
+He would reply, laughing, "Ah! you do not know the libertine women of the
+present day; provided they are talked of, they are satisfied."
+
+There was an affair of gallantry, but a perfectly honourable one, between
+him and the Queen of Spain.  I do not know whether he had the good
+fortune to be agreeable to her, but I know he was not at all in love with
+her.  He thought her mien and figure good, but neither her manners nor
+her face were agreeable to him.
+
+He was not in any degree romantic, and, not knowing how to conduct
+himself in this affair, he said to the Duc de Grammont, "You understand
+the manner of Spanish gallantry; pray tell me a little what I ought to
+say and do."
+
+He could not, however, suit the fancy of the Queen, who was for pure
+gallantry; those who were less delicate he was better suited for, and for
+this reason it was said that libertine women used to run after him.
+
+               ...............................
+
+He never denied that he was indiscreet and inconstant.  Being one day
+with me at the theatre, and hearing Valere say he was tired of his
+mistress, "That has been my case often," he cried.  I told him he never
+was in love in his life, and that what he called love was mere
+debauchery.
+
+He replied, "It is very true that I am not a hero of romance, and that I
+do not make love like a Celadon, but I love in my way."
+
+"Your way," I said, "is an extremely gross one."  .  .  .  This made him
+laugh.
+
+He likes the business of his gallantry to be conducted with beat of drum,
+without the least refinement.  He reminds me of the old Patriarchs, who
+were surrounded by women.
+
+                    ............................
+
+All women do not please him alike.  He does not like fine airs so well as
+profligate manners: the opera-house dancers are his favourites.  The
+women run after him from mere interest, for he pays them well.  A
+pleasant enough adventure happened last winter:
+
+A young and pretty woman visited my son in his cabinet; he presented her
+with a diamond of the value of 2,000 Louis and a box worth 200.  This
+woman had a jealous husband, but she had effrontery enough to shew him
+the jewels which she said had been offered to her a great bargain by
+persons who wanted the money, and she begged him not to let such an
+opportunity slip.  The credulous husband gave her the money she asked
+for.  She thanked him, put the box in her dressing-case and the diamond
+on her finger, and displayed it in the best company.
+
+When she was asked where she got the ring and the bog, "M. de Parabere
+gave them to me," she said; and he, who happened to be present, added,
+"Yes, I gave them to her; can one do less when one has for a wife a lady
+of quality who loves none but her husband?"
+
+This caused some mirth; for other people were not so simple as the
+husband, and knew very well where the presents came from.  If my son has
+a queen-sultana, it is this Madame de Parabere.  Her mother, Madame de la
+Vieuville, was dame d'atour to the Duchesse de Berri.--[Marie-Madeline de
+la Vieuville, Comtesse de la Parabere; it was she whom the Regent used to
+call "his little black crow."]--It was there that my son first became
+acquainted with the daughter, who is now a widow: she is of a slight
+figure, dark complexion, and never paints; her eyes and mouth are pretty;
+she is not very sensible, but is a desirable little person.  My son says
+he likes her because she thinks of nothing but amusing herself, and never
+interferes with other affairs.  That would be very well if she were not a
+drunkard, and if she did not make my son eat and drink so much, and take
+him to a farm which she has at Anieres, and where he sometimes sups with
+her and the country folks.  It is said that he becomes a little jealous
+of Parabere, in which case he must love her more than he has done yet.
+I often tell him that, if he really loved, he would not suffer his
+mistresses to run after others, and to commit such frequent infidelities.
+He replied that there was no such thing as love except in romances.  He
+broke with Seri, because, as he said, she wanted him to love her like an
+Arcadian.  He has often made me laugh at his complaining of this
+seriously, and with an air of great affliction.
+
+"Why do you disturb yourself?" I have said to him; "if that is not
+agreeable to you, leave her alone.  You are not obliged to feign a love
+which you do not feel."
+
+This convinces me, however, that my son is incapable of love.  He
+willingly eats, drinks, sings, and amuses himself with his mistresses,
+but to love one of them more than another is not his way.  He is not
+afraid of application; but when he has been actively engaged from morning
+till night he is glad to divert himself at supper with such persons.  It
+is for this reason that Parabere, who is said to be a great fool, is so
+agreeable to him.  She eats and drinks astonishingly, and plays absurd
+tricks, which divert him and make him forget his labour.
+
+My son, it must be allowed, possesses some great qualities.  He has good
+sense, understands several languages, is fond of reading, speaks well,
+has studied much, is learned and acquainted with most of the arts,
+however difficult.  He is a musician, and does not compose badly; he
+paints well, he understands chemistry, is well versed in history, and is
+quick of comprehension.  He soon, however, gets tired of everything.  He
+has an excellent memory, is expert in war, and fears nothing in the
+world; his intentions are always just and fair, and if his actions are
+ever otherwise, it is the fault of others.  His only faults are that he
+is too kind, not sufficiently reserved, and apt to believe people who
+have less sense than himself; he is, therefore, often deceived, for the
+knaves who know his easiness of temper will run all risks with him.  All
+the misfortunes and inconveniences which befall him spring from that
+cause.  His other fault is one not common to Frenchmen, the easiness with
+which women can persuade him, and this often brings him into domestic
+quarrels.  He can refuse them nothing, and even carries his complaisance
+so far as to give them marks of affection without really liking them.
+When I tell him that he is too good, he says, "Is it not better to be
+good than bad?"
+
+He was always extremely weak, too, with respect to lovers, who chose to
+make him their confidant.
+
+The Duc de Saint Simon was one day exceedingly annoyed at this weakness
+of my son, and said to him, angrily, "Ah! there you are; since the days
+of Louis le Debonnaire there has been nobody so debonnaire as yourself."
+
+My son was much amused at it.
+
+When he is under the necessity of saying anything harsh, he is much more
+pained at it than the person who experiences the disgrace.
+
+He is not fond of the country, but prefers living in town.  He is in this
+respect like Madame de Longueville, who was tired to death of being in
+Normandy, where her husband was.
+
+     [The Duc de Longueville was Governor of Normandy; and after the
+     reduction of Bordeaux, in 1652, the Duchesse de Longueville received
+     an order from the Court to repair to her husband.]
+
+Those who were about her said, "Mon Dieu, Madame, you are eaten up with
+ennui; will you not take some amusement?  There are dogs and a beautiful
+forest; will you hunt?"
+
+"No," she replied, "I don't like hunting."
+
+"Will you work?"
+
+"No, I don't like work."
+
+"Will you take a walk, or play at some game?"
+
+"No, I like neither the one nor the other."
+
+"What will you do, then?"  they asked.
+
+"What can I do?"  she said; "I hate innocent pleasures."
+
+My son understands music well, as all the musicians agree.  He has
+composed two or three operas, which are pretty.  La Fare, his Captain of
+the guards, wrote the words.  He had them played in his palace, but never
+would permit them to be represented on the public stage.
+
+When he had nothing to do he painted for one of the Duchess's cabinets
+all the pastoral romance of "Daphnis and Chloe."
+
+     [The designs for the romance of "Daphnis and Chloe" were composed by
+     the Regent, with the advice, and probably the assistance, of Claude
+     Audran, a distinguished painter, whom Lebrun often employed to help
+     him with his large pictures.  He painted a part of the battles of
+     Alexander.  These designs were engraved by Benoit Audran; they
+     embellish what is called "the Regent's edition" of the Pastoral of
+     Longus, which was printed under his inspection in the year 1718.  It
+     is somewhat surprising that Madame should speak so disdainfully of
+     so eminent an artist as Benoit Audran.]
+
+With the exception of the first, he invented and painted all the
+subjects.  They have been engraved by one Audran.  The Duchess thought
+them so pretty that she had them worked in a larger size in tapestry; and
+these, I think, are better than the engravings.
+
+My son's learning has not the least tinge of pedantry.  He knows a
+quantity of facetious stories, which he learnt in Italy and in Spain.
+He does not tell them badly, but I like him better in his more serious
+moods, because they are more natural to him.  When he talks upon learned
+topics it is easy to see that they are rather troublesome to him than
+otherwise.  I often blamed him for this; but he used to reply that it was
+not his fault, that he was ready enough to learn anything, but that when
+he once knew it he no longer took pleasure in it.
+
+He is eloquent enough, and when he chooses he can talk with dignity.  He
+has a Jesuit for his confessor, but he does not suffer himself to be
+ruled by him.  He pretends that his daughter has no influence over him.
+He was delighted when he obtained the command of the Spanish army, and
+was pleased with everything in that country; this procured him the hatred
+of the Princesse des Ursins, who feared that my son would diminish her
+authority and gain more of the confidence of the Spaniards than she
+possessed.
+
+He learned to cook during his stay with the army in Spain.
+
+I cannot tell where he learned so much patience; I am sure it was neither
+from Monsieur nor from me.
+
+When he acted from himself I always found him reasonable; but he too
+often confided in rogues, who had not half his sense, and then all went
+wrong.
+
+My son is like all the rest of his family; when they had become
+accustomed to a thing they suffered it to go its own way.  It was for
+this reason he could not persuade himself to shake off the Abbe Dubois,
+although he knew him to be a rascal.  This Abbe had the impudence to try
+to persuade even me that the marriage he had brought about was an
+excellent one.
+
+"But the honour which is lost in it," said I, "how will you repair that?"
+
+Old Maintenon had made immense promises to him, as well as to my son;
+but, thank God, she kept neither the one nor the other.
+
+It is intolerable that my son will go about day and night with that
+wicked and impertinent Noce I hate that Noce as I hate the devil.  He and
+Brogue run all risks, because they are thus enabled to sponge upon my
+son.  It is said that Noce is jealous of Parabere, who has fallen in love
+with some one else.  This proves that my son is not jealous.  The person
+with whom she has fallen in love has long been a sort of adventurer: it
+is Clermont, a captain in my son's Swiss Guard; the same who preferred
+Chouin to the great Princesse de Conti.  It is said that Noce utters
+whatever comes into his head, and about any persons; this makes my son
+laugh, and amuses him, for Noce has wit and can do this pleasantly,
+enough.  His father was under-governor to my son, who has thus been
+accustomed from his infancy to this wicked rascal, and who is very fond
+of him.  I do not know for what reason, for he is a person who fears
+neither God nor man, and has not a single good point about him; he is
+green, black, and deep yellow; he is ten years older than my son; it is
+incredible how many, millions this mercenary rogue has drawn from him.
+Madame de Berri has told me that Broglie's jokes consist only in saying
+openly, the most horrible things.  The Broglii are of Italian extraction,
+but have been long settled in France.  There were three brothers, the
+elder of whom died in the army; the second was an Abbe, but he cast aside
+his gown, and he is the knave of whom I have been speaking.  The third is
+still serving in the army, and, according to common report, is one of the
+best gentlemen in the world.  My, son does not like him so well as his
+good-for-nothing brother, because he is too serious, and would not become
+his buffoon.  My son excuses himself by saying that when he quits
+business he wants something to make him laugh, and that young Broglie is
+not old enough for this; that if he had a confidential business, or a
+warlike expedition to perform, he would prefer him; but that for laughing
+and dissipation of all sorts, his elder brother is more fit.
+
+My son has three natural children, two boys and a girl, of whom only one
+has been legitimated; that is his son by Mademoiselle de Seri,
+
+     [N. de Seri de la Boissiere; the father had been ambassador in
+     Holland.  Mademoiselle de Seri was the Regent's first mistress; he
+     gave her the title of Comtesse d'Argenton.  Her son, the Chevalier
+     d'Orleans, was Grand-Prieur of France.]
+
+who was my Maid of Honour; she was genteel and gay, but not pretty nor of
+a good figure.  This son was called the Chevalier d'Orleans.  The other,
+who is now a lad of eighteen years, is the Abbe de Saint Albin; he had
+this child by Florence, an opera dancer, of a very neat figure, but a
+fool; although to look at her pretty face one would not have thought so.
+She is since dead.  The third of my son's illegitimate children is a girl
+of fourteen years old, whom he had by Desmarets, an actress, who is still
+on the stage.  This child has been educated at a convent at Saint Denis,
+but has not much inclination for a monastic life.  When my son sent for
+her she did not know who she was.
+
+Desmarets wanted to lay another child to my son's account; but he
+replied, "No, that child is too much of a harlequin."
+
+When some one asked him what he meant, he said it was of so many
+different pieces, and therefore he renounced it.
+
+I do not know whether the mother did not afterwards give it to the
+Elector of Bavaria, who had some share in it, and who sacrificed to her
+the most beautiful snuff-box that ever was seen; it was covered with
+large diamonds.
+
+My first son was called the Duc de Valois; but as this name was one of
+evil omen
+
+     [Alesandre-Louis d'Orleans, Duc de Valois, died an infant on the
+     16th of March, 1676; the Regent was born on the 4th of August, 1674.
+     It is unnecessary to mention the unhappy ends of Henri III. and of
+     the three Kings, his sons, who all died without issue.]
+
+Monsieur would not suffer my other son to be called so; he took,
+therefore, the title of Duc de Chartres.  After Monsieur's death my son
+took the name of Orleans, and his son that of Chartres.
+
+My son is too much prejudiced in favour of his nation; and although he
+sees daily that his countrymen are false and treacherous, he believes
+there is no nation comparable to them.  He is not very lavish of his
+praise; and when he does approve of anything his sincerity gives it an
+additional value.
+
+As he is now in his forty-second year the people of Paris do not forgive
+him for running about at balls, like a young fool, for the amusement of
+women, when he has the cares of the kingdom upon his shoulders.  When the
+late King ascended the throne he had reason to take his diversion; it is
+not so now.  Night and day it is necessary to labour in order to repair
+the mischief which the late King, or rather his Ministers, did to the
+country.
+
+When my son gently reproached that old Maintenon for having maligned him,
+and asked her to put her hand upon her heart, and say whether her
+calumnies were true, she replied, "I said it because I believed it."
+
+My son replied, "You could not believe it, because you knew the
+contrary."
+
+She said arrogantly, and yet my son kept his temper, "Is not the Dauphine
+dead?"
+
+"Is it my fault," he rejoined, "that she is dead?  Was she immortal?"
+
+"Well," she replied, "I was so much distressed at the loss that I could
+not help detesting him whom I was told was the cause of it."
+
+"But, Madame," said my son, "you know, from the report which has been
+made to the King, that I was not the cause, and that the Dauphine was not
+poisoned."
+
+"I do know it," she replied, "and I will say nothing more about it."
+
+
+
+
+SECTION X.
+
+THE AFFAIRS OF THE REGENCY.
+
+The old Maintenon wished to have the Duc du Maine made Regent; but my
+son's harangue to the Parliament frustrated her intention.
+
+He was very angry with Lord Stair because he believed that he had done
+him an ill office with the King of England, and prevented the latter from
+entering into the alliance with France and Holland.  If that alliance had
+taken place my son could have prevented the Pretender from beginning his
+journey; but as England refused to do so, the Regent was obliged to do
+nothing but what was stipulated for by the treaty of peace: that is to
+say, not to succour the Pretender with money nor arms, which he
+faithfully performed.  He sent wherever Lord Stair requested.
+
+     [The Duc d'Orleans ordered, in Lord Stair's presence, Contades,
+     Major of the Guard, to arrest the Pretender on his passage through
+     Chateau-Thierry; but, adds Duclos, Contades was an intelligent man,
+     and well acquainted with the Regent's secret intentions, and so he
+     set out resolved not to find what he went in search of.]
+
+He believed that the English people would not be well pleased to see
+their King allied to the Crown of France.
+
+
+                                   1717
+
+The Baron Goertz thought to entrap my son, who, however, did not trust
+him; he would not permit him to purchase a single ship, and it was upon
+this that the Baron had built all his hopes of success.
+
+That tall Goertz, whom I have seen, has an unlucky physiognomy; I do not
+believe that he will die a fair death.
+
+The Memoir of the thirty noblemen has so much angered my son that he will
+hasten to pronounce sentence.
+
+     [Goertz was the Swedish minister, and had been sent into Holland and
+     France to favour the cause of the Pretender.  He was arrested in
+     Holland in 1717, and remained in prison for several months.  He was
+     a very cunning person, and a great political intriguer.  On the
+     death of Charles XII.  he was taken before an extraordinary
+     tribunal, and condemned in an unjust and arbitrary manner to be
+     beheaded, which sentence was executed in, May, 1719.]
+
+
+                                   1718
+
+The whole of the Parliament was influenced against him.  He made a
+remonstrance against this, which was certainly effected at the
+instigation of the eldest bastard and his wife.--[The Duc and Duchesse du
+Maine.]--If any one spoke ill of my son, and seemed dissatisfied, the
+Duchesse du Maine: invited them to Sceaux, and pitied and caressed them
+to hear them abuse my son.  I wondered at his patience.  He has great
+courage, and went steadily on without disturbing himself about anything.
+Although the Parliament of Paris sent to all the other parliaments in the
+kingdom to solicit them to unite with it, none of them did so, but all
+remained faithful to my son.  The libels which were dispersed for the
+purpose of exciting the people against him had scarcely any effect.  I
+believe the plot would have succeeded better if the bastard and his wife
+had not engaged in it, for they were extraordinarily hated at Paris.  My
+son told the Parliament they had nothing to do with the coinage; that he
+would maintain the royal authority, and deliver it to the King when he
+should be of age in the same state as he had found it on his becoming
+Regent.
+
+The Marechale d'Uxelles hated my son mortally;, but after the King's
+death he played the fawning dog so completely that my son forgave him and
+took him into favour again.  In the latter affair he was disposed once
+more to follow his natural inclination, but my son, having little value
+for whatever he could do, said, "Well, if he will not sign he may let it
+alone."
+
+When the Marshal saw my son was serious and did not care at all for his
+bravadoes, he became submissive and did what my son desired.
+
+The wife of the cripple, the Duchesse du Maine, resolved to have an
+explanation with my son.  She made a sententious speech, just as if she
+had been on the stage; she asked how he could think that the answer to
+Fitz-Morris's book should have proceeded from her, or that a Princess of
+the blood would degrade herself by composing libels?  She told him, too,
+that the Cardinal de Polignac was engaged in affairs of too much
+importance to busy himself in trifles like this, and M. de Malezieux was
+too much a philosopher to think of anything but the sciences.  For her
+own part, she said she had sufficient employment in educating her
+children as became that royal dignity of which she had been wrongfully
+deprived.  My son only replied to her thus:--
+
+"I have reason to believe that these libels have been got up at your
+house, and by you, because that fact has been attested by persons who
+have been in your service, and who have seen them in progress; beyond
+this no one makes me believe or disbelieve anything."
+
+He made no reply to her last observation, and so she went away.  She
+afterwards boasted everywhere of the firmness with which she had spoken
+to my son.
+
+My son this day (26th of August) assembled the Council of the Regency.
+He had summoned the Parliament by a 'lettre-de-cachet': they repaired to
+the Tuileries in a procession on foot, dressed in scarlet robes, hoping
+by this display to excite the people in their favour; but the mob only
+called out, "Where are these lobsters going?"  The King had caused the
+Keeper of the Seals to make a remonstrance to the Parliament for having
+infringed upon his authority in publishing decrees without his sanction.
+He commanded them to quash the decree, which was done; and to confirm the
+authority of the Keeper of the Seals, which they did also.  He then
+ordered them with some sternness not to interfere with the affairs of the
+Government beyond their province; and as the Duc du Maine had excited the
+Parliament against the King, he was deprived of the care of His Majesty's
+education, and he with his brothers were degraded from the rank of
+Princes of the blood, which had been granted to them.  They will in
+future have no other rank than that of their respective peerages; but the
+Duc du Maine alone, for the fidelity he has always manifested towards the
+King, will retain his rank for his life, although his issue, if he should
+have any, will not inherit it.
+
+[Saint-Simon reports that it was the Comte de Toulouse who was allowed
+to retain his rank.--See The Memoirs of Saint-Simon, Chapter XCIII.--D.W.]
+
+Madame d'Orleans was in the greatest despair, and came to Paris in such a
+condition as moved my pity for her.  Madame du Maine is reported to have
+said, three weeks ago, at a grand dinner, "I am accused of having caused
+the Parliament to revolt against the Duc d'Orleans, but I despise him too
+much to take so noble a vengeance; I will be revenged in another manner."
+
+The Parliament had very notable projects in hand.  If my son had delayed
+four-and-twenty hours longer in removing the Duc du Maine from the King
+it would have been decided to declare His Majesty of full age; but my son
+frustrated this by dismissing the Duke, and degrading him at the same
+time.  The Chief President is said to have been so frightened that he
+remained motionless, as if he had been petrified by a gaze at the head of
+Medusa.  That celebrated personage of antiquity could not have been more
+a fury than Madame du Maine; she threatened dreadfully, and did not
+scruple to say, in the presence of her household, that she would yet find
+means to give the Regent such a blow as should make him bite the dust.
+That old Maintenon and her pupil have also had a finger in the pie.
+
+The Parliament asked pardon of my son, which proves that the Duc and
+Duchesse du Maine were the mainsprings of the plot.
+
+There is reason to believe that the old woman and the former Chancellor
+were also implicated in it.  The Chancellor, who would have betrayed my
+son in so shameful a manner, was under the heaviest obligations to him.
+What has happened is a great mortification to Maintenon, and yet she has
+not given up all hopes.  This makes me very anxious, for I know how
+expertly she can manage poison.  My son, instead of being cautious, goes
+about the town at night in strange carriages, sometimes supping with one
+or another of his people, none of whom are worthy of being trusted, and
+who, excepting their wit, have not one good quality.
+
+Different reports respecting the Duchesse du Maine are abroad; some say
+she has beaten her husband and broken the glasses and everything brittle
+in her room.  Others say she has not spoken a word, and has done nothing
+but weep.  The Duc de Bourbon has undertaken the King's education.  He
+said that, not being himself of age, he did not demand this office
+before, but that being so now he should solicit it, and it was
+immediately given to him.
+
+One president and two counsellors have been arrested.  Before the close
+of the session, the Parliament implored my son to use his good offices
+with the King for the release of their members, and promised that they
+should, if found culpable, be punished by the Parliament itself.  My son
+replied that they could not doubt he should always advise the King to the
+most lenient measures; that His Majesty would not only be gracious to
+them as a body, while they merited it, but also to each individual; that,
+as to the prisoners, they would in good time be released.
+
+That old Maintenon has fallen sick of grief that her project for the Duc
+du Maine has miscarried.
+
+The Duke and the Parliament had resolved to have a bed of justice held,
+where my son should be dismissed, and the Regency be committed to the
+Duke, while at the same time the King's household should be under arms.
+The Duke and the Prince de Conti had long been urging my son without
+knowing all the particulars.  The Duc du Maine has not been banished to
+the country, but has permission to go with his family wherever he
+pleases; he will not, however, remain at Paris, because he no longer
+enjoys his rank; he chooses rather to live at Sceaux, where he has an
+elegant mansion and a fine park.
+
+The little dwarf (the Duchesse du Maine) says she has more courage than
+her husband, her son, and her brother-in-law put together; and that, like
+another Jael, she would kill my son with her own hand, and would drive a
+nail into his head.  When I implored my son to be on his guard against
+her, and told him this, he laughed at my fears and shook his head
+incredulously.
+
+I do not believe that the Devil, in his own person, is more wicked than
+that old Maintenon, the Duc du Maine, and the Duchess.  The latter said
+openly that her husband and her brother-in-law were no better than
+cowards; that, woman as she was, she was ready to demand an audience of
+my son and to plunge a dagger in his heart.  Let any one judge whether I
+have not reason to fear such persons, and particularly, when they, have
+so strong a party.  Their cabal is very considerable; there are a dozen
+persons of consideration, all great noblemen at Court.  The richest part
+of the people favour the Spanish pretensions, as well as the Duc and
+Duchesse du Maine; they wish to call in the King of Spain.  My, brother
+has too much sense for them; they want a person who will suffer himself
+to be led as they, please; the King of Spain is their man; and, for this
+reason, they are trying all means to induce him to come.  It is for these
+reasons that I think my son is in so great danger.
+
+My son has not yet released the three rogues of the Parliament, although
+their liberation has been twice petitioned for.
+
+The Duc du Maine and the cabal have made his sister believe that if my
+son should die they would make her Regent, and would aid her with their
+counsel to enable her to become one of the greatest persons in the world.
+They say they mean no violence towards my son, who cannot live long on
+account of his irregularities; that he must soon die or lose his sight;
+and in the latter event he would consent to her becoming Regent.  I know
+a person to whom the Duc du Maine said so.  This put an end to one's
+astonishment, that she should have wished to force her daughter to marry
+the Duc du Maine.
+
+All this gave me great anxiety.  I foresaw it all and said to my son,
+"You are committing a folly, for which I shall have to suffer all my
+life."
+
+He has made great changes; instead of a great number of Councils he has
+appointed Secretaries of State.  M. d'Armenouville is Secretary of State
+for the Navy; M. le Blanc, for the Army; M. de la Vrilliere, for the Home
+Department; the Abbe Dubois, for Foreign Affairs; M. de Maurepas, for the
+Royal Household; and a Bishop for the Church Benefices.
+
+Malezieux and the Cardinal de Polignac had probably as great a share in
+the answer to Fitz-Morris as the Duchesse du Maine.
+
+The Duc de Bourbon and the Prince de Conti assisted very zealously in the
+disgrace of the Duc du Maine.  My son could not bring himself to resolve
+upon it until the treachery had been clearly demonstrated to him, and he
+saw that he should lend himself to his own dishonour if he did not
+prevent the blow.
+
+My son is very fond of the Comte de Toulouse, whom he finds a sensible
+person on all occasions: if the latter had followed the advice of the Duc
+du Maine he would have shared his fate; but he despised his brother's
+advice and followed that of his wife.
+
+My son believes as firmly in predestination as if he had been, like me, a
+Calvinist, for nineteen years.  I do not know how he learnt the affair of
+the Duc du Maine; he has always kept it a great secret.  But what appears
+the most singular to me is that he does not hate his brother-in-law, who
+has endeavoured to procure his death and dishonour.  I do not believe his
+like was ever seen: he has no gall in his composition; I never knew him
+to hate any one.
+
+He says he will take as much care as he can; but that if God has ordained
+that he shall perish by the hands of his enemies he cannot change his
+destiny, and that therefore he shall go on tranquilly.
+
+He has earnestly requested Lord Stair to speak to the King of England on
+your account.--[This passage is addressed to the Princess of Wales.]--
+He says no one can be more desirous than he is that you should be
+reinstated in your father's affection, and that he will neglect no
+opportunity of bringing it about, being persuaded that it is to the
+advantage of the King of England, as well as of yourself, that you should
+be reconciled.
+
+M. Law must be praised for his talent, but there is an astonishing number
+of persons who envy him in this country.  My son is delighted with his
+cleverness in business.
+
+He has been compelled to arrest the Spanish Ambassador, the Prince of
+Cellamara, because letters were found upon his courier, the Abbe Porto
+Carero, who was his nephew, and who has also been arrested, containing
+evidence of a plot against the King and against my son.  The Ambassador
+was arrested by two Counsellors of State.  It was time that this
+treachery should be made public.  A valet of the Abbe Porto Carero having
+a bad horse, and not being able to get on so quick as his master, stayed
+two relays behind, and met on his way the ordinary courier from Poitiers.
+The valet asked him, "What news?"
+
+"I don't know any," replied the postilion, "except that they have
+arrested at Poitiers an English bankrupt and a Spanish Abbe who was
+carrying a packet."
+
+When the valet heard this he instantly took a fresh horse, and, instead
+of following his master, he came back full gallop to Paris.  So great was
+his speed, that he fell sick upon his arrival in consequence of the
+exertion.  He outstripped my son's courier by twelve hours, and so had
+time to apprise the Prince of Cellamara twelve hours before his arrest,
+which gave him time to burn his most important letters and papers.  My
+son's enemies pretend to treat this affair as insignificant to the last
+degree; but I cannot see anything insignificant in an Ambassador's
+attempting to cause a revolt in a whole kingdom, and among the
+Parliament, against my son, and meditating his assassination as well as
+that of his son and daughter.  I alone was to have been let live.
+
+That Des Ursins must have the devil in her to have stirred up Pompadour
+against my son.  He is not any very great personage; but his wife is a
+daughter of the Duc de Navailles, who was my son's governor.  Madame de
+Pompadour was the governess of the young Duc d'Alencon, the son of Madame
+de Berri.  As to the Abbe Brigaut, I know him very well.  Madame de
+Ventadour was his godmother, and he was baptized at the same time with
+the first Dauphin, when he received the name of Tillio.  He has talent,
+but he is an intriguer and a knave.  He pretended at first to be very
+devout, and was appointed Pere de l'Oratoire; but, getting tired of this
+life, he took up the trade of catering for the vices of the Court, and
+afterwards became the secretary and factotum of Madame du Maine, for whom
+he used to assist in all the libels and pasquinades which were written
+against my son.  It would be difficult to say which prated most, he or
+Pompadour.
+
+Madame d'Orleans has great influence over my son.  He loves all his
+children, but particularly his eldest daughter.  While still a child, she
+fell dangerously ill, and was given over by her physicians.  My son was
+in deep affliction at this, and resolved to attempt her cure by treating
+her in his own way, which succeeded so well that he saved her life, and
+from that moment has loved her better than all his other children.
+
+                    ............................
+
+The Abbe Dubois has an insinuating manner towards every one; but more
+particularly towards those of whom he had the care in their childhood.
+
+Two Germans were implicated in the conspiracy; but I am only surprised at
+one of them, the Brigadier Sandrazky, who was with me daily, and in whose
+behalf I have often spoken, because his father served my brother as
+commandant at Frankendahl; he died in the present year.  The other is the
+Count Schlieben, who has only one arm.  I am not astonished at him; for,
+in the first place, I know how he lost his arm; and, in the second, he is
+a friend and servant of the Princesse des Ursins: they expect to take him
+at Lyons.  Sandrazky was at my toilette the day before yesterday; as he
+looked melancholy, I asked him what was the matter?  He replied, "I am
+ill with vexation: I love my wife, who is an Englishwoman, very tenderly,
+and she is no less fond of me; but, as we have not the means of keeping
+up an establishment, she must go into a convent.  This distresses me so
+much that I am really very unwell."
+
+I was grieved to hear this, and resolved to solicit my son for him.
+
+My son sometimes does as is said in Atys,--[The opera of Atys, act ii.,
+scene 3.]--"Vous pourriez aimer et descendre moins bas;" for when Jolis
+was his rival, he became attached to one of his daughter's 'filles de
+chambre', who hoped to marry Jolis because he was rich; for this reason
+she received him better than my son, who, however, at last gained her
+favour.  He afterwards took her away from his daughter, and had her
+taught to sing, for she had a fine voice.
+
+The printed letters of Cellamara disclose the whole of the conspiracy.
+The Abbe Brigaut, too, it is said, begins to chatter about it.  This
+affair has given me so much anxiety that I only sleep through mere
+exhaustion.  My heart beats incessantly; but my son has not the least
+care about it.  I beseech him, for God's sake, not to go about in coaches
+at night, and he promises me he will not; but he will no more keep that
+promise than he did when he made it to me before.
+
+It is now eight days since the Duc du Maine and his wife were arrested
+(29th December).  She was at Paris, and her husband at Sceaux in his
+chateau.  One of the four captains of the King's Guard arrested the
+Duchess, the Duke was arrested only by a lieutenant of the Body Guard.
+The Duchess was immediately taken to Dijon and her husband to the
+fortress of Doullens.  I found Madame d'Orleans much more calm than I had
+expected.  She was much grieved, and wept bitterly; but she said that,
+since her brother was convicted, she must confess he had done wrong; that
+he was, with his wife, the cause of his own misfortune, but that it was
+no less painful to her to know that her own brother had thus been
+plotting against her husband.  His guilt was proved upon three points:
+first, in a paper under the hand of the Spanish Ambassador, the Prince of
+Cellamara, in which he imparted to Alberoni that the Duchesse and the Duc
+du Maine were at the head of the conspiracy; he tells him how many times
+he has seen them, by whose means, and in what place; then he says that he
+has given money to the Duc du Maine to bribe certain persons, and he
+mentions the sum.  There are already two men in the Bastille who confess
+to have received money, and others who have voluntarily stated that they
+conducted the Ambassador to the Duke and Duchess, and negotiated
+everything between the parties.  The greater part of their servants have
+been sent to the Bastille.  The Princess is deeply afflicted; and,
+although the clearest proofs are given of her children's crime, she
+throws all the blame upon the Duke, her grandson, who, she says, has
+accused them falsely, because he hates them, and she has refused to see
+him.  The Duchess is more moderate in her grief.  The little Princesse de
+Conti heartily pities her sister and weeps copiously, but the elder
+Princess does not trouble herself about her uncle and aunt.
+
+The Cardinals cannot be arrested, but they may be exiled; therefore the
+Cardinal de Polignac has been ordered to retire to one of his abbeys and
+to remain there.  It was love that turned his head.  He was formerly a
+great friend of my son's, and he did not change until he became attached
+to that little hussy.
+
+Magni
+
+     [Foucault de Magni, introducteur des ambassadeurs, and son of a
+     Counsellor of State.  Duclos says he was a silly fellow, who never
+     did but, one wise thing, which was to run away.]
+
+has not yet been taken; he flies from one convent to another.  He stayed
+with the Jesuits a long time.
+
+
+
+                                   1719
+
+They say that the Duchesse du Maine used all her persuasions to induce
+her husband to fly; but that he replied, as neither of them had written
+anything with their own hands, nothing could be proved against them;
+while, by flying, they would confess their guilt.  They did not consider
+that M. de Pompadour could say enough to cause their arrest.
+
+The Duchess's fraternal affection is a much stronger passion than her
+love for her children.
+
+A letter of Alberoni's to the lame bastard has been intercepted, in which
+is the following passage: "As soon as you declare war in France spring
+all your mines at once."
+
+What enrages me is that Madame d'Orleans and the Princess would still
+make one believe that the Duc and Duchesse du Maine are totally innocent,
+although proofs of their guilt are daily appearing.  The Duchess came to
+me to beg I would procure an order for her daughter's people, that is,
+her dames d'honneur, her femmes de chambre, and her hair-dresser, to be
+sent to her.  I could not help laughing, and I said, "Mademoiselle de
+Launay is an intriguer and one of the persons by whom the whole affair
+was conducted."
+
+But she replied, "The Princess is at the Bastille."--"I know it," I said;
+"and well she has deserved it."  This almost offended the Princess.
+
+The Duchesse du Maine said openly that she should never be happy until
+she had made an end of my son.  When her mother reproached her with it,
+she did not deny it, but only replied, "One says things in a passion
+which one does not mean to do."
+
+Although the plot has been discovered, the conspirators have not yet been
+all taken.  My son says, jokingly, "I have hold of the monster's head and
+tail, but I have not yet got his body"
+
+I can guess how it happened that the mercantile letters stated my son to
+have been arrested; it is because the conspirators intended to have done
+so, and two days later it would have taken place.  It must have been
+persons of this party, therefore, who wrote to England.
+
+When Schlieben was seized, he said, "If Monsieur the Regent does not take
+pity upon me, I am ruined."
+
+He was for a long time at the Spanish Court, where he was protected by
+the Princesse des Ursins.  He has some wit, can chatter well, and is an
+excellent spy for such a lady.  The persons who had arrested him took him
+to Paris by the diligence, without saying a word.  On reaching Paris the
+diligence was ordered to the Bastille; the poor travellers not knowing
+why, were in a great fright, and expected all to be locked up, but were
+not a little pleased at being set free.  Sandrazky is not very clever; he
+is a Silesian.  He married an Englishwoman, whose fortune he soon
+dissipated, for he is a great gambler.
+
+The Duchesse du Maine has fallen sick with rage, and that old Maintenon
+is said to be afflicted by the affair more than any other person.  It was
+by her fault that they fell into this scrape, for she put it into their
+heads that it was unjust they should not reign, and that the kingdom
+belonged as much to them as King Solomon's did to him.
+
+Madame d'Orleans weeps for her brother by day and night.
+
+They tried to arrest the Duc de Saint-Aignan at Pampeluna; but he
+effected his escape with his wife, and in disguise.
+
+When they carried away the Duc du Maine, he said, "I shall soon return,
+for my innocence will be speedily manifested; but I only speak for
+myself, my wife may not come back quite so soon."
+
+Madame d'Orleans cannot believe that her brother has been engaged in a
+conspiracy; she says it must have been his wife who acted in his name.
+The Princess, on the other hand, believes that her daughter is innocent,
+and that the Duc du Maine alone has carried on the plot.
+
+The factum is not badly drawn up.  Our priest can write well enough when
+he likes; he drew it up, and my son corrected it.
+
+The more the affair is examined, the more clearly does the guilt of the
+Duke and Duchess appear; for three days ago, Malezieux, who is in the
+Bastille, gave up his writing-desk.  The first thing that was found in it
+was a projet, which Malezieux had written at the Duchess's bedside, and
+which Cardinal de Polignac had corrected with his own hand.  Malezieux
+pretends that it is a Spanish letter, addressed to the Duchess, and that
+he had translated it for her, with the assistance of the Cardinal de
+Polignac; and yet the letters of Alberoni to the Prince de Cellamara
+refer so directly to this projet that it is easy to see that they spring
+from the same source.
+
+The Duchesse du Maine has made the Princess believe that the Duke (of
+Bourbon) was the cause of all this business, so that now he dare not
+appear before the latter, although he has always behaved with great
+respect and friendship towards her; while the Duc and Duchesse du Maine,
+on the contrary, have been engaged in a law-suit against her for five
+years.  It was not until after the Princess had inherited the property of
+Monsieur de Vendome, that this worthy couple insinuated themselves into
+her good graces.
+
+The Parliament is reconciled to my son, and has pronounced its decree,
+which is favourable to him, and which is another proof that the Duc du
+Maine had excited it against him.
+
+The Jesuits have probably been also against my son; for all those who
+have declared against the Constitution cannot be friendly to him; they
+have, however, kept so quiet that nothing can be brought against them.
+They are cunning old fellows.
+
+Madame d'Orleans begins to recover her spirits and to laugh again,
+particularly since I learn she has consulted the Premier President and
+other persons, to know whether, upon my son's death, she would become the
+Regent.  They told her that could not be, but that the office would fall
+upon the Duke.  This answer is said to have been very unpalatable to her.
+
+If my son would have paid a price high enough to the Cardinal de
+Polignac, he would have betrayed them all.  He is now consoling himself
+in his Abbey with translating Lucretius.
+
+The King of Spain's manifesto, instead of injuring my son, has been
+useful to him, because it was too violent and partial.  Alberoni must
+needs be a brutal and an intemperate person.  But how could a journeyman
+gardener know the language which ought to be addressed to crowned heads?
+Several thousand copies of this manifesto have been transmitted to Paris,
+addressed to all the persons in the Court, to all the Bishops, in short,
+to everybody; even to the Parliament, which has taken the affair up very
+properly, from Paris to Bordeaux, as the decree shows.  I thought it
+would have been better to burn this manifesto in the post-office instead
+of suffering it to be spread about; but my son said they should all be
+delivered, for the express purpose of discovering the feelings of the
+parties to whom they were addressed, and a register of them was kept at
+the post-office.  Those who were honest brought them of their own accord;
+the others kept them, and they are marked, without the public knowing
+anything about it.  The manifesto is the work of Malezieux and the
+Cardinal de Polignac.
+
+A pamphlet has been cried about the streets, entitled, "Un arret contre
+les poules d'Inde."  Upon looking at it, however, it seems to be a decree
+against the Jesuits, who had lost a cause respecting a priory, of which
+they had taken possession.  Everybody bought it except the partisans of
+the Constitution and of the Spanish faction.
+
+My son is more fond of his daughters, legitimate and illegitimate, than
+his son.
+
+The Duc and Duchesse du Maine rely upon nothing having been found in
+their writing; but Mademoiselle de Montauban and Malezieux have written.
+in their name; and is not what Pompadour has acknowledged voluntarily
+quite as satisfactory a proof as even their own writing?
+
+They have got the pieces of all the mischievous Spanish letters written
+by the same hand, and corrected by that of the Cardinal de Polignac, so
+that there can be no doubt of his having composed them.
+
+A manifesto, too, has been found in Malezieux's papers.  It is well
+written, but not improved by the translation.  Malezieux pretends that he
+only translated it before it was sent hence to Spain.
+
+Mademoiselle de Montauban and Mademoiselle de Launay, a person of some
+wit, who has kept up a correspondence with Fontenelle, and who was 'femme
+de chambre' to the Duchesse du Maine, have both been sent to the
+Bastille.
+
+The Duc du Maine now repents that he followed his wife's advice; but it
+seems that he only followed the worst part of it.
+
+The Duchesse d'Orleans has been for some days past persuading my son to
+go masked to a ball.  She says that his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri,
+and I, make him pass for a coward by preventing him from going to balls
+and running about the town by night as he used to do before; and that he
+ought not to manifest the least symptom of fear.  He replied that he knew
+he should give me great pain by doing so, and that the least he could do
+was to tranquillize my mind by living prudently.  She then said that the
+Duchesse de Berri filled me with unfounded fears in order that she might
+have more frequent opportunities of being with him, and of governing him
+entirely.  Can the Devil himself be worse than this bastard?  It teaches
+me, however, that my son is not secure with her.  I must do violence to
+myself that my suspicions may not be apparent.
+
+My son has not kept his word; he went to this ball, although he denies
+it.
+
+Although it is well known that Maintenon has had a hand in all these
+affairs, nothing can be said to her, for her name does not appear in any
+way.
+
+When my son is told of persons who hate him and who seek his life, he
+laughs and says, "They dare not; I am not so weak that I cannot defend
+myself."  This makes me very angry.
+
+If the proofs against Malezieux are not manifest, and if they do not put
+the rogue upon his trial, it will be because his crime is so closely
+connected with that of the Duchesse du Maine that, in order to convict
+him before the Parliament, he must be confronted with her.  Besides, as
+the Parliament is better disposed towards the Duc and Duchesse du Maine
+than to my son, they might be acquitted and taken out of his hands, which
+would make them worse than they are now.  For this reason it is that they
+are looking for proofs so clear that the Parliament cannot refuse to
+pronounce upon them.
+
+The Duc du Maine writes thus to his sister:
+
+"They ought not to have put me in prison; but they ought to have stripped
+me and put me into petticoats for having been thus led by my wife;" and
+he wrote to Madame de Langeron that he enjoyed perfect repose, for which
+he thanked God; that he was glad to be no longer exposed to the contempt
+of his family; and that his sons ought to be happy to be no longer with
+him.
+
+The King of Spain and Alberoni have a personal hatred against my son,
+which is the work of the Princesse des Ursins.
+
+My son is naturally brave, and fears nothing: death is not at all
+terrible to him.
+
+On the 29th of March the young Duc de Richelieu was taken to the
+Bastille: this caused a great number of tears to be shed, for he is
+universally loved.  He had kept up a correspondence with Alberoni, and
+had got his regiment placed at Bayonne, together with that of his friend,
+M. de Saillant, for the purpose of delivering the town to the Spaniards.
+He went on Wednesday last to the Marquis de Biron, and urged him to
+despatch him as promptly as possible to join his regiment at Bayonne, and
+so prove the zeal which attached him to my son.  His comrade, who passes
+for a coward and a sharper at play, has also been shut up in the
+Bastille.
+
+     [On the day that they were arrested, the Regent said he had that in
+     his pocket which would cut off four heads, if the Duke had so many.
+     --Memoires de Duclos.]
+
+The Duc de Richelieu had the portraits of his mistresses painted in all
+sorts of monastic habits: Mademoiselle de Charolais as a Recollette nun,
+and it is said to be very like her.  The Marechales de Villars and
+d'Estrees are, it is said, painted as Capuchin nuns.
+
+When the Duc de Richelieu was shown his letter to Alberoni, he confessed
+all that concerned himself, but would not disclose his accomplices.
+
+Nothing but billets-doux were found in his writing-case.  Alberoni in
+this affair trusted a man who had formerly been in his service, but who
+is now a spy of my son's.  He brought Alberoni's letter to the Regent;
+who opened it, read it, had a copy made, resealed it, and sent it on to
+its destination.  The young Duc de Richelieu answered it, but my son can
+make no use of this reply because the words in which it is written have a
+concealed sense.
+
+The Princess has strongly urged my son to permit the Duchesse du Maine to
+quit Dijon, under the pretext that the air was unwholesome for her.  My
+son consented upon condition that she should be conducted in her own
+carriage, but under the escort of the King's Guard, from Dijon to
+Chalons-sur-Saone.
+
+Here she thought she should enjoy comparative liberty, and that the town
+would be her prison: she was much astonished to find that she was as
+closely confined at Chalons as at Dijon.  When she asked the reason for
+this rigour she was told that all was discovered, and that the prisoners
+had disclosed the particulars of the conspiracy.  She was immediately
+struck with this; but recovering her self-possession, she said, "The Duc
+de Orleans thinks that I hate him; but if he would take my advice, I
+would counsel him better than any other person."  My son's wife remains
+very tranquil.
+
+On the 17th of April a rascal was brought in who was near surprising my
+son in the Bois de Boulogne a year ago.  He is a dismissed colonel; his
+name is La Jonquiere.  He had written to my son demanding enormous
+pensions and rewards; but meeting with a refusal, he went into Spain,
+where he promised Alberoni to carry off my son, and deliver him into his
+hands, dead or alive.  He brought one hundred men with him, whom he put
+in ambuscade near Paris.  He missed my son only by a quarter of an hour
+in the Bois de Boulogne, which the latter had passed through in his way
+to La Muette, where he went to dine with his daughter.  La Jonquiere
+having thus failed, retired in great vexation to the Low Countries, where
+he boasted that, although he had missed this once, he would take his
+measures so much better in future that people should soon hear of a great
+blow being struck.  This was luckily repeated to my son, who had him
+arrested at Liege.  He sent a clever fellow to him, who caught him, and
+leading him out of the house where they were, he clapped a pistol to his
+throat, and threatened to shoot him on the spot if he did not go with him
+and without speaking a word.  The rascal, overcome with terror, suffered
+himself to be taken to the boat, but when he saw that they were
+approaching the French territory he did not wish to go any further; he
+said he was ruined, and should be drawn and quartered.  They bound him
+and carried him to the Bastille.
+
+I have exhorted my son to take care of himself, and not to go out but in
+a carriage.  He has promised that he will not, but I cannot trust him.
+
+The late Monsieur was desirous that his son's wife should not be a
+coquette.  This was not the particular which I so much disapproved of;
+but I wished the husband not to be informed of it, or that it should get
+abroad, which would have had no other effect than that of convincing my
+son that his wife had dishonoured him.
+
+I must never talk to my son about the conspiracy in the presence of
+Madame d'Orleans; it would be wounding her in the tenderest place; for
+all that concerns her brother is to her the law and the prophets.
+
+My son has so satisfactorily disproved the accusations of that old
+Maintenon and the Duc du Maine, that the King has believed him, and,
+after a minute examination, has done my son justice.  But Madame
+d'Orleans has not conducted herself well in this affair; she has spread
+by means of her creatures many calumnies against my son, and has even
+said that he wanted to poison her.  By such means she has made her peace
+with old Maintenon, who could not endure her before.  I have often
+admired the patience with which my son suffers all this, when he knows it
+just as well as I do.  If things had remained as Madame de Maintenon had
+arranged them at the death of the King, my son would only have been
+nominally Regent, and the Duc du Maine would actually have enjoyed all
+the power.  She thought because my son was in the habit of running after
+women a little that he would be afraid of the labour, and that he would
+be contented with the title and a large pension, leaving her and the Duc
+du Maine to have their own way.  This was her plan, and she fancied that
+her calumnies had so far succeeded in making my son generally despised
+that no person would be found to espouse his cause.  But my son was not
+so unwise as to suffer all this; he pleaded his cause so well to the
+Parliament that the Government was entrusted to him, and yet the old
+woman did not relinquish her hopes until my son had the Duc du Maine
+arrested; then she fainted.
+
+The Pope's nuncio thrusts his nose into all the plots against my son; he
+may be a good priest, but he is nevertheless a wicked devil.
+
+On the 25th of April M. de Laval, the Duchesse de Roquelaure's brother,
+was arrested.
+
+M. de Pompadour has accused the Duc de Laval of acting in concert with
+the Prince de Cellamara, to whom, upon one occasion, he acted as
+coachman, and drove him to the Duchesse du Maine at the Arsenal.  This
+Comte de Laval is always sick and covered with wounds; he wears a plaster
+which reaches from ear to ear; he is lame, and often has his arm in a
+sling; nevertheless, he is full of intrigue, and is engaged night and day
+in writing against my son.
+
+Madame de Maintenon is said to have sent large sums of money into the
+provinces for the purpose of stirring up the people against my son; but,
+thank God, her plan has not succeeded.
+
+The old woman has spread about the report that my son poisoned all the
+members of the Royal Family who have died lately.  She hired one of the
+King's physicians first to spread this report.  If Marechal, the King's
+surgeon, who was present at the opening of the bodies, had not stated
+that there was no appearance of poison, and confirmed that statement to
+the King, this infamous creature would have plunged my innocent son into
+a most deplorable situation.
+
+Mademoiselle de Charolais says that the affair of Bayonne cannot be true,
+for that the Duc de Richelieu did not tell her of it, and he never
+concealed anything from her.  She says, too, that she will not see my
+son, for his having put the Duke into the Bastille.
+
+The Duke walks about on the top of the terrace at the Bastille, with his
+hair dressed, and in an embroidered coat.  All the ladies who pass stop
+their carriages to look at the pretty fellow.
+
+     [This young man, says Duclos, thought himself of some consequence
+     when he was made a State prisoner, and endured his confinement with
+     the same levity which he had always displayed in love, in business,
+     or in war.  The Regent was much amused with him, and suffered him to
+     have all he wanted-his valet de chambre, two footmen, music, cards,
+     etc.; so that, although he was deprived of his liberty, he might be
+     as licentious as ever.]
+
+Madame d'Orleans has been so little disposed to undertake her husband's
+defence in public, that she has pretended to believe the charges against
+him, although no person in the world knows better than she does that the
+whole is a lie.  She sent to her brothers for a counter-poison, so that
+my son should not take her off by those means; and thus she reconciled
+Maintenon, who was at enmity with her.  I learnt this story during the
+year, and I do not know whether my son is aware of it.  I would not say
+anything to him about it, for I did not wish to embroil man and wife.
+
+
+The Abbe Dubois--[Madame probably means the Duc du Maine]-- seems to
+think that we do not know how many times he went by night to Madame de
+Maintenon's, to help this fine affair.
+
+My son has been dissuaded from issuing the manifesto.
+
+Madame d'Orleans has at length quite regained her husband; and, following
+her advice, he goes about by night in a coach.  On Wednesday night he set
+off for Anieres, where Parabere has a house.  He supped there, and,
+getting into his carriage again, after midnight, he put his foot into a
+hole and sprained it.
+
+I am very much afraid my son will be attacked by the small-pox.  He eats
+heavy suppers; he is short and fat, and just one of those persons whom
+the disease generally attacks.
+
+The Cardinal de Noailles has been pestering my son in favour of the Duc
+de Richelieu; and as it cannot be positively proved that he addressed the
+letter to Alberoni, they can do no more to him than banish him to
+Conflans, after six months' imprisonment.  Mademoiselle de Charolais
+procured some one to ask my son secretly by what means she could see the
+Duc de Richelieu, and speak with him, before he set off for Conflans.
+
+     [This must have been a joke of Mademoiselle de Charolais; for she
+     had already, together with Mademoiselle Valois, paid the Duke
+     several visits in the Bastille.  When the Duke was sent to Conflans
+     to the Cardinal de Noailles, he used to escape almost every night,
+     and come to see his mistresses.  It was this that determined the
+     Regent to send him to Saint-Germain en Laye; but, soon afterwards,
+     Mademoiselle de Valois obtained from her father a pardon for her
+     lover.---Memoirs de Richelieu, tome iii., p. 171]
+
+My son replied, "that she had better speak to the Cardinal de Noailles;
+for as he was to conduct the Duke to Conflans, and keep him in his own
+house, he would know better than any other person how he might be spoken
+with."  When she learnt that the Duke had arrived at Saint-Germain, she
+hastened thither immediately.
+
+I never doubted for a moment that my son's marriage was in every respect
+unfortunate; but my advice was not listened to.  If the union had been a
+good one, that old Maintenon would not have insisted on it.
+
+Nothing less than millions are talked of on all sides: my sun has made me
+also richer by adding 130,000 livres to my pension.
+
+By what we hear daily of the insurrection in Bretagne, it seems that my
+son's enemies are more inveterate against him than ever.  I do not know
+whether it is true, as has been said, that there was a conspiracy at
+Rochelle, and that the governor intended to give up the place to the
+Spaniards, but has fled; that ten officers were engaged in the plot, some
+of whom have been arrested, and the others have fled to Spain.
+
+I always took the Bishop of Soissons for an honest man.  I knew him when
+he was only an Abbe, and the Duchess of Burgundy's almoner; but the
+desire to obtain a Cardinal's hat drives most of the Bishops mad.  There
+is not one of them who does not believe that the more impertinently he
+behaves to my son about the Constitution, the more he will improve his
+credit with the Court of Rome, and the sooner become a Cardinal.
+
+My son, although he is Regent, never comes to see me, and never quits me,
+without kissing my hand before he embraces me; and he will not even take
+a chair if I hand it to him.  He is not, however, at all timid, but chats
+familiarly with me, and we laugh and talk together like good friends.
+
+While the Dauphin was alive La Chouin behaved very ill to my son; she
+embroiled him with the Dauphin, and would neither speak to nor see him;,
+in short, she was constantly opposed to him.  And yet, when he learnt
+that she had fallen into poverty, he sent her money, and secured her a
+pension sufficient to live upon.
+
+My son gave me actions to the amount of two millions, which I distributed
+among my household.  The King also took several millions for his own,
+household; all the Royal Family have had them; all the enfans and petits
+enfans de France, and the Princes of the blood.
+
+[This may be stock the M. Law floated in the Mississippi Company.  D.W.]
+
+The old Court is doing its utmost to put people, out of conceit with
+Law's bank.
+
+I do not think that Lord Stair praises my son so much as he used to do,
+for they do not seem to be very good friends.  After having received all
+kinds of civilities from my son, who has made him richer than ever he
+expected to be in his life, he has turned his back upon him, caused him
+numerous little troubles, and annoys him so much that my son would gladly
+be rid of him.
+
+My son was obliged to make a speech at the Bank, which was applauded.
+
+
+                                   1720
+
+They have been obliged to adopt severe measures in Bretagne; four persons
+of quality have been beheaded. One of them, who might have escaped by
+flying to Spain, would not go.  When he was asked why, he said it had
+been predicted that he should die by sea (de la mer).  Just before he was
+executed he asked the headsman what his name was.
+
+"My name is Sea (La Mer)," replied the man.
+
+"Then," said the nobleman, "I am undone."
+
+All Paris has been mourning at the cursed decree which Law has persuaded
+my son to make.  I have received anonymous letters, stating that I have
+nothing to fear on my own account, but that my son shall be pursued with
+fire and sword; that the plan is laid and the affair determined on.  From
+another quarter I have learnt that knives are sharpening for my son's
+assassination.  The most dreadful news is daily reaching me.  Nothing
+could appease the discontent until, the Parliament having assembled, two
+of its members were deputed to wait upon my son, who received them
+graciously, and, following their advice, annulled the decree, and so
+restored things to their former condition.  This proceeding has not only
+quieted all Paris, but has reconciled my son (thank God) to the
+Parliament.
+
+My son wished by sending an embassy to give a public proof how much he
+wished for a reconciliation between the members of the Royal Family of
+England, but it was declined.
+
+The goldsmiths will work no longer, for they charge their goods at three
+times more than they are worth, on account of the bank-notes.  I have
+often wished those bank-notes were in the depths of the infernal regions;
+they have given my son much more trouble than relief.  I know not how
+many inconveniences they have caused him.  Nobody in France has a penny;
+but, saving your presence, and to speak in plain palatine, there is
+plenty of paper
+
+                    ..........................
+
+It is singular enough that my son should only become so firmly attached
+to his black Parabere, when she had preferred another and had formally
+dismissed him.
+
+Excepting the affair with Parabere, my son lives upon very good terms
+with his wife, who for her part cares very little about it; nothing is so
+near to her heart as her brother, the Duc du Maine.  In a recent quarrel
+which she had with my son on this subject, she said she would retire to
+Rambouillet or Montmartre.  "Wherever you please," he replied; "or
+wherever you think you will be most comfortable."  This vexed her so mach
+that she wept day and night about it.
+
+On the 17th of June, while I was at the Carmelites, Madame de Chateau-
+Thiers came to see me, and said to me, "M. de Simiane is come from the
+Palais Royal; and he thinks it fit you should know that on your return
+you will find all the courts filled with the people who, although they do
+not say anything, will not disperse.  At six o'clock this morning they
+brought in three dead bodies which M. Le Blanc has had removed.  M. Law
+has taken refuge in the Palais Royal: they have done him no harm; but his
+coach man was stoned as he returned, and the carriage broken to pieces.
+It was the coachman's fault, who told them 'they were a rabble, and ought
+to be hanged.'" I saw at once that it would not do to seem to be
+intimidated, so I ordered the coach to be driven to the Palais Royal.
+There was such a press of carriages that I was obliged to wait a full
+hour before I reached the rue Saint-Honore; then I heard the people
+talking: they did not say anything against my son; they gave me several
+benedictions, and demanded that Law should be hanged.  When I reached the
+Palais Royal all was calm again.  My son came to me, and in the midst of
+my anxiety he was perfectly tranquil, and even made me laugh.
+
+M. Le Blanc went with great boldness into the midst of the irritated
+populace and harangued them.  He had the bodies of the men who had been
+crushed to death in the crowd brought away, and succeeded in quieting
+them.
+
+My son is incapable of being serious and acting like a father with his
+children; he lives with them more like a brother than a father.
+
+The Parliament not only opposed the edict, and would not allow it to
+pass, but also refused to give any opinion, and rejected the affair
+altogether.  For this reason my son had a company of the footguard placed
+on Sunday morning at the entrance of the palace to prevent their
+assembling; and, at the same time, he addressed a letter to the Premier-
+President, and to the Parliament a 'lettre-de-cachet', ordering them to
+repair to Pontoise to hold their sittings.  The next day, when the
+musketeers had relieved the guards, the young fellows, not knowing what
+to do to amuse themselves, resolved to play at a parliament.  They
+elected a chief and other presidents, the King's ministers, and the
+advocates.  These things being settled, and having received a sausage and
+a pie for breakfast, they pronounced a sentence, in which they condemned
+the sausage to be cooked and the pie to be cut up.
+
+All these things make me tremble for my son.  I receive frequently
+anonymous letters full of dreadful menaces against him, assuring me that
+two hundred bottles of wine have been poisoned for him, and, if this
+should fail, that they will make use of a new artificial fire to burn him
+alive in the Palais Royal.
+
+It is too true that Madame d'Orleans loves her brother better than her
+husband.
+
+The Duc du Maine says that if, by his assistance, the King should obtain
+the direction of his own affairs, he would govern him entirely, and would
+be more a monarch than the King, and that after my son's death he would
+reign with his sister.
+
+A week ago I received letters in which they threatened to burn my son at
+the Palais Royal and me at Saint Cloud.  Lampoons are circulated in
+Paris.
+
+My son has already slept several times at the Tuileries, but I fear that
+the King will not be able to accustom himself to his ways, for my son
+could never in his life play with children: he does not like them.
+
+He was once beloved, but since the arrival of that cursed Law he is hated
+more and more.  Not a week passes without my receiving by the post
+letters filled with frightful threats, in which my son is spoken of as a
+bad man and a tyrant.
+
+I have just now received a letter in which he is threatened with poison.
+When I showed it to him he did nothing but laugh, and said the Persian
+poison could not be given to him, and that all that was said about it was
+a fable.
+
+To-morrow the Parliament will return to Paris, which will delight the
+Parisians as much as the departure of Law.
+
+That old Maintenon has sent the Duc du Maine about to tell the members of
+the Royal Family that my son poisoned the Dauphin, the Dauphine, and the
+Duc de Berri.  The old woman has even done more she has hinted to the
+Duchess that she is not secure in her husband's house, and that she
+should ask her brother for a counter-poison, as she herself was obliged
+to do during the latter days of the King's life.
+
+The old woman lives very retired.  No one can say that any imprudent
+expressions have escaped her.  This makes me believe that she has some
+plan in her head, but I cannot guess what it is.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XI.
+
+THE DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS, WIFE OF THE REGENT.
+
+If, by shedding my own blood, I could have prevented my son's marriage,
+I would willingly have done so; but since the thing was done, I have had
+no other wish than to preserve harmony.  Monsieur behaved to her with
+great attention during the first month, but as soon as he suspected that
+she looked with too favourable an eye upon the Chevalier du Roye,
+
+     [Bartholemi de La Rochefoucauld, at first Chevalier de Roye, but
+     afterwards better known by the title of Marquis de La Rochefoucauld.
+     He was Captain of the Duchesse de Berri's Body-Guards, and he died
+     in 1721.]
+
+he hated her as the Devil.  To prevent an explosion, I was obliged daily
+to represent to him that he would dishonour himself, as well as his son,
+by exposing her conduct, and would infallibly bring upon himself the
+King's displeasure.  As no person had been less favourable to this
+marriage than I, he could not suspect but that I was moved, not from any
+love for my daughter-in-law, but from the wish to avoid scandal and out
+of affection to my son and the whole family.  While all eclat was
+avoided, the public were at least in doubt about the matter; by an
+opposite proceeding their suspicions would have been confirmed.
+
+Madame d'Orleans looks older than she is; for she paints beyond all
+measure, so that she is often quite red.  We frequently joke her on this
+subject, and she even laughs at it herself.  Her nose and cheeks are
+somewhat pendant, and her head shakes like an old woman: this is in
+consequence of the small-pox.  She is often ill, and always has a
+fictitious malady in reserve.  She has a true and a false spleen;
+whenever she complains, my son and I frequently rally her about it.
+I believe that all the indispositions and weaknesses she has proceed from
+her always lying in bed or on a sofa; she eats and drinks reclining,
+through mere idleness; she has not worn stays since the King's death;
+she never could bring herself to eat with the late King, her own father,
+still less would she with me.  It would then be necessary for her to sit
+upon a stool, and she likes better to loll upon a sofa or sit in an arm-
+chair at a small table with her favourite, the Duchess of Sforza.  She
+admits her son, and sometimes Mademoiselle d'Orleans.  She is so indolent
+that she will not stir; she would like larks ready roasted to drop into
+her mouth; she eats and walks slowly, but eats enormously.  It is
+impossible to be more idle than she is: she admits this herself; but she
+does not attempt to correct it: she goes to bed early that she may lie
+the longer.  She never reads herself, but when she has the spleen she
+makes her women read her to sleep.  Her complexion is good, but less so
+than her second daughter's.  She walks a little on one side, which Madame
+de Ratzenhausen calls walking by ear.  She does not think that there is
+her equal in the world for beauty, wit, and perfection of all kinds.  I
+always compare her to Narcissus, who died of self-admiration.  She is so
+vain as to think she has more sense than her husband, who has a great
+deal; while her notions are not in the slightest degree elevated.  She
+lives much in the femme-de-chambre style; and, indeed, loves this society
+better than that of persons of birth.  The ladies are often a week
+together without seeing her; for without being summoned they cannot
+approach her.  She does not know how to live as the wife of a prince
+should, having been educated like the daughter of a citizen.  A long time
+had elapsed before she and her younger brother were legitimated by the
+King; I do not know for what reason.
+
+
+     [This legitimation presented great difficulties during the life of
+     the Marquis de Montespan.  M. Achille de Harlai, Procureur-General
+     du Parliament, helped to remove them by having the Chevalier de
+     Longueville, son of the Duke of that name and of the Marechale de la
+     Feste, recognized without naming his mother.  This once done, the
+     children of the King and of Madame de Montespan were legitimated in
+     the same manner.]
+
+When they arrived at Court their conversation was exactly like that of
+the common people.
+
+In my opinion my son's wife has no charms at all; her physiognomy does
+not please me.  I don't know whether my son loves her much, but I know
+she does what she pleases with him.  The populace and the femmes de
+chambre are fond of her; but she is not liked elsewhere.  She often goes
+to the Salut at the Quinze Vingts; and her women are ordered to say that.
+she is a saint, who suffers my son to be surrounded by mistresses without
+complaining.  This secures the pity of the populace and makes her pass
+for one of the best of wives, while, in fact; she is, like her elder
+brother, full of artifice.
+
+She is very superstitious.  Some years ago a nun of Fontevrault, called
+Madame de Boitar, died.  Whenever Madame d'Orleans loses anything she
+promises to this nun prayers for the redemption of her soul from
+purgatory, and then does not doubt that she shall find what she has lost.
+She piques herself upon being extremely pious; but does not consider
+lying and deceit are the works of the Devil and not of God.  Ambition,
+pride and selfishness have entirely spoilt her.  I fear she will not make
+a good end.  That I may live in peace I seem to shut my eyes to these
+things.  My son often, in allusion to her pride, calls her Madame
+Lucifer.  She is not backward in believing everything complimentary that
+is said to her.  Montespan, old Maintenon, and all the femmes de chambre
+have made her believe that she did my son honour in marrying him; and she
+is so vain of her own birth and that of her brothers and sisters that she
+will not hear a word said against them; she will not see any difference
+between legitimate and illegitimate children.
+
+She wishes to reign; but she knows nothing of true grandeur, having been
+educated in too low a manner.  She might live well as a simple duchess;
+but not as one of the Royal Family of France.  It is too true that she
+has always been ambitious of possessing, not my son's heart, but his
+power; she is always in fear lest some one else should govern him.  Her
+establishment is well regulated; my son has always let her be mistress in
+this particular.  As to her children, I let them go on in their own way;
+they were brought here without my consent, and it is for others to take
+care of them.  Sometimes she displays more affection for her brother than
+even for her children.  An ambitious woman as she is, having it put into
+her head by her brother that she ought to be the Regent, can love none
+but him.  She would like to see him Regent better than her husband,
+because he has persuaded her that she shall reign with him; she believes
+it firmly, although every one else knows that his own wife is too
+ambitious to permit any one but herself to reign.  Besides her ambition
+she has a great deal of ill-temper.  She will never pardon either the nun
+of Chelles or Mademoiselle de Valois, because they did not like her
+nephew with the long lips.  Her anger is extremely bitter, and she will
+never forgive.  She loves only her relations on the maternal side.
+Madame de Sforza, her favourite, is the daughter of Madame de Thianges,
+Madame de Montespan's sister, and therefore a cousin of Madame d'Orleans,
+who hates her sister and her nephew worse than the Devil.
+
+I could forgive her all if she were not so treacherous.  She flatters me
+when I am present, but behind my back she does all in her power to set
+the Duchesse de Berri against me; she tells her not to believe that I
+love her, but that I wish to have her sister with me.  Madame d'Orleans
+believes that her daughter, Madame de Berri, loves her less than her
+father.  It is true that the daughter has not a very warm attachment to
+her mother, but she does her duty to her; and yet the more they are full
+of mutual civilities the more they quarrel.  On the 4th of October, 1718,
+Madame de Berri having invited her father to go and sleep at La Muette,
+to see the vintage feast and dance which were to be held on the next day.
+Madame d'Orleans wrote to Madame de Berri, and asked her if she thought
+it consistent with the piety of the Carmelites that she should ask her
+father to sleep in her house.  Madame de Berri replied that it had never
+been thought otherwise than pious that a parent should sleep in his
+daughter's house.  The mother did this only to annoy her husband and
+daughter, and when she chooses she has a very cutting way.  It may be
+imagined how this letter was received by the father and daughter.  I
+arrived at La Muette just as it had come.  My son dare not complain to
+me, for as often as he does, I say to him, "George Dandin, you would have
+it so:"--[Moliere]--he therefore only laughed and said nothing.  I did
+not wish to add to the bitterness which this had occasioned, for that
+would have been to blow a fire already too hot; I confined myself,
+therefore, to observing that when she wrote it she probably had the
+spleen.
+
+She is not very fond of her children, and, as I think, she carries her
+indifference too far; for the children see she does not love them, and
+this makes them fond of being with me.  This angers the mother, and she
+reproaches them for it, which only makes them like her less.
+
+Although she loves her son, she does not in general care so much for her
+children as for her brothers, and all who belong to the House of
+Mortemart.
+
+I was the unintentional cause of making a quarrel between her and the nun
+of Chelles.  At the commencement of the affair of the Duc du Maine, I
+received a letter from my daughter addressed to Madame d'Orleans; and not
+thinking that it was for the Abbess, who bears the same title with her
+mother, I sent it to the latter.  This letter happened, unluckily, to be
+an answer to one of our Nun's, in which she had very plainly said what
+she thought of the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, and ended by pitying her
+father for being the Duke's brother-in-law, and for having contracted an
+alliance so absurd and injurious.  It may be guessed whether my
+daughter's answer was palatable to my daughter-in-law.  I am very sorry
+that I made the mistake; but what right had she to read a letter which
+was not meant for her?
+
+The new Abbess of Chelles has had a great difference with her mother,
+who says she will never forgive her for having agreed with her father to
+embrace the religious profession without her knowledge.  The daughter
+said that, as her mother had always taken the side of the former Abbess
+against her, she had not confided this secret to her, from a conviction
+that she would oppose it to please the Abbess.  This threw the mother
+into a paroxysm of grief.  She said she was very unhappy both in her
+husband and her children; that her husband was the most unjust person in
+the world, for that he kept her brother-in-law in prison, who was one of
+the best and most pious of men--in short, a perfect saint; and that God
+would punish such wickedness.  The daughter replied it was respect for
+her mother that kept her silent; and the latter became quite furious.
+This shows that she hates us like the very Devil, and that she loves none
+but her lame brother, and those who love him or are nearly connected with
+him.
+
+She thinks there never was so perfect a being in the world as her mother.
+She cannot quite persuade herself that she was ever Queen, because she
+knew the Queen too well, who always called her daughter, and treated her
+better than her sisters; I cannot tell why, because she was not the most
+amiable of them.
+
+It is quite true that there is little sympathy between my son's wife and
+me; but we live together as politely as possible.  Her singular conduct
+shall never prevent me from keeping that promise which I made to the late
+King in his last moments.  He gave some good Christian exhortations to
+Madame d'Orleans; but, as the proverb says, it is useless to preach to
+those who have no heart to act.
+
+In the spring of this year (1718) her brothers and relations said that
+but for the antidotes which had been administered to Madame d'Orleans,
+without the knowledge of me or my son, she must have perished.
+
+I had resolved not to interfere with anything respecting this affair; but
+had the satisfaction of speaking my mind a little to Madame du Maine.
+I said to her: "Niece" (by which appellation I always addressed her),
+"I beg you will let me know who told you that Madame d'Orleans had taken
+a counterpoison unknown to us.  It is the greatest falsehood that ever
+was uttered, and you may say so from me to whoever told it you."
+
+She looked red, and said, "I never said it was so."
+
+"I am very glad of it, niece," I replied; "for it would be very
+disgraceful to you to have said so, and you ought not to allow people to
+bring you such tales."  When she heard this she went off very quickly.
+
+Madame d'Orleans is a little inconstant in her friendship.  She is very
+fond of jewels, and once wept for four-and-twenty hours because my son
+gave a pair of beautiful pendants to Madame de Berri.
+
+My son has this year (1719) increased his wife's income by 160,000
+livres, the arrears of which have been paid to her from 1716, so that she
+received at once the sum of 480,000 livres.  I do not envy her this
+money, but I cannot bear the idea that she is thus paid for her
+infidelity.  One must, however, be silent.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XII.
+
+MARIE-ANNE CHRISTINE VICTOIRE OF BAVARIA, THE FIRST DAUPHINE.
+
+She was ugly, but her extreme politeness made her very agreeable.  She
+loved the Dauphin more like a son than a husband.  Although he loved her
+very well, he wished to live with her in an unceremonious manner, and she
+agreed to it to please him.  I used often to laugh at her superstitious
+devotion, and undeceived her upon many of her strange opinions.  She
+spoke Italian very well, but her German was that of the peasants of the
+country.  At first, when she and Bessola were talking together, I could
+not understand a word.
+
+She always manifested the greatest friendship and confidence in me to the
+end of her days.  She was not haughty, but as it had become the custom to
+blame everything she did, she was somewhat disdainful.  She had a
+favourite called Bessola--a false creature, who had sold her to
+Maintenon.  But for the infatuated liking she had for this woman, the
+Dauphine would have been much happier.  Through her, however, she was
+made one of the most wretched women in the world.
+
+This Bessola could not bear that the Dauphine should speak to any person
+but herself: she was mercenary and jealous, and feared that the
+friendship of the Dauphine for any one else would discredit her with
+Maintenon, and that her mistress's liberality to others would diminish
+that which she hoped to experience herself.  I told this person the truth
+once, as she deserved to be told, in the presence of the Dauphine; from
+which period she has neither done nor said anything troublesome to me.
+I told the Dauphine in plain German that it was a shame that she should
+submit to be governed by Bessola to such a degree that she could not
+speak to whom she chose.  I said this was not friendship, but a slavery,
+which was the derision of the Court.
+
+Instead of being vexed at this, she laughed, and said, "Has not everybody
+some weakness?  Bessola is mine."
+
+This wench often put me in an ill-humour: at last I lost all patience,
+and could no longer restrain myself.  I would often have told her what I
+thought, but that I saw it would really distress the poor Dauphine: I
+therefore restrained myself, and said to her, "Out of complaisance to
+you, I will be silent; but give such orders that Bessola may not again
+rouse me, otherwise I cannot promise but that I may say something she
+will not like."
+
+The Dauphine thanked me affectionately, and thus more than ever engaged
+my silence.
+
+When the Dauphine arrived from Bavaria, the fine Court of France was on
+the decline: it was at the commencement of Maintenon's reign, which
+spoilt and degraded everything.  It was not, therefore, surprising that
+the poor Dauphine should regret her own country.  Maintenon annoyed her
+immediately after her marriage in such a manner as must have excited
+pity.  The Dauphine had made her own marriage; she had hoped to be
+uncontrolled, and to become her own mistress; but she was placed in that
+Maintenon's hands, who wanted to govern her like a child of seven years
+old, although she was nineteen.  That old Maintenon, piqued at the
+Dauphine for wishing to hold a Court, as she should have done, turned the
+King against her.  Bessola finished this work by betraying and selling
+her; and thus was the Dauphine's misery accomplished!  By selecting me
+for her friend, she filled up the cup of Maintenon's hatred, who was
+paying Bessola; because she knew she was jealous of me, and that I had
+advised the Dauphine not to keep her, for I was quite aware that she had
+secret interviews with Maintenon.
+
+That lady had also another creature in the Dauphine's household: this was
+Madame de Montchevreuil, the gouvernante of the Dauphine's filles
+d'honneur.  Madame de Maintenon had engaged her to place the Dauphin upon
+good terms with the filles d'honneur, and she finished by estranging him
+altogether from his wife.  During her pregnancy, which, as well as her
+lying-in, was extremely painful, the Dauphine could not go out; and this
+Montchevreuil took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded her to
+introduce the filles d'honneur to the Dauphin to hunt and game with him.
+He became fond, in his way, of the sister of La Force, who was afterwards
+compelled to marry young Du Roure.  The attachment continued,
+notwithstanding this marriage; and she procured the Dauphin's written
+promise to marry her in case of the death of the Dauphine and her
+husband.  I do not know how the late King became acquainted with this
+fact; but it is certain that he was seriously angered at it, and that he
+banished Du Roure to Gascony, his native country.  The Dauphin had an
+affair of gallantry with another of his wife's filles d'honneur called
+Rambures.  He did not affect any dissimulation with his wife; a great
+uproar ensued; and that wicked Bessola, following the directions of old
+Maintenon, who planned everything, detached the Dauphin from his wife
+more and more.  The latter was not very fond of him; but what displeased
+her in his amours was that they exposed her to be openly and constantly
+ridiculed and insulted.  Montchevreuil made her pay attention to all that
+passed, and Bessola kept up her anger against her husband.
+
+Maintenon had caused it to be reported among the people by her agents
+that the Dauphine hated France, and that she urged the imposition of new
+taxes.
+
+The Dauphine was so ill-treated in her accouchement of the Duc de Berri
+that she became quite deformed, although previous to this her figure had
+been remarkably good.  On the evening before she died, as the little Duke
+was sitting on her bed, she said to him, "My dear Berri, I love you very
+much, but I have paid dearly for you."  The Dauphin was not grieved at
+her death; old Montchevreuil had told him so many lies of his wife that
+he could not love her.  That old Maintenon hoped, when this event
+happened, that she should be able to govern the Duke by means of his
+mistresses, which could not have been if he had continued to be attached
+to his wife.  This old woman had conceived so violent a hatred against
+the poor Princess, that I do believe she prevailed on Clement, the
+accoucheur, to treat her ill in her confinement; and what confirms me in
+this is that she almost killed her by visiting her at that time in
+perfumed gloves.  She said it was I who wore them, which was untrue.
+I would not swear that the Dauphine did not love Bessola better than her
+husband; she deserved no such attachment.  I often apprised her mistress
+of her perfidy, but she would not believe me.
+
+The Dauphine used to say, "We are two unhappy persons, but there is this
+difference between us: you endeavoured, as much as you could, to avoid
+coming here; while I resolved to do so at all events.  I have therefore
+deserved my misery more than you."
+
+They wanted to make her pass for crazy, because she was always
+complaining.  Some hours before her death she said to me, "I shall
+convince them to-day that I was not mad in complaining of my sufferings."
+She died calmly and easily; but she was as much put to death as if she
+had been killed by a pistol-shot.
+
+When her funeral service was performed I carried the taper (nota bene)
+and some pieces of gold to the Bishop who performed the grand mass, and
+who was sitting in an arm-chair near the altar.  The prelate intended to
+have given them to his assistants, the priests of the King's chapel; but
+the monks of Saint Denis ran to him with great eagerness, exclaiming that
+the taper and the gold belonged to them.  They threw themselves upon the
+Bishop, whose chair began to totter, and made his mitre fall from his
+head.  If I had stayed there a moment longer the Bishop, with all the
+monks, would have fallen upon me.  I descended the four steps of the
+altar in great haste, for I was nimble enough at that time, and looked on
+the battle at a distance, which appeared so comical that I could not but
+laugh, and everybody present did the same.
+
+That wicked Bessola, who had tormented the Dauphine day and night, and
+had made her distrust every one who approached her, and thus separated
+her from all the world, returned home a year after her mistress's death.
+Before her departure she played another trick by having a box made with a
+double bottom, in which she concealed jewels and ready money to the
+amount of 100,000 francs; and all this time she went about weeping and
+complaining that, after so many years of faithful service, she was
+dismissed as poor as a beggar.  She did not know that her contrivance had
+been discovered at the Customhouse and that the King had been apprised of
+it.  He ordered her to be sent for, showed her the things which she had
+prepared to carry away, and said he thought she had little reason to
+complain of the Dauphine's parsimony.  It may be imagined how foolish she
+looked.  The King added that, although he might withhold them from her,
+yet to show her that she had done wrong in acting clandestinely, and in
+complaining as she had done, he chose to restore her the whole.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XIII.
+
+ADELAIDE OF SAVOY, THE SECOND DAUPHINE.
+
+The Queen of Spain stayed longer with her mother than our Dauphine, and
+therefore was better educated.  Maintenon, who understood nothing about
+education, permitted her to do whatever she pleased, that she might gain
+her affections and keep her to herself.  This young lady had been well
+brought up by her virtuous mother; she was genteel and humorous, and
+could joke very pleasantly: when she had a colour she did not look ugly.
+No one can imagine what mad-headed people were about this Princess, and
+among the number was the Marechale d'Estrees.  Maintenon was very
+properly recompensed for having given her these companions; for the
+consequence was that the Dauphine no longer liked her society.  Maintenon
+was very desirous to know the reason of this, and teased the Princess to
+tell her.  At length she did; and said that the Marechale d'Estrees was
+continually asking her, "What are you always doing with that old woman?
+Why do you not associate with folks who would amuse you more than that
+old skeleton?"  and that she said many other uncivil things of her.
+Maintenon told me this herself, since the death of the Dauphine, to prove
+that it was only the Marechale's fault that the Dauphine had been on such
+bad terms with me.  This may be partly true; but it is no less certain
+that Maintenon had strongly prepossessed her against me.  Almost all the
+foolish people who were about her were relations or friends of the old
+woman; and it was by her order that they endeavoured to amuse her and
+employ her, so that she might want no other society.
+
+The young Dauphine was full of pantomime tricks.  * * * * She was fond,
+too, of collecting a quantity of young persons about her for the King's
+amusement, who liked to see their sports; they, however, took care never
+to display any but innocent diversions before him: he did not learn the
+rest until after her death.  The Dauphine used to call old Maintenon her
+aunt, but only in jest; the fines d'honneur called her their gouvernante,
+and the Marechale de La Mothe,  mamma; if the Dauphine had also called
+the old woman her mamma, it would have been regarded as a declaration of
+the King's marriage; for this reason she only called her aunt.
+
+It is not surprising that the Dauphine, even when she was Duchess of
+Burgundy, should have been a coquette.  One of Maintenon's maxims was
+that there was no harm in coquetry, but that a grande passion only was a
+sin.  In the second place, she never took care that the Duchess of
+Burgundy behaved conformably to her rank; she was often left quite alone
+in her chateau with the exception of her people; she was permitted to run
+about arm-in-arm with one of her young ladies, without esquires, or dames
+d'honneur or d'atour.  At Marly and Versailles she was obliged to go to
+chapel on foot and without her stays, and seat herself near the femmes de
+chambre.  At Madame de Maintenon's there was no observance of ranks;
+every one sat down there promiscuously; she did this for the purpose of
+avoiding all discussion respecting her own rank.  At Marly the Dauphine
+used to run about the garden at night with the young people until two or
+three o'clock in the morning.  The King knew nothing of these nocturnal
+sports.  Maintenon had forbidden the Duchesse de Lude to tease the
+Duchess of Burgundy, or to put her out of temper, because then she would
+not be able to divert the King.  Maintenon had threatened, too, with her
+eternal vengeance whoever should be bold enough to complain of the
+Dauphine to the King.  It was for this reason that no one dared tell the
+King what the whole Court and even strangers were perfectly well
+acquainted with.  The Dauphine liked to be dragged along the ground by
+valets, who held her feet.  These servants were in the habit of saying to
+each other, "Come, shall we go and play with the Duchess of Burgundy?"
+for so she was at this time.  She was dreadfully nasty,
+
+                    .............................
+
+She made the Dauphin believe whatever she chose, and he was so fond of
+her that one of her glances would throw him into an ecstacy and make him
+forget everything.  When the King intended to scold her she would put on
+an air of such deep dejection that he was obliged to console her instead;
+the aunt, too, used to affect similar sorrow, so that the King had enough
+to do with consoling them both.  Then, for quietness' sake, he used to
+lean upon the old aunt, and think nothing more about the matter.
+
+The Dauphine never cared for the Duc de Richelieu, although he boasted of
+the contrary, and was sent to the Bastille for it.  She was a coquette,
+and chatted with all the young men; but if she loved any of them it was
+Nangis, who commanded the King's regiment.  She had commanded him to
+pretend to be in love with little La Vrilliere, who, though not so pretty
+nor with so good a presence as the Dauphine, had a better figure and was
+a great coquette.  This badinage, it is said, afterwards became reality.
+The good Dauphin was like the husbands of all frail wives, the last to
+perceive it.  The Duke of Burgundy never imagined that his wife thought
+of Nangis, although it was visible to all the world besides that she did.
+As he was very much attached to Nangis, he believed firmly that his wife
+only behaved civilly to him on his account; and he was besides convinced
+that his favourite had at the same time an affair of gallantry with
+Madame la Vrilliere.
+
+The Dauphin had good sense, but he suffered his wife to govern him; he
+loved only such persons as she loved, and he hated all who were
+disagreeable to her.  It was for this reason that Nangia enjoyed so much
+of his favour, that he, with all his sense, became so perfectly
+ridiculous.
+
+The Dauphine of Burgundy was the person whom the King loved above all
+others, and whom Maintenon had taught to do whatever was agreeable to
+him.  Her natural wit made her soon learn and practise everything.  The
+King was inconsolable for her death; and when La Maintenon saw that all
+she could say had no effect upon his grief, it is said that she told the
+King all that she had before concealed with respect to the Dauphine's
+life, and by this means dissipated his great affliction.
+
+     [This young lady, so fascinating and so dear to the King, betrayed,
+     nevertheless, the secrets of the State by informing her father, then
+     Duke of Savoy, and our enemy, of all the military projects which she
+     found means to read.  The King had the proofs of this by the letters
+     which were found in the Princess's writing case after her death.
+     "That little slut," said he to Madame Maintenon, "has deceived us."
+     Memoires de Duclos, tome i.]
+
+Three years before her death, however, the Dauphine changed greatly for
+the better; she played no more foolish tricks, and left off drinking to
+excess.  Instead of that untameable manner which she had before, she
+became polite and sensible, kept up her dignity, and did not permit the
+younger ladies to be too familiar with her, by dipping their fingers into
+her dish, rolling upon the bed, and other similar elegancies.  She used
+to converse with people, and could talk very well.  It was the marriage
+of Madame de Berri that effected this surprising change in the Dauphine.
+Seeing that young lady did not make herself beloved, and began things in
+the wrong way, she was desirous to make herself more liked and esteemed
+than she was.  She therefore changed her behaviour entirely; she became
+reserved and reasonable, and, having sense enough to discover her
+defects, she set about correcting them, in which she succeeded so as to
+excite general surprise.  Thus she continued until her death, and often
+expressed regret that she had led so irregular a life.  She used to
+excuse herself by saying it was mere childishness, and that she had
+little to thank those young ladies for who had given her such bad advice
+and set her such bad examples.  She publicly manifested her contempt for
+them, and prevailed on the King not to invite them to Marly in future.
+By this conduct she gained everybody's affection.
+
+She was delicate and of rather a weak constitution.  Dr. Chirac said in
+her last illness that she would recover; and so she probably would have
+done if they had not permitted her to get up when the measles had broken
+out upon her, and she was in a copious perspiration.  Had they not
+blooded her in the foot she might have been alive now (1716).
+Immediately after the bleeding, her skin, before as red as fire, changed
+to the paleness of death, and she became very ill.  When they were
+lifting her out of bed I told them it was better to let the perspiration
+subside before they blooded her.  Chirac and Fagon, however, were
+obstinate and laughed at me.
+
+Old Maintenon said to me angrily, "Do you think you know better than all
+these medical men?"
+
+"No, Madame," I replied; "and one need not know much to be sure that the
+inclination of nature ought to be followed; and since that has displayed
+itself it would be better to let it have way, than to make a sick person
+get up in the midst of a perspiration to be blooded."
+
+She shrugged up her shoulders ironically.  I went to the other side and
+said nothing.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XIV.
+
+THE FIRST DAUPHIN.
+
+All that was good in the first Dauphin came from his preceptor; all that
+was bad from himself.  He never either loved or hated any one much, and
+yet he was very wicked.  His greatest pleasure was to do something to vex
+a person; and immediately afterwards, if he could do something very
+pleasing to the same person, he would set about it with great
+willingness.  In every respect he was of the strangest temper possible:
+when one thought he was good-humoured, he was angry; and when one
+supposed him to be ill-humoured, he was in an amiable mood.  No one could
+ever guess him rightly, and I do not believe that his like ever was or
+ever will be born.  It cannot be said that he had much wit; but still
+less was he a fool.  Nobody was ever more prompt to seize the ridiculous
+points of anything in himself or in others; he told stories agreeably;
+he was a keen observer, and dreaded nothing so much as to be one day
+King: not so much from affection for his father, as from a dread of the
+trouble of reigning, for he was so extremely idle that he neglected all
+things; and he would have preferred his ease to all the kingdoms and
+empires of the earth.  He could remain for a whole day, sitting on a sofa
+or in an arm-chair, beating his cane against his shoes, without saying a
+word; he never gave an opinion upon any subject; but when once, in the
+course of the year, he did speak, he could express himself in terms
+sufficiently noble.  Sometimes when he spoke one would say he was
+stupidity itself; at another time he would deliver himself with
+astonishing sense.  At one time you would think he was the best Prince in
+the world; at another he would do all he could to give people pain.
+Nobody seemed to be so ill with him but he would take the trouble of
+making them laugh at the expense of those most dear to him.  His maxim
+was, never to seem to like one man in the Court better than another.
+He had a perfect horror of favourites, and yet he sought favour himself
+as much as the commonest courtier could do.  He did not pride himself
+upon his politeness, and was enraged when any one penetrated his
+intentions.  As I had known him from his infancy I could sometimes guess
+his meaning, which angered him excessively.  He was not very fond of
+being treated respectfully; he liked better not to be put to any trouble.
+He was rather partial than just, as may be shown by the regulations he
+made as to the rank of my son's daughter.  He never liked or hated any
+Minister.  He laughed often and heartily.  He was a very obedient son,
+and never opposed the King's will in any way, and was more submissive to
+Maintenon than any other person.  Those who say that he would have
+retired, if the King had declared his marriage with that old woman, did
+not know him; had he not an old mistress of his own, to whom he was
+believed to be privately married?  What prevented Maintenon from being
+declared Queen was the wise reasons which the Archbishop of Cambray, M.
+de Fenelon, urged to the King, and for which she persecuted that worthy
+man to the day of his death.
+
+If the Dauphin had chosen, he might have enjoyed greater credit with his
+father.  The King had offered him permission to go to the Royal Treasury
+to bestow what favours he chose upon the persons of his own Court; and at
+the Treasury orders were given that he should have whatever he asked for.
+The Dauphin replied that it would give him so much trouble.  He would
+never know anything about State affairs lest he should be obliged to
+attend the Privy Councils, and have no more time to hunt.  Some persons
+thought he did this from motives of policy and to make the King believe
+he had no ambition; but I am persuaded it was from nothing but indolence
+and laziness; he loved to live a slothful life, and to interfere with
+nothing.
+
+At the King of Spain's departure our King wept a good deal; the Dauphin
+also wept much, although he had never before manifested the least
+affection for his children.  They were never seen in his apartment
+morning and evening.  When he was not at the chase the Dauphin passed his
+time with the great Princesse de Conti, and latterly with the Duchess.
+One must have guessed that the children belonged to him, for he lived
+like a stranger among them.  He never called them his sons, but the Duke
+of Burgundy, the Duc d'Anjou, the Duc de Berri; and they, in turn, always
+called him Monseigneur.
+
+I lived upon a very good understanding with him for more than twenty
+years, and he had great confidence in me until the Duchess got possession
+of him; then everything with regard to me was changed: and as, after my
+husband's death, I never went to the chase with the Dauphin, I had no
+further relation with him, and he behaved as if he had never seen or
+known me.  If he had been wise he would have preferred the society of the
+Princesse de Conti to that of the Duchess, because the first, having a
+good heart, loved him for himself; while the other loved nothing in the
+world, and listened to nothing but her taste for pleasure, her interest,
+and her ambition.  So that, provided she attained her ends, she cared
+little for the Dauphin, who by his condescension for this Princess gave a
+great proof of weakness.
+
+In general, his heart was not correct enough to discern what real
+friendship was; he loved only those who afforded him amusement, and
+despised all others.  The Duchess was very agreeable and had some
+pleasant notions; she was fond of eating, which was the very thing for
+the Dauphin, because he found a good breakfast at her house every morning
+and a collation in the afternoon.  The Duchess's daughters were of the
+same character as their mother; so that the Dauphin might be all the day
+in the company of gay people.
+
+He was strongly attached to his son's wife; but when she quarrelled with
+the Duchess her father-in-law changed his opinion of her.  What
+displeased him besides was that the Duchess of Burgundy married his
+younger son, the Duc de Berri, against his inclination.  He was not wrong
+in that, because, although the marriage was to our advantage, I must
+confess that the Dauphin was not even treated with decency in the
+business.
+
+Neither of the two Dauphins or the Dauphines ever interested themselves
+much about their children.  The King had them educated without consulting
+them, appointed all their servants, and was even displeased if they
+interfered with them in any way.  The Dauphin knows nothing of good
+breeding; he and his sons are perfect clowns.
+
+The women of La Halle had a real passion for the first Dauphin; they had
+been made to believe that he would take the part of the people of Paris,
+in which there was not a word of truth.  The people believed that he was
+better hearted than he was.  He would not, in fact, have been wicked if
+the Marechal d'Uxelles, La Chouin and Montespan, with whom he was in his
+youth, as well as the Duchess, had not spoiled him, and made him believe
+that malice was a proof of wit.
+
+He did not grieve more than a quarter of an hour at the death of his
+mother or of his wife; and when he wrapped himself up in his long
+mourning cloak he was ready to choke with laughter.
+
+He had followed his father's example in taking an ugly, nasty mistress,
+who had been fille d'honneur to the elder Princess de Conti: her name is
+Mademoiselle de Chouin, and she is still living at Paris (1719).  It was
+generally believed that he had married her clandestinely; but I would lay
+a wager he never did.  She had the figure of a duenna; was of very small
+stature; had very short legs; large rolling eyes; a round face; a short
+turned-up nose; a large mouth filled with decayed teeth, which made her
+breath so bad that the room in which she sat could hardly be endured.
+
+                    .........................
+
+And yet this short, fat woman had a great deal of wit; and I believe the
+Dauphin accustomed himself to take snuff that he might not be annoyed by
+her bad teeth.  He was very civil to the Marechal d'Uxelles, because he
+pretended to be the intimate with this lady; but as soon as the Dauphin
+was caught, the Marechal ceased to see her, and never once set foot in
+her house, although before that he had been in the habit of visiting her
+daily.
+
+The Dauphin had a daughter by Raisin the actress, but he would never
+acknowledge her, and after his death the Princess Conti took care of her,
+and married her to a gentleman of Vaugourg.  The Dauphin was so tired of
+the Duc du Maine that he had sworn never to acknowledge any of his
+illegitimate children.  This Raisin must have had very peculiar charms to
+make an impression upon a heart so thick as that of the Dauphin, who
+really loved her.  One day he sent for her to Choisy, and hid her in a
+mill without anything to eat or drink; for it was a fast day, and the
+Dauphin thought there was no greater sin than to eat meat on a fast day.
+After the Court had departed, all that he gave her for supper was some
+salad and toast with oil.  Raisin laughed at this very much herself, and
+told several persons of it.  When I heard of it I asked the Dauphin what
+he meant by making his mistress fast in this manner.
+
+"I had a mind," he said, "to commit one sin, but not two."
+
+I cannot bear that any one should touch me behind; it makes me so angry
+that I do not know what I do.  I was very near giving the Dauphin a blow
+one day, for he had a wicked trick of coming behind one for a joke, and
+putting his fist in the chair just where one was going to sit down.  I
+begged him, for God's sake, to leave off this habit, which was so
+disagreeable to me that I would not answer for not one day giving him a
+sound blow, without thinking of what I was doing.  From that time he left
+me alone.
+
+The Dauphin was very much like the Queen; he was not tall, but good-
+looking enough.  Our King was accustomed to say: "Monseigneur (for so he
+always called him) has the look of a German prince."  He had, indeed,
+something of a German air; but it was only the air; for he had nothing
+German besides.  He did not dance well.  The Queen-Dowager of Spain
+flattered herself with the hope of marrying him.
+
+He thought he should recommend himself to the King by not appearing to
+care what became of his brothers.
+
+When the Dauphin was lying sick of the small-pox, I went on the Wednesday
+to the King.
+
+He said to me, sarcastically, "You have been frightening us with the
+great pain which Monseigneur would have to endure when the suppuration
+commences; but I can tell you that he will not suffer at all, for the
+pustules have already begun to dry."
+
+I was alarmed at this, and said, "So much the worse; if he is not in pain
+his state is the more dangerous, and he soon will be."
+
+"What!" said the King, "do you know better than the doctors?"
+
+"I know," I replied, "what the small-pox is by my own experience, which
+is better than all the doctors; but I hope from my heart that I may be
+mistaken."
+
+On the same night, soon after midnight, the Dauphin died.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XV.
+
+THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY, THE SECOND DAUPHIN.
+
+He was quite humpbacked.  I think this proceeded from his having been
+made to carry a bar of iron for the purpose of keeping himself upright,
+but the weight and inconvenience of which had had a contrary effect.
+I often said to the Duke de Beauvilliers he had very good parts, and was
+sincerely pious, but so weak as to let his wife rule him like a child.
+In spite of his good sense, she made him believe whatever she chose.
+She lived upon very good terms with him, but was not outrageously fond,
+and did not love him better than many other persons; for the good
+gentleman had a very disagreeable person, and his face was not the most
+beautiful.  I believe, however, she was touched with his great affection
+for her; and indeed it would be impossible for a man to entertain a more
+fervent passion than he did for his wife.  Her wit was agreeable, and she
+could be very pleasant when she chose: her gaiety dissipated the
+melancholy which sometimes seized upon the devout Dauphin.  Like almost
+all humpbacked men, he had a great passion for women; but at the same
+time was so pious that he feared he committed a grievous sin in looking
+at any other than his own wife; and he was truly in love with her.
+I saw him once, when a lady had told him that he had good eyes, squint
+immediately that he might appear ugly.  This was really an unnecessary
+trouble; for the good man was already sufficiently plain, having a very
+ill-looking mouth, a sickly appearance, small stature, and a hump at his
+back.
+
+He had many good qualities: he was charitable, and had assisted several
+officers unknown to any one.  He certainly died of grief for the loss of
+his wife, as he had predicted.  A learned astrologer of Turin, having
+cast the nativity of the Dauphine, told her that she would die in her
+twenty-seventh year.
+
+She often spoke of it, and said one day to her husband, "The time is
+approaching when I shall die; you cannot remain without a wife as well on
+account of your rank as your piety; tell me, then, I beg of you, whom you
+will marry?"
+
+"I hope," he replied, "that God will not inflict so severe a punishment
+on me as to deprive me of you; but if this calamity should befall me, I
+shall not marry again, for I shall follow you to the grave in a week."
+
+This happened exactly as he said it would; for, on the seventh day after
+his wife's death, he died also.  This is not a fiction, but perfectly
+true.
+
+While the Dauphine was in good health and spirits she often said, "I must
+enjoy myself now.  I shall not be able to do so long, for I shall die
+this year."
+
+I thought it was only a joke, but it turned out to be too true.  When she
+fell sick she said she should never recover.
+
+
+
+
+SECTION XVI.
+
+PETITE MADAME.
+
+A cautery which had been improperly made in the nape of the neck had
+drawn her mouth all on one side, so that it was almost entirely in her
+left cheek.  For this reason talking was very painful to her, and she
+said very little.  It was necessary to be accustomed to her way of
+speaking to understand her.  Just when she was about to die her mouth
+resumed its proper place, and she did not seem at all ugly.  I was
+present at her death.  She did not say a word to her father, although a
+convulsion had restored her mouth.  The King, who had a good heart and
+was very fond of his children, wept excessively and made me weep also.
+The Queen was not present, for, being pregnant, they would not let her
+come.
+
+It is totally false that the Queen was delivered of a black child.  The
+late Monsieur, who was present, said that the young Princess was ugly,
+but not black. The people cannot be persuaded that the child is not still
+alive, and say that it is in a convent at Moret, near Fontainebleau.  It
+is, however, quite certain that the ugly child is dead, for all the Court
+saw it die.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Always has a fictitious malady in reserve
+I had a mind, he said, to commit one sin, but not two
+I wished the husband not to be informed of it
+Old Maintenon
+Provided they are talked of, they are satisfied
+That what he called love was mere debauchery
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Memoirs of Louis XIV. and Regency,
+v2, by Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
+
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