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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XIV., Volume 5
+by Duc de Saint-Simon
+
+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., Volume 5
+       And His Court and of The Regency
+
+Author: Duc de Saint-Simon
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2004 [EBook #3864]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV., ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+          MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCY
+
+                        BY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME 5.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+Two very different persons died towards the latter part of this year.
+The first was Lamoignon, Chief President; the second, Ninon, known by the
+name of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos.  Of Lamoignon I will relate a single
+anecdote, curious and instructive, which will show the corruption of
+which he was capable.
+
+One day--I am speaking of a time many years previous to the date of the
+occurrences just related--one day there was a great hunting party at
+Saint Germain.  The chase was pursued so long, that the King gave up,
+and returned to Saint Germain.  A number of courtiers, among whom was
+M. de Lauzun, who related this story to me, continued their sport; and
+just as darkness was coming on, discovered that they had lost their way.
+After a time, they espied a light, by which they guided their steps, and
+at length reached the door of a kind of castle.  They knocked, they
+called aloud, they named themselves, and asked for hospitality.  It was
+then between ten and eleven at night, and towards the end of autumn.
+The door was opened to them.  The master of the house came forth.
+He made them take their boots off, and warm themselves; he put their
+horses into his stables; and at the same time had a supper prepared for
+his guests, who stood much in need of it.  They did not wait long for the
+meal; yet when served it proved excellent; the wines served with it, too,
+were of several kinds, and excellent likewise: as for the master of the
+house, he was so polite and respectful, yet without being ceremonious or
+eager, that it was evident he had frequented the best company.  The
+courtiers soon learnt that his name vitas Fargues, that the place was
+called Courson, and that he had lived there in retirement several years.
+After having supped, Fargues showed each of them into a separate bedroom,
+where they were waited upon by his valets with every proper attention.
+In the morning, as soon as the courtiers had dressed themselves, they
+found an excellent breakfast awaiting them; and upon leaving the table
+they saw their horses ready for them, and as thoroughly attended to as
+they had been themselves.  Charmed with the politeness and with the
+manners of Fargues, and touched by his hospitable reception of them, they
+made him many offers of service, and made their way back to Saint
+Germain.  Their non-appearance on the previous night had been the common
+talk, their return and the adventure they had met with was no less so.
+
+These gentlemen were then the very flower of the Court, and all of them
+very intimate with the King.  They related to him, therefore, their
+story, the manner of their reception, and highly praised the master of
+the house and his good cheer.  The King asked his name, and, as soon as
+he heard it, exclaimed, "What, Fargues!  is he so near here, then?"
+The courtiers redoubled their praises, and the King said no more; but
+soon after, went to the Queen-mother, and told her what had happened.
+
+Fargues, indeed, was no stranger, either to her or to the King.  He had
+taken a prominent part in the movements of Paris against the Court and
+Cardinal Mazarin.  If he had not been hanged, it was because he was well
+supported by his party, who had him included in the amnesty granted to
+those who had been engaged in these troubles.  Fearing, however, that the
+hatred of his enemies might place his life in danger if he remained in
+Paris, he retired from the capital to this country-house which has just
+been mentioned, where he continued to live in strict privacy, even when
+the death of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to render such seclusion no longer
+necessary.
+
+The King and the Queen-mother, who had pardoned Fargues in spite of
+themselves, were much annoyed at finding that he was living in opulence
+and tranquillity so near the Court; thought him extremely bold to do so;
+and determined to punish him for this and for his former insolence.  They
+directed Lamoignon, therefore, to find out something in the past life of
+Fargues for which punishment might be awarded; and Lamoignon, eager to
+please, and make a profit out of his eagerness, was not long in
+satisfying them.  He made researches, and found means to implicate
+Fargues in a murder that had been committed in Paris at the height of the
+troubles.  Officers were accordingly sent to Courson, and its owner was
+arrested.
+
+Fargues was much astonished when he learnt of what he was accused.  He
+exculpated himself, nevertheless, completely; alleging, moreover, that as
+the murder of which he was accused had been committed during the
+troubles, the amnesty in which he was included effaced all memory of the
+deed, according to law and usage, which had never been contested until
+this occasion.  The courtiers who had been so well treated by the unhappy
+man, did everything they could with the judges and the King to obtain the
+release of the accused.  It was all in vain.  Fargues was decapitated at
+once, and all his wealth was given by way of recompense to the Chief-
+President Lamoignon, who had no scruple thus to enrich himself with the
+blood of the innocent.
+
+The other person who died at the same time was, as I have said, Ninon,
+the famous courtesan, known, since age had compelled her to quit that
+trade, as Mademoiselle de l'Enclos.  She was a new example of the triumph
+of vice carried on cleverly and repaired by some virtue.  The stir that
+she made, and still more the disorder that she caused among the highest
+and most brilliant youth, overcame the extreme indulgence that, not
+without cause, the Queen-mother entertained for persons whose conduct was
+gallant, and more than gallant, and made her send her an order to retire
+into a convent.  But Ninon, observing that no especial convent was named,
+said, with a great courtesy, to the officer who brought the order, that,
+as the option was left to her, she would choose "the convent of the
+Cordeliers at Paris;" which impudent joke so diverted the Queen that she
+left her alone for the future.  Ninon never had but one lover at a time--
+but her admirers were numberless--so that when wearied of one incumbent
+she told him so frankly, and took another: The abandoned one might groan
+and complain; her decree was without appeal; and this creature had
+acquired such an influence, that the deserted lovers never dared to take
+revenge on the favoured one, and were too happy to remain on the footing
+of friend of the house.  She sometimes kept faithful to one, when he
+pleased her very much, during an entire campaign.
+
+Ninon had illustrious friends of all sorts, and had so much wit that she
+preserved them all and kept them on good terms with each other; or, at
+least, no quarrels ever came to light.  There was an external respect and
+decency about everything that passed in her house, such as princesses of
+the highest rank have rarely been able to preserve in their intrigues.
+
+In this way she had among her friends a selection of the best members of
+the Court; so that it became the fashion to be received by her, and it
+was useful to be so, on account of the connections that were thus formed.
+
+There was never any gambling there, nor loud laughing, nor disputes, nor
+talk about religion or politics; but much and elegant wit, ancient and
+modern stories, news of gallantries, yet without scandal.  All was
+delicate, light, measured; and she herself maintained the conversation by
+her wit and her great knowledge of facts.  The respect which, strange to
+say, she had acquired, and the number and distinction of her friends and
+acquaintances, continued when her charms ceased to attract; and when
+propriety and fashion compelled her to use only intellectual baits.  She
+knew all the intrigues of the old and the new Court, serious and
+otherwise; her conversation was charming; she was disinterested,
+faithful, secret, safe to the last degree; and, setting aside her
+frailty, virtuous and full of probity.  She frequently succoured her
+friends with money and influence; constantly did them the most important
+services, and very faithfully kept the secrets or the money deposits that
+were confided to her.
+
+She had been intimate with Madame de Maintenon during the whole of her
+residence at Paris; but Madame de Maintenon, although not daring to
+disavow this friendship, did not like to hear her spoken about.
+
+She wrote to Ninon with amity from time to time, even until her death;
+and Ninon in like manner, when she wanted to serve any friend in whom she
+took great interest, wrote to Madame de Maintenon, who did her what
+service she required efficaciously and with promptness.
+
+But since Madame de Maintenon came to power, they had only seen each
+other two or three times, and then in secret.
+
+Ninon was remarkable for her repartees.  One that she made to the last
+Marechal de Choiseul is worth repeating.  The Marechal was virtue itself,
+but not fond of company or blessed with much wit.  One day, after a long
+visit he had paid her, Ninon gaped, looked at the Marechal, and cried:
+
+"Oh, my lord! how many virtues you make me detest!"
+
+A line from I know not what play.  The laughter at this may be imagined.
+L'Enclos lived, long beyond her eightieth year, always healthy, visited,
+respected.  She gave her last years to God, and her death was the news of
+the day.  The singularity of this personage has made me extend my
+observations upon her.
+
+A short time after the death of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, a terrible
+adventure happened to Courtenvaux, eldest son of M. de Louvois.
+Courtenvaux was commander of the Cent-Suisses, fond of obscure debauches;
+with a ridiculous voice, miserly, quarrelsome, though modest and
+respectful; and in fine a very stupid fellow.  The King, more eager to
+know all that was passing than most people believed, although they gave
+him credit for not a little curiosity in this respect, had authorised
+Bontems to engage a number of Swiss in addition to those posted at the
+doors, and in the parks and gardens.  These attendants had orders to
+stroll morning, noon, and night, along the corridors, the passages, the
+staircases, even into the private places, and, when it was fine, in the
+court-yards and gardens; and in secret to watch people, to follow them,
+to notice where they went, to notice who was there, to listen to all the
+conversation they could hear, and to make reports of their discoveries.
+This was assiduously done at Versailles, at Marly, at Trianon, at
+Fontainebleau, and in all the places where the King was.  These new
+attendants vexed Courtenvaux considerably, for over such new-comers he
+had no sort of authority.  This season, at Fontainebleau, a room, which
+had formerly been occupied by a party of the Cent-Suisses and of the
+body-guard, was given up entirely to the new corps.  The room was in a
+public passage of communication indispensable to all in the chateau, and
+in consequence, excellently well adapted for watching those who passed
+through it.  Courtenvaux, more than ever vexed by this new arrangement,
+regarded it as a fresh encroachment upon his authority, and flew into a
+violent rage with the new-comers, and railed at them in good set terms.
+They allowed him to fume as he would; they had their orders, and were too
+wise to be disturbed by his rage.  The King, who heard of all this, sent
+at once for Courtenvaux.  As soon as he appeared in the cabinet, the King
+called to him from the other end of the room, without giving him time to
+approach, and in a rage so terrible, and for him so novel, that not only
+Courtenvaux, but Princes, Princesses, and everybody in the chamber,
+trembled.  Menaces that his post should be taken away from him, terms the
+most severe and the most unusual, rained upon Courtenvaux, who, fainting
+with fright, and ready to sink under the ground, had neither the time nor
+the means to prefer a word.  The reprimand finished by the King saying,
+"Get out."  He had scarcely the strength to obey.
+
+The cause of this strange scene was that Courtenvaux, by the fuss he had
+made, had drawn the attention of the whole Court to the change effected
+by the King, and that, when once seen, its object was clear to all eyes.
+The King, who hid his spy system with the greatest care, had counted upon
+this change passing unperceived, and was beside himself with anger when
+he found it made apparent to everybody by Courtenvaux's noise.  He never
+regained the King's favour during the rest of his life; and but for his
+family he would certainly have been driven away, and his office taken
+from him.
+
+Let me speak now of something of more moment.
+
+The war, as I have said, still continued, but without bringing us any
+advantages.  On the contrary, our losses in Germany and Italy by
+sickness, rather than by the sword, were so great that it was resolved to
+augment each company by five men; and, at the same time, twenty-five
+thousand militia were raised, thus causing great ruin and great
+desolation in the provinces.  The King was rocked into the belief that
+the people were all anxious to enter this militia, and, from time to
+time, at Marly, specimens of those enlisted were shown to him, and their
+joy and eagerness to serve made much of.  I have heard this often; while,
+at the same time, I knew from my own tenantry, and from everything that
+was said, that the raising of this militia carried despair everywhere,
+and that many people mutilated themselves in order to exempt themselves
+from serving.  Nobody at the Court was ignorant of this.  People lowered
+their eyes when they saw the deceit practised upon the King, and the
+credulity he displayed, and afterwards whispered one to another what they
+thought of flattery so ruinous.  Fresh regiments, too, were raised at
+this time, and a crowd of new colonels and staffs created, instead of
+giving a new battalion or a squadron additional to regiments already in
+existence.  I saw quite plainly towards what rock we were drifting.  We
+had met losses at Hochstedt, Gibraltar, and Barcelona; Catalonia and the
+neighbouring countries were in revolt; Italy yielding us nothing but
+miserable successes; Spain exhausted; France, failing in men and money,
+and with incapable generals, protected by the Court against their faults.
+I saw all these things so plainly that I could not avoid making
+reflections, or reporting them to my friends in office.  I thought that
+it was time to finish the war before we sank still lower, and that it
+might be finished by giving to the Archduke what we could not defend, and
+making a division of the rest.  My plan was to leave Philip V.
+possession of all Italy, except those parts which belonged to the Grand
+Duke, the republics of Venice and Genoa, and the ecclesiastical states of
+Naples and Sicily; our King to have Lorraine and some other slight
+additions of territory; and to place elsewhere the Dukes of Savoy, of
+Lorraine, of Parma, and of Modem.  I related this plan to the Chancellor
+and to Chamillart, amongst others.  The contrast between their replies
+was striking.  The Chancellor, after having listened to me very
+attentively, said, if my plan were adopted, he would most willingly kiss
+my toe for joy.  Chamillart, with gravity replied, that the King would
+not give up a single mill of all the Spanish succession.  Then I felt the
+blindness which had fallen upon us, and how much the results of it were
+to be dreaded.
+
+Nevertheless, the King, as if to mock at misfortune and to show his
+enemies the little uneasiness he felt, determined, at the commencement of
+the new year, 1706, that the Court should be gayer than ever.  He
+announced that there would be balls at Marly every time he was there this
+winter, and he named those who were to dance there; and said he should be
+very glad to see balls given to Madame de Bourgogne at Versailles.
+Accordingly, many took place there, and also at Marly, and from time to
+time there were masquerades.  One day, the King wished that everybody,
+even the most aged, who were at Marly, should go to the ball masked; and,
+to avoid all distinction, he went there himself with a gauze robe above
+his habit; but such a slight disguise was for himself alone; everybody
+else was completely disguised.  M. and Madame de Beauvilliers were there
+perfectly disguised.  When I say they were there, those who knew the
+Court will admit that I have said more than enough.  I had the pleasure
+of seeing them, and of quietly laughing with them.  At all these balls
+the King made people dance who had long since passed the age for doing
+so.  As for the Comte de Brionne and the Chevalier de Sully, their
+dancing was so perfect that there was no age for them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+In the midst of all this gaiety, that is to say on the 12th of February,
+1706, one of our generals, of whom I have often spoken, I mean M. de
+Vendome, arrived at Marly.  He had not quitted Italy since succeeding to
+Marechal de Villeroy, after the affair of Cremona.  His battles, such as
+they were, the places he had taken, the authority he had assumed, the
+reputation he had usurped, his incomprehensible successes with the King,
+the certainty of the support he leaned on,--all this inspired him with
+the desire to come and enjoy at Court a situation so brilliant, and which
+so far surpassed what he had a right to expect.  But before speaking of
+the reception which was given him, and of the incredible ascendancy he
+took, let me paint him from the life a little more completely than I have
+yet done.
+
+Vendome was of ordinary height, rather stout, but vigorous and active:
+with a very noble countenance and lofty mien.  There was much natural
+grace in his carriage and words; he had a good deal of innate wit, which
+he had not cultivated, and spoke easily, supported by a natural boldness,
+which afterwards turned to the wildest audacity; he knew the world and
+the Court; was above all things an admirable courtier; was polite when
+necessary, but insolent when he dared--familiar with common people--in
+reality, full of the most ravenous pride.  As his rank rose and his
+favour increased, his obstinacy, and pig-headedness increased too, so
+that at last he would listen to no advice whatever, and was inaccessible
+to all, except a small number of familiars and valets.  No one better
+than he knew the subserviency of the French character, or took more
+advantage of it.  Little by little he accustomed his subalterns, and then
+from one to the other all his army, to call him nothing but
+"Monseigneur," and "Your Highness."  In time the gangrene spread, and
+even lieutenant-generals and the most distinguished people did not dare
+to address him in any other manner.
+
+The most wonderful thing to whoever knew the King--so gallant to the
+ladies during a long part of his life, so devout the other, and often
+importunate to make others do as he did--was that the said King had
+always a singular horror of the inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain;
+and yet M. de Vendome, though most odiously stained with that vice--so
+publicly that he treated it as an ordinary gallantry--never found his
+favour diminished on that account.  The Court, Anet, the army, knew of
+these abominations.  Valets and subaltern officers soon found the way to
+promotion.  I have already mentioned how publicly he placed himself in
+the doctor's hands, and how basely the Court acted, imitating the King,
+who would never have pardoned a legitimate prince what he indulged so
+strangely in Vendome.
+
+The idleness of M. de Vendome was equally matter of notoriety.  More than
+once he ran the risk of being taken prisoner from mere indolence.  He
+rarely himself saw anything at the army, trusting to his familiars when
+ready to trust anybody.  The way he employed his day prevented any real
+attention to business.  He was filthy in the extreme, and proud of it.
+Fools called it simplicity.  His bed was always full of dogs and bitches,
+who littered at his side, the pops rolling in the clothes.  He himself
+was under constraint in nothing.  One of his theses was, that everybody
+resembled him, but was not honest enough to confess it as he was.  He
+mentioned this once to the Princesse de Conti--the cleanest person in the
+world, and the most delicate in her cleanliness.
+
+He rose rather late when at the army.  In this situation he wrote his
+letters, and gave his morning orders.  Whoever had business with him,
+general officers and distinguished persons, could speak to him then.  He
+had accustomed the army to this infamy.  At the same time he gobbled his
+breakfast; and whilst he ate, listened, or gave orders, many spectators
+always standing round.... (I must be excused these disgraceful details,
+in order better to make him known)....  On shaving days he used the same
+vessel to lather his chin in.  This, according to him, was a simplicity
+of manner worthy of the ancient Romans, and which condemned the splendour
+and superfluity of the others.  When all was over, he dressed; then
+played high at piquet or hombre; or rode out, if it was absolutely
+necessary.  All was now over for the day.  He supped copiously with his
+familiars: was a great eater, of wonderful gluttony; a connoisseur in no
+dish, liked fish much, but the stale and stinking better than the good.
+The meal prolonged itself in theses and disputes, and above all in praise
+and flattery.
+
+He would never have forgiven the slightest blame from any one.  He wanted
+to pass for the first captain of his age, and spoke with indecent
+contempt of Prince Eugene and all the others.  The faintest contradiction
+would have been a crime.  The soldier and the subaltern adored him for
+his familiarity with them, and the licence he allowed in order to gain
+their hearts; for all which he made up by excessive haughtiness towards
+whoever was elevated by rank or birth.
+
+On one occasion the Duke of Parma sent the bishop of that place to
+negotiate some affair with him; but M. de Vendome took such disgusting
+liberties in his presence, that the ecclesiastic, though without saying a
+word, returned to Parma, and declared to his master that never would he
+undertake such an embassy again.  In his place another envoy was sent,
+the famous Alberoni.  He was the son of a gardener, who became an Abbe in
+order to get on.  He was full of buffoonery; and pleased M. de Parma as
+might a valet who amused him, but he soon showed talent and capacity for
+affairs.  The Duke thought that the night-chair of M. de Vendome required
+no other ambassador than Alberoni, who was accordingly sent to conclude
+what the bishop had left undone.  The Abbe determined to please, and was
+not proud.  M. de Vendome exhibited himself as before; and Alberoni, by
+an infamous act of personal adoration, gained his heart.  He was
+thenceforth much with him, made cheese-soup and other odd messes for him;
+and finally worked his way.  It is true he was cudgelled by some one he
+had offended, for a thousand paces, in sight of the whole army, but this
+did not prevent his advancement.  Vendome liked such an unscrupulous
+flatterer; and yet as we have seen, he was not in want of praise.  The
+extraordinary favour shown him by the King--the credulity with which his
+accounts of victories were received--showed to every one in what
+direction their laudation was to be sent.
+
+Such was the man whom the King and the whole Court hastened to caress and
+flatter from the first moment of his arrival amongst us.  There was a
+terrible hubbub: boys, porters, and valets rallied round his postchaise
+when he reached Marly.  Scarcely had he ascended into his chamber, than
+everybody, princes, bastards and all the rest, ran after him.  The
+ministers followed: so that in a short time nobody was left in the salon
+but the ladies.  M. de Beauvilliers was at Vaucresson.  As for me, I
+remained spectator, and did not go and adore this idol.
+
+In a few minutes Vendome was sent for by the King and Monseigneur.  As
+soon as he could dress himself, surrounded as he was by such a crowd, he
+went to the salon, carried by it rather than environed.  Monseigneur
+stopped the music that was playing, in order to embrace him.  The King
+left the cabinet where he was at work, and came out to meet him,
+embracing him several times.  Chamillart on the morrow gave a fete in his
+honour at L'Etang, which lasted two days.  Following his example,
+Pontchartrain, Torcy, and the most distinguished lords of the Court, did
+the same.  People begged and entreated to give him fetes; people begged
+and entreated to be invited to them.  Never was triumph equal to his;
+each step he took procured him a new one.  It is not too much to say,
+that everybody disappeared before him; Princes of the blood, ministers,
+the grandest seigneurs, all appeared only to show how high he was above
+them; even the King seemed only to remain King to elevate him more.
+
+The people joined in this enthusiasm, both in Versailles and at Paris,
+where he went under pretence of going to the opera.  As he passed along
+the streets crowds collected to cheer him; they billed him at the doors,
+and every seat was taken in advance; people pushed and squeezed
+everywhere, and the price of admission was doubled, as on the nights of
+first performances.  Vendome, who received all these homages with extreme
+ease, was yet internally surprised by a folly so universal.  He feared
+that all this heat would not last out even the short stay he intended to
+make.  To keep himself more in reserve, he asked and obtained permission
+to go to Anet, in the intervals between the journeys to Marly.  All the
+Court, however, followed him there, and the King was pleased rather than
+otherwise, at seeing Versailles half deserted for Anet, actually asking
+some if they had been, others, when they intended to go.
+
+It was evident that every one had resolved to raise M. de Vendome to the
+rank of a hero.  He determined to profit by the resolution.  If they made
+him Mars, why should he not act as such?  He claimed to be appointed
+commander of the Marechals of France, and although the King refused him
+this favour, he accorded him one which was but the stepping-stone to it.
+M. de Vendome went away towards the middle of March to command the army
+in Italy, with a letter signed by the King himself, promising him that if
+a Marechal of France were sent to Italy, that Marechal was to take
+commands from him.  M. de Vendome was content, and determined to obtain
+all he asked on a future day.  The disposition of the armies had been
+arranged just before.  Tesse, for Catalonia and Spain; Berwick, for the
+frontier of Portugal; Marechal Villars, for Alsace; Marsin, for the
+Moselle; Marechal de Villeroy, for Flanders; and M. de Vendome, as I have
+said, for Italy.
+
+Now that I am speaking of the armies, let me give here an account of all
+our military operations this year, so as to complete that subject at
+once.
+
+M. de Vendome commenced his Italian campaign by a victory.  He attacked
+the troops of Prince Eugene upon the heights of Calcinato, drove them
+before him, killed three thousand men, took twenty standards, ten pieces
+of cannon, and eight thousand prisoners.  It was a rout rather than a
+combat.  The enemy was much inferior in force to us, and was without its
+general, Prince Eugene, he not having returned to open the campaign.  He
+came back, however, the day after this engagement, soon re-established
+order among his troops, and M. de Vendome from that time, far from being
+able to recommence the attack, was obliged to keep strictly on the
+defensive while he remained in Italy.  He did not fail to make the most
+of his victory, which, however, to say the truth, led to nothing.
+
+Our armies just now were, it must be admitted, in by no means a good
+condition.  The generals owed their promotion to favour and fantasy.
+The King thought he gave them capacity when he gave them their patents.
+Under M. de Turenne the army had afforded, as in a school, opportunities
+for young officers to learn the art of warfare, and to qualify themselves
+step by step to take command.  They were promoted as they showed signs of
+their capacity, and gave proof of their talent.  Now, however, it was
+very different.  Promotion was granted according to length of service,
+thus rendering all application and diligence unnecessary, except when M.
+de Louvois suggested to the King such officers as he had private reasons
+for being favourable to, and whose actions he could control.  He
+persuaded the King that it was he himself who ought to direct the armies
+from his cabinet.  The King, flattered by this, swallowed the bait, and
+Louvois himself was thus enabled to govern in the name of the King, to
+keep the generals in leading-strings, and to fetter their every movement.
+In consequence of the way in which promotions were made, the greatest
+ignorance prevailed amongst all grades of officers.  None knew scarcely
+anything more than mere routine duties, and sometimes not even so much as
+that.  The luxury which had inundated the army, too, where everybody
+wished to live as delicately as at Paris, hindered the general officers
+from associating with the other officers, and in consequence from knowing
+and appreciating them.  As a matter of course, there were no longer any
+deliberations upon the state of affairs, in which the young might profit
+by the counsels of the old, and the army profit by the discussions of
+all.  The young officers talked only of pay and women; the old, of forage
+and equipages; the generals spent half their time in writing costly
+despatches, often useless, and sending them away by couriers.  The luxury
+of the Court and city had spread into the army, so that delicacies were
+carried there unknown formerly.  Nothing was spoken of but hot dishes in
+the marches and in the detachments; and the repasts that were carried to
+the trenches, during sieges, were not only well served, but ices and
+fruits were partaken of as at a fete, and a profusion of all sorts of
+liqueurs.  Expense ruined the officers, who vied with one another in
+their endeavours to appear magnificent; and the things to be carried, the
+work to be done, quadrupled the number of domestics and grooms, who often
+starved.  For a long time, people had complained of all this; even those
+who were put to the expenses, which ruined them; but none dared to spend
+less.  At last, that is to say, in the spring of the following year, the
+King made severe rules, with the object of bringing about a reform in
+this particular.  There is no country in Europe where there are so many
+fine laws, or where the observance of them is of shorter duration.  It
+often happens, that in the first year all are infringed, and in the
+second, forgotten.  Such was the army at this time, and we soon had
+abundant opportunities to note its incapacity to overcome the enemies
+with whom we had to contend.
+
+The King wished to open this campaign with two battles; one in Italy, the
+other in Flanders.  His desire was to some extent gratified in the former
+case; but in the other he met with a sad and cruel disappointment.  Since
+the departure of Marechal de Villeroy for Flanders, the King had more
+than once pressed him to engage the enemy.  The Marechal, piqued with
+these reiterated orders, which he considered as reflections upon his
+courage, determined to risk anything in order to satisfy the desire of
+the King.  But the King did not wish this.  At the same time that he
+wished for a battle in Flanders, he wished to place Villeroy in a state
+to fight it.  He sent orders, therefore, to Marsin to take eighteen
+battalions and twenty squadrons of his army, to proceed to the Moselle,
+where he would find twenty others, and then to march with the whole into
+Flanders, and join Marechal de Villeroy.  At the same time he prohibited
+the latter from doing anything until this reinforcement reached him.
+Four couriers, one after the other, carried this prohibition to the
+Marechal; but he had determined to give battle without assistance, and he
+did so, with what result will be seen.
+
+On the 24th of May he posted himself between the villages of Taviers and
+Ramillies.  He was superior in force to the Duke of Marlborough, who was
+opposed to him, and this fact gave him confidence.  Yet the position
+which he had taken up was one which was well known to be bad.  The late
+M. de Luxembourg had declared it so, and had avoided it.  M. de Villeroy
+had been a witness of this, but it was his destiny and that of France
+that he should forget it.  Before he took up this position he announced
+that it was his intention to do so to M. d'Orleans.  M. d'Orleans said
+publicly to all who came to listen, that if M. de Villeroy did so he
+would be beaten.  M. d'Orleans proved to be only too good a prophet.
+
+Just as M. de Villeroy had taken up his position and made his
+arrangements, the Elector arrived in hot haste from Brussels.  It was
+too late now to blame what had been done.  There was nothing for it but
+to complete what had been already begun, and await the result.
+
+It was about two hours after midday when the enemy arrived within range,
+and came under our fire from Ramillies.  It forced them to halt until
+their cannon could be brought into play, which was soon done.  The
+cannonade lasted a good hour.  At the end of that time they marched to
+Taviers, where a part of our army was posted, found but little
+resistance, and made themselves masters of that place.  From that moment
+they brought their cavalry to bear.  They perceived that there was a
+marsh which covered our left, but which hindered our two wings from
+joining.  They made good use of the advantage this gave them.  We were
+taken in the rear at more than one point, and Taviers being no longer
+able to assist us, Ramillies itself fell, after a prodigious fire and an
+obstinate resistance.  The Comte de Guiche at the head of the regiment of
+Guards defended it for four hours, and performed prodigies, but in the
+end he was obliged to give way.  All this time our left had been utterly
+useless with its nose in the marsh, no enemy in front of it, and with
+strict orders not to budge from its position.
+
+
+[Illustration: Marlborough At Ramillies--Painted by R. Canton Woodville--418]
+
+
+Our retreat commenced in good order, but soon the night came and threw us
+into confusion.  The defile of Judoigne became so gorged with baggage and
+with the wrecks of the artillery we had been able to save, that
+everything was taken from us there.  Nevertheless, we arrived at Louvain,
+and then not feeling in safety, passed the canal of Wilworde without
+being very closely followed by the enemy.
+
+We lost in this battle four thousand men, and many prisoners of rank, all
+of whom were treated with much politeness by Marlborough.  Brussels was
+one of the first-fruits he gathered of this victory, which had such grave
+and important results.
+
+The King did not learn this disaster until Wednesday, the 26th of May,
+at his waking.  I was at Versailles.  Never was such trouble or such
+consternation.  The worst was, that only the broad fact was known; for
+six days we were without a courier to give us details.  Even the post was
+stopped.  Days seemed like years in the ignorance of everybody as to
+details, and in the inquietude of everybody for relatives and friends.
+The King was forced to ask one and another for news; but nobody could
+tell him any.  Worn out at last by the silence, he determined to despatch
+Chamillart to Flanders to ascertain the real state of affairs.
+Chamillart accordingly left Versailles on Sunday, the 30th of May, to the
+astonishment of all the Court, at seeing a man charged with the war and
+the finance department sent on such an errand.  He astonished no less the
+army when he arrived at Courtrai, where it had stationed itself.  Having
+gained all the information he sought, Chamillart returned to Versailles
+on Friday, the 4th of June, at about eight o'clock in the evening, and at
+once went to the King, who was in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon.
+It was known then that the army, after several hasty marches, finding
+itself at Ghent, the Elector of Bavaria had insisted that it ought at
+least to remain there.  A council of war was held, the Marechal de
+Villeroy, who was quite discouraged by the loss he had sustained, opposed
+the advice of the Elector.  Ghent was abandoned, so was the open country.
+The army was separated and distributed here and there, under the command
+of the general officers.  In this way, with the exception of Namur, Mons,
+and a very few other places, all the Spanish Low Countries were lost, and
+a part of ours, even.  Never was rapidity equal to this.  The enemies
+were as much astonished as we.
+
+However tranquilly the King sustained in appearance this misfortune, he
+felt it to the quick.  He was so affected by what was said of his body-
+guards, that he spoke of them himself with bitterness.  Court warriors
+testified in their favour, but persuaded nobody.  But the King seized
+these testimonies with joy, and sent word to the Guards that he was well
+contended with them.  Others, however, were not so easily satisfied.
+
+This sad reverse and the discontent of the Elector made the King feel at
+last that his favourites must give way to those better able to fill their
+places.  Villeroy, who, since his defeat, had quite lost his head, and
+who, if he had been a general of the Empire, would have lost it in
+reality in another manner, received several strong hints from the King
+that he ought to give up his command.  But he either could not or would
+not understand them, and so tired out the King's patience, at length.
+But he was informed in language which admitted of no misapprehension that
+he must return.  Even then, the King was so kindly disposed towards him,
+that he said the Marechal had begged to be recalled with such obstinacy
+that he could not refuse him.  But M. de Villeroy was absurd enough to
+reject this salve for his honour; which led to his disgrace.  M. de
+Vendome had orders to leave Italy, and succeed to the command in
+Flanders, where the enemies had very promptly taken Ostend and Nieuport.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+Meanwhile, as I have promised to relate, in a continuous narrative, all
+our military operations of this year, let me say what passed in other
+directions.  The siege of Barcelona made no progress.  Our engineers were
+so slow and so ignorant, that they did next to nothing.  They were so
+venal, too, that they aided the enemy rather than us by their movements.
+According to a new rule made by the King, whenever they changed the
+position of their guns, they were entitled to a pecuniary recompense.
+Accordingly, they passed all their time in uselessly changing about from
+place to place, in order to receive the recompense which thus became due
+to them.
+
+Our fleet, too, hearing that a much superior naval force was coming to
+the assistance of the enemy, and being, thanks to Pontchartrain, utterly
+unable to meet it, was obliged to weigh anchor, and sailed away to
+Toulon.  The enemy's fleet arrived, and the besieged at once took new
+courage.  Tesse, who had joined the siege, saw at once that it was
+useless to continue it.  We had for some time depended upon the open sea
+for supplies.  Now that the English fleet had arrived, we could depend
+upon the sea no longer.  The King of Spain saw, at last, that there was
+no help for it but to raise the siege.
+
+It was raised accordingly on the night between the 10th and 11th of May,
+after fourteen days' bombardment.  We abandoned one hundred pieces of
+artillery; one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of powder; thirty
+thousand sacks of flour; twenty thousand sacks of sevade, a kind of oats;
+and a great number of bombs, cannon-balls, and implements.  As Catalonia
+was in revolt, it was felt that retreat could not take place in that
+direction; it was determined, therefore, to retire by the way of the
+French frontier.  For eight days, however, our troops were harassed in
+flank and rear by Miquelets, who followed us from mountain to mountain.
+It was not until the Duc de Noailles, whose father had done some service
+to the chiefs of these Miquelets, had parleyed with them, and made terms
+with them, that our troops were relieved from these cruel wasps.  We
+suffered much loss in our retreat, which, with the siege, cost us full
+four thousand men.  The army stopped at Roussillon, and the King of
+Spain, escorted by two regiments of dragoons, made the best of his way to
+Madrid.  That city was itself in danger from the Portuguese, and, indeed,
+fell into their hands soon after.  The Queen, who, with her children, had
+left it in time to avoid capture, felt matters to be in such extremity,
+that she despatched all the jewels belonging to herself and her husband
+to France.  They were placed in the custody of the King.  Among them was
+that famous pear-shaped pearl called the Peregrine, which, for its
+weight, its form, its size, and its water, is beyond all price and all
+comparison.
+
+The King of Spain effected a junction with the army of Berwick, and both
+set to work to reconquer the places the Portuguese had taken from them.
+In this they were successful.  The Portuguese, much harassed by the
+people of Castille, were forced to abandon all they had gained; and the
+King of Spain was enabled to enter Madrid towards the end of September,
+where he was received with much rejoicing.
+
+In Italy we experienced the most disastrous misfortunes.  M. de Vendome,
+having been called from the command to go into Flanders, M. d'Orleans,
+after some deliberation, was appointed to take his place.  M. d'Orleans
+set out from Paris on the 1st of July, with twenty-eight horses and five
+chaises, to arrive in three days at Lyons, and then to hasten on into
+Italy.  La Feuillade was besieging Turin.  M. d'Orleans went to the
+siege.  He was magnificently received by La Feuillade, and shown all over
+the works.  He found everything defective.  La Feuillade was very young,
+and very inexperienced.  I have already related an adventure of his, that
+of his seizing upon the coffers of his uncle, and so forestalling his
+inheritance.  To recover from the disgrace this occurrence brought upon
+him, he had married a daughter of Chamillart.  Favoured by this minister,
+but coldly looked upon by the King, he had succeeded in obtaining command
+in the army, and had been appointed to conduct this siege.  Inflated by
+the importance of his position, and by the support of Chamillart, he
+would listen to no advice from any one.  M. d'Orleans attempted to bring
+about some changes, and gave orders to that effect, but as soon as he was
+gone, La Feuillade countermanded those orders and had everything his own
+way.  The siege accordingly went on with the same ill-success as before.
+
+M. d'Orleans joined M. de Vendome on the 17th of July, upon the Mincio.
+The pretended hero had just made some irreparable faults.  He had allowed
+Prince Eugene to pass the Po, nearly in front of him, and nobody knew
+what had become of twelve of our battalions posted near the place where
+this passage had been made.  Prince Eugene had taken all the boats that
+we had upon the river.  We could not cross it, therefore, and follow the
+enemy without making a bridge.  Vendome feared lest his faults should be
+perceived.  He wished that his successor should remain charged with them.
+M. d'Orleans, indeed, soon saw all the faults that M. de Vendome had
+committed, and tried hard to induce the latter to aid him to repair them.
+But M. de Vendome would not listen to his representations, and started
+away almost immediately to take the command of the army in Flanders,
+leaving M. d'Orleans to get out of the difficulty as he might.
+
+M. d'Orleans, abandoned to himself (except when interfered with by
+Marechal de Marsin, under whose tutelage he was), could do nothing.  He
+found as much opposition to his plans from Marsin as he had found from M.
+de Vendome.  Marsin wished to keep in the good graces of La Feuillade,
+son-in-law of the all-powerful minister, and would not adopt the views of
+M. d'Orleans.  This latter had proposed to dispute the passage of the
+Tanaro, a confluent of the Po, with the enemy, or compel them to accept
+battle.  An intercepted letter, in cypher, from Prince Eugene to the
+Emperor, which fell into our hands, proved, subsequently, that this
+course would have been the right one to adopt; but the proof came too
+late; the decyphering table having been forgotten at Versailles!
+M. d'Orleans had in the mean time been forced to lead his army to Turin,
+to assist the besiegers, instead of waiting to stop the passage of the
+troops that were destined for the aid of the besieged.  He arrived at
+Turin on the 28th of August, in the evening.  La Feuillade, now under two
+masters, grew, it might be imagined, more docile.  But no!  He allied
+himself with Marsin (without whom M. d'Orleans could do nothing), and so
+gained him over that they acted completely in accord.  When M. d'Orleans
+was convinced, soon after his arrival, that the enemy was approaching to
+succour Turin, he suggested that they should be opposed as they attempted
+the passage of the Dora.
+
+But his advice was not listened to.  He was displeased with everything.
+He found that all the orders he had given had been disregarded.  He found
+the siege works bad, imperfect, very wet, and very ill-guarded.  He tried
+to remedy all these defects, but he was opposed at every step.  A council
+of war was held.  M. d'Orleans stated his views, but all the officers
+present, with one honourable exception, servilely chimed in with the
+views of Marsin and La Feuillade, and things remained as they were.
+M. d'Orleans, thereupon, protested that he washed his hands of all the
+misfortunes that might happen in consequence of his advice being
+neglected.  He declared that as he was no longer master over anything,
+it was not just that he should bear any part of the blame which would
+entail to those in command.  He asked, therefore, for his post-chaise,
+and wished immediately to quit the army.  La Feuillade and Marsin,
+however, begged him to remain, and upon second thoughts he thought it
+better to do so.  The simple reason of all this opposition was, that La
+Feuillade, being very young and very vain, wished to have all the honours
+of the siege.  He was afraid that if the counsel of M. d'Orleans
+prevailed, some of that honour would be taken from him.  This was the
+real reason, and to this France owes the disastrous failure of the siege
+of Turin.
+
+After the council of war, M. d'Orleans ceased to take any share in the
+command, walked about or stopped at home, like a man who had nothing to
+do with what was passing around him.  On the night of the 6th to the 7th
+of September, he rose from his bed alarmed by information sent to him in
+a letter, that Prince Eugene was about to attack the castle of Pianezza,
+in order to cross the Dora, and so proceed to attack the besiegers.  He
+hastened at once to Marsin, showed him the letter, and recommended that
+troops should at once be sent to dispute the passage of a brook that the
+enemies had yet to cross, even supposing them to be masters of Pianezza.
+Even as he was speaking, confirmation of the intelligence he had received
+was brought by one of our officers.  But it was resolved, in the Eternal
+decrees, that France should be struck to the heart that day.
+
+Marsin would listen to none of the arguments of M. d'Orleans.  He
+maintained that it would be unsafe to leave the lines; that the news was
+false; that Prince Eugene could not possibly arrive so promptly; he would
+give no orders; and he counselled M. d'Orleans to go back to bed.  The
+Prince, more piqued and more disgusted than ever, retired to his quarters
+fully resolved to abandon everything to the blind and deaf, who would
+neither see nor hear.
+
+Soon after entering his chamber the news spread from all parts of the
+arrival of Prince Eugene.  He did not stir.  Some general officers came,
+and forced him to mount his horse.  He went forth negligently at a
+walking pace.  What had taken place during the previous days had made so
+much noise that even the common soldiers were ashamed of it.  They liked
+him, and murmured because he would no longer command them.  One of them
+called him by his name, and asked him if he refused them his sword.  This
+question did more than all that the general officers had been able to do.
+M. d'Orleans replied to the soldier, that he would not refuse to serve
+them, and at once resolved to lend all his aid to Marsin and La
+Feuillade.
+
+But it was no longer possible to leave the lines.  The enemy was in
+sight, and advanced so diligently, that there was no time to make
+arrangements.  Marsin, more dead than alive, was incapable of giving any
+order or any advice.  But La Feuillade still persevered in his obstinacy.
+He disputed the orders of the Duc d'Orleans, and prevented their
+execution, possessed by I know not what demon.
+
+The attack was commenced about ten o'clock in the morning, was pushed
+with incredible vigour, and sustained, at first, in the same manner.
+Prince Eugene poured his troops into those places which the smallness of
+our forces had compelled us to leave open.  Marsin, towards the middle of
+the battle, received a wound which incapacitated him from further
+service, end was taken prisoner immediately after.  Le Feuillade ran
+about like a madman, tearing his hair, and incapable of giving any order.
+The Duc d'Orleans preserved his coolness, and did wonders to save the
+day.  Finding our men beginning to waver, he called the officers by their
+names, aroused the soldiers by his voice, and himself led the squadrons
+and battalions to the charge.  Vanquished at last by pain, and weakened
+by the blood he had lost, he was constrained to retire a little, to have
+his wounds dressed.  He scarcely gave himself time for this, however, but
+returned at once where the fire was hottest.  Three times the enemy had
+been repulsed and their guns spiked by one of our officers, Le Guerchois,
+with his brigade of the old marine, when, enfeebled by the losses he had
+sustained, he called upon a neighbouring brigade to advance with him to
+oppose a number of fresh battalions the enemy had sent against him.  This
+brigade and its brigadier refused bluntly to aid him.  It was positively
+known afterwards, that had Le Guerchois sustained this fourth charge,
+Prince Eugene would have retreated.
+
+This was the last moment of the little order that there had been at this
+battle.  All that followed was only trouble, confusion, disorder, flight,
+discomfiture.  The most terrible thing is, that the general officers,
+with but few exceptions, more intent upon their equipage and upon what
+they had saved by pillage, added to the confusion instead of diminishing
+it, and were worse than useless.
+
+M. d'Orleans, convinced at last that it was impossible to re-establish
+the day, thought only how to retire as advantageously as possible.  He
+withdrew his light artillery, his ammunition, everything that was at the
+siege, even at the most advanced of its works, and attended to everything
+with a presence of mind that allowed nothing to escape him.  Then,
+gathering round him all the officers he could collect, he explained to
+them that nothing but retreat was open to them, and that the road to
+Italy was that which they ought to pursue.  By this means they would
+leave the victorious army of the enemy in a country entirely ruined and
+desolate, and hinder it from returning into Italy, where the army of the
+King, on the contrary, would have abundance, and where it would cut off
+all succour from the others.
+
+This proposition dismayed to the last degree our officers, who hoped at
+least to reap the fruit of this disaster by returning to France with the
+money with which they were gorged.  La Feuillade opposed it with so much
+impatience, that the Prince, exasperated by an effrontery so sustained,
+told him to hold his peace and let others speak.  Others did speak, but
+only one was for following the counsel of M. d'Orleans.  Feeling himself
+now, however, the master, he stopped all further discussion, and gave
+orders that the retreat to Italy should commence.  This was all he could
+do.  His body and his brain were equally exhausted.  After having waited
+some little time, he was compelled to throw himself into a post-chaise,
+and in that to continue the journey.
+
+The officers obeyed his orders most unwillingly.  They murmured amongst
+each other so loudly that the Duc d'Orleans, justly irritated by so much
+opposition to his will, made them hold their peace.  The retreat
+continued.  But it was decreed that the spirit of error and vertigo
+should ruin us and save the allies.  As the army was about to cross the
+bridge over the Ticino, and march into Italy, information was brought to
+M. d'Orleans, that the enemy occupied the roads by which it was
+indispensable to pass.  M. d'Orleans, not believing this intelligence,
+persisted in going forward.  Our officers, thus foiled, for it was known
+afterwards that the story was their invention, and that the passes were
+entirely free, hit upon another expedient.  They declared there were no
+more provisions or ammunition, and that it was accordingly impossible to
+go into Italy.  M. d'Orleans, worn out by so much criminal disobedience,
+and weakened by his wound, could hold out no longer.  He threw himself
+back in the chaise, and said they might go where they would.  The army
+therefore turned about, and directed itself towards Pignerol, losing many
+equipages from our rear-guard during the night in the mountains, although
+that rear-guard was protected by Albergotti, and was not annoyed by the
+enemy.
+
+The joy of the enemy at their success was unbounded.  They could scarcely
+believe in it.  Their army was just at its last gasp.  They had not more
+than four days' supply of powder left in the place.  After the victory,
+M. de Savoie and Prince Eugene lost no time in idle rejoicings.  They
+thought only how to profit by a success so unheard of and so unexpected.
+They retook rapidly all the places in Piedmont and Lombardy that we
+occupied, and we had no power to prevent them.
+
+Never battle cost fewer soldiers than that of Turin; never was retreat
+more undisturbed than ours; yet never were results more frightful or more
+rapid.  Ramillies, with a light loss, cost the Spanish Low Countries and
+part of ours: Turin cost all Italy by the ambition of La Feuillade, the
+incapacity of Marsin, the avarice, the trickery, the disobedience of the
+general officers opposed to M, d'Orleans.  So complete was the rout of
+our army, that it was found impossible to restore it sufficiently to send
+it back to Italy, not at least before the following spring.  M. d'Orleans
+returned therefore to Versailles, on Monday, the 8th of November, and was
+well received by the King.  La Feuillade arrived on Monday, the 13th of
+December, having remained several days at Paris without daring to go to
+Versailles.  He was taken to the King by Chamillart.  As soon as the King
+saw them enter he rose, went to the door, and without giving them time to
+utter a word, said to La Feuillade, "Monsieur, we are both very
+unfortunate!" and instantly turned his back upon him.  La Feuillade, on
+the threshold of the door that he had not had time to cross, left the
+place immediately, without having dared to say a single word.  The King
+always afterwards turned his eye from La Feuillade, and would never speak
+to him.  Such was the fall of this Phaeton.  He saw that he had no more
+hope, and retired from the army; although there was no baseness that he
+did not afterwards employ to return to command.  I think there never was
+a more wrong-headed man or a man more radically dishonest, even to the
+marrow of his bones.  As for Marsin, he died soon after his capture, from
+the effect of his wounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+Such was our military history of the year 1706--history of losses and
+dishonour.  It may be imagined in what condition was the exchequer with
+so many demands upon its treasures.  For the last two or three years the
+King had been obliged, on account of the expenses of the war, and the
+losses we had sustained, to cut down the presents that he made at the
+commencement of the year.  Thirty-five thousand louis in gold was the sum
+he ordinarily spent in this manner.  This year, 1707, he diminished it by
+ten thousand Louis.  It was upon Madame de Montespan that the blow fell.
+Since she had quitted the Court the King gave her twelve thousand Louis
+of gold each year.  This year he sent word to her that he could only give
+her eight.  Madame de Montespan testified not the least surprise.  She
+replied, that she was only sorry for the poor, to whom indeed she gave
+with profusion.  A short time after the King had made this reduction,
+that is, on the 8th of January, Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne gave
+birth to a son.  The joy was great, but the King prohibited all those
+expenses which had been made at the birth of the first-born of Madame de
+Bourgogne, and which had amounted to a large sum.  The want of money
+indeed made itself felt so much at this time, that the King was obliged
+to seek for resources as a private person might have done.  A mining
+speculator, named Rodes, having pretended that he had discovered many
+veins of gold in the Pyrenees, assistance was given him in order that he
+might bring these treasures to light.
+
+He declared that with eighteen hundred workmen he would furnish a million
+(francs' worth of gold) each week.  Fifty-two millions a-year would have
+been a fine increase of revenue.  However, after waiting some little
+time, no gold was forthcoming, and the money that had been spent to
+assist this enterprise was found to be pure loss.
+
+The difficulty of finding money to carry on the affairs of the nation
+continued to grow so irksome that Chamillart, who had both the finance
+and the war departments under his control, was unable to stand against
+the increased trouble and vexation which this state of things brought
+him.  More than once he had represented that this double work was too
+much for him.  But the King had in former times expressed so much
+annoyance from the troubles that arose between the finance and war
+departments, that he would not separate them, after having once joined
+them together.  At last, Chamillart could bear up against his heavy load
+no longer.  The vapours seized him: he had attacks of giddiness in the
+head; his digestion was obstructed; he grew thin as a lath.  He wrote
+again to the King, begging to be released from his duties, and frankly
+stated that, in the state he was, if some relief was not afforded him,
+everything would go wrong and perish.  He always left a large margin to
+his letters, and upon this the King generally wrote his reply.
+Chamillart showed me this letter when it came back to him, and I saw upon
+it with great surprise, in the handwriting of the King, this short note:
+"Well! let us perish together."
+
+The necessity for money had now become so great, that all sorts of means
+were adopted to obtain it.  Amongst other things, a tax was established
+upon baptisms and marriages.  This tax was extremely onerous and odious.
+The result of it was a strange confusion.  Poor people, and many of
+humble means, baptised their children themselves, without carrying them
+to the church, and were married at home by reciprocal consent and before
+witnesses, when they could find no priest who would marry them without
+formality.  In consequence of this there were no longer any baptismal
+extracts; no longer any certainty as to baptisms or births; and the
+children of the marriages solemnised in the way I have stated above were
+illegitimate in the eyes of the law.  Researches and rigours in respect
+to abuses so prejudicial were redoubled therefore; that is to say, they
+were redoubled for the purpose of collecting the tax.
+
+From public cries and murmurs the people in some places passed to
+sedition.  Matters went so far at Cahors, that two battalions which were
+there had great difficulty in holding the town against the armed
+peasants; and troops intended for Spain were obliged to be sent there.
+It was found necessary to suspend the operation of the tax, but it was
+with great trouble that the movement of Quercy was put down, and the
+peasants, who had armed and collected together, induced to retire into
+their villages.  In Perigord they rose, pillaged the bureaux, and
+rendered themselves masters of a little town and some castles, and forced
+some gentlemen to put themselves at their head.  They declared publicly
+that they would pay the old taxes to King, curate, and lord, but that
+they would pay no more, or hear a word of any other taxes or vexation.
+In the end it was found necessary to drop this tax upon baptism and
+marriages, to the great regret of the tax-gatherers, who, by all manner
+of vexations and rogueries, had enriched themselves cruelly.
+
+It was at this time, and in consequence, to some extent, of these events,
+that a man who had acquired the highest distinction in France was brought
+to the tomb in bitterness and grief, for that which in any other country
+would have covered him with honour.  Vauban, for it is to him that I
+allude, patriot as he was, had all his life been touched with the misery
+of the people and the vexations they suffered.  The knowledge that his
+offices gave him of the necessity for expense, the little hope he had
+that the King would retrench in matters of splendour and amusement, made
+him groan to see no remedy to an oppression which increased in weight
+from day to day.  Feeling this, he made no journey that he did not
+collect information upon the value and produce of the land, upon the
+trade and industry of the towns and provinces, on the nature of the
+imposts, and the manner of collecting them.  Not content with this, he
+secretly sent to such places as he could not visit himself, or even to
+those he had visited, to instruct him in everything, and compare the
+reports he received with those he had himself made.  The last twenty
+years of his life were spent in these researches, and at considerable
+cost to himself.  In, the end, he convinced himself that the land was the
+only real wealth, and he set himself to work to form a new system.
+
+He had already made much progress, when several little books appeared by
+Boisguilbert, lieutenant-general at Rouen, who long since had had the
+same views as Vauban, and had wanted to make them known.  From this
+labour had resulted a learned and profound book, in which a system was
+explained by which the people could be relieved of all the expenses they
+supported, and from every tax, and by which the revenue collected would
+go at once into the treasury of the King, instead of enriching, first the
+traitants, the intendants, and the finance ministers.  These latter,
+therefore, were opposed to the system, and their opposition, as will be
+seen, was of no slight consequence.
+
+Vauban read this book with much attention.  He differed on some points
+with the author, but agreed with him in the main.  Boisguilbert wished to
+preserve some imposts upon foreign commerce and upon provisions.  Vauban
+wished to abolish all imposts, and to substitute for them two taxes, one
+upon the land, the other upon trade and industry.  His book, in which he
+put forth these ideas, was full of information and figures, all arranged
+with the utmost clearness, simplicity, and exactitude.
+
+But it had a grand fault.  It described a course which, if followed,
+would have ruined an army of financiers, of clerks, of functionaries of
+all kinds; it would have forced them to live at their own expense,
+instead of at the expense of the people; and it would have sapped the
+foundations of those immense fortunes that are seen to grow up in such a
+short time.  This was enough to cause its failure.
+
+All the people interested in opposing the work set up a cry.  They saw
+place, power, everything, about to fly from their grasp, if the counsels
+of Vauban were acted upon.  What wonder, then, that the King, who was
+surrounded by these people, listened to their reasons, and received with
+a very ill grace Marechal Vauban when he presented his book to him.  The
+ministers, it may well be believed, did not give him a better welcome.
+From that moment his services, his military capacity (unique of its
+kind), his virtues, the affection the King had had for him, all were
+forgotten.  The King saw only in Marechal Vauban a man led astray by love
+for the people, a criminal who attacked the authority of the ministers,
+and consequently that of the King.  He explained himself to this effect
+without scruple.
+
+The unhappy Marechal could not survive the loss of his royal master's
+favour, or stand up against the enmity the King's explanations had
+created against him; he died a few months after consumed with grief, and
+with an affliction nothing could soften, and to which the King was
+insensible to such a point, that he made semblance of not perceiving that
+he had lost a servitor so useful and so illustrious.  Vauban, justly
+celebrated over all Europe, was regretted in France by all who were not
+financiers or their supporters.
+
+Boisguilbert, whom this event ought to have rendered wise, could not
+contain himself.  One of the objections which had been urged against his
+theories, was the difficulty of carrying out changes in the midst of a
+great war.  He now published a book refuting this point, and describing
+such a number of abuses then existing, to abolish which, he asked, was it
+necessary to wait for peace, that the ministers were outraged.
+Boisguilbert was exiled to Auvergne.  I did all in my power to revoke
+this sentence, having known Boisguilbert at Rouen, but did not succeed
+until the end of two months.  He was then allowed to return to Rouen, but
+was severely reprimanded, and stripped of his functions for some little
+time.  He was amply indemnified, however, for this by the crowd of
+people, and the acclamations with which he was received.
+
+It is due to Chamillart to say, that he was the only minister who had
+listened with any attention to these new systems of Vauban and
+Boisguilbert.  He indeed made trial of the plans suggested by the former,
+but the circumstances were not favourable to his success, and they of
+course failed.  Some time after, instead of following the system of
+Vauban, and reducing the imposts, fresh ones were added.  Who would have
+said to the Marechal that all his labours for the relief of the people of
+France would lead to new imposts, more harsh, more permanent, and more
+heavy than he protested against?  It is a terrible lesson against all
+improvements in matters of taxation and finance.
+
+But it is time, now, that I should retrace my steps to other matters,
+which, if related in due order of time, should have found a place ere
+this.  And first, let me relate the particulars concerning a trial in
+which I was engaged, and which I have deferred allusion to until now, so
+as not to entangle the thread of my narrative.
+
+My sister, as I have said in its proper place, had married the Duc de
+Brissac, and the marriage had not been a happy one.  After a time, in
+fact, they separated.  My sister at her death left me her universal
+legatee; and shortly after this, M. de Brissac brought an action against
+me on her account for five hundred thousand francs.  After his death, his
+representatives continued the action, which I resisted, not only
+maintaining that I owed none of the five hundred thousand francs, but
+claiming to have two hundred thousand owing to me, out of six hundred
+thousand which had formed the dowry of my sister.
+
+When M. de Brissac died, there seemed some probability that his peerage
+would become extinct; for the Comte de Cosse, who claimed to succeed him,
+was opposed by a number of peers, and but for me might have failed to
+establish his pretensions.  I, however, as his claim was just, interested
+myself in him, supported him with all my influence, and gained for him
+the support of several influential peers: so that in the end he was
+recognised as Duc de Brissac, and received as such at the parliament on
+the 6th of May, 1700.
+
+Having succeeded thus to the titles and estates of his predecessor, he
+succeeded also to his liabilities, debts, and engagements.  Among these
+was the trial against me for five hundred thousand francs.  Cosse felt so
+thoroughly that he owed his rank to me, that he offered to give me five
+hundred thousand francs, so as to indemnify me against an adverse
+decision in the cause.  Now, as I have said, I not only resisted this
+demand made upon me for five hundred thousand francs, but I, in my turn,
+claimed two hundred thousand francs, and my claim, once admitted, all the
+personal creditors of the late Duc de Brissac (creditors who, of course,
+had to be paid by the new Duke) would have been forced to stand aside
+until my debt was settled.
+
+I, therefore, refused this offer of Cosse, lest other creditors should
+hear of the arrangement, and force him to make a similar one with them.
+He was overwhelmed with a generosity so little expected, and we became
+more intimately connected from that day.
+
+Cosse, once received as Duc de Brissac, I no longer feared to push
+forward the action I had commenced for the recovery of the two hundred
+thousand francs due to me, and which I had interrupted only on his
+account.  I had gained it twice running against the late Duc de Brissac,
+at the parliament of Rouen; but the Duchesse d'Aumont, who in the last
+years of his life had lent him money, and whose debt was in danger,
+succeeded in getting this cause sent up for appeal to the parliament at
+Paris, where she threw obstacle upon obstacle in its path, and caused
+judgment to be delayed month after month.  When I came to take active
+steps in the matter, my surprise--to use no stronger word--was great, to
+find Cosse, after all I had done for him, favouring the pretensions of
+the Duchesse d'Aumont, and lending her his aid to establish them.
+However, he and the Duchesse d'Aumont lost their cause, for when it was
+submitted to the judges of the council at Paris, it was sent back to
+Rouen, and they had to pay damages and expenses.
+
+For years the affair had been ready to be judged at Rouen, but M.
+d'Aumont every year, by means of his letters of state, obtained a
+postponement.  At last, however, M. d'Aumont died, and I was assured that
+the letters of state should not be again produced, and that in
+consequence no further adjournment should take place.  I and Madame de
+Saint-Simon at once set out, therefore, for Rouen, where we were
+exceedingly well received, fetes and entertainments being continually
+given in our honour.
+
+After we had been there but eight or ten days, I received a letter from
+Pontchartrain, who sent me word that the King had learnt with surprise I
+was at Rouen, and had charged him to ask me why I was there: so attentive
+was the King as to what became of the people of mark, he was accustomed
+to see around him!  My reply was not difficult.
+
+Meanwhile our cause proceeded.  The parliament, that is to say, the Grand
+Chamber, suspended all other business in order to finish ours.  The
+affair was already far advanced, when it was interrupted by an obstacle,
+of all obstacles the least possible to foresee.  The letters of state had
+again been put in, for the purpose of obtaining another adjournment.
+
+My design is not to weary by recitals, which interest only myself; but I
+must explain this matter fully.  It was Monday evening.  The parliament
+of Rouen ended on the following Saturday.  If we waited until the opening
+of the next parliament, we should have to begin our cause from the
+beginning, and with new presidents and judges, who would know nothing of
+the facts.  What was to be done?  To appeal to the King seemed
+impossible, for he was at Marly, and, while there, never listened to such
+matters.  By the time he left Marly, it would be too late to apply to
+him.
+
+Madame de Saint-Simon and others advised me, however, at all hazards, to
+go straight to the King, instead of sending a courier, as I thought of
+doing, and to keep my journey secret.  I followed their advice, and
+setting out at once, arrived at Marly on Tuesday morning, the 8th of
+August, at eight of the clock.  The Chancellor and Chamillart, to whom I
+told my errand, pitied me, but gave me no hope of success.  Nevertheless,
+a council of state was to be held on the following morning, presided over
+by the King, and my petition was laid before it.  The letters of state
+were thrown out by every voice.  This information was brought to me at
+mid-day.  I partook of a hasty dinner, and turned back to Rouen, where I
+arrived on Thursday, at eight o'clock in the morning, three hours after a
+courier, by whom I had sent this unhoped-for news.
+
+I brought with me, besides the order respecting the letters of state, an
+order to the parliament to proceed to judgment at once.  It was laid
+before the judges very early on Saturday, the 11th of August, the last
+day of the parliament.  From four o'clock in the morning we had an
+infinite number of visitors, wanting to accompany us to the palace.  The
+parliament had been much irritated against these letters of state, after
+having suspended all other business for us.  The withdrawal of these
+letters was now announced.  We gained our cause, with penalties and
+expenses, amid acclamations which resounded through the court, and which
+followed us into the streets.  We could scarcely enter our street, so
+full was it with the crowd, or our house, which was equally crowded.  Our
+kitchen chimney soon after took fire, and it was only a marvel that it
+was extinguished, without damage, after having strongly warned us, and
+turned our joy into bitterness.  There was only the master of the house
+who was unmoved.  We dined, however, with a grand company; and after
+stopping one or two days more to thank our friends, we went to see the
+sea at Dieppe, and then to Cani, to a beautiful house belonging to our
+host at Rouen.
+
+As for Madame d'Aumont, she was furious at the ill-success of her affair.
+It was she who had obtained the letters of state from the steward of her
+son-in-law.  Her son-in-law had promised me that they should not be used,
+and wrote at once to say he had had no hand in their production.  M. de
+Brissac, who had been afraid to look me in the face ever since he had
+taken part in this matter, and with whom I had openly broken, was now so
+much ashamed that he avoided me everywhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+It was just at the commencement of the year 1706, that I received a piece
+of news which almost took away my breath by its suddenness, and by the
+surprise it caused me.  I was on very intimate terms with Gualterio, the
+nuncio of the Pope.  Just about this time we were without an ambassador
+at Rome.  The nuncio spoke to me about this post; but at my age--I was
+but thirty--and knowing the unwillingness of the King to employ young men
+in public affairs, I paid no attention to his words.  Eight days
+afterwards he entered my chamber-one Tuesday, about an hour after mid-
+day-his arms open, joy painted upon his face, and embracing me, told me
+to shut my door, and even that of my antechamber, so that he should not
+be seen.  I was to go to Rome as ambassador.  I made him repeat this
+twice over: it seemed so impossible.  If one of the portraits in my
+chamber had spoken to me, I could not have been more surprised.
+Gualterio begged me to keep the matter secret, saying, that the
+appointment would be officially announced to me ere long.
+
+I went immediately and sought out Chamillart, reproaching him for not
+having apprised me of this good news.  He smiled at my anger, and said
+that the King had ordered the news to be kept secret.  I admit that I was
+flattered at being chosen at my age for an embassy so important.  I was
+advised on every side to accept it, and this I determined to do.  I could
+not understand, however, how it was I had been selected.  Torcy, years
+afterwards, when the King was dead, related to me how it came about.  At
+this time I had no relations with Torcy; it was not until long afterwards
+that friendship grew up between us.
+
+He said, then, that the embassy being vacant, the King wished to fill up
+that appointment, and wished also that a Duke should be ambassador.  He
+took an almanack and began reading the names of the Dukes, commencing
+with M. de Uzes.  He made no stop until he came to my name.  Then he said
+(to Torcy), "What do you think of him?  He is young, but he is good," &c.
+The King, after hearing a few opinions expressed by those around him,
+shut up the almanack, and said it was not worth while to go farther,
+determined that I should be ambassador, but ordered the appointment to be
+kept secret.  I learnt this, more than ten years after its occurrence,
+from a true man, who had no longer any interest or reason to disguise
+anything from me.
+
+Advised on all sides by my friends to accept the post offered to me, I
+did not long hesitate to do so.  Madame de Saint-Simon gave me the same
+advice, although she herself was pained at the idea of quitting her
+family.  I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of relating here what the
+three ministers each said of my wife, a woman then of only twenty-seven
+years of age.  All three, unknown to each other, and without solicitation
+on my part, counselled me to keep none of the affairs of my embassy
+secret from her, but to give her a place at the end of the table when I
+read or wrote my despatches, and to consult her with deference upon
+everything.  I have rarely so much relished advice as I did in this case.
+Although, as things fell out, I could not follow it at Rome, I had
+followed it long before, and continued to do so all my life.  I kept
+nothing secret from her, and I had good reason to be pleased that I did
+not.  Her counsel was always wise, judicious, and useful, and oftentimes
+she warded off from me many inconveniences.
+
+But to continue the narrative of this embassy.  It was soon so generally
+known that I was going to Rome, that as we danced at Marly, we heard
+people say, "Look!  M. l'Ambassadeur and Madame l'Ambassadrice are
+dancing."  After this I wished the announcement to be made public as soon
+as possible, but the King was not to be hurried.  Day after day passed
+by, and still I was kept in suspense.  At last, about the middle of
+April, I had an interview with Chamillart one day, just after he came out
+of the council at which I knew my fate had been decided.  I learnt then
+that the King had determined to send no ambassador to Rome.  The Abbe de
+La Tremoille was already there; he had been made Cardinal, and was to
+remain and attend to the affairs of the embassy.  I found out afterwards
+that I had reason to attribute to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine the
+change in the King's intention towards me.  Madame de Saint-Simon was
+delighted.  It seemed as though she foresaw the strange discredit in
+which the affairs of the King were going to fall in Italy, the
+embarrassment and the disorder that public misfortunes would cause the
+finances, and the cruel situation to which all things would have reduced
+us at Rome.  As for me, I had had so much leisure to console myself
+beforehand, that I had need of no more.  I felt, however, that I had now
+lost all favour with the King, and, indeed, he estranged himself from me
+more and more each day.  By what means I recovered myself it is not yet
+time to tell.
+
+On the night between the 3rd and 4th of February, Cardinal Coislin,
+Bishop of Orleans, died.  He was a little man, very fat, who looked like
+a village curate.  His purity of manners and his virtues caused him to be
+much loved.  Two good actions of his life deserve to be remembered.
+
+When, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the King determined to
+convert the Huguenots by means of dragoons and torture, a regiment was
+sent to Orleans, to be spread abroad in the diocese.  As soon as it
+arrived, M. d'Orleans sent word to the officers that they might make his
+house their home; that their horses should be lodged in his stables.  He
+begged them not to allow a single one of their men to leave the town, to
+make the slightest disorder; to say no word to the Huguenots, and not to
+lodge in their houses.  He resolved to be obeyed, and he was.  The
+regiment stayed a month; and cost him a good deal.  At the end of that
+time he so managed matters that the soldiers were sent away, and none
+came again.  This conduct, so full of charity, so opposed to that of
+nearly all the other dioceses, gained as many Huguenots as were gained by
+the barbarities they suffered elsewhere.  It needed some courage, to say
+nothing of generosity, to act thus, and to silently blame, as it were,
+the conduct of the King.
+
+The other action of M. d'Orleans was less public and less dangerous,
+but was not less good.  He secretly gave away many alms to the poor,
+in addition to those he gave publicly.  Among those whom he succoured
+was a poor, broken-down gentleman, without wife or child, to whom he gave
+four hundred livres of pension, and a place at his table whenever he was
+at Orleans.  One morning the servants of M. d'Orleans told their master
+that ten pieces of plate were missing, and that suspicion fell upon the
+gentleman.  M. d'Orleans could not believe him guilty, but as he did not
+make his appearance at the house for several days, was forced at last to
+imagine he was so.  Upon this he sent for the gentleman, who admitted
+himself to be the offender.
+
+M. d'Orleans said he must have been strangely pressed to commit an action
+of this nature, and reproached him for not having mentioned his wants.
+Then, drawing twenty Louis from his pocket, he gave them to the
+gentleman, told him to forget what had occurred, and to use his table
+as before.  M. d'Orleans prohibited his servants to mention their
+suspicions, and this anecdote would never have been known, had it not
+been told by the gentleman himself, penetrated with confusion and
+gratitude.
+
+M. d'Orleans, after he became cardinal, was often pressed by his friends
+to give up his bishopric.  But this he would not listen to.  The King had
+for him a respect that was almost devotion.  When Madame de Bourgogne was
+about to be delivered of her first child, the King sent a courier to M.
+d'Orleans requesting him to come to Court immediately, and to remain
+there until after the delivery.  When the child was born, the King would
+not allow it to be sprinkled by any other hand than that of M. d'Orleans.
+The poor man, very fat, as I have said, always sweated very much;--on
+this occasion, wrapped up in his cloak and his lawn, his body ran with
+sweat in such abundance, that in the antechamber the floor was wet all
+round where he stood.  All the Court was much afflicted at his death; the
+King more than anybody spoke his praises.  It was known after his death,
+from his valet de chambre, that he mortified himself continually with
+instruments of penitence, and that he rose every night and passed an hour
+on his knees in prayer.  He received the sacraments with great piety, and
+died the night following as he had lived.
+
+Heudicourt the younger, a species of very mischievous satyr, and much
+mixed up in grand intrigues of gallantry, made, about this time, a song
+upon the grand 'prevot' and his family.  It was so simple, so true to
+nature, withal so pleasant, that some one having whispered it in the ear
+of the Marechal de Boufflers at chapel, he could not refrain from
+bursting into laughter, although he was in attendance at the mass of the
+King.  The Marechal was the gravest and most serious man in all France;
+the greatest slave to decorum.  The King turned round therefore, in
+surprise, which augmented considerably when he saw the Marechal de
+Boufflers nigh to bursting with laughter, and the tears running down his
+cheeks.  On turning into his cabinet, he called the Marechal, and asked
+what had got him in that state at the mass.  The Marechal repeated the
+song to him.  Thereupon the King burst out louder than the Marechal had,
+and for a whole fortnight afterwards could not help smiling whenever he
+saw the grand 'prevot' or any of his family.  The song soon spread about,
+and much diverted the Court and the town.
+
+I should particularly avoid soiling this page with an account of the
+operation for fistula which Courcillon, only son of Dangeau, had
+performed upon him, but for the extreme ridicule with which it was
+accompanied.  Courcillon was a dashing young fellow, much given to witty
+sayings, to mischief, to impiety, and to the filthiest debauchery, of
+which latter, indeed, this operation passed publicly as the fruit.  His
+mother, Madams Dangeau, was in the strictest intimacy with Madame de
+Maintenon.  They two alone, of all the Court, were ignorant of the life
+Courcillon led.  Madame was much afflicted; and quitted his bed-side,
+even for a moment, with pain.  Madame de Maintenon entered into her
+sorrow, and went every day to bear her company at the pillow of
+Courcillon.  Madame d'Heudicourt, another intimate friend of Madame de
+Maintenon, was admitted there also, but scarcely anybody else.
+Courcillon listened to them, spoke devotionally to them, and uttered the
+reflections suggested by his state.  They, all admiration, published
+everywhere that he was a saint.  Madame d'Heudicourt and a few others who
+listened to these discourses, and who knew the pilgrim well, and saw him
+loll out his tongue at them on the sly, knew not what to do to prevent
+their laughter, and as soon as they could get away went and related all
+they had heard to their friends.  Courcillon, who thought it a mighty
+honour to have Madame de Maintenon every day for nurse, but who,
+nevertheless, was dying of weariness, used to see his friends in the
+evening (when Madame de Maintenon and his mother were gone), and would
+relate to them, with burlesque exaggeration, all the miseries he had
+suffered during the day, and ridicule the devotional discourses he had
+listened to.  All the time his illness lasted, Madame de Maintenon came
+every day to see him, so that her credulity, which no one dared to
+enlighten, was the laughing-stock of the Court.  She conceived such a
+high opinion of the virtue of Courcillon, that she cited him always as an
+example, and the King also formed the same opinion.  Courcillon took good
+care not to try and cultivate it when he became cured; yet neither the
+King nor Madame de Maintenon opened their eyes, or changed their conduct
+towards him.  Madame de Maintenon, it must be said, except in the sublime
+intrigue of her government and with the King, was always the queen of
+dupes.
+
+It would seem that there are, at certain times, fashions in crimes as in
+clothes.  At the period of the Voysins and the Brinvilliers, there were
+nothing but poisoners abroad; and against these, a court was expressly
+instituted, called ardente, because it condemned them to the flames.  At
+the time of which I am now speaking, 1703, for I forgot to relate what
+follows in its proper place, forgers of writings were in the ascendant,
+and became so common, that a chamber was established composed of
+councillors of state and others, solely to judge the accusations which
+this sort of criminals gave rise to.
+
+The Bouillons wished to be recognised as descended, by male issue, of the
+Counts of Auvergne, and to claim all kinds of distinctions and honours in
+consequence.  They had, however, no proofs of this, but, on the contrary,
+their genealogy proved it to be false.  All on a sudden, an old document
+that had been interred in the obscurity of ages in the church of Brioude,
+was presented to Cardinal Bouillon.  It had all the marks of antiquity,
+and contained a triumphant proof of the descent of the house of La Tour,
+to which the Bouillons belonged, from the ancient Counts of Auvergne.
+The Cardinal was delighted to have in his hands this precious document.
+But to avoid all suspicion, he affected modesty, and hesitated to give
+faith to evidence so decisive.  He spoke in confidence to all the learned
+men he knew, and begged them to examine the document with care, so that
+he might not be the dupe of a too easy belief in it.
+
+Whether the examiners were deceived by the document, or whether they
+allowed themselves to be seduced into believing it, as is more than
+probable, from fear of giving offence to the Cardinal, need not be
+discussed.  It is enough to say that they pronounced in favour of the
+deed, and that Father Mabillon, that Benedictine so well known throughout
+all Europe by his sense and his candour, was led by the others to share
+their opinion.
+
+After this, Cardinal de Bouillon no longer affected any doubt about the
+authenticity of the discovery.  All his friends complimented him upon it,
+the majority to see how he would receive their congratulations.  It was a
+chaos rather than a mixture, of vanity the most outrageous, modesty the
+most affected, and joy the most immoderate which he could not restrain.
+
+Unfortunately, De Bar, who had found the precious document, and who had
+presented it to Cardinal de Bouillon, was arrested and put in prison a
+short time after this, charged with many forgeries.  This event made some
+stir, and caused suspicion to fall upon the document, which was now
+attentively examined through many new spectacles.  Learned men
+unacquainted with the Bouillons contested it, and De Bar was so pushed
+upon this point, that he made many delicate admissions.  Alarm at once
+spread among the Bouillons.  They did all in their power to ward off the
+blow that was about to fall.  Seeing the tribunal firm, and fully
+resolved to follow the affair to the end, they openly solicited for De
+Bar, and employed all their credit to gain his liberation.  At last,
+finding the tribunal inflexible, they were reduced to take an extreme
+resolution.  M. de Bouillon admitted to the King, that his brother,
+Cardinal de Bouillon, might, unknown to all of them, have brought forward
+facts he could not prove.  He added, that putting himself in the King's
+hands, he begged that the affair might be stopped at once, out of
+consideration for those whose only guilt was too great credulity, and too
+much confidence in a brother who had deceived them.  The King, with more
+of friendship for M. de Bouillon than of reflection as to what he owed by
+way of reparation for a public offence, agreed to this course.
+
+De Bar, convicted of having fabricated this document, by his own
+admission before the public tribunal, was not condemned to death, but to
+perpetual imprisonment.  As may be believed, this adventure made a great
+stir; but what cannot be believed so easily is, the conduct of the
+Messieurs Bouillon about fifteen months afterwards.
+
+At the time when the false document above referred to was discovered,
+Cardinal de Bouillon had commissioned Baluze, a man much given to
+genealogical studies, to write the history of the house of Auvergne.
+In this history, the descent, by male issue; of the Bouillons from the
+Counts of Auvergne, was established upon the evidence supplied by this
+document.  At least, nobody doubted that such was the case, and the world
+was strangely scandalised to see the work appear after that document had
+been pronounced to be a forgery.  Many learned men and friends of Baluze
+considered him so dishonoured by it, that they broke off all relations
+with him, and this put the finishing touch to the confusion of this
+affair.
+
+On Thursday, the 7th of March, 1707, a strange event troubled the King,
+and filled the Court and the town with rumours.  Beringhen, first master
+of the horse, left Versailles at seven o'clock in the evening of that
+day, to go to Paris, alone in one of the King's coaches, two of the royal
+footmen behind, and a groom carrying a torch before him on the seventh
+horse.  The carriage had reached the plain of Bissancourt, and was
+passing between a farm on the road near Sevres bridge and a cabaret,
+called the "Dawn of Day," when it was stopped by fifteen or sixteen men
+on horseback, who seized on Beringhen, hurried him into a post-chaise in
+waiting, and drove off with him.  The King's carriage, with the coachman,
+footmen, and groom, was allowed to go back to Versailles.  As soon as it
+reached Versailles the King was informed of what had taken place.  He
+sent immediately to his four Secretaries of State, ordering them to send
+couriers everywhere to the frontiers, with instructions to the governors
+to guard all the passages, so that if these horsemen were foreign
+enemies, as was suspected, they would be caught in attempting to pass out
+of the kingdom.  It was known that a party of the enemy had entered
+Artois, that they had committed no disorders, but that they were there
+still.  Although people found it difficult, at first, to believe that
+Beringhen had been carried off by a party such as this, yet as it was
+known that he had no enemies, that he was not reputed sufficiently rich
+to afford hope of a large ransom, and that not one of our wealthiest
+financiers had been seized in this manner, this explanation was at last
+accepted as the right one.
+
+So in fact it proved.  A certain Guetem, a fiddler of the Elector of
+Bavaria, had entered the service of Holland, had taken part in her war
+against France, and had become a colonel.  Chatting one evening with his
+comrades, he laid a wager that he would carry off some one of mark
+between Paris and Versailles.  He obtained a passport, and thirty chosen
+men, nearly all of whom were officers.  They passed the rivers disguised
+as traders, by which means they were enabled to post their relays [of
+horses].  Several of them had remained seven or eight days at Sevres,
+Saint Cloud, and Boulogne, from which they had the hardihood to go to
+Versailles and see the King sup.  One of these was caught on the day
+after the disappearance of Beringhen, and when interrogated by
+Chamillart, replied with a tolerable amount of impudence.  Another was
+caught in the forest of Chantilly by one of the servants of M. le Prince.
+From him it became known that relays of horses and a post-chaise had been
+provided at Morliere for the prisoner when he should arrive there, and
+that he had already passed the Oise.
+
+As I have said, couriers were despatched to the governors of the
+frontiers; in addition to this, information of what had taken place was
+sent to all the intendants of the frontier, to all the troops in quarters
+there.  Several of the King's guards, too, and the grooms of the stable,
+went in pursuit of the captors of Beringhen.  Notwithstanding the
+diligence used, the horsemen had traversed the Somme and had gone four
+leagues beyond Ham-Beringhen, guarded by the officers, and pledged to
+offer no resistance--when the party was stopped by a quartermaster and
+two detachments of the Livry regiment.  Beringhen was at once set at
+liberty.  Guetem and his companion were made prisoners.
+
+The grand fault they had committed was to allow the King's carriage and
+the footmen to go back to Versailles so soon after the abduction.  Had
+they led away the coach under cover of the night, and so kept the King in
+ignorance of their doings until the next day, they would have had more
+time for their retreat.  Instead of doing this they fatigued themselves
+by too much haste.  They had grown tired of waiting for a carriage that
+seemed likely to contain somebody of mark.  The Chancellor had passed,
+but in broad daylight, and they were afraid in consequence to stop him.
+M. le Duc d'Orleans had passed, but in a post-chaise, which they
+mistrusted.  At last Beringhen appeared in one of the King's coaches,
+attended by servants in the King's livery, and wearing his cordon Neu, as
+was his custom.  They thought they had found a prize indeed.  They soon
+learnt with whom they had to deal, and told him also who they were.
+Guetem bestowed upon Beringhen all kinds of attention, and testified a
+great desire to spare him as much as possible all fatigue.  He pushed his
+attentions so far that they caused his failure.  He allowed Beringhen to
+stop and rest on two occasions.  The party missed one of their relays,
+and that delayed them very much.
+
+Beringhen, delighted with his rescue, and very grateful for the good
+treatment he had received, changed places with Guetem and his companions,
+led them to Ham, and in his turn treated them well.  He wrote to his wife
+and to Charnillart announcing his release, and these letters were read
+with much satisfaction by the King.
+
+On Tuesday, the 29th of March, Beringhen arrived at Versailles, about
+eight o'clock in the evening, and went at once to the King, who was in
+the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and who received him well, and
+made him relate all his adventures.  But the King was not pleased when he
+found the officers of the stable in a state of great delight, and
+preparing fireworks to welcome Beringhen back.  He prohibited all these
+marks of rejoicing, and would not allow the fireworks to be let off.  He
+had these little jealousies.  He wished that all should be devoted to him
+alone, without reserve and without division.  All the Court, however,
+showed interest in this return, and Beringhen was consoled by the public
+welcome he received for his fatigue.
+
+Guetem and his officers, while waiting the pleasure of the King, were
+lodged in Beringhen's house in Paris, where they were treated above their
+deserts.  Beringhen obtained permission for Guetem to see the King.  He
+did more; he presented Guetem to the King, who praised him for having so
+well treated his prisoner, and said that war always ought to be conducted
+properly.  Guetem, who was not without wit, replied, that he was so
+astonished to find himself before the greatest King in the world, and to
+find that King doing him the honour of speaking to him, that he had not
+power enough to answer.  He remained ten or twelve days in Beringhen's
+house to see Paris, the Opera and the Comedy, and became the talk of the
+town.  People ran after him everywhere, and the most distinguished were
+not ashamed to do likewise.  On all sides he was applauded for an act of
+temerity, which might have passed for insolence.  Beringhen regaled him,
+furnished him with carriages and servants to accompany him, and, at
+parting, with money and considerable presents.  Guetem went on his parole
+to Rheims to rejoin his comrades until exchanged, and had the town for
+prison.  Nearly all the others had escaped.  The project was nothing less
+than to carry off Monseigneur, or one of the princes, his sons.
+
+This ridiculous adventure gave rise to precautions, excessive in the
+first place, and which caused sad obstructions of bridges and gates.  It
+caused, too, a number of people to be arrested.  The hunting parties of
+the princes were for some time interfered with, until matters resumed
+their usual course.  But it was not bad fun to see, during some time, the
+terror of ladies, and even of men, of the Court, who no longer dared go
+abroad except in broad daylight, even then with little assurance, and
+imagining themselves everywhere in marvellous danger of capture.
+
+I have related in its proper place the adventure of Madame la Princesse
+de Conti with Mademoiselle Choin and the attachment of Monseigneur for
+the latter.  This attachment was only augmented by the difficulty of
+seeing each other.
+
+Mademoiselle Choin retired to the house of Lacroix, one of her relatives
+at Paris, where she lived quite hidden.  She was informed of the rare
+days when Monseigneur dined alone at Meudon, without sleeping there.  She
+went there the day before in a fiacre, passed through the courts on foot,
+ill clad, like a common sort of woman going to see some officer at
+Meudon, and, by a back staircase, was admitted to Monseigneur who passed
+some hours with her in a little apartment on the first floor.  In time
+she came there with a lady's-maid, her parcel in her pocket, on the
+evenings of the days that Monseigneur slept there.
+
+She remained in this apartment without seeing anybody, attended by her
+lady's-maid, and waited upon by a servant who alone was in the secret.
+
+Little by little the friends of Monseigneur were allowed to see her;
+and amongst these were M. le Prince de Conti, Monseigneur le Duc de
+Bourgogne, Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and M. le Duc de Berry.
+There was always, however, an air of mystery about the matter.  The
+parties that took place were kept secret, although frequent, and were
+called parvulos.
+
+Mademoiselle Choin remained in her little apartment only for the
+convenience of Monseigneur.  She slept in the bed and in the grand
+apartment where Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne lodged when the King was
+at Meudon.  She always sat in an arm-chair before Monseigneur; Madame de
+Bourgogne sat on a stool.  Mademoiselle Choin never rose for her; in
+speaking of her, even before Monseigneur and the company, she used to say
+"the Duchesse de Bourgogne," and lived with her as Madame de Maintenon
+did excepting that "darling" and "my aunt," were terms not exchanged
+between them, and that Madame de Bourgogne was not nearly so free, or so
+much at her ease, as with the King and Madame de Maintenon.  Monsieur de
+Bourgogne was much in restraint.  His manners did not agree with those of
+that world.  Monseigneur le Duc de Berry, who was more free, was quite at
+home.
+
+Mademoiselle Choin went on fete-days to hear mass in the chapel at six
+o'clock in the morning, well wrapped up, and took her meals alone, when
+Monseigneur did not eat with her.  When he was alone with her, the doors
+were all guarded and barricaded to keep out intruders.  People regarded
+her as being to Monseigneur, what Madame de Maintenon was to the King.
+All the batteries for the future were directed and pointed towards her.
+People schemed to gain permission to visit her at Paris; people paid
+court to her friends and acquaintances, Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne
+sought to please her, was respectful to her, attentive to her friends,
+not always with success.  She acted towards Monseigneur le Duc de
+Bourgogne like a mother-in-law, and sometimes spoke with such authority
+and bluntness to Madame de Bourgogne as to make her cry.
+
+The King and Madame de Maintenon were in no way ignorant of all this, but
+they held their tongues, and all the Court who knew it, spoke only in
+whispers of it.  This is enough for the present; it will serve to explain
+many things, of which I shall speak anon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+On Wednesday, the 27th of May, 1707, at three o'clock in the morning,
+Madame de Montespan, aged sixty, died very suddenly at the waters of
+Bourbon.  Her death made much stir, although she had long retired from
+the Court and from the world, and preserved no trace of the commanding
+influence she had so long possessed.  I need not go back beyond my own
+experience, and to the time of her reign as mistress of the King.  I will
+simply say, because the anecdote is little known, that her conduct was
+more the fault of her husband than her own.  She warned him as soon as
+she suspected the King to be in love with her; and told him when there
+was no longer any doubt upon her mind.  She assured him that a great
+entertainment that the King gave was in her honour.  She pressed him,
+she entreated him in the most eloquent manner, to take her away to his
+estates of Guyenne, and leave her there until the King had forgotten her
+or chosen another mistress.  It was all to no purpose; and Montespan was
+not long before repentance seized him; for his torment was that he loved
+her all his life, and died still in love with her--although he would
+never consent to see her again after the first scandal.
+
+Nor will I speak of the divers degrees which the fear of the devil at
+various times put to her separation from the Court; and I will elsewhere
+speak of Madame de Maintenon, who owed her everything, who fed her on
+serpents, and who at last ousted her from the Court.  What no one dared
+to say, what the King himself dared not, M. du Maine, her son, dared.
+M. de Meaux (Bossuet) did the rest.  She went in tears and fury, and
+never forgave M. du Maine, who by his strange service gained over for
+ever to his interests the heart and the mighty influence of Madame de
+Maintenon.
+
+The mistress, retired amongst the Community of Saint Joseph, which she
+had built, was long in accustoming herself to it.  She carried about her
+idleness and unhappiness to Bourbon, to Fontevrault, to D'Antin; she was
+many years without succeeding in obtaining mastery over herself.  At last
+God touched her.  Her sin had never been accompanied by forgetfulness;
+she used often to leave the King to go and pray in her cabinet; nothing
+could ever make her evade any fast day or meagre day; her austerity in
+fasting continued amidst all her dissipation.  She gave alms, was
+esteemed by good people, never gave way to doubt of impiety; but she was
+imperious, haughty and overbearing, full of mockery, and of all the
+qualities by which beauty with the power it bestows is naturally
+accompanied.  Being resolved at last to take advantage of an opportunity
+which had been given her against her will, she put herself in the hands
+of Pere de la Tour, that famous General of the Oratory.  From that moment
+to the time of her death her conversion continued steadily, and her
+penitence augmented.  She had first to get rid of the secret fondness she
+still entertained for the Court, even of the hopes which, however
+chimerical, had always flattered her.  She was persuaded that nothing but
+the fear of the devil had forced the King to separate himself from her,
+that it was nothing but this fear that had raised Madame de Maintenon to
+the height she had attained; that age and ill-health, which she was
+pleased to imagine, would soon clear the way; that when the King was a
+widower, she being a widow, nothing would oppose their reunion, which
+might easily be brought about by their affection for their children.
+These children entertained similar hopes, and were therefore assiduous in
+their attention to her for some time.
+
+Pere de la Tour made her perform a terrible act of penitence.  It was to
+ask pardon of her husband, and to submit herself to his commands.  To all
+who knew Madame de Montespan this will seem the most heroic sacrifice.
+M. de Montespan, however, imposed no restraint upon his wife.  He sent
+word that he wished in no way to interfere with her, or even to see her.
+She experienced no further trouble, therefore, on this score.
+
+Little by little she gave almost all she had to the poor.  She worked for
+them several hours a day, making stout shirts and such things for them.
+Her table, that she had loved to excess, became the most frugal; her
+fasts multiplied; she would interrupt her meals in order to go and pray.
+Her mortifications were continued; her chemises and her sheets were of
+rough linen, of the hardest and thickest kind, but hidden under others of
+ordinary kind.  She unceasingly wore bracelets, garters, and a girdle,
+all armed with iron points, which oftentimes inflicted wounds upon her;
+and her tongue, formerly so dangerous, had also its peculiar penance
+imposed on it.  She was, moreover, so tormented with the fear of death,
+that she employed several women, whose sole occupation was to watch her.
+She went to sleep with all the curtains of her bed open, many lights in
+her chamber, and her women around her.  Whenever she awoke she wished to
+find them chatting, playing, or enjoying themselves, so as to re-assure
+herself against their drowsiness.
+
+With all this she could never throw off the manners of a queen.  She had
+an arm-chair in her chamber with its back turned to the foot of the bed.
+There was no other in the chamber, not even when her natural children
+came to see her, not even for Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans.  She was
+oftentimes visited by the most distinguished people of the Court, and she
+spoke like a queen to all.  She treated everybody with much respect, and
+was treated so in turn.  I have mentioned in its proper place, that a
+short time before her death, the King gave her a hundred thousand francs
+to buy an estate; but this present was not gratis, for she had to send
+back a necklace worth a hundred and fifty thousand, to which the King
+made additions, and bestowed it on the Duchesse de Bourgogne.
+
+The last time Madame de Montespan went to Bourbon she paid all her
+charitable pensions and gratuities two years in advance and doubled her
+alms.  Although in good health she had a presentiment that she should
+return no more.  This presentiment, in effect, proved correct.  She felt
+herself so ill one night, although she had been very well just before,
+that she confessed herself, and received the sacrament.  Previous to this
+she called all her servants into her room and made a public confession of
+her public sins, asking pardon for the scandal she had caused with a
+humility so decent, so profound, so penitent, that nothing could be more
+edifying.  She received the last sacrament with an ardent piety.  The
+fear of death which all her life had so continually troubled her,
+disappeared suddenly, and disturbed her no more.  She died, without
+regret, occupied only with thoughts of eternity, and with a sweetness and
+tranquillity that accompanied all her actions.
+
+Her only son by Monsieur de Montespan, whom she had treated like a
+mother-in-law, until her separation from the King, but who had since
+returned to her affection, D'Antin, arrived just before her death.  She
+looked at him, and only said that he saw her in a very different state to
+what he had seen her at Bellegarde.  As soon as she was dead he set out
+for Paris, leaving orders for her obsequies, which were strange, or were
+strangely executed.  Her body, formerly so perfect, became the prey of
+the unskilfulness and the ignorance of a surgeon.  The obsequies were at
+the discretion of the commonest valets, all the rest of the house having
+suddenly deserted.  The body remained a long time at the door of the
+house, whilst the canons of the Sainte Chapelle and the priests of the
+parish disputed about the order of precedence with more than indecency.
+It was put in keeping under care of the parish, like the corpse of the
+meanest citizen of the place, and not until a long time afterwards was it
+sent to Poitiers to be placed in the family tomb, and then with an
+unworthy parsimony.  Madame de Montespan was bitterly regretted by all
+the poor of the province, amongst whom she spread an infinity of alms, as
+well as amongst others of different degree.
+
+As for the King, his perfect insensibility at the death of a mistress he
+had so passionately loved, and for so many years, was so extreme, that
+Madame de Bourgogne could not keep her surprise from him.  He replied,
+tranquilly, that since he had dismissed her he had reckoned upon never
+seeing her again, and that thus she was from that time dead to him.  It
+is easy to believe that the grief of the children he had had by her did
+not please him.  Those children did not dare to wear mourning for a
+mother not recognised.  Their appearance, therefore, contrasted with that
+of the children of Madame de la Valliere, who had just died, and for whom
+they were wearing mourning.  Nothing could equal the grief which Madame
+la Duchesse d'Orleans, Madame la Duchesse, and the Comte de Toulouse
+exhibited.  The grief of Madame la Duchesse especially was astonishing,
+for she always prided herself on loving nobody; still more astonishing
+was the grief of M. le Duc, so inaccessible to friendship.  We must
+remember, however, that this death put an end to many hopes.  M. du
+Maine, for his part, could scarcely repress his joy at the death of his
+mother, and after having stopped away from Marly two days, returned and
+caused the Comte de Toulouse to be recalled likewise.  Madame de
+Maintenon, delivered of a former rival, whose place she had taken, ought,
+it might have been thought, to have felt relieved.  It was otherwise;
+remorse for the benefits she had received from Madame de Montespan, and
+for the manner in which those benefits had been repaid, overwhelmed her.
+Tears stole down her cheeks, and she went into a strange privacy to hide
+them.  Madame de Bourgogne, who followed, was speechless with
+astonishment.
+
+The life and conduct of so famous a mistress, subsequent to her forced
+retirement, have appeared to me sufficiently curious to describe at
+length; and what happened at her death was equally characteristic of the
+Court.
+
+The death of the Duchesse de Nemours, which followed quickly upon that of
+Madame de Montespart, made still more stir in the world, but of another
+kind.  Madame de Nemours was daughter, by a first marriage, of the last
+Duc de Longueville.  She was extremely rich, and lived in great
+splendour.  She had a strange look, and a droll way of dressing, big
+eyes, with which she could scarcely see, a shoulder that constantly
+twitched, grey hairs that she wore flowing, and a very imposing air.
+She had a very bad temper, and could not forgive.  When somebody asked
+her if she said the Pater, she replied, yes, but that she passed by
+without saying it the clause respecting pardon for our enemies.  She did
+not like her kinsfolk, the Matignons, and would never see nor speak to
+any of them.  One day talking to the King at a window of his cabinet,
+she saw Matignon passing in the court below.  Whereupon she set to
+spitting five or six times running, and then turned to the King and
+begged his pardon, saying, that she could never see a Matignon without
+spitting in that manner.  It may be imagined that devotion did not
+incommode her.  She herself used to tell a story, that having entered one
+day a confessional, without being followed into the church, neither her
+appearance nor her dress gave her confessor an idea of her rank.  She
+spoke of her great wealth, and said much about the Princes de Conde and
+de Conti.  The confessor told her to pass by all that.  She, feeling that
+the case was a serious one, insisted upon explaining and made allusion to
+her large estates and her millions.  The good priest believed her mad,
+and told her to calm herself; to get rid of such ideas; to think no more
+of them; and above all to eat good soups, if she had the means to procure
+them.  Seized with anger she rose and left the place.  The confessor out
+of curiosity followed her to the door.  When he saw the good lady, whom
+he thought mad, received by grooms, waiting women, and so on, he had like
+to have fallen backwards; but he ran to the coach door and asked her
+pardon.  It was now her turn to laugh at him, and she got off scot-free
+that day from the confessional.
+
+Madame de Nemours had amongst other possessions the sovereignty of
+Neufchatel.  As soon as she was dead, various claimants arose to dispute
+the succession.  Madame de Mailly laid claim to it, as to the succession
+to the principality of Orange, upon the strength of a very doubtful
+alliance with the house of Chalons, and hoped to be supported by Madame
+de Maintenon.  But Madame de Maintenon laughed at her chimeras, as they
+were laughed at in Switzerland.
+
+M. le Prince de Conti was another claimant.  He based his right upon the
+will of the last Duc de Longueville, by which he had been called to all
+the Duke's wealth, after the Comte de Saint Paul, his brother, and his
+posterity.  In addition to these, there were Matignon and the dowager
+Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who claimed Neufchatel by right of their
+relationship to Madame de Nemours.
+
+Matignon was an intimate friend of Chamillart, who did not like the
+Prince de Conti, and was the declared enemy of the Marechal de Villeroy,
+the representative of Madame de Lesdiguieres, in this affair.
+Chamillart, therefore, persuaded the King to remain neutral, and aided
+Matignon by money and influence to get the start of the other claimants.
+
+The haughty citizens of Neufchatel saw then all these suitors begging for
+their suffrages, when a minister of the Elector of Brandenbourg appeared
+amongst them, and disputed the pretensions of the Prince de Conti in
+favour of his master, the Elector of Brandenbourg (King of Prussia), who
+drew his claim from the family of Chalons.  It was more distant; more
+entangled if possible, than that of Madame de Mailly.  He only made use
+of it, therefore, as a pretext.  His reasons were his religion, in
+conformity with that of the country; the support of the neighbouring
+Protestant cantons, allies, and protectors of Neufchatel; the pressing
+reflection that the principality of Orange having fallen by the death of
+William III. to M. le Prince de Conti, the King (Louis XIV.) had
+appropriated it and recompensed him for it: and that he might act
+similarly if Neufchatel fell to one of his subjects; lastly, a treaty
+produced in good form, by which, in the event of the death of Madame de
+Nemours, England and Holland agreed to declare for the Elector of
+Brandenbourg, and to assist him by force in procuring this little state.
+This minister of the Elector was in concert with the Protestant cantons,
+who upon his declaration at once sided with him; and who, by the money
+spent, the conformity of religion, the power of the Elector, the
+reflection of what had happened at Orange, found nearly all the suffrages
+favourable.  So striking while the iron was hot, they obtained a
+provisional judgment from Neufchatel, which adjudged their state to the
+Elector until the peace; and in consequence of this, his minister was put
+into actual possession, and M. le Prince de Conti saw himself constrained
+to return more shamefully than he had returned once before, and was
+followed by the other claimants.
+
+Madame de Mailly made such an uproar at the news of this intrusion of the
+Elector, that at last the attention of our ministers was awakened.  They
+found, with her, that it was the duty of the King not to allow this
+morsel to be carried off from his subjects; and that there was danger in
+leaving it in the hands of such a powerful Protestant prince, capable of
+making a fortified place of it so close to the county of Burgundy, and on
+a frontier so little protected.  Thereupon, the King despatched a courier
+to our minister in Switzerland, with orders to go to Neufchatel, and
+employ every means, even menaces, to exclude the Elector, and to promise
+that the neutrality of France should be maintained if one of her subjects
+was selected, no matter which one.  It was too late.  The affair was
+finished; the cantons were engaged, without means of withdrawing.  They,
+moreover, were piqued into resistance, by an appeal to their honour by
+the electoral minister, who insisted on the menaces of Puysieux, our
+representative, to whose memoir the ministers of England and Holland
+printed a violent reply.  The provisional judgment received no
+alteration.  Shame was felt; and resentment was testified during six
+weeks; after which, for lack of being able to do better, this resentment
+was appeased of itself.  It may be imagined what hope remained to the
+claimants of reversing at the peace this provisional judgment, and of
+struggling against a prince so powerful and so solidly supported.  No
+mention of it was afterwards made, and Neufchatel has remained ever since
+fully and peaceably to this prince, who was even expressly confirmed in
+his possession at the peace by France.
+
+The armies assembled this year towards the end of May, and the campaign
+commenced.  The Duc de Vendome was in command in Flanders, under the
+Elector of Bavaria, and by his slothfulness and inattention, allowed
+Marlborough to steal a march upon him, which, but for the failure of some
+of the arrangements, might have caused serious loss to our troops.  The
+enemy was content to keep simply on the defensive after this, having
+projects of attack in hand elsewhere to which I shall soon allude.
+
+On the Rhine, the Marechal de Villars was in command, and was opposed by
+the Marquis of Bayreuth, and afterwards by the Duke of Hanover, since
+King of England.  Villars was so far successful, that finding himself
+feebly opposed by the Imperials, he penetrated into Germany, after having
+made himself master of Heidelberg, Mannheim, and all the Palatinate, and
+seized upon a number of cannons, provisions, and munitions of war.  He
+did not forget to tax the enemy wherever he went.  He gathered immense
+sums--treasures beyond all his hopes.  Thus gorged, he could not hope
+that his brigandage would remain unknown.  He put on a bold face and
+wrote to the King, that the army would cost him nothing this year.
+Villars begged at the same time to be allowed to appropriate some of the
+money he had acquired to the levelling of a hill on his estate which
+displeased him.  Another than he would have been dishonoured by such a
+request.  But it made no difference in his respect, except with the
+public, with whom, however, he occupied himself but little.  His booty
+clutched, he thought of withdrawing from the enemy's country, and passing
+the Rhine.
+
+He crossed it tranquilly, with his army and his immense booty, despite
+the attempts of the Duke of Hanover to prevent him, and as soon as he was
+on this side, had no care but how to terminate the campaign in repose.
+Thus finished a campaign tolerably brilliant, if the sordid and
+prodigious gain of the general had not soiled it.  Yet that general, on
+his return, was not less well received by the King.
+
+At sea we had successes.  Frobin, with vessels more feeble than the four
+English ones of seventy guns, which convoyed a fleet of eighteen ships
+loaded with provisions and articles of war, took two of those vessels of
+war and the eighteen merchantmen, after four hours' fighting, and set
+fire to one of the two others.  Three months after he took at the mouth
+of the Dwiria seven richly-loaded Dutch merchant-ships, bound for
+Muscovy.  He took or sunk more than fifty during this campaign.
+Afterwards he took three large English ships of war that he led to Brest,
+and sank another of a hundred guns.  The English of New England and of
+New York were not more successful in Acadia; they attacked our colony
+twelve days running, without success, and were obliged to retire with
+much loss.
+
+The maritime year finished by a terrible tempest upon the coast of
+Holland, which caused many vessels to perish in the Texel, and submerged
+a large number of districts and villages.  France had also its share of
+these catastrophes.  The Loire overflowed in a manner hitherto unheard
+of, broke down the embankments, inundated and covered with sand many
+parts of the country, carried away villages, drowned numbers of people
+and a quantity of cattle, and caused damage to the amount of above eight
+millions.  This was another of our obligations to M. de la Feuillade--an
+obligation which we have not yet escaped from.  Nature, wiser than man,
+had placed rocks in the Loire above Roanne, which prevented navigation to
+that place, the principal in the duchy of M. de la Feuillade.  His
+father, tempted by the profit of this navigation, wished to get rid of
+the rocks.  Orleans, Blois, Tours, in one word, all the places on the
+Loire, opposed this.  They represented the danger of inundations; they
+were listened to, and although the M. de la Feuillade of that day was a
+favourite, and on good terms with M. Colbert, he was not allowed to carry
+out his wishes with respect to these rocks.  His son, the M. de la
+Feuillade whom we have seen figuring with so little distinction at the
+siege of Turin, had more credit.  Without listening to anybody, he blew
+up the rocks, and the navigation was rendered free in his favour; the
+inundations that they used to prevent have overflowed since at immense
+loss to the King and private individuals.  The cause was clearly seen
+afterwards, but then it was too late.
+
+The little effort made by the enemy in Flanders and Germany, had a cause,
+which began to be perceived towards the middle of July.  We had been
+forced to abandon Italy.  By a shameful treaty that was made, all our
+troops had retired from that country into Savoy.  We had given up
+everything.  Prince Eugene, who had had the glory of driving us out of
+Italy, remained there some time, and then entered the county of Nice.
+
+Forty of the enemy's vessels arrived at Nice shortly afterwards, and
+landed artillery.  M. de Savoie arrived there also, with six or seven
+thousand men.  It was now no longer hidden that the siege of Toulon was
+determined on.  Every preparation was at once made to defend the place.
+Tesse was in command.  The delay of a day on the part of the enemy saved
+Toulon, and it may be said, France.  M. de Savoie had been promised money
+by the English.  They disputed a whole day about the payment, and so
+retarded the departure of the fleet from Nice.  In the end, seeing M. de
+Savoie firm, they paid him a million, which he received himself.  But in
+the mean time twenty-one of our battalions had had time to arrive at
+Toulon.  They decided the fortune of the siege.  After several
+unsuccessful attempts to take the place, the enemy gave up the siege and
+retired in the night, between the 22nd and 23rd of August, in good order,
+and without being disturbed.  Our troops could obtain no sort of
+assistance from the people of Provence, so as to harass M. de Savoie in
+his passage of the Var.  They refused money, militia, and provisions
+bluntly, saying that it was no matter to them who came, and that M. de
+Savoie could not torment them more than they were tormented already.
+
+The important news of a deliverance so desired arrived at Marly on
+Friday, the 26th of August, and overwhelmed all the Court with joy.  A
+scandalous fuss arose, however, out of this event.  The first courier who
+brought the intelligence of it, had been despatched by the commander of
+the fleet, and had been conducted to the King by Pontchartrain, who had
+the affairs of the navy under his control.  The courier sent by Tesse,
+who commanded the land forces, did not arrive until some hours after the
+other.  Chamillart, who received this second courier, was piqued to
+excess that Pontchartrain had outstripped him with the news.  He declared
+that the news did not belong to the navy, and consequently Pontchartrain
+had no right to carry it to the King.  The public, strangely enough,
+sided with Chamillart, and on every side Pontchartrain was treated as a
+greedy usurper.  Nobody had sufficient sense to reflect upon the anger
+which a master would feel against a servant who, having the information
+by which that master could be relieved from extreme anxiety, should yet
+withhold the information for six or eight hours, on the ground that to
+tell it was the duty of another servant!
+
+The strangest thing is, that the King, who was the most interested, had
+not the force to declare himself on either side, but kept silent.  The
+torrent was so impetuous that Pontchartrain had only to lower his head,
+keep silent, and let the waters pass.  Such was the weakness of the King
+for his ministers.  I recollect that, in 1702, the Duc de Villeroy
+brought to Marly the important news of the battle of Luzzara.  But,
+because Chamillart was not there, he hid himself, left the King and the
+Court in the utmost anxiety, and did not announce his news until long
+after, when Chamillart, hearing of his arrival, hastened to join him and
+present him to the King.  The King was so far from being displeased, that
+he made the Duc de Villeroy Lieutenant-General before dismissing him.
+
+There is another odd thing that I must relate before quitting this
+affair.  Tesse, as I have said, was charged with the defence of Toulon by
+land.  It was a charge of no slight importance.  He was in a country
+where nothing was prepared, and where everything was wanting; the fleet
+of the enemy and their army were near at hand, commanded by two of the
+most skilful captains of the day: if they succeeded, the kingdom itself
+was in danger, and the road open to the enemy even to Paris.  A general
+thus situated would have been in no humour for jesting, it might have
+been thought.  But this was not the case with Tesse.  He found time to
+write to Pontchartrain all the details of the war and all that passed
+amongst our troops in the style of Don Quixote, of whom he called himself
+the wretched squire and the Sancho; and everything he wrote he adapted to
+the adventures of that romance.  Pontchartrain showed me these letters;
+they made him die with laughing, he admired them so; and in truth they
+were very comical, and he imitated that romance with more wit than I
+believed him to possess.  It appeared to me incredible, however, that a
+man should write thus, at such a critical time, to curry, favour with a
+secretary of state.  I could not have believed it had I not seen it.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Imagining themselves everywhere in marvellous danger of capture
+Oh, my lord! how many virtues you make me detest
+Polite when necessary, but insolent when he dared
+Promotion was granted according to length of service
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XIV., Volume 5
+by Duc de Saint-Simon
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+The Project Gutenberg Memoirs Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, v5
+#5 in our series by by The Duc de Saint-Simon
+#27 in our series Historic Court Memoirs, 
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+Title: The Memoirs Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, v5
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+
+          MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCY
+
+                        BY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON
+
+
+                                VOLUME 5.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+A Hunting Adventure.--Story and Catastrophe of Fargues.--Death and
+Character of Ninon de l'Enclos.--Odd Adventure of Courtenvaux.--Spies at
+Court.--New Enlistment.--Wretched State of the Country.--Balls at Marly.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+Arrival of Vendome at Court.--Character of That Disgusting Personage.--
+Rise of Cardinal Alberoni.--Vendome's Reception at Marly.--His Unheard-of
+Triumph.--His High Flight.--Returns to Italy.--Battle of Calcinato.--
+Condition of the Army.--Pique of the Marechal de Villeroy.--Battle of
+Ramillies.--Its Consequences.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+Abandonment of the Siege of Barcelona.--Affairs of Italy.--
+La Feuillade.--Disastrous Rivalries.--Conduct of M. d'Orleans.--The Siege
+of Turin.--Battle.--Victory of Prince Eugene.--Insubordination in the
+Army.--Retreat.--M. d'Orleans Returns to Court.--Disgrace of La Feuillade
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+Measures of Economy.--Financial Embarrassments.--The King and
+Chamillart.--Tax on Baptisms and Marriages.--Vauban's Patriotism.--
+Its Punishment.--My Action with M. de Brissac.--I Appeal to the King.--
+The Result.--I Gain My Action.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+My Appointment as Ambassador to Rome.--How It Fell Through.--Anecdotes of
+the Bishop of Orleans.--A Droll Song.--A Saint in Spite of Himself.--
+Fashionable Crimes.--A Forged Genealogy.--Abduction of Beringhen.--
+The 'Parvulos' of Meudon and Mademoiselle Choin.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+Death and Last Days of Madame de Montespan.--Selfishness of the King.--
+Death and Character of Madame de Nemours.--Neufchatel and Prussia.--
+Campaign of Villars.--Naval Successes.--Inundations of the Loire.--Siege
+of Toulon.--A Quarrel about News.--Quixotic Despatches of Tesse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+Two very different persons died towards the latter part of this year.
+The first was Lamoignon, Chief President; the second, Ninon, known by the
+name of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos.  Of Lamoignon I will relate a single
+anecdote, curious and instructive, which will show the corruption of
+which he was capable.
+
+One day--I am speaking of a time many years previous to the date of the
+occurrences just related--one day there was a great hunting party at
+Saint Germain.  The chase was pursued so long, that the King gave up,
+and returned to Saint Germain.  A number of courtiers, among whom was
+M. de Lauzun, who related this story to me, continued their sport; and
+just as darkness was coming on, discovered that they had lost their way.
+After a time, they espied a light, by which they guided their steps, and
+at length reached the door of a kind of castle.  They knocked, they
+called aloud, they named themselves, and asked for hospitality.  It was
+then between ten and eleven at night, and towards the end of autumn.
+The door was opened to them.  The master of the house came forth.
+He made them take their boots off, and warm themselves; he put their
+horses into his stables; and at the same time had a supper prepared for
+his guests, who stood much in need of it.  They did not wait long for the
+meal; yet when served it proved excellent; the wines served with it, too,
+were of several kinds, and excellent likewise: as for the master of the
+house, he was so polite and respectful, yet without being ceremonious or
+eager, that it was evident he had frequented the best company.  The
+courtiers soon learnt that his name vitas Fargues, that the place was
+called Courson, and that he had lived there in retirement several years.
+After having supped, Fargues showed each of them into a separate bedroom,
+where they were waited upon by his valets with every proper attention.
+In the morning, as soon as the courtiers had dressed themselves, they
+found an excellent breakfast awaiting them; and upon leaving the table
+they saw their horses ready for them, and as thoroughly attended to as
+they had been themselves.  Charmed with the politeness and with the
+manners of Fargues, and touched by his hospitable reception of them, they
+made him many offers of service, and made their way back to Saint
+Germain.  Their non-appearance on the previous night had been the common
+talk, their return and the adventure they had met with was no less so.
+
+These gentlemen were then the very flower of the Court, and all of them
+very intimate with the King.  They related to him, therefore, their
+story, the manner of their reception, and highly praised the master of
+the house and his good cheer.  The King asked his name, and, as soon as
+he heard it, exclaimed, "What, Fargues!  is he so near here, then?"
+The courtiers redoubled their praises, and the King said no more; but
+soon after, went to the Queen-mother, and told her what had happened.
+
+Fargues, indeed, was no stranger, either to her or to the King.  He had
+taken a prominent part in the movements of Paris against the Court and
+Cardinal Mazarin.  If he had not been hanged, it was because he was well
+supported by his party, who had him included in the amnesty granted to
+those who had been engaged in these troubles.  Fearing, however, that the
+hatred of his enemies might place his life in danger if he remained in
+Paris, he retired from the capital to this country-house which has just
+been mentioned, where he continued to live in strict privacy, even when
+the death of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to render such seclusion no longer
+necessary.
+
+The King and the Queen-mother, who had pardoned Fargues in spite of
+themselves, were much annoyed at finding that he was living in opulence
+and tranquillity so near the Court; thought him extremely bold to do so;
+and determined to punish him for this and for his former insolence.  They
+directed Lamoignon, therefore, to find out something in the past life of
+Fargues for which punishment might be awarded; and Lamoignon, eager to
+please, and make a profit out of his eagerness, was not long in
+satisfying them.  He made researches, and found means to implicate
+Fargues in a murder that had been committed in Paris at the height of the
+troubles.  Officers were accordingly sent to Courson, and its owner was
+arrested.
+
+Fargues was much astonished when he learnt of what he was accused.  He
+exculpated himself, nevertheless, completely; alleging, moreover, that as
+the murder of which he was accused had been committed during the
+troubles, the amnesty in which he was included effaced all memory of the
+deed, according to law and usage, which had never been contested until
+this occasion.  The courtiers who had been so well treated by the unhappy
+man, did everything they could with the judges and the King to obtain the
+release of the accused.  It was all in vain.  Fargues was decapitated at
+once, and all his wealth was given by way of recompense to the Chief-
+President Lamoignon, who had no scruple thus to enrich himself with the
+blood of the innocent.
+
+The other person who died at the same time was, as I have said, Ninon,
+the famous courtesan, known, since age had compelled her to quit that
+trade, as Mademoiselle de l'Enclos.  She was a new example of the triumph
+of vice carried on cleverly and repaired by some virtue.  The stir that
+she made, and still more the disorder that she caused among the highest
+and most brilliant youth, overcame the extreme indulgence that, not
+without cause, the Queen-mother entertained for persons whose conduct was
+gallant, and more than gallant, and made her send her an order to retire
+into a convent.  But Ninon, observing that no especial convent was named,
+said, with a great courtesy, to the officer who brought the order, that,
+as the option was left to her, she would choose "the convent of the
+Cordeliers at Paris;" which impudent joke so diverted the Queen that she
+left her alone for the future.  Ninon never had but one lover at a time--
+but her admirers were numberless--so that when wearied of one incumbent
+she told him so frankly, and took another: The abandoned one might groan
+and complain; her decree was without appeal; and this creature had
+acquired such an influence, that the deserted lovers never dared to take
+revenge on the favoured one, and were too happy to remain on the footing
+of friend of the house.  She sometimes kept faithful to one, when he
+pleased her very much, during an entire campaign.
+
+Ninon had illustrious friends of all sorts, and had so much wit that she
+preserved them all and kept them on good terms with each other; or, at
+least, no quarrels ever came to light.  There was an external respect and
+decency about everything that passed in her house, such as princesses of
+the highest rank have rarely been able to preserve in their intrigues.
+
+In this way she had among her friends a selection of the best members of
+the Court; so that it became the fashion to be received by her, and it
+was useful to be so, on account of the connections that were thus formed.
+
+There was never any gambling there, nor loud laughing, nor disputes, nor
+talk about religion or politics; but much and elegant wit, ancient and
+modern stories, news of gallantries, yet without scandal.  All was
+delicate, light, measured; and she herself maintained the conversation by
+her wit and her great knowledge of facts.  The respect which, strange to
+say, she had acquired, and the number and distinction of her friends and
+acquaintances, continued when her charms ceased to attract; and when
+propriety and fashion compelled her to use only intellectual baits.  She
+knew all the intrigues of the old and the new Court, serious and
+otherwise; her conversation was charming; she was disinterested,
+faithful, secret, safe to the last degree; and, setting aside her
+frailty, virtuous and full of probity.  She frequently succoured her
+friends with money and influence; constantly did them the most important
+services, and very faithfully kept the secrets or the money deposits that
+were confided to her.
+
+She had been intimate with Madame de Maintenon during the whole of her
+residence at Paris; but Madame de Maintenon, although not daring to
+disavow this friendship, did not like to hear her spoken about.
+
+She wrote to Ninon with amity from time to time, even until her death;
+and Ninon in like manner, when she wanted to serve any friend in whom she
+took great interest, wrote to Madame de Maintenon, who did her what
+service she required efficaciously and with promptness.
+
+But since Madame de Maintenon came to power, they had only seen each
+other two or three times, and then in secret.
+
+Ninon was remarkable for her repartees.  One that she made to the last
+Marechal de Choiseul is worth repeating.  The Marechal was virtue itself,
+but not fond of company or blessed with much wit.  One day, after a long
+visit he had paid her, Ninon gaped, looked at the Marechal, and cried:
+
+"Oh, my lord! how many virtues you make me detest!"
+
+A line from I know not what play.  The laughter at this may be imagined.
+L'Enclos lived, long beyond her eightieth year, always healthy, visited,
+respected.  She gave her last years to God, and her death was the news of
+the day.  The singularity of this personage has made me extend my
+observations upon her.
+
+A short time after the death of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, a terrible
+adventure happened to Courtenvaux, eldest son of M. de Louvois.
+Courtenvaux was commander of the Cent-Suisses, fond of obscure debauches;
+with a ridiculous voice, miserly, quarrelsome, though modest and
+respectful; and in fine a very stupid fellow.  The King, more eager to
+know all that was passing than most people believed, although they gave
+him credit for not a little curiosity in this respect, had authorised
+Bontems to engage a number of Swiss in addition to those posted at the
+doors, and in the parks and gardens.  These attendants had orders to
+stroll morning, noon, and night, along the corridors, the passages, the
+staircases, even into the private places, and, when it was fine, in the
+court-yards and gardens; and in secret to watch people, to follow them,
+to notice where they went, to notice who was there, to listen to all the
+conversation they could hear, and to make reports of their discoveries.
+This was assiduously done at Versailles, at Marly, at Trianon, at
+Fontainebleau, and in all the places where the King was.  These new
+attendants vexed Courtenvaux considerably, for over such new-comers he
+had no sort of authority.  This season, at Fontainebleau, a room, which
+had formerly been occupied by a party of the Cent-Suisses and of the
+body-guard, was given up entirely to the new corps.  The room was in a
+public passage of communication indispensable to all in the chateau, and
+in consequence, excellently well adapted for watching those who passed
+through it.  Courtenvaux, more than ever vexed by this new arrangement,
+regarded it as a fresh encroachment upon his authority, and flew into a
+violent rage with the new-comers, and railed at them in good set terms.
+They allowed him to fume as he would; they had their orders, and were too
+wise to be disturbed by his rage.  The King, who heard of all this, sent
+at once for Courtenvaux.  As soon as he appeared in the cabinet, the King
+called to him from the other end of the room, without giving him time to
+approach, and in a rage so terrible, and for him so novel, that not only
+Courtenvaux, but Princes, Princesses, and everybody in the chamber,
+trembled.  Menaces that his post should be taken away from him, terms the
+most severe and the most unusual, rained upon Courtenvaux, who, fainting
+with fright, and ready to sink under the ground, had neither the time nor
+the means to prefer a word.  The reprimand finished by the King saying,
+"Get out."  He had scarcely the strength to obey.
+
+The cause of this strange scene was that Courtenvaux, by the fuss he had
+made, had drawn the attention of the whole Court to the change effected
+by the King, and that, when once seen, its object was clear to all eyes.
+The King, who hid his spy system with the greatest care, had counted upon
+this change passing unperceived, and was beside himself with anger when
+he found it made apparent to everybody by Courtenvaux's noise.  He never
+regained the King's favour during the rest of his life; and but for his
+family he would certainly have been driven away, and his office taken
+from him.
+
+Let me speak now of something of more moment.
+
+The war, as I have said, still continued, but without bringing us any
+advantages.  On the contrary, our losses in Germany and Italy by
+sickness, rather than by the sword, were so great that it was resolved to
+augment each company by five men; and, at the same time, twenty-five
+thousand militia were raised, thus causing great ruin and great
+desolation in the provinces.  The King was rocked into the belief that
+the people were all anxious to enter this militia, and, from time to
+time, at Marly, specimens of those enlisted were shown to him, and their
+joy and eagerness to serve made much of.  I have heard this often; while,
+at the same time, I knew from my own tenantry, and from everything that
+was said, that the raising of this militia carried despair everywhere,
+and that many people mutilated themselves in order to exempt themselves
+from serving.  Nobody at the Court was ignorant of this.  People lowered
+their eyes when they saw the deceit practised upon the King, and the
+credulity he displayed, and afterwards whispered one to another what they
+thought of flattery so ruinous.  Fresh regiments, too, were raised at
+this time, and a crowd of new colonels and staffs created, instead of
+giving a new battalion or a squadron additional to regiments already in
+existence.  I saw quite plainly towards what rock we were drifting.  We
+had met losses at Hochstedt, Gibraltar, and Barcelona; Catalonia and the
+neighbouring countries were in revolt; Italy yielding us nothing but
+miserable successes; Spain exhausted; France, failing in men and money,
+and with incapable generals, protected by the Court against their faults.
+I saw all these things so plainly that I could not avoid making
+reflections, or reporting them to my friends in office.  I thought that
+it was time to finish the war before we sank still lower, and that it
+might be finished by giving to the Archduke what we could not defend, and
+making a division of the rest.  My plan was to leave Philip V.
+possession of all Italy, except those parts which belonged to the Grand
+Duke, the republics of Venice and Genoa, and the ecclesiastical states of
+Naples and Sicily; our King to have Lorraine and some other slight
+additions of territory; and to place elsewhere the Dukes of Savoy, of
+Lorraine, of Parma, and of Modem.  I related this plan to the Chancellor
+and to Chamillart, amongst others.  The contrast between their replies
+was striking.  The Chancellor, after having listened to me very
+attentively, said, if my plan were adopted, he would most willingly kiss
+my toe for joy.  Chamillart, with gravity replied, that the King would
+not give up a single mill of all the Spanish succession.  Then I felt the
+blindness which had fallen upon us, and how much the results of it were
+to be dreaded.
+
+Nevertheless, the King, as if to mock at misfortune and to show his
+enemies the little uneasiness he felt, determined, at the commencement of
+the new year, 1706, that the Court should be gayer than ever.  He
+announced that there would be balls at Marly every time he was there this
+winter, and he named those who were to dance there; and said he should be
+very glad to see balls given to Madame de Bourgogne at Versailles.
+Accordingly, many took place there, and also at Marly, and from time to
+time there were masquerades.  One day, the King wished that everybody,
+even the most aged, who were at Marly, should go to the ball masked; and,
+to avoid all distinction, he went there himself with a gauze robe above
+his habit; but such a slight disguise was for himself alone; everybody
+else was completely disguised.  M. and Madame de Beauvilliers were there
+perfectly disguised.  When I say they were there, those who knew the
+Court will admit that I have said more than enough.  I had the pleasure
+of seeing them, and of quietly laughing with them.  At all these balls
+the King made people dance who had long since passed the age for doing
+so.  As for the Comte de Brionne and the Chevalier de Sully, their
+dancing was so perfect that there was no age for them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+In the midst of all this gaiety, that is to say on the 12th of February,
+1706, one of our generals, of whom I have often spoken, I mean M. de
+Vendome, arrived at Marly.  He had not quitted Italy since succeeding to
+Marechal de Villeroy, after the affair of Cremona.  His battles, such as
+they were, the places he had taken, the authority he had assumed, the
+reputation he had usurped, his incomprehensible successes with the King,
+the certainty of the support he leaned on,--all this inspired him with
+the desire to come and enjoy at Court a situation so brilliant, and which
+so far surpassed what he had a right to expect.  But before speaking of
+the reception which was given him, and of the incredible ascendancy he
+took, let me paint him from the life a little more completely than I have
+yet done.
+
+Vendome was of ordinary height, rather stout, but vigorous and active:
+with a very noble countenance and lofty mien.  There was much natural
+grace in his carriage and words; he had a good deal of innate wit, which
+he had not cultivated, and spoke easily, supported by a natural boldness,
+which afterwards turned to the wildest audacity; he knew the world and
+the Court; was above all things an admirable courtier; was polite when
+necessary, but insolent when he dared--familiar with common people--in
+reality, full of the most ravenous pride.  As his rank rose and his
+favour increased, his obstinacy, and pig-headedness increased too, so
+that at last he would listen to no advice whatever, and was inaccessible
+to all, except a small number of familiars and valets.  No one better
+than he knew the subserviency of the French character, or took more
+advantage of it.  Little by little he accustomed his subalterns, and then
+from one to the other all his army, to call him nothing but
+"Monseigneur," and "Your Highness."  In time the gangrene spread, and
+even lieutenant-generals and the most distinguished people did not dare
+to address him in any other manner.
+
+The most wonderful thing to whoever knew the King--so gallant to the
+ladies during a long part of his life, so devout the other, and often
+importunate to make others do as he did--was that the said King had
+always a singular horror of the inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain;
+and yet M. de Vendome, though most odiously stained with that vice--so
+publicly that he treated it as an ordinary gallantry--never found his
+favour diminished on that account.  The Court, Anet, the army, knew of
+these abominations.  Valets and subaltern officers soon found the way to
+promotion.  I have already mentioned how publicly he placed himself in
+the doctor's hands, and how basely the Court acted, imitating the King,
+who would never have pardoned a legitimate prince what he indulged so
+strangely in Vendome.
+
+The idleness of M. de Vendome was equally matter of notoriety.  More than
+once he ran the risk of being taken prisoner from mere indolence.  He
+rarely himself saw anything at the army, trusting to his familiars when
+ready to trust anybody.  The way he employed his day prevented any real
+attention to business.  He was filthy in the extreme, and proud of it.
+Fools called it simplicity.  His bed was always full of dogs and bitches,
+who littered at his side, the pops rolling in the clothes.  He himself
+was under constraint in nothing.  One of his theses was, that everybody
+resembled him, but was not honest enough to confess it as he was.  He
+mentioned this once to the Princesse de Conti--the cleanest person in the
+world, and the most delicate in her cleanliness.
+
+He rose rather late when at the army.  In this situation he wrote his
+letters, and gave his morning orders.  Whoever had business with him,
+general officers and distinguished persons, could speak to him then.  He
+had accustomed the army to this infamy.  At the same time he gobbled his
+breakfast; and whilst he ate, listened, or gave orders, many spectators
+always standing round.... (I must be excused these disgraceful details,
+in order better to make him known)....  On shaving days he used the same
+vessel to lather his chin in.  This, according to him, was a simplicity
+of manner worthy of the ancient Romans, and which condemned the splendour
+and superfluity of the others.  When all was over, he dressed; then
+played high at piquet or hombre; or rode out, if it was absolutely
+necessary.  All was now over for the day.  He supped copiously with his
+familiars: was a great eater, of wonderful gluttony; a connoisseur in no
+dish, liked fish much, but the stale and stinking better than the good.
+The meal prolonged itself in theses and disputes, and above all in praise
+and flattery.
+
+He would never have forgiven the slightest blame from any one.  He wanted
+to pass for the first captain of his age, and spoke with indecent
+contempt of Prince Eugene and all the others.  The faintest contradiction
+would have been a crime.  The soldier and the subaltern adored him for
+his familiarity with them, and the licence he allowed in order to gain
+their hearts; for all which he made up by excessive haughtiness towards
+whoever was elevated by rank or birth.
+
+On one occasion the Duke of Parma sent the bishop of that place to
+negotiate some affair with him; but M. de Vendome took such disgusting
+liberties in his presence, that the ecclesiastic, though without saying a
+word, returned to Parma, and declared to his master that never would he
+undertake such an embassy again.  In his place another envoy was sent,
+the famous Alberoni.  He was the son of a gardener, who became an Abbe in
+order to get on.  He was full of buffoonery; and pleased M. de Parma as
+might a valet who amused him, but he soon showed talent and capacity for
+affairs.  The Duke thought that the night-chair of M. de Vendome required
+no other ambassador than Alberoni, who was accordingly sent to conclude
+what the bishop had left undone.  The Abbe determined to please, and was
+not proud.  M. de Vendome exhibited himself as before; and Alberoni, by
+an infamous act of personal adoration, gained his heart.  He was
+thenceforth much with him, made cheese-soup and other odd messes for him;
+and finally worked his way.  It is true he was cudgelled by some one he
+had offended, for a thousand paces, in sight of the whole army, but this
+did not prevent his advancement.  Vendome liked such an unscrupulous
+flatterer; and yet as we have seen, he was not in want of praise.  The
+extraordinary favour shown him by the King--the credulity with which his
+accounts of victories were received--showed to every one in what
+direction their laudation was to be sent.
+
+Such was the man whom the King and the whole Court hastened to caress and
+flatter from the first moment of his arrival amongst us.  There was a
+terrible hubbub: boys, porters, and valets rallied round his postchaise
+when he reached Marly.  Scarcely had he ascended into his chamber, than
+everybody, princes, bastards and all the rest, ran after him.  The
+ministers followed: so that in a short time nobody was left in the salon
+but the ladies.  M. de Beauvilliers was at Vaucresson.  As for me, I
+remained spectator, and did not go and adore this idol.
+
+In a few minutes Vendome was sent for by the King and Monseigneur.  As
+soon as he could dress himself, surrounded as he was by such a crowd, he
+went to the salon, carried by it rather than environed.  Monseigneur
+stopped the music that was playing, in order to embrace him.  The King
+left the cabinet where he was at work, and came out to meet him,
+embracing him several times.  Chamillart on the morrow gave a fete in his
+honour at L'Etang, which lasted two days.  Following his example,
+Pontchartrain, Torcy, and the most distinguished lords of the Court, did
+the same.  People begged and entreated to give him fetes; people begged
+and entreated to be invited to them.  Never was triumph equal to his;
+each step he took procured him a new one.  It is not too much to say,
+that everybody disappeared before him; Princes of the blood, ministers,
+the grandest seigneurs, all appeared only to show how high he was above
+them; even the King seemed only to remain King to elevate him more.
+
+The people joined in this enthusiasm, both in Versailles and at Paris,
+where he went under pretence of going to the opera.  As he passed along
+the streets crowds collected to cheer him; they billed him at the doors,
+and every seat was taken in advance; people pushed and squeezed
+everywhere, and the price of admission was doubled, as on the nights of
+first performances.  Vendome, who received all these homages with extreme
+ease, was yet internally surprised by a folly so universal.  He feared
+that all this heat would not last out even the short stay he intended to
+make.  To keep himself more in reserve, he asked and obtained permission
+to go to Anet, in the intervals between the journeys to Marly.  All the
+Court, however, followed him there, and the King was pleased rather than
+otherwise, at seeing Versailles half deserted for Anet, actually asking
+some if they had been, others, when they intended to go.
+
+It was evident that every one had resolved to raise M. de Vendome to the
+rank of a hero.  He determined to profit by the resolution.  If they made
+him Mars, why should he not act as such?  He claimed to be appointed
+commander of the Marechals of France, and although the King refused him
+this favour, he accorded him one which was but the stepping-stone to it.
+M. de Vendome went away towards the middle of March to command the army
+in Italy, with a letter signed by the King himself, promising him that if
+a Marechal of France were sent to Italy, that Marechal was to take
+commands from him.  M. de Vendome was content, and determined to obtain
+all he asked on a future day.  The disposition of the armies had been
+arranged just before.  Tesse, for Catalonia and Spain; Berwick, for the
+frontier of Portugal; Marechal Villars, for Alsace; Marsin, for the
+Moselle; Marechal de Villeroy, for Flanders; and M. de Vendome, as I have
+said, for Italy.
+
+Now that I am speaking of the armies, let me give here an account of all
+our military operations this year, so as to complete that subject at
+once.
+
+M. de Vendome commenced his Italian campaign by a victory.  He attacked
+the troops of Prince Eugene upon the heights of Calcinato, drove them
+before him, killed three thousand men, took twenty standards, ten pieces
+of cannon, and eight thousand prisoners.  It was a rout rather than a
+combat.  The enemy was much inferior in force to us, and was without its
+general, Prince Eugene, he not having returned to open the campaign.  He
+came back, however, the day after this engagement, soon re-established
+order among his troops, and M. de Vendome from that time, far from being
+able to recommence the attack, was obliged to keep strictly on the
+defensive while he remained in Italy.  He did not fail to make the most
+of his victory, which, however, to say the truth, led to nothing.
+
+Our armies just now were, it must be admitted, in by no means a good
+condition.  The generals owed their promotion to favour and fantasy.
+The King thought he gave them capacity when he gave them their patents.
+Under M. de Turenne the army had afforded, as in a school, opportunities
+for young officers to learn the art of warfare, and to qualify themselves
+step by step to take command.  They were promoted as they showed signs of
+their capacity, and gave proof of their talent.  Now, however, it was
+very different.  Promotion was granted according to length of service,
+thus rendering all application and diligence unnecessary, except when M.
+de Louvois suggested to the King such officers as he had private reasons
+for being favourable to, and whose actions he could control.  He
+persuaded the King that it was he himself who ought to direct the armies
+from his cabinet.  The King, flattered by this, swallowed the bait, and
+Louvois himself was thus enabled to govern in the name of the King, to
+keep the generals in leading-strings, and to fetter their every movement.
+In consequence of the way in which promotions were made, the greatest
+ignorance prevailed amongst all grades of officers.  None knew scarcely
+anything more than mere routine duties, and sometimes not even so much as
+that.  The luxury which had inundated the army, too, where everybody
+wished to live as delicately as at Paris, hindered the general officers
+from associating with the other officers, and in consequence from knowing
+and appreciating them.  As a matter of course, there were no longer any
+deliberations upon the state of affairs, in which the young might profit
+by the counsels of the old, and the army profit by the discussions of
+all.  The young officers talked only of pay and women; the old, of forage
+and equipages; the generals spent half their time in writing costly
+despatches, often useless, and sending them away by couriers.  The luxury
+of the Court and city had spread into the army, so that delicacies were
+carried there unknown formerly.  Nothing was spoken of but hot dishes in
+the marches and in the detachments; and the repasts that were carried to
+the trenches, during sieges, were not only well served, but ices and
+fruits were partaken of as at a fete, and a profusion of all sorts of
+liqueurs.  Expense ruined the officers, who vied with one another in
+their endeavours to appear magnificent; and the things to be carried, the
+work to be done, quadrupled the number of domestics and grooms, who often
+starved.  For a long time, people had complained of all this; even those
+who were put to the expenses, which ruined them; but none dared to spend
+less.  At last, that is to say, in the spring of the following year, the
+King made severe rules, with the object of bringing about a reform in
+this particular.  There is no country in Europe where there are so many
+fine laws, or where the observance of them is of shorter duration.  It
+often happens, that in the first year all are infringed, and in the
+second, forgotten.  Such was the army at this time, and we soon had
+abundant opportunities to note its incapacity to overcome the enemies
+with whom we had to contend.
+
+The King wished to open this campaign with two battles; one in Italy, the
+other in Flanders.  His desire was to some extent gratified in the former
+case; but in the other he met with a sad and cruel disappointment.  Since
+the departure of Marechal de Villeroy for Flanders, the King had more
+than once pressed him to engage the enemy.  The Marechal, piqued with
+these reiterated orders, which he considered as reflections upon his
+courage, determined to risk anything in order to satisfy the desire of
+the King.  But the King did not wish this.  At the same time that he
+wished for a battle in Flanders, he wished to place Villeroy in a state
+to fight it.  He sent orders, therefore, to Marsin to take eighteen
+battalions and twenty squadrons of his army, to proceed to the Moselle,
+where he would find twenty others, and then to march with the whole into
+Flanders, and join Marechal de Villeroy.  At the same time he prohibited
+the latter from doing anything until this reinforcement reached him.
+Four couriers, one after the other, carried this prohibition to the
+Marechal; but he had determined to give battle without assistance, and he
+did so, with what result will be seen.
+
+On the 24th of May he posted himself between the villages of Taviers and
+Ramillies.  He was superior in force to the Duke of Marlborough, who was
+opposed to him, and this fact gave him confidence.  Yet the position
+which he had taken up was one which was well known to be bad.  The late
+M. de Luxembourg had declared it so, and had avoided it.  M. de Villeroy
+had been a witness of this, but it was his destiny and that of France
+that he should forget it.  Before he took up this position he announced
+that it was his intention to do so to M. d'Orleans.  M. d'Orleans said
+publicly to all who came to listen, that if M. de Villeroy did so he
+would be beaten.  M. d'Orleans proved to be only too good a prophet.
+
+Just as M. de Villeroy had taken up his position and made his
+arrangements, the Elector arrived in hot haste from Brussels.  It was
+too late now to blame what had been done.  There was nothing for it but
+to complete what had been already begun, and await the result.
+
+It was about two hours after midday when the enemy arrived within range,
+and came under our fire from Ramillies.  It forced them to halt until
+their cannon could be brought into play, which was soon done.  The
+cannonade lasted a good hour.  At the end of that time they marched to
+Taviers, where a part of our army was posted, found but little
+resistance, and made themselves masters of that place.  From that moment
+they brought their cavalry to bear.  They perceived that there was a
+marsh which covered our left, but which hindered our two wings from
+joining.  They made good use of the advantage this gave them.  We were
+taken in the rear at more than one point, and Taviers being no longer
+able to assist us, Ramillies itself fell, after a prodigious fire and an
+obstinate resistance.  The Comte de Guiche at the head of the regiment of
+Guards defended it for four hours, and performed prodigies, but in the
+end he was obliged to give way.  All this time our left had been utterly
+useless with its nose in the marsh, no enemy in front of it, and with
+strict orders not to budge from its position.
+
+Our retreat commenced in good order, but soon the night came and threw us
+into confusion.  The defile of Judoigne became so gorged with baggage and
+with the wrecks of the artillery we had been able to save, that
+everything was taken from us there.  Nevertheless, we arrived at Louvain,
+and then not feeling in safety, passed the canal of Wilworde without
+being very closely followed by the enemy.
+
+We lost in this battle four thousand men, and many prisoners of rank, all
+of whom were treated with much politeness by Marlborough.  Brussels was
+one of the first-fruits he gathered of this victory, which had such grave
+and important results.
+
+The King did not learn this disaster until Wednesday, the 26th of May,
+at his waking.  I was at Versailles.  Never was such trouble or such
+consternation.  The worst was, that only the broad fact was known; for
+six days we were without a courier to give us details.  Even the post was
+stopped.  Days seemed like years in the ignorance of everybody as to
+details, and in the inquietude of everybody for relatives and friends.
+The King was forced to ask one and another for news; but nobody could
+tell him any.  Worn out at last by the silence, he determined to despatch
+Chamillart to Flanders to ascertain the real state of affairs.
+Chamillart accordingly left Versailles on Sunday, the 30th of May, to the
+astonishment of all the Court, at seeing a man charged with the war and
+the finance department sent on such an errand.  He astonished no less the
+army when he arrived at Courtrai, where it had stationed itself.  Having
+gained all the information he sought, Chamillart returned to Versailles
+on Friday, the 4th of June, at about eight o'clock in the evening, and at
+once went to the King, who was in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon.
+It was known then that the army, after several hasty marches, finding
+itself at Ghent, the Elector of Bavaria had insisted that it ought at
+least to remain there.  A council of war was held, the Marechal de
+Villeroy, who was quite discouraged by the loss he had sustained, opposed
+the advice of the Elector.  Ghent was abandoned, so was the open country.
+The army was separated and distributed here and there, under the command
+of the general officers.  In this way, with the exception of Namur, Mons,
+and a very few other places, all the Spanish Low Countries were lost, and
+a part of ours, even.  Never was rapidity equal to this.  The enemies
+were as much astonished as we.
+
+However tranquilly the King sustained in appearance this misfortune, he
+felt it to the quick.  He was so affected by what was said of his body-
+guards, that he spoke of them himself with bitterness.  Court warriors
+testified in their favour, but persuaded nobody.  But the King seized
+these testimonies with joy, and sent word to the Guards that he was well
+contended with them.  Others, however, were not so easily satisfied.
+
+This sad reverse and the discontent of the Elector made the King feel at
+last that his favourites must give way to those better able to fill their
+places.  Villeroy, who, since his defeat, had quite lost his head, and
+who, if he had been a general of the Empire, would have lost it in
+reality in another manner, received several strong hints from the King
+that he ought to give up his command.  But he either could not or would
+not understand them, and so tired out the King's patience, at length.
+But he was informed in language which admitted of no misapprehension that
+he must return.  Even then, the King was so kindly disposed towards him,
+that he said the Marechal had begged to be recalled with such obstinacy
+that he could not refuse him.  But M. de Villeroy was absurd enough to
+reject this salve for his honour; which led to his disgrace.  M. de
+Vendome had orders to leave Italy, and succeed to the command in
+Flanders, where the enemies had very promptly taken Ostend and Nieuport.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+Meanwhile, as I have promised to relate, in a continuous narrative, all
+our military operations of this year, let me say what passed in other
+directions.  The siege of Barcelona made no progress.  Our engineers were
+so slow and so ignorant, that they did next to nothing.  They were so
+venal, too, that they aided the enemy rather than us by their movements.
+According to a new rule made by the King, whenever they changed the
+position of their guns, they were entitled to a pecuniary recompense.
+Accordingly, they passed all their time in uselessly changing about from
+place to place, in order to receive the recompense which thus became due
+to them.
+
+Our fleet, too, hearing that a much superior naval force was coming to
+the assistance of the enemy, and being, thanks to Pontchartrain, utterly
+unable to meet it, was obliged to weigh anchor, and sailed away to
+Toulon.  The enemy's fleet arrived, and the besieged at once took new
+courage.  Tesse, who had joined the siege, saw at once that it was
+useless to continue it.  We had for some time depended upon the open sea
+for supplies.  Now that the English fleet had arrived, we could depend
+upon the sea no longer.  The King of Spain saw, at last, that there was
+no help for it but to raise the siege.
+
+It was raised accordingly on the night between the 10th and 11th of May,
+after fourteen days' bombardment.  We abandoned one hundred pieces of
+artillery; one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of powder; thirty
+thousand sacks of flour; twenty thousand sacks of sevade, a kind of oats;
+and a great number of bombs, cannon-balls, and implements.  As Catalonia
+was in revolt, it was felt that retreat could not take place in that
+direction; it was determined, therefore, to retire by the way of the
+French frontier.  For eight days, however, our troops were harassed in
+flank and rear by Miquelets, who followed us from mountain to mountain.
+It was not until the Duc de Noailles, whose father had done some service
+to the chiefs of these Miquelets, had parleyed with them, and made terms
+with them, that our troops were relieved from these cruel wasps.  We
+suffered much loss in our retreat, which, with the siege, cost us full
+four thousand men.  The army stopped at Roussillon, and the King of
+Spain, escorted by two regiments of dragoons, made the best of his way to
+Madrid.  That city was itself in danger from the Portuguese, and, indeed,
+fell into their hands soon after.  The Queen, who, with her children, had
+left it in time to avoid capture, felt matters to be in such extremity,
+that she despatched all the jewels belonging to herself and her husband
+to France.  They were placed in the custody of the King.  Among them was
+that famous pear-shaped pearl called the Peregrine, which, for its
+weight, its form, its size, and its water, is beyond all price and all
+comparison.
+
+The King of Spain effected a junction with the army of Berwick, and both
+set to work to reconquer the places the Portuguese had taken from them.
+In this they were successful.  The Portuguese, much harassed by the
+people of Castille, were forced to abandon all they had gained; and the
+King of Spain was enabled to enter Madrid towards the end of September,
+where he was received with much rejoicing.
+
+In Italy we experienced the most disastrous misfortunes.  M. de Vendome,
+having been called from the command to go into Flanders, M. d'Orleans,
+after some deliberation, was appointed to take his place.  M. d'Orleans
+set out from Paris on the 1st of July, with twenty-eight horses and five
+chaises, to arrive in three days at Lyons, and then to hasten on into
+Italy.  La Feuillade was besieging Turin.  M. d'Orleans went to the
+siege.  He was magnificently received by La Feuillade, and shown all over
+the works.  He found everything defective.  La Feuillade was very young,
+and very inexperienced.  I have already related an adventure of his, that
+of his seizing upon the coffers of his uncle, and so forestalling his
+inheritance.  To recover from the disgrace this occurrence brought upon
+him, he had married a daughter of Chamillart.  Favoured by this minister,
+but coldly looked upon by the King, he had succeeded in obtaining command
+in the army, and had been appointed to conduct this siege.  Inflated by
+the importance of his position, and by the support of Chamillart, he
+would listen to no advice from any one.  M. d'Orleans attempted to bring
+about some changes, and gave orders to that effect, but as soon as he was
+gone, La Feuillade countermanded those orders and had everything his own
+way.  The siege accordingly went on with the same ill-success as before.
+
+M. d'Orleans joined M. de Vendome on the 17th of July, upon the Mincio.
+The pretended hero had just made some irreparable faults.  He had allowed
+Prince Eugene to pass the Po, nearly in front of him, and nobody knew
+what had become of twelve of our battalions posted near the place where
+this passage had been made.  Prince Eugene had taken all the boats that
+we had upon the river.  We could not cross it, therefore, and follow the
+enemy without making a bridge.  Vendome feared lest his faults should be
+perceived.  He wished that his successor should remain charged with them.
+M. d'Orleans, indeed, soon saw all the faults that M. de Vendome had
+committed, and tried hard to induce the latter to aid him to repair them.
+But M. de Vendome would not listen to his representations, and started
+away almost immediately to take the command of the army in Flanders,
+leaving M. d'Orleans to get out of the difficulty as he might.
+
+M. d'Orleans, abandoned to himself (except when interfered with by
+Marechal de Marsin, under whose tutelage he was), could do nothing.  He
+found as much opposition to his plans from Marsin as he had found from M.
+de Vendome.  Marsin wished to keep in the good graces of La Feuillade,
+son-in-law of the all-powerful minister, and would not adopt the views of
+M. d'Orleans.  This latter had proposed to dispute the passage of the
+Tanaro, a confluent of the Po, with the enemy, or compel them to accept
+battle.  An intercepted letter, in cypher, from Prince Eugene to the
+Emperor, which fell into our hands, proved, subsequently, that this
+course would have been the right one to adopt; but the proof came too
+late; the decyphering table having been forgotten at Versailles!
+M. d'Orleans had in the mean time been forced to lead his army to Turin,
+to assist the besiegers, instead of waiting to stop the passage of the
+troops that were destined for the aid of the besieged.  He arrived at
+Turin on the 28th of August, in the evening.  La Feuillade, now under two
+masters, grew, it might be imagined, more docile.  But no!  He allied
+himself with Marsin (without whom M. d'Orleans could do nothing), and so
+gained him over that they acted completely in accord.  When M. d'Orleans
+was convinced, soon after his arrival, that the enemy was approaching to
+succour Turin, he suggested that they should be opposed as they attempted
+the passage of the Dora.
+
+But his advice was not listened to.  He was displeased with everything.
+He found that all the orders he had given had been disregarded.  He found
+the siege works bad, imperfect, very wet, and very ill-guarded.  He tried
+to remedy all these defects, but he was opposed at every step.  A council
+of war was held.  M. d'Orleans stated his views, but all the officers
+present, with one honourable exception, servilely chimed in with the
+views of Marsin and La Feuillade, and things remained as they were.
+M. d'Orleans, thereupon, protested that he washed his hands of all the
+misfortunes that might happen in consequence of his advice being
+neglected.  He declared that as he was no longer master over anything,
+it was not just that he should bear any part of the blame which would
+entail to those in command.  He asked, therefore, for his post-chaise,
+and wished immediately to quit the army.  La Feuillade and Marsin,
+however, begged him to remain, and upon second thoughts he thought it
+better to do so.  The simple reason of all this opposition was, that La
+Feuillade, being very young and very vain, wished to have all the honours
+of the siege.  He was afraid that if the counsel of M. d'Orleans
+prevailed, some of that honour would be taken from him.  This was the
+real reason, and to this France owes the disastrous failure of the siege
+of Turin.
+
+After the council of war, M. d'Orleans ceased to take any share in the
+command, walked about or stopped at home, like a man who had nothing to
+do with what was passing around him.  On the night of the 6th to the 7th
+of September, he rose from his bed alarmed by information sent to him in
+a letter, that Prince Eugene was about to attack the castle of Pianezza,
+in order to cross the Dora, and so proceed to attack the besiegers.  He
+hastened at once to Marsin, showed him the letter, and recommended that
+troops should at once be sent to dispute the passage of a brook that the
+enemies had yet to cross, even supposing them to be masters of Pianezza.
+Even as he was speaking, confirmation of the intelligence he had received
+was brought by one of our officers.  But it was resolved, in the Eternal
+decrees, that France should be struck to the heart that day.
+
+Marsin would listen to none of the arguments of M. d'Orleans.  He
+maintained that it would be unsafe to leave the lines; that the news was
+false; that Prince Eugene could not possibly arrive so promptly; he would
+give no orders; and he counselled M. d'Orleans to go back to bed.  The
+Prince, more piqued and more disgusted than ever, retired to his quarters
+fully resolved to abandon everything to the blind and deaf, who would
+neither see nor hear.
+
+Soon after entering his chamber the news spread from all parts of the
+arrival of Prince Eugene.  He did not stir.  Some general officers came,
+and forced him to mount his horse.  He went forth negligently at a
+walking pace.  What had taken place during the previous days had made so
+much noise that even the common soldiers were ashamed of it.  They liked
+him, and murmured because he would no longer command them.  One of them
+called him by his name, and asked him if he refused them his sword.  This
+question did more than all that the general officers had been able to do.
+M. d'Orleans replied to the soldier, that he would not refuse to serve
+them, and at once resolved to lend all his aid to Marsin and La
+Feuillade.
+
+But it was no longer possible to leave the lines.  The enemy was in
+sight, and advanced so diligently, that there was no time to make
+arrangements.  Marsin, more dead than alive, was incapable of giving any
+order or any advice.  But La Feuillade still persevered in his obstinacy.
+He disputed the orders of the Duc d'Orleans, and prevented their
+execution, possessed by I know not what demon.
+
+The attack was commenced about ten o'clock in the morning, was pushed
+with incredible vigour, and sustained, at first, in the same manner.
+Prince Eugene poured his troops into those places which the smallness of
+our forces had compelled us to leave open.  Marsin, towards the middle of
+the battle, received a wound which incapacitated him from further
+service, end was taken prisoner immediately after.  Le Feuillade ran
+about like a madman, tearing his hair, and incapable of giving any order.
+The Duc d'Orleans preserved his coolness, and did wonders to save the
+day.  Finding our men beginning to waver, he called the officers by their
+names, aroused the soldiers by his voice, and himself led the squadrons
+and battalions to the charge.  Vanquished at last by pain, and weakened
+by the blood he had lost, he was constrained to retire a little, to have
+his wounds dressed.  He scarcely gave himself time for this, however, but
+returned at once where the fire was hottest.  Three times the enemy had
+been repulsed and their guns spiked by one of our officers, Le Guerchois,
+with his brigade of the old marine, when, enfeebled by the losses he had
+sustained, he called upon a neighbouring brigade to advance with him to
+oppose a number of fresh battalions the enemy had sent against him.  This
+brigade and its brigadier refused bluntly to aid him.  It was positively
+known afterwards, that had Le Guerchois sustained this fourth charge,
+Prince Eugene would have retreated.
+
+This was the last moment of the little order that there had been at this
+battle.  All that followed was only trouble, confusion, disorder, flight,
+discomfiture.  The most terrible thing is, that the general officers,
+with but few exceptions, more intent upon their equipage and upon what
+they had saved by pillage, added to the confusion instead of diminishing
+it, and were worse than useless.
+
+M. d'Orleans, convinced at last that it was impossible to re-establish
+the day, thought only how to retire as advantageously as possible.  He
+withdrew his light artillery, his ammunition, everything that was at the
+siege, even at the most advanced of its works, and attended to everything
+with a presence of mind that allowed nothing to escape him.  Then,
+gathering round him all the officers he could collect, he explained to
+them that nothing but retreat was open to them, and that the road to
+Italy was that which they ought to pursue.  By this means they would
+leave the victorious army of the enemy in a country entirely ruined and
+desolate, and hinder it from returning into Italy, where the army of the
+King, on the contrary, would have abundance, and where it would cut off
+all succour from the others.
+
+This proposition dismayed to the last degree our officers, who hoped at
+least to reap the fruit of this disaster by returning to France with the
+money with which they were gorged.  La Feuillade opposed it with so much
+impatience, that the Prince, exasperated by an effrontery so sustained,
+told him to hold his peace and let others speak.  Others did speak, but
+only one was for following the counsel of M. d'Orleans.  Feeling himself
+now, however, the master, he stopped all further discussion, and gave
+orders that the retreat to Italy should commence.  This was all he could
+do.  His body and his brain were equally exhausted.  After having waited
+some little time, he was compelled to throw himself into a post-chaise,
+and in that to continue the journey.
+
+The officers obeyed his orders most unwillingly.  They murmured amongst
+each other so loudly that the Duc d'Orleans, justly irritated by so much
+opposition to his will, made them hold their peace.  The retreat
+continued.  But it was decreed that the spirit of error and vertigo
+should ruin us and save the allies.  As the army was about to cross the
+bridge over the Ticino, and march into Italy, information was brought to
+M. d'Orleans, that the enemy occupied the roads by which it was
+indispensable to pass.  M. d'Orleans, not believing this intelligence,
+persisted in going forward.  Our officers, thus foiled, for it was known
+afterwards that the story was their invention, and that the passes were
+entirely free, hit upon another expedient.  They declared there were no
+more provisions or ammunition, and that it was accordingly impossible to
+go into Italy.  M. d'Orleans, worn out by so much criminal disobedience,
+and weakened by his wound, could hold out no longer.  He threw himself
+back in the chaise, and said they might go where they would.  The army
+therefore turned about, and directed itself towards Pignerol, losing many
+equipages from our rear-guard during the night in the mountains, although
+that rear-guard was protected by Albergotti, and was not annoyed by the
+enemy.
+
+The joy of the enemy at their success was unbounded.  They could scarcely
+believe in it.  Their army was just at its last gasp.  They had not more
+than four days' supply of powder left in the place.  After the victory,
+M. de Savoie and Prince Eugene lost no time in idle rejoicings.  They
+thought only how to profit by a success so unheard of and so unexpected.
+They retook rapidly all the places in Piedmont and Lombardy that we
+occupied, and we had no power to prevent them.
+
+Never battle cost fewer soldiers than that of Turin; never was retreat
+more undisturbed than ours; yet never were results more frightful or more
+rapid.  Ramillies, with a light loss, cost the Spanish Low Countries and
+part of ours: Turin cost all Italy by the ambition of La Feuillade, the
+incapacity of Marsin, the avarice, the trickery, the disobedience of the
+general officers opposed to M, d'Orleans.  So complete was the rout of
+our army, that it was found impossible to restore it sufficiently to send
+it back to Italy, not at least before the following spring.  M. d'Orleans
+returned therefore to Versailles, on Monday, the 8th of November, and was
+well received by the King.  La Feuillade arrived on Monday, the 13th of
+December, having remained several days at Paris without daring to go to
+Versailles.  He was taken to the King by Chamillart.  As soon as the King
+saw them enter he rose, went to the door, and without giving them time to
+utter a word, said to La Feuillade, "Monsieur, we are both very
+unfortunate!" and instantly turned his back upon him.  La Feuillade, on
+the threshold of the door that he had not had time to cross, left the
+place immediately, without having dared to say a single word.  The King
+always afterwards turned his eye from La Feuillade, and would never speak
+to him.  Such was the fall of this Phaeton.  He saw that he had no more
+hope, and retired from the army; although there was no baseness that he
+did not afterwards employ to return to command.  I think there never was
+a more wrong-headed man or a man more radically dishonest, even to the
+marrow of his bones.  As for Marsin, he died soon after his capture, from
+the effect of his wounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+Such was our military history of the year 1706--history of losses and
+dishonour.  It may be imagined in what condition was the exchequer with
+so many demands upon its treasures.  For the last two or three years the
+King had been obliged, on account of the expenses of the war, and the
+losses we had sustained, to cut down the presents that he made at the
+commencement of the year.  Thirty-five thousand louis in gold was the sum
+he ordinarily spent in this manner.  This year, 1707, he diminished it by
+ten thousand Louis.  It was upon Madame de Montespan that the blow fell.
+Since she had quitted the Court the King gave her twelve thousand Louis
+of gold each year.  This year he sent word to her that he could only give
+her eight.  Madame de Montespan testified not the least surprise.  She
+replied, that she was only sorry for the poor, to whom indeed she gave
+with profusion.  A short time after the King had made this reduction,
+that is, on the 8th of January, Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne gave
+birth to a son.  The joy was great, but the King prohibited all those
+expenses which had been made at the birth of the first-born of Madame de
+Bourgogne, and which had amounted to a large sum.  The want of money
+indeed made itself felt so much at this time, that the King was obliged
+to seek for resources as a private person might have done.  A mining
+speculator, named Rodes, having pretended that he had discovered many
+veins of gold in the Pyrenees, assistance was given him in order that he
+might bring these treasures to light.
+
+He declared that with eighteen hundred workmen he would furnish a million
+(francs' worth of gold) each week.  Fifty-two millions a-year would have
+been a fine increase of revenue.  However, after waiting some little
+time, no gold was forthcoming, and the money that had been spent to
+assist this enterprise was found to be pure loss.
+
+The difficulty of finding money to carry on the affairs of the nation
+continued to grow so irksome that Chamillart, who had both the finance
+and the war departments under his control, was unable to stand against
+the increased trouble and vexation which this state of things brought
+him.  More than once he had represented that this double work was too
+much for him.  But the King had in former times expressed so much
+annoyance from the troubles that arose between the finance and war
+departments, that he would not separate them, after having once joined
+them together.  At last, Chamillart could bear up against his heavy load
+no longer.  The vapours seized him: he had attacks of giddiness in the
+head; his digestion was obstructed; he grew thin as a lath.  He wrote
+again to the King, begging to be released from his duties, and frankly
+stated that, in the state he was, if some relief was not afforded him,
+everything would go wrong and perish.  He always left a large margin to
+his letters, and upon this the King generally wrote his reply.
+Chamillart showed me this letter when it came back to him, and I saw upon
+it with great surprise, in the handwriting of the King, this short note:
+"Well! let us perish together."
+
+The necessity for money had now become so great, that all sorts of means
+were adopted to obtain it.  Amongst other things, a tax was established
+upon baptisms and marriages.  This tax was extremely onerous and odious.
+The result of it was a strange confusion.  Poor people, and many of
+humble means, baptised their children themselves, without carrying them
+to the church, and were married at home by reciprocal consent and before
+witnesses, when they could find no priest who would marry them without
+formality.  In consequence of this there were no longer any baptismal
+extracts; no longer any certainty as to baptisms or births; and the
+children of the marriages solemnised in the way I have stated above were
+illegitimate in the eyes of the law.  Researches and rigours in respect
+to abuses so prejudicial were redoubled therefore; that is to say, they
+were redoubled for the purpose of collecting the tax.
+
+From public cries and murmurs the people in some places passed to
+sedition.  Matters went so far at Cahors, that two battalions which were
+there had great difficulty in holding the town against the armed
+peasants; and troops intended for Spain were obliged to be sent there.
+It was found necessary to suspend the operation of the tax, but it was
+with great trouble that the movement of Quercy was put down, and the
+peasants, who had armed and collected together, induced to retire into
+their villages.  In Perigord they rose, pillaged the bureaux, and
+rendered themselves masters of a little town and some castles, and forced
+some gentlemen to put themselves at their head.  They declared publicly
+that they would pay the old taxes to King, curate, and lord, but that
+they would pay no more, or hear a word of any other taxes or vexation.
+In the end it was found necessary to drop this tax upon baptism and
+marriages, to the great regret of the tax-gatherers, who, by all manner
+of vexations and rogueries, had enriched themselves cruelly.
+
+It was at this time, and in consequence, to some extent, of these events,
+that a man who had acquired the highest distinction in France was brought
+to the tomb in bitterness and grief, for that which in any other country
+would have covered him with honour.  Vauban, for it is to him that I
+allude, patriot as he was, had all his life been touched with the misery
+of the people and the vexations they suffered.  The knowledge that his
+offices gave him of the necessity for expense, the little hope he had
+that the King would retrench in matters of splendour and amusement, made
+him groan to see no remedy to an oppression which increased in weight
+from day to day.  Feeling this, he made no journey that he did not
+collect information upon the value and produce of the land, upon the
+trade and industry of the towns and provinces, on the nature of the
+imposts, and the manner of collecting them.  Not content with this, he
+secretly sent to such places as he could not visit himself, or even to
+those he had visited, to instruct him in everything, and compare the
+reports he received with those he had himself made.  The last twenty
+years of his life were spent in these researches, and at considerable
+cost to himself.  In, the end, he convinced himself that the land was the
+only real wealth, and he set himself to work to form a new system.
+
+He had already made much progress, when several little books appeared by
+Boisguilbert, lieutenant-general at Rouen, who long since had had the
+same views as Vauban, and had wanted to make them known.  From this
+labour had resulted a learned and profound book, in which a system was
+explained by which the people could be relieved of all the expenses they
+supported, and from every tax, and by which the revenue collected would
+go at once into the treasury of the King, instead of enriching, first the
+traitants, the intendants, and the finance ministers.  These latter,
+therefore, were opposed to the system, and their opposition, as will be
+seen, was of no slight consequence.
+
+Vauban read this book with much attention.  He differed on some points
+with the author, but agreed with him in the main.  Boisguilbert wished to
+preserve some imposts upon foreign commerce and upon provisions.  Vauban
+wished to abolish all imposts, and to substitute for them two taxes, one
+upon the land, the other upon trade and industry.  His book, in which he
+put forth these ideas, was full of information and figures, all arranged
+with the utmost clearness, simplicity, and exactitude.
+
+But it had a grand fault.  It described a course which, if followed,
+would have ruined an army of financiers, of clerks, of functionaries of
+all kinds; it would have forced them to live at their own expense,
+instead of at the expense of the people; and it would have sapped the
+foundations of those immense fortunes that are seen to grow up in such a
+short time.  This was enough to cause its failure.
+
+All the people interested in opposing the work set up a cry.  They saw
+place, power, everything, about to fly from their grasp, if the counsels
+of Vauban were acted upon.  What wonder, then, that the King, who was
+surrounded by these people, listened to their reasons, and received with
+a very ill grace Marechal Vauban when he presented his book to him.  The
+ministers, it may well be believed, did not give him a better welcome.
+From that moment his services, his military capacity (unique of its
+kind), his virtues, the affection the King had had for him, all were
+forgotten.  The King saw only in Marechal Vauban a man led astray by love
+for the people, a criminal who attacked the authority of the ministers,
+and consequently that of the King.  He explained himself to this effect
+without scruple.
+
+The unhappy Marechal could not survive the loss of his royal master's
+favour, or stand up against the enmity the King's explanations had
+created against him; he died a few months after consumed with grief, and
+with an affliction nothing could soften, and to which the King was
+insensible to such a point, that he made semblance of not perceiving that
+he had lost a servitor so useful and so illustrious.  Vauban, justly
+celebrated over all Europe, was regretted in France by all who were not
+financiers or their supporters.
+
+Boisguilbert, whom this event ought to have rendered wise, could not
+contain himself.  One of the objections which had been urged against his
+theories, was the difficulty of carrying out changes in the midst of a
+great war.  He now published a book refuting this point, and describing
+such a number of abuses then existing, to abolish which, he asked, was it
+necessary to wait for peace, that the ministers were outraged.
+Boisguilbert was exiled to Auvergne.  I did all in my power to revoke
+this sentence, having known Boisguilbert at Rouen, but did not succeed
+until the end of two months.  He was then allowed to return to Rouen, but
+was severely reprimanded, and stripped of his functions for some little
+time.  He was amply indemnified, however, for this by the crowd of
+people, and the acclamations with which he was received.
+
+It is due to Chamillart to say, that he was the only minister who had
+listened with any attention to these new systems of Vauban and
+Boisguilbert.  He indeed made trial of the plans suggested by the former,
+but the circumstances were not favourable to his success, and they of
+course failed.  Some time after, instead of following the system of
+Vauban, and reducing the imposts, fresh ones were added.  Who would have
+said to the Marechal that all his labours for the relief of the people of
+France would lead to new imposts, more harsh, more permanent, and more
+heavy than he protested against?  It is a terrible lesson against all
+improvements in matters of taxation and finance.
+
+But it is time, now, that I should retrace my steps to other matters,
+which, if related in due order of time, should have found a place ere
+this.  And first, let me relate the particulars concerning a trial in
+which I was engaged, and which I have deferred allusion to until now, so
+as not to entangle the thread of my narrative.
+
+My sister, as I have said in its proper place, had married the Duc de
+Brissac, and the marriage had not been a happy one.  After a time, in
+fact, they separated.  My sister at her death left me her universal
+legatee; and shortly after this, M. de Brissac brought an action against
+me on her account for five hundred thousand francs.  After his death, his
+representatives continued the action, which I resisted, not only
+maintaining that I owed none of the five hundred thousand francs, but
+claiming to have two hundred thousand owing to me, out of six hundred
+thousand which had formed the dowry of my sister.
+
+When M. de Brissac died, there seemed some probability that his peerage
+would become extinct; for the Comte de Cosse, who claimed to succeed him,
+was opposed by a number of peers, and but for me might have failed to
+establish his pretensions.  I, however, as his claim was just, interested
+myself in him, supported him with all my influence, and gained for him
+the support of several influential peers: so that in the end he was
+recognised as Duc de Brissac, and received as such at the parliament on
+the 6th of May, 1700.
+
+Having succeeded thus to the titles and estates of his predecessor, he
+succeeded also to his liabilities, debts, and engagements.  Among these
+was the trial against me for five hundred thousand francs.  Cosse felt so
+thoroughly that he owed his rank to me, that he offered to give me five
+hundred thousand francs, so as to indemnify me against an adverse
+decision in the cause.  Now, as I have said, I not only resisted this
+demand made upon me for five hundred thousand francs, but I, in my turn,
+claimed two hundred thousand francs, and my claim, once admitted, all the
+personal creditors of the late Duc de Brissac (creditors who, of course,
+had to be paid by the new Duke) would have been forced to stand aside
+until my debt was settled.
+
+I, therefore, refused this offer of Cosse, lest other creditors should
+hear of the arrangement, and force him to make a similar one with them.
+He was overwhelmed with a generosity so little expected, and we became
+more intimately connected from that day.
+
+Cosse, once received as Duc de Brissac, I no longer feared to push
+forward the action I had commenced for the recovery of the two hundred
+thousand francs due to me, and which I had interrupted only on his
+account.  I had gained it twice running against the late Duc de Brissac,
+at the parliament of Rouen; but the Duchesse d'Aumont, who in the last
+years of his life had lent him money, and whose debt was in danger,
+succeeded in getting this cause sent up for appeal to the parliament at
+Paris, where she threw obstacle upon obstacle in its path, and caused
+judgment to be delayed month after month.  When I came to take active
+steps in the matter, my surprise--to use no stronger word--was great, to
+find Cosse, after all I had done for him, favouring the pretensions of
+the Duchesse d'Aumont, and lending her his aid to establish them.
+However, he and the Duchesse d'Aumont lost their cause, for when it was
+submitted to the judges of the council at Paris, it was sent back to
+Rouen, and they had to pay damages and expenses.
+
+For years the affair had been ready to be judged at Rouen, but M.
+d'Aumont every year, by means of his letters of state, obtained a
+postponement.  At last, however, M. d'Aumont died, and I was assured that
+the letters of state should not be again produced, and that in
+consequence no further adjournment should take place.  I and Madame de
+Saint-Simon at once set out, therefore, for Rouen, where we were
+exceedingly well received, fetes and entertainments being continually
+given in our honour.
+
+After we had been there but eight or ten days, I received a letter from
+Pontchartrain, who sent me word that the King had learnt with surprise I
+was at Rouen, and had charged him to ask me why I was there: so attentive
+was the King as to what became of the people of mark, he was accustomed
+to see around him!  My reply was not difficult.
+
+Meanwhile our cause proceeded.  The parliament, that is to say, the Grand
+Chamber, suspended all other business in order to finish ours.  The
+affair was already far advanced, when it was interrupted by an obstacle,
+of all obstacles the least possible to foresee.  The letters of state had
+again been put in, for the purpose of obtaining another adjournment.
+
+My design is not to weary by recitals, which interest only myself; but I
+must explain this matter fully.  It was Monday evening.  The parliament
+of Rouen ended on the following Saturday.  If we waited until the opening
+of the next parliament, we should have to begin our cause from the
+beginning, and with new presidents and judges, who would know nothing of
+the facts.  What was to be done?  To appeal to the King seemed
+impossible, for he was at Marly, and, while there, never listened to such
+matters.  By the time he left Marly, it would be too late to apply to
+him.
+
+Madame de Saint-Simon and others advised me, however, at all hazards, to
+go straight to the King, instead of sending a courier, as I thought of
+doing, and to keep my journey secret.  I followed their advice, and
+setting out at once, arrived at Marly on Tuesday morning, the 8th of
+August, at eight of the clock.  The Chancellor and Chamillart, to whom I
+told my errand, pitied me, but gave me no hope of success.  Nevertheless,
+a council of state was to be held on the following morning, presided over
+by the King, and my petition was laid before it.  The letters of state
+were thrown out by every voice.  This information was brought to me at
+mid-day.  I partook of a hasty dinner, and turned back to Rouen, where I
+arrived on Thursday, at eight o'clock in the morning, three hours after a
+courier, by whom I had sent this unhoped-for news.
+
+I brought with me, besides the order respecting the letters of state, an
+order to the parliament to proceed to judgment at once.  It was laid
+before the judges very early on Saturday, the 11th of August, the last
+day of the parliament.  From four o'clock in the morning we had an
+infinite number of visitors, wanting to accompany us to the palace.  The
+parliament had been much irritated against these letters of state, after
+having suspended all other business for us.  The withdrawal of these
+letters was now announced.  We gained our cause, with penalties and
+expenses, amid acclamations which resounded through the court, and which
+followed us into the streets.  We could scarcely enter our street, so
+full was it with the crowd, or our house, which was equally crowded.  Our
+kitchen chimney soon after took fire, and it was only a marvel that it
+was extinguished, without damage, after having strongly warned us, and
+turned our joy into bitterness.  There was only the master of the house
+who was unmoved.  We dined, however, with a grand company; and after
+stopping one or two days more to thank our friends, we went to see the
+sea at Dieppe, and then to Cani, to a beautiful house belonging to our
+host at Rouen.
+
+As for Madame d'Aumont, she was furious at the ill-success of her affair.
+It was she who had obtained the letters of state from the steward of her
+son-in-law.  Her son-in-law had promised me that they should not be used,
+and wrote at once to say he had had no hand in their production.  M. de
+Brissac, who had been afraid to look me in the face ever since he had
+taken part in this matter, and with whom I had openly broken, was now so
+much ashamed that he avoided me everywhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+It was just at the commencement of the year 1706, that I received a piece
+of news which almost took away my breath by its suddenness, and by the
+surprise it caused me.  I was on very intimate terms with Gualterio, the
+nuncio of the Pope.  Just about this time we were without an ambassador
+at Rome.  The nuncio spoke to me about this post; but at my age--I was
+but thirty--and knowing the unwillingness of the King to employ young men
+in public affairs, I paid no attention to his words.  Eight days
+afterwards he entered my chamber-one Tuesday, about an hour after mid-
+day-his arms open, joy painted upon his face, and embracing me, told me
+to shut my door, and even that of my antechamber, so that he should not
+be seen.  I was to go to Rome as ambassador.  I made him repeat this
+twice over: it seemed so impossible.  If one of the portraits in my
+chamber had spoken to me, I could not have been more surprised.
+Gualterio begged me to keep the matter secret, saying, that the
+appointment would be officially announced to me ere long.
+
+I went immediately and sought out Chamillart, reproaching him for not
+having apprised me of this good news.  He smiled at my anger, and said
+that the King had ordered the news to be kept secret.  I admit that I was
+flattered at being chosen at my age for an embassy so important.  I was
+advised on every side to accept it, and this I determined to do.  I could
+not understand, however, how it was I had been selected.  Torcy, years
+afterwards, when the King was dead, related to me how it came about.  At
+this time I had no relations with Torcy; it was not until long afterwards
+that friendship grew up between us.
+
+He said, then, that the embassy being vacant, the King wished to fill up
+that appointment, and wished also that a Duke should be ambassador.  He
+took an almanack and began reading the names of the Dukes, commencing
+with M. de Uzes.  He made no stop until he came to my name.  Then he said
+(to Torcy), "What do you think of him?  He is young, but he is good," &c.
+The King, after hearing a few opinions expressed by those around him,
+shut up the almanack, and said it was not worth while to go farther,
+determined that I should be ambassador, but ordered the appointment to be
+kept secret.  I learnt this, more than ten years after its occurrence,
+from a true man, who had no longer any interest or reason to disguise
+anything from me.
+
+Advised on all sides by my friends to accept the post offered to me, I
+did not long hesitate to do so.  Madame de Saint-Simon gave me the same
+advice, although she herself was pained at the idea of quitting her
+family.  I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of relating here what the
+three ministers each said of my wife, a woman then of only twenty-seven
+years of age.  All three, unknown to each other, and without solicitation
+on my part, counselled me to keep none of the affairs of my embassy
+secret from her, but to give her a place at the end of the table when I
+read or wrote my despatches, and to consult her with deference upon
+everything.  I have rarely so much relished advice as I did in this case.
+Although, as things fell out, I could not follow it at Rome, I had
+followed it long before, and continued to do so all my life.  I kept
+nothing secret from her, and I had good reason to be pleased that I did
+not.  Her counsel was always wise, judicious, and useful, and oftentimes
+she warded off from me many inconveniences.
+
+But to continue the narrative of this embassy.  It was soon so generally
+known that I was going to Rome, that as we danced at Marly, we heard
+people say, "Look!  M. l'Ambassadeur and Madame l'Ambassadrice are
+dancing."  After this I wished the announcement to be made public as soon
+as possible, but the King was not to be hurried.  Day after day passed
+by, and still I was kept in suspense.  At last, about the middle of
+April, I had an interview with Chamillart one day, just after he came out
+of the council at which I knew my fate had been decided.  I learnt then
+that the King had determined to send no ambassador to Rome.  The Abbe de
+La Tremoille was already there; he had been made Cardinal, and was to
+remain and attend to the affairs of the embassy.  I found out afterwards
+that I had reason to attribute to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine the
+change in the King's intention towards me.  Madame de Saint-Simon was
+delighted.  It seemed as though she foresaw the strange discredit in
+which the affairs of the King were going to fall in Italy, the
+embarrassment and the disorder that public misfortunes would cause the
+finances, and the cruel situation to which all things would have reduced
+us at Rome.  As for me, I had had so much leisure to console myself
+beforehand, that I had need of no more.  I felt, however, that I had now
+lost all favour with the King, and, indeed, he estranged himself from me
+more and more each day.  By what means I recovered myself it is not yet
+time to tell.
+
+On the night between the 3rd and 4th of February, Cardinal Coislin,
+Bishop of Orleans, died.  He was a little man, very fat, who looked like
+a village curate.  His purity of manners and his virtues caused him to be
+much loved.  Two good actions of his life deserve to be remembered.
+
+When, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the King determined to
+convert the Huguenots by means of dragoons and torture, a regiment was
+sent to Orleans, to be spread abroad in the diocese.  As soon as it
+arrived, M. d'Orleans sent word to the officers that they might make his
+house their home; that their horses should be lodged in his stables.  He
+begged them not to allow a single one of their men to leave the town, to
+make the slightest disorder; to say no word to the Huguenots, and not to
+lodge in their houses.  He resolved to be obeyed, and he was.  The
+regiment stayed a month; and cost him a good deal.  At the end of that
+time he so managed matters that the soldiers were sent away, and none
+came again.  This conduct, so full of charity, so opposed to that of
+nearly all the other dioceses, gained as many Huguenots as were gained by
+the barbarities they suffered elsewhere.  It needed some courage, to say
+nothing of generosity, to act thus, and to silently blame, as it were,
+the conduct of the King.
+
+The other action of M. d'Orleans was less public and less dangerous,
+but was not less good.  He secretly gave away many alms to the poor,
+in addition to those he gave publicly.  Among those whom he succoured
+was a poor, broken-down gentleman, without wife or child, to whom he gave
+four hundred livres of pension, and a place at his table whenever he was
+at Orleans.  One morning the servants of M. d'Orleans told their master
+that ten pieces of plate were missing, and that suspicion fell upon the
+gentleman.  M. d'Orleans could not believe him guilty, but as he did not
+make his appearance at the house for several days, was forced at last to
+imagine he was so.  Upon this he sent for the gentleman, who admitted
+himself to be the offender.
+
+M. d'Orleans said he must have been strangely pressed to commit an action
+of this nature, and reproached him for not having mentioned his wants.
+Then, drawing twenty Louis from his pocket, he gave them to the
+gentleman, told him to forget what had occurred, and to use his table
+as before.  M. d'Orleans prohibited his servants to mention their
+suspicions, and this anecdote would never have been known, had it not
+been told by the gentleman himself, penetrated with confusion and
+gratitude.
+
+M. d'Orleans, after he became cardinal, was often pressed by his friends
+to give up his bishopric.  But this he would not listen to.  The King had
+for him a respect that was almost devotion.  When Madame de Bourgogne was
+about to be delivered of her first child, the King sent a courier to M.
+d'Orleans requesting him to come to Court immediately, and to remain
+there until after the delivery.  When the child was born, the King would
+not allow it to be sprinkled by any other hand than that of M. d'Orleans.
+The poor man, very fat, as I have said, always sweated very much;--on
+this occasion, wrapped up in his cloak and his lawn, his body ran with
+sweat in such abundance, that in the antechamber the floor was wet all
+round where he stood.  All the Court was much afflicted at his death; the
+King more than anybody spoke his praises.  It was known after his death,
+from his valet de chambre, that he mortified himself continually with
+instruments of penitence, and that he rose every night and passed an hour
+on his knees in prayer.  He received the sacraments with great piety, and
+died the night following as he had lived.
+
+Heudicourt the younger, a species of very mischievous satyr, and much
+mixed up in grand intrigues of gallantry, made, about this time, a song
+upon the grand 'prevot' and his family.  It was so simple, so true to
+nature, withal so pleasant, that some one having whispered it in the ear
+of the Marechal de Boufflers at chapel, he could not refrain from
+bursting into laughter, although he was in attendance at the mass of the
+King.  The Marechal was the gravest and most serious man in all France;
+the greatest slave to decorum.  The King turned round therefore, in
+surprise, which augmented considerably when he saw the Marechal de
+Boufflers nigh to bursting with laughter, and the tears running down his
+cheeks.  On turning into his cabinet, he called the Marechal, and asked
+what had got him in that state at the mass.  The Marechal repeated the
+song to him.  Thereupon the King burst out louder than the Marechal had,
+and for a whole fortnight afterwards could not help smiling whenever he
+saw the grand 'prevot' or any of his family.  The song soon spread about,
+and much diverted the Court and the town.
+
+I should particularly avoid soiling this page with an account of the
+operation for fistula which Courcillon, only son of Dangeau, had
+performed upon him, but for the extreme ridicule with which it was
+accompanied.  Courcillon was a dashing young fellow, much given to witty
+sayings, to mischief, to impiety, and to the filthiest debauchery, of
+which latter, indeed, this operation passed publicly as the fruit.  His
+mother, Madams Dangeau, was in the strictest intimacy with Madame de
+Maintenon.  They two alone, of all the Court, were ignorant of the life
+Courcillon led.  Madame was much afflicted; and quitted his bed-side,
+even for a moment, with pain.  Madame de Maintenon entered into her
+sorrow, and went every day to bear her company at the pillow of
+Courcillon.  Madame d'Heudicourt, another intimate friend of Madame de
+Maintenon, was admitted there also, but scarcely anybody else.
+Courcillon listened to them, spoke devotionally to them, and uttered the
+reflections suggested by his state.  They, all admiration, published
+everywhere that he was a saint.  Madame d'Heudicourt and a few others who
+listened to these discourses, and who knew the pilgrim well, and saw him
+loll out his tongue at them on the sly, knew not what to do to prevent
+their laughter, and as soon as they could get away went and related all
+they had heard to their friends.  Courcillon, who thought it a mighty
+honour to have Madame de Maintenon every day for nurse, but who,
+nevertheless, was dying of weariness, used to see his friends in the
+evening (when Madame de Maintenon and his mother were gone), and would
+relate to them, with burlesque exaggeration, all the miseries he had
+suffered during the day, and ridicule the devotional discourses he had
+listened to.  All the time his illness lasted, Madame de Maintenon came
+every day to see him, so that her credulity, which no one dared to
+enlighten, was the laughing-stock of the Court.  She conceived such a
+high opinion of the virtue of Courcillon, that she cited him always as an
+example, and the King also formed the same opinion.  Courcillon took good
+care not to try and cultivate it when he became cured; yet neither the
+King nor Madame de Maintenon opened their eyes, or changed their conduct
+towards him.  Madame de Maintenon, it must be said, except in the sublime
+intrigue of her government and with the King, was always the queen of
+dupes.
+
+It would seem that there are, at certain times, fashions in crimes as in
+clothes.  At the period of the Voysins and the Brinvilliers, there were
+nothing but poisoners abroad; and against these, a court was expressly
+instituted, called ardente, because it condemned them to the flames.  At
+the time of which I am now speaking, 1703, for I forgot to relate what
+follows in its proper place, forgers of writings were in the ascendant,
+and became so common, that a chamber was established composed of
+councillors of state and others, solely to judge the accusations which
+this sort of criminals gave rise to.
+
+The Bouillons wished to be recognised as descended, by male issue, of the
+Counts of Auvergne, and to claim all kinds of distinctions and honours in
+consequence.  They had, however, no proofs of this, but, on the contrary,
+their genealogy proved it to be false.  All on a sudden, an old document
+that had been interred in the obscurity of ages in the church of Brioude,
+was presented to Cardinal Bouillon.  It had all the marks of antiquity,
+and contained a triumphant proof of the descent of the house of La Tour,
+to which the Bouillons belonged, from the ancient Counts of Auvergne.
+The Cardinal was delighted to have in his hands this precious document.
+But to avoid all suspicion, he affected modesty, and hesitated to give
+faith to evidence so decisive.  He spoke in confidence to all the learned
+men he knew, and begged them to examine the document with care, so that
+he might not be the dupe of a too easy belief in it.
+
+Whether the examiners were deceived by the document, or whether they
+allowed themselves to be seduced into believing it, as is more than
+probable, from fear of giving offence to the Cardinal, need not be
+discussed.  It is enough to say that they pronounced in favour of the
+deed, and that Father Mabillon, that Benedictine so well known throughout
+all Europe by his sense and his candour, was led by the others to share
+their opinion.
+
+After this, Cardinal de Bouillon no longer affected any doubt about the
+authenticity of the discovery.  All his friends complimented him upon it,
+the majority to see how he would receive their congratulations.  It was a
+chaos rather than a mixture, of vanity the most outrageous, modesty the
+most affected, and joy the most immoderate which he could not restrain.
+
+Unfortunately, De Bar, who had found the precious document, and who had
+presented it to Cardinal de Bouillon, was arrested and put in prison a
+short time after this, charged with many forgeries.  This event made some
+stir, and caused suspicion to fall upon the document, which was now
+attentively examined through many new spectacles.  Learned men
+unacquainted with the Bouillons contested it, and De Bar was so pushed
+upon this point, that he made many delicate admissions.  Alarm at once
+spread among the Bouillons.  They did all in their power to ward off the
+blow that was about to fall.  Seeing the tribunal firm, and fully
+resolved to follow the affair to the end, they openly solicited for De
+Bar, and employed all their credit to gain his liberation.  At last,
+finding the tribunal inflexible, they were reduced to take an extreme
+resolution.  M. de Bouillon admitted to the King, that his brother,
+Cardinal de Bouillon, might, unknown to all of them, have brought forward
+facts he could not prove.  He added, that putting himself in the King's
+hands, he begged that the affair might be stopped at once, out of
+consideration for those whose only guilt was too great credulity, and too
+much confidence in a brother who had deceived them.  The King, with more
+of friendship for M. de Bouillon than of reflection as to what he owed by
+way of reparation for a public offence, agreed to this course.
+
+De Bar, convicted of having fabricated this document, by his own
+admission before the public tribunal, was not condemned to death, but to
+perpetual imprisonment.  As may be believed, this adventure made a great
+stir; but what cannot be believed so easily is, the conduct of the
+Messieurs Bouillon about fifteen months afterwards.
+
+At the time when the false document above referred to was discovered,
+Cardinal de Bouillon had commissioned Baluze, a man much given to
+genealogical studies, to write the history of the house of Auvergne.
+In this history, the descent, by male issue; of the Bouillons from the
+Counts of Auvergne, was established upon the evidence supplied by this
+document.  At least, nobody doubted that such was the case, and the world
+was strangely scandalised to see the work appear after that document had
+been pronounced to be a forgery.  Many learned men and friends of Baluze
+considered him so dishonoured by it, that they broke off all relations
+with him, and this put the finishing touch to the confusion of this
+affair.
+
+On Thursday, the 7th of March, 1707, a strange event troubled the King,
+and filled the Court and the town with rumours.  Beringhen, first master
+of the horse, left Versailles at seven o'clock in the evening of that
+day, to go to Paris, alone in one of the King's coaches, two of the royal
+footmen behind, and a groom carrying a torch before him on the seventh
+horse.  The carriage had reached the plain of Bissancourt, and was
+passing between a farm on the road near Sevres bridge and a cabaret,
+called the "Dawn of Day," when it was stopped by fifteen or sixteen men
+on horseback, who seized on Beringhen, hurried him into a post-chaise in
+waiting, and drove off with him.  The King's carriage, with the coachman,
+footmen, and groom, was allowed to go back to Versailles.  As soon as it
+reached Versailles the King was informed of what had taken place.  He
+sent immediately to his four Secretaries of State, ordering them to send
+couriers everywhere to the frontiers, with instructions to the governors
+to guard all the passages, so that if these horsemen were foreign
+enemies, as was suspected, they would be caught in attempting to pass out
+of the kingdom.  It was known that a party of the enemy had entered
+Artois, that they had committed no disorders, but that they were there
+still.  Although people found it difficult, at first, to believe that
+Beringhen had been carried off by a party such as this, yet as it was
+known that he had no enemies, that he was not reputed sufficiently rich
+to afford hope of a large ransom, and that not one of our wealthiest
+financiers had been seized in this manner, this explanation was at last
+accepted as the right one.
+
+So in fact it proved.  A certain Guetem, a fiddler of the Elector of
+Bavaria, had entered the service of Holland, had taken part in her war
+against France, and had become a colonel.  Chatting one evening with his
+comrades, he laid a wager that he would carry off some one of mark
+between Paris and Versailles.  He obtained a passport, and thirty chosen
+men, nearly all of whom were officers.  They passed the rivers disguised
+as traders, by which means they were enabled to post their relays [of
+horses].  Several of them had remained seven or eight days at Sevres,
+Saint Cloud, and Boulogne, from which they had the hardihood to go to
+Versailles and see the King sup.  One of these was caught on the day
+after the disappearance of Beringhen, and when interrogated by
+Chamillart, replied with a tolerable amount of impudence.  Another was
+caught in the forest of Chantilly by one of the servants of M. le Prince.
+From him it became known that relays of horses and a post-chaise had been
+provided at Morliere for the prisoner when he should arrive there, and
+that he had already passed the Oise.
+
+As I have said, couriers were despatched to the governors of the
+frontiers; in addition to this, information of what had taken place was
+sent to all the intendants of the frontier, to all the troops in quarters
+there.  Several of the King's guards, too, and the grooms of the stable,
+went in pursuit of the captors of Beringhen.  Notwithstanding the
+diligence used, the horsemen had traversed the Somme and had gone four
+leagues beyond Ham-Beringhen, guarded by the officers, and pledged to
+offer no resistance--when the party was stopped by a quartermaster and
+two detachments of the Livry regiment.  Beringhen was at once set at
+liberty.  Guetem and his companion were made prisoners.
+
+The grand fault they had committed was to allow the King's carriage and
+the footmen to go back to Versailles so soon after the abduction.  Had
+they led away the coach under cover of the night, and so kept the King in
+ignorance of their doings until the next day, they would have had more
+time for their retreat.  Instead of doing this they fatigued themselves
+by too much haste.  They had grown tired of waiting for a carriage that
+seemed likely to contain somebody of mark.  The Chancellor had passed,
+but in broad daylight, and they were afraid in consequence to stop him.
+M. le Duc d'Orleans had passed, but in a post-chaise, which they
+mistrusted.  At last Beringhen appeared in one of the King's coaches,
+attended by servants in the King's livery, and wearing his cordon Neu, as
+was his custom.  They thought they had found a prize indeed.  They soon
+learnt with whom they had to deal, and told him also who they were.
+Guetem bestowed upon Beringhen all kinds of attention, and testified a
+great desire to spare him as much as possible all fatigue.  He pushed his
+attentions so far that they caused his failure.  He allowed Beringhen to
+stop and rest on two occasions.  The party missed one of their relays,
+and that delayed them very much.
+
+Beringhen, delighted with his rescue, and very grateful for the good
+treatment he had received, changed places with Guetem and his companions,
+led them to Ham, and in his turn treated them well.  He wrote to his wife
+and to Charnillart announcing his release, and these letters were read
+with much satisfaction by the King.
+
+On Tuesday, the 29th of March, Beringhen arrived at Versailles, about
+eight o'clock in the evening, and went at once to the King, who was in
+the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and who received him well, and
+made him relate all his adventures.  But the King was not pleased when he
+found the officers of the stable in a state of great delight, and
+preparing fireworks to welcome Beringhen back.  He prohibited all these
+marks of rejoicing, and would not allow the fireworks to be let off.  He
+had these little jealousies.  He wished that all should be devoted to him
+alone, without reserve and without division.  All the Court, however,
+showed interest in this return, and Beringhen was consoled by the public
+welcome he received for his fatigue.
+
+Guetem and his officers, while waiting the pleasure of the King, were
+lodged in Beringhen's house in Paris, where they were treated above their
+deserts.  Beringhen obtained permission for Guetem to see the King.  He
+did more; he presented Guetem to the King, who praised him for having so
+well treated his prisoner, and said that war always ought to be conducted
+properly.  Guetem, who was not without wit, replied, that he was so
+astonished to find himself before the greatest King in the world, and to
+find that King doing him the honour of speaking to him, that he had not
+power enough to answer.  He remained ten or twelve days in Beringhen's
+house to see Paris, the Opera and the Comedy, and became the talk of the
+town.  People ran after him everywhere, and the most distinguished were
+not ashamed to do likewise.  On all sides he was applauded for an act of
+temerity, which might have passed for insolence.  Beringhen regaled him,
+furnished him with carriages and servants to accompany him, and, at
+parting, with money and considerable presents.  Guetem went on his parole
+to Rheims to rejoin his comrades until exchanged, and had the town for
+prison.  Nearly all the others had escaped.  The project was nothing less
+than to carry off Monseigneur, or one of the princes, his sons.
+
+This ridiculous adventure gave rise to precautions, excessive in the
+first place, and which caused sad obstructions of bridges and gates.  It
+caused, too, a number of people to be arrested.  The hunting parties of
+the princes were for some time interfered with, until matters resumed
+their usual course.  But it was not bad fun to see, during some time, the
+terror of ladies, and even of men, of the Court, who no longer dared go
+abroad except in broad daylight, even then with little assurance, and
+imagining themselves everywhere in marvellous danger of capture.
+
+I have related in its proper place the adventure of Madame la Princesse
+de Conti with Mademoiselle Choin and the attachment of Monseigneur for
+the latter.  This attachment was only augmented by the difficulty of
+seeing each other.
+
+Mademoiselle Choin retired to the house of Lacroix, one of her relatives
+at Paris, where she lived quite hidden.  She was informed of the rare
+days when Monseigneur dined alone at Meudon, without sleeping there.  She
+went there the day before in a fiacre, passed through the courts on foot,
+ill clad, like a common sort of woman going to see some officer at
+Meudon, and, by a back staircase, was admitted to Monseigneur who passed
+some hours with her in a little apartment on the first floor.  In time
+she came there with a lady's-maid, her parcel in her pocket, on the
+evenings of the days that Monseigneur slept there.
+
+She remained in this apartment without seeing anybody, attended by her
+lady's-maid, and waited upon by a servant who alone was in the secret.
+
+Little by little the friends of Monseigneur were allowed to see her;
+and amongst these were M. le Prince de Conti, Monseigneur le Duc de
+Bourgogne, Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and M. le Duc de Berry.
+There was always, however, an air of mystery about the matter.  The
+parties that took place were kept secret, although frequent, and were
+called parvulos.
+
+Mademoiselle Choin remained in her little apartment only for the
+convenience of Monseigneur.  She slept in the bed and in the grand
+apartment where Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne lodged when the King was
+at Meudon.  She always sat in an arm-chair before Monseigneur; Madame de
+Bourgogne sat on a stool.  Mademoiselle Choin never rose for her; in
+speaking of her, even before Monseigneur and the company, she used to say
+"the Duchesse de Bourgogne," and lived with her as Madame de Maintenon
+did excepting that "darling" and "my aunt," were terms not exchanged
+between them, and that Madame de Bourgogne was not nearly so free, or so
+much at her ease, as with the King and Madame de Maintenon.  Monsieur de
+Bourgogne was much in restraint.  His manners did not agree with those of
+that world.  Monseigneur le Duc de Berry, who was more free, was quite at
+home.
+
+Mademoiselle Choin went on fete-days to hear mass in the chapel at six
+o'clock in the morning, well wrapped up, and took her meals alone, when
+Monseigneur did not eat with her.  When he was alone with her, the doors
+were all guarded and barricaded to keep out intruders.  People regarded
+her as being to Monseigneur, what Madame de Maintenon was to the King.
+All the batteries for the future were directed and pointed towards her.
+People schemed to gain permission to visit her at Paris; people paid
+court to her friends and acquaintances, Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne
+sought to please her, was respectful to her, attentive to her friends,
+not always with success.  She acted towards Monseigneur le Duc de
+Bourgogne like a mother-in-law, and sometimes spoke with such authority
+and bluntness to Madame de Bourgogne as to make her cry.
+
+The King and Madame de Maintenon were in no way ignorant of all this, but
+they held their tongues, and all the Court who knew it, spoke only in
+whispers of it.  This is enough for the present; it will serve to explain
+many things, of which I shall speak anon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+On Wednesday, the 27th of May, 1707, at three o'clock in the morning,
+Madame de Montespan, aged sixty, died very suddenly at the waters of
+Bourbon.  Her death made much stir, although she had long retired from
+the Court and from the world, and preserved no trace of the commanding
+influence she had so long possessed.  I need not go back beyond my own
+experience, and to the time of her reign as mistress of the King.  I will
+simply say, because the anecdote is little known, that her conduct was
+more the fault of her husband than her own.  She warned him as soon as
+she suspected the King to be in love with her; and told him when there
+was no longer any doubt upon her mind.  She assured him that a great
+entertainment that the King gave was in her honour.  She pressed him,
+she entreated him in the most eloquent manner, to take her away to his
+estates of Guyenne, and leave her there until the King had forgotten her
+or chosen another mistress.  It was all to no purpose; and Montespan was
+not long before repentance seized him; for his torment was that he loved
+her all his life, and died still in love with her--although he would
+never consent to see her again after the first scandal.
+
+Nor will I speak of the divers degrees which the fear of the devil at
+various times put to her separation from the Court; and I will elsewhere
+speak of Madame de Maintenon, who owed her everything, who fed her on
+serpents, and who at last ousted her from the Court.  What no one dared
+to say, what the King himself dared not, M. du Maine, her son, dared.
+M. de Meaux (Bossuet) did the rest.  She went in tears and fury, and
+never forgave M. du Maine, who by his strange service gained over for
+ever to his interests the heart and the mighty influence of Madame de
+Maintenon.
+
+The mistress, retired amongst the Community of Saint Joseph, which she
+had built, was long in accustoming herself to it.  She carried about her
+idleness and unhappiness to Bourbon, to Fontevrault, to D'Antin; she was
+many years without succeeding in obtaining mastery over herself.  At last
+God touched her.  Her sin had never been accompanied by forgetfulness;
+she used often to leave the King to go and pray in her cabinet; nothing
+could ever make her evade any fast day or meagre day; her austerity in
+fasting continued amidst all her dissipation.  She gave alms, was
+esteemed by good people, never gave way to doubt of impiety; but she was
+imperious, haughty and overbearing, full of mockery, and of all the
+qualities by which beauty with the power it bestows is naturally
+accompanied.  Being resolved at last to take advantage of an opportunity
+which had been given her against her will, she put herself in the hands
+of Pere de la Tour, that famous General of the Oratory.  From that moment
+to the time of her death her conversion continued steadily, and her
+penitence augmented.  She had first to get rid of the secret fondness she
+still entertained for the Court, even of the hopes which, however
+chimerical, had always flattered her.  She was persuaded that nothing but
+the fear of the devil had forced the King to separate himself from her,
+that it was nothing but this fear that had raised Madame de Maintenon to
+the height she had attained; that age and ill-health, which she was
+pleased to imagine, would soon clear the way; that when the King was a
+widower, she being a widow, nothing would oppose their reunion, which
+might easily be brought about by their affection for their children.
+These children entertained similar hopes, and were therefore assiduous in
+their attention to her for some time.
+
+Pere de la Tour made her perform a terrible act of penitence.  It was to
+ask pardon of her husband, and to submit herself to his commands.  To all
+who knew Madame de Montespan this will seem the most heroic sacrifice.
+M. de Montespan, however, imposed no restraint upon his wife.  He sent
+word that he wished in no way to interfere with her, or even to see her.
+She experienced no further trouble, therefore, on this score.
+
+Little by little she gave almost all she had to the poor.  She worked for
+them several hours a day, making stout shirts and such things for them.
+Her table, that she had loved to excess, became the most frugal; her
+fasts multiplied; she would interrupt her meals in order to go and pray.
+Her mortifications were continued; her chemises and her sheets were of
+rough linen, of the hardest and thickest kind, but hidden under others of
+ordinary kind.  She unceasingly wore bracelets, garters, and a girdle,
+all armed with iron points, which oftentimes inflicted wounds upon her;
+and her tongue, formerly so dangerous, had also its peculiar penance
+imposed on it.  She was, moreover, so tormented with the fear of death,
+that she employed several women, whose sole occupation was to watch her.
+She went to sleep with all the curtains of her bed open, many lights in
+her chamber, and her women around her.  Whenever she awoke she wished to
+find them chatting, playing, or enjoying themselves, so as to re-assure
+herself against their drowsiness.
+
+With all this she could never throw off the manners of a queen.  She had
+an arm-chair in her chamber with its back turned to the foot of the bed.
+There was no other in the chamber, not even when her natural children
+came to see her, not even for Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans.  She was
+oftentimes visited by the most distinguished people of the Court, and she
+spoke like a queen to all.  She treated everybody with much respect, and
+was treated so in turn.  I have mentioned in its proper place, that a
+short time before her death, the King gave her a hundred thousand francs
+to buy an estate; but this present was not gratis, for she had to send
+back a necklace worth a hundred and fifty thousand, to which the King
+made additions, and bestowed it on the Duchesse de Bourgogne.
+
+The last time Madame de Montespan went to Bourbon she paid all her
+charitable pensions and gratuities two years in advance and doubled her
+alms.  Although in good health she had a presentiment that she should
+return no more.  This presentiment, in effect, proved correct.  She felt
+herself so ill one night, although she had been very well just before,
+that she confessed herself, and received the sacrament.  Previous to this
+she called all her servants into her room and made a public confession of
+her public sins, asking pardon for the scandal she had caused with a
+humility so decent, so profound, so penitent, that nothing could be more
+edifying.  She received the last sacrament with an ardent piety.  The
+fear of death which all her life had so continually troubled her,
+disappeared suddenly, and disturbed her no more.  She died, without
+regret, occupied only with thoughts of eternity, and with a sweetness and
+tranquillity that accompanied all her actions.
+
+Her only son by Monsieur de Montespan, whom she had treated like a
+mother-in-law, until her separation from the King, but who had since
+returned to her affection, D'Antin, arrived just before her death.  She
+looked at him, and only said that he saw her in a very different state to
+what he had seen her at Bellegarde.  As soon as she was dead he set out
+for Paris, leaving orders for her obsequies, which were strange, or were
+strangely executed.  Her body, formerly so perfect, became the prey of
+the unskilfulness and the ignorance of a surgeon.  The obsequies were at
+the discretion of the commonest valets, all the rest of the house having
+suddenly deserted.  The body remained a long time at the door of the
+house, whilst the canons of the Sainte Chapelle and the priests of the
+parish disputed about the order of precedence with more than indecency.
+It was put in keeping under care of the parish, like the corpse of the
+meanest citizen of the place, and not until a long time afterwards was it
+sent to Poitiers to be placed in the family tomb, and then with an
+unworthy parsimony.  Madame de Montespan was bitterly regretted by all
+the poor of the province, amongst whom she spread an infinity of alms, as
+well as amongst others of different degree.
+
+As for the King, his perfect insensibility at the death of a mistress he
+had so passionately loved, and for so many years, was so extreme, that
+Madame de Bourgogne could not keep her surprise from him.  He replied,
+tranquilly, that since he had dismissed her he had reckoned upon never
+seeing her again, and that thus she was from that time dead to him.  It
+is easy to believe that the grief of the children he had had by her did
+not please him.  Those children did not dare to wear mourning for a
+mother not recognised.  Their appearance, therefore, contrasted with that
+of the children of Madame de la Valliere, who had just died, and for whom
+they were wearing mourning.  Nothing could equal the grief which Madame
+la Duchesse d'Orleans, Madame la Duchesse, and the Comte de Toulouse
+exhibited.  The grief of Madame la Duchesse especially was astonishing,
+for she always prided herself on loving nobody; still more astonishing
+was the grief of M. le Duc, so inaccessible to friendship.  We must
+remember, however, that this death put an end to many hopes.  M. du
+Maine, for his part, could scarcely repress his joy at the death of his
+mother, and after having stopped away from Marly two days, returned and
+caused the Comte de Toulouse to be recalled likewise.  Madame de
+Maintenon, delivered of a former rival, whose place she had taken, ought,
+it might have been thought, to have felt relieved.  It was otherwise;
+remorse for the benefits she had received from Madame de Montespan, and
+for the manner in which those benefits had been repaid, overwhelmed her.
+Tears stole down her cheeks, and she went into a strange privacy to hide
+them.  Madame de Bourgogne, who followed, was speechless with
+astonishment.
+
+The life and conduct of so famous a mistress, subsequent to her forced
+retirement, have appeared to me sufficiently curious to describe at
+length; and what happened at her death was equally characteristic of the
+Court.
+
+The death of the Duchesse de Nemours, which followed quickly upon that of
+Madame de Montespart, made still more stir in the world, but of another
+kind.  Madame de Nemours was daughter, by a first marriage, of the last
+Duc de Longueville.  She was extremely rich, and lived in great
+splendour.  She had a strange look, and a droll way of dressing, big
+eyes, with which she could scarcely see, a shoulder that constantly
+twitched, grey hairs that she wore flowing, and a very imposing air.
+She had a very bad temper, and could not forgive.  When somebody asked
+her if she said the Pater, she replied, yes, but that she passed by
+without saying it the clause respecting pardon for our enemies.  She did
+not like her kinsfolk, the Matignons, and would never see nor speak to
+any of them.  One day talking to the King at a window of his cabinet,
+she saw Matignon passing in the court below.  Whereupon she set to
+spitting five or six times running, and then turned to the King and
+begged his pardon, saying, that she could never see a Matignon without
+spitting in that manner.  It may be imagined that devotion did not
+incommode her.  She herself used to tell a story, that having entered one
+day a confessional, without being followed into the church, neither her
+appearance nor her dress gave her confessor an idea of her rank.  She
+spoke of her great wealth, and said much about the Princes de Conde and
+de Conti.  The confessor told her to pass by all that.  She, feeling that
+the case was a serious one, insisted upon explaining and made allusion to
+her large estates and her millions.  The good priest believed her mad,
+and told her to calm herself; to get rid of such ideas; to think no more
+of them; and above all to eat good soups, if she had the means to procure
+them.  Seized with anger she rose and left the place.  The confessor out
+of curiosity followed her to the door.  When he saw the good lady, whom
+he thought mad, received by grooms, waiting women, and so on, he had like
+to have fallen backwards; but he ran to the coach door and asked her
+pardon.  It was now her turn to laugh at him, and she got off scot-free
+that day from the confessional.
+
+Madame de Nemours had amongst other possessions the sovereignty of
+Neufchatel.  As soon as she was dead, various claimants arose to dispute
+the succession.  Madame de Mailly laid claim to it, as to the succession
+to the principality of Orange, upon the strength of a very doubtful
+alliance with the house of Chalons, and hoped to be supported by Madame
+de Maintenon.  But Madame de Maintenon laughed at her chimeras, as they
+were laughed at in Switzerland.
+
+M. le Prince de Conti was another claimant.  He based his right upon the
+will of the last Duc de Longueville, by which he had been called to all
+the Duke's wealth, after the Comte de Saint Paul, his brother, and his
+posterity.  In addition to these, there were Matignon and the dowager
+Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who claimed Neufchatel by right of their
+relationship to Madame de Nemours.
+
+Matignon was an intimate friend of Chamillart, who did not like the
+Prince de Conti, and was the declared enemy of the Marechal de Villeroy,
+the representative of Madame de Lesdiguieres, in this affair.
+Chamillart, therefore, persuaded the King to remain neutral, and aided
+Matignon by money and influence to get the start of the other claimants.
+
+The haughty citizens of Neufchatel saw then all these suitors begging for
+their suffrages, when a minister of the Elector of Brandenbourg appeared
+amongst them, and disputed the pretensions of the Prince de Conti in
+favour of his master, the Elector of Brandenbourg (King of Prussia), who
+drew his claim from the family of Chalons.  It was more distant; more
+entangled if possible, than that of Madame de Mailly.  He only made use
+of it, therefore, as a pretext.  His reasons were his religion, in
+conformity with that of the country; the support of the neighbouring
+Protestant cantons, allies, and protectors of Neufchatel; the pressing
+reflection that the principality of Orange having fallen by the death of
+William III. to M. le Prince de Conti, the King (Louis XIV.) had
+appropriated it and recompensed him for it: and that he might act
+similarly if Neufchatel fell to one of his subjects; lastly, a treaty
+produced in good form, by which, in the event of the death of Madame de
+Nemours, England and Holland agreed to declare for the Elector of
+Brandenbourg, and to assist him by force in procuring this little state.
+This minister of the Elector was in concert with the Protestant cantons,
+who upon his declaration at once sided with him; and who, by the money
+spent, the conformity of religion, the power of the Elector, the
+reflection of what had happened at Orange, found nearly all the suffrages
+favourable.  So striking while the iron was hot, they obtained a
+provisional judgment from Neufchatel, which adjudged their state to the
+Elector until the peace; and in consequence of this, his minister was put
+into actual possession, and M. le Prince de Conti saw himself constrained
+to return more shamefully than he had returned once before, and was
+followed by the other claimants.
+
+Madame de Mailly made such an uproar at the news of this intrusion of the
+Elector, that at last the attention of our ministers was awakened.  They
+found, with her, that it was the duty of the King not to allow this
+morsel to be carried off from his subjects; and that there was danger in
+leaving it in the hands of such a powerful Protestant prince, capable of
+making a fortified place of it so close to the county of Burgundy, and on
+a frontier so little protected.  Thereupon, the King despatched a courier
+to our minister in Switzerland, with orders to go to Neufchatel, and
+employ every means, even menaces, to exclude the Elector, and to promise
+that the neutrality of France should be maintained if one of her subjects
+was selected, no matter which one.  It was too late.  The affair was
+finished; the cantons were engaged, without means of withdrawing.  They,
+moreover, were piqued into resistance, by an appeal to their honour by
+the electoral minister, who insisted on the menaces of Puysieux, our
+representative, to whose memoir the ministers of England and Holland
+printed a violent reply.  The provisional judgment received no
+alteration.  Shame was felt; and resentment was testified during six
+weeks; after which, for lack of being able to do better, this resentment
+was appeased of itself.  It may be imagined what hope remained to the
+claimants of reversing at the peace this provisional judgment, and of
+struggling against a prince so powerful and so solidly supported.  No
+mention of it was afterwards made, and Neufchatel has remained ever since
+fully and peaceably to this prince, who was even expressly confirmed in
+his possession at the peace by France.
+
+The armies assembled this year towards the end of May, and the campaign
+commenced.  The Duc de Vendome was in command in Flanders, under the
+Elector of Bavaria, and by his slothfulness and inattention, allowed
+Marlborough to steal a march upon him, which, but for the failure of some
+of the arrangements, might have caused serious loss to our troops.  The
+enemy was content to keep simply on the defensive after this, having
+projects of attack in hand elsewhere to which I shall soon allude.
+
+On the Rhine, the Marechal de Villars was in command, and was opposed by
+the Marquis of Bayreuth, and afterwards by the Duke of Hanover, since
+King of England.  Villars was so far successful, that finding himself
+feebly opposed by the Imperials, he penetrated into Germany, after having
+made himself master of Heidelberg, Mannheim, and all the Palatinate, and
+seized upon a number of cannons, provisions, and munitions of war.  He
+did not forget to tax the enemy wherever he went.  He gathered immense
+sums--treasures beyond all his hopes.  Thus gorged, he could not hope
+that his brigandage would remain unknown.  He put on a bold face and
+wrote to the King, that the army would cost him nothing this year.
+Villars begged at the same time to be allowed to appropriate some of the
+money he had acquired to the levelling of a hill on his estate which
+displeased him.  Another than he would have been dishonoured by such a
+request.  But it made no difference in his respect, except with the
+public, with whom, however, he occupied himself but little.  His booty
+clutched, he thought of withdrawing from the enemy's country, and passing
+the Rhine.
+
+He crossed it tranquilly, with his army and his immense booty, despite
+the attempts of the Duke of Hanover to prevent him, and as soon as he was
+on this side, had no care but how to terminate the campaign in repose.
+Thus finished a campaign tolerably brilliant, if the sordid and
+prodigious gain of the general had not soiled it.  Yet that general, on
+his return, was not less well received by the King.
+
+At sea we had successes.  Frobin, with vessels more feeble than the four
+English ones of seventy guns, which convoyed a fleet of eighteen ships
+loaded with provisions and articles of war, took two of those vessels of
+war and the eighteen merchantmen, after four hours' fighting, and set
+fire to one of the two others.  Three months after he took at the mouth
+of the Dwiria seven richly-loaded Dutch merchant-ships, bound for
+Muscovy.  He took or sunk more than fifty during this campaign.
+Afterwards he took three large English ships of war that he led to Brest,
+and sank another of a hundred guns.  The English of New England and of
+New York were not more successful in Acadia; they attacked our colony
+twelve days running, without success, and were obliged to retire with
+much loss.
+
+The maritime year finished by a terrible tempest upon the coast of
+Holland, which caused many vessels to perish in the Texel, and submerged
+a large number of districts and villages.  France had also its share of
+these catastrophes.  The Loire overflowed in a manner hitherto unheard
+of, broke down the embankments, inundated and covered with sand many
+parts of the country, carried away villages, drowned numbers of people
+and a quantity of cattle, and caused damage to the amount of above eight
+millions.  This was another of our obligations to M. de la Feuillade--an
+obligation which we have not yet escaped from.  Nature, wiser than man,
+had placed rocks in the Loire above Roanne, which prevented navigation to
+that place, the principal in the duchy of M. de la Feuillade.  His
+father, tempted by the profit of this navigation, wished to get rid of
+the rocks.  Orleans, Blois, Tours, in one word, all the places on the
+Loire, opposed this.  They represented the danger of inundations; they
+were listened to, and although the M. de la Feuillade of that day was a
+favourite, and on good terms with M. Colbert, he was not allowed to carry
+out his wishes with respect to these rocks.  His son, the M. de la
+Feuillade whom we have seen figuring with so little distinction at the
+siege of Turin, had more credit.  Without listening to anybody, he blew
+up the rocks, and the navigation was rendered free in his favour; the
+inundations that they used to prevent have overflowed since at immense
+loss to the King and private individuals.  The cause was clearly seen
+afterwards, but then it was too late.
+
+The little effort made by the enemy in Flanders and Germany, had a cause,
+which began to be perceived towards the middle of July.  We had been
+forced to abandon Italy.  By a shameful treaty that was made, all our
+troops had retired from that country into Savoy.  We had given up
+everything.  Prince Eugene, who had had the glory of driving us out of
+Italy, remained there some time, and then entered the county of Nice.
+
+Forty of the enemy's vessels arrived at Nice shortly afterwards, and
+landed artillery.  M. de Savoie arrived there also, with six or seven
+thousand men.  It was now no longer hidden that the siege of Toulon was
+determined on.  Every preparation was at once made to defend the place.
+Tesse was in command.  The delay of a day on the part of the enemy saved
+Toulon, and it may be said, France.  M. de Savoie had been promised money
+by the English.  They disputed a whole day about the payment, and so
+retarded the departure of the fleet from Nice.  In the end, seeing M. de
+Savoie firm, they paid him a million, which he received himself.  But in
+the mean time twenty-one of our battalions had had time to arrive at
+Toulon.  They decided the fortune of the siege.  After several
+unsuccessful attempts to take the place, the enemy gave up the siege and
+retired in the night, between the 22nd and 23rd of August, in good order,
+and without being disturbed.  Our troops could obtain no sort of
+assistance from the people of Provence, so as to harass M. de Savoie in
+his passage of the Var.  They refused money, militia, and provisions
+bluntly, saying that it was no matter to them who came, and that M. de
+Savoie could not torment them more than they were tormented already.
+
+The important news of a deliverance so desired arrived at Marly on
+Friday, the 26th of August, and overwhelmed all the Court with joy.  A
+scandalous fuss arose, however, out of this event.  The first courier who
+brought the intelligence of it, had been despatched by the commander of
+the fleet, and had been conducted to the King by Pontchartrain, who had
+the affairs of the navy under his control.  The courier sent by Tesse,
+who commanded the land forces, did not arrive until some hours after the
+other.  Chamillart, who received this second courier, was piqued to
+excess that Pontchartrain had outstripped him with the news.  He declared
+that the news did not belong to the navy, and consequently Pontchartrain
+had no right to carry it to the King.  The public, strangely enough,
+sided with Chamillart, and on every side Pontchartrain was treated as a
+greedy usurper.  Nobody had sufficient sense to reflect upon the anger
+which a master would feel against a servant who, having the information
+by which that master could be relieved from extreme anxiety, should yet
+withhold the information for six or eight hours, on the ground that to
+tell it was the duty of another servant!
+
+The strangest thing is, that the King, who was the most interested, had
+not the force to declare himself on either side, but kept silent.  The
+torrent was so impetuous that Pontchartrain had only to lower his head,
+keep silent, and let the waters pass.  Such was the weakness of the King
+for his ministers.  I recollect that, in 1702, the Duc de Villeroy
+brought to Marly the important news of the battle of Luzzara.  But,
+because Chamillart was not there, he hid himself, left the King and the
+Court in the utmost anxiety, and did not announce his news until long
+after, when Chamillart, hearing of his arrival, hastened to join him and
+present him to the King.  The King was so far from being displeased, that
+he made the Duc de Villeroy Lieutenant-General before dismissing him.
+
+There is another odd thing that I must relate before quitting this
+affair.  Tesse, as I have said, was charged with the defence of Toulon by
+land.  It was a charge of no slight importance.  He was in a country
+where nothing was prepared, and where everything was wanting; the fleet
+of the enemy and their army were near at hand, commanded by two of the
+most skilful captains of the day: if they succeeded, the kingdom itself
+was in danger, and the road open to the enemy even to Paris.  A general
+thus situated would have been in no humour for jesting, it might have
+been thought.  But this was not the case with Tesse.  He found time to
+write to Pontchartrain all the details of the war and all that passed
+amongst our troops in the style of Don Quixote, of whom he called himself
+the wretched squire and the Sancho; and everything he wrote he adapted to
+the adventures of that romance.  Pontchartrain showed me these letters;
+they made him die with laughing, he admired them so; and in truth they
+were very comical, and he imitated that romance with more wit than I
+believed him to possess.  It appeared to me incredible, however, that a
+man should write thus, at such a critical time, to curry, favour with a
+secretary of state.  I could not have believed it had I not seen it.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Imagining themselves everywhere in marvellous danger of capture
+Oh, my lord! how many virtues you make me detest
+Polite when necessary, but insolent when he dared
+Promotion was granted according to length of service
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Memoirs of Louis XIV. and The Regency,
+v5, by the Duc de Saint-Simon
+
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