Том 2

VOLUME 2.

CHAPTER IX

Death of Archbishop Harlay.--Scene at Conflans.--"The Good Langres."--

A Scene at Marly.--Princesses Smoke Pipes!--Fortunes of Cavoye.--

Mademoiselle de Coetlogon.--Madame de Guise.--Madame de Miramion.--Madame

de Sevigne.--Father Seraphin.--An Angry Bishop.--Death of La Bruyere.--

Burglary by a Duke.--Proposed Marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne.--The

Duchesse de Lude.--A Dangerous Lady.--Madame d'O.--Arrival of the

Duchesse de Bourgogne.

CHAPTER X

My Return to Fontainebleau.--A Calumny at Court.--Portrait of M. de La

Trappe.--A False Painter.--Fast Living at the "Desert."--Comte

d'Auvergne.--Perfidy of Harlay.--M. de Monaco.--Madame Panache.--The

Italian Actor and the "False Prude".

CHAPTER XI

A Scientific Retreat.--The Peace of Ryswick.--Prince of Conti King of

Poland.--His Voyage and Reception.--King of England Acknowledged.--Duc de

Conde in Burgundy.--Strange Death of Santeuil.--Duties of the Prince of

Darmstadt in Spain.--Madame de Maintenon's Brother.--Extravagant Dresses.

Marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne.--The Bedding of the Princesse.--Grand

Balls.--A Scandalous Bird.

CHAPTER XII

An Odd Marriage.--Black Daughter of the King.--Travels of Peter the

Great.--Magnificent English Ambassador.--The Prince of Parma.--

A Dissolute Abbe.--Orondat.--Dispute about Mourning.--M. de Cambrai's

Book Condemned by M. de La Trappe.--Anecdote of the Head of Madame de

Montbazon.--Condemnation of Fenelon by the Pope.--His Submission.

CHAPTER XIII

Charnace.--An Odd Ejectment.--A Squabble at Cards.--Birth of My Son.--

The Camp at Compiegne.--Splendour of Marechal Boufflers.--Pique of the

Ambassadors.--Tesse's Grey Hat.--A Sham Siege.--A Singular Scene.--

The King and Madame de Maintenon.--An Astonished Officer.--

Breaking-up of the Camp.

CHAPTER XIV

Gervaise Monk of La Trappe.----His Disgusting Profligacy.--The Author of

the Lord's Prayer.--A Struggle for Precedence.--Madame de Saint-Simon.--

The End of the Quarrel.--Death of the Chevalier de Coislin.--A Ludicrous

Incident.--Death of Racine.--The King and the Poet.--King Pays Debts of

Courtiers.--Impudence of M. de Vendome.--A Mysterious Murder.--

Extraordinary Theft.

CHAPTER XV

The Farrier of Salon.--Apparition of a Queen.--The Farrier Comes to

Versailles.--Revelations to the Queen.--Supposed Explanation.--

New Distinctions to the Bastards.--New Statue of the King.--

Disappointment of Harlay.--Honesty of Chamillart.--The Comtesse de

Fiesque.--Daughter of Jacquier.--Impudence of Saumery.--Amusing Scene.--

Attempted Murder.

CHAPTER XVI

Reform at Court.--Cardinal Delfini.--Pride of M. de Monaco.--Early Life

of Madame de Maintenon.--Madame de Navailles.--Balls at Marly.--An Odd

Mask.--Great Dancing--Fortunes of Langlee.--His Coarseness.--The Abbe de

Soubise.--Intrigues for His Promotion.--Disgrace and Obstinacy of

Cardinal de Bouillon.

CHAPTER XVII

A Marriage Bargain.--Mademoiselle de Mailly.--James II.--Begging

Champagne.--A Duel.--Death of Le Notre.--His Character.--History of

Vassor.--Comtesse de Verrue and Her Romance with M. de Savoie.--A Race of

Dwarfs.--An Indecorous Incident.--Death of M. de La Trappe.

CHAPTER IX

To return now to the date from which I started.  On the 6th of August,

1695, Harlay, Arch-bishop of Paris, died of epilepsy at Conflans.  He was

a prelate of profound knowledge and ability, very amiable, and of most

gallant manners.  For some time past he had lost favour with the King and

with Madame de Maintenon, for opposing the declaration of her marriage--

of which marriage he had been one of the three witnesses.  The clergy,

who perceived his fall, and to whom envy is not unfamiliar, took pleasure

in revenging themselves upon M. de Paris, for the domination, although

gentle and kindly, he had exercised.  Unaccustomed to this decay of his

power, all the graces of his mind and body withered.  He could find no

resource but to shut himself up with his dear friend the Duchesse de

Lesdiguieres, whom he saw every day of his life, either at her own house

or at Conflans, where he had laid out a delicious garden, kept so

strictly clean, that as the two walked, gardeners followed at a distance,

and effaced their footprints with rakes.  The vapours seized the

Archbishop, and turned themselves into slight attacks of epilepsy.  He

felt this, but prohibited his servants to send for help, when they should

see him attacked; and he was only too well obeyed.  The Duchesse de

Lesdiguieres never slept at Conflans, but she went there every afternoon,

and was always alone with him.  On the 6th of August, he passed the

morning, as usual, until dinner-time; his steward came there to him, and

found him in his cabinet, fallen back upon a sofa; he was dead.  The

celebrated Jesuit-Father Gaillard preached his funeral sermon, and

carefully eluded pointing the moral of the event.  The King and Madame de

Maintenon were much relieved by the loss of M. de Paris.  Various places

he had held were at once distributed.  His archbishopric and his

nomination to the cardinalship required more discussion.  The King learnt

the news of the death of M. de Paris on the 6th.  On the 8th, in going as

usual to his cabinet, he went straight up to the Bishop of Orleans, led

him to the Cardinals de Bouillon and de Fursternberg, and said to them:-

"Gentlemen, I think you will thank me for giving you an associate like M.

d'Orleans, to whom I give my nomination to the cardinalship."  At this

word the Bishop, who little expected such a scene, fell at the King's

feet and embraced his knees.  He was a man whose face spoke at once of

the virtue and benignity he possessed.  In youth he was so pious, that

young and old were afraid to say afoul word in his presence.  Although

very rich, he appropriated scarcely any of his wealth to himself, but

gave it away for good works.  The modesty and the simplicity with which

M. d'Orleans sustained his nomination, increased the universal esteem in

which he was held.

The archbishopric of Paris was given to a brother of the Duc de Noailles-

the Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne--M. de Noailles thus reaping the fruit of

his wise sacrifice to M. de Vendome, before related.  M. de Chalons was

of singular goodness and modesty.  He did not wish for this preferment,

and seeing from far the prospect of its being given to him, hastened to

declare himself against the Jesuits, in the expectation that Pere la

Chaise, who was of them, and who was always consulted upon these

occasions, might oppose him.  But it happened, perhaps for the first

time, that Madame de Maintenon, who felt restrained by the Jesuits, did

not consult Pere la Chaise, and the preferment was made without his

knowledge, and without that of M. de Chalons.  The affront was a violent

one, and the Jesuits never forgave the new Archbishop: he was, however,

so little anxious for the office, that it was only after repeated orders

he could be made to accept it.

The Bishop of Langres also died about this time.  He was a true

gentleman, much liked, and called "the good Langres."  There was nothing

bad about him, except his manners; he was not made for a bishop--gambled

very much, and staked high.  M. de Vendome and others won largely at

billiards of him, two or three times.  He said no word, but, on returning

to Langres, did nothing but practise billiards in secret for six months.

When next in Paris, he was again asked to play, and his adversaries, who

thought him as unskilful as before, expected an easy victory but, to

their astonishment, he gained almost every game, won back much more than

he had lost, and then laughed in the faces of his companions.

I paid about this time, my first journey to Marly, and a singular scene

happened there.  The King at dinner, setting aside his usual gravity,

laughed and joked very much with Madame la Duchesse, eating olives with

her in sport, and thereby causing her to drink more than usual--which he

also pretended to do.  Upon rising from the table the King, seeing the

Princesse de Conti look extremely serious, said, dryly, that her gravity

did not accommodate itself to their drunkenness.  The Princess, piqued,

allowed the King to pass without saying anything; and then, turning to

Madame de Chatillon, said, in the midst of the noise, whilst everybody

was washing his mouth, "that she would rather be grave than be a wine-

sack" (alluding to some bouts a little prolonged that her sister had

recently had).

The saying was heard by the Duchesse de Chartres, who replied, loud

enough to be heard, in her slow and trembling voice, that she preferred

to be a "winesack" rather than a "rag-sack" (sac d guenilles) by which

she alluded to the Clermont and La Choin adventure I have related before.

This remark was so cruel that it met with no reply; it spread through

Marly, and thence to Paris; and Madame la Duchesse, who had the art of

writing witty songs, made one upon this theme.  The Princesse de Conti

was in despair, for she had not the same weapon at her disposal.

Monsieur tried to reconcile them gave them a dinner at Meudon--but they

returned from it as they went.

The end of the year was stormy at Marly.  One evening, after the King had

gone to bed, and while Monseigneur was playing in the saloon, the

Duchesse de Chartres and Madame la Duchesse (who were bound together by

their mutual aversion to the Princesse de Conti) sat down to a supper in

the chamber of the first-named.  Monseigneur, upon retiring late to his

own room, found them smoking with pipes, which they had sent for from the

Swiss Guards!  Knowing what would happen if the smell were discovered, he

made them leave off, but the smoke had betrayed them.  The King next day

severely scolded them, at which the Princesse de Conti triumphed.

Nevertheless, these broils multiplied, and the King at last grew so weary

of them that one evening he called the Princesses before him, and

threatened that if they did not improve he would banish them all from the

Court.  The measure had its effect; calm and decorum returned, and

supplied the place of friendship.

There were many marriages this winter, and amongst them one very strange

--a marriage of love, between a brother of Feuquiere's, who had never

done much, and the daughter of the celebrated Mignard, first painter of

his time.  This daughter was still so beautiful, that Bloin, chief valet

of the King, had kept her for some time, with the knowledge of every one,

and used his influence to make the King sign the marriage-contract.

There are in all Courts persons who, without wit and without

distinguished birth, without patrons, or service rendered, pierce into

the intimacy of the most brilliant, and succeed at last, I know not how,

in forcing the world to look upon them as somebody.  Such a person was

Cavoye.  Rising from nothing, he became Grand Marechal des Logis in the

royal household: he arrived at that office by a perfect romance.  He was

one of the best made men in France, and was much in favour with the

ladies.  He first appeared at the Court at a time when much duelling was

taking place, in spite of the edicts.  Cavoye, brave and skilful,

acquired so much reputation m this particular, that the name of "Brave

Cavoye" has stuck to him ever since.  An ugly but very good creature,

Mademoiselle de Coetlogon, one of the Queen's waiting-women, fill in love

with him, even to madness.  She made all the advances; but Cavoye treated

her so cruelly, nay, sometimes so brutally, that (wonderful to say)

everybody pitied her, and the King at last interfered, and commanded him

to be more humane.  Cavoye went to the army; the poor Coetlogon was in

tears until his return.  In the winter, for being second in a duel, he

was sent to the Bastille.  Then the grief of Coetlogon knew no bounds:

she threw aside all ornaments, and clad herself as meanly as possible;

she begged the King to grant Cavoye his liberty, and, upon the King's

refusing, quarrelled with him violently, and when in return he laughed at

her, became so furious, that she would have used her nails, had he not

been too wise to expose himself to them.  Then she refused to attend to

her duties, would not serve the King, saying, that he did not deserve it,

and grew so yellow and ill, that at last she was allowed to visit her

lover at the Bastille.  When he was liberated, her joy was extreme, she

decked herself out anon, but it was with difficulty that she consented to

be reconciled to the King.

Cavoye had many times been promised an appointment, but had never

received one such as he wished.  The office of Grand Marechal des Logis

had just become vacant: the King offered it to Cavoye, but on condition

that he should marry Mademoiselle Coetlogon.  Cavoye sniffed a little

longer, but was obliged to submit to this condition at last.  They were

married, and she has still the same admiration for him, and it is

sometimes fine fun to see the caresses she gives him before all the

world, and the constrained gravity with which he receives them.  The

history of Cavoye would fill a volume, but this I have selected suffices

for its singularity, which assuredly is without example.

About this time the King of England thought matters were ripe for an

attempt to reinstate himself upon the throne.  The Duke of Berwick had

been secretly into England, where he narrowly escaped being arrested,

and upon his report these hopes were built.  Great preparations were

made, but they came to nothing, as was always the case with the projects

of this unhappy prince.

Madame de Guise died at this time.  Her father was the brother of Louis

XIII., and she, humpbacked and deformed to excess, had married the last

Duc de Guise, rather than not marry at all.  During all their lives, she

compelled him to pay her all the deference due to her rank.  At table he

stood while she unfolded her napkin and seated herself, and did not sit

until she told him to do so, and then at the end of the table.  This form

was observed every day of their lives.  She was equally severe in such

matters of etiquette with all the rest of the world.  She would keep her

diocesan, the Bishop of Seez, standing for entire hours, while she was

seated in her arm-chair and never once offered him a seat even in the

corner.  She was in other things an entirely good and sensible woman.

Not until after her death was it discovered that she had been afflicted

for a long time with a cancer, which appeared as though about to burst.

God spared her this pain.

We lost, in the month of March, Madame de Miramion, aged sixty-six.  She

was a bourgeoise, married, and in the same year became a widow very rich,

young, and beautiful.  Bussy Rabutin, so known by his 'Histoire Amoureuse

des Gaules', and by the profound disgrace it drew upon him, and still

more by the vanity of his mind and the baseness of his heart, wished

absolutely to marry her, and actually carried her off to a chateau.  Upon

arriving at the place, she pronounced before everybody assembled there a

vow of chastity, and then dared Bussy to do his worst.  He, strangely

discomfited by this action, at once set her at liberty, and tried to

accommodate the affair.  From that moment she devoted herself entirely,

to works of piety, and was much esteemed by the King.  She was the first

woman of her condition who wrote above her door, "Hotel de Nesmond."

Everybody cried out, and was scandalised, but the writing remained, and

became the example and the father of those of all kinds which little by

little have inundated Paris.

Madame de Sevigne, so amiable and of such excellent company, died some

time after at Grignan, at the house of her daughter, her idol, but who

merited little to be so.  I was very intimate with the young Marquis de

Grignan, her grandson.  This woman, by her natural graces, the sweetness

of her wit, communicated these qualities to those who had them not; she

was besides extremely good, and knew thoroughly many things without ever

wishing to appear as though she knew anything.

Father Seraphin preached during Lent this year at the Court.  His

sermons, in which he often repeated twice running the same phrase, were

much in vogue.  It was from him that came the saying, "Without God there

is no wit."  The King was much pleased with him, and reproached M. de

Vendome and M. de la Rochefoucauld because they never went to hear his

sermons.  M. de Vendome replied off-hand, that he did not care to go to

hear a man who said whatever he pleased without allowing anybody to reply

to him, and made the King smile by this sally.  But M. de la

Rochefoucauld treated the matter in another manner he said that he could

not induce himself to go like the merest hanger-on about the Court, and

beg a seat of the officer who distributed them, and then betake himself

early to church in order to have a good one, and wait about in order to

put himself where it might please that officer to place him.  Whereupon

the King immediately gave him a fourth seat behind him, by the side of

the Grand Chamberlain, so that everywhere he is thus placed.

M. d'Orleans had been in the habit of seating himself there (although his

right place was on the prie-Dieu), and little by little had accustomed

himself to consider it as his proper place.  When he found himself driven

away, he made a great ado, and, not daring to complain to the King,

quarrelled with M. de la Rochefoucauld, who, until then, had been one of

his particular friends.  The affair soon made a great stir; the friends

of both parties mixed themselves up in it.  The King tried in vain to

make M. d'Orleans listen to reason; the prelate was inflexible, and when

he found he could gain nothing by clamour and complaint, he retired in

high dudgeon into his diocese: he remained there some time, and upon his

return resumed his complaints with more determination than ever; he fell

at the feet of the King, protesting that he would rather die than see his

office degraded.  M. de la Rochefoucauld entreated the King to be allowed

to surrender the seat in favour of M. d'Orleans.  But the King would not

change his decision; he said that if the matter were to be decided

between M. d'Orleans and a lackey,  he would give the seat to the lackey

rather than to M. d'Orleans.  Upon this the prelate returned to his

diocese, which he would have been wiser never to have quitted in order to

obtain a place which did not belong to him.

As the King really esteemed M. d'Orleans, he determined to appease his

anger; and to put an end to this dispute he gave therefore the bishopric

of Metz to the nephew of M. d'Orleans; and by this means a reconciliation

was established.  M. d'Orleans and M. de la Rochefoucauld joined hands

again, and the King looked on delighted.

The public lost soon after a man illustrious by his genius, by his style,

and by his knowledge of men, I mean La Bruyere, who died of apoplexy at

Versailles, after having surpassed Theophrastus in his own manner, and

after painting, in the new characters, the men of our days in a manner

inimitable.  He was besides a very honest man, of excellent breeding,

simple, very disinterested, and without anything of the pedant.  I had

sufficiently known him to regret his death, and the works that might have

been hoped from him.

The command of the armies was distributed in the same manner as before,

with the exception that M. de Choiseul had the army of the Rhine in place

of M. de Lorges.  Every one set out to take the field.  The Duc de la

Feuillade in passing by Metz, to join the army in Germany, called upon

his uncle, who was very rich and in his second childhood.  La Feuillade

thought fit to make sure of his uncle's money beforehand, demanded the

key of the cabinet and of the coffers, broke them open upon being refused

by the servants, and took away thirty thousand crowns in gold, and many

jewels, leaving untouched the silver.  The King, who for a long time had

been much discontented with La Feuillade for his debauches and his

negligence, spoke very strongly and very openly upon this strange

forestalling of inheritance.  It was only with great difficulty he could

be persuaded not to strip La Feuillade of his rank.

Our campaign was undistinguished by any striking event.  From June to

September of this year (1696), we did little but subsist and observe,

after which we recrossed the Rhine at Philipsburg, where our rear guard

was slightly inconvenienced by the enemy.  In Italy there was more

movement.  The King sought to bring about peace by dividing the forces of

his enemies, and secretly entered into a treaty with Savoy.  The

conditions were, that every place belonging to Savoy which had been taken

by our troops should be restored, and that a marriage should take place

between Monseigneur the Duc de Bourgogne and the daughter of the Duke of

Savoy, when she became twelve years of age.  In the mean time she was to

be sent to the Court of France, and preparations were at once made there

to provide her with a suitable establishment.

The King was ill with an anthrax in the throat.  The eyes of all Europe

were turned towards him, for his malady was not without danger;

nevertheless in his bed he affected to attend to affairs as usual; and he

arranged there with Madame de Maintenon, who scarcely ever quitted his

side, the household of the Savoy Princess.  The persons selected for the

offices in that household were either entirely devoted to Madame de

Maintenon, or possessed of so little wit that she had nothing to fear

from them.  A selection which excited much envy and great surprise was

that of the Duchesse de Lude to be lady of honour.  The day before she

was appointed, Monsieur had mentioned her name in sport to the King.

"Yes," said the King, "she would be the best woman in the world to teach

the Princess to put rouge and patches on her cheek;" and then, being

more devout than usual, he said other things as bitter and marking strong

aversion on his part to the Duchess.  In fact, she was no favourite of

his nor of Madame de Maintenon; and this was so well understood that the

surprise of Monsieur and of everybody else was great, upon finding, the

day after this discourse, that she had been appointed to the place.

The cause of this was soon learnt.  The Duchesse de Lude coveted much to

be made lady of honour to the Princess, but knew she had but little

chance, so many others more in favour than herself being in the field.

Madame de Maintenon had an old servant named Nanon, who had been with her

from the time of her early days of misery, and who had such influence

with her, that this servant was made much of by everybody at Court, even

by the ministers and the daughters of the King.  The Duchesse de Lude had

also an old servant who was on good terms with the other.  The affair

therefore was not difficult.  The Duchesse de Lude sent twenty thousand

crowns to Nanon, and on the very evening of the day on which the King had

spoken to Monsieur, she had the place.  Thus it is!  A Nanon sells the

most important and the most brilliant offices, and a Duchess of high

birth is silly enough to buy herself into servitude!

This appointment excited much envy.  The Marechal de Rochefort, who had

expected to be named, made a great ado.  Madame de Maintenon, who

despised her, was piqued, and said that she should have had it but for

the conduct of her daughter.  This was a mere artifice; but the daughter

was, in truth, no sample of purity.  She had acted in such a manner with

Blansac that he was sent for from the army to marry her, and on the very

night of their wedding she gave birth to a daughter.  She was full of

wit, vivacity, intrigue, and sweetness; yet most wicked, false, and

artificial, and all this with a simplicity of manner, that imposed even

upon those who knew her best.  More than gallant while her face lasted,

she afterwards was easier of access, and at last ruined herself for the

meanest valets.  Yet, notwithstanding her vices, she was the prettiest

flower of the Court bunch, and had her chamber always full of the best

company: she was also much sought after by the three daughters of the

King.  Driven away from the Court, she was after much supplication

recalled, and pleased the King so much that Madame de Maintenon, in fear

of her, sent her away again.  But to go back again to the household of

the Princess of Savoy.

Dangeau was made chevalier d'honneur.  He owed his success to his good

looks, to the court he paid to the King's mistresses, to his skilfulness

at play, and to a lucky stroke of fortune.  The King had oftentimes been

importuned to give him a lodging, and one day, joking with him upon his

fancy of versifying; proposed to him some very hard rhymes, and promised

him a lodging if he filled them up upon the spot.  Dangeau accepted,

thought but for a moment, performed the task, and thus gained his

lodging.  He was an old friend of Madame de Maintenon, and it was to her

he was indebted for his post of chevalier d'honneur in the new household.

Madame d'O was appointed lady of the palace.  Her father, named

Guilleragues, a gluttonous Gascon, had been one of the intimate friends

of Madame Scarron, who, as Madame de Maintenon, did not forget her old

acquaintance, but procured him the embassy to Constantinople.  Dying

there, he left an only daughter, who, on the voyage home to France,

gained the heart of Villers, lieutenant of the vessel, and became his

wife in Asia-Minor, near the ruins of Troy.  Villers claimed to be of the

house of d'O; hence the name his wife bore.

Established at the Court, the newly-married couple quickly worked

themselves into the favour of Madame de Maintenon, both being very clever

in intrigue.  M. d'O was made governor of the Comte de Toulouse, and soon

gained his entire confidence.  Madame d'O, too, infinitely pleased the,

young Count, just then entering upon manhood, by her gallantry, her wit,

and the facilities she allowed him.  Both, in consequence, grew in great

esteem with the King.  Had they been attendants upon Princes of the

blood, he would assuredly have slighted them.  But he always showed great

indulgence to those who served his illegitimate children.  Hence the

appointment of Madame d'O to be lady of the palace.

The household of the Princess of Savoy being completed, the members of it

were sent to the Pont Beauvosin to meet their young mistress.  She

arrived early on the 16th of October, slept at the Pont Beauvosin that

night, and on the morrow parted with her Italian attendants without

shedding a single tear.  On the 4th of November she arrived at Montargis,

and was received by the King, Monseigneur, and Monsieur.  The King handed

her down from her coach, and conducted her to the apartment he had

prepared for her.  Her respectful and flattering manners pleased him

highly.  Her cajoleries, too, soon bewitched Madame de Maintenon, whom

she never addressed except as "Aunt;" whom she treated with a respect,

and yet with a freedom, that ravished everybody.  She became the doll of

Madame de Maintenon and the King, pleased them infinitely by her

insinuating spirit, and took greater liberties with them than the

children of the King had ever dared to attempt.

CHAPTER X

Meanwhile our campaign upon the Rhine proceeded, and the enemy, having

had all their grand projects of victory defeated by the firmness and the

capacity of the Marechal de Choiseul, retired into winter-quarters, and

we prepared to do the same.  The month of October was almost over when

Madame de Saint-Simon lost M. Fremont, father of the Marechal de Lorges.

She had happily given birth to a daughter on the 8th of September.  I was

desirous accordingly to go to Paris, and having obtained permission from

the Marechal de Choiseul, who had treated me throughout the campaign with

much politeness and attention, I set out. Upon arriving at Paris I found

the Court at Fontainebleau.  I had arrived from the army a little before

the rest, and did not wish that the King should know it without seeing

me, lest he might think I had returned in secret.  I hastened at once

therefore to Fontainebleau, where the King received me with his usual

goodness,-saying, nevertheless, that I had returned a little too early,

but that it was of no consequence.

I had not long left his presence when I learned a report that made my

face burn again.  It was affirmed that when the King remarked upon my

arriving a little early, I had replied that I preferred arriving at once

to see him, as my sole mistress, than to remain some days in Paris, as

did the other young men with their mistresses.  I went at once to the

King, who had a numerous company around him; and I openly denied what had

been reported, offering a reward for the discovery of the knave who had

thus calumniated me, in order that I might give him a sound thrashing.

All day I sought to discover the scoundrel.  My speech to the King and my

choler were the topic of the day, and I was blamed for having spoken so

loudly and in such terms.  But of two evils I had chosen the least,--a

reprimand from the King, or a few days in the Bastille; and I had avoided

the greatest, which was to allow myself to be believed an infamous

libeller of our young men, in order to basely and miserably curry favour

at the Court.  The course I took succeeded.  The King said nothing of the

matter, and I went upon a little journey I wished particularly to take,

for reasons I will now relate.

I had, as I have already mentioned, conceived a strong attachment and

admiration for M. de La Trappe.  I wished to secure a portrait of him,

but such was his modesty and humility that I feared to ask him to allow

himself to be painted.  I went therefore to Rigault, then the first

portrait-painter in Europe.  In consideration of a sum of a thousand

crowns, and all his expenses paid, he agreed to accompany me to La

Trappe, and to make a portrait of him from memory.  The whole affair was

to be kept a profound secret, and only one copy of the picture was to be

made, and that for the artist himself.

My plan being fully arranged, I and Rigault set out.  As soon as we

arrived at our journey's end, I sought M. de La Trappe, and begged to be

allowed to introduce to him a friend of mine, an officer, who much wished

to see him: I added, that my friend was a stammerer, and that therefore

he would be importuned merely with looks and not words.  M. de La Trappe

smiled with goodness, thought the officer curious about little, and

consented to see him.  The interview took place.  Rigault excusing

himself on the ground of his infirmity, did little during three-quarters

of an hour but keep his eyes upon M. de La Trappe, and at the end went

into a room where materials were already provided for him, and covered

his canvas with the images and the ideas he had filled himself with.

On the morrow the same thing was repeated, although M. de La Trappe,

thinking that a man whom he knew not, and who could take no part in

conversation, had sufficiently seen him, agreed to the interview only out

of complaisance to me.  Another sitting was needed in order to finish the

work; but it was with great difficulty M. de La Trappe could be persuaded

to consent to it.  When the third and last interview was at an end, M. de

La Trappe testified to me his surprise at having been so much and so long

looked at by a species of mute.  I made the best excuses I could, and

hastened to turn the conversation.

The portrait was at length finished, and was a most perfect likeness of

my venerable friend.  Rigault admitted to me that he had worked so hard

to produce it from memory, that for several months afterwards he had been

unable to do anything to his other portraits.  Notwithstanding the

thousand crowns I had paid him, he broke the engagement he had made by

showing the portrait before giving it up to me.  Then, solicited for

copies, he made several, gaining thereby, according to his own admission,

more than twenty-five thousand francs, and thus gave publicity to the

affair.

I was very much annoyed at this, and with the noise it made in the world;

and I wrote to M. de La Trappe, relating the deception I had practised

upon him, and sued for pardon.  He was pained to excess, hurt, and

afflicted; nevertheless he showed no anger.  He wrote in return to me,

and said, I was not ignorant that a Roman Emperor had said, "I love

treason but not traitors;" but that, as for himself, he felt on the

contrary that he loved the traitor but could only hate his treason.

I made presents of three copies of the picture to the monastery of La

Trappe.  On the back of the original I described the circumstance under

which the portrait had been taken, in order to show that M. de La Trappe

had not consented to it, and I pointed out that for some years he had

been unable to use his right hand, to acknowledge thus the error which

had been made in representing him as writing.

The King, about this time, set on foot negotiations for peace in Holland,

sending there two plenipotentiaries, Courtin and Harlay, and

acknowledging one of his agents, Caillieres, who had been for some little

time secretly in that country.

The year finished with the disgrace of Madame de Saint Geran.  She was on

the best of terms with the Princesses, and as much a lover of good cheer

as Madame de Chartres and Madame la Duchesse.  This latter had in the

park of Versailles a little house that she called the "Desert."  There

she had received very doubtful company, giving such gay repasts that the

King, informed of her doings, was angry, and forbade her to continue

these parties or to receive certain guests.  Madame de Saint Geran was

then in the first year of her mourning, so that the King did not think it

necessary to include her among the interdicted; but he intimated that he

did not approve of her.  In spite of this, Madame la Duchesse invited her

to an early supper at the Desert a short time after, and the meal was

prolonged so far into the night, and with so much gaiety, that it came to

the ears of the King.  He was in great anger, and learning that Madame de

Saint Geran had been of the party, sentenced her to be banished twenty

leagues from the Court.  Like a clever woman, she retired into a convent

at Rouen, saying that as she had been unfortunate enough to displease the

King, a convent was the only place for her; and this was much approved.

At the commencement of the next year (1697) the eldest son of the Comte

d'Auvergne completed his dishonour by a duel he fought with the Chevalier

de Caylus, on account of a tavern broil, and a dispute about some

wenches.  Caylus, who had fought well, fled from the kingdom; the other,

who had used his sword like a poltroon, and had run away dismayed into

the streets, was disinherited by his father, sent out of the country, and

returned no more.  He was in every respect a wretch, who, on account of

his disgraceful adventures, was forced to allow himself to be

disinherited and to take the cross of Malta; he was hanged in effigy at

the Greve, to the great regret of his family, not on account of the

sentence, but because, in spite of every entreaty, he had been proceeded

against like the most obscure gentleman.  The exile of Caylus afterwards

made his fortune.

We had another instance, about this time, of the perfidy of Harlay.  He

had been entrusted with a valuable deposit by Ruvigny, a Huguenot

officer, who, quitting France, had entered the service of the Prince of

Orange, and who was, with the exception of Marshal Schomberg, the only

Huguenot to whom the King offered the permission of remaining at Court

with full liberty to practise his religion in secret.  This, Ruvigny,

like Marshal Schomberg, refused.  He was, nevertheless, allowed to retain

the property he possessed in France; but after his death his son, not

showing himself at all grateful for this favour, the King at last

confiscated the property, and publicly testified his anger.  This was the

moment that Harlay seized to tell the King of the deposit he had.  As a

recompense the King gave it to him as confiscated, and this hypocrite of

justice, of virtue, of disinterestedness, and of rigorism was not ashamed

to appropriate it to himself, and to close his ears and his eyes to the

noise this perfidy excited.

M. de Monaco, who had obtained for himself the title of foreign prince by

the marriage of his son with the Duchesse de Valentinois, daughter of M.

le Grand, and who enjoyed, as it were, the sovereignty of a rock--beyond

whose narrow limits anybody might spit, so to speak, whilst standing in

the middle--soon found, and his son still more so, that they had bought

the title very dearly.  The Duchess was charming, gallant, and was

spoiled by the homage of the Court, in a house open night and day, and to

which her beauty attracted all that was young and brilliant.  Her

husband, with much intelligence, was diffident; his face and figure had

acquired for him the name of Goliath; he suffered for a long time the

haughtiness and the disdain of his wife and her family.  At last he and

his father grew tired and took away Madame de Valentinois to Monaco.  She

grieved, and her parents also, as though she had been carried off to the

Indies.  After two years of absence and repentance, she promised marvels,

and was allowed to return to Paris.  I know not who counselled her, but,

without changing her conduct, she thought only how to prevent a return to

Monaco; and to insure herself against this, she accused her father-in-law

of having made vile proposals to her, and of attempting to take her by

force.  This charge made a most scandalous uproar, but was believed by

nobody.  M. de Monaco was no longer young; he was a very honest man, and

had always passed for such; besides, he was almost blind in both eyes,

and had a huge pointed belly, which absolutely excited fear, it jutted

out so far!

After some time, as Madame de Valentinois still continued to swim in the

pleasures of the Court under the shelter of her family, her husband

redemanded her; and though he was laughed at at first, she was at last

given up to him.

A marriage took place at this time between the son of Pontchartrain and

the daughter of the Comte de Roye.  The Comte de Roye was a Huguenot,

and, at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, had taken refuge, with his

wife, in Denmark, where he had been made grand marshal and commander of

all the troops.  One day, as the Comte de Roye was dining with his wife

and daughter at the King's table, the Comtesse de Roye asked her daughter

if she did not think the Queen of Denmark and Madame Panache resembled

each other like two drops of water?  Although she spoke in French and in

a low tone, the Queen both heard and understood her, and inquired at once

who was Madame Panache.  The Countess in her surprise replied, that she

was a very amiable woman at the French Court.  The Queen, who had noticed

the surprise of the Countess, was not satisfied with this reply.  She

wrote to the Danish minister at Paris, desiring to be informed of every

particular respecting Madame Panache, her face, her age, her condition,

and upon what footing she was at the French Court.  The minister, all

astonished that the Queen should have heard of Madame Panache, wrote word

that she was a little and very old creature, with lips and eyes so

disfigured that they were painful to look upon; a species of beggar who

had obtained a footing at Court from being half-witted, who was now at

the supper of the King, now at the dinner of Monseigneur, or at other

places, where everybody amused themselves by tormenting her: She in turn

abused the company at these parties, in order to cause diversion, but

sometimes rated them very seriously and with strong words, which

delighted still more those princes and princesses, who emptied into her

pockets meat and ragouts, the sauces of which ran all down her

petticoats: at these parties some gave her a pistole or a crown, and

others a filip or a smack in the face, which put her in a fury, because

with her bleared eyes not being able to see the end of her nose, she

could not tell who had struck her;--she was, in a word, the pastime of

the Court!

Upon learning this, the Queen of Denmark was so piqued, that she could no

longer suffer the Comtesse de Roye near her; she complained to the King:

he was much offended that foreigners, whom he had loaded with favour,

should so repay him.  The Comte de Roye was unable to stand up against

the storm, and withdrew to England, where he died a few years after.

The King at this time drove away the company of Italian actors, and would

not permit another in its place.  So long as the Italians had simply

allowed their stage to overflow with filth or impiety they only caused

laughter; but they set about playing a piece called "The False Prude," in

which Madame de Maintenon was easily recognised.  Everybody ran to see

the piece; but after three or four representations, given consecutively

on account of the gain it brought, the Italians received orders to close

their theatre and to quit the realm in a month.  This affair made a great

noise; and if the comedians lost an establishment by their boldness and

folly, they who drove them away gained nothing--such was the licence with

which this ridiculous event was spoken of!

CHAPTER XI

The disposition of the armies was the same this year as last, except that

the Princes did not serve.  Towards the end of May I joined the army of

the Rhine, under the Marechal de Choiseul, as before.  We made some

skilful manoeuvres, but did little in the way of fighting.  For sixteen

days we encamped at Nieder-buhl, where we obtained a good supply of

forage.  At the end of that time the Marechal de Choiseul determined to

change his position.  Our army was so placed, that the enemy could see

almost all of it quite distinctly; yet, nevertheless, we succeeded in

decamping so quickly, that we disappeared from under their very eyes in

open daylight, and in a moment as it were.  Such of the Imperial Generals

as were out riding ran from all parts to the banks of the Murg, to see

our retreat, but it was so promptly executed that there was no time for

them, to attempt to hinder us.  When the Prince of Baden was told of our

departure he could not credit it. He had seen us so lately, quietly

resting in our position, that it seemed impossible to him we had left it

in such a short space of time.  When his own eyes assured him of the

fact, he was filled with such astonishment and admiration, that he asked

those around him if they had ever seen such a retreat, adding, that he

could not have believed, until then, that an army so numerous and so

considerable should have been able to disappear thus in an instant.

This honourable and bold retreat was attended by a sad accident.  One of

our officers, named Blansac, while leading a column of infantry through

the wood, was overtaken by night.  A small party of his men heard some

cavalry near them.  The cavalry belonged to the enemy, and had lost their

way.  Instead of replying when challenged, they said to each other in

German, "Let us run for it."  Nothing more was wanting to draw upon them

a discharge from the small body of our men, by whom they had been heard.

To this they replied with their pistols.  Immediately, and without

orders, the whole column of infantry fired in that direction, and, before

Blansac could inquire the cause, fired again.  Fortunately he was not

wounded; but five unhappy captains were killed, and some subalterns

wounded.

Our campaign was brought to an end by the peace of Ryswick.  The first

news of that event arrived at Fontainebleau on the 22nd of September.

Celi, son of Harlay, had been despatched with the intelligence; but he

did not arrive until five o'clock in the morning of the 26th of

September.  He had amused himself by the way with a young girl who had

struck his fancy, and with some wine that he equally relished.  He had

committed all the absurdities and impertinences which might be expected

of a debauched, hare-brained young fellow, completely spoiled by his

father, and he crowned all by this fine delay.

A little time before the signing of peace, the Prince de Conti, having

been elected King of Poland, set out to take possession of his throne.

The King, ravished with joy to see himself delivered from a Prince whom

he disliked, could not hide his satisfaction--his eagerness--to get rid

of a Prince whose only faults were that he had no bastard blood in his

veins, and that he was so much liked by all the nation that they wished

him at the head of the army, and murmured at the little favour he

received, as compared with that showered down upon the illegitimate

children.

The King made all haste to treat the Prince to royal honours.  After an

interview in the cabinet of Madame de Maintenon, he presented him to a

number of ladies, saying, "I bring you a king."  The Prince was all along

doubtful of the validity of his election, and begged that the Princess

might not be treated as a queen, until he should have been crowned.

He received two millions in cash from the King, and other assistances.

Samuel Bernard undertook to make the necessary payments in Poland.  The

Prince started by way of Dunkerque, and went to that place at such speed,

that an ill-closed chest opened, and two thousand Louis were scattered on

the road, a portion only of which was brought back to the Hotel Conti.

The celebrated Jean Bart pledged himself to take him safely, despite the

enemy's fleet; and kept his word.  The convoy was of five frigates.  The

Chevalier de Sillery, before starting, married Mademoiselle Bigot, rich

and witty, with whom he had been living for some time.  Meanwhile the

best news arrived from our ambassador, the Abbe de Polignac, to the King;

but all answers were intercepted at Dantzic by the retired Queen of

Poland, who sent on only the envelopes!  However, the Prince de Conti

passed up the Sound; and the King and Queen of Denmark watched them from

the windows of the Chateau de Cronenbourg.  Jean Bart, against custom,

ordered a salute to be fired.  It was returned; and as some light vessels

passing near the frigates said that the King and Queen were looking on,

the Prince ordered another salvo.

There was, however, another claimant to the throne of Poland; I mean the

Elector of Saxony, who had also been elected, and who had many partisans;

so many, indeed, that when the Prince de Conti arrived at Dantzic, he

found himself almost entirely unsupported.  The people even refused

provision to his frigates.  However, the Prince's partisans at length

arrived to salute him.  The Bishop of Plosko gave him a grand repast,

near the Abbey of Oliva.  Marege, a Gascon gentleman of the Prince's

suite, was present, but had been ill.  There was drinking in the Polish

fashion, and he tried to be let off.  The Prince pleaded for him; but

these Poles, who, in order to make themselves understood, spoke Latin--

and very bad Latin indeed--would not accept such an excuse, and forcing

him to drink, howled furiously 'Bibat et Moriatur!  Marege, who was very

jocular and yet very choleric; used to tell this story in the same

spirit, and made everyone who heard it laugh.

However, the party of the Prince de Conti made no way, and at length he

was fain to make his way back to France with all speed.  The King

received him very graciously, although at heart exceeding sorry to see

him again.  A short time after, the Elector of Saxony mounted the throne

of Poland without opposition, and was publicly recognised by the King,

towards the commencement of August.

By the above-mentioned peace of Ryswick, the King acknowledged the Prince

of Orange as King of England.  It was, however, a bitter draught for him

to swallow, and for these reasons: Some years before, the King had

offered his illegitimate daughter, the Princesse de Conti, in marriage to

the Prince of Orange, believing he did that Prince great honour by the

proposal.  The Prince did not think in the same manner, and flatly

refused; saying, that the House of Orange was accustomed to marry the

legitimate daughters of great kings, and not their bastards.  These words

sank so deeply into the heart of the King, that he never forgot them; and

often, against even his most palpable interest, showed how firmly the

indignation he felt at them had taken possession of his mind: Since then,

the Prince of Orange had done all in his power to efface the effect his

words had made, but every attempt was rejected with disdain.  The King's

ministers in Holland had orders to do all they could to thwart the

projects of the Prince of Orange, to excite people against him, to

protect openly those opposed to him, and to be in no way niggard of money

in order to secure the election of magistrates unfavourable to him.  The

Prince never ceased, until the breaking-out of this war, to use every

effort to appease the anger of the King.  At last, growing tired, and

hoping soon to make his invasion into England, he said publicly, that he

had uselessly laboured all his life to gain the favours of the King, but

that he hoped to be more fortunate in meriting his esteem.  It may be

imagined, therefore, what a triumph it was for him when he forced the

King to recognise him as monarch of England, and what that recognition

cost the King.

M. le Duc presided this year over the Assembly of the States of Burgundy,

in place of his father M. le Prince, who did not wish to go there.  The

Duke gave on that occasion a striking example of the friendship of

princes, and a fine lesson to those who seek it.  Santeuil, Canon of

Saint Victor, and the greatest Latin poet who has appeared for many

centuries, accompanied him.  Santeuil was an excellent fellow, full of

wit and of life, and of pleasantries, which rendered him an admirable

boon-companion.  Fond of wine and of good cheer, he was not debauched;

and with a disposition and talents so little fitted for the cloister,

was nevertheless, at bottom, as good a churchman as with such a character

he could be.  He was a great favourite with all the house of Conde, and

was invited to their parties, where his witticisms, his verses, and his

pleasantries had afforded infinite amusement for many years.

M. le Duc wished to take him to Dijon.  Santeuil tried to excuse himself,

but without effect; he was obliged to go, and was established at the

house of the Duke while the States were held.  Every evening there was a

supper, and Santeuil was always the life of the company.  One evening M.

le Duc diverted himself by forcing Santeuil to drink champagne, and

passing from pleasantry to pleasantry, thought it would be a good joke to

empty his snuff-box, full of Spanish snuff, into a large glass of wine,

and to make Santeuil drink it, in order to see what would happen.  It was

not long before he was enlightened upon this point.  Santeuil was seized

with vomiting and with fever, and in twice twenty-four hours the unhappy

man died-suffering the tortures of the damned, but with sentiments of

extreme penitence, in which he received the sacrament, and edified a

company little disposed towards edification, but who detested such a

cruel joke.

In consequence of the peace just concluded at Ryswick, many fresh

arrangements were made about this time in our embassies abroad.  This

allusion to our foreign appointments brings to my mind an anecdote which

deserves to be remembered.  When M. de Vendome took Barcelona, the

Montjoui (which is as it were its citadel) was commanded by the Prince of

Darmstadt.  He was of the house of Hesse, and had gone into Spain to seek

employment; he was a relative of the Queen of Spain, and, being a very

well-made man, had not, it was said, displeased her.  It was said also,

and by people whose word was not without weight, that the same council of

Vienna, which for reasons of state had made no scruple of poisoning the

late Queen of Spain (daughter of Monsieur), because she had no children,

and because she had, also, too much ascendancy over the heart of her

husband; it was said, I say, that this same council had no scruples upon

another point.  After poisoning the first Queen, it had remarried the

King of Spain to a sister of the Empress.  She was tall, majestic, not

without beauty and capacity, and, guided by the ministers of the Emperor,

soon acquired much influence over the King her husband.  So far all was

well, but the most important thing was wanting--she had no children.  The

council had hoped some from this second marriage, because it had lured

itself into the belief that previously the fault rested with the late

Queen.  After some years, this same council, being no longer able to

disguise the fact that the King could have no children, sent the Prince

of Darmstadt into Spain, for the purpose of establishing himself there,

and of ingratiating himself into the favour of the Queen to such an

extent that this defect might be remedied.  The Prince of Darmstadt was

well received; he obtained command in the army; defended, as I have said,

Barcelona; and obtained a good footing at the Court.  But the object for

which he had been more especially sent he could not accomplish.  I will

not say whether the Queen was inaccessible from her own fault or that of

others.  Nor will I say, although I have been assured, but I believe by

persons without good knowledge of the subject, that naturally it was

impossible for her to become a mother.  I will simply say that the Prince

of Darmstadt was on the best terms with the King and the Queen, and had

opportunities very rare in that country, without any fruit which could

put the succession of the monarchy in safety against the different

pretensions afloat, or reassure on that head the politic council of

Vienna.

But to return to France.

Madame de Maintenon, despite the height to which her insignificance had

risen, had yet her troubles.  Her brother, who was called the Comte

d'Aubigne, was of but little worth, yet always spoke as though no man

were his equal, complained that he had not been made Marechal of France

--sometimes said that he had taken his baton in money, and constantly

bullied Madame de Maintenon because she did not make him a duke and a

peer.  He spent his time running after girls in the Tuileries, always had

several on his hands, and lived and spent his money with their families

and friends of the same kidney.  He was just fit for a strait-waistcoat,

but comical, full of wit and unexpected repartees.  A good, humorous

fellow, and honest-polite, and not too impertinent on account of his

sister's fortune.  Yet it was a pleasure to hear him talk of the time of

Scarron and the Hotel d'Albret, and of the gallantries and adventures of

his sister, which he contrasted with her present position and devotion.

He would talk in this manner, not before one or two, but in a

compromising manner, quite openly in the Tuileries gardens, or in the

galleries of Versailles, before everybody, and would often drolly speak

of the King as "the brother-in-law."  I have frequently heard him talk in

this manner; above all, when he came (more often than was desired) to

dine with my father and mother, who were much embarrassed with him; at

which I used to laugh in my sleeve.

A brother like this was a great annoyance to Madame de Maintenon.  His

wife, an obscure creature, more obscure, if possible, than her birth;

--foolish to the last degree, and of humble mien, was almost equally so.

Madame de Maintenon determined to rid herself of both.  She persuaded her

brother to enter a society that had been established by a M. Doyen, at

St. Sulpice, for decayed gentlemen.  His wife at the same time was

induced to retire into another community, where, however, she did not

fail to say to her companions that her fate was very hard, and that she

wished to be free.  As for d'Aubigne he concealed from nobody that his

sister was putting a joke on him by trying to persuade him that he was

devout, declared that he was pestered by priests, and that he should give

up the ghost in M. Doyen's house.  He could not stand it long, and went

back to his girls and to the Tuileries, and wherever he could; but they

caught him again, and placed him under the guardianship of one of the

stupidest priests of St. Sulpice, who followed him everywhere like his

shadow, and made him miserable.  The fellow's name was Madot: he was good

for no other employment, but gained his pay in this one by an assiduity

of which perhaps no one else would have been capable.  The only child of

this Comte d'Aubigne was a daughter, taken care of by Madame de

Maintenon, and educated under her eyes as though her own child.

Towards the end of the year, and not long after my return from the army,

the King fixed the day for the marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne to the

young Princesse de Savoy.  He announced that on that occasion he should

be glad to see a magnificent Court; and he himself, who for a long time

had worn only the most simple habits, ordered the most superb.  This was

enough; no one thought of consulting his purse or his state; everyone

tried to surpass his neighbour in richness and invention.  Gold and

silver scarcely sufficed: the shops of the dealers were emptied in a few

days; in a word luxury the most unbridled reigned over Court and city,

for the fete had a huge crowd of spectators.  Things went to such a

point, that the King almost repented of what he had said, and remarked,

that he could not understand how husbands could be such fools as to ruin

themselves by dresses for their wives; he might have added, by dresses

for themselves.  But the impulse had been given; there was now no time to

remedy it, and I believe the King at heart was glad; for it pleased him

during the fetes to look at all the dresses.  He loved passionately all

kinds of sumptuosity at his Court; and he who should have held only to

what had been said, as to the folly of expense, would have grown little

in favour.  There was no means, therefore, of being wise among so many

fools.  Several dresses were necessary.  Those for Madame Saint-Simon and

myself cost us twenty thousand francs.  Workmen were wanting to make up

so many rich habits.  Madame la Duchesse actually sent her people to take

some by force who were working at the Duc de Rohan's!  The King heard of

it, did not like it, and had the workmen sent back immediately to the

Hotel de Rohan, although the Duc de Rohan was one of the men he liked the

least in all France.  The King did another thing, which showed that he

desired everybody to be magnificent: he himself chose the design for the

embroidery of the Princess.  The embroiderer said he would leave all his

other designs for that.  The King would not permit this, but caused him

to finish the work he had in hand, and to set himself afterwards at the

other; adding, that if it was not ready in time, the Princess could do

without it.

The marriage was fixed for Saturday, the 7th of December; and, to avoid

disputes and difficulties, the King suppressed all ceremonies.  The day

arrived.  At an early hour all the Court went to Monseigneur the Duc de

Bourgogne, who went afterwards to the Princess.  A little before mid-day

the procession started from the salon, and proceeded to the chapel.

Cardinal de Coislin performed the marriage service.

As soon as the ceremony was finished, a courier, ready at the door of the

chapel, started for Turin.  The day passed wearily.  The King and Queen

of England came about seven o'clock in the evening, and some time

afterwards supper was served.  Upon rising from the table, the Princess

was shown to her bed, none but ladies being allowed to remain in the

chamber.  Her chemise was given her by the Queen of England through the

Duchesse de Lude.  The Duc de Bourgogne undressed in another room, in the

midst of all the Court, and seated upon a folding-chair.  The King of

England gave him his shirt, which was presented by the Duc de

Beauvilliers.  As soon as the Duchesse de Bourgogne was in bed, the Duc

de Bourgogne entered, and placed himself at her side, in the presence of

all the Court.  Immediately afterwards everybody went away from the

nuptial chamber, except Monseigneur, the ladies of the Princess, and the

Duc de Beauvilliers, who remained at the pillow by the side of his pupil,

with the Duchesse de Lude on the other side.  Monseigneur stopped a

quarter of an hour talking with the newly-married couple, then he made

his son get up, after having told him to kiss the Princess, in spite of

the opposition of the Duchesse de Lude.  As it proved, too, her

opposition was not wrong.  The King said he did not wish that his

grandson should kiss the end of the Princess's finger until they were

completely on the footing of man and wife.  Monsieur le Duc de Bourgogne

after this re-dressed himself in the ante-chamber, and went to his own

bed as usual.  The little Duc de Berry, spirited and resolute, did not

approve of the docility of his brother, and declared that he would have

remained in bed.  The young couple were not, indeed, allowed to live

together as man and wife until nearly two years afterwards.  The first

night that this privilege was granted them, the King repaired to their

chamber hoping to surprise them as they went to bed; but he found the

doors closed, and would not allow them to be opened.  The marriage-fetes

spread over several days.  On the Sunday there was an assembly in the

apartments of the new Duchesse de Bourgogne.  It was magnificent by the

prodigious number of ladies seated in a circle, or standing behind the

stools, gentlemen in turn behind them, and the dresses of all beautiful.

It commenced at six o'clock.  The King came at the end, and led all the

ladies into the saloon near the chapel, where was a fine collation, and

the music.  At nine o'clock he conducted Monsieur and Madame la Duchesse

de Bourgogne to the apartment of the latter, and all was finished for the

day.  The Princess continued to live just as before, and the ladies had

strict orders never to leave her alone with her husband.

On the Wednesday there was a grand ball in the gallery, superbly

ornamented for the occasion.  There was such a crowd, and such disorder,

that even the King was inconvenienced, and Monsieur was pushed and

knocked about in the crush.  How other people fared may be imagined.  No

place was kept--strength or chance decided everything--people squeezed in

where they could.  This spoiled all the fete.  About nine o'clock

refreshments were handed round, and at half-past ten supper was served.

Only the Princesses of the blood and the royal family were admitted to

it.  On the following Sunday there was another ball, but this time

matters were so arranged that no crowding or inconvenience occurred.  The

ball commenced at seven o'clock and was admirable; everybody appeared in

dresses that had not previously been seen.  The King found that of Madame

de Saint-Simon much to his taste, and gave it the palm over all the

others.

Madame de Maintenon did not appear at these balls, at least only for half

an hour at each.  On the following Tuesday all the Court went at four

o'clock in the afternoon to Trianon, where all gambled until the arrival

of the King and Queen of England.  The King took them into the theatre,

where Destouches's opera of Isse was very well performed.  The opera

being finished, everybody went his way, and thus these marriage-fetes

were brought to an end.

Tesse had married his eldest daughter to La Varenne last year, and now

married his second daughter to Maulevrier, son of a brother of Colbert.

This mention of La Varenne brings to my recollection a very pleasant

anecdote of his ancestor, the La Varenne so known in all the memoirs of

the time as having risen from the position of scullion to that of cook,

and then to that of cloak-bearer to Henry IV., whom he served in his

pleasures, and afterwards in his state-affairs.  At the death of the

King, La Varenne retired, very old and very rich, into the country.

Birds were much in vogue at that time, and he often amused himself with

falconry.  One day a magpie perched on one of his trees, and neither

sticks nor stones could dislodge it.  La Varenne and a number of

sportsmen gathered around the tree and tried to drive away the magpie.

Importuned with all this noise, the bird at last began to cry repeatedly

with all its might, "Pandar!  Pandar!"

Now La Varenne had gained all he possessed by that trade.  Hearing the

magpie repeat again and again the same word, he took it into his head

that by a miracle, like the observation Balaam's ass made to his master,

the bird was reproaching him for his sins.  He was so troubled that he

could not help showing it; then, more and more agitated, he told the

cause of his disturbance to the company, who laughed at him in the first

place, but, upon finding that he was growing really ill, they endeavoured

to convince him that the magpie belonged to a neighbouring village, where

it had learned the word.  It was all in vain: La Varenne was so ill that

he was obliged to be carried home; fever seized him and in four days he

died.

CHAPTER XII

Here perhaps is the place to speak of Charles IV., Duc de Lorraine, so

well known by his genius, and the extremities to which he was urged.  He

was married in 1621 to the Duchesse Nicole, his cousin-german, but after

a time ceased to live with her.  Being at Brussels he fell in love with

Madame de Cantecroix, a widow.  He bribed a courier to bring him news of

the death of the Duchesse Nicole; he circulated the report throughout the

town, wore mourning, and fourteen days afterwards, in April, 1637,

married Madame de Cantecroix.  In a short time it was discovered that the

Duchesse Nicole was full of life and health, and had not even been ill.

Madame de Cantecroix made believe that she had been duped, but still

lived with the Duke.  They continued to repute the Duchesse Nicole as

dead, and lived together in the face of the world as though effectually

married, although there had never been any question either before or

since of dissolving the first marriage.  The Duc Charles had by this fine

marriage a daughter and then a son, both perfectly illegitimate, and

universally regarded as such.  Of these the daughter married Comte de

Lislebonne, by whom she had four children.  The son, educated under his

father's eye as legitimate, was called Prince de Vaudemont, and by that

name has ever since been known.  He entered the service of Spain,

distinguished himself in the army, obtained the support of the Prince of

Orange, and ultimately rose to the very highest influence and prosperity.

People were astonished this year, that while the Princess of Savoy was at

Fontainebleau, just before her marriage, she was taken several times by

Madame de Maintenon to a little unknown convent at Moret, where there was

nothing to amuse her, and no nuns who were known.  Madame de Maintenon

often went there, and Monseigneur with his children sometimes; the late

Queen used to go also.  This awakened much curiosity and gave rise to

many reports.  It seems that in this convent there was a woman of colour,

a Moorish woman, who had been placed there very young by Bontems, valet

of the King.  She received the utmost care and attention, but never was

shown to anybody.  When the late Queen or Madame de Maintenon went, they

did not always see her, but always watched over her welfare.  She was

treated with more consideration than people the most distinguished; and

herself made much of the care that was taken of her, and the mystery by

which she was surrounded.  Although she lived regularly, it was easy to

see she was not too contented with her position.  Hearing Monseigneur

hunt in the forest one day, she forgot herself so far as to exclaim,

"My brother is hunting!"  It was pretended that she was a daughter of the

King and Queen, but that she had been hidden away on account of her

colour; and the report was spread that the Queen had had a miscarriage.

Many people believed this story; but whether it was true or not has

remained an enigma.

The year 1698 commenced by a reconciliation between the Jesuits and the

Archbishop of Rheims.  That prelate upon the occasion of an ordinance had

expressed himself upon matters of doctrine and morality in a manner that

displeased the Jesuits.  They acted towards him in their usual manner, by

writing an attack upon him, which appeared without any author's name.

But the Archbishop complained to the King, and altogether stood his

ground so firmly, that in the end the Jesuits were glad to give way,

disavow the book, and arrange the reconciliation which took place.

The Czar, Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia, had at this time already

commenced his voyages; he was in Holland, learning ship-building.

Although incognito, he wished to be recognised, but after his own

fashion; and was annoyed that, being so near to England, no embassy was

sent to him from that country, which he wished to ally himself with for

commercial reasons.

At last an embassy arrived; he delayed for some time to give it an

audience, but in the end fixed the day and hour at which he would see it.

The reception, however, was to take place on board a large Dutch vessel

that he was going to examine.  There were two ambassadors; they thought

the meeting-place rather an odd one, but were obliged to go there.  When

they arrived on board the Czar sent word that he was in the "top," and

that it was there he would see them.  The ambassadors, whose feet were

unaccustomed to rope-ladders, tried to excuse themselves from mounting;

but it was all in vain.  The Czar would receive them in the "top" or not

at all.  At last they were compelled to ascend, and the meeting took

place on that narrow place high up in the air.  The Czar received them

there with as much majesty as though he had been upon his throne,

listened to their harangue, replied very graciously, and then laughed at

the fear painted upon their faces, and good-humouredly gave them to

understand that he had punished them thus for arriving so late.

After this the Czar passed into England, curious to see and learn as much

as possible; and, having well fulfilled his views, repaired into Holland.

He wished to visit France, but the King civilly declined to receive him.

He went, therefore, much mortified, to Vienna instead.  Three weeks after

his arrival he was informed of a conspiracy that had been formed against

him in Moscow.  He hastened there at once, and found that it was headed

by his own sister; he put her in prison, and hanged her most guilty

accomplices to the bars of his windows, as many each day as the bars

would hold.  I have related at once all that regards the Czar for this

year, in order not to leap without ceasing from one matter to another; I

shall do this, and for the same reason, with that which follows.

The King of England was, as I have before said, at the height of

satisfaction at having been recognised by the King (Louis XIV.), and at

finding himself secure upon the throne.  But a usurper is never tranquil

and content.  William was annoyed by the residence of the legitimate King

and his family at Saint Germains.  It was too close to the King (of

France), and too near England to leave him without disquietude.  He had

tried hard at Ryswick to obtain the dismissal of James II.  from the

realm, or at least from the Court of France, but without effect.

Afterwards he sent the Duke of St. Albans to our King openly, in order to

compliment him upon the marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne, but in reality

to obtain the dismissal.

The Duke of St. Albans meeting with no success, the Duke of Portland was

sent to succeed him.  The Duke of Portland came over with a numerous and

superb suite; he kept up a magnificent table, and had horses, liveries,

furniture, and dresses of the most tasteful and costly kind.  He was on

his way when a fire destroyed Whitehall, the largest and ugliest palace

in Europe, and which has not since been rebuilt; so that the kings are

lodged, and very badly, at St. James's Palace.

Portland had his first audience of the King on the 4th of February, and

remained four months in France.  His politeness, his courtly and gallant

manners, and the good cheer he gave, charmed everybody, and made him

universally popular.  It became the fashion to give fetes in his honour;

and the astonishing fact is, that the King, who at heart was more

offended than ever with William of Orange, treated this ambassador with

the most marked distinction.  One evening he even gave Portland his

bedroom candlestick, a favour only accorded to the most considerable

persons, and always regarded as a special mark of the King's bounty.

Notwithstanding all these attentions, Portland was as unsuccessful as his

predecessor.  The King had firmly resolved to continue his protection to

James II., and nothing could shake this determination.  Portland was

warned from the first, that if he attempted to speak to the King upon the

point, his labour would be thrown away; he wisely therefore kept silence,

and went home again without in any way having fulfilled the mission upon

which he had been sent.

We had another distinguished foreigner arrive in France about this time,

--I mean, the Prince of Parma, respecting whom I remember a pleasing

adventure.  At Fontainebleau more great dancing-parties are given than

elsewhere, and Cardinal d'Estrees wished to give one there in honour of

this Prince.  I and many others were invited to the banquet; but the

Prince himself, for whom the invitation was specially provided, was

forgotten.  The Cardinal had given invitations right and left, but by

some omission the Prince had not had one sent to him.  On the morning of

the dinner this discovery was made.  The Prince was at once sent to, but

he was engaged, and for several days.  The dinner therefore took place

without him; the Cardinal was much laughed at for his absence of mind.

He was often similarly forgetful.

The Bishop of Poitiers died at the commencement of this year, and his

bishopric was given at Easter to the Abbe de Caudelet.  The Abbe was a

very good man, but made himself an enemy, who circulated the blackest

calumnies against him.  Amongst other impostures it was said that the

Abbe had gambled all Good Friday; the truth being, that in the evening,

after all the services were over, he went to see the Marechale de Crequi,

who prevailed upon him to amuse her for an hour by playing at piquet.

But the calumny had such effect, that the bishopric of Poitiers was taken

from him, and he retired into Brittany, where he passed the rest of his

life in solitude and piety.  His brother in the meantime fully proved to

Pere de la Chaise the falsehood of this accusation; and he, who was

upright and good, did all he could to bestow some other living upon the

Abbe, in recompense for that he had been stripped of.  But the King would

not consent, although often importuned, and even reproached for his

cruelty.

It was known, too, who was the author of the calumny.  It was the Abbe de

la Chatre, who for a long time had been chaplain to the King, and who was

enraged against everyone who was made bishop before him.  He was a man

not wanting in intelligence, but bitter, disagreeable, punctilious; very

ignorant, because he would never study, and so destitute of morality,

that I saw him say mass in the chapel on Ash Wednesday, after having

passed a night, masked at a ball, where he said and did the most filthy

things, as seen and heard by M. de La Vrilliere, before whom he unmasked,

and who related this to me: half an hour after, I met the Abbe de la

Chatre, dressed and going to the altar.  Other adventures had already

deprived him of all chance of being made bishop by the King.

The old Villars died at this time.  I have already mentioned him as

having been made chevalier d'honneur to the Duchesse de Chartres at her

marriage.  I mention him now, because I omitted to say before the origin

of his name of Orondat, by which he was generally known, and which did

not displease him.  This is the circumstance that gave rise to it.

Madame de Choisy, a lady of the fashionable world, went one day to see

the Comtesse de Fiesque, and found there a large company.  The Countess

had a young girl living with her, whose name was Mademoiselle

d'Outrelaise, but who was called the Divine.  Madame de Choisy, wishing

to go into the bedroom, said she would go there, and see the Divine.

Mounting rapidly, she found in the chamber a young and very pretty girl,

Mademoiselle Bellefonds, and a man, who escaped immediately upon seeing

her.  The face of this man being perfectly well made, so struck her,

that, upon coming down again, she said it could only be that of Orondat.

Now that romances are happily no longer read, it is necessary to say that

Orondat is a character in Cyrus, celebrated by his figure and his good

looks, and who charmed all the heroines of that romance, which was then

much in vogue.  The greater part of the company knew that Villars was

upstairs to see Mademoiselle de Bellefonds, with whom he was much in

love, and whom he soon afterwards married.  Everybody therefore smiled at

this adventure of Orondat, and the name clung ever afterwards to Villars.

The Prince de Conti lost, before this time, his son, Prince la Roche-sur-

Yon, who was only four years old.  The King wore mourning for him,

although it was the custom not to do so for children under seven years of

age.  But the King had already departed from this custom for one of the

children of M. du Maine, and he dared not afterwards act differently

towards the children of a prince of the blood.  Just at the end of

September, M. du Maine lost another child, his only son.  The King wept

very much, and, although the child was considerably under seven years of

age, wore mourning for it.  The marriage of Mademoiselle to M. de

Lorraine was then just upon the point of taking place; and Monsieur

(father of Mademoiselle) begged that this mourning might be laid aside

when the marriage was celebrated.  The King agreed, but Madame la

Duchesse and the Princesse de Conti believed it apparently beneath them

to render this respect to Monsieur, and refused to comply.  The King

commanded them to do so, but they pushed the matter so far as to say that

they had no other clothes.  Upon this, the King ordered them to send and

get some directly.  They were obliged to obey, and admit themselves

vanquished; but they did so not without great vexation.  M. de Cambrai's

affairs still continued to make a great stir among the prelates and at

the Court.  Madame Guyon was transferred from the Vincennes to the

Bastille, and it was believed she would remain there all her life.  The

Ducs de Chevreuse and Beauvilliers lost all favour with M. de Maintenon,

and narrowly escaped losing the favour of the King.  An attempt was in

fact made, which Madame de Maintenon strongly supported, to get them

disgraced; and, but for the Archbishop of Paris, this would have taken

place.  But this prelate, thoroughly upright and conscientious,

counselled the King against such a step, to the great vexation of his

relations, who were the chief plotters in the conspiracy to overthrow the

two Dukes.  As for M. de Cambrai's book 'Les Maxinies des Saints', it was

as little liked as ever, and underwent rather a strong criticism at this

time from M. de La Trappe, which did not do much to improve its

reputation.  At the commencement of the dispute M. de Meaux had sent a

copy of 'Les Maximes des Saints' to M. de La Trappe, asking as a friend

for his opinion of the work.  M. de La Trappe read it, and was much

scandalized.  The more he studied it, the more this sentiment penetrated

him.  At last, after having well examined the book, he sent his opinion

to M. de Meaux, believing it would be considered as private, and not be

shown to anybody.  He did not measure his words, therefore, but wrote

openly, that if M. de Cambrai was right he might burn the Evangelists,

and complain of Jesus Christ, who could have come into the world only to

deceive us.  The frightful force of this phrase was so terrifying, that

M. de Meaux thought it worthy of being shown to Madame de Maintenon; and

she, seeking only to crush M. de Cambrai with all the authorities

possible, would insist upon this opinion of M. de La Trappe being

printed.

It may be imagined what triumphing there was on the one side, and what

piercing cries on the other.  The friends of M. de Cambrai complained

most bitterly that M. de La Trappe had mixed himself up in the matter,

and had passed such a violent and cruel sentence upon a book then under

the consideration of the Pope.  M. de La Trappe on his side was much

afflicted that his letter had been published.  He wrote to M. de Meaux

protesting against this breach of confidence; and said that, although he

had only expressed what he really thought, he should have been careful to

use more measured language, had he supposed his letter would have seen

the light.  He said all he could to heal the wounds his words had caused,

but M. de Cambrai and his friends never forgave him for having written

them.

This circumstance caused much discussion, and M. de La Trappe, to whom I

was passionately attached, was frequently spoken of in a manner that

caused me much annoyance.  Riding out one day in a coach with some of my

friends, the conversation took this turn.  I listened in silence for some

time, and then, feeling no longer able to support the discourse, desired

to be set down, so that my friends might talk at their ease, without pain

to me.  They tried to retain me, but I insisted and carried my point.

Another time, Charost, one of my friends, spoke so disdainfully of M. de

La Trappe, and I replied to him with such warmth, that on the instant he

was seized with a fit, tottered, stammered, his throat swelled, his eyes

seemed starting from his head, and his tongue from his mouth.  Madame de

Saint-Simon and the other ladies who were present flew to his assistance;

one unfastened his cravat and his shirt-collar, another threw a jug of

water over him and made him drink something; but as for me, I was struck

motionless at the sudden change brought about by an excess of anger and

infatuation.  Charost was soon restored, and when he left I was taken to

task by the ladies.  In reply I simply smiled.  I gained this by the

occurrence, that Charost never committed himself again upon the subject

of M. de La Trappe.

Before quitting this theme, I will relate an anecdote which has found

belief.  It has been said, that when M. de La Trappe was the Abbe de

Rance he was much in love with the beautiful Madame de Montbazon, and

that he was well treated by her.  On one occasion after leaving her, in

perfect health, in order to go into the country, he learnt that she had

fallen ill.  He hastened back, entered hurriedly into her chamber, and

the first sight he saw there was her head, that the surgeons, in opening

her, had separated from her body.  It was the first intimation he had had

that she was dead, and the surprise and horror of the sight so converted

him that immediately afterwards he retired from the world.  There is

nothing true in all this except the foundation upon which the fiction

arose.  I have frankly asked M. de La Trappe upon this matter, and from

him I have learned that he was one of the friends of Madame de Montbazon,

but that so far from being ignorant of the time of her death, he was by

her side at the time, administered the sacrament to her, and had never

quitted her during the few days she was ill.  The truth is, her sudden

death so touched him, that it made him carry out his intention of

retiring from the world--an intention, however, he had formed for many

years.

The affair of M. de Cambrai was not finally settled until the

commencement of the following year, 1699, but went on making more noise

day by day.  At the date I have named the verdict from Rome arrived

Twenty-three propositions of the 'Maximes des Saints' were declared rash,

dangerous, erroneous--'in globo'--and the Pope excommunicated those who

read the book or kept it in their houses.  The King was much pleased with

this condemnation, and openly expressed his satisfaction.  Madame de

Maintenon appeared at the summit of joy.  As for M. de Cambrai, he learnt

his fate in a moment which would have overwhelmed a man with less

resources in himself.  He was on the point of mounting into the pulpit:

he was by no means troubled; put aside the sermon he had prepared, and,

without delaying a moment, took for subject the submission due to the

Church; he treated this theme in a powerful and touching manner;

announced the condemnation of his book; retracted the opinions he had

professed; and concluded his sermon by a perfect acquiescence and

submission to the judgment the Pope had just pronounced.  Two days

afterwards he published his retraction, condemned his book, prohibited

the reading of it, acquiesced and submitted himself anew to his

condemnation, and in the clearest terms took away from himself all means

of returning to his opinions.  A submission so prompt, so clear, so

perfect, was generally admired, although there were not wanting censors

who wished he had shown less readiness in giving way.  His friends

believed the submission would be so flattering to the Pope, that M. de

Cambrai might rely upon advancement to a cardinalship, and steps were

taken, but without any good result, to bring about that event.

CHAPTER XIII

About this time the King caused Charnace to be arrested in a province to

which he had been banished.  He was accused of many wicked things, and;

amongst others, of coining.  Charnace was a lad of spirit, who had been

page to the King and officer in the body-guard.  Having retired to his

own house, he often played off many a prank.  One of these I will

mention, as being full of wit and very laughable.

He had a very long and perfectly beautiful avenue before his house in

Anjou, but in the midst of it were the cottage and garden of a peasant;

and neither Charnace, nor his father before him, could prevail upon him

to remove, although they offered him large sums.  Charnace at last

determined to gain his point by stratagem.  The peasant was a tailor,

and lived all alone, without wife or child.  One day Charnace sent for

him, said he wanted a Court suit in all haste, and, agreeing to lodge and

feed him, stipulated that he should not leave the house until it was

done.  The tailor agreed, and set himself to the work.  While he was thus

occupied, Charnace had the dimensions of his house and garden taken with

the utmost exactitude; made a plan of the interior, showing the precise

position of the furniture and the utensils; and, when all was done,

pulled down the house and removed it a short distance off.

Then it was arranged as before with a similar looking garden, and at the

same time the spot on which it had previously stood was smoothed and

levelled.  All this was done before the suit was finished.  The work

being at length over on both sides, Charnace amused the tailor until it

was quite dark, paid him, and dismissed him content.  The man went on his

way down the avenue; but, finding the distance longer than usual, looked

about, and perceived he had gone too far.  Returning, he searched

diligently for his house, but without being able to find it.  The night

passed in this exercise.  When the day came, he rubbed his eyes, thinking

they might have been in fault; but as he found them as clear as usual,

began to believe that the devil had carried away his house, garden and

all.  By dint of wandering to and fro, and casting his eyes in every

direction, he saw at last a house which was as like to his as are two

drops of water to each other.  Curiosity tempted him to go and examine

it.  He did so, and became convinced it was his own.  He entered, found

everything inside as he had left it, and then became quite persuaded he

had been tricked by a sorcerer.  The day was not, however, very far

advanced before he learned the truth through the banter of his

neighbours.  In fury he talked of going to law, or demanding justice, but

was laughed at everywhere.  The King when he heard of it laughed also;

and Charnace had his avenue free.  If he had never done anything worse

than this, he would have preserved his reputation and his liberty.

A strange scene happened at Meudon after supper one evening, towards the

end of July.  The Prince de Conti and the Grand Prieur were playing, and

a dispute arose respecting the game.  The Grand Prieur, inflated by pride

on account of the favours the King had showered upon him, and rendered

audacious by being placed almost on a level with the Princes of the

blood, used words which would have been too strong even towards an equal.

The Prince de Conti answered by a repartee, in which the other's honesty

at play and his courage in war--both, in truth, little to boast about--

were attacked.  Upon this the Grand Prieur flew into a passion, flung

away the cards, and demanded satisfaction, sword in hand.  The Prince de

Conti, with a smile of contempt, reminded him that he was wanting in

respect, and at the same time said he could have the satisfaction he

asked for whenever he pleased.  The arrival of Monseigneur, in his

dressing-gown, put an end to the fray.  He ordered the Marquis de

Gesvres, who was one of the courtiers present, to report the whole affair

to the King, and that every one should go to bed.  On the morrow the King

was informed of what had taken place, and immediately ordered the Grand

Prieur to go to the Bastille.  He was obliged to obey, and remained in

confinement several days.  The affair made a great stir at Court.  The

Princes of the blood took a very high tone, and the illegitimates were

much embarrassed.  At last, on the 7th of August, the affair was finally

accommodated through the intercession of Monseigneur.  The Grand Prieur

demanded pardon of the Prince de Conti in the presence of his brother, M.

de Vendome, who was obliged to swallow this bitter draught, although

against his will, in order to appease the Princes of the blood, who were

extremely excited.

Nearly at the same time, that is to say, on the 29th of May, in the

morning Madame de Saint-Simon was happily delivered of a child.  God did

us the grace to give us a son.  He bore, as I had, the name of Vidame of

Chartres.  I do not know why people have the fancy for these odd names,

but they seduce in all nations, and they who feel the triviality of them,

imitate them.  It is true that the titles of Count and Marquis have

fallen into the dust because of the quantity of people without wealth,

and even without land, who usurp them; and that they have become so

worthless, that people of quality who are Marquises or Counts (if they

will permit me to say it) are silly enough to be annoyed if those titles

are given to them in conversation.  It is certain, however, that these

titles emanated from landed creations, and that in their origin they had

functions attached to them, which, they have since outlived.  The

vidames, on the contrary, were only principal officers of certain

bishops, with authority to lead all the rest of their seigneurs' vassals

to the field, either to fight against other lords, or in the armies that

our kings used to assemble to combat their enemies before the creation of

a standing army put an end to the employment of vassals (there being no

further need for them), and to all the power and authority of the

seigneurs.  There is thus no comparison between the title of vidame,

which only marks a vassal, and the titles which by fief emanate from the

King.  Yet because the few Vidames who have been known were illustrious,

the name has appeared grand, and for this reason was given to me, and

afterwards by me to my son:

Some little time before this, the King resolved to show all Europe, which

believed his resources exhausted by a long war, that in the midst of

profound peace, he was as fully prepared as ever for arms.  He wished at

the same time, to present a superb spectacle to Madame de Maintenon,

under pretext of teaching the young Duc de Bourgogne his first lesson in

war.  He gave all the necessary orders, therefore, for forming a camp at

Compiegne, to be commanded by the Marechal de Boufflers under the young

Duke.  On Thursday, the 28th of August, all the Court set out for the

camp.  Sixty thousand men were assembled there.  The King, as at the

marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne, had announced that he counted upon

seeing the troops look their best.  The consequence of this was to excite

the army to an emulation that was repented of afterwards.  Not only were

the troops in such beautiful order that it was impossible to give the

palm to any one corps, but their commanders added the finery and

magnificence of the Court to the majestic and warlike beauty of the men,

of the arms, and of the horses; and the officers exhausted their means in

uniforms which would have graced a fete.

Colonels, and even simple captains, kept open table; but the Marechal de

Boufflers outstripped everybody by his expenditure, by his magnificence,

and his good taste.  Never was seen a spectacle so transcendent--so

dazzling--and (it must be said) so terrifying.  At all hours, day or

night, the Marechal's table was open to every comer--whether officer,

courtier, or spectator.  All were welcomed and invited, with the utmost

civility and attention, to partake of the good things provided.  There

was every kind of hot and cold liquors; everything which can be the most

widely and the most splendidly comprehended under the term refreshment:

French and foreign wines, and the rarest liqueurs in the utmost

abundance.  Measures were so well taken that quantities of game and

venison arrived from all sides; and the seas of Normandy, of Holland, of

England, of Brittany, even the Mediterranean, furnished all they

contained--the most unheard-of, extraordinary, and most exquisite--at a

given day and hour with inimitable order, and by a prodigious number of

horsemen and little express carriages.  Even the water was fetched from

Sainte Reine, from the Seine, and from sources the most esteemed; and it

is impossible to imagine anything of any kind which was not at once ready

for the obscurest as for the most distinguished visitor, the guest most

expected, and the guest not expected at all.  Wooden houses and

magnificent tents stretched all around, in number sufficient to form a

camp of themselves, and were furnished in the most superb manner, like

the houses in Paris.  Kitchens and rooms for every purpose were there,

and the whole was marked by an order and cleanliness that excited

surprise and admiration.  The King, wishing that the magnificence of this

camp should be seen by the ambassadors, invited them there, and prepared

lodgings for them.  But the ambassadors claimed a silly distinction,

which the King would not grant, and they refused his invitation.  This

distinction I call silly because it brings no advantage with it of any

kind.  I am ignorant of its origin, but this is what it consists in.

When, as upon such an occasion as this, lodgings are allotted to the

Court, the quartermaster writes in chalk, "for Monsieur Such-a-one," upon

those intended for Princes of the blood, cardinals, and foreign princes;

but for none other.  The King would not allow the "for" to be written

upon the lodgings of the ambassadors; and the ambassadors, therefore,

kept away.  The King was much piqued at this, and I heard him say at

supper, that if he treated them as they deserved, he should only allow

them to come to Court at audience times, as was the custom everywhere

else.

The King arrived at the camp on Saturday, the 30th of August, and went

with the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne and others to the quarters of

Marechal de Boufflers, where a magnificent collation was served up to

them--so magnificent that when the King returned, he said it would be

useless for the Duc de Bourgogne to attempt anything so splendid; and

that whenever he went to the camp he ought to dine with Marechal de

Bouffiers.  In effect, the King himself soon after dined there, and led

to the Marechal's table the King of England, who was passing three or

four days in the camp.

On these occasions the King pressed Marechal de Boufflers to be seated.

He would never comply, but waited upon the King while the Duc de

Grammont, his brother-in-law, waited upon Monseigneur.

The King amused himself much in pointing out the disposition of the

troops to the ladies of the Court, and in the evening showed them a grand

review.

A very pleasant adventure happened at this review to Count Tesse, colonel

of dragoons.  Two days previously M. de Lauzun, in the course of chit-

chat, asked him how he intended to dress at the review; and persuaded him

that, it being the custom, he must appear at the head of his troops in a

grey hat, or that he would assuredly displease the King.  Tesse, grateful

for this information, and ashamed of his ignorance, thanked M. de Lauzun,

and sent off for a hat in all haste to Paris.  The King, as M. de Lauzun

well knew, had an aversion to grey, and nobody had worn it for several

years.  When, therefore, on the day of the review he saw Tesse in a hat

of that colour, with a black feather, and a huge cockade dangling and

flaunting above, he called to him, and asked him why he wore it.  Tesse

replied that it was the privilege of the colonel-general to wear that day

a grey hat.  "A grey hat," replied the King; "where the devil did you

learn that?"

"From M. de, Lauzun, Sire, for whom you created the charge," said Tesse,

all embarrassment.  On the instant, the good Lauzun vanished, bursting

with laughter, and the King assured Tesse that M. de Lauzun had merely

been joking with him.  I never saw a man so confounded as Tesse at this.

He remained with downcast eyes, looking at his hat, with a sadness and

confusion that rendered the scene perfect.  He was obliged to treat the

matter as a joke, but was for a long time much tormented about it, and

much ashamed of it.

Nearly every day the Princes dined with Marechal de Boufflers, whose

splendour and abundance knew no end.  Everybody who visited him, even the

humblest, was served with liberality and attention.  All the villages and

farms for four leagues round Compiegne were filled with people, French,

and foreigners, yet there was no disorder.  The gentlemen and valets at

the Marechal's quarters were of themselves quite a world, each more

polite than his neighbour, and all incessantly engaged from five o'clock

in the morning until ten and eleven o'clock at night, doing the honours

to various guests.  I return in spite of myself to the Marechal's

liberality; because, who ever saw it, cannot forget, or ever cease to be

in a state of astonishment and admiration at its abundance and

sumptuousness, or at the order, never deranged for a moment at a single

point, that prevailed.

The King wished to show the Court all the manoeuvres of war; the siege of

Compiegne was therefore undertaken, according to due form, with lines,

trenches, batteries, mines, &c.  On Saturday, the 13th of September, the

assault took place.  To witness it, the King, Madame de Maintenon, all

the ladies of the Court, and a number of gentlemen, stationed themselves

upon an old rampart, from which the plain and all the disposition of the

troops could be seen.  I was in the half circle very close to the King.

It was the most beautiful sight that can be imagined, to see all that

army, and the prodigious number of spectators on horse and foot, and that

game of attack and defence so cleverly conducted.

But a spectacle of another sort, that I could paint forty years hence as

well as to-day, so strongly did it strike me, was that which from the

summit of this rampart the King gave to all his army, and to the

innumerable crowd of spectators of all kinds in the plain below.  Madame

de Maintenon faced the plain and the troops in her sedan-chair-alone,

between its three windows drawn up-her porters having retired to a

distance.  On the left pole in front sat Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne;

and on the same side in a semicircle, standing, were Madame la Duchesse,

Madame la Princesse de Conti, and all the ladies, and behind them again,

many men.  At the right window was the King, standing, and a little in

the rear, a semicircle of the most distinguished men of the Court.  The

King was nearly always uncovered; and every now and then stooped to speak

to Madame de Maintenon, and explain to her what she saw, and the reason

of each movement.  Each time that he did so she was obliging enough to

open the window four or five inches, but never half way; for I noticed

particularly, and I admit that I was more attentive to this spectacle

than to that of the troops.  Sometimes she opened of her own accord to

ask some question of him, but generally it was he who, without waiting

for her, stooped down to instruct her of what was passing; and sometimes,

if she did not notice him, he tapped at the glass to make her open it.

He never spoke, save to her, except when he gave a few brief orders, or

just answered Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, who wanted to make him

speak, and with whom Madame de Maintenon carried on a conversation by

signs, without opening the front window, through which the young Princess

screamed to her from time to time.  I watched the countenance of every

one carefully; all expressed surprise tempered with prudence and shame,

that was, as it were, ashamed of itself: every one behind the chair and

in the semicircle watched this scene more than what was going on in the

army.  The King often put his hat on the top of the chair in order to get

his head in to speak; and this continual exercise tired his loins very

much.  Monseigneur was on horseback in the plain with the young Princes.

It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, and the weather was as

brilliant as could be desired.

Opposite the sedan-chair was an opening with some steps cut through the

wall, and communicating with the plain below.  It had been made for the

purpose of fetching orders from the King, should they be necessary.  The

case happened.  Crenan, who commanded, sent Conillac, an officer in one

of the defending regiments, to ask for some instructions from the King.

Conillac had been stationed at the foot of the rampart, where what was

passing above could not be seen.  He mounted the steps; and as soon as

his head and shoulders were at the top, caught sight of the chair, the

King, and all the assembled company.  He was not prepared for such a

scene, and it struck him with such astonishment, that he stopped short,

with mouth and eyes wide open-surprise painted upon every feature.  I see

him now as distinctly as I did then.  The King, as well as all the rest

of the company, remarked the agitation of Conillac, and said to him with

emotion, "Well, Conillac! come up."  Conillac remained motionless, and

the King continued, "Come up.  What is the matter?" Conillac, thus

addressed, finished his ascent, and came towards the King with slow and

trembling steps, rolling his eyes from right to left like one deranged.

Then he stammered something, but in a tone so low that it could not be

heard.  "What do you say?" cried the King.  "Speak up."  But Conillac was

unable; and the King, finding he could get nothing out of him, told him

to go away.  He did not need to be told twice, but disappeared at once.

As soon as he was gone, the King, looking round, said, "I don't know what

is the matter with Conillac.  He has lost his wits; he did not remember

what he had to say to me."  No one answered.

Towards the moment of the capitulation, Madame de Maintenon apparently

asked permission to go away, for the King cried, "The chairmen of

Madame!"  They came and took her away; in less than a quarter of an hour

afterwards the King retired also, and nearly everybody else.  There was

much interchange of glances, nudging with elbows, and then whisperings in

the ear.  Everybody was full of what had taken place on the ramparts

between the King and Madame de Maintenon.  Even the soldiers asked what

meant that sedan-chair and the King every moment stooping to put his head

inside of it.  It became necessary gently to silence these questions of

the troops.  What effect this sight had upon foreigners present, and what

they said of it, may be imagined.  All over Europe it was as much talked

of as the camp of Compiegne itself, with all its pomp and prodigious

splendour.

The last act of this great drama was a sham fight.  The execution was

perfect; but the commander, Rose, who was supposed to be beaten, would

not yield.  Marechal de Boufflers sent and told him more than once that

it was time.  Rose flew into a passion, and would not obey.  The King

laughed much at this, and said, "Rose does not like to be beaten."  At

last he himself sent the order for retreat.  Rose was forced then to

comply; but he did it with a very bad grace, and abused the bearer of the

order.

The King left the camp on Monday the 22d of September, much pleased with

the troops.  He gave, in parting, six hundred francs to each cavalry

captain, and three hundred francs to each captain of infantry.  He gave

as much to the majors of all the regiments, and distributed some favours

to his household.  To Marechal de Boufflers he presented one hundred

thousand francs.  All these gifts together amounted to something: but

separately were as mere drops of water.  There was not a single regiment

that was not ruined, officers and men, for several years.  As for

Marechal de Boufflers, I leave it to be imagined what a hundred thousand

francs were to him whose magnificence astounded all Europe, described as

it was by foreigners who were witnesses of it, and who day after day

could scarcely believe their own eyes.

CHAPTER XIV

Here I will relate an adventure, which shows that, however wise and

enlightened a man may be, he is never infallible.  M. de La Trappe had

selected from amongst his brethren one who was to be his successor.  The

name of this monk was D. Francois Gervaise.  He had been in the monastery

for some years, had lived regularly during that time, and had gained the

confidence of M. de La Trappe.  As soon, however, as he received this

appointment, his manners began to change.  He acted as though he were

already master, brought disorder and ill-feeling into the monastery, and

sorely grieved M. de La Trapp; who, however, looked upon this affliction

as the work of Heaven, and meekly resigned him self to it.  At last,

Francois Gervaise was by the merest chance detected openly, under

circumstances which blasted his character for ever.  His companion in

guilt was brought before M. de La Trappe, to leave no doubt upon the

matter.  D. Francois Gervaise, utterly prostrated, resigned his office,

and left La Trappe. Yet, even after this, he had the hardihood to show

himself in the world, and to try and work himself into the favour of Pere

la Chaise.  A discovery that was made, effectually stopped short his

hopes in this direction.  A letter of his was found, written to a nun

with whom he had been intimate, whom he loved, and by whom he was

passionately loved.  It was a tissue of filthiness and stark indecency,

enough to make the most abandoned tremble.  The pleasures, the regrets,

the desires, the hopes of this precious pair, were all expressed in the

boldest language, and with the utmost licence.  I believe that so many

abominations are not uttered in several days, even in the worst places.

For this offence Gervaise might have been confined in a dungeon all his

life, but he was allowed to go at large.  He wandered from monastery to

monastery for five or six years, and always caused so much disorder

wherever he stopped, that at last the superiors thought it best to let

him live as he liked in a curacy of his brother's.  He never ceased

troubling La Trappe, to which he wished to return; so that at last I

obtained a 'lettre de cachet', which prohibited him from approaching

within thirty leagues of the abbey, and within twenty of Paris.  It was I

who made known to him that his abominations had been discovered.  He was

in no way disturbed, declared he was glad to be free, and assured me with

the hypocrisy which never left him, that in his solitude he was going to

occupy himself in studying the Holy Scriptures.

Bonnceil, introducer of the ambassadors, being dead, Breteuil obtained

his post.  Breteuil was not without intellect, but aped courtly manners,

called himself Baron de Breteuil, and was much tormented and laughed at

by his friends.  One day, dining at the house of Madame de Pontchartrain,

and, speaking very authoritatively, Madame de Pontchartrain disputed with

him, and, to test his knowledge, offered to make a bet that he did not

know who wrote the Lord's Prayer.  He defended himself as well as he was

able, and succeeded in leaving the table without being called upon to

decide the point.  Caumartin, who saw his embarrassment, ran to him, and

kindly whispered in his ear that Moses was the author of the Lord's

Prayer.  Thus strengthened, Breteuil returned to the attack, brought,

while taking coffee, the conversation back again to the bet; and, after

reproaching Madame de Pontchartrain for supposing him ignorant upon such

a point, and declaring he was ashamed of being obliged to say such a

trivial thing, pronounced emphatically that it was Moses who had written

the Lord's Prayer.  The burst of laughter that, of course, followed this,

overwhelmed him with confusion.  Poor Breteuil was for a long time at

loggerheads with his friend, and the Lord's Prayer became a standing

reproach to him.

He had a friend, the Marquis de Gesvres, who, upon some points, was not

much better informed.  Talking one day in the cabinet of the King, and

admiring in the tone of a connoisseur some fine paintings of the

Crucifixion by the first masters, he remarked that they were all by one

hand.

He was laughed at, and the different painters were named, as recognized

by their style.

"Not at all," said the Marquis, "the painter is called INRI; do you not

see his name upon all the pictures?"  What followed after such gross

stupidity and ignorance may be imagined.

At the end of this year the King resolved to undertake three grand

projects, which ought to have been carried out long before: the chapel of

Versailles, the Church of the Invalides, and the altar of Notre-Dame de

Paris.  This last was a vow of Louis XIII., made when, he no longer was

able to accomplish it, and which he had left to his successor, who had

been more than fifty years without thinking of it.

On the 6th of January, upon the reception of the ambassadors at the house

of the Duchesse de Bourogogne, an adventure happened which I will here

relate.  M. de Lorraine belonged to a family which had been noted for its

pretensions, and for the disputes of precedency in which it engaged.  He

was as prone to this absurdity as the rest, and on this occasion incited

the Princesse d'Harcourt, one of his relations, to act in a manner that

scandalised all the Court.  Entering the room in which the ambassadors

were to be received and where a large number of ladies were already

collected, she glided behind the Duchesse de Rohan, and told her to pass

to the left.  The Duchesse de Rohan, much surprised, replied that she was

very well placed already.  Whereupon, the Princesse d'Harcourt, who was

tall and strong, made no further ado, but with her two arms seized the

Duchesse de Rohan, turned her round, and sat down in her place.  All the

ladies were strangely scandalised at this, but none dared say a word, not

even Madame de Lude, lady in waiting on the Duchesse de Bourgogne, who,

for her part also, felt the insolence of the act, but dared not speak,

being so young.  As for the Duchesse de Rohan, feeling that opposition

must lead to fisticuffs, she curtseyed to the Duchess, and quietly

retired to another place.  A few minutes after this, Madame de Saint-

Simon, who was then with child, feeling herself unwell, and tired of

standing, seated herself upon the first cushion she could find.  It so

happened, that in the position she thus occupied, she had taken

precedence of Madame d'Armagnac by two degrees.  Madame d'Armagnac,,

perceiving it, spoke to her upon the subject.  Madame de Saint-Simon, who

had only placed herself there for a moment, did not reply, but went

elsewhere.

As soon as I learnt of the first adventure, I thought it important that

such an insult should not be borne, and I went and conferred with M. de

la Rochefoucauld upon the subject, at the same time that Marechal de

Boufflers spoke of it to M. de Noailles.  I called upon other of my

friends, and the opinion was that the Duc de Rohan should complain to the

King on the morrow of the treatment his wife had received.

In the evening while I was at the King's supper, I was sent for by Madame

de Saint-Simon, who informed me that the Lorraines, afraid of the

complaints that would probably be addressed to the King upon what had

taken place between the Princesse d'Harcourt and the Duchesse de Rohan,

had availed themselves of what happened between Madame de Saint-Simon and

Madame d'Armagnac, in order to be the first to complain, so that one

might balance the other.  Here was a specimen of the artifice of these

gentlemen, which much enraged me.  On the instant I determined to lose no

time in speaking to the King; and that very evening I related what had

occurred, in so far as Madame de Saint-Simon was concerned, but made no

allusion to M. de Rohan's affair, thinking it best to leave that to be

settled by itself on the morrow.  The King replied to me very graciously,

and I retired, after assuring him that all I had said was true from

beginning to end.

The next day the Duc de Rohan made his complaint.  The King, who had

already been fully informed of the matter, received him well, praised the

respect and moderation of Madame de Rohan, declared Madame d'Harcourt to

have been very impertinent, and said some very hard words upon the

Lorraines.

I found afterwards, that Madame de Maintenon, who much favoured Madame

d'Harcourt, had all the trouble in the world to persuade the King not to

exclude her from the next journey to Marly.  She received a severe

reprimand from the King, a good scolding from Madame de Maintenon, and

was compelled publicly to ask pardon of the Duchesse de Rohan.  This she

did; but with a crawling baseness equal to her previous audacity.  Such

was the end of this strange history.

There appeared at this time a book entitled "Probleme," but without name

of author, and directed against M. de Paris, declaring that he had

uttered sentiments favourable to the Jansenists being at Chalons, and

unfavourable being at Paris.  The book came from the Jesuits, who could

not pardon M. de Paris for having become archbishop without their

assistance.  It was condemned and burnt by decree of the Parliament, and

the Jesuits had to swallow all the shame of it.  The author was soon

after discovered.  He was named Boileau; not the friend of Bontems, who

so often preached before the King, and still less the celebrated poet and

author of the 'Flagellants', but a doctor of much wit and learning whom

M. de Paris had taken into his favour and treated like a brother.  Who

would have believed that "Probleme" could spring from such a man?  M. de

Paris was much hurt; but instead of imprisoning Boileau for the rest of

his days, as he might have done, he acted the part of a great bishop, and

gave him a good canonical of Saint Honore, which became vacant a few days

afterwards.  Boileau, who was quite without means, completed his

dishonour by accepting it.

The honest people of the Court regretted a cynic who died at this time,

I mean the Chevalier de Coislin.  He was a most extraordinary man, very

splenetic, and very difficult to deal with.  He rarely left Versailles,

and never went to see the king.  I have seen him get out of the way not

to meet him.  He lived with Cardinal Coislin, his brother.  If anybody

displeased him, he would go and sulk in his own room; and if, whilst at

table, any one came whom he did not like, he would throw away his plate,

go off to sulk, or to finish his dinner all alone.  One circumstance will

paint him completely.  Being on a journey once with his brothers, the Duc

de Coislin and the Cardinal de Coislin, the party rested for the night at

the house of a vivacious and very pretty bourgeoise.  The Duc de Coislin

was an exceedingly polite man, and bestowed amiable compliments and

civilities upon their hostess, much to the disgust of the Chevalier.  At

parting, the Duke renewed the politeness he had displayed so abundantly

the previous evening, and delayed the others by his long-winded

flatteries.  When, at last, they left the house, and were two or three

leagues away from it, the Chevalier de Coislin said, that, in spite of

all this politeness, he had reason to believe that their pretty hostess

would not long be pleased with the Duke.  The Duke, disturbed, asked his

reason for thinking so.  "Do you wish to learn it?" said the Chevalier;

"well, then, you must know that, disgusted by your compliments, I went up

into the bedroom in which you slept, and made a filthy mess on the floor,

which the landlady will no doubt attribute to you, despite all your fine

speeches."

At this there was loud laughter, but the Duke was in fury, and wished to

return in order to clear up his character.  Although it rained hard, they

had all the pains in the world to hinder him, and still more to bring

about a reconciliation.  Nothing was more pleasant than to hear the

brothers relate this adventure each in his own way.

Two cruel effects of gambling were noticed at this time.  Reineville, a

lieutenant of the body-guard, a general officer distinguished in war,

very well treated by the King, and much esteemed by the captain of the

Guards, suddenly disappeared, and could not be found anywhere, although

the utmost care was taken to search for him.   He loved gaming.  He had

lost what he could not pay.  He was a man of honour, and could not

sustain his misfortune.  Twelve or fifteen years afterwards he was

recognised among the Bavarian troops, in which he was serving in order to

gain his bread and to live unknown.  The other case was still worse.

Permillac, a man of much intelligence and talent, had lost more than he

possessed, and blew his brains out one morning in bed.  He was much liked

throughout the army; had taken a friendship for me, and I for him.

Everybody pitied him, and I much regretted him.

Nearly at the same time we lost the celebrated Racine, so known by his

beautiful plays.  No one possessed a greater talent or a more agreeable

mien.  There was nothing of the poet in his manners: he had the air of a

well-bred and modest man, and at last that of a good man.  He had

friends, the most illustrious, at the Court as well as among men of

letters.  I leave it to the latter to speak of him in a better way than I

can.  He wrote, for the amusement of the King and Madame de Maintenon,

and to exercise the young ladies of Saint Cyr, two dramatic masterpieces,

Esther and Athalie.  They were very difficult to write, because there

could be no love in them, and because they are sacred tragedies, in

which, from respect to the Holy Scriptures, it was necessary rigidly to

keep to the historical truth.  They were several times played at Saint

Cyr before a select Court.  Racine was charged with the history of the

King, conjointly with Despreaux, his friend.  This employment, the pieces

I have just spoken of, and his friends, gained for Racine some special

favours: It sometimes happened that the King had no ministers with him,

as on Fridays, and, above all, when the bad weather of winter rendered

the sittings very long; then he would send for Racine to amuse him and

Madame de Maintenon.  Unfortunately the poet was oftentimes very absent.

It happened one evening that, talking with Racine upon the theatre, the

King asked why comedy was so much out of fashion.  Racine gave several

reasons, and concluded by naming the principal,--namely, that for want of

new pieces the comedians gave old ones, and, amongst others, those of

Scarron, which were worth nothing, and which found no favour with

anybody.  At this the poor widow blushed, not for the reputation of the

cripple attacked, but at hearing his name uttered in presence of his

successor!  The King was also embarrassed, and the unhappy Racine, by the

silence which followed, felt what a slip he had made.  He remained the

most confounded of the three, without daring to raise his eyes or to open

his mouth.  This silence did not terminate for several moments, so heavy

and profound was the surprise.  The end was that the King sent away

Racine, saying he was going to work.  The poet never afterwards recovered

his position.  Neither the King nor Madame de Maintenon ever spoke to him

again, or even looked at him; and he conceived so much sorrow at this,

that he fell into a languor, and died two years afterwards.  At his

death, Valincourt was chosen to work in his place with Despreaux upon the

history of the King.

The King, who had just paid the heavy gaming and tradesmen's debts of

Madame la Duchesse, paid also those of Monseigneur, which amounted to

fifty thousand francs, undertook the payment of the buildings at Meudon,

and, in lieu of fifteen hundred pistoles a month which he had allowed

Monseigneur, gave him fifty thousand crowns.  M. de la Rochefoucauld,

always necessitous and pitiful in the midst of riches, a prey to his

servants, obtained an increase of forty-two thousand francs a-year upon

the salary he received as Grand Veneur, although it was but a short time

since the King had paid his debts.  The King gave also, but in secret,

twenty thousand francs a-year to M. de Chartres, who had spent so much in

journeys and building that he feared he should be unable to pay his

debts.  He had asked for an abbey; but as he had already one, the King

did not like to give him another, lest it should be thought too much.

M. de Vendome began at last to think about his health, which his

debauches had thrown into a very bad state.  He took public leave of the

King and of all the Court before going away, to put himself in the hands

of the doctors.  It was the first and only example of such impudence.

From this time he lost ground.  The King said, at parting, that he hoped

he would come back in such a state that people might kiss him without

danger!  His going in triumph, where another would have gone in shame and

secrecy, was startling and disgusting.  He was nearly three months under

the most skilful treatment-and returned to the Court with half his nose,

his teeth out, and a physiognomy entirely changed, almost idiotic.  The

King was so much struck by this change, that he recommended the courtiers

not to appear to notice it, for fear of afflicting M. de Vendome.  That

was taking much interest in him assuredly.  As, moreover, he had departed

in triumph upon this medical expedition, so he returned triumphant by the

reception of the King, which was imitated by all the Court.  He remained

only a few days, and then, his mirror telling sad tales, went away to

Anet, to see if nose and teeth would come back to him with his hair.

A strange adventure, which happened at this time, terrified everybody,

and gave rise to many surmises.  Savary was found assassinated in his

house at Paris he kept only a valet and a maid-servant, and they were

discovered murdered at the same time, quite dressed, like their master,

and in different parts of the house.  It appeared by writings found

there, that the crime was one of revenge: it was supposed to have been

committed in broad daylight.  Savary was a citizen of Paris, very rich,

without occupation, and lived like an epicurean.  He had some friends of

the highest rank, and gave parties, of all kinds of pleasure, at his

house, politics sometimes being discussed.  The cause of this

assassination was never known; but so much of it was found out, that no

one dared to search for more.  Few doubted but that the deed had been

done by a very ugly little man, but of a blood so highly respected, that

all forms were dispensed with, in the fear lest it should be brought home

to him; and, after the first excitement, everybody ceased to speak of

this tragic history.

On the night between the 3rd and 4th of June, a daring robbery was

effected at the grand stables of Versailles.  All the horse-cloths and

trappings, worth at least fifty thousand crowns, were carried off, and so

cleverly and with such speed, although the night was short, that no

traces of them could ever afterwards be found.  This theft reminds me of

another which took place a little before the commencement of these

memoirs.  The grand apartment at Versailles, that is to say, from the

gallery to the tribune, was hung with crimson velvet, trimmed and fringed

with gold.  One fine morning the fringe and trimmings were all found to

have been cut away.  This appeared extraordinary in a place so frequented

all day, so well closed at night, and so well guarded at all times.

Bontems, the King's valet, was in despair, and did his utmost to discover

the thieves, but without success.

Five or six days afterwards, I was at the King's supper, with nobody but

Daqum, chief physician, between the King and me, and nobody at all

between one and the table.  Suddenly I perceived a large black form in

the air, but before I could tell what it was, it fell upon the end of the

King's table just before the cover which had been laid for Monseigneur

and Madame.  By the noise it made in falling, and the weight of the thing

itself, it seemed as though the table must be broken.  The plates jumped

up, but none were upset, and the thing, as luck would have it, did not

fall upon any of them, but simply upon the cloth.  The King moved his

head half round, and without being moved in any way said, "I think that

is my fringe!"

It was indeed a bundle, larger than a flat-brimmed priest's hat, about

two feet in height, and shaped like a pyramid.  It had come from behind

me, from towards the middle door of the two ante-chambers, and a piece of

fringe getting loose in the air, had fallen upon the King's wig, from

which it was removed by Livry, a gentleman-in-waiting.  Livry also opened

the bundle, and saw that it did indeed contain the fringes all twisted

up, and everybody saw likewise.  A murmur was heard.  Livry wishing to

take away the bundle found a paper attached to it.  He took the paper and

left the bundle.  The King stretched out his hand and said, "Let us see."

Livry, and with reason, would not give up the paper, but stepped back,

read it, and then passed it to Daquin, in whose hands I read it.  The

writing, counterfeited and long like that of a woman, was in these

words:--" Take back your fringes, Bontems; they are not worth the trouble

of keeping--my compliments to the King."

The paper was rolled up, not folded: the King wished to take it from

Daquin, who, after much hesitation, allowed him to read it, but did not

let it out of his hands.  "Well, that is very insolent!" said the King,

but in quite a placid unmoved tone--as it were, an historical tone.

Afterwards he ordered the bundle to be taken away.  Livry found it so

heavy that he could scarcely lift it from the table, and gave it to an

attendant who presented himself.  The King spoke no more of this matter,

nobody else dared to do so; and the supper finished as though nothing had

happened.

Besides the excess of insolence and impudence of this act, it was so

perilous as to be scarcely understood.  How could any one, without being

seconded by accomplices, throw a bundle of this weight and volume in the

midst of a crowd such as was always present at the supper of the King, so

dense that it could with difficulty be passed through?  How, in spite of

a circle of accomplices, could a movement of the arms necessary for such

a throw escape all eyes?  The Duc de Gesvres was in waiting.  Neither he

nor anybody else thought of closing the doors until the King had left the

table.  It may be guessed whether the guilty parties remained until then,

having had more than three-quarters of an hour to escape, and every issue

being free.  Only one person was discovered, who was not known, but he

proved to be a very honest man, and was dismissed after a short

detention.  Nothing has since been discovered respecting this theft or

its bold restitution.

CHAPTER XV

On the 12th August, Madame de Saint-Simon was happily delivered of a

second son, who bore the name of Marquis de Ruffec.  A singular event

which happened soon after, made all the world marvel.

There arrived at Versailles a farrier, from the little town of Salon, in

Provence, who asked to see the King in private.  In spite of the rebuffs

he met with, he persisted in his request, so that at last it got to the

ears of the King.  The King sent word that he was not accustomed to grant

such audiences to whoever liked to ask for them.  Thereupon the farrier

declared that if he was allowed to see the King he would tell him things

so secret and so unknown to everybody else that he would be persuaded of

their importance, demanding, if the King would not see him, to be sent to

a minister of state.  Upon this the King allowed him to have an interview

with one of his secretaries, Barbezieux.  But Barbezieux was not a

minister of state, and to the great surprise of everybody, the farrier,

who had only just arrived from the country, and who had never before left

it or his trade, replied, that not being a minister of state he would not

speak with him.  Upon this he was allowed to see Pomponne, and converse

with him; and this is the story he told:

He said, that returning home late one evening he found himself surrounded

by a great light, close against a tree and near Salon.  A woman clad in

white--but altogether in a royal manner, and beautiful, fair, and very

dazzling--called him by his name, commanded him to listen to her, and

spake to him more than half-an-hour.  She told him she was the Queen,

who had been the wife of the King; to whom she ordered him to go and say

what she had communicated; assuring him that God would assist him through

all the journey, and that upon a secret thing he should say, the King,

who alone knew that secret, would recognise the truth of all he uttered.

She said that in case he could not see the King he was to speak with a

minister of state, telling him certain things, but reserving certain

others for the King alone.  She told him, moreover, to set out at once,

assuring him he would be punished with death if he neglected to acquit

himself of his commission.  The farrier promised to obey her in

everything, and the queen then disappeared.  He found himself in darkness

near the tree.  He lay down and passed the night there, scarcely knowing

whether he was awake or asleep.  In the morning he went home, persuaded

that what he had seen was a mere delusion and folly, and said nothing

about it to a living soul.

Two days afterwards he was passing by the same place when the same vision

appeared to him, and he was addressed in the same terms.  Fresh threats

of punishment were uttered if he did not comply, and he was ordered to go

at once to the Intendant of the province, who would assuredly furnish him

with money, after saying what he had seen.  This time the farrier was

convinced there was no delusion in the matter; but, halting between his

fears and doubts, knew not what to do, told no one what had passed,

and was in great perplexity.  He remained thus eight days, and at last

had resolved not to make the journey; when, passing by the same spot,

he saw and heard the same vision, which bestowed upon him so many

dreadful menaces that he no longer thought of anything but setting out

immediately.  In two days from that time he presented himself, at Aix,

to the Intendant of the province, who, without a moment's hesitation,

urged him to pursue his journey, and gave him sufficient money to travel

by a public conveyance.  Nothing more of the story was ever known.

The farrier had three interviews with M. de Pomponne, each of two hours'

length.  M. de Pomponne rendered, in private, an account of these to the

King, who desired him to speak more fully upon the point in a council

composed of the Ducs de Beauvilliers, Pontchartrain, Torcy, and Pomponne

himself; Monseigneur to be excluded.  This council sat very long, perhaps

because other things were spoken of.  Be that as it may, the King after

this wished to converse with the farrier, and did so in his cabinet.  Two

days afterwards he saw the man again; at each time was nearly an hour

with him, and was careful that no one was within hearing.

The day after the first interview, as the King was descending the

staircase, to go a-hunting, M. de Duras, who was in waiting, and who was

upon such a footing that he said almost what he liked, began to speak of

this farrier with contempt, and, quoting the bad proverb, said, "The man

was mad, or the King was not noble."  At this the King stopped, and,

turning round, a thing he scarcely ever did in walking, replied, "If that

be so, I am not noble, for I have discoursed with him long, he has spoken

to me with much good sense, and I assure you he is far from being mad."

These last words were pronounced with a sustained gravity which greatly

surprised those near, and which in the midst of deep silence opened all

eyes and ears.  After the second interview the King felt persuaded that

one circumstance had been related to him by the farrier, which he alone

knew, and which had happened more than twenty years before.  It was that

he had seen a phantom in the forest of Saint Germains.  Of this phantom

he had never breathed a syllable to anybody.

The King on several other occasions spoke favourably of the farrier;

moreover, he paid all the expenses the man had been put to, gave him a

gratuity, sent him back free, and wrote to the Intendant of the province

to take particular care of him, and never to let him want for anything

all his life.

The most surprising thing of all this is, that none of the ministers

could be induced to speak a word upon the occurrence.  Their most

intimate friends continually questioned them, but without being able to

draw forth a syllable.  The ministers either affected to laugh at the

matter or answered evasively.  This was the case whenever I questioned

M. de Beauvilliers or M. de Pontchartrain, and I knew from their most

intimate friends that nothing more could ever be obtained from M. de

Pomponne or M. de Torcy.  As for the farrier himself, he was equally

reserved.  He was a simple, honest, and modest man, about fifty years of

age.  Whenever addressed upon this subject, he cut short all discourse by

saying, "I am not allowed to speak," and nothing more could be extracted

from him.  When he returned to his home he conducted himself just as

before, gave himself no airs, and never boasted of the interview he had

had with the King and his ministers.  He went back to his trade, and

worked at it as usual.

Such is the singular story which filled everybody with astonishment, but

which nobody could understand.  It is true that some people persuaded

themselves, and tried to persuade others, that the whole affair was a

clever trick, of which the simple farrier had been the dupe.  They said

that a certain Madame Arnoul, who passed for a witch, and who, having

known Madame de Maintenon when she was Madame Scarron, still kept up a

secret intimacy with her, had caused the three visions to appear to the

farrier, in order to oblige the King to declare Madame de Maintenon

queen.  But the truth of the matter was never known.

The King bestowed at this time some more distinctions on his illegitimate

children.  M. du Maine, as grand-master of the artillery, had to be

received at the Chambre des Comptes; and his place ought to have been,

according to custom, immediately above that of the senior member.  But

the King wished him to be put between the first and second presidents;

and this was done.  The King accorded also to the Princesse de Conti that

her two ladies of honour should be allowed to sit at the Duchesse de

Bourgogne's table.  It was a privilege that no lady of honour to a

Princess of the blood had ever been allowed.  But the King gave these

distinctions to the ladies of his illegitimate children, and refused it

to those of the Princesses of the blood.

In thus according honours, the King seemed to merit some new ones

himself.  But nothing fresh could be thought of.  What had been done

therefore at his statue in the Place des Victoires, was done over again

in the Place Vendome on the 13th August, after midday.  Another statue

which had been erected there was uncovered.  The Duc de Gesvres, Governor

of Paris, was in attendance on horseback, at the head of the city troops,

and made turns, and reverences, and other ceremonies, imitated from those

in use at the consecration of the Roman Emperors.  There were, it is

true, no incense and no victims: something more in harmony with the title

of Christian King was necessary.  In the evening, there was upon the

river a fine illumination, which Monsieur and Madame went to see.

A difficulty arose soon after this with Denmark.  The Prince Royal had

become King, and announced the circumstance to our King, but would not

receive the reply sent him because he was not styled in it "Majesty."

We had never accorded to the Kings of Denmark this title, and they had

always been contented with that of "Serenity."  The King in his turn

would not wear mourning for the King of Denmark, just dead, although he

always did so for any crowned head, whether related to him or not.  This

state of things lasted some months; until, in the end, the new King of

Denmark gave way, received the reply as it had been first sent, and our

King wore mourning as if the time for it had not long since passed.

Boucherat, chancellor and keeper of the seals, died on the 2nd of

September.  Harlay, as I have previously said, had been promised this

appointment when it became vacant.  But the part he had taken in our case

with M. de Luxembourg had made him so lose ground, that the appointment

was not given to him.  M. de la Rochefoucauld, above all, had undermined

him in the favour of the King; and none of us had lost an opportunity of

assisting in this work.  Our joy, therefore, was extreme when we saw all

Harlay's hopes frustrated, and we did not fail to let it burst forth.

The vexation that Harlay conceived was so great, that he became

absolutely intractable, and often cried out with a bitterness he could

not contain, that he should be left to die in the dust of the palace.

His weakness was such, that he could not prevent himself six weeks after

from complaining to the King at Fontainebleau, where he was playing the

valet with his accustomed suppleness and deceit.  The King put him off

with fine speeches, and by appointing him to take part in a commission

then sitting for the purpose of bringing about a reduction in the price

of corn in Paris and the suburbs, where it had become very dear.  Harlay

made a semblance of being contented, but remained not the less annoyed.

His health and his head were at last so much attacked that he was forced

to quit his post: he then fell into contempt after having excited so much

hatred.  The chancellorship was given to Pontchartrain, and the office of

comptroller-general, which became vacant at the same time, was given to

Chamillart; a very honest man, who owed his first advancement to his

skill at billiards, of which game the King was formerly very fond.

It was while Chamillart was accustomed to play billiards with the King,

at least three times a week, that an incident happened which ought not to

be forgotten.  Chamillart was Counsellor of the Parliament at that time.

He had just reported on a case that had been submitted to him.

The losing party came to him, and complained that he had omitted to bring

forward a document that had been given into his hands, and that would

assuredly have turned the verdict.  Chamillart searched for the document,

found it, and saw that the complainer was right.  He said so, and added,

--"I do not know how the document escaped me, but it decides in your

favour.  You claimed twenty thousand francs, and it is my fault you did

not get them.  Come to-morrow, and I will pay you."  Chamillart, although

then by no means rich, scraped together all the money he had, borrowing

the rest, and paid the man as he had promised, only demanding that the

matter should be kept a secret.  But after this, feeling that billiards

three times a week interfered with his legal duties, he surrendered part

of them, and thus left himself more free for other charges he was obliged

to attend to.

The Comtesse de Fiesque died very aged, while the Court was at

Fontainebleau this year.  She had passed her life with the most frivolous

of the great world.  Two incidents amongst a thousand will characterise

her.  She was very straitened in means, because she had frittered away

all her substance, or allowed herself to be pillaged by her business

people.  When those beautiful mirrors were first introduced she obtained

one, although they were then very dear and very rare.  "Ah, Countess!"

said her friends, "where did you find that?"

"Oh!" replied she, "I had a miserable piece of land, which only yielded

me corn; I have sold it, and I have this mirror instead.  Is not this

excellent?  Who would hesitate between corn and this beautiful mirror?"

On another occasion she harangued with her son, who was as poor as a rat,

for the purpose of persuading him to make a good match and thus enrich

himself.  Her son, who had no desire to marry, allowed her to talk on,

and pretended to listen to her reasons: She was delighted--entered into a

description of the wife she destined for him, painting her as young,

rich, an only child, beautiful, well-educated, and with parents who would

be delighted to agree to the marriage.  When she had finished, he pressed

her for the name of this charming and desirable person.  The Countess

said she was the daughter of Jacquier, a man well known to everybody,

and who had been a contractor of provisions to the armies of M. de

Turenne.  Upon this, her son burst out into a hearty laugh, and she in

anger demanded why he did so and what he found so ridiculous in the

match.

The truth was, Jacquier had no children, as the Countess soon remembered.

At which she said it was a great pity, since no marriage would have

better suited all parties.  She was full of such oddities, which she

persisted in for some time with anger, but at which she was the first to

laugh.  People said of her that she had never been more than eighteen

years old.  The memoirs of Mademoiselle paint her well.  She lived with

Mademoiselle, and passed all her life in quarrels about trifles.

It was immediately after leaving Fontainebleau that the marriage between

the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne was consummated.  It was upon this

occasion that the King named four gentlemen to wait upon the Duke,--

four who in truth could not have been more badly chosen.  One of them,

Gamaches, was a gossip; who never knew what he was doing or saying--

who knew nothing of the world, or the Court, or of war, although he had

always been in the army.  D'O was another; but of him I have spoken.

Cheverny was the third, and Saumery the fourth.  Saumery had been raised

out of obscurity by M. de Beauvilliers.  Never was man so intriguing, so

truckling, so mean, so boastful, so ambitious, so intent upon fortune,

and all this without disguise, without veil, without shame!  Saumery had

been wounded, and no man ever made so much of such a mishap.  I used to

say of him that he limped audaciously, and it was true.  He would speak

of personages the most distinguished, whose ante-chambers even he had

scarcely seen, as though he spoke of his equals or of his particular

friends.  He related what he had heard, and was not ashamed to say before

people who at least had common sense, "Poor Mons. Turenne said to me,"

M. de Turenne never having probably heard of his existence.  With

Monsieur in full he honoured nobody.  It was Mons. de Beauvilliers, Mons.

de Chevreuse, and so on; except with those whose names he clipped off

short, as he frequently would even with Princes of the blood.  I have

heard him say many times, "the Princesse de Conti," in speaking of the

daughter of the King; and "the Prince de Conti," in speaking of Monsieur

her brother-in-law!  As for the chief nobles of the Court, it was rare

for him to give them the Monsieur or the Mons.  It was Marechal

d'Humieres, and so on with the others.  Fatuity and insolence were united

in him, and by dint of mounting a hundred staircases a day, and bowing

and scraping everywhere, he had gained the ear of I know not how many

people.  His wife was a tall creature, as impertinent as he, who wore the

breeches, and before whom he dared not breathe.  Her effrontery blushed

at nothing, and after many gallantries she had linked herself on to M. de

Duras, whom she governed, and of whom she was publicly and absolutely the

mistress, living at his expense.  Children, friends, servants, all were

at her mercy; even Madame de Duras herself when she came, which was but

seldom, from the country.

Such were the people whom the King placed near M. le Duc de Bourgogne.

The Duc de Gesvres, a malicious old man, a cruel husband and unnatural

father, sadly annoyed Marechal de Villeroy towards the end of this year,

having previously treated me very scurvily for some advice I gave him

respecting the ceremonies to be observed at the reception by the King of

M. de Lorraine as Duc de Bar.  M. de Gesvres and M. de Villeroy had both

had fathers who made large fortunes and who became secretaries of state.

One morning M. de Gesvres was waiting for the King, with a number of

other courtiers, when M. de Villeroy arrived, with all that noise and

those airs he had long assumed, and which his favour and his appointments

rendered more superb.  I know not whether this annoyed De Gesvres, more

than usual, but as soon as the other had placed himself, he said,

"Monsieur le Marechal, it must be admitted that you and I are very

lucky."  The Marechal, surprised at a remark which seemed to be suggested

by nothing, assented with a modest air, and, shaking his head and his

wig, began to talk to some one else.  But M. de Gesvres had not commenced

without a purpose.  He went on, addressed M. de Villeroy point-blank,

admiring their mutual good fortune, but when he came to speak of the

father of each, "Let us go no further," said he, "for what did our

fathers spring from?  From tradesmen; even tradesmen they were

themselves.  Yours was the son of a dealer in fresh fish at the markets,

and mine of a pedlar, or, perhaps, worse.  Gentlemen," said he,

addressing the company, "have we not reason to think our fortune

prodigious--the Marechal and I?"  The Marechal would have liked to

strangle M. de Gesvres, or to see him dead--but what can be done with a

man who, in order to say something cutting to you, says it to himself

first?  Everybody was silent, and all eyes were lowered.  Many, however,

were not sorry to see M. de Villeroy so pleasantly humiliated.  The King

came and put an end to the scene, which was the talk of the Court for

several days.

Omissions must be repaired as soon as they are perceived.  Other matters

have carried me away.  At the commencement of April, Ticquet, Counsellor

at the Parliament, was assassinated in his own house; and if he did not

die, it was not the fault of his porter, or of the soldier who had

attempted to kill him, and who left him for dead, disturbed by a noise

they heard.  This councillor, who was a very poor man, had complained to

the King, the preceding year, of the conduct of his wife with

Montgeorges, captain in the Guards, and much esteemed.  The King

prohibited Montgeorges from seeing the wife of the councillor again.

Such having been the case, when the crime was attempted, suspicion fell

upon Montgeorges and the wife of Ticquet, a beautiful, gallant, and bold

woman, who took a very high tone in the matter.  She was advised to fly,

and one of my friends offered to assist her to do so, maintaining that in

all such cases it is safer to be far off than close at hand.  The woman

would listen to no such advice, and in a few days she was no longer able.

The porter and the soldier were arrested and tortured, and Madame

Ticquet, who was foolish enough to allow herself to be arrested, also

underwent the same examination, and avowed all.  She was condemned to

lose her head, and her accomplice to be broken on the wheel.  Montgeorges

managed so well, that he was not legally criminated.  When Ticquet heard

the sentence, he came with all his family to the King, and sued for

mercy.  But the King would not listen to him, and the execution took

place on Wednesday, the 17th of June, after mid-day, at the Greve.  All

the windows of the Hotel de Ville, and of the houses in the Place de

Greve, in the streets that lead to it from the Conciergerie of the palace

where Madame Ticquet was confined, were filled with spectators, men and

women, many of title and distinction.  There were even friends of both

sexes of this unhappy woman, who felt no shame or horror in going there.

In the streets the crowd was so great that it could not be passed

through.  In general, pity was felt for the culprit; people hoped she

would be pardoned, and it was because they hoped so, that they went to

see her die.  But such is the world; so unreasoning, and so little in

accord with itself.

CHAPTER XVI

The year 1700 commenced by a reform.  The King declared that he would no

longer bear the expense of the changes that the courtiers introduced into

their apartments.  It had cost him more than sixty thousand francs since

the Court left Fontainebleau.  It is believed that Madame de Mailly was

the cause of this determination of the King; for during the last two or

three years she had made changes in her apartments every year.

A difficulty occurred at this time which much mortified the King.  Little

by little he had taken all the ambassadors to visit Messieurs du Maine

and de Toulouse, as though they were Princes of the blood.  The nuncio,

Cavallerini, visited them thus, but upon his return to Rome was so taken

to task for it, that his successor, Delfini, did not dare to imitate him.

The cardinals considered that they had lowered themselves, since

Richelieu and Mazarm, by treating even the Princes of the blood on terms

of equality, and giving them their hand, which had not been customary m

the time of the two first ministers just named.  To do so to the

illegitimate offspring of the King, and on occasions of ceremony,

appeared to them monstrous.  Negotiations were carried on for a month,

but Delfini would not bend, and although in every other respect he had

afforded great satisfaction during his nunciature, no farewell audience

was given to him; nor even a secret audience.  He was deprived of the

gift of a silver vessel worth eighteen hundred francs, that it was

customary to present to the cardinal nuncios at their departure: and he

went away without saying adieu to anybody.

Some time before, M. de Monaco had been sent as ambassador to Rome.  He

claimed to be addressed by the title of "Highness," and persisted in it

with so much obstinacy that he isolated, himself from almost everybody,

and brought the affairs of his embassy nearly to a standstill by the

fetters he imposed upon them in the most necessary transactions.  Tired

at last of the resistance he met with, he determined to refuse the title

of "Excellence," although it might fairly belong to them, to all who

refused to address him as "Highness."  This finished his affair; for

after that determination no one would see him, and the business of the

embassy suffered even more than before.  It is difficult to comprehend

why the King permitted such a man to remain as his representative at a

foreign Court.

Madame de Navailles died on the 14th of February: Her mother, Madame de

Neuillant, who became a widow, was avarice itself.  I cannot say by what

accident or chance it was that Madame de Maintenon in returning young and

poor from America, where she had lost her father and mother, fell in

landing at Rochelle into the hands of Madame de Neuillant, who lived in

Poitou.  Madame de Neuillant took home Madame de Maintenon, but could not

resolve to feed her without making her do something in return.  Madame de

Maintenon was charged therefore with the key of the granary, had to

measure out the corn and to see that it was given to the horses.  It was

Madame de Neuillant who brought Madame de Maintenon to Paris, and to get

rid of her married her to Scarron, and then retired into Poitou.

Madame de Navailles was the eldest daughter of this Madame de Neuillant,

and it was her husband, M. de Navailles, who, serving under M. le Prince

in Flanders, received from that General a strong reprimand for his

ignorance.  M. le Prince wanted to find the exact position of a little

brook which his maps did not mark.  To assist him in the search, M. de

Navailles brought a map of the world!  On another occasion, visiting

M. Colbert, at Sceaux, the only thing M. de Navailles could find to

praise was the endive of the kitchen garden: and when on the occasion of

the Huguenots the difficulty of changing religion was spoken of, he

declared that if God had been good enough to make him a Turk, he should

have remained so.

Madame de Navailles had been lady of honour to the Queen-mother, and lost

that place by a strange adventure.

She was a woman of spirit and of virtue, and the young ladies of honour

were put under her charge.  The King was at this time young and gallant.

So long as he held aloof from the chamber of the young ladies, Madame de

Navailles meddled not, but she kept her eye fixed upon all that she

controlled.  She soon perceived that the King was beginning to amuse

himself, and immediately after she found that a door had secretly been

made into the chamber of the young ladies; that this door communicated

with a staircase by which the King mounted into the room at night, and

was hidden during the day by the back of a bed placed against it.  Upon

this Madame de Navailles held counsel with her husband.  On one side was

virtue and honour, on the other, the King's anger, disgrace, and exile.

The husband and wife did not long hesitate.  Madame de Navailles at once

took her measures, and so well, that in a few hours one evening the door

was entirely closed up.  During the same night the King, thinking to

enter as usual by the little staircase, was much surprised to no longer

find a door.  He groped, he searched, he could not comprehend the

disappearance of the door, or by what means it had become wall again.

Anger seized him; he doubted not that the door had been closed by Madame

de Navailles and her husband.  He soon found that such was the case, and

on the instant stripped them of almost all their offices, and exiled them

from the Court.  The exile was not long; the Queen-mother on her death-

bed implored him to receive back Monsieur and Madame de Navailles, and he

could not refuse.  They returned, and M. de Navailles nine years

afterwards was made Marechal of France.  After this Madame de Navailles

rarely appeared at the Court.  Madame de Maintenon could not refuse her

distinctions and special favours, but they were accorded rarely and by

moments.  The King always remembered his door; Madame de Maintenon always

remembered the hay and barley of Madame de Neuillant, and neither years

nor devotion could deaden the bitterness of the recollection.

From just before Candlemas-day to Easter of this year, nothing was heard

of but balls and pleasures of the Court.  The King gave at Versailles and

at Marly several masquerades, by which he was much amused, under pretext

of amusing the Duchesse de Bourgogne.  At one of these balls at Marly a

ridiculous scene occurred.  Dancers were wanting and Madame de Luxembourg

on account of this obtained an invitation, but with great difficulty, for

she lived in such a fashion that no woman would see her.  Monsieur de

Luxembourg was perhaps the only person in France who was ignorant of

Madame de Luxembourg's conduct.  He lived with his wife on apparently

good terms and as though he had not the slightest mistrust of her.  On

this occasion, because of the want of dancers, the King made older people

dance than was customary, and among others M. de Luxembourg.  Everybody

was compelled to be masked.  M. de Luxembourg spoke on this subject to

M. le Prince, who, malicious as any monkey, determined to divert all the

Court and himself at the Duke's expense.  He invited M. de Luxembourg to

supper, and after that meal was over, masked him according to his fancy.

Soon after my arrival at the ball, I saw a figure strangely clad in long

flowing muslin, and with a headdress on which was fixed the horns of a

stag, so high that they became entangled in the chandelier.  Of course

everybody was much astonished at so strange a sight, and all thought that

that mask must be very sure of his wife to deck himself so.  Suddenly the

mask turned round and showed us M. de Luxembourg.  The burst of laughter

at this was scandalous.  Good M. de Luxembourg, who never was very

remarkable for wit, benignly took all this laughter as having been

excited simply by the singularity of his costume, and to the questions

addressed him, replied quite simply that his dress had been arranged by

M. le Prince; then, turning to the right and to the left, he admired

himself and strutted with pleasure at having been masked by M. le Prince.

In a moment more the ladies arrived, and the King immediately after them.

The laughter commenced anew as loudly as ever, and M. de Luxembourg

presented himself to the company with a confidence that was ravishing.

His wife had heard nothing of this masquerading, and when she saw it,

lost countenance, brazen as she was.  Everybody stared at her and her

husband, and seemed dying of laughter.  M. le Prince looked at the scene

from behind the King, and inwardly laughed at his malicious trick.  This

amusement lasted throughout all the ball, and the King, self-contained as

he usually was, laughed also; people were never tired of admiring an

invention so, cruelly ridiculous, and spoke of it for several days.

No evening passed on which there was not a ball.  The chancellor's wife

gave one which was a fete the most gallant and the most magnificent

possible.  There were different rooms for the fancy-dress ball, for the

masqueraders, for a superb collation, for shops of all countries,

Chinese, Japanese, &c., where many singular and beautiful things were

sold, but no money taken; they were presents for the Duchesse de

Bourgogne and the ladies.  Everybody was especially diverted at this

entertainment, which did not finish until eight o'clock in the morning.

Madame de Saint-Simon and I passed the last three weeks of this time

without ever seeing the day.  Certain dancers were only allowed to leave

off dancing at the same time as the Duchesse de Bourgogne.  One morning,

at Marty, wishing to escape too early, the Duchess caused me to be

forbidden to pass the doors of the salon; several of us had the same

fate.  I was delighted when Ash Wednesday arrived; and I remained a day

or two dead beat, and Madame de Saint-Simon could not get over Shrove

Tuesday.

La Bourlie, brother of Guiscard, after having quitted the service, had

retired to his estate near Cevennes, where he led a life of much licence.

About this time a robbery was committed in his house; he suspected one of

the servants, and on his own authority put the man to the torture.  This

circumstance could not remain so secret but that complaints spread

abroad.  The offence was a capital one.  La Bourlie fled from the realm,

and did many strange things until his death, which was still more

strange; but of which it is not yet time to speak.

Madame la Duchesse, whose heavy tradesmen's debts the King had paid not

long since, had not dared to speak of her gambling debts, also very

heavy.  They increased, and, entirely unable to pay them, she found

herself in the greatest embarrassment.  She feared, above all things,

lest M. le Prince or M. le Duc should hear of this.  In this extremity

she addressed herself to Madame de Maintenon, laying bare the state of

her finances, without the slightest disguise.  Madame de Maintenon had

pity on her situation, and arranged that the King should pay her debts,

abstain from scolding her, and keep her secret.  Thus, in a few weeks,

Madame la Duchesse found herself free of debts, without anybody whom she

feared having known even of their existence.

Langlee was entrusted with the payment and arrangement of these debts.

He was a singular kind of man at the Court, and deserves a word.  Born of

obscure parents, who had enriched themselves, he had early been

introduced into the great world, and had devoted himself to play, gaining

an immense fortune; but without being accused of the least unfairness.

With but little or no wit, but much knowledge of the world, he had

succeeded in securing many friends, and in making his way at the Court.

He joined in all the King's parties, at the time of his mistresses.

Similarity of tastes attached Langlee to Monsieur, but he never lost

sight of the King.  At all the fetes Langlee was present, he took part in

the journeys, he was invited to Marly, was intimate with all the King's

mistresses; then with all the daughters of the King, with whom indeed he

was so familiar that he often spoke to them with the utmost freedom.  He

had become such a master of fashions and of fetes that none of the latter

were given, even by Princes of the blood, except under his directions;

and no houses were bought, built, furnished, or ornamented, without his

taste being consulted.  There were no marriages of which the dresses and

the presents were not chosen, or at least approved, by him.  He was on

intimate terms with the most distinguished people of the Court; and often

took improper advantage of his position.  To the daughters of the King

and to a number of female friends he said horribly filthy things, and

that too in their own houses, at St. Cloud or at Marly.  He was often

made a confidant in matters of gallantry, and continued to be made so all

his life.  For he was a sure man, had nothing disagreeable about him, was

obliging, always ready to serve others with his purse or his influence,

and was on bad terms with no one.

While everybody, during all this winter, was at balls and amusements,

the beautiful Madame de Soubise--for she was so still--employed herself

with more serious matters.  She had just bought, very cheap, the immense

Hotel de Guise, that the King assisted her to pay for.  Assisted also by

the King, she took steps to make her bastard son canon of Strasbourg;

intrigued so well that his birth was made to pass muster, although among

Germans there is a great horror of illegitimacy, and he was received into

the chapter.  This point gained, she laid her plans for carrying out

another, and a higher one, nothing less than that of making her son

Archbishop of Strasbourg.

But there was an obstacle, in the way.  This obstacle was the Abbe

d'Auvergne (nephew of Cardinal de Bouillon), who had the highest position

in the chapter, that of Grand Prevot, had been there much longer than the

Abbe de Soubise, was older, and of more consequence.  His reputation,

however, was against him; his habits were publicly known to be those of

the Greeks, whilst his intellect resembled theirs in no way.  By his

stupidity he published his bad conduct, his perfect ignorance, his

dissipation, his ambition; and to sustain himself he had only a low,

stinking, continual vanity, which drew upon him as much disdain as did

his habits, alienated him from all the world, and constantly subjected

him to ridicule.

The Abbe de Soubise had, on the contrary, everything smiling in his

favour, even his exterior, which showed that he was born of the tenderest

amours.  Upon the farms of the Sorbonne he had much distinguished

himself.  He had been made Prior of Sorbonne, and had shone conspicuously

in that position, gaining eulogies of the most flattering kind from

everybody, and highly pleasing the King.  After this, he entered the

seminary of Saint Magloire, then much in vogue, and gained the good

graces of the Archbishop of Paris, by whom that seminary was favoured.

On every side the Abbe de Soubise was regarded, either as a marvel of

learning, or a miracle of piety and purity of manners.  He had made

himself loved everywhere, and his gentleness, his politeness, his

intelligence, his graces, and his talent for securing friends, confirmed

more and more the reputation he had established.

The Abbe d'Auvergne had a relative, the Cardinal de Furstenberg, who also

had two nephews, canons of Strasbourg, and in a position to become

claimants to the bishopric.  Madame de Soubise rightly thought that her

first step must be to gain over the Cardinal to her side.  There was a

channel through which this could be done which at once suggested itself

to her mind.  Cardinal Furstenberg, it was said, had been much enamoured

of the Comtesse de La Marck, and had married her to one of his nephews,

in order that he might thus see her more easily.  It was also said that

he had been well treated, and it is certain that nothing was so striking

as the resemblance, feature for feature, of the Comte de La Marck to

Cardinal de Furstenberg.  If the Count was not the son of the Cardinal he

was nothing to him.  The attachment of Cardinal Furstenberg for the

Comtesse de La Marck did not abate when she became by her marriage

Comtesse de Furstenberg; indeed he could not exist without her; she lived

and reigned in his house.  Her son, the Comte de La Marck, lived there

also, and her dominion over the Cardinal was so public, that whoever had

affairs with him spoke to the Countess, if he wished to succeed.  She had

been very beautiful, and at fifty-two years of age, still showed it,

although tall, stout, and coarse featured as a Swiss guard in woman's

clothes.  She was, moreover, bold, audacious, talking loudly and always

with authority; was polished, however, and of good manners when she

pleased.  Being the most imperious woman in the world, the Cardinal was

fairly tied to her apron-strings, and scarcely dared to breathe in her

presence.  In dress and finery she spent like a prodigal, played every

night, and lost large sums, oftentimes staking her jewels and her various

ornaments.  She was a woman who loved herself alone, who wished for

everything, and who refused herself nothing, not even, it was said,

certain gallantries which the poor Cardinal was obliged to pay for, as

for everything else.  Her extravagance was such, that she was obliged to

pass six or seven months of the year in the country, in order to have

enough to spend in Paris during the remainder of the year.

It was to the Comtesse de Furstenberg, therefore, that Madame de Soubise

addressed herself in order to gain over the support of Cardinal de

Furstenberg, in behalf of her son.  Rumour said, and it was never

contradicted, that Madame de Soubise paid much money to the Cardinal

through the Countess, in order to carry this point.  It is certain that

in addition to the prodigious pensions the Cardinal drew from the King,

he touched at this time a gratification of forty thousand crowns, that it

was pretended had been long promised him.

Madame de Soubise having thus assured herself of the Countess and the

Cardinal (and they having been privately thanked by the King), she caused

an order to be sent to Cardinal de Bouillon, who was then at Rome,

requesting him to ask the Pope in the name of the King, for a bull

summoning the Chapter of Strasbourg to meet and elect a coadjutor and a

declaration of the eligibility of the Abbe de Soubise.

But here a new obstacle arose in the path of Madame de Soubise.  Cardinal

de Bouillon, a man of excessive pride and pretension, who upon reaching

Rome claimed to be addressed as "Most Eminent Highness," and obtaining

this title from nobody except his servants, set himself at loggerheads

with all the city--Cardinal de Bouillon, I say, was himself canon of

Strasbourg, and uncle of the Abbe d'Auvergne.  So anxious was the

Cardinal to secure the advancement of the Abbe d'Auvergne, that he had

already made a daring and fraudulent attempt to procure for him a

cardinalship.  But the false representations which he made in order to

carry his point, having been seen through, his attempt came to nothing,

and he himself lost all favour with the King for his deceit.  He,

however; hoped to make the Abbe d'Auvergne bishop of Strasbourg, and was

overpowered, therefore, when he saw this magnificent prey about to escape

him.  The news came upon him like a thunderbolt.  It was bad enough to

see his hopes trampled under foot; it was insupportable to be obliged to

aid in crushing them.  Vexation so transported and blinded him, that he

forgot the relative positions of himself and of Madame de Soubise, and

imagined that he should be able to make the King break a resolution he

had taken, and an engagement he had entered into.  He sent therefore, as

though he had been a great man, a letter to the King, telling him that he

had not thought sufficiently upon this matter, and raising scruples

against it.  At the same time he despatched a letter to the canons of

Strasbourg, full of gall and compliments, trying to persuade them that

the Abbe de Soubise was too young for the honour intended him, and

plainly intimating that the Cardinal de Furstenberg had been gained over

by a heavy bribe paid to the Comtesse de Furstenberg.  These letters.

made a terrible uproar.

I was at the palace on Tuesday, March 30th, and after supper I saw Madame

de Soubise arrive, leading the Comtesse de Furstenberg, both of whom

posted themselves at the door of the King's cabinet.  It was not that

Madame de Soubise had not the privilege of entering if she pleased, but

she preferred making her complaint as public as the charges made against

her by Cardinal de Bouillon had become.  I approached in order to witness

the scene.  Madame de Soubise appeared scarcely able to contain herself,

and the Countess seemed furious.  As the King passed, they stopped him.

Madame de Soubise said two words in a low tone.  The Countess in a louder

strain demanded justice against the Cardinal de Bouillon, who, she said,

not content in his pride and ambition with disregarding the orders of the

King, had calumniated her and Cardinal de Furstenberg in the most

atrocious manner, and had not even spared Madame de Soubise herself.  The

King replied to her with much politeness, assured her she should be

contented, and passed on.

Madame de Soubise was so much the more piqued because Cardinal de

Bouillon had acquainted the King with the simony she had committed,

and assuredly if he had not been ignorant of this he would never have

supported her in the affair.  She hastened therefore to secure the

success of her son, and was so well served by the whispered authority of

the King, and the money she had spent, that the Abbe de Soubise was

elected by unanimity Coadjutor of Strasbourg.

As for the Cardinal de Bouillon, foiled in all his attempts to prevent

the election, he wrote a second letter to the King, more foolish than the

first.  This filled the cup to overflowing.  For reply, he received

orders, by a courier, to quit Rome immediately and to retire to Cluni or

to Tournus, at his choice, until further orders.  This order appeared so

cruel to him that he could not make up his mind to obey.  He was

underdoyen of the sacred college.  Cibo, the doyen, was no longer able to

leave his bed.  To become doyen, it was necessary to be in Rome when the

appointment became vacant.  Cardinal de Bouillon wrote therefore to the

King, begging to be allowed to stay a short time, in order to pray the

Pope to set aside this rule, and give him permission to succeed to the

doyenship, even although absent from Rome when it became vacant.  He knew

he should not obtain this permission, but he asked for it in order to

gain time, hoping that in the meanwhile Cardinal Cibo might die, or even

the Pope himself, whose health had been threatened with ruin for some

time.  This request of the Cardinal de Bouillon was refused.  There

seemed nothing for him but to comply with the orders he had received.

But he had evaded them so long that he thought he might continue to do

so.  He wrote to Pere la Chaise, begging him to ask the King for

permission to remain at Rome until the death of Cardinal Cibo, adding

that he would wait for a reply at Caprarole, a magnificent house of the

Duke of Parma, at eight leagues from Rome.  He addressed himself to Pere

la Chaise, because M. de Torcy, to whom he had previously written, had

been forbidden to open his letters, and had sent him word to that effect.

Having, too, been always on the best of terms with the Jesuits, he hoped

for good assistance from Pere la Chaise.  But he found this door closed

like that of M. de Torcy.  Pere la Chaise wrote to Cardinal de Bouillon

that he too was prohibited from opening his letters.  At the same time a

new order was sent to the Cardinal to set out immediately.  Just after he

had read it Cardinal Cibo died, and the Cardinal de Bouillon hastened at

once to Rome to secure the doyenship, writing to the King to say that he

had done so, that he would depart in twenty-four hours, and expressing a

hope that this delay would not be refused him.  This was laughing at the

King and his orders, and becoming doyen in spite of him.  The King,

therefore, displayed his anger immediately he learnt this last act of

disobedience.  He sent word immediately to M. de Monaco to command the

Cardinal de Bouillon to surrender his charge of grand chaplain, to give

up his cordon bleu, and to take down the arms of France from the door of

his palace; M. de Monaco was also ordered to prohibit all French people

in Rome from seeing Cardinal de Bouillon, or from having any

communication with him.  M. de Monaco, who hated the Cardinal, hastened

willingly to obey these instructions.  The Cardinal appeared overwhelmed,

but he did not even then give in.  He pretended that his charge of grand

chaplain was a crown office, of which he could not be dispossessed,

without resigning.  The King, out of all patience with a disobedience so

stubborn and so marked, ordered, by a decree in council, on the 12th

September, the seizure of all the Cardinal's estates, laical and

ecclesiastical, the latter to be confiscated to the state, the former to

be divided into three portions, and applied to various uses.  The same

day the charge of grand chaplain was given to Cardinal Coislin, and that

of chief chaplain to the Bishop of Metz.  The despair of the Cardinal

de Bouillon, on hearing of this decree, was extreme.  Pride had hitherto

hindered him from believing that matters would be pushed so far against

him.  He sent in his resignation only when it was no longer needed of

him.  His order he would not give up.  M. de Monaco warned him that,

in case of refusal, he had orders to snatch it from his neck.  Upon this

the Cardinal saw the folly of holding out against the orders of the King.

He quitted then the marks of the order, but he was pitiful enough to wear

a narrow blue ribbon, with a cross of gold attached, under his cassock,

and tried from time to time to show a little of the blue.  A short time

afterwards, to make the best of a bad bargain, he tried to persuade

himself and others, that no cardinal was at liberty to wear the orders of

any prince.  But it was rather late in the day to think of this, after

having worn the order of the King for thirty years, as grand chaplain;

and everybody thought so, and laughed at the idea.

CHAPTER XVII

Chateauneuf, Secretary of State, died about this time.  He had asked that

his son, La Vrilliere, might be allowed to succeed him, and was much

vexed that the King refused this favour.  The news of Chateauneuf's death

was brought to La Vrilliere by a courier, at five o'clock in the morning.

He did not lose his wits at the news, but at once sent and woke up the

Princesse d'Harcourt, and begged her to come and see him instantly.

Opening his purse, he prayed her to go and see Madame de Maintenon as

soon as she got up, and propose his marriage with Mademoiselle de Mailly,

whom he would take without dowry, if the King gave him his father's

appointments.  The Princesse d'Harcourt, whose habit it was to accept any

sum, from a crown upwards, willingly undertook this strange business.

She went upon her errand immediately, and then repaired to Madame de

Mailly, who without property, and burdened with a troop of children--sons

and daughters, was in no way averse to the marriage.

The King, upon getting up, was duly made acquainted with La Vrilliere's

proposal, and at once agreed to it.  There was only one person opposed to

the marriage, and that was Mademoiselle de Mailly.  She was not quite

twelve years of age.  She burst out a-crying, and declared she was very

unhappy, that she would not mind marrying a poor man, if necessary,

provided he was a gentleman, but that to marry a paltry bourgeois, in

order to make his fortune, was odious to her.  She was furious against

her mother and against Madame de Maintenon.  She could not be kept quiet

or appeased, or hindered from making grimaces at La Vrilliere and all his

family, who came to see her and her mother.

They felt it; but the bargain was made, and was too good to be broken.

They thought Mademoiselle de Mailly's annoyance would pass with her

youth--but they were mistaken.  Mademoiselle de Mailly always was sore at

having been made Madame de la Vrilliere, and people often observed it.

At the marriage of Monseigneur the Duc de Bourgogne, the King had offered

to augment considerably his monthly income.  The young Prince, who found

it sufficient, replied with thanks, and said that if money failed him at

any time he would take the liberty, of asking the King for more.  Finding

himself short just now, he was as good as his word.  The King praised him

highly, and told him to ask whenever he wanted money, not through a third

person, but direct, as he had done in this instance.  The King, moreover,

told the Duc de Bourgogne to play without fear, for it was of no

consequence how much such persons as he might lose.  The King was pleased

with confidence, but liked not less to see himself feared; and when timid

people who spoke to him discovered themselves, and grew embarrassed in

their discourse, nothing better made their court, or advanced their

interests.

The Archbishop of Rheims presided this year over the assembly of the

clergy, which was held every five years.  It took place on this occasion

at Saint Germains, although the King of England occupied the chateau.  M.

de Rheims kept open table there, and had some champagne that was much

vaunted.  The King of England, who drank scarcely any other wine, heard

of this and asked for some.  The Archbishop sent him six bottles.  Some

time after, the King of England, who had much relished the wine, sent and

asked for more.  The Archbishop, more sparing of his wine than of his

money, bluntly sent word that his wine was not mad, and did not run

through the streets; and sent none.  However accustomed people might be

to the rudeness of the Archbishop, this appeared so strange that it was

much spoken of: but that was all.

M. de Vendome took another public leave of the King, the Princes, and the

Princesses, in order to place himself again under the doctor's hands.

He perceived at last that he was not cured, and that it would be long

before he was; so went to Anet to try and recover his health, but without

success better than before.  He brought back a face upon which his state

was still more plainly printed than at first.  Madame d'Uzes, only

daughter of the Prince de Monaco, died of this disease.  She was a woman

of merit--very virtuous and unhappy--who merited a better fate.

M. d'Uzes was an obscure man, who frequented the lowest society, and

suffered less from its effects than his wife, who was much pitied and

regretted.  Her children perished of the same disease, and she left none

behind her.--[Syphilis.  D.W.]

Soon after this the King ordered the Comtes d'Uzes and d'Albert to go to

the Conciergerie for having fought a duel against the Comtes de Rontzau,

a Dane, and Schwartzenberg, an Austrian.  Uzes gave himself up, but the

Comte d'Albert did not do so for a long Time, and was broken for his

disobedience.  He had been on more than good terms with Madame de

Luxembourg--the Comte de Rontzau also: hence the quarrel; the cause of

which was known by everybody, and made a great stir.  Everybody knew it,

at least, except M. de Luxembourg, and said nothing, but was glad of it;

and yet in every direction he asked the reason; but, as may be imagined,

could find nobody to tell him, so that he went over and over again to M.

le Prince de Conti, his most intimate friend, praying him for information

upon the subject.  M. de Conti related to me that on one occasion, coming

from Meudon, he was so solicited by M. de Luxembourg on this account,

that he was completely embarrassed, and never suffered to such an extent

in all his life.  He contrived to put off M. de Luxembourg, and said

nothing, but was glad indeed to get away from him at the end of the

journey.

Le Notre died about this time, after having been eighty-eight years in

perfect health, and with all his faculties and good taste to the very

last.  He was illustrious, as having been the first designer of those

beautiful gardens which adorn France, and which, indeed, have so

surpassed the gardens of Italy, that the most famous masters of that

country come here to admire and learn.  Le Notre had a probity, an

exactitude, and an uprightness which made him esteemed and loved by

everybody.  He never forgot his position, and was always perfectly

disinterested.  He worked for private people as for the King, and with

the same application--seeking only to aid nature, and to attain the

beautiful by the shortest road.  He was of a charming simplicity and

truthfulness.  The Pope, upon one occasion, begged the King to lend him

Le Notre for some months.  On entering the Pope's chamber, instead of

going down upon his knees, Le Notre ran to the Holy Father, clasped him

round the neck, kissed him on the two cheeks, and said--"Good morning,

Reverend Father; how well you look, and how glad I am to see you in such

good health."

The Pope, who was Clement X., Altieri, burst out laughing with all his

might.  He was delighted with this odd salutation, and showed his

friendship towards the gardener in a thousand ways.  Upon Le Notre's

return, the King led him into the gardens of Versailles, and showed him

what had been done in his absence.  About the Colonnade he said nothing.

The King pressed him to give his opinion thereupon.

"Why, sire," said Le Notre, "what can I say?  Of a mason you have made a

gardener, and he has given you a sample of his trade."

The King kept silence and everybody laughed; and it was true that this

morsel of architecture, which was anything but a fountain, and yet which

was intended to be one, was much out of place in a garden.  A month

before Le Notre's death, the King, who liked to see him and to make him

talk, led him into the gardens, and on account of his great age, placed

him in a wheeled chair, by the side of his own.  Upon this Le Notre said,

"Ah, my poor father, if you were living and could see a simple gardener

like me, your son, wheeled along in a chair by the side of the greatest

King in the world, nothing would be wanting to my joy!"

Le Notre was Overseer of the Public Buildings, and lodged at the

Tuileries, the garden of which (his design), together with the Palace,

being under his charge.  All that he did is still much superior to

everything that has been done since, whatever care may have been taken to

imitate and follow him as closely as possible.  He used to say of flower-

beds that they were only good for nurses, who, not being able to quit the

children, walked on them with their eyes, and admired them from the

second floor.  He excelled, nevertheless, in flowerbeds, as in everything

concerning gardens; but he made little account of them, and he was right,

for they are the spots upon which people never walk.

The King of England (William III.) lost the Duke of Gloucester, heir-

presumptive to the crown.  He was eleven years of age, and was the only

son of the Princess of Denmark, sister of the defunct Queen Mary, wife of

William.  His preceptor was Doctor Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, who was

in the secret of the invasion, and who passed into England with the

Prince of Orange at the Revolution, of which Revolution he has left a

very fraudulent history, and many other works of as little truth and good

faith.  The underpreceptor was the famous Vassor, author of the "History

of Louis XIII.,"  which would be read with more pleasure if there were

less spite against the Catholic religion, and less passion against the

King.  With those exceptions it is excellent and true.  Vassor must have

been singularly well informed of the anecdotes that he relates, and which

escape almost all historians.  I have found there, for instance, the Day

of the Dupes related precisely as my father has related it to me, and

several other curious things not less exact.  This author has made such a

stir that it is worth while to say something about him.  He was a priest

of the Oratory, and in much estimation as a man whose manners were

without reproach.  After a time, however, he was found to have disclosed

a secret that had been entrusted to him, and to have acted the spy on

behalf of the Jesuits.  The proofs of his treason were found upon his

table, and were so conclusive that there was nothing for him but to leave

the Oratory.  He did so, and being deserted by his Jesuit employers,

threw himself into La Trappe.  But he did not enter the place in a proper

spirit, and in a few days withdrew.  After this he went to the Abbey of

Perseigne, hired a lodging there, and remained several months.  But he

was continually at loggerheads with the monks.  Their garden was separate

from his only by a thick hedge; their fowls could jump over it.  He laid

the blame upon the monks, and one day caught as many of their fowls as he

could; cut off their beaks and their spurs with a cleaver, and threw them

back again over the hedge.  This was cruelty so marked that I could not

refrain from relating it.

Vassor did not long remain in this retreat, but returned to Paris, and

still being unable to gain a living, passed into Holland, from rage and

hunger became a Protestant, and set himself to work to live by his pen.

His knowledge, talent, and intelligence procured him many friends, and

his reputation reached England, into which country he passed, hoping to

gain there more fortune than in Holland.  Burnet received him with open

arms, and obtained for him the post of under-preceptor to the Duke of

Gloucester.  It would have been difficult to have found two instructors

so opposed to the Catholics and to France, or so well suited to the King

as teachers of his successor.

Among so many things which paved the way for the greatest events, a very

strange one happened, which from its singularity merits a short recital.

For many years the Comtesse de Verrue lived at Turin, mistress, publicly,

of M. de Savoie.  The Comtesse de Verrue was daughter of the Duc de

Luynes, and had been married in Piedmont, when she was only fourteen

years of age, to the Comte de Verrue, young, handsome, rich, and honest;

whose mother was lady of honour to Madame de Savoie.

M. de Savoie often met the Comtesse de Verrue, and soon found her much to

his taste.  She saw this, and said so to her husband and her mother-in-

law.  They praised her, but took no further notice of the matter.  M. de

Savoie redoubled his attentions, and, contrary to his usual custom, gave

fetes, which the Comtesse de Verrue felt were for her.  She did all she

could not to attend them, but her mother-in-law quarrelled with her, said

she wished to play the important, and that it was her vanity which gave

her these ideas.  Her husband, more gentle, desired her to attend these

fetes, saying that even if M. de Savoie were really in love with her, it

would not do to fail in anything towards him.  Soon after M. de Savoie

spoke to the Comtesse de Verrue.  She told her husband and her mother-in-

law, and used every entreaty in order to prevail upon them to let her go

and pass some time in the country.  They would not listen to her, and

seeing no other course open, she feigned to be ill, and had herself sent

to the waters of Bourbon.  She wrote to her father, the Duc de Luynes, to

meet her there, and set out under the charge of the Abbe de Verrue; uncle

of her husband.  As soon as the Duc de Luynes arrived at Bourbon, and

became acquainted with the danger which threatened his daughter; he

conferred with the Abbe as to the best course to adopt, and agreed with

him that the Countess should remain away from Turin some time, in order

that M. de Savoie might get cured of his passion.  M. de Luynes little

thought that he had conferred with a wolf who wished to carry off his

lamb.  The Abbe de Verrue, it seems, was himself violently in love with

the Countess, and directly her father had gone declared the state of his

heart.  Finding himself only repulsed, the miserable old man turned his

love into hate; ill-treated the Countess, and upon her return to Turin,

lost no opportunity of injuring her in the eyes of her husband and her

mother-in-law.

The Comtesse de Verrue suffered this for some time, but at last her

virtue yielded to the bad treatment she received.  She listened to M. de

Savoie, and delivered herself up to him in order to free herself from

persecution.  Is not this a real romance?  But it happened in our own

time, under the eyes and to the knowledge of everybody.

When the truth became known, the Verrues were in despair, although they

had only themselves to blame for what had happened.  Soon the new

mistress ruled all the Court of Savoy, whose sovereign was at her feet as

before a goddess.  She disposed of the favours of her lover, and was

feared and courted by the ministry.  Her haughtiness made her hated; she

was poisoned; M. de Savoie gave her a subtle antidote, which fortunately

cured her, and without injury to her beauty.  Her reign still lasted.

After a while she had the small-pox.  M. de Savoie tended her during this

illness, as though he had been a nurse; and although her face suffered a

little by it, he loved her not the less.  But he loved her after his own

fashion.  He kept her shut up from view, and at last she grew so tired of

her restraint that she determined to fly.  She conferred with her

brother, the Chevalier de Luynes, who served with much distinction in the

navy, and together they arranged the matter.

They seized an opportunity when M. de Savoie had gone on a tour to

Chambery, and departed furtively.  Crossing our frontier, they arrived m

Paris, where the Comtesse de Verrue, who had grown very rich, took a

house, and by degrees succeeded in getting people to come and see her,

though, at first, owing to the scandal of her life, this was difficult.

In the end, her opulence gained her a large number of friends, and she

availed herself so well of her opportunities, that she became of much

importance, and influenced strongly the government.  But that time goes

beyond my memoirs.  She left in Turin a son and a daughter, both

recognised by M. de Savoie, after the manner of our King.  He loved

passionately these, illegitimate children, and married the daughter to

the Prince de Carignan.

Mademoiselle de Conde died at Paris on October 24th, after a long

illness, from a disease in the chest, which consumed her less than the

torments she experienced without end from M. le Prince, her father, whose

continual caprices were the plague of all those over whom he could

exercise them.  Almost all the children of M. le Prince were little

bigger than dwarfs, which caused M. le Prince, who was tall, to say in

pleasantry, that if his race went on always thus diminishing it would

come to nothing.  People attributed the cause to a dwarf that Madame la

Princesse had had for a long time near her.

At the funeral of Mademoiselle de Conde, a very indecorous incident

happened.  My mother, who was invited to take part in the ceremony, went

to the Hotel de Conde, in a coach and six horses, to join Mademoiselle

d'Enghien.  When the procession was about to start the Duchesse de

Chatillon tried to take precedence of my mother.  But my mother called

upon Mademoiselle d'Enghien to prevent this, or else to allow her to

return.  Madame de Chatillon persisted in her attempt, saying that

relationship decided the question of precedence on these occasions, and

that she was a nearer relative to the deceased than my mother.  My

mother, in a cold but haughty tone, replied that she could pardon this

mistake on account of the youth and ignorance of Madame de Chatillon; but

that in all such cases it was rank and not relationship which decided the

point.  The dispute was at last put to an end by Madame de Chatillon

giving way.  But when the procession started an attempt was made by her

coachman to drive before the coach of my mother, and one of the company

had to descend and decide the dispute.  On the morrow M. le Prince sent

to apologise to my mother for the occurrence that had taken place, and

came himself shortly afterwards full of compliments and excuses.  I never

could understand what induced Madame de Chatillon to take this fancy into

her head; but she was much ashamed of it afterwards, and made many

excuses to my mother.

I experienced, shortly after this, at Fontainebleau, one of the greatest

afflictions I had ever endured.  I mean the loss of M. de La Trappe,

These Memoirs are too profane to treat slightly of a life so sublimely

holy, and of a death so glorious and precious before God.  I will content

myself with saying here that praises of M. de La Trappe were so much the

more great and prolonged because the King eulogised him in public; that

he wished to see narrations of his death; and that he spoke more than

once of it to his grandsons by way of instruction.  In every part of

Europe this great loss was severely felt.  The Church wept for him, and

the world even rendered him justice.  His death, so happy for him and so

sad for his friends, happened on the 26th of October, towards half-past

twelve, in the arms of his bishop, and in presence of his community, at

the age of nearly seventy-seven years, and after nearly forty years of

the most prodigious penance.  I cannot omit, however, the most touching

and the most honourable mark of his friendship.  Lying upon the ground,

on straw and ashes, in order to die like all the brethren of La Trappe,

he deigned, of his own accord, to recollect me, and charged the Abbe La

Trappe to send word to me, on his part, that as he was quite sure of my

affection for him, he reckoned that I should not doubt of his tenderness

for me.  I check myself at this point; everything I could add would be

too much out of place here.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

But with a crawling baseness equal to her previous audacity

He limped audaciously

Height to which her insignificance had risen

His death, so happy for him and so sad for his friends

His habits were publicly known to be those of the Greeks

In order to say something cutting to you, says it to himself

Madame de Maintenon in returning young and poor from America

No means, therefore, of being wise among so many fools

Omissions must be repaired as soon as they are perceived

Pope excommunicated those who read the book or kept it

She lose her head, and her accomplice to be broken on the wheel

The clergy, to whom envy is not unfamiliar

The porter and the soldier were arrested and tortured

Whitehall, the largest and ugliest palace in Europe

World; so unreasoning, and so little in accord with itself

End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Memoirs of Louis XIV. and The Regency,

v2, by the Duc de Saint-Simon

          MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCY

                        BY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON