Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle, 1652-1693

Olivier d'Ormesson did not display great merit in writing his comments in his journal for his eyes alone, but Colbert wrote for the King and had still many criticisms to add.

"It is further advisable for your Majesty to know two things which no one has before dared to report: one that there has been a poster in Paris, bearing the words Louis XIV. will give an exhibition of Marionettes in the plain at Moret; the other, the publication of a libel, still more bitter, upon the distinguished deeds of the fantastic captains." The King read the memorial and re-read it in the presence of Colbert, but the following year saw a new camp, in which the royal tent, composed of six sumptuous rooms, "was filled with cavaliers gorgeously attired, and better fitted to attract the enemy than to make him flee."²⁷⁹ Colbert did not succeed, even in time of war, in preventing a single trip to the frontier with a long train of women in rare apparel, and mistresses for whose accommodation it was necessary to put masons at work at every halting-place.

From Louvois, March 7, 1671:

"Arrange chamber marked V for Mme. de Montespan, opening a door in the place marked 1. … Mme. de La Vallière will lodge in the chamber marked Y, in which a door must be made in the place marked 3N…" The expense of the numerous doors, with many others equally irregular, entered into the budget of the Minister of War.

How was it possible to keep the budget accounts? How reduce unnecessary expenses? Colbert himself was obliged in his budget of the Marine to give space to the "ladies." In 1678, Mme. de Montespan conceived the fantasy of fitting out a privateer, a vessel belonging to the King, be it understood, manned with the royal sailors. Some weeks later, a second and third vessel were sent out in the same manner as privateers, always at the King's expense, "by Mme. de Montespan and the Comtesse de Soissons."²⁸⁰ Including everything, the taste of Louis XIV. for conversation and the society of women, without mentioning the rest of his follies, probably cost France more than all the buildings erected by the Grand Monarch, but the one outlay can be calculated, and the other not.

The large expenses of Versailles and of Marly are often alluded to, while the unfortunate peasants, who fled across the frontier after every military spectacle offered to the "ladies," are forgotten. Louis XIV. was incapable of keeping accounts; that is his sole excuse. It is strange, however, that a man so methodical, having a mind so steady, so well regulated, had never been able to comprehend that figures are figures, and that no one is able to make two crowns out of one. Colbert never succeeded in controlling the waste of his master, even in cases when the added profusion in no way increased the pleasure, and appears to us as a mere barbarous lavishness.

It is known that in the seventeenth century the repasts were abundant. Those of Louis XIV. were excessively so. In 1664, the King, having invited the Pope's legate to dine with him tête-à-tête, those in attendance counted the dishes; there were eighty, not including thirty-eight for dessert. This was certainly excessive, and Colbert had said in the Memorial of 1660, "I declare to your Majesty … that a useless meal, costing a thousand crowns, gives me an incredible pain."

But the lavishness of fifteen years later was far greater. On January 16, 1680, the King married Mlle. de Blois, his daughter by La Vallière, to Prince Louis-Armand de Conti, nephew of the great Condé. "The wedding festival was royal," wrote Bussy-Rabutin; "there were seven hundred dishes on a single table, served in five courses, that is to say, one hundred and forty dishes to each course." Mme. de Sévigné points the moral. "The young husband was ill the entire night. It would be a temptation to say 'Well deserved!'"

If, from the incensed and suffering people, the attention is turned towards the Court, the difference between without and within is perhaps as clearly marked, although more difficult to define. Without, there is splendour, adulations given and received; within, a profound moral misery; with some, debauch and poverty; with others, discouragement and bitterness. Mme. de Sévigné, in a letter of 1680, has unconsciously painted, in six lines, the state of degradation to which the King had systematically reduced the nobility of France, lined up, as it were, to catch purses thrown to them January 12: "The King is enormously liberal in truth; it is not needful to despair; one may not be a valet, but in making one's court, something may fall upon one's head. What is certain is that far from him [the King], all seems valueless; formerly it was otherwise."

If souls were debased under Louis, he must be held in large part responsible. The same can be said in regard to the deterioration of manners and morals. France, before the time of Louis XIV., was accustomed enough to both mistresses and bastards, but not to the prerogatives of second wives conferred on the first, nor the legitimatising of adulteries which encouraged his subjects to consider no longer seriously either law or morality. The example of the master ended in deadening consciences already somewhat feeble, and husbands might be seen encouraging their wives, the mothers of their daughters, to imitate La Vallière and de Montespan.

Louis had been in some degree punished for having played sultan. Polygamy cannot exist without some discomfort, in a land in which women have any position. Few men, even upon the stage, have had so many quarrels with their mistresses, quarrels often violent, humiliating, as well as painful, as this majestic monarch, before whom the universe trembled. Royalty does not exist before a jealous mistress, and Louis XIV. was faithful only to one, Mme. de Maintenon.

The young King had been spoiled by Louise de La Vallière, who was gentleness itself, and whom love inclined to pardon all. None of the other mistresses really loved Louis, except perhaps Marie Mancini. Louis did not really please women; it was only the King for whose favour they disputed.

Mlle. de La Vallière had entered the Carmelite convent in 1674. Left alone upon the "breach," Mme. de Montespan defended the situation like a lioness. She was naturally sharp-tempered, and her fits of anger were often ungovernable,²⁸¹ as witnesses say, and Louis did not possess the force which innocence alone gives. Among the rivals who contended with Mme. de Montespan, many, in spite of her efforts, succeeded in enjoying their year, or at least their day. When she became enraged, and the King was forced to bend his neck under the tempest, "she often scolded him and he did not assert himself."²⁸² This was his method of expiation. The ephemeral reign of Mlle. de Fontanges came. She also was passionate, and she treated the King with "more authority than the others."²⁸³ Louis called Mme. de Maintenon to his aid, and charged her to appease these furies. Stormy scenes began to weary him.

It had been remarked since 1675 that Louis aspired to moments of "repose and of liberty." Mme. de Montespan, with all her intelligence, could not comprehend that there comes a time of life at which men can no longer live in the midst of tempests, and this error was the cause of her ruin.

The King acquired the habit of fleeing for refuge to Mme. de Maintenon, where he found an atmosphere of peace and enjoyed refreshing conversation.

It was the first time that an intelligent woman had spoken seriously to him, without seeking to attract a declaration of love, nor to divert him with trifles, but to distract him agreeably from his work, and also to make him reflect upon certain subjects which did not always appeal to him. For example, what the sinner who had taken the wife of another might expect in the next world. She recalled to him the fact that there was a police in heaven as in the palaces of the King of France, and she asked him: "What would you say if some one should tell your Majesty that one of the musketeers you love had seduced a married woman, and that this woman was actually living with him? I am certain that before evening this man would depart from the palace, never to return, however late it might be."²⁸⁴

The King laughed. He had never been more in love with Mme. de Montespan, – this happened in 1675, before the Jubilee, which separated them three or four months, – but he was not vexed with Mme. de Maintenon; already he "could not live without her."²⁸⁵ One may or may not feel sympathy with this last, but it is certain that without her, without the empire that she knew how to gain over a prince ardent for pleasure, but by no means a veritable libertine, Louis XIV. might have ended shamefully. To every one their deserts. The Queen Marie-Thérèse was right in according her friendship to Mme. de Maintenon, who secured for her, somewhat late it is true, a certain consideration and some affectionate demonstration to which the poor Queen was not accustomed.

When the King had passed forty, tranquillity became a need. He believed he had assured it by giving to Mme. de Montespan her official dismissal as the recognised mistress. The date of this event is known. March 29, 1679, the Comtesse de Soissons was prayed to yield to the ancient favourite her charge as superintendent of the palace of the Queen, a position which afforded a kind of regulated retreat. The next day, Mme. de Montespan wrote to the Duc de Noailles to announce to him this arrangement, and she added: "Truly this is very bearable. The King only comes into my room after mass and after supper. It is much better to see each other rarely with pleasure than often with boredom." The world was not deceived: "I really believe," wrote Bussy (April 11th), "that the King, just as he is, has given this position for past favours."

From Mme. de Scudéry to Bussy, October 29, 1679: "A diversion has been established for Mme. de Montespan for this winter, and provided that she can do without love, she will retain the consideration of the King. This is all that an honest man can do when he ceases to love." Bussy responded, November 4th: "If Mme. de Montespan is wise she will dream only of cards and will leave the King in peace on the subject of love; for it is impossible through complaints and scoldings to lure back unfaithful lovers."

Mme. de Montespan was not wise. In the hope of bringing the King back to her arms by force, she redoubled the disagreeable scenes. At this moment, an obscure past, filled with vague and frightful events, rose against her, and the expiation for having too much loved became almost tragic in its character.

La Voisin, the poisoner, cannot be forgotten, nor the prosecution in 1668, which had revealed to the young King the connection of his new mistress with the world of malefactors. This affair was stifled, but the evil continued in its subterranean influence. The merchants of love philters and of poisons and the priests of satanic rites saw their clients increasing in number year by year. When the crimes finally came to the surface, and Louis established (March 7, 1679) the "Chambre ardente" to purify France from the gangrene, so many Parisians were connected in one way or another with the accused that the King had against him a powerful current of opinion. This is, perhaps, the most significant feature of the sad affair. Instead of being crushed with shame in learning how many were compromised, the higher classes were indignant against the equal justice which refused to give them special consideration. They murmured loudly, and for once the people were with them, for the populace remained staunch to the sorcerers. The clamours were so menacing that the judges of the "Chambre ardente" felt themselves in danger: "I know," wrote Bussy-Rabutin on April 1st, "the chamber instituted to examine the 'corrupters,' and also know that Messieurs de Bezons and de La Reynie do not pass from Paris to Vincennes without an escort of the Kings Guards."²⁸⁶ Louis XIV. was obliged several times to strengthen the resolution of these judges; sometimes in openly commanding them to "judge truly"²⁸⁷ without any distinction of person, condition, or sex; sometimes by assuring them through official letter of his "protection."²⁸⁸

The first executions before the Chambre ardente took place in February, 1679, and the list of the names of those arrested or of those to whom notices of warrants to appear as witnesses had been served, a list which made so great an excitement on account of the aristocrats included,²⁸⁹ is dated January 23, 1680. It had been at least four months before,²⁹⁰ that there had come to the ears of the King, as some one was reading to him the account of the last examinations, two familiar names. Who is Mlle. des Œillets, ancient "follower" of Mme. de Montespan? Who is Cato, her maid, and what had they to do with La Voisin and with those like her? These same names again appearing in the list of January 6, 1680, the King, while declaring that the witnesses must certainly have lied,²⁹¹ ordered the Procurer-General, M. Robert, "to pay strict attention to this particular case."

This was done, with the result that Louis was forced to ask himself if the woman whom he adored above all others, and who had borne him seven children, was a vile "corrupter"; if this perfect body for which he had risked the safety of his soul had taken part in the ignoble ceremonies of the infamous Guibourg? If, discontented with the thought of sharing his favours with rivals, she might not in an access of jealousy have tried to poison him, the King? He sought the truth, but did not find it. In waiting further developments, Louis led his mistress with him wherever he might go, and she was always making a disturbance of some sort. The King grew less patient; that was the only difference.

From Bussy-Rabutin, May 18, 1680:

"The King … as he was mounting into his carriage with the Queen had some rough words with Mme. de Montespan, about the scents with which she deluged herself, which made his Majesty ill. The King at first spoke politely, but as she responded sharply, his Majesty grew warm." On the 25th, Mme. de Sévigné noted another "serious embroilment." This time Colbert succeeded in reconciling them. The situation grew painful. A long series of letters and mémoires have been found in which La Reynie discusses for the King the charges accumulated against Mme. de Montespan. The picture is given of the doubts and fluctuations of an honest man whose responsibilities somewhat rankle in his breast, and who sees an equal peril in dishonouring the throne and in permitting a guilty woman to remain near the King. Louis passed through many successive stages of conviction during the prosecution. The further the examination proceeded, the stronger became the presumption of guilt, without, however, bringing positive proofs.

On July 12, 1680, La Reynie summed up for his master the history of the "petition to be used in poisoning the King." On October 11th he declared that he should be ruined in the affair, and supplicated his Majesty to reflect whether it would be for the "welfare of the State," to make these "horrors" public. In the month of May following, he avowed that he had erred on some points and that there was more evil than at first appeared. The marvellous control that Louis possessed over himself prevented outward betrayal; but certainly these uncertainties, these inferior conflicts, and it is to be hoped some sense of shame and remorse, became chastisements for his faults. On her side, Mme. de Montespan, in spite of the secret of her possible guilt being well guarded both at Court and by the judges and police, could not be ignorant that Mlle. des Œillets had been interrogated, confronted with witnesses, and imprisoned for life in the general Hospital at Tours.²⁹² Mme. de Montespan then knew that she had been denounced, but with what proof? What did the King think? What curious meetings between these two beings must have taken place. What conversations during which the King and his mistress were closely observing each other.

Court life, nevertheless, pursued its monotonous course, and Mme. de Montespan continued to figure in positions of honour. In March, 1689, she goes to meet the Dauphin²⁹³ with the rest of the Court, and it is she who has charge of the choice and arrangement of the wedding presents, "being the woman in the world," wrote Mademoiselle, "who knows the best forms." In July, the King led her to Versailles with her sister, Mme. de Thianges, and her niece, the beautiful Duchesse de Nevers. This lady the mother and aunt were cynically offering to the Monarch.²⁹⁴ In February, 1681, "a lottery was opened at Mme. de Montespan's, of which the largest prize was one hundred thousand francs, and there were a hundred others offered of one hundred pistoles each." In July, 1682, the Chambre ardente was suddenly suppressed. Of the three hundred accused, thirty-six people of no importance had been executed, one hundred sent to the galleys, or to prisons, or convents, or exiled; the noted among them always gaining some concessions. The dungeons of Paris and Vincennes were crowded. The smaller fry were released, and the remainder were scattered, without any other trial, through the provincial prisons, to await a death rarely slow in coming to relieve their misery.

From Louvois to M. de Chauvelin, Intendant, December 16, 1682, announcing the arrival of one of these convoys:

Above all, please take care to prevent any of these gentlemen from proclaiming aloud, a thing which has already occurred, any of the absurd statements connected with Mme. de Montespan, which have been proved to be absolutely without foundation. Threaten a punishment so severe at the first utterance that they will not dare to breathe a word further.

This letter ended the connection of Mme. de Montespan with the affair of the "corrupters of morals" or the poisoners. She was saved, but was this due to proofs of innocence or to reasons of State, to the refusal of Louis to credit the testimony of an Abbé Guibourg or Lesage, or to the remnants of an old tenderness? The few men with whom it had been necessary to share the secrets which would respond to these questions were so perfectly mute that contemporaries suspected nothing. They saw the ancient favourite a little neglected, but always dreaming of the possibility of reasserting herself, as the many pages of the Mémoires of Mademoiselle testify. All this was in the natural course of events.

One single indication of what Louis XIV. thought at the bottom of his soul is possessed; a letter from the King to Colbert, who knew all. Mademoiselle had prayed Mme. de Montespan to solicit some favour for Lauzun. The King charged Colbert to reply for him (October, 1681): "You will politely explain to her that I always receive the marks of her friendship and confidence with pleasure, and that I am very vexed when it is not possible to do what she desires, but at this time I can do no more than I have already done."²⁹⁵ Did he believe the mistress innocent or had he pardoned her?

The first preoccupation of Lauzun, in returning to the world, must have been to make clear to himself through legitimate or illegitimate means the chronology of the King's love affairs, a history so essential for the comprehension of the interior life of the Court.

The main facts for this record have been already given in the preceding chapter. The returned prisoner had afterwards to learn all that Mademoiselle had accomplished for him during his captivity, and of what the public thought of her efforts, and he recognised that no one in France except Segrais doubted the fact of their marriage. That the marriage had taken place before his imprisonment was the prevalent belief, which was never really shaken. It again came to light in the eighteenth century. The historian Anquetil saw at Tréport, in 1744, an old person of more than seventy years of age, who resembled the portraits of the Grande Mademoiselle and did not know from whence came her pension.²⁹⁶ This person believed herself to be the daughter of the Duchesse de Montpensier, and local tradition confirmed this conviction. There were, however, no absolute proofs, and it will be seen further on how this question of the marriage with Lauzun is brought up over and over again in the biography of the Grande Mademoiselle, with a monotony slightly fatiguing and without it being possible to ever obtain a clear response.

Whatever the fact may be, the Princess gave a very fine example of constancy and fidelity. She lived for ten years absorbed in a single thought. The Mémoires for the year 1673 say: "I remember nothing which has taken place during the past winter. My grief occupies me so much that I have but little interest in the actions of others." To liberate Lauzun had become a fixed idea, and she attached herself to the steps of the King and to those of Mme. de Montespan, without permitting herself to remember the ill that they had committed, as it was they alone who could loosen the bonds. The more they showed themselves inexorable, the more Mademoiselle redoubled her assiduities. In 1676 she enjoyed for the brief space of two hours the delusion that Louis XIV. at length, at the end of ten years, was moved with a feeling of compassion. The news of the attempted escape of Lauzun had just been received. "I learned that the King had listened to the account with some sign of humanity, I can hardly say of pity. If he had felt this, would he [Lauzun] still be there?"

The Princess wrote to the King, but received no response; and again four years rolled by. Mme. de Montespan was no longer favourite. The courtiers considered it shrewd to neglect her. Better inspired, Mademoiselle continued to stand fast by her, and the result proved the wisdom of this course, in the dramatic moment, for Louis, of the affair of the corrupters. It was in the spring of 1680, while denunciations were falling upon the fallen favourite as upon all those connected with La Voisin, that Mademoiselle remarked by certain movements and a change of tone that something was stirring between Mme. de Montespan and the fortress of Pignerol:

I went to her daily and she appeared touched by the thought of M. de Lauzun… She often said to me: "But think how you can make yourself agreeable to the King, that he may accord to you what you desire so dearly." She threw out such suggestions from time to time, which advised me that they were thinking of my fortune.

The phrase of a friend came back to her: "But you should let them hope that you will make M. de Maine your heir." She recalled other hints which at first had passed unnoticed, and understood that a bargain was offered.

The monarch and his ancient favourite had agreed between them to sell to Mademoiselle the freedom of the man she loved so deeply. What was to be the price? This was not yet disclosed. It was some time before Mademoiselle comprehended, and then she was so disconcerted that she said nothing. She felt that the combat was not an equal one between herself, from whom passion had taken away all judgment, and Mme. de Montespan, who was perfectly calm, and she hesitated, fearing some snare: "Finally, I resolved to make M. de Maine my heir, provided that the King would send for Lauzun and consent that I should marry him." Some third person brought these conditions to Mme. de Montespan and was received with open arms. Louis XIV. thanked his cousin graciously without making any allusion to the condition; he could always assert that he had made no promise.

Mademoiselle wished that he would at least give her some news of Lauzun. Mme. de Montespan responded to her insistence: "It is necessary to have patience," and affairs remained at this point.

At the end of some weeks, Mademoiselle perceived that she was no longer free. She had counted upon taking her time and having sureties before proceeding further. An immediate execution of the deed of gift was insisted upon, and she was so harassed that she no longer felt at liberty to breathe freely.

"The King must not be played with," declared Mme. de Montespan; "when a promise is made it must be kept." "But," objected Mademoiselle, "I wish the freedom of M. de Lauzun, and suppose that after what I have done I should find myself deceived, and my friend should not be liberated?" Louvois was then sent to frighten her, or Colbert in order to compass some concession. It was no longer a matter of testament.

A donation while living²⁹⁷ was exacted, of the Principality of Dombes and of the Comté of Eu without reference to the rest, and this assignment was obtained, in spite of complaints and the bitterest tears; "for they were demanding precisely what had been given to Lauzun, and Mademoiselle could not without difficulty resolve to despoil her lover." She finally comprehended that the King would not cease persecuting her until she consented, and, feeling no hope of diminishing the demands,²⁹⁸ she yielded.

The gift to the Duc de Maine was signed February 2, 1681. It gave some agreeable days to Mademoiselle. The King assured her of his gratitude. "At supper he regarded me pleasantly and conversed with me; this was most charming." Nevertheless, Lauzun did not appear. One day Mme. de Montespan informed the Princess that the King would never permit Lauzun to be Duc de Montpensier, and that it would be necessary to have a secret marriage. The Princess cried out: "What! Madame, I am to permit him to live with me as my husband with no marriage ceremony! Of what will the world think me capable?"

This passage in the Mémoires apparently fixes the date of marriage after the return of Lauzun from his captivity. There exist, however, a number of moral proofs against this later date.

Some time after this conversation, in the beginning of April, 1681, the Court being at Saint-Germain, Mme. de Montespan announced to Mademoiselle the immediate departure of Lauzun for the Baths of Bourbon, and she then drew her, slightly against her will, to the end of the terrace, far from indiscreet ears. "When we were in the Val, which is a garden at the end of the Park of Saint-Germain, she said to me, 'The King has asked me to tell you that he does not wish you to dream of ever marrying M. de Lauzun, at least, officially.'"

Mademoiselle had been tricked.

"Upon this, I began to weep and to talk about the gifts I had made, only on the one condition. Mme. de Montespan said, 'I have promised nothing.' She had gained what she wished, and was willing enough to bear anything I might say." In the evening it was necessary to assume a delighted air and thank the King for Lauzun's freedom; a single sign of ill-humour and Mademoiselle ran the risk of receiving nothing in exchange for her millions.

There remained the task of forcing Lauzun to renounce the gifts formerly presented to him. Mme. de Montespan took the route to Bourbon, where "she found greater difficulty than she had anticipated." Her demands so surpassed the expectations of the late prisoner that he revolted. There were many disputes, many despatches, and many delays,²⁹⁹ at the end of which the obstinate one, having been reimprisoned,³⁰⁰ was so harassed with threats and promises that he finally yielded. His signature was given; he believed himself free. Instead of liberty, he received an order of exile to Amboise. He also had been duped. This affair is odious from beginning to end.

Mademoiselle was Lauzun's resource and providence. She compensated him as far as might be with a fresh devotion, in which Saint-Fargeau figured as an item, and found means to pay him nearly 300,000 francs³⁰¹ over what the King would have been obliged to give him if he had not been sent to Pignerol. With much difficulty, the importunities of Mademoiselle obtained the desired permission for the ex-prisoner to salute the King and afterward to dwell where it pleased him, on the single condition that he would not approach the Court. Access to this was strictly forbidden; but what would it have mattered, when he would have humbled himself before his master?

Alas! the charm was broken, and for ever. In March, 1682, at the single interview granted, Lauzun threw himself ten times, consecutively, at the feet of Louis XIV. – the King himself relates this – and employed all his grace, all his flatteries, without succeeding in breaking the ice.

Received coolly and dismissed without delay, there was nothing left but to fall back upon Mademoiselle. They had not yet met, and it is a terrible test of devotion to meet after eleven years, and to endeavour to again open the page closed by misfortune. The Grande Mademoiselle of the time previous to the imprisonment at Pignerol singularly resembled the Hermione of Racine, in her jealousy and violence. The one of 1682 was not yet a tranquil person, but Hermione was an old woman, and Pyrrhus a licentious greybeard, who was endeavouring to recompense himself for the time lost in prison.

Years had not made Lauzun in love with his benefactress, and he arrived to meet her well resolved to finish simply with expressions of gratitude and of love. Mademoiselle was well aware of his infidelities. The grief, mingled with irritation, which she felt displayed itself in a sort of stiffness and embarrassment. The great joy she had anticipated in again seeing her lover, she did not realise.

She had existed ten long years for this moment, and when it came, she desired to escape. She went to await Lauzun at Mme. de Montespan's, a first piece of absurdity. "M. de Lauzun," say her Mémoires, "arrived after his interview with the King; he wore an old undress uniform with short waistcoat, almost in rags, and a very ugly wig.³⁰² He sank at my feet with much grace. Then Mme. de Montespan led us into a cabinet, and said, 'You will be glad to speak together.' She then went away, and I followed her." A second ridiculous action! Lauzun profited by the delay to salute the rest of the royal family. On returning, he found his Princess with Mme. de Montespan and did not see her an instant alone: "He told me that he had been cordially received, and that this he owed to me; that I was his only source of good, the one from which he received all. He made certain amiable propositions, and in thus acting he was only wise. I was silent; I was astonished."