Louis XIV Part 9

It seems that a dispute had arisen in London between the French and Spanish emba.s.sadors upon the point of precedence. This had led to a b.l.o.o.d.y encounter in the streets between the retinues of the two ministers. The French were worsted. The Spaniards gained the contested point.

The King of Spain was the brother of Anne of Austria. His first wife, the mother of Maria Theresa, was sister of Louis XIII., and consequently aunt of Louis XIV. Thus there was a peculiar bond of relationship between the French and Spanish courts. Still Louis was unrelenting in the vigorous action upon which he had entered. In addition to the hostile measures already adopted, a special messenger was sent to Philip IV. to inform him that, unless he immediately recognized the supremacy of the French court, and made a formal apology for the insult offered the French minister, war would ensue.

The Spanish king, unwilling, for so trivial a cause, to involve the two nations in a b.l.o.o.d.y conflict, very magnanimously yielded to the requirements demanded by the hot blood and wounded pride of his son-in-law. In the presence of all the foreign ministers and the a.s.sembled court at Fontainebleau, the Spanish emba.s.sador made a humble apology, and declared that never again should the precedence of the emba.s.sador of France be denied.

A very similar difficulty occurred a short time after at Rome. The French emba.s.sador there, the Duke of Crequi, an old feudal n.o.ble, accompanied by troops of retainers armed to the teeth, had, by his haughty bearing, become extremely unpopular both with the court and the people of Rome. The myrmidons of the duke were continually engaged in night-brawls with the police. On one occasion they even attacked, sword in hand, the Pope's guard, and put them to flight. The brother of Pope Alexander VII., who hated Crequi, instigated the guard to take revenge. In an infuriated mob, they surrounded the palace of the emba.s.sador, and fired upon his carriage as it entered his court-yard.

A page was killed, and several other attendants wounded. Crequi immediately left the city, accusing the Pope of instigating the outrage.

Louis XIV. demanded reparation, and the most humble apology. The proud Pope was not disposed to yield to his insolent demands. Affairs a.s.sumed so threatening an aspect, that the Pope ordered two of the guard, one an officer, to be hung, and the Mayor of Rome, who was accused of having instigated the outrage, to be banished. This concession, however, by no means satisfied the irascible Louis. He commenced landing troops in Italy, threatening to besiege Rome. The Pope appealed to the Roman Catholic princes of Germany for aid. They could not come to his rescue, for they were threatened with war by the Turks. The unhappy Pope was thus brought upon his knees. He was compelled to banish from Rome his own brother, Don Mario Chigi, and to send an emba.s.sador to Paris with the most humble apology.

These events were but slight episodes in the gay life of the pleasure-loving king. He was still reveling in an incessant round of feasting and dancing, flitting with his gay court from one to another of his metropolitan and rural palaces.

There are few so stern as not to feel emotions of sympathy rather than of condemnation for Louise de la Valliere. She was a child of seventeen, exposed to all the fascinations and temptations of the most luxurious court then upon the globe. But G.o.d has implanted in every bosom a sense of right and wrong. She wept bitterly over her fall. Her remorse was so great that she withdrew as far as possible from society, and the anguish of her repentance greatly embarra.s.sed her royal lover.

Henrietta was greatly annoyed at the preference which the king had shown for Louise over herself. She determined to drive the unfortunate favorite from the court. Anne of Austria, with increasing years, was growing oblivious of her own youthful indiscretions, and was daily becoming more stern in her judgments. A cancer had commenced its secret ravages upon her person. Its progress no medical skill could arrest. She tried to conceal the terrible secret which was threatening her with the most loathsome and distressing of deaths. In this mood of mind the haughty queen sent for the weeping Louise to her room.

Trembling in every nerve, the affrighted child attended the summons.

She found Anne of Austria with Henrietta by her side. The queen, without a.s.signing any cause, sternly informed her that she was banished from the court of France, and that suitable attendants would immediately convey her to a distant castle. Upon Louise attempting to make some inquiry why she was thus punished, the haughty queen sternly interrupted her with the reply "that France could not have two queens."

Louise staggered back to her room overwhelmed with despair. Both G.o.d and man will declare that, whatever fault there might have been in the relations then existing between the king and this unprotected girl, the censure should have rested a thousand fold more heavily upon the king than upon his victim. And yet Louise was to be driven in ignominy from the court, to enter into a desolated world utterly ruined.

Through the remainder of the day no one entered her apartment. She spent the hours in tears and in the fever of despair. In the evening Louis himself came to her room and found her exhausted with weeping.

He endeavored to ascertain the cause of her overwhelming distress.

She, unwilling to be the occasion of an irreconcilable feud between the mother and the son, evaded all his inquiries. He resorted to entreaties, reproaches, threats, but in vain. Irritated by her pertinacious refusal, he suddenly left her without speaking a word of adieu.

Louise seemed now truly to be alone in the world, without a single friend left her. But she then recalled to mind that she had formerly entered into an agreement with the king that, in case of any misunderstanding arising between them, a night should not pa.s.s without an attempt at reconciliation. A new hope arose in her mind that the king would either return, or send her a note to inform her that his anger no longer continued.

"And so she waited and watched, and counted every hour as it was proclaimed from the belfry of the palace. But she waited and watched in vain. When at length, after this long and weary night, the daylight streamed through the silken curtains of her chamber, she threw herself upon her knees, and praying that G.o.d would not cast away the victim who was thus rejected by the world, she hastened, with a burning cheek and a tearless eye, to collect a few necessary articles of clothing, and throwing on her veil and mantle, rushed down a private staircase and escaped into the street. In this distracted state of mind she pursued her way to Chaillot,[J] and reached the convent of the Sisters of St. Mary, where she was detained some time in the parlor.

At length the grating was opened and a portress appeared. On her request to be admitted to the abbess, she informed her that the community were all at their devotions, and could not see any one.

[Footnote J: Chaillot was a village on the banks of the Seine, about a mile and a half from the Tuileries, near the present bridge of Jena.

The nuns of the order of St. Mary had a celebrated convent here, where persecuted grandeur often sought an asylum. Within the walls of this convent the widowed queen of Charles I. and daughter of Henry IV. died in the year 1669.]

"It was in vain that the poor fugitive entreated and a.s.serted her intention of taking the vows. She could extort no other answer, and the portress withdrew, leaving her sitting on a wooden bench desolate, heart-sick. For two hours she remained motionless, with her eyes fixed upon the grating, but it continued closed. Even the dreary refuge of this poor and obscure convent was denied her. Even the house of religion had barred its doors against her. She could bear up no longer. From the previous evening she had not tasted food, and the fatigue of body and anguish of mind which she had undergone, combined with this unaccustomed fast, had exhausted her slight remains of strength. A sullen torpor gradually overcame her faculties, and eventually she fell upon the paved floor cold and insensible."[K]

[Footnote K: Louis XIV. and the Court of France, vol. ii., p. 125.]

The king had probably pa.s.sed a very uncomfortable night. Early in the morning he learned that Louise had disappeared. Much alarmed, he hastened to the apartments of Madame Henrietta in the Tuileries. She unfeelingly expressed entire ignorance of the movements of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. He immediately repaired to the rooms of his mother. She was unable to give him any information respecting the lost favorite. Bitterly, however, she reproached her son with his want of self-control in allowing himself to cherish so strong an attachment to Mademoiselle de la Valliere. She accused him of having no mastery over himself.

The king's eyes flashed with indignation. He was fully convinced that his mother was in some way the cause of the departure of Louise.

Angrily he replied,

"It may be so that I do not know how to control myself, but I will at least prove that I know how to control those who offend me."

Turning upon his heel, he left the apartment. By some means he obtained a clew to the retreat of Louise. Mounting his horse, accompanied by a single page, he galloped to the convent of Chaillot.

As there had been no warning of his approach, the grating still remained closed. He arrived just after the poor girl had fallen from the wooden bench upon the tesselated floor of the cold and cheerless anteroom. Her beautiful form lay apparently lifeless before him. Tears fell profusely from his eyes. He chafed her hands and temples. In endearing terms he entreated her to awake. Gradually she revived.

Frankly she related the cause of her departure, and entreated him to permit her to spend the remainder of her saddened life buried in the cloisters of the convent.

The king insisted, with all his authority as a monarch, and with all his persuasive influence as a man, that Louise should return with him to the Louvre. He was inspired with the double pa.s.sion of love for her, and anger against those who had driven her from his court.

Louise, saddened in heart and crushed in spirit, with great reluctance at last yielded to his pleadings. The page was dispatched for a carriage. Seated by the side of the king, Mademoiselle de la Valliere returned to the palace, from which she supposed a few hours before she had departed forever. Louis immediately repaired to the apartment of Madame Henrietta, and so imperiously insisted that Louise should be restored to her place as one of her maids of honor, that his sister-in-law dared not refuse. The influence of Anne of Austria was now nearly at an end. She was dying of slow disease, and, notwithstanding all her efforts to conceal the loathsome malady which was devouring her, she was compelled to spend most of her time in the seclusion of her own chamber.

Louis XIV., in the exercise of absolute power, with all the court bowing before him in the most abject homage, had gradually begun to regard himself almost as a G.o.d. He had never recovered from the mortification which he had experienced at the palace of Vaux, in finding a subject living in splendor which outvied that of the crown.

He determined to rear a palace of such extraordinary magnificence that no subject, whatever might be his resources, could equal it. For some time he had been looking around for the site of the building, which he had resolved should, like the Pyramids, be a monument of his reign, and excite the wonder and admiration of future ages.

About twelve miles from Paris there was a little village of Versailles, surrounded by an immense forest, whose solemn depths frequently resounded with the baying of the hounds of hunting-parties, as the gayly dressed court swept through the glades.

On one occasion, Louis XIV., in the eagerness of the chase, became separated from most of the rest of the party. Night coming on, he was compelled, and the few companions with him, to take refuge in a windmill, where they remained till morning. The mill was erected upon the highest point of ground. The king caused a small pavilion to be erected there for his accommodation, should he again chance to be overtaken by night or a storm. Pleased with the position, the king ere long removed the pavilion, and ordered his architect, Lemercier, to erect upon the spot an elegant chateau according to his own taste. A landscape gardener was also employed to ornament the grounds. The region soon was embellished with such loveliness as to charm every beholder. It became the favorite rural resort of the king.

The chateau and its grounds soon witnessed a series of festivities, the fame of which resounded through all Europe. Republican America will ponder the fact, which the aristocratic courts of Europe ignored, that these entertainments of boundless extravagance were at the expense of the overtaxed and starving people. That king and courtiers might riot in luxury, the wives and daughters of peasants were harnessed by the side of donkeys to drag the plow.

Early in the spring of 1664, the king, accompanied by his court of six hundred individuals, gentlemen and ladies, with a throng of servants, repaired to Versailles. The personal expenses of all the guests were defrayed by the king with the money which he wrested from the people.

With almost magical rapidity, the artificers reared cottages, stages, porticoes, for the exhibition of games, and the display of splendor scarcely equaled in the visions of Oriental romances.

The first entertainment was a tournament. The cavaliers were gorgeously dressed in the most glittering garb of the palmiest days of feudalism, magnificently mounted with wondrous trappings, with their shields and devices, with their attendant pages, equerries, heralds at arms. Among them all the king shone pre-eminent. His dress, and the housings of his charger, embellished with the crown jewels, glittered with a profusion of costly gems which no one else could equal.

The queen, with three hundred ladies of the court, brilliant in beauty, and in the most attractive dress, sat upon a platform, beneath triumphal arches, to view the procession as it pa.s.sed. The gleaming armor of the cavaliers, their prancing steeds, the waving of silken banners, and the flourish of trumpets, presented a spectacle such as no one present had ever conceived of before.

The tilting did not cease till evening. Suddenly the blaze of four thousand torches illumined the scene with new brilliance. Tables were spread for a banquet, loaded with every delicacy.

"The tables were served by two hundred attendants, habited as dryads, wood deities, and fawns. Behind the tables, which were in the form of a vast crescent, an orchestra arose as if by magic. The tables were illuminated by five hundred girandoles. A gilt bal.u.s.trade inclosed the whole of the immense area."

CHAPTER VI.

DEATH IN THE PALACE.

1664-1670

Continued festivities.--Moliere.--Cost of Versailles.--Lenotre.--Mansard.--Large sum squandered.--Magnificent room at Versailles.--Ill feeling toward La Valliere.--Anne of Austria becomes more ill.--Illness of Maria Theresa.--The king sick.--Abode of Madame Henrietta.--Sufferings of the queen-mother.--Death of Philip IV. of Spain.--Increasing ambition of Louis XIV.--Festivities at St.

Cloud.--Dying scene.--Death of the queen-mother.--Funeral ceremonies.--The Abbey of St. Denis.--d.u.c.h.ess of Vaujours.--Madame de Montespan.--Daily developments.--Duke de Mazarin--his cynicism.--He is silenced by the king.--Sale of Dunkirk.--Inconsistencies in the character of Louis.--Treachery of Montespan.--Sorrows of Louise.--Letters of the Marquis de Montespan.--Alarm of the marchioness.--Cowardice of the Pope.--Sorrow of the marquis.--Vexation of Louis.--Petty jealousies.--Employments of the king.--Remarks of Louis upon court etiquette.--They are unanswerable.--Conquest of Holland determined on.--Henrietta emba.s.sadress to England.--Louise Renee.--The bribe.--Constant bickerings.--Alliance between France and England.--Festivities thereon.--Maria Theresa.--Vivacity of Henrietta.--Henrietta poisoned.--Intense suffering.--Arrival of the king.--Death scene of Henrietta.--Suspicion of Louis.--Development of facts.--Statements of M. Pernon.--Testimony of M. Pernon.--Return of Chevalier de Lorraine.--Marriage of Monsieur.--Portrait of Charlotte Elizabeth.--Her power of sarcasm.--Sharp reproof of Madame de Fienne.

The festivities to which we have alluded in the last chapter, the expenses of which were sufficient almost to exhaust the revenues of a kingdom, lasted seven days. The prizes awarded to the victors in the lists were very costly and magnificent. The renowned dramatist Moliere accompanied the court on this occasion, to contribute to its amus.e.m.e.nt by the exhibition of his mirth-moving farces on the stage.

It was during these scenes that Louis XIV. selected Versailles as the site of the stupendous pile of buildings which was to eclipse all other palaces that had ever been reared on this globe. This magnificent structure, alike the monument of munificence in its appointments, and of infamy in the distress it imposed upon the overtaxed people, eventually swallowed up the sum of one hundred and sixty-six million of francs--thirty-three million dollars. It is to be remembered that at that day money was far more valuable, and far more difficult of acquisition than at the present time.

For seven years an army of workmen was employed on the palace, parks, and gardens. No expense was spared to carry into effect the king's designs. The park and gardens were laid out by the celebrated landscape gardener Lenotre. The plans for the palace were furnished by the distinguished architect Mansard. Over thirty thousand soldiers were called from their garrisons to a.s.sist the swarms of ordinary workmen in digging the vast excavations and constructing the immense terraces. "It is estimated that not less than forty millions sterling--two hundred million dollars--were exhausted upon the laying out of these vast domains and the erection of this superb chateau.

Such was the extraordinary vigor with which the works were pushed, that in 1685, hardly twenty-five years after its commencement, the whole was in readiness to receive its royal occupants. Here the royal family and the court resided until the Revolution of 1789. Every part of the interior as well as the exterior was ornamented with the works of the most eminent masters of the times."[L]

[Footnote L: Bradshaw's Guide through Paris and its Environs.]

The most magnificent room in the palace, called the grand gallery of Louis XIV., was two hundred and forty-two feet long, thirty-five feet broad, and forty-three feet high. The splendors of the court of Louis XIV. may be inferred from the fact that this vast apartment was daily crowded with courtiers. The characteristic vanity of the king is conspicuously developed in that he inst.i.tuted an order of n.o.bility as a reward for personal services. The one great and only privilege of its members was that they were permitted to wear a blue coat embroidered with gold and silver precisely like that worn by the king, and to follow the king in his hunting-parties and drives.

The position of Mademoiselle de la Valliere was a very painful one.

Though the austere queen-mother was so ill in her chamber that she could do but little to hara.s.s Louise, Madame Henrietta, who had been constrained to receive her as one of her maids of honor, did every thing in her power to keep her in a state of perpetual anxiety. The courtiers generally were hostile to her, from the partiality with which she was openly regarded by the king. The poor child was alone and desolate in the court, and scarcely knew an hour of joy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONVENT OF VAL DE GRACE.]

The queen-mother was rapidly sinking, devoured by a malady which not only caused her extreme bodily suffering, but, from its loathsome character, affected her sensitive nature with the most acute mental pangs. She retired to the convent of Val de Grace, where, with ever-increasing devotion as death drew near, she consecrated herself to works of piety and prayer.