Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle Part 26

[Footnote 234: Charles d'Harcourt, chevalier, afterward Comte de Beuvron, was one of those whom rumour accused of having contributed to the death of Madame.]

[Footnote 235: Monsieur had two daughters by his first marriage; Marie-Louise d'Orleans, who married, in 1679, Charles II. of Spain, and Anne-Marie de Valois, married, in 1684, to Victor-Amedee II., Duc de Savoie.]

[Footnote 236: Cf. _Memoires de Louis XIV_. "for the year 1666." Edited by Charles Dreyss.]

[Footnote 237: Cf. _Segraisiana._]

[Footnote 238: _Memoires de l'Abbe de Choisy._]

[Footnote 239: Don Miguel de Iturrieta to Don Diego de la Torre.

_Archives de la Bastille._]

[Footnote 240: _Mme. de Montespan et Louis XIV._, by P. Clement.]

[Footnote 241: _Histoire_ etc. (Bibl. Sainte-Genevieve, MS. 3208). The same version is found with slight variations in _Le Perroquet_, etc.]

[Footnote 242: _Memoires de la Fare._]

[Footnote 243: Letter dated January 26, 1680.]

[Footnote 244: Second son of Louis XIV. He died young.]

[Footnote 245: _Cf._ for this chapter, the _Melanges_ of Philibert Delamare (Bibl. Nationale, French MS. 23,251), the _Journal_ of d'Ormesson, and generally the memoirs, correspondences, pamphlets, and songs of the period.]

[Footnote 246: Philibert Delamare, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 247: _Journal_ of Olivier d'Ormesson.]

[Footnote 248: Letter to Coulanges, December 31st. The letter announcing the marriage, too well known to quote, is dated the 15th.]

[Footnote 249: _Memoires de la Fare._]

[Footnote 250: Ancient Governor of the King, who had kept a strong affection for his pupil.]

[Footnote 251: Philibert Delamare, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 252: Mme. de Maintenon, _Lettres historiques et edifiantes_; _cf. Memoire de Mlle. d'Aumale_, published by M. le Comte d'Haussonville.]

[Footnote 253: The Abbe de Choisy relates the same scene, but attributes it to the Princesse de Carignan (Marie de Bourbon-Soissons, 1666-1692).]

[Footnote 254: The French Charge d'Affaires in Sweden and Germany, _Archives de la Bastille_.]

[Footnote 255: Philibert Delamare, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 256: This exclusion probably refers to the Prince de Conde, with whom an alliance would have been considered a danger to the peace of France.]

[Footnote 257: _La Correspondance de Pomponne_ (Bibl. de l'a.r.s.enal, 4712, 1598, 11. F.), fol. 373. M. Cheruel in the appendix to volume iv.

of _the Memoires de Mademoiselle_, and M. Livet in _l'Histoire amoureuse des Gaules_, have published this letter after an inexact copy.]

[Footnote 258: Letter dated December 24, 1670.]

[Footnote 259: Letter dated December 31, ----.]

[Footnote 260: _Souvenirs et Correspondance._]

[Footnote 261: Philibert Delamare, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 262: Letter dated December 24, 1670.]

[Footnote 263: _Correspondance de Bussy-Rabutin_, published by Ludovic Lalanne.]

CHAPTER VI

Was Mademoiselle secretly Married?--Imprisonment of Lauzun--Splendour and Decadence of France--_La Chambre Ardente_--Mademoiselle purchases Lauzun's Freedom--Their Embroilment--Death of the Grande Mademoiselle--Death of Lauzun--Conclusion.

Many of the events remaining to be recorded are very obscure. If they had any importance, they would have figured in the collections of historic enigmas and problems waiting to be solved; but they hardly merit the honour, as few of them have had any such influence over the destinies of France as had, for instance, the fact of the subjection of Anne of Austria to Mazarin. Nor do any possess the romantic attraction which attached to the legend of the "Man with the Iron Mask" before its explanation. Petty details, however, bring the French society of this period near to us, and the fact that events cannot always be interpreted makes them seem more like real life. It is only in romances that all is explained.

The most obscure of these smaller problems is the question of the marriage of Mademoiselle with the "little man," as she herself called him.

Contemporary opinion has been almost unanimous in its belief in this marriage. Neither date nor place nor names of the possible witnesses have ever been satisfactorily established, as was done in the case of the union of Louis XIV. and Mme. de Maintenon. There is no written proof of the fact; Mademoiselle had the habit of burning her letters, and made no exception in favour of those from Lauzun. She states this fact with regret, in her _Memoires_. We are thus reduced to moral proofs. It is true that these are strong in favour of the event having taken place; but they are not altogether unanswerable.

The belief that a secret bond had remained, after the official rupture, rested in the mind of most people interested. One of the correspondents[264] of Bussy-Rabutin wrote to him, February 17, 1671: "Mademoiselle sometimes still weeps when she reflects, but often she laughs and is at her ease. Her lover continues to see her and no one opposes it. I do not know what will happen." Three weeks later, Mme. de Scudery made allusion to the same rumour (Paris, March 6, 1671): "Mademoiselle is always conversing with M. de Lauzun. Their conversations begin and end with tears. I a.s.sure you, however, that there will be no result." Bussy was among those who believed that it "would come to something." He replied on the 13th to Mme. de Scudery: "I am convinced that the affair of Mademoiselle and Lauzun will have a happy issue, not in the manner they at first hoped, but in a more secret method to which the King will consent."

Would Mademoiselle accept this other way? Doubt is permissible.

_Marriages of conscience_, if fashionable in the seventeenth century, created false situations, sometimes very humiliating ones, to a person not an absolute sovereign accountable to no one, and in a position to let the truth come out or not as it pleased him. For the rest of mortals, secret marriages must actually remain concealed, or there would result endless difficulties. On this account, the married pair could only meet through a happy chance, which is not agreeable, while it was also almost impossible to escape suspicious commentaries and the uncomfortable dependence upon the fidelity of servants. Segrais would never believe that Mademoiselle had married Lauzun, and one of the reasons given was "that she sent away Madelon, her chambermaid, and she would not have done this if Madelon had been able to gossip." Segrais might have added that his mistress had always severely criticised the equivocations arising from _marriages of conscience_.

But all was changed after the serious conversation between the King and Mademoiselle behind the closed doors. Mademoiselle encouraged Lauzun to a.s.sume airs of authority, and she was meekly submissive. "He regarded me with such a look that I no longer dared to weep, the power that he had over me retaining my tears. It is much wiser not to lose self-control!"

It was by his advice that she cleared her palace of all who had blamed their first plan. M. de Montausier and Mme. de Sevigne tried in vain to save Segrais, who "was their special friend." "She cannot be touched,"

wrote Mme. de Sevigne, "upon a subject which approaches to within nine hundred leagues of a certain cape."[265] It was Lauzun who designated the successor of Guillore, her Intendant, and who submitted the choice to the King. This might give rise to remark. Lauzun warned Mademoiselle of this danger. "It may be said in the world that I wish to rule you completely." She responded: "Please G.o.d that you should; that is what I profoundly desire." Mademoiselle had confirmed through new acts the lavish gifts a.s.sured by the contract, and the King rivalled his cousin in generosity. If the courtiers can be believed, Louis had promised Lauzun that he should lose nothing by _not_ marrying Mademoiselle. In any case, he heaped favours upon him. The first gift was the government of Berri, with fifty thousand francs to pay his debts and the hope that Fortune would continue her benedictions. Louvois grew anxious and ama.s.sed shiploads of hatred against the favourite.

The winter pa.s.sed in this manner. In the spring, the Court returned to Flanders. During a sojourn at Dunkerque so much was said of the intimacy of the "dwarf" with the Grande Mademoiselle, that the report reached the ears of the Princess: "The rumour is circulating that we were married before leaving Paris, and the _Gazette de Hollande_ confirms this. Some one brought the paper to me; I showed it to Lauzun, who laughed." Two pages further on, another conversation proves that the news was at least premature; but the public had the right to be deceived, so tender and familiar was the intercourse between the couple.

There was a question in this same spring of a trip to Fontainebleau:

I said to M. de Lauzun, "Take care to wear a cap when you are in the forest; the evening dew is bad for the teeth, and further you are subject to weak eyes and to catching cold. The air of Fontainebleau makes the hair fall out." He replied: "I certainly must try to preserve my teeth. I also fear cold; but as for the red eyes with which you are constantly reproaching me, they are caused by wakefulness, with which I have been troubled for some time. As for my hair, I have too little left to take further pains about it."

She preached neatness to him. "If you are slovenly, it will be said that I have bad taste. For my sake, you must be careful." Lauzun only laughed. Indeed, she scolded him through jealousy, fearing that he was escaping from her influence and going she did not know where, and perceiving this, he cajoled her. "As soon as he saw that I wished to scold him, he had unequalled methods for putting me in a good humour."

All this folly resembled a honeymoon, and the _Memoires_ of Mademoiselle for this same year include a pa.s.sage which is almost a confession. "It is still said that we are married. We neither of us say anything, it being only our particular friends who would dare to address us, and it is easy to laugh at them, only saying, 'The King knows all.'"

The conduct of Mademoiselle during the ten years following being a perpetual and striking confirmation of this half-confession, the fact of the secret marriage would seem to be a.s.sured, and the date would be placed between May and November, 1671, if it were not for a last quotation, to be given at its proper date, which again throws doubt upon the event.

Whatever the truth may be, it would appear that Mademoiselle had known how to reunite the broken fragments of her happiness; but Lauzun, for a second time, lost everything. He had easily learned that he owed the rupture of the first plan to Mme. de Montespan, and had conceived so furious a hate against this false friend that he lost his head.