Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle Part 31

If absolute royalty had remained at Paris, it would have clearly realised the point at which the nation no longer was in sympathy with its rule. At Versailles it saw nothing; it shut itself up in its own tomb. The divorce was consummated between the Court and the Capital, one contenting itself with being figurative and ornamental, the other actively controlling opinions, since royalty had renounced the office of directing the public mind and thoughts.

It will be recollected that the role of universal arbitrator was played by the "young Court," the youthful King at its head, at the time in which there was daily contact with Paris, and when the Court was always in the advance in ideas as in fashions. The residence at Versailles ended the possibility of these times ever returning; there was no longer any bond between the King of France and the merchant of the rue St.

Denis. In consequence, Paris employed itself in the eighteenth century in the evolution of minds. The Court had decided upon the success of the plays of Moliere, the Parisian parquet criticised those of Beaumarchais.

If it be considered that the interior politics of Louis XIV. were constantly dominated by a horror of the Fronde, it will be recognised that this abortive revolution brought in its train consequences almost as grave as if it had been successful. This is the reason it has seemed permissible to make the history of the ideas and sentiments existing during the wars of the Fronde and the succeeding forty years circle around the incidents in the life of the Grande Mademoiselle. She was a truly representative figure of this generation, and on this account will always merit the attention of historians, and by a double claim, through the interest in her proud conception of life, and through the importance of the evil for which she was partly responsible and by the results of which she was herself overwhelmed. No one possessed in a higher degree than this Princess the great qualities belonging to her epoch, and no one preserved them so intact without thought of the danger after the retaining of such opinions had become a cause of disgrace.

Neither Retz nor the great Conde showed signs in their old age of their characteristics displayed under the Fronde; both had become calmed. The Grande Mademoiselle remained always the Grande Mademoiselle, and this steadfastness, while sometimes a difficulty, was more often her real t.i.tle to glory.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 264: M. du Honsett, Ancient Intendant of Finance. He had just purchased the office of Chancellor of Monsieur.]

[Footnote 265: Letter dated April 1, 1671.]

[Footnote 266: Letter dated January 13, 1672.]

[Footnote 267: _Memoires de La Fare._ _Cf._ the _Memoires de Choisy, Segraisiana_, etc.]

[Footnote 268: Louvois had visited Pignerol the preceding year.]

[Footnote 269: The authorities quoted in this and the following chapter, upon the captivity of Lauzun, are in part unpublished and drawn from the Archives of the Minister of War, in part borrowed from the _Archives de la Bastille_, by M. Ravaisson. See also a collection of historic doc.u.ments of 1829: _Histoire de la Detention des Philosophes_, by J.

Delort.]

[Footnote 270: Mme. de Montespan and Mlle. de La Valliere were designated briefly "_les Dames_."]

[Footnote 271: This letter has been lost or destroyed.]

[Footnote 272: Louvois to Saint-Mars, March 2, 1676.]

[Footnote 273: The letter from Saint-Mars (March 23, 1680) giving an account of the communications between the dungeons has never been found, any more than that telling of the flight of Lauzun.]

[Footnote 274: Louvois to Saint-Mars, November 28, 1679.]

[Footnote 275: Leopold von Ranke, _Histoire de France_.]

[Footnote 276: _Journal d'Olivier Lefevre d'Ormesson._]

[Footnote 277: Two years after this warning Louis XIV. gave at Versailles, in honour of Mme. de Montespan, a fete for which special buildings were created. The ballroom, only used _one night_, was marble and porphyry; the rest in accordance.]

[Footnote 278: A loss of more than 100,000 crowns was not rare at the gaming table of the King. March 6, 1670, Mme. de Montespan lost 400,000 pistoles in one night; at eight in the morning she regained 500,000. The pistole is worth about ten francs. In 1682, three years after her disgrace, she lost at one time 700,000 crowns which she did not regain.

The King paid her debts.]

[Footnote 279: Letter of Mme. de Chatrier, attached to the House of Conde; _De La Valliere a Montespan_, by Jean Lemoine and Andre Lichtenberger.]

[Footnote 280: Letter from Colbert to the Intendant de Rochefort (April 16, 1678).]

[Footnote 281: _Memoires de la Fare._]

[Footnote 282: _Memoires de Mlle. de Montpensier._]

[Footnote 283: _Memoires de l'Abbe de Choisy._]

[Footnote 284: _Souvenirs sur Mme. de Maintenon._--_Les Cahiers de Mlle.

d'Aumale_, with an introduction by M. G. Hanotaux.]

[Footnote 285: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 286: Letter to the Marquis de Trichateau.]

[Footnote 287: Note by La Reynie (December 27, 1679). The doc.u.ments of the _Affaire des poisons_ form more than 1300 pages of the _Archives de la Bastille_, and they are not complete. Certain especial depositions, particularly compromising for Mme. de Montespan, are lacking, and were probably burned by order of Louis XIV.]

[Footnote 288: Louvois to Boucherat, President of the _Chambre_, February 4, 1680.]

[Footnote 289: It included the Comtesse de Soissons, the Marquise d'Alluye (the King saved both), the Duc de Luxembourg (victim of an error), the Vicomtesse de Polignac, the Marquis de Feuquieres, the Princesse de Tingry, the Marechale de la Ferte, the d.u.c.h.esse de Bouillon, etc.]

[Footnote 290: Cf. _Archives de la Bastille_, the "_Note autographe_" of La Reynie, dated September 17, 1679. Was this the first time that these names had appeared? The destruction of portions of the testimony through the orders of the King does not permit the real truth to be disclosed.]

[Footnote 291: Louvois to M. Robert, January 15, 1680.]

[Footnote 292: She died there September 8, 1686. Cato seems to have been dismissed, although she had been placed with Mme. de Montespan by La Voisin.]

[Footnote 293: Marie-Anne-Christine de Baviere, coming to marry the Grand Dauphin.]

[Footnote 294: Cf. _Les souvenirs de Mme. de Caylus_ and--among others--the letter of Mme. de Sevigne dated July 17, 1680.]

[Footnote 295: _Mme. de Montespan et Louis XIV._]

[Footnote 296: _Louis XIV., sa Cour et le Regent_, by Anquetil (Paris, 1789).]

[Footnote 297: The gift to be enjoyed only after the death of Mademoiselle.]

[Footnote 298: _Memoires de Saint-Simon._]

[Footnote 299: Saint-Simon, _ecrits inedits_.]

[Footnote 300: At Chalon-sur-Saone.]

[Footnote 301: Exactly, according to the official figures, 284,940 francs.]

[Footnote 302: The coat called a _brevet_, because it could only be worn with a _brevet_ from the King, was changed every year. It was thus very out of fashion at the end of twelve years. Lauzun had worn a wig at Pignerol, to protect his head against the dampness of his dungeon.]

[Footnote 303: _ecrits inedits_, Saint-Simon.]

[Footnote 304: Saint-Simon, _Memoires_. Saint-Simon takes his details from an eye-witness.]

[Footnote 305: Saint-Simon, _ecrits inedits_.]