Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle Part 9

Louis XIV. did not accompany his mother. Etiquette did not yet permit the new couple to address a word to each other. It had been arranged that the King of France should ride along the banks of the Bida.s.soa and that the Infanta should regard him from afar through the window. A romantic impatience which seized the husband with longing to become acquainted with his wife caused this part of the programme to fail.

Louis XIV. looked at Marie-Therese through a half-open door. They regarded each other some seconds, and then returned, she to Fontarabia, he to Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

On Sunday, the sixth, they saw each other officially at the Isle des Faisans. Affairs were but little further advanced; Philip IV. had declared that the Infanta must conceal her impressions until she arrived on French territory. On the seventh, Anne of Austria brought her daughter-in-law to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where the young people could at length converse together, awaiting the definite celebration of the marriage, which took place June 9th in the church of Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

Some days later, the Court retook the road to Paris. Marie-Therese made her solemn entrance into the capital, August 20th. The procession departed from Vincennes. "It was necessary to rise at four o'clock in the morning," reports Mademoiselle, who had a frightful sick headache.

At five o'clock, every one was in gala costume, and they reached the Louvre at seven in the evening. Mademoiselle was at the end of her endurance; but a Princess of the blood had no right to be ill on the day of a Queen's entrance. Sometimes ridiculous and sometimes ferocious; such appears ancient etiquette to our democratic generation. Monarchs formerly felt the value of its services too keenly to shrink from submitting to its dictates. They knew that a demi-G.o.d never descends with impunity from his pedestal. It is impossible to witness his efforts at remounting without laughter. To-day the Princes themselves desire less etiquette. The monarchical sentiment is not sufficiently strong to make them willing to support the ennui of ceremonial; they are capable of any sacrifice of dignity to escape it. We see them resign to others their rank and privileges in the hope of finding in obscurity the happiness which they have missed in the King's palace.

The present lack of form makes it difficult for the ma.s.s to take royalty seriously, and thus vanish together the respect for formal courtesies and for aristocracies. Louis XIV. and Philip IV. in spite of La Fontaine, were in the right in attaching capital importance to the placing their feet upon the right carpets. This precision of etiquette prolonged the existence of the monarchy.

Life retook its habitual course in the Palace of the Louvre. The King was studying a new ballet. Very few persons remarked that he found time also to make long visits upon Mazarin. The Cardinal, feeling himself in the clutches of death, was preparing his pupil for his "great trade" of sovereign. He made him acquainted with affairs, spoke to him in confidence of the people connected with the administration of the kingdom; discussed political questions, and recommended him to have no longer a first minister.[87] The one thing which he could not yet resolve to do was to permit the King to give a direct order. His dying hands would not let fall a half-crown or relax an atom of authority.

The young Queen was astonished at the money restrictions which had oppressed her since her sojourn in France; Mazarin supervised her household through the intermediary of Colbert, "who saved upon everything,"[88] and he (Mazarin) pocketed the savings. On New Year's day, he absorbed for himself three-fourths of the gifts of Marie-Therese. The Queen Mother having shown some discontent, "the poor Monsieur the Cardinal," as she called him, cried out boldly, "Alas! if she knew from whence comes this money and that it is the blood of the people, she would not be so liberal."

In vain Mazarin hastened; he did not have time to finish his task.

February 11, 1661, the King, realising that his minister was lost, began to weep and to say that he did not know what he should do. All France experienced the same fears. It did not occur to any that the King was capable of governing, or that he would take the trouble to do so. The doubt was only as to the name of the one who should take the helm in place of the Cardinal. Anne of Austria believed in chance; Conde had one party amongst the n.o.bility. The Parisian bourgeoisie said to itself that Retz was perhaps going to return from over sea "for necessity."[89] The ministers admitted that there was only one man fitted for the position.

While these various intrigues were progressing, Mazarin expired (March 6th), and some hours later there came that _coup de theatre_ of which one reads in all histories. Louis XIV. signified to his ministers and grandees his intention of himself governing. Those who knew him well, beginning with his own mother, did nothing but laugh, persuaded that it was only a fire of straw. Louis at first shut himself up entirely alone during two hours, in order to establish a "rule of life"[90] as an effective monarch. The programme resulting from this meditation surprisingly resembles the one given by Catherine de Medicis in the letter already cited. It exacts the qualities of a great worker. From that day, Louis showed these qualities. "For above all," says he in his _Memoires_, "I resolved not to have a first minister, and not to permit to be filled by another the functions belonging to the King, as long as I bear the t.i.tle."

The pa.s.sage in which he describes his "wedding" with the joy of work is moving and beautiful. It is even poetical.

I felt immediately my spirit and courage elevated. I found myself a different individual. I discovered in myself a mind which I did not know existed, and I reproached myself for having so long ignored this joy. The timidity which judgment at first gave caused me pain, above all when it was necessary to speak in public a little lengthily. This timidity, however, was dissipated little by little.

At length it seemed to me I was really King and born to rule. I experienced a sense of well-being difficult to express.

Louis would now have need of all his courage. In measure as his mind became "elevated," shame for his gross ignorance overcame him. "When reason," says he, "commences to become solid, one feels a cutting and just chagrin in finding oneself ignorant of what all others know."

The practical utility of his neglected studies was realised by him. Not to know history with his "trade" was a difficulty felt every instant.

Not to be capable of deciphering alone a Latin letter when Rome and the Empire wrote their dispatches only in Latin, was an insupportable slavery to others. Never to have read anything upon the "art of war"

when the ambition was aroused to become an expert in this art and to acquire glory through it, "was to put brakes on one's own wheels." The young King's education must be remade; the only difficulty was the finding sufficient leisure. He would not allow himself to be hindered by other difficulties, of which the princ.i.p.al one was the danger of hazarding the newly acquired authority by returning to the schoolroom.

Louis XIV. braved public opinion with remarkable courage. This is one of the finest periods of his life. He proved himself truly great by his sentiment of professional duty, and by his empire over himself, the day upon which he dared to say to himself as the bourgeois gentleman of Moliere was forced to say, knowing well the ridicule to which he was exposed: "I wish ... to be able to reason among intelligent people."

In order to do him full justice, it is necessary to remember the foolish effect at that date produced by a scholar of twenty-three.[91] Cla.s.ses were then finished at fifteen or sixteen, and the memory of them was inseparably connected with birch rods, without whose aid there was no teaching in the seventeenth century. When it was known that the King was again taking Latin lessons from his ancient preceptor, and that he pa.s.sed hours in writing themes, the courtiers might easily have had it upon the end of their tongues to demand as Mme. Jourdain of M. Jourdain: "Are you at your age going to college to be whipped?"

He did not console himself with the illusion that his rank would save him from such railleries. He confesses _a propos_ of history, which he wished to study again, how keenly sensitive he was to the thought of what might be said. "One single scruple embarra.s.sed me, which was, that I had a certain shame, considering my position in the world, of redescending into an occupation to which I should earlier have devoted myself." Everything had yielded to the desire "not to be deprived of the knowledge that every worthy man should have."

In spite of these efforts, Louis was never educated; he never knew Latin, which was deemed the real knowledge of the seventeenth century, in which century the language was well taught. Too much business or too many pleasures prevented the young King from pursuing his design during a sufficiently long period. It is possible, also, that his lack of natural facility may have discouraged him. Louis XIV. had memory and judgment, but his intelligence was slow. In short, he abandoned his studies too soon; he felt, and repeated till the day of his death the confession, "I am ignorant."

But Louis never relaxed the labours belonging to him as chief of the State. His days were regulated once for all. Mme. de Motteville tells the arrangement the day following the death of Mazarin. Saint-Simon gives it again a half-century later, and it is identical. Apart from extraordinary and unexpected business, and formal functions, so numerous and important at this epoch, the King regularly devoted six to eight hours daily to ordinary business. Add to these hours the time for sleeping and eating, for seeing his family and taking the fresh air, and but little time would have been left for diversion if the King had not had the capacity of doing without sleep almost at will. It was this physical gift which permitted him to provide as largely for pleasure as for work. Nevertheless, the Court had trouble in adapting itself to the new regime. It did not know what to do while the King worked.

"It is more wearisome here than can be imagined," wrote the Duc d'Enghien, son of the great Conde, in 1664. "The King is shut up almost the entire afternoon."[92] Outside the Court, the people could have cried with joy. It had been a delightful surprise to discover a great worker in this ballet dancer. Paris was ready to permit him to indulge in his little weaknesses, provided that he would govern, that he himself would use his power. The bourgeoisie Frondeuse was disarmed.

It is necessary [wrote Guy Patin to a friend] that I should share with you a thought which I find very amusing. M. de Vendome has said that our good King resembles a young doctor who has much ardour for his profession, but who demands some _quid pro quo_. I know those who see him intimately, who have a.s.sured me that he has very good intentions and, that as soon as he is _completely the master_, he will persuade all the world of them. Amen.[93]

The italicised words are significant of the opinion of Guy Patin. In establishing absolute monarchy, Louis XIV. had the good wishes of all.

Other testimony quite as remarkable exists to confirm this statement.

After the death of Mazarin, Olivier d'Ormesson, who had been of the opposition party in the Parliament, and whose independence would soon cost him his career, let three entire years roll by before admitting any statement in his journal to the detriment of the King. This writer also believes in Louis, and, on the whole, approves of the compensations (_quid pro quo_) demanded by the governing novice.

After the first astonishment, the sudden change in Louis's methods provoked but few commentaries in the immediate surroundings of the King.

Anne of Austria had a fit of vexation in realising that she would never again have any influence; after which, indolence aiding, her course was taken. The Queen Mother had no objection on principle to absolute monarchy: she had always favoured it. She could not, as a Spanish Princess, conceive of royalty being the least limited. Once resigned to the new situation, she became a truly maternal old Queen, who preached virtue to youth, and endeavoured to lighten the monotony of her daughter-in-law's life.

Marie-Therese had only one single political opinion; good government was that under which a king could pa.s.s much time with his wife. This poor little wife died without having ever really lived with her husband.

Mademoiselle had no reason to regret the first ministers; there had been too little reason to enjoy the two with whom she had had intercourse.

She imagined herself liberated from all dependence through the death of the Cardinal, succeeding that of her father, and this thought was most agreeable to her. She did not perceive that she had only changed masters, and that the new one would prove himself infinitely more difficult to please, more exacting, than that sceptical Italian who confined himself to watching that she did not carry away her millions to strangers and who simply mocked at everything else.

Mademoiselle finally pa.s.sed through the state of apprenticeship to absolute monarchy. Her eyes were opened only on the day on which the thunder cloud burst upon her.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 35: See the _Memoires de Louis XIV._, edited by Charles Dreyss. The _Memoires_ of Louis XIV. were not written by himself. He dictated them to his secretaries afterward adding notes in his own handwriting and correcting the proofs. See the _Introduction_ by M.

Dreyss.]

[Footnote 36: _Memoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Memoires de Montglat._]

[Footnote 37: Montglat.]

[Footnote 38: _Id._]

[Footnote 39: Letters of January 3, 1717, of September 27, 1718, and of July, 1722. Madame adds in this last: "Now, all the circ.u.mstances are known."]

[Footnote 40: Letter to the Queen, Anne of Austria, October 27, 1651.]

[Footnote 41: March 23, 1865, Pere Theiner, Guardian of the Secret Archives of the Vatican, replied to some one who had pressed the question: "Our acts of December 16, 1641, in which Jules Mazarin was created Cardinal, do not say whether or not he was a priest. How could he then have been admitted to the order of Cardinal-priest? No doubt he was a priest." The letter of Pere Theiner has been published by M. Jules Loiseleur in his _Problemes historiques_.]

[Footnote 42: _Letters of Madame de Maintenon_ edited by Geoffroy.]

[Footnote 43: For further details see the excellent volume of M.

Lacour-Gayet, _L'education politique de Louis XIV._]

[Footnote 44: December 24th, _Relations des amba.s.sadeurs venitiens_.]

[Footnote 45: The letter is dated April 21, 1654. Louis XIV. was then fifteen and a half years of age.]

[Footnote 46: Mme. de Motteville had heard him express the same idea.

_Cf._ his _Memoires_, v., 101, ed. Pet.i.tot.]

[Footnote 47: _Les fragments des memoires inedits_ by Dubois, valet of Louis XIV., published by Leon Aubineau in the _Biblotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, and in his _Notices litteraires_ upon the 17th century.]

[Footnote 48: _Cf._ Lacour-Gayet, p. 203.]

[Footnote 49: M. Dreyss dates the writing of this portion of the _Memoires_ about 1670.]

[Footnote 50: Letters of June 9, 1654, and April 9, 1658.]

[Footnote 51: _Segraisiana._ Louis XIV. was seventeen when he made this remark.]

[Footnote 52: _Journal de voyage de deux jeunes Hollandais a Paris_ (1656-1658).]