Love affairs of the Courts of Europe Part 18

Under Madame de Mailly's rule the Court of Versailles awoke to a new life. "The little apartments grow animated, gay to the point of licence.

Noise, merriment, an even gayer and livelier clash of gla.s.ses, madder nights." Fete succeeded fete in brilliant sequence. Each night saw its Royal debauch, with the King and his mistress for arch-spirits of the revels. There were nightly banquets, with the rarest wines and the most costly viands, supplemented by salads prepared by the dainty hands of Mademoiselle de Charolois, and ragouts cooked by Louis himself in silver saucepans. And these were followed by orgies which left the celebrants, in the last excesses of intoxication, to be gathered up at break of day and carried helpless to bed.

Such wild excesses could not fail sooner or later to bring satiety to a lover so unstable as Louis; and it was not long before he grew a little weary of his mistress, who, too a.s.sured of her conquest, began to exhibit sudden whims and caprices, and fits of obstinacy. Her jealous eyes followed him everywhere, her reproaches, if he so much as smiled on a rival beauty, provoked daily quarrels. He was drawn, much against his will, into her family disputes, and into the disgraceful affairs of her father, the dissolute Marquis de Nesle.

Meanwhile Madame de Mailly's supremacy was being threatened in a most unexpected quarter. Among the pupils of the convent school at Port Royal was a young girl, in whose ambitious brain the project was forming of supplanting the King's favourite, and of ruling France and Louis at the same time. The idle dream of a schoolgirl, of course! But to Felicite de Nesle it was no vain dream, but the ambition of a lifetime, which dominated her more and more as the months pa.s.sed in her convent seclusion. If her sister, Madame de Mailly, had so easily made a conquest of the King, why should she, with less beauty, it is true, but with a much cleverer brain, despair? And thus it was that every letter Madame received from her "little sister" pleaded for an invitation to Court, until at last Mademoiselle de Nesle found herself the guest of Louis' mistress in his palace.

Thus the first important step was taken. The rest would be easy; for Mademoiselle never doubted for a moment her ability to carry out her programme to its splendid climax. It was certainly a bold, almost impudent design; for the girl of the convent had few attractions to appeal to a monarch so surrounded by beauty as the King of France. What the courtiers saw, says the Duc de Richelieu, was "a long neck clumsily set on the shoulders, a masculine figure and carriage, features not unlike those of Madame de Mailly, but thinner and harder, which exhibited none of her flashes of kindness, her tenderness of pa.s.sion."

Even her manners seemed calculated to repel, rather than attract the man she meant to conquer; for she treated him, from the first, with a familiarity amounting almost to rudeness, and a wilfulness to which he was by no means accustomed. There was, at any rate, something novel and piquant in an att.i.tude so different from that of all other Court ladies.

Resentment was soon replaced by interest, and interest by attraction; until Louis, before he was aware of it, began to find the society of the impish, mocking, defiant maid from the convent more to his taste than that of the most fascinating women of his Court.

The more he saw of her, the more effectually he came under her spell.

Each day found her in some new and tantalising mood; and as she drew him more and more into her toils, she kept him there by her ingenuity in devising novel pleasures and entertainments for him, until, within a month of setting eyes on her, he was telling Madame de Mailly, he "loved her sister more than herself." One of the first evidences of his favour was to provide her with a husband in the Comte de Vintimille, and a dower of two hundred thousand livres. He promised her a post as lady-in-waiting to Madame la Dauphine and gave her a sumptuous suite of rooms at Versailles. He even conferred on her husband the honour of handing him his shirt on the wedding-night, an evidence of high favour such as no other bridegroom had enjoyed.

It was thus little surprise to anyone to find the Comtesse-bride not only her sister's most formidable rival, but actually usurping her place and privileges. Nor was it long before this place, on which she had set her heart first within the walls of the Port Royal Convent, was una.s.sailably hers; and Madame de Mailly, in tears and sadness, saw an unbridgeable gulf widen between her and the man she undoubtedly had grown to love.

That Felicite de Nesle had not over-estimated her powers of conquest was soon apparent. Louis became her abject slave, humouring her caprices and submitting to her will. And this will, let it be said to her credit, she exercised largely for his good. She weaned him from his vicious ways; she stimulated whatever good remained in him; she tried, and in a measure succeeded in making a man of him. Under her influence he began to realise that he was a King, and to play his exalted part more worthily. He a.s.serted himself in a variety of directions, from looking personally after the ordering of his household to taking the reins of State into his own hands.

Nor did she curtail his pleasures. She merely gave them a saner direction. Orgies and midnight revelry became things of the past, but their place was taken by delightful days spent at the Chateau of Choisy, that regal little pleasure-house between the waters of the Seine and the Forest of Senart, with all its marvels of costly and artistic furnishing. Here one entertainment succeeded another, from the hunting which opened, to the card-games which closed the day. A time of innocent delights which came sweet to the jaded palate of the King.

Thus the halcyon months pa.s.sed, until, one August day in 1741, the Comtesse was seized with a slight fever; Louis, consumed by anxiety, spending the anxious hours by her bedside or pacing the corridor outside. Two days later he was stooping to kiss an infant presented to him on a cushion of cramoisi velvet. His happiness was crowned at last, and life spread before him a prospect of many such years. But tragedy was already brooding over this scene of pleasure, although none, least of all the King, seemed to see the shadow of her wings.

One early day in December, Madame de Vintimille was seized with a severe illness, as sudden as it was mysterious. Physicians were hastily summoned from Paris, only, to Louis' despair, to declare that they could do nothing to save the life of the Comtesse. "Tortured by excruciating pain," says de Goncourt, "struggling against a death which was full of terror, and which seemed to point to the violence of poison, the dying woman sent for a confessor. She died almost instantly in his arms before the Sacraments could be administered. And as the confessor, charged with the dead woman's last penitent message to her sister, entered Madame de Mailly's _salon_, he dropped dead."

Here, indeed, was tragedy in its most sudden and terrible form! The King was stunned, incredulous. He refused to believe that the woman he had so lately clasped in his arms, so warm, so full of life, was dead. And when at last the truth broke on him with crushing force, he was as a man distraught. "He shut himself up in his room, and listened half-dead to a Ma.s.s from his bed." He would not allow any but the priest to come near him; he repulsed all efforts at consolation.

And whilst Louis was thus alone with his demented grief, "thrust away in a stable of the palace, lay the body of the dead woman, which had been kept for a cast to be taken; that distorted countenance, that mouth which had breathed out its soul in a convulsion, so that the efforts of two men were required to close it for moulding, the already decomposing remains of Madame de Vintimille served as a plaything and a laughing-stock to the children and lackeys."

When the storm of his grief at last began to abate, the King retired to his remote country-seat of Saint Leger, carrying his broken heart with him--and also Madame de Mailly, as sharer of his sorrow; for it was to the woman whom he had so lightly discarded that he first turned for solace. At Saint Leger he pa.s.sed his days in reading and re-reading the two thousand letters the dead Comtesse had written to him, sprinkling their perfumed pages with his tears. And when he was not thus burying himself in the past, he was a prey to the terrors that had obsessed his childhood--the fear of death and of h.e.l.l.

At supper--the only meal which he shared with others, he refused to touch meat, "in order that he might not commit sin on every side"; if a light word was spoken he would rebuke the speaker by talk of death and judgment; and if his eyes met those of Madame de Mailly, he burst into tears and was led sobbing from the room.

The communion of grief gradually awoke in him his old affection for Madame de Mailly; and for a time it seemed not unlikely that she might regain her lost supremacy. But the discarded mistress had many enemies at Court, who were by no means willing to see her re-established in favour--the chief of them, the Duc de Richelieu, the handsomest man and the "hero" of more scandalous amours than any other in France--a man, moreover, of crafty brain, who had already acquired an ascendancy over the King's mind.

With Madame de Tencin, a woman as scheming and with as evil a reputation as himself, for chief ally, the Due determined to find another mistress who should finally oust Madame de Mailly from Louis' favour; and her he found in a woman, devoted to himself and his interests, and of such surpa.s.sing loveliness that, when the King first saw her at Pet.i.t Bourg, he exclaimed, "Heavens! how beautiful she is!"

Such was the involuntary tribute Louis paid at first sight to the charms of Madame de la Tournelle, who was now fated to take the place of her dead sister, Madame de Vintimille, just as the Comtesse had supplanted another sister, Madame de Mailly.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE RIVAL SISTERS--_continued_

Louis XV.'s involuntary exclamation when he first set eyes on the loveliness of Madame de la Tournelle, "Heavens! how beautiful she is!"

becomes intelligible when we look on Nattier's picture of this fairest of the de Nesle sisters in his "Allegory of the Daybreak," and read the contemporary descriptions of her charms.

"She ravished the eye," we are told, "with her skin of dazzling whiteness, her elegant carriage, her free gestures, the enchanting glance of her big blue eyes--a gaze of which the cunning was veiled by sentiment--by the smile of a child, moist lips, a bosom surging, heaving, ever agitated by the flux and reflux of life, by a physiognomy at once pa.s.sionate and mutinous." And to these seductions were added a sunny temperament, an infectious gaiety of spirit, and a playful wit which made her infinitely attractive to men much less susceptible that the amorous Louis.

It is little wonder then that in the reaction which followed his stormy grief for his dead love, the Comtesse de Vintimille, he should turn from the lachrymose companionship of Madame de Mailly to bask in the sunshine of this third of the beautiful sisters, Madame de la Tournelle, and that the wish to possess her should fire his blood. But Madame de la Tournelle was not to prove such an easy conquest as her two sisters, who had come almost unasked to his arms.

At the time when she came thus dramatically into his life she was living with Madame de Mazarin, a strong-minded woman who had no cause to love Louis, who had thwarted and opposed him more than once, and who was determined at any cost to keep her protegee and pet out of his clutches.

And his desires had also two other stout opponents in Cardinal Fleury, his old mentor, and Maurepas, the most subtle and clever of his ministers, each of whom for different reasons was strongly averse to this new and dangerous liaison, which would make him the tool of Richelieu's favourite and Richelieu's party.

Thus, for months, Louis found himself baffled in all his efforts to win the prize on which he had set his heart until, in September, 1742, one formidable obstacle was removed from his path by the death of Madame de Mazarin. To Madame de la Tournelle the loss of her protectress was little short of a calamity, for it left her not only homeless, but practically penniless; and, in her extremity, she naturally turned hopeful eyes to the King, of whose pa.s.sion she was well aware. At least, she hoped, he might give her some position at his Court which would rescue her from poverty. When she begged Maurepas, Madame de Mazarin's kinsman and heir, to appeal to the King on her behalf, his answer was to order her and her sister, Madame de Flavacourt, to leave the Hotel Mazarin, thus making her plight still more desperate.

But, fortunately, in this hour of her greatest need she found an unexpected friend in Louis' ill-used Queen, who, ignorant of her husband's infatuation for the beautiful Madame de la Tournelle, sent for her, spoke gracious words of sympathy to her, and announced her intention of installing her in Madame de Mazarin's place as a lady of the palace. Thus did fortune smile on Madame just when her future seemed darkest. But her troubles were by no means at an end. Fleury and Maurepas were more determined than ever that the King should not come into the power of a woman so alluring and so dangerous; and they exhausted every expedient to put obstacles in her path and to discover and support rival claimants to the post.

For once, however, Louis was adamant. He had not waited so long and feverishly for his prize to be baulked when it seemed almost in his grasp. Madame de la Tournelle should have her place at his Court, and it would not be his fault if she did not soon fill one more exalted and intimate. Thus it was that when Fleury submitted to him the list of applicants, with la Tournelle's name at the bottom, he promptly re-wrote it at the head of the list, and handed it back to the Cardinal with the words, "The Queen is decided, and wishes to give her the place."

We can picture Madame de Mailly's distress and suspense while these negotiations were proceeding. She had, as we have seen in the previous chapter, been supplanted by one sister in the King's affection; and just as she was recovering some of her old position in his favour, she was threatened with a second dethronement by another sister. In her alarm she flew to Madame de la Tournelle, to set her fears at rest one way or the other. "Can it be possible that you are going to take my place?" she asked, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Quite impossible, my sister," answered Madame, with a smile; and Madame de Mailly, thus rea.s.sured, returned to Versailles the happiest woman in France--to learn, a few days later, that it was not only possible, it was an accomplished fact. For the second time, and now, as she knew well, finally, she was ousted from the affection of the King she loved so sincerely; and again it was a sister who had done her this grievous wrong. She was determined, however, that she would not quit the field without a last fight, and she knew she had doughty champions in Fleury and Maurepas, who still refused to acknowledge defeat.

Although Madame de la Tournelle was now installed in the palace, the day of Louis' conquest had not arrived. The gratification of his pa.s.sion was still thwarted in several directions. Not only was Madame de Mailly's presence a difficulty and a reproach to him; his new favourite was by no means willing to respond to his advances. Her heart was still engaged to the Due d'Agenois, and was not hers to dispose of. Richelieu, however, was quick to dispose of this difficulty. He sent the handsome Duc to Languedoc, exposed him to the attractions of a pretty woman, and before many weeks had pa.s.sed, was able to show Madame de la Tournelle pa.s.sionate letters addressed to her rival by her lover, as evidence of the worthlessness of his vows; thus arming her pride against him and disposing her at last to lend a more favourable ear to the King.

As for Madame de Mailly, her shrift was short. In spite of her tears, her pleadings, her caresses, Louis made no concealment of his intention to be rid of her. "No sorrow, no humiliation was lacking in the death-struggle of love. The King spared her nothing. He did not even spare her those harsh words which snap the bonds of the most vulgar liaisons." And the climax came when he told the heart-broken woman, as she cringed pitifully at his feet, "You must go away this very day." "My sacrifices are finished," she sobbed, a little later to the "Judas,"

Richelieu, when, with friendly words, he urged her to humour the King and go away at least for a time; "it will be my death, but I will be in Paris to-night."

And while Madame de Mailly was carrying her crushed heart through the darkness to her exile, the King and Richelieu, disguised in large perukes and black coats, were stealing across the great courtyards to the rooms of Madame de la Tournelle, where the King's long waiting was to have its reward. And, the following day, the usurper was callously writing to a friend, "Doubtless Meuse will have informed you of the trouble I had in ousting Madame de Mailly; at last I obtained a mandate to the effect that she was not to return until she was sent for."

"No portrait," says de Goncourt, referring to this letter, "is to be compared with such a confession. It is the woman herself with the cynicism of her hardness, her shameless and cold-blooded ingrat.i.tude....

It is as though she drives her sister out by the two shoulders with those words which have the coa.r.s.e energy of the lower orders."

Louis, at last happy in the achievement of his desire, was not long in discovering that in the third of the Nesle sisters he had his hands more full than with either of her predecessors. Madame de Mailly and the Comtesse de Vintimille had been content to play the role of mistress, and to receive the King's none too lavish largesse with grat.i.tude.

Madame de la Tournelle was not so complaisant, so easily satisfied. She intended--and she lost no time in making the King aware of her intention--to have her position recognised by the world at large, to reign as Montespan had reigned, to have the Treasury placed at her disposal, and her children, if she had any, made legitimate. Her last stipulation was that she should be made a d.u.c.h.ess before the end of the year. And to all these proposals Louis gave a meek a.s.sent.

To show further her independence, she soon began to drive her lover to distraction by her caprices and her temper: "She tantalised, at once rebuffed and excited the King by the most adroit comedies and those coquetries which are the strength of her s.e.x, a.s.suring him that she would be delighted if he would transfer his affection to other ladies."

And while the favourite was thus revelling in the insolence of her conquest, her supplanted sister was eating out her heart in Paris. "Her despair was terrible; the trouble of her heart refused consolation, begged for solitude, found vent every moment in cries for Louis. Those who were around her trembled for her reason, for her life.... Again and again she made up her mind to start for the Court, to make a final appeal to the King, but each time, when the carriage was ready, she burst into tears and fell back upon her bed."

As for Louis, chilled by the coldness of his mistress, distracted by her whims and rages, his heart often yearned for the woman he had so cruelly discarded; and separation did more than all her tears and caresses could have done, to awake again the love he fancied was dead.

When Madame de la Tournelle paid her first visit as _Maitresse en t.i.tre_ to Choisy, nothing would satisfy her but an escort of the n.o.blest ladies in France, including a Princess of the Blood. Her progress was that of a Queen; and in return for this honour, wrung out of the King's weakness, she repaid him with weeks of coldness and ill-humour. She refused to play at _cavagnol_ with him; she barricaded herself in her room, refusing to open to all her lover's knocking; and vented her vapours on him with, or without, provocation, until, as she considered, she had reduced him to a becoming submission. Then she used her power and her coquetries to wheedle out of him one concession after another, including a promise by the King to return unopened any letters Madame de Mailly might send to him. Nor was she content until her sister was finally disposed of by the grant of a small pension and a modest lodging in the Luxembourg.

Before the year closed Madame de la Tournelle was installed in the most luxurious apartments at Versailles, and Louis, now completely caught in her toils, was the slave of her and his senses, flinging himself into all the licence of pa.s.sion, and reviving the nightly debauches from which the dead Comtesse had weaned him. And while her lover was thus steeped in sensuality, his mistress was, with infinite tact, pursuing her ambition. Affecting an indifference to affairs of State, she was gradually, and with seeming reluctance, worming herself into the position of chief Counsellor, and while professing to despise money she was draining the exchequer to feed her extravagance.

Never was King so hopelessly in the toils of a woman as Louis, the well-beloved, in those of Madame de la Tournelle. He accepted as meekly as a child all her coldness and caprices, her jealousies and her rages; and was ideally happy when, in a gracious mood, she would allow him to a.s.sist at her toilette as the reward for some regal present of diamonds, horses, or gowns.

It was after one such privileged hour that Louis, with childish pleasure, handed to his favourite the patent, creating her d.u.c.h.esse de Chateauroux, enclosed in a casket of gold; and with it a rapturous letter in which he promised her a pension of eighty-thousand livres, the better to maintain her new dignity!

Having thus achieved her greatest ambition, the d.u.c.h.esse (as we must now call her) aspired to play a leading part in the affairs of Europe.

France and Prussia were leagued in war against the forces of England, Austria, and Holland. This was a seductive game in which to take a hand, and thus we find her stimulating the sluggard kingliness in her lover, urging him to leave his debauches and to lead his armies to victory, a.s.suring him of the grat.i.tude and admiration of his subjects. Nothing less, she told him, would save his country from disaster.

To this appeal and temptation Louis was not slow to respond; and in May, 1744, we find him, to the delight of his soldiers and all France, at the seat of war, reviewing his troops, speaking words of high courage to them, visiting hospitals and canteens, and actually sending back a haughty message to the Dutch: "I will give you your answer in Flanders."

No wonder the army was roused to enthusiasm, or that it exclaimed with one voice, "At last we have found a King!"

So strong was Louis in his new martial resolve that he actually refused Madame de Chateauroux permission to accompany him. France was delighted that at last her King had emanc.i.p.ated himself from petticoat influence, but the delight was short-lived, for before he had been many days in camp the d.u.c.h.esse made her stately appearance, and saws and hammers were at work making a covered way between the house a.s.signed to her and that occupied by the King. A fortnight later Ypres had fallen, and she was writing to Richelieu, "This is mighty pleasant news and gives me huge pleasure. I am overwhelmed with joy, to take Ypres in nine days.

You can think of nothing more glorious, more flattering to the King; and his great-grandfather, great as he was, never did the like!"