Political Women Volume I Part 13

One graceful memento of Madame de Chatillon's power over Conde has descended to our own day. At Chatillon-sur-Loing, in what remains of the ancient chateau of the Colignys, which Isabelle de Montmorency derived from her husband and left to her brother, in that salon of the n.o.ble heir of the Luxembourgs, as precious for history as for art, wherein may be seen collected together, by the side of the sword of the Constable Anne, the likeness of Luxembourg on horseback, with his proud and piercing glance, as well as the full-length portrait of Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, Princess de Conde, in widow's weeds, there is also a large and magnificent picture, representing a young woman of ravishing beauty, with perfectly regular features, with the loveliest bright chestnut hair, grey eyes of the softest expression, a swan-like neck, of a slight and graceful figure, painted with a natural grandeur, and embellished with all the attractions of youth, enhanced by an exquisite air of coquetry. She is seated in an easy att.i.tude. One of her hands, carelessly extended, holds a bouquet of flowers; the other rests upon the mane of a lion, whose head is drawn full-face, and whose flaming eyes are unmistakably the terrible eyes of Conde when seen with his sword drawn. Here we behold the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess de Chatillon at twenty-five or twenty-six, and very nearly such as she has taken care to describe herself in the _Divers Portraits_ of Mademoiselle de Montpensier. The head stands out wonderfully. It would be impossible to instance a more charming countenance, but it is somewhat deficient in character and grandeur, and quite different from that of Madame de Longueville. The latter's face was not so regularly symmetrical, but it wore a far loftier expression, and an air of supreme distinction characterised her entire person.

Madame de Chatillon and Madame de Longueville had been brought up together, and very much attached during the whole of their early youth.

By degrees there sprung up a rivalry of beauty between them, and they quarrelled thoroughly when Madame de Longueville perceived after the death of Chatillon, that the young and beautiful widow, at the same time that she was welcoming very decidedly the homage of the Duke de Nemours, had also evident designs upon Conde. Madame de Longueville had her own reasons for not being then very severe upon others, but she knew the self-seeking heart of the fair d.u.c.h.ess, and she was alarmed for her brother's sake. She feared lest Madame de Chatillon, having great need of Court favour, might retain Conde in the engagements which he had with Mazarin, while she herself was forced to drag him into the Fronde. The quarrel was renewed in 1651, as we have seen, and it was in full force in 1652. Madame de Chatillon and Madame de Longueville were then disputing for Conde's heart: the one drew him towards the Court, fully hoping that the Court would not be ungrateful to her; the other urged him more and more upon the path of war. We have related how Madame de Longueville, well knowing the strength of Conde's friendship for the Duke de Nemours, who was in the chains of the d.u.c.h.ess, very inopportunely mingled politics and coquetry in Berri, and tried the power of her charms upon Nemours, in order to carry him off from Madame de Chatillon and from the party of peace. No one ever knew how far Madame de Longueville committed herself on that occasion; but, as we have remarked, the slightest appearance was enough for La Rochefoucauld.

As he had only sought his own advantage in the Fronde, not finding it therein, he began to grow tired, and asked for nothing better than to put an end to the wandering and adventurous life he had been for some years leading by a favourable reconciliation. Madame de Longueville's conduct in cutting him to the quick in what remained of his tender feelings for her, and especially in the most sensitive portion of his heart--its vanity and self-love--gave him an opportunity or a pretext, which he seized upon with eagerness, to break off a _liaison_ become contrary to his interests. Thus, in April, 1652, when he returned to Paris with Conde, and there found Madame de Chatillon, he entered at once into all her prejudices and all her designs, as he afterwards owned to Madame de Motteville:[2] he placed at her service all that was in him of skill and ability, and descended to the indulgence of a revenge against Madame de Longueville wholly unworthy of an honourable man, and which after the lapse of two centuries is as revolting to every right-minded person as it was to his contemporaries.

[2] Mad. de Motteville, tom. v. p. 132. "M. de la Rochefoucauld m'a dit que la jalousie et la vengeance le firent agir soigneus.e.m.e.nt, et qu'il fit tout ce que Mad. de Chatillon voulut."

Madame de Chatillon was not contented with carrying off the giddy and inconstant Duke de Nemours from his new love, then absent; she exacted at his hands the public and outrageous sacrifice of her rival. The reprisals of feminine vanity did not stop there: the ambitious and intriguing d.u.c.h.ess went further, she undertook to ruin Madame de Longueville in her brother's estimation. With that object she set herself, with the a.s.sistance of La Rochefoucauld, to decry her in every way to him, and sought even to persuade him that his sister was not attached to him as she made it appear, and that she had promised the Duke de Nemours to serve him at his expense; whilst Madame de Longueville had never dreamed in any way of separating Nemours from Conde, but only from her, Madame de Chatillon, purposely to engage him more deeply in Conde's interests, in the light that she understood them.

Madame de Longueville's policy was very simple, and it was the true one, the Fronde once admitted. a.s.suredly, it would have been better alike for Madame de Longueville, for Conde, and for France not to have entered upon that fatal path by which the national greatness was for ten years arrested, and through which the house of Conde very nearly perished; but, after having embraced that sinister step, no other alternative remained to a firm and logical mind than to resolutely pursue its triumph. And that triumph, in Madame de Longueville's eyes, was the overthrow of Mazarin, a necessary condition of the domination of Conde.

Such was the end pointed out to her by La Rochefoucauld when engaging her in the Fronde at the beginning of 1648, and she had never lost sight of it. It was to attain it that she had flung herself into the Civil War, and that she had ended by dragging therein her brother; that, worsted at Paris in 1649, she had striven in 1650 to raise Normandy; that she had risked her life, braved exile, made alliance with a foreign enemy, and unfurled at Stenay the banner of the Princes. In 1651, she had advised the resumption of arms, and now she maintained the impossibility of laying them down, and that, instead of losing himself in useless negotiations with the subtle and skilful Cardinal, it was upon his sword alone that Conde should rely. She thought him incapable of extricating himself advantageously from the intrigues by which he was surrounded, and therefore urged him towards the field of battle. She had always exercised a great sway over him, because he knew that her heart was of like temper to his own; and if pa.s.sion had not blinded him, he would have rejected with disdain the odious accusations they had dared to raise against her, as he had done in 1643, in the affair of the letters attributed to her by Madame de Montbazon: he would have easily recognised that Madame de Chatillon, Nemours, and La Rochefoucauld would not have joined to blacken her in his eyes, as a vulgar creature ever ready to betray him for the latest lover, save in the manifest design of embroiling them both, of securing him, and of making him subserve their particular views. Nemours alone knew what had taken place during that journey from Montrond to Bordeaux, and the man who is base enough to const.i.tute himself the denouncer of a woman to whom he has paid the warmest homage, is not very worthy of being believed on his word.

Besides Nemours has not himself spoken, but Madame de Chatillon and Rochefoucauld, who have attributed to him certain sentiments, and we know with what motive.

It would be difficult to imagine a conspiracy more disgraceful than that formed at this juncture against Madame de Longueville; and that feature in it the more shameful perhaps was that La Rochefoucauld himself boasts of having invented and worked this machinery, as he terms it. The three conspirators were dumb, but through different but equally despicable reasons. Madame de Chatillon desired singly to govern Conde, and alone to represent him at Court, in order to reap the profits of the negotiation. Nemours was desirous of pleasing Madame de Chatillon, and looked forward also to have his share in the great advantages promised him; and, lastly, La Rochefoucauld was actuated by a pitiless spirit of revenge, and in the hope of a reconciliation necessary to his own immediate fortunes.

But here arose a delicate point, if we may speak of delicacy in such a matter: in the whole cabal, the least odious was, after all, the Duke de Nemours, more frivolous than perfidious, and who was deeply smitten with Madame de Chatillon. He loved her, and was beloved. The return of the Prince de Conde, with his well-declared pretensions, caused him cruel suffering, and his rage threatened to upset the well-concerted scheme.

The lovely lady herself could not sometimes help being embarra.s.sed between an imperious prince and a jealous lover. Happily the future author of the _Maxims_ was at hand. La Rochefoucauld took upon himself to arrange everything in the best way possible. It was not very difficult for him to direct Madame de Chatillon how to manage Conde and Nemours both at once, and to contrive in such a way that she might secure them both. He made the moody Nemours comprehend that, in truth, he had no reason to complain of an inevitable _liaison_, "qui ne lui devoit pas etre suspecte, puisqu'on voulait lui en rendre compte, et ne s'en servir que pour lui donner la princ.i.p.ale part aux affaires." At the same time, "he urged M. le Prince to occupy himself with Madame de Chatillon, and to give her in freehold the estate of Merlon." In such a fashion, thanks to the honest intervention of La Rochefoucauld, a good understanding was kept up, and the conspiracy went quietly forwards.

Conde had no mistrust whatever. A veil had been cast over his eyes; his martial disposition lulled asleep in the lap of pleasure and in a labyrinth of negotiations, and cradled in the hope of an approaching peace.

END OF VOL. I.