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I asked them if they had gone mad, and if instead of this tempest it
would not be better to reason, and see whether something could not be
done. They declared it was precisely because nothing could be done
against a thing not only resolved on, but executed, declared, and sent to
the Parliament, that they were so furious; that M. le Duc d'Orleans, on
the terms he was with the King, would not dare even to whisper
objections; that the Princes of the blood, mere children as they were,
could only tremble; that the Dukes had no means of opposition, and that
the Parliament was reduced to silence and slavery. Thereupon they set to
work to see who could cry the louder and reviled again, sparing neither
things nor persons.

I, also, was in anger, but this racket kept me cool and made me smile.
I argued with them and said, that after all I preferred to see the
bastards princes of the blood, capable of succeeding to the throne, than
to see them in the intermediary rank they occupied. And it is true that
as soon as I had cooled myself, I felt thus.

At last the storm grew calm, and they told me that the Chief-President
and the Attorney-General--who, I knew, had been at Marly very early in
the morning at the Chancellor's--had seen the King in his cabinet soon
after he rose, and had brought back the declaration, all prepared.
Maisons must, however, have known this earlier; because when the lackey
he sent to me set out from Paris, those gentlemen could not have returned
there. Our talk led to nothing, and I regained Marly in all haste, in
order that my absence might not be remarked.

Nevertheless it was towards the King's supper hour when I arrived. I
went straight to the salon, and found it very dejected. People looked,
but scarcely dared to approach each other; at the most, a sign or a
whisper in the ear, as the courtiers brushed by one another, was ventured
out. I saw the King sit down to table; he seemed to me more haughty than
usual, and continually looked all around. The news had only been known
one hour; everybody was still congealed and upon his guard.

As soon as the King was seated (he had looked very hard at me in passing)
I went straight to M. du Maine's. Although the hour was unusual, the
doors fell before me; I saw a man, who received me with joyful surprise,
and who, as it were, moved through the air towards me, all lame that he
was. I said that I came to offer him a sincere compliment, that we (the
Dukes) claimed no precedence over the Princes of the blood; but what we
claimed was, that there should be nobody between the Princes of the blood
and us; that as this intermediary rank no longer existed, we had nothing
more to say, but to rejoice that we had no longer to support what was
insupportable. The joy of M. du Maine burst forth at my compliments, and
he startled me with a politeness inspired by the transport of triumph.

But if he was delighted at the declaration of the King, it was far
otherwise with the world. Foreign dukes and princes fumed, but
uselessly. The Court uttered dull murmurs more than could have been
expected. Paris and the provinces broke out; the Parliament did not keep
silent. Madame de Maintenon, delighted with her work, received the
adoration of her familiars.

As for me, I will content myself with but few reflections upon this most
monstrous, astounding, and frightful determination of the King. I will
simply say, that it is impossible not to see in it an attack upon the
Crown; contempt for the entire nation, whose rights are trodden under
foot by it; insult to all the Princes of the blood; in fact the crime of
high treason in its most rash and most criminal extent. Yes! however
venerable God may have rendered in the eyes of men the majesty of Kings
and their sacred persons, which are his anointed; however execrable may
be the crime known as high treason, of attempting their lives; however
terrible and singular may be the punishments justly invented to prevent
that crime, and to remove by their horror the most infamous from the
infernal resolution of committing it, we cannot help finding in the crime
in question a plenitude not in the other, however abominable it may be:
Yes! to overthrow the most holy laws, that have existed ever since the
establishment of monarchy; to extinguish a right the most sacred--the
most important--the most inherent in the nation: to make succession to
the throne, purely, supremely, and despotically arbitrary; in a word, to
make of a bastard a crown prince, is a crime more black, more vast, more
terrible, than that of high treason against the chief of the State.




CHAPTER LXVIII

But let me now explain by what means the King was induced to arrive at,
and publish this terrible determination.

He was growing old, and though no external change in him was visible,
those near him had for some time begun to fear that he could not live
long. This is not the place to descant upon a health hitherto so good
and so even: suffice it to mention, that it silently began to give way.
Overwhelmed by the most violent reverses of fortune after being so long
accustomed to success, the King was even more overwhelmed by domestic
misfortunes. All his children had disappeared before him, and left him
abandoned to the most fatal reflections. At every moment he himself
expected the same kind of death. Instead of finding relief from his
anguish among those who surrounded him, and whom he saw most frequently,
he met with nothing but fresh trouble there. Excepting Marechal, his
chief surgeon, who laboured unceasingly to cure him of his suspicions,
Madame de Maintenon, M. du Maine, Fagon, Bloin, the other principal
valets sold to the bastard and his former governors,--all sought to
augment these suspicions; and in truth it was not difficult to do so.
Nobody doubted that poison had been used, nobody could seriously doubt
it; and Marechal, who was as persuaded as the rest, held a different
opinion before the King only to deliver him from a useless torment which
could not but do him injury. But M. du Maine, and Madame de Maintenon
also, had too much interest to maintain him in this fear, and by their
art filled him with horror against M. d'Orleans, whom they named as the
author of these crimes, so that the King with this prince before his eyes
every day, was in a perpetual state of alarm.

With his children the King had lost, and by the same way, a princess, who
in addition to being the soul and ornament of his court, was, moreover,
all his amusement, all his joy, all his affection, in the hours when he
was not in public. Never, since he entered the world, had he become
really familiar with any one but her; it has been seen elsewhere to what
extent. Nothing could fill up this great void: The bitterness of being
deprived of her augmented, because he could find no diversion. This
unfortunate state made him seek relief everywhere in abandoning himself
more and more to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine.

They soon managed to obtain possession of him, as it were, entirely;
leaving no art unexhausted in order to flatter, to amuse, to please, and
to interest him. He was made to believe that M. du Maine was utterly
without ambition; like a good father of a family, solely occupied with
his children, touched with the grandeur of his nearness to the King,
simple, frank, upright, and one who after working at his duties all day,
and after giving himself time for prayer and piety, amused himself in
hunting, and drew upon his natural gaiety and cheerfulness, without
knowing anything of the Court, or of what was passing! Compare this
portrait with his real character, and we shall feel with terror what a
rattlesnake was introduced into the King's privacy.

Established thus in the mind and heart of the King, the opportunity
seemed ripe for profiting by precious time that could not last long.
Everybody smiled upon the project of M. du Maine and Madame de Maintenon.
They had rendered M. d'Orleans odious in the eyes of the King and of the
whole country, by the most execrable calumnies. How could he defend
himself? shut up as the King was, how oppose them? how interfere with
their dark designs? M. du Maine wished not only to be made prince of the
blood, but to be made guardian of the heir to the throne, so as to dwarf
the power of the Regent as much as possible. He flattered himself that
the feeling he had excited against M. d'Orleans in the Court, in Paris,
and in the provinces would be powerfully strengthened by dispositions so
dishonourable; that he should find himself received as the guardian and
protector of the life of the royal infant, to whom was attached the
salvation of France, of which he would then become the idol; that the
independent possession of the young King, and of his military and civil
households, would strengthen with the public applause the power with
which he would be invested in the state by this testament; that the
Regent, reviled and stripped in this manner, not only would be in no
condition to dispute anything, but would be unable to defend himself from
any attempts the bastard might afterwards make against him. M. du Maine
wished in fact to take from M. d'Orleans everything, except the name of
Regent, and to divide all the power between himself and his brother.
Such was his scheme, that the King by incredible art was induced to
sanction and approve.

But the schemers had tough work before they obtained this success.
They found that the King would not consent to their wishes without much
opposition. They hit upon a devilish plan to overpower his resistance.
Hitherto, they had only been occupied in pleasing him, in amusing him,
in anticipating his wishes, in praising him--let me say the word--
in adoring him. They had redoubled their attention, since, by the
Dauphine's death, they had become his sole resource.

Not being able now to lead him as they wished, but determined to do so at
all cost, they adopted another system, certain as they were that they
could do so with impunity. Both became serious, often times dejected,
silent, furnishing nothing to the conversation, letting pass what the
King forced himself to say, sometimes not even replying, if it was not a
direct interrogation. In this manner all the leisure hours of the King
were rendered dull and empty; his amusements and diversions were made
fatiguing and sad and a weight was cast upon him, which he was the more
unable to bear because it was quite new to him, and he was utterly
without means to remove it. The few ladies who were admitted to the
intimacy of the King knew not what to make of the change they saw in
Madame de Maintenon. They were duped at first by the plea of illness;
but seeing at last that its duration passed all bounds, that it had no
intermission, that her face announced no malady, that her daily life was
in no way deranged, that the King became as serious and as sad as she,
they sounded each other to find out the cause. Fear, lest it should be
something in which they, unknowingly, were concerned, troubled them; so
that they became even worse company to the King than Madame de Maintenon.

There was no relief for the King. All his resource was in the
commonplace talk of the Comte de Toulouse, who was not amusing, although
ignorant of the plot, and the stories of his valets, who lost tongue as
soon as they perceived that they were not seconded by the Duc du Maine in
his usual manner. Marechal and all the rest, astonished at the
mysterious dejection of the Duc du Maine, looked at each other without
being able to divine the cause. They saw that the King was sad and
bored; they trembled for his health, but not one of them dared to do
anything. Time ran on, and the dejection of M. du Maine and Madame de
Maintenon increased. This is as far as the most instructed have ever
been able to penetrate. To describe the interior scenes that doubtless
passed during the long time this state of things lasted, would be to
write romance. Truth demands that we should relate what we know, and
admit what we are ignorant of. I cannot go farther, therefore, or pierce
deeper into the density of these dark mysteries.

What is certain is, that cheerfulness came back all at once, with the
same surprise to the witnesses of it, as the long-continued dejection had
caused them, simply because they understood no more of the end than of
the commencement. The double knowledge did not come to them until they
heard the frightful crash of the thunderbolt which fell upon France, and
astonished all Europe.

To give some idea of the opposition from the King, M. du Maine and Madame
de Maintenon had to overcome, and to show how reluctantly he consented to
their wishes, more than one incident may be brought forward. Some days
before the news transpired, the King, full of the enormity of what he had
just done for his bastards, looked at them in his cabinet, in presence of
the valets, and of D'Antin and D'O, and in a sharp manner, that told of
vexation, and with a severe glance, suddenly thus addressed himself to M.
du Maine:

"You have wished it; but know that however great I may make you, and you
may be in my lifetime, you are nothing after me; and it will be for you
then to avail yourself of what I have done for you, if you can."

Everybody present trembled at a thunder-clap so sudden, so little
expected, so entirely removed from the character and custom of the King,
and which showed so clearly the extreme ambition of the Duc du Maine, and
the violence he had done to the weakness of the King, who seemed to
reproach himself for it, and to reproach the bastard for his ambition and
tyranny. The consternation of M. du Maine seemed extreme at this rough
sally, which no previous remark had led to. The King had made a clean
breast of it. Everybody fixed his eyes upon the floor and held his
breath. The silence was profound for a considerable time: it finished
only when the King passed into his wardrobe. In his absence everybody
breathed again. The King's heart was full to bursting with what he had
just been made to do; but like a woman who gives birth to two children,
he had at present brought but one into the world, and bore a second of
which he must be delivered, and of which he felt all the pangs without
any relief from the suffering the first had caused him.

Again, on Sunday, the 27th August, the Chief-President and the Attorney-
General were sent for by the King. He was at Versailles. As soon as
they were alone with him, he took from a drawer, which he unlocked, a
large and thick packet, sealed with seven seals (I know not if by this M.
du Maine wished to imitate the mysterious book with Seven Seals, of the
Apocalypse, and so sanctify the packet). In handing it to them, the King
said: "Gentlemen, this is my will. No one but myself knows its contents.
I commit it to you to keep in the Parliament, to which I cannot give a
greater testimony of my esteem and confidence than by rendering it the
depository of it. The example of the Kings my predecessors, and that of
the will of the King, my father, do not allow me to be ignorant of what
may become of this; but they would have it; they have tormented me; they
have left me no repose, whatever I might say. Very well! I have bought
my repose. Here is the will; take it away: come what may of it, at
least, I shall have rest, and shall hear no more about it."

At this last word, that he finished with a dry nod, he turned his back
upon them, passed into another cabinet, and left them both nearly turned
into statues. They looked at each other frozen by what they had just
heard, and still more by what they had just seen in the eyes and the
countenance of the King; and as soon as they had collected their senses,
they retired, and went to Paris. It was not known until after dinner
that the King had made a will and given it to them. In proportion as the
news spread, consternation filled the Court, while the flatterers, at
bottom as much alarmed as the rest, and as Paris was afterwards,
exhausted themselves in praises and eulogies.

The next day, Monday, the 28th, the Queen of England came from Chaillot,
where she almost always was, to Madame de Maintenon's. As soon as the
King perceived her, "Madame," said he to her, like a man full of
something and angry, "I have made my will; I have been tormented to do
it;" then casting his eyes upon Madame de Maintenon, "I have bought
repose; I know the powerlessness and inutility of it. We can do all we
wish while we live; afterwards we are less than the meanest. You have
only to see what became of my father's will immediately after his death,
and the wills of so many other Kings. I know it well; but nevertheless
they have wished it; they gave me no rest nor repose, no calm until it
was done; ah, well! then, Madame, it is done; come what may of it, I
shall be no longer tormented."

Words such as these so expressive of the extreme violence suffered by the
King, of his long and obstinate battle before surrendering, of his
vexation, and uneasiness, demand the clearest proofs. I had them from
people who heard them, and would not advance them unless I were perfectly
persuaded of their exactness.

As soon as the Chief-President and the Attorney-General returned to
Paris, they sent for some workmen, whom they led into a tower of the
Palace of justice, behind the Buvette, or drinking-place of the grand
chamber and the cabinet of the Chief-President. They had a big hole made
in the wall of this tower, which is very thick, deposited the testament
there, closed up the opening with an iron door, put an iron grating by
way of second door, and then walled all up together. The door and the
grating each had three locks, the same for both; and a different key for
each of the three, which consequently opened each of the two locks, the
one in the door and the one in the grating. The Chief-President kept one
key, the Attorney-General another, and the Chief-Greffier of the
Parliament the third. The Parliament was assembled and the Chief-
President flattered the members as best he might upon the confidence
shown them in entrusting them with this deposit.

At the same time was presented to the Parliament an edict that the Chief-
President and the Attorney-General had received from the hand of the
Chancellor at Versailles the same morning the King had given them his
will, and the edict was registered. It was very short. It declared that
the packet committed to the Chief-President and to the Attorney-General
contained the will of the King, by which he had provided for the
protection and guardianship of the young King, and had chosen a Regency
council, the dispositions of which--for good reasons he had not wished to
publish; that he wished this deposit should be preserved during his life
in the registry of the Parliament, and that at the moment when it should
please God to call him from the world, all the chambers of the
Parliament, all the princes of the royal house, and all the peers who
might be there, should assemble and open the will; and that after it was
read, all its dispositions should be made public and executed, nobody to
be permitted to oppose them in any way.

Notwithstanding all this secrecy, the terms of the will were pretty
generally guessed, and as I have said, the consternation was general.
It was the fate of M. du Maine to obtain what he wished; but always with
the maledictions of the public. This fate did not abandon him now, and
as soon as he felt it, he was overwhelmed, and Madame de Maintenon
exasperated, and their attentions and their care redoubled, to shut up
the King, so that the murmurs of the world should not reach him. They
occupied themselves more than ever to amuse and to please him, and to
fill the air around him with praises, joy, and public adoring at an act
so generous and so grand, and at the same time so wise and so necessary
to the maintenance of good order and tranquillity, which would cause him
to reign so gloriously even after his reign.

This consternation was very natural, and is precisely why the Duc du
Maine found himself deceived and troubled by it. He believed he had
prepared everything, smoothed everything, in rendering M. d'Orleans so
suspected and so odious; he had succeeded, but not so much as he
imagined. His desires and his emissaries had exaggerated everything;
and he found himself overwhelmed with astonishment, when instead of the
public acclamations with which he had flattered himself the will would be
accompanied, it was precisely the opposite.

It was seen very clearly that the will assuredly could not have been made
in favour of M. d'Orleans, and although public feeling against him had in
no way changed, no one was so blind as not to see that he must be Regent
by the incontestable right of his birth; that the dispositions of the
testament could not weaken that right, except by establishing a power
that should balance his; and that thus two parties would be formed in the
state the chief of each of which would be interested in vanquishing the
other, everybody being necessitated to join one side or other, thereby
running a thousand risks without any advantage. The rights of the two
disputants were compared. In the one they were found sacred, in the
other they could not be found at all. The two persons were compared.
Both were found odious, but M. d'Orleans was deemed superior to M. du
Maine. I speak only of the mass of uninstructed people, and of what
presented itself naturally and of itself. The better informed had even
more cause to arrive at the same decision.

M. d'Orleans was stunned by the blow; he felt that it fell directly upon
him, but during the lifetime of the King he saw no remedy for it.
Silence respectful and profound appeared to him the sole course open;
any other would only have led to an increase of precautions. The King
avoided all discourse with him upon this matter; M. du Maine the same.
M. d'Orleans was contented with a simple approving monosyllable to both,
like a courtier who ought not to meddle with anything; and he avoided
conversation upon this subject, even with Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
and with anybody else. I was the sole person to whom he dared to unbosom
himself; with the rest of the world he had an open, an ordinary manner,
was on his guard against any discontented sign, and against the curiosity
of all eyes. The inexpressible abandonment in which he was, in the midst
of the Court, guaranteed him at least from all remarks upon the will. It
was not until the health of the King grew more menacing that he began to
speak and be spoken to thereon.

As for M. du Maine, despite his good fortune, he was not to be envied At
Sceaux, where he lived, the Duchesse du Maine, his wife, ruined him by
her extravagance. Sceaux was more than ever the theatre of her follies,
and of the shame and embarrassment of her husband, by the crowd from the
Court and the town, which abounded there and laughed at them. She
herself played there Athalie (assisted by actors and actresses) and other
pieces several times a week. Whole nights were passed in coteries,
games, fetes, illuminations, fireworks, in a word, fancies and fripperies
of every kind and every day. She revelled in the joy of her new
greatness--redoubled her follies; and the Duc du Maine, who always
trembled before her, and who, moreover, feared that the slightest
contradiction would entirely turn her brain, suffered all this, even
piteously doing the honours as often as he could without ceasing in his
conduct to the King.

However great might be his joy, whatever the unimaginable greatness to
which he had arrived, he was not tranquil. Like those tyrants who have
usurped by their crimes the sovereign power, and who fear as so many
conspiring enemies all their fallen citizens they have enslaved--he felt
as though seated under that sword that Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,
suspended by a hair over his table, above the head of a man whom he
placed there because he believed him happy, and in this manner wished to
make him feel what passed unceasingly in himself. M. du Maine, who
willingly expressed in pleasantry the most serious things, frankly said
to his familiars, that he was "like a louse between two fingernails" (the
Princes of the blood and the peers), by which he could not fail to be
cracked if he did not take care! This reflection troubled the excess of
his pleasure, and that of the greatness and the power to which so many
artifices had elevated him. He feared the Princes of the blood as soon
as they should be of age to feel the infamy and the danger of the wound
he had given them; he feared the Parliament, which even under his eyes
had not been able to dissimulate its indignation at the violence he had
committed against the most holy and the most inviolable laws; he even
feared the Dukes so timid are injustice and tyranny!




CHAPTER LXIX

Let me return to Maisons. Five days after the King's will had been
walled up, in the manner I have described, he came to me and made a
pathetic discourse upon the injustice done to M. le Duc d'Orleans by this
testament, and did all he could to excite me by railing in good set terms
against dispositions intended to add to the power and grandeur of the
bastards.

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