Book: The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete

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When he had well harangued, I said he had told me nothing new; that I saw
the same truths as he with the same evidence; that the worst thing I
found was that there was no remedy.

"No remedy!" he exclaimed, interrupting me, with his sly and cunning
laugh; "courage and ability can always find one for everything, and I am
astonished that you, who have both, should have nothing to suggest while
everybody is going to confusion."

I asked him how it was possible to suppress a will registered by edict; a
document solemn and public deposited with ceremony in the very depths of
the palace, with precautions known to everybody--nature and art combining
to keep it in safety?

"You are at a loss to know!" replied Maisons to me. "Have ready at the
instant of the King's death sure troops and sensible officers, all ready
and well instructed; and with them, masons and lock-smiths--march to the
palace, break open the doors and the wall, carry off the will, and let it
never be seen."

In my extreme surprise I asked him, what he expected would be the fruit
of such violence? I pointed out that to seize by force of arms a public
and solemn document, in the midst of the capital, in despite of all--all
law and order, would be to put weapons into the hands of the enemies of
M. le Duc d'Orleans, who assuredly would be justified in crying out
against this outrage, and who would find the whole country disposed to
echo their cries. I said too, that if in the execution of such an odious
scheme a sedition occurred, and blood were shed, universal hatred and
opprobrium would fall upon the head of M, le Duc d'Orleans, and
deservedly so.

We carried on our discussion a long time, but Maisons would in no way
give up his scheme. After leaving me he went to M. le Duc d'Orleans and
communicated it to him. Happily it met with no success with the Duke,
indeed, he was extremely astonished at it; but what astonished us more
was, that Maisons persisted in it up to his death, which preceded by some
few days that of the King, and pressed it upon M. le Duc d'Orleans and
myself till his importunity became persecution.

It was certainly not his fault that I over and over again refused to go
to the Grand Chamber of the Parliament to examine the place, as Maisons
wished me to do; I who never went to the Parliament except for the
reception of the peers or when the King was there. Not being able to
vanquish what he called my obstinacy, Maisons begged me at the least to
go and fix myself upon the Quai de la Megisserie, where so much old iron
is sold, and examine from that spot the tower where the will was; he
pointed it out to me; it looked out upon the Quai des Morforidus, but was
behind the buildings on the quai. What information could be obtained
from such a point of view may be imagined. I promised to go there, not
to stop, and thus awake the attention of the passers-by, but to pass
along and see what was to be seen; adding, that it as simply out of
complaisance to him, and not because I meant to agree in any way to his
enterprise. What is incomprehensible is, that for a whole year Maisons
pressed his charming project upon us. The worst enemy of M. le Duc
d'Orleans could not have devised a more rash and ridiculous undertaking.
I doubt whether many people would have been found in all Paris
sufficiently deprived of sense to fall in with it. What are we to think
then of a Parliamentary President of such consideration as Maisons had
acquired at the Palace of justice, at the Court, in the town, where he
had always passed for a man of intellect, prudent, circumspect,
intelligent, capable, measured? Was he vile enough, in concert with M.
du Maine, to open this gulf beneath our feet, to push us to our ruin, and
by the fall of M. le Duc d'Orleans--the sole prince of the blood old
enough to be Regent--to put M. le Duc du Maine in his place, from which
to the crown there was only one step, as none are ignorant, left to be
taken? It seems by no means impossible: M. du Maine, that son of
darkness, was, judging him by what he had already done, quite capable of
adding this new crime to his long list.

The mystery was, however, never explained. Maisons died before its
darkness could be penetrated. His end was terrible. He had no religion;
his father had had none. He married a sister of the Marechal de Villars,
who was in the same case. Their only son they specially educated in
unbelief. Nevertheless, everything seemed to smile upon them. They had
wealth, consideration, distinguished friends. But mark the end.

Maisons is slightly unwell. He takes rhubarb twice or thrice,
unseasonably; more unseasonably comes Cardinal de Bissy to him, to talk
upon the constitution, and thus hinder the operation of the rhubarb; his
inside seems on fire, but he will not believe himself ill; the progress
of his disease is great in a few hours; the doctors, though soon at their
wits' ends, dare not say so; the malady visibly increases; his whole
household is in confusion; he dies, forty-eight years of age, midst of a
crowd of friends, of clients, without the power or leisure to think for a
moment what is going to happen to his soul!

His wife survives him ten or twelve years, opulent, and in consideration,
when suddenly she has an attack of apoplexy in her garden. Instead of
thinking of her state, and profiting by leisure, she makes light of her
illness, has another attack a few days after, and is carried off on the
5th of May, 1727, in her forty-sixth year, without having had a moment
free.

Her son, for a long time much afflicted, seeks to distinguish himself and
acquire friends. Taking no warning from what has occurred, he thinks
only of running after the fortune of this world, and is surprised at
Paris by the small-pox. He believes himself dead, thinks of what he has
neglected all his life, but fear suddenly seizes him, and he dies in the
midst of it, on the 13th of September, 1731, leaving an only son, who
dies a year after him, eighteen months old, all the great wealth of the
family going to collateral relatives.

These Memoirs are not essays on morality, therefore I have contented
myself with the most simple and the most naked recital of facts; but I
may, perhaps, be permitted to apply here those two verses of the 37th
Psalm, which appear so expressly made for the purpose: "I have seen the
impious exalted like the cedars of Lebanon: Yea, he passed away, and, lo,
he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found."

But let me leave this subject now, to treat of other matters. On Friday,
the last day of August, I lost one of the best and most revered of
friends, the Duc de Beavilliers. He died at Vaucresson after an illness
of about two months, his intellect clear to the last, aged sixty-six
years, having been born on the 24th of Oct 1648.

He was the son of M. de Saint-Aignan, who with honour and valour was
truly romantic in gallantry, in belles-lettres, and in arms. He was
Captain of the Guards of Gaston, and at the end of 1649 bought of the Duc
de Liancourt the post of first-gentleman of the King's chamber. He
commanded afterwards in Berry against the party of M. le Prince, and
served elsewhere subsequently. In 1661 he was made Chevalier of the
Order, and in 1661 Duke and Peer. His first wife he lost in 1679. At
the end of a year he married one of her chambermaids, who had been first
of all engaged to take care of her dogs. She was so modest, and he so
shamefaced, that in despite of repeated pressing on the part of the King,
she could not be induced to take her tabouret. She lived in much
retirement, and had so many virtues that she made herself respected all
her life, which was long. M. de Beauvilliers was one of the children of
the first marriage. I know not what care M. and Madame de Saint-Aignan
took of the others, but they left him, until he was six or seven years of
age, to the mercy of their lodge-keeper. Then he was confided to the
care of a canon of Notre Dame de Clery. The household of the canon
consisted of one maid-servant, with whom the little boy slept; and they
continued to sleep together until he was fourteen or fifteen years old,
without either of them thinking of evil, or the canon remarking that the
lad was growing into a man. The death of his eldest brother called
M. de Beauvilliers home. He entered the army, served with distinction at
the head of is regiment of cavalry, and was brigadier.

He was tall, thin, had a long and ruddy face, a large aquiline nose, a
sunken mouth, expressive, piercing eyes, an agreeable smile, a very
gentle manner but ordinarily retiring, serious, and concentrated. B
disposition he was hasty, hot, passionate, fond of pleasure. Ever since
God had touched him, which happened early in his life, he had become
gentle, mildest, humble, kind, enlightened, charitable, and always full
of real piety and goodness. In private, where he was free, he was gay,
joked, and bantered pleasantly, and laughed with good heart. He liked to
be made fun of there was only the story of his sleeping with the canon's
servant that wounded his modesty, and I have seen him embarrassed when
Madame de Beauvilliers has related it,--smiling, however, but praying her
sometimes not to tell it. His piety, which, as I have said, commenced
early in life, separated him from companions of his own age. At the army
one day, during a promenade of the King, he walked alone, a little in
front. Some one remarked it, and observed, sneeringly, that "he was
meditating." The King, who heard this, turned towards the speaker, and,
looking at him, said, "Yes, 'tis M. de Beauvilliers, one of the best men
of the Court, and of my realm." This sudden and short apology caused
silence, and food for reflection, so that the fault-finders remained in
respect before his merit.

The King must have entertained a high regard for him, to give him, in
1670, the very delicate commission he entrusted to him. Madame had just
been so openly poisoned, the conviction was so complete and so general
that it was very difficult to palliate it. Our King and the King of
England, between whom she had just become a stronger bond, by the journey
she had made into England, were penetrated by grief and indignation, and
the English could not contain themselves. The King chose the Duc de
Beauvilliers to carry his compliments of condolence to the King of
England, and under this pretext to try to prevent this misfortune
interfering with their friendship and their union, and to calm the fury
of London and the nation. The King was not deceived: the prudent
dexterity of the Duc de Beauvilliers brought round the King of England,
and even appeased London and the nation.

M. de Beauvilliers had expressed a wish to be buried at Montargis, in the
Benedictine monastery, where eight of his daughters had become nuns.
Madame de Beauvilliers went there, and by an act of religion, terrible to
think of, insisted upon being present at the interment. She retired to
her house at Paris, where during the rest of her life she lived in
complete solitude, without company or amusement of any kind. For nearly
twenty years she remained there, and died in 1733, seventy-five years of
age, infinitely rich in alms and all sorts of good works.

The King taxed the infantry regiments, which had risen to an excessive
price. This venality of the only path by which the superior grades can
be reached is a great blot upon the military system, and stops the career
of many a man who would become an excellent soldier. It is a gangrene
which for a long time has eaten into all the orders and all the parties
of the state, and under which it will be odd if all do not succumb.
Happily it is unknown, or little known, in all the other countries of
Europe!

Towards the end of this year Cardinal d'Estrees died in Paris at his
abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, nearly eighty-seven years of age, having
always enjoyed perfect health of body and mind until this illness, which
was very short, and which left his intellect clear to the last. It is
proper and curious to pause for a moment upon a personage, all his life
of importance, and who at his death was Cardinal, Bishop of Albano, Abbe
of Longpont, of Mount Saint-Eloi, of Saint-Nichoas-aux-Bois, of La
Staffarde in Piedmont (where Catinat gained a celebrated battle before
being Marechal of France), of Saint-Claude in Franche-Comte, of Anchin in
Flanders, and of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in Paris. He was also Commander
of the Order of the promotion of 1688.

Merit, aided by the chances of fortune, made out of an obscure family of
the Boulonais country, a singularly illustrious race in the fourth
generation, of which Mademoiselle de Tourbes alone remains. The
Cardinal, brother of the last Marechal d'Estrees, their uncle, used to
say; that he knew his fathers as far as the one who had been page of
Queen Anne, Duchess of Brittany; but beyond that he knew nothing, and it
was not worth while searching. Gabrielle d'Estrees, mistress of Henry
IV., whose beauty made her father's fortune, and whose history is too
well known to be here alluded to, was sister of the Cardinal's father,
but died thirty years before he was born. It was through her that the
family became elevated. The father of Cardinal d'Estrees was
distinguished all his life by his merit, his capacity, and the authority
and elevated posts he held. He was made Marshal of France in 1626, and
it is a thing unique that he, his son, and his grandson were not only
Marshals of France, but all three were in succession seniors of that
corps for a long time.

The Cardinal d'Estrees was born in 1627, and for forty years lived with
his father, profiting by his lessons and his consideration. He was of
the most agreeable manners, handsome, well made, full of humour, wit, and
ability; in society the pleasantest person in the world, and yet well
instructed; indeed, of rare erudition, generous, obliging, dignified,
incapable of meanness, he was with so much talent and so many great and
amiable qualities generally loved and respected, and deserved to be. He
was made Cardinal in 1671, but was not declared until after many delays
had occurred. These delays much disturbed him. It was customary, then,
to pay more visits. One evening the Abbe de la Victoire, one of his
friends, and very witty, arrived very late at a supper, in a house where
he was expected. The company inopportunely asked him where he had been,
and what had delayed him.

"Alas!" replied the Abbe, in a tone of sadness, "where have I been? I
have been all day accompanying the body of poor M. de Laon." [The
Cardinal d'Estrees was then Bishop and Duke of Laon.]

"M. de Laon!" cried everybody, "M. de Laon dead! Why, he was quite well
yesterday. 'Tis dreadful. Tell us what has happened."

"What has happened?" replied the Abbe, still with the same tone. "Why,
he took me with him when he paid his visits, and though his body was with
me, his spirit was at Rome, so that I quitted him very wearied." At this
recital grief changed into merriment.

That grand dinner at Fontainebleau for the Prince of Tuscany, at which
the Prince was to be the only guest, and yet never received his
invitation from the Cardinal, I have already mentioned. He was
oftentimes thus absent, but never when business or serious matters were
concerned, so that his forgetfulness was amusing. He never could bear to
hear of his domestic affairs. Pressed and tormented by his steward and
his maitre d'hotel to overlook their accounts, that he had not seen for
many years, he appointed a day to be devoted to them. The two financiers
demanded that he should close his door so as not to be interrupted; he
consented with difficulty, then changed his mind, and said that if
Cardinal Bonzi came he must be admitted, but that it was not likely he
would come on that particular day. Directly afterwards he sent a trusty
servant to Cardinal Bonzi, entreating him to come on such and such a day,
between three and four o'clock, conjuring him not to fail, and begging
him above all to come as of his own accord, the reason to be explained
afterwards. On the appointed day Cardinal d'Estrees told his porter to
let no one enter in the afternoon except Cardinal Bonzi, who assuredly
was not likely to come, but who was not to be sent away if he did. His
people, delighted at having their master to themselves all day without
interruption, arrived about three o'clock; the Cardinal quitted his
family and the few friends who had that day dined with him, and passed
into a cabinet where his business people laid out their papers. He said
a thousand absurdities to them upon his expenditure, of which he
understood nothing, and unceasingly looked towards the window, without
appearing to do so, secretly sighing for a prompt deliverance. A little
before four o'clock, a coach arrived in the court-yard; his business
people, enraged with the porter, exclaimed that there will then be no
more opportunity for working. The Cardinal in delight referred to the
orders he had given. "You will see," he added, "that it is Cardinal
Bonzi, the only man I excepted, and who, of all days in the world, comes
to-day."

Immediately afterwards, the Cardinal was announced, and the intendant and
maitre d'hotel were forced to make off with their papers and their table.
As soon as he was alone with Bonzi, he explained why he had requested
this visit, and both laughed heartily. Since then his business people
have never caught him again, never during the rest of his life would he
hear speak of them.

He must have had honest people about him; for every day his table was
magnificent, and filled at Paris and at the Court with the best company.
His equipages were so, also; he had numberless domestics, many gentlemen,
chaplains, and secretaries. He gave freely to the poor, and to his
brother the Marechal and his children (who were not well off), and yet
died without owing a crown to a living soul.

His death, for which he had been long prepared, was fine-edifying and
very Christian-like. He was universally regretted. A joke of his with
the King is still remembered. One day, at dinner, where he always paid
much attention to the Cardinal, the King complained of the inconvenience
he felt in no longer having teeth.

"Teeth, sire!" replied the Cardinal; "why, who has any teeth?"

The joke is that the Cardinal, though old, still had very white and very
beautiful teeth, and that his mouth, large, but agreeable, was so shaped
that it showed them plainly in speaking. Therefore the King burst out
laughing at this reply, and all present also, including the Cardinal, who
was not in the slightest degree embarrassed. I might go on forever
telling about him, but enough, perhaps, has been already said.

The commencement of the new year, 1715, was marked by the death of
Fenelon, at Cambrai, where he had lived in disgrace so many years. I
have already said something about him, so that I have now but little to
add. His life at Cambrai was remarkable for the assiduity with which he
attended to the spiritual and temporal wants of his flock. He was
indefatigable in the discharge of his functions, and in endeavouring to
gain all hearts. Cambrai is a place much frequented; through which many
people pass. During the war the number of wounded soldiers he had
received into his house or attended to in the hospitals passes all
belief. He spared nothing for them, neither physical comforts nor
spiritual consolations. Thus it is incredible to what an extent he
became the idol of the whole army. His manners, to high and low, were
most affable, yet everywhere he was the prelate, the gentleman, the
author of "Telemachus." He ruled his diocese with a gentle hand, in no
way meddled with the Jansenists; he left all untouched. Take him for all
in all, he had a bright genius and was a great man. His admiration true
or feigned for Madame Guyon remained to the last, yet always without
suspicion of impropriety. He had so exactly arranged his affairs that he
died without money, and yet without owing a sou to anybody.






VOLUME 10.




CHAPTER LXX

The reign of Louis XIV. was approaching its conclusion, so that there is
now nothing more to relate but what passed during the last month of his
life, and scarcely so much. These events, indeed, so curious and so
important, are so mixed up with those that immediately followed the
King's death, that they cannot be separated from them. It will be
interesting and is necessary to describe the projects, the thoughts, the
difficulties, the different resolutions, which occupied the brain of the
Prince, who, despite the efforts of Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine,
was of necessity about to be called to the head of affairs during the
minority of the young King. This is the place, therefore, to explain all
these things, after which we will resume the narrative of the last month
of the King's life, and go on to the events which followed his death.

But, as I have said, before entering upon this thorny path, it will be as
well to make known, if possible, the chief personage of the story, the
impediments interior and exterior in his path, and all that personally
belonged to him.

M. le Duc d'Orleans was, at the most, of mediocre stature, full-bodied
without being fat; his manner and his deportment were easy and very
noble; his face was broad and very agreeable, high in colour; his hair
black, and wig the same. Although he danced very badly, and had but ill
succeeded at the riding-school, he had in his face, in his gestures, in
all his movements, infinite grace, and so natural that it adorned even
his most ordinary commonplace actions. With much ease when nothing
constrained him, he was gentle, affable, open, of facile and charming
access; the tone of his voice was agreeable, and he had a surprisingly
easy flow of words upon all subjects which nothing ever disturbed, and
which never failed to surprise; his eloquence was natural and extended
even to his most familiar discourse, while it equally entered into his
observations upon the most abstract sciences, on which he talked most
perspicuously; the affairs of government, politics, finance, justice,
war, the court, ordinary conversation, the arts, and mechanics. He could
speak as well too upon history and memoirs, and was well acquainted with
pedigrees. The personages of former days were familiar to him; and the
intrigues of the ancient courts were to him as those of his own time.
To hear him, you would have thought him a great reader. Not so. He
skimmed; but his memory was so singular that he never forgot things,
names, or dates, cherishing remembrance of things with precision; and his
apprehension was so good, that in skimming thus it was, with him,
precisely as though he had read very laboriously. He excelled in
unpremeditated discourse, which, whether in the shape of repartee or
jest, was always appropriate and vivacious. He often reproached me, and
others more than he, with "not spoiling him;" but I often gave him praise
merited by few, and which belonged to nobody so justly as to him; it was,
that besides having infinite ability and of various kinds, the singular
perspicuity of his mind was joined to so much exactness, that he would
never have made a mistake in anything if he had allowed the first
suggestions of his judgment. He oftentimes took this my eulogy as a
reproach, and he was not always wrong, but it was not the less true.
With all this he had no presumption, no trace of superiority natural or
acquired; he reasoned with you as with his equal, and struck the most
able with surprise. Although he never forgot his own position, nor
allowed others to forget it, he carried no constraint with him, but put
everybody at his ease, and placed himself upon the level of all others.

He had the weakness to believe that he resembled Henry IV. in
everything, and strove to affect the manners, the gestures, the bearing,
of that monarch. Like Henry IV. he was naturally good, humane,
compassionate; and, indeed, this man, who has been so cruelly accused of
the blackest and most inhuman crimes, was more opposed to the destruction
of others than any one I have ever known, and had such a singular dislike
to causing anybody pain that it may be said, his gentleness, his
humanity, his easiness, had become faults; and I do not hesitate to
affirm that that supreme virtue which teaches us to pardon our enemies he
turned into vice, by the indiscriminate prodigality with which he applied
it; thereby causing himself many sad embarrassments and misfortunes,
examples and proofs of which will be seen in the sequel.

I remember that about a year, perhaps, before the death of the King,
having gone up early after dinner into the apartments of Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans at Marly, I found her in bed with the megrims,
and M. d'Orleans alone in the room, seated in an armchair at her pillow.
Scarcely had I sat down than Madame la Duchesse began to talk of some of
those execrable imputations concerning M. d'Orleans unceasingly
circulated by Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine; and of an incident
arising therefrom, in which the Prince and the Cardinal de Rohan had
played a part against M. d'Orleans. I sympathised with her all the more
because the Duke, I knew not why, had always distinguished and courted
those two brothers, and thought he could count upon them. "And what will
you say of M. d'Orleans," added the Duchesse, "when I tell you that since
he has known this, known it beyond doubt, he treats them exactly the same
as before?"

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