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

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I looked at M. d'Orleans, who had uttered only a few words to confirm the
story, as it was being told, and who was negligently lolling in his
chair, and I said to him with warmth:

"Oh, as to that, Monsieur, the truth must be told; since Louis the
Debonnaire, never has there been such a Debonnaire as you."

At these words he rose in his chair, red with anger to the very whites of
his eyes, and blurted out his vexation against me for abusing him, as he
pretended, and against Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans for encouraging me
and laughing at him.

"Go on," said I, "treat your enemies well, and rail at your friends. I
am delighted to see you angry. It is a sign that I have touched the sore
point, when you press the finger on it the patient cries. I should like
to squeeze out all the matter, and after that you would be quite another
man, and differently esteemed."

He grumbled a little more, and then calmed down. This was one of two
occasions only, on which he was ever really angry with me.

Two or three years after the death of the King, I was chatting in one of
the grand rooms of the Tuileries, where the Council of the Regency was,
according to custom, soon to be held, and M. d'Orleans at the other end
was talking to some one in a window recess. I heard myself called from
mouth to mouth, and was told that M. d'Orleans wished to speak to me.
This often happened before the Council. I went therefore to the window
where he was standing. I found a serious bearing, a concentrated manner,
an angry face, and was much surprised.

"Monsieur," said he to me at once, "I have a serious complaint against
you; you, whom I have always regarded as my best of friends."

"Against me! Monsieur!" said I, still more surprised. "What is the
matter, then, may I ask?"

"The matter!" he replied with a mien still more angry; "something you
cannot deny; verses you have made against me."

"I--verses!" was my reply. "Why, who the devil has been telling you such
nonsense? You have been acquainted with me nearly forty years, and do
you not know, that never in my life have I been able to make a single
verse--much less verses?"

"No, no, by Heaven," replied he, "you cannot deny these;" and forthwith
he began to sing to me a street song in his praise, the chorus of which
was: 'Our Regent is debonnaire, la la, he is debonnaire,' with a burst of
laughter.

"What!" said I, "you remember it still!" and smiling, I added also,
"since you are revenged for it, remember it in good earnest." He kept on
laughing a long time before going to the Council, and could not hinder
himself. I have not been afraid to write this trifle, because it seems
to me that it paints the man.

M. d'Orleans loved liberty, and as much for others as for himself. He
extolled England to me one day on this account, as a country where there
are no banishments, no lettres de cachet, and where the King may close
the door of his palace to anybody, but can keep no one in prison; and
thereupon related to me with enjoyment, that besides the Duchess of
Portsmouth, Charles the Second had many subordinate mistresses; that the
Grand Prieur, young and amiable in those days, driven out of France for
some folly, had gone to England to pass his exile and had been well
received by the King. By way of thanks, he seduced one of those
mistresses, by whom the King was then so smitten, that he sued for mercy,
offered money to the Grand Prieur, and undertook to obtain his
reconciliation in France. The Grand Prieur held firm. Charles
prohibited him the palace. He laughed at this, and went every day to the
theatre, with his conquest, and placed himself opposite the King. At
last, Charles, not knowing what to do to deliver himself from his
tormentor, begged our King to recall him, and this was done. But the
Grand Prieur said he was very comfortable in England and continued his
game. Charles, outraged, confided to the King (Louis XIV.) the state he
was thrown into by the Grand Prieur, and obtained a command so absolute
and so prompt, that his tormentor was afterwards obliged to go back into
France.

M. d'Orleans admired this; and I know not if he would not have wished to
be the Grand Prieur. He always related this story with delight. Thus,
of ambition for reigning or governing, he had none. If he made a false
move in Spain it was because he had been misdirected. What he would have
liked best would have been to command armies while war lasted, and divert
himself the rest of the time without constraint to himself or to others.
He was, in fact, very fit for this. With much valour, he had also much
foresight, judgment, coolness, and vast capacity. It may be said that he
was captain, engineer, and army purveyor; that he knew the strength of
his troops, the names and the company of the officers, and the most
distinguished of each corps; that he knew how to make himself adored, at
the same time keeping up discipline, and could execute the most difficult
things, while unprovided with everything. Unfortunately there is another
side of this picture, which it will be as well now to describe.

M. d'Orleans, by disposition so adapted to become the honour and the
master-piece of an education, was not fortunate in his teachers. Saint-
Laurent, to whom he was first confided, was, it is true, the man in all
Europe best fitted to act as the instructor of kings, but he died before
his pupil was beyond the birch, and the young Prince, as I have related,
fell entirely into the hands of the Abbe Dubois. This person has played
such an important part in the state since the death of the King, that it
is fit that he should be made known. The Abbe Dubois was a little,
pitiful, wizened, herring-gutted man, in a flaxen wig, with a weazel's
face, brightened by some intellect. In familiar terms, he was a regular
scamp. All the vices unceasingly fought within him for supremacy, so
that a continual uproar filled his mind. Avarice, debauchery, ambition;
were his gods; perfidy, flattery, foot-licking his means of action;
complete impiety was his repose; and he held the opinion as a great
principle, that probity and honesty are chimeras, with which people deck
themselves, but which have no existence. In consequence, all means were
good to him. He excelled in low intrigues; he lived in them, and could
not do without them; but they always had an aim, and he followed them
with a patience terminated only by success, or by firm conviction that he
could not reach what he aimed at, or unless, as he wandered thus in deep
darkness, a glimmer of light came to him from some other cranny. He
passed thus his days in sapping and counter-sapping. The most impudent
deceit had become natural to him, and was concealed under an air that was
simple, upright, sincere, often bashful. He would have spoken with grace
and forcibly, if, fearful of saying more than he wished, he had not
accustomed himself to a fictitious hesitation, a stuttering--which
disfigured his speech, and which, redoubled when important things were in
question, became insupportable and sometimes unintelligible. He had wit,
learning, knowledge of the world; much desire to please and insinuate
himself, but all was spoiled by an odour of falsehood which escaped in
spite of him through every pore of his body--even in the midst of his
gaiety, which made whoever beheld it sad. Wicked besides, with
reflection, both by nature and by argument, treacherous and ungrateful,
expert in the blackest villainies, terribly brazen when detected; he
desired everything, envied everything, and wished to seize everything.
It was known afterwards, when he no longer could restrain himself, to
what an extent he was selfish, debauched, inconsistent, ignorant of
everything, passionate, headstrong, blasphemous and mad, and to what an
extent he publicly despised his master, the state, and all the world,
never hesitating to sacrifice everybody and everything to his credit, his
power, his absolute authority, his greatness, his avarice, his fears, and
his vengeance.

Such was the sage to whom M. le Duc d'Orleans was confided in early
youth!

Such a good master did not lose his pains with his new disciple, in whom
the excellent principles of Saint-Laurent had not had time to take deep
root, whatever esteem and affection he may have preserved through life
for that worthy man. I will admit here, with bitterness, for everything
should be sacrificed to the truth, that M. le Duc d'Orleans brought into
the world a failing--let us call things by their names--a weakness, which
unceasingly spoiled all his talents, and which were of marvellous use to
his preceptor all his life. Dubois led him into debauchery, made him
despise all duty and all decency, and persuaded him that he had too much
mind to be the dupe of religion, which he said was a politic invention to
frighten ordinary, intellects, and keep the people in subjection. He
filled him too with his favourite principle, that probity in man and
virtue in woman, are mere chimeras, without existence in anybody except a
few poor slaves of early training. This was the basis of the good
ecclesiatic's doctrines, whence arose the license of falsehood, deceit,
artifice, infidelity, perfidy; in a word, every villainy, every crime,
was turned into policy, capacity, greatness, liberty and depth of
intellect, enlightenment, good conduct, if it could be hidden, and if
suspicions and common prejudices could be avoided.

Unfortunately all conspired in M. d'Orleans to open his heart and his
mind to this execrable poison: a fresh and early youth, much strength and
health, joy at escaping from the yoke as well as vexation at his
marriage, the wearisomeness produced by idleness, the impulse of his
passions, the example of other young men, whose vanity and whose interest
it was to make him live like them. Thus he grew accustomed to
debauchery, above all to the uproar of it, so that he could not do
without it, and could only divert himself by dint of noise, tumult, and
excess. It is this which led him often into such strange and such
scandalous debauches, and as he wished to surpass all his companions, to
mix up with his parties of pleasure the most impious discourses, and as a
precious refinement, to hold the most outrageous orgies on the most holy
days, as he did several times during his Regency on Good Friday, by
choice, and on other similar days. The more debauched a man was, the
more he esteemed him; and I have unceasingly seen him in admiration, that
reached almost to veneration for the Grand Prieur,--because for forty
years he had always gone to bed drunk, and had never ceased to keep
mistresses in the most public manner, and to hold the most impious and
irreligious discourses. With these principles, and the conduct that
resulted from them, it is not surprising that M. le Duc d'Orleans was
false to such an extent, that he boasted of his falsehood, and plumed
himself upon being the most skilful deceiver in the world. He and Madame
la Duchesse de Berry sometimes disputed which was the cleverer of the
two; and this in public before M. le Duc de Berry, Madame de Saint-Simon,
and others!

M. le Duc d'Orleans, following out the traditions of the Palais Royal,
had acquired the detestable taste and habit of embroiling people one with
the other, so as to profit by their divisions. This was one of his
principal occupations during all the time he was at the head of affairs,
and one that he liked the best; but which, as soon as discovered,
rendered him odious, and caused him a thousand annoyances. He was not
wicked, far from it; but he could not quit the habits of impiety,
debauchery, and deceit into which Dubois had led him. A remarkable
feature in his character is, that he was suspicious and full of
confidence at the same time with reference to the very same people.

It is surprising that with all his talents he was totally without honest
resources for amusing himself. He was born bored; and he was so
accustomed to live out of himself, that it was insufferable to him to
return, incapable as he was of trying even to occupy himself. He could
only live in the midst of the movement and torrent of business; at the
head of an army for instance, or in the cares that arose out of the
execution of campaign projects, or in the excitement and uproar of
debauchery. He began to languish as soon as he was without noise,
excess, and tumult, the time painfully hanging upon his hands. He cast
himself upon painting, when his great fancy for chemistry had passed or
grown deadened, in consequence of what had been said upon it. He painted
nearly all the afternoon at Versailles and at Marly. He was a good judge
of pictures, liked them, and made a collection, which in number and
excellence was not surpassed by those of the Crown. He amused himself
afterwards in making composition stones and seals over charcoal, the
fumes of which often drove me away; and the strongest perfumes, which he
was fond of all his life, but from which I turned him because the King
was very much afraid of them, and soon sniffed them. In fact, never was
man born with so many talents of all kinds, so much readiness and
facility in making use of them, and yet never was man so idle, so given
up to vacuity and weariness. Thus Madame painted him very happily by an
illustration from fairy tales, of which she was full.

She said, that all the fairies had been invited to his birth; that all
came, and that each gave him some talent, so that he had them all. But,
unfortunately, an old fairy, who had disappeared so many years ago that
she was no longer remembered, had been omitted from the invitation lists.
Piqued at this neglect, she came supported upon her little wand, just at
the moment when all the rest had endowed the child with their gifts.
More and more vexed, she revenged herself by rendering useless all the
talents he had received from the other fairies, not one of which, though
possessing them all, in consequence of her malediction, was he able to
make use of. It must be admitted, that on the whole this is a speaking
portrait.

One of the misfortunes of this Prince was being incapable of following up
anything, and an inability to comprehend, even, how any one else could do
so. Another, was a sort of insensibility which rendered him indifferent
to the most mortal and the most dangerous offences; and as the nerve and
principle of hatred and friendship, of gratitude and vengeance, are the
same, and as they were wanting in him, the consequences were infinite and
pernicious. He was timid to excess, knew it, and was so ashamed that he
affected to be exactly the reverse, and plumed himself upon his daring.
But the truth is, as was afterwards seen, nothing could be obtained from
him, neither grace, nor justice, except by working upon his fears, to
which he was very susceptible; or by extreme importunity. He tried to
put people off by words, then by promises, of which he was monstrously
prodigal, but which he only kept when made to people who had good firm
claws. In this manner he broke so many engagements that the most
positive became counted as nothing; and he promised moreover to so many
different people, what could only be given to one, that he thus opened
out a copious source of discredit to himself and caused much discontent.
Nothing deceived or injured him more than the opinion he had formed, that
he could deceive all the world. He was no longer believed, even when he
spoke with the best faith, and his facility much diminished the value of
everything he did. To conclude, the obscure, and for the most part
blackguard company, which he ordinarily frequented in his debauches, and
which he did not scruple publicly to call his roues, drove away all
decent people, and did him infinite harm.

His constant mistrust of everything and everybody was disgusting, above
all when he was at the head of affairs. The fault sprang from his
timidity, which made him fear his most certain enemies, and treat them
with more distinction than his friends; from his natural easiness, from a
false imitation of Henry IV., in whom this quality was by no means the
finest; and from the unfortunate opinion which he held, that probity was
a sham. He was, nevertheless, persuaded of my probity; and would often
reproach me with it as a fault and prejudice of education which had
cramped my mind and obscured my understanding, and he said as much of
Madame de Saint-Simon, because he believed her virtuous.

I had given him so many proofs of my attachment that he could not very
well suspect me; and yet, this is what happened two or three years after
the establishment of the Regency. I give it as one of the most striking
of the touches that paint his portrait.

It was autumn. M. d'Orleans had dismissed the councils for a fortnight.
I profited by this to go and spend the time at La Ferme. I had just
passed an hour alone with the Duke, and had taken my leave of him and
gone home, where in order to be in repose I had closed my door to
everybody. In about an hour at most, I was told that Biron, with a
message from M. le Duc d'Orleans, was at the door, with orders to see me,
and that he would not go away without. I allowed Biron to enter, all the
more surprised because I had just quitted M. le Duc d'Orleans, and
eagerly asked him the news. Biron was embarrassed, and in his turn asked
where was the Marquis de Ruffec (my son). At this my surprise increased,
and I demanded what he meant. Biron, more and more confused, admitted
that M. le Duc d'Orleans wanted information on this point, and had sent
him for it. I replied, that my son was with his regiment at Besancon,
lodging with M. de Levi, who commanded in Franche-Comte.

"Oh," said Biron, "I know that very well; but have you any letter from
him?"

"What for?" I asked.

"Because, frankly, since I must tell you all," said he, "M. le Duc
d'Orleans wishes to see his handwriting."

He added, that soon after I had quitted M. le Duc d'Orleans, whilst he
was walking at Montmartre ma garden with his 'roues' and his harlots,
some letters had been brought to him by a post-office clerk, to whom he
had spoken in private; that afterwards he, Biron, had been called by the
Duke, who showed him a letter from the Marquis de Ruffec to his master,
dated "Madrid," and charged him, thereupon, with this present commission.

At this recital I felt a mixture of anger and compassion, and I did not
constrain myself with Biron. I had no letters from my son, because I
used to burn them, as I did all useless papers. I charged Biron to say
to M. le Duc d'Orleans a part of what I felt; that I had not the
slightest acquaintance with anybody in Spain; that I begged him at once
to despatch a courier there in order to satisfy himself that my son was
at Besancon.

Biron, shrugging his shoulders, said all that was very good, but that if
I could find a letter from the Marquis de Ruffec it would be much better;
adding, that if one turned up and I sent it to him, he would take care
that it reached M. le Duc d'Orleans, at table, in spite of the privacy of
his suppers. I did not wish to return to the Palais Royal to make a
scene there, and dismissed Biron. Fortunately, Madame de Saint-Simon
came in some time after. I related to her this adventure. She found the
last letter of the Marquis de Ruffec, and we sent it to Biron. It
reached the table as he had promised. M. le Duc d'Orleans seized it with
eagerness. The joke is that he did not know the handwriting. Not only
did he look at the letter, but he read it; and as he found it diverting,
regaled his company with it; it became the topic of their discourse, and
entirely removed his suspicions. Upon my return from La Ferme, I found
him ashamed of himself, and I rendered him still more so by what I said
to him on the subject.

I learnt afterwards that this Madrid letter, and others that followed,
came from a sham Marquis de Ruffec, that is to say, from the son of one
of Madame's porters, who passed himself off as my son. He pretended that
he had quarrelled with me, and wrote to Madame de Saint-Simon, begging
her to intercede for him; and all this that his letters might be seen,
and that he might reap substantial benefits from his imposture in the
shape of money and consideration. He was a well-made fellow, had much
address and effrontery, knew the Court very well, and had taken care to
learn all about our family, so as to speak within limits. He was
arrested at Bayonne, at the table of Dadoncourt, who commanded there, and
who suddenly formed the resolution, suspecting him not to be a gentleman,
upon seeing him eat olives with a fork! When in gaol he confessed who he
was. He was not new at the trade and was confined some little time.




CHAPTER LXXI

But to return to M. le Duc d'Orleans.

His curiosity, joined to a false idea of firmness and courage, had early
led him to try and raise the devil and make him speak. He left nothing
untried, even the wildest reading, to persuade himself there was no God;
and yet believed meanwhile in the devil, and hoped to see him and
converse with him! This inconsistency is hard to understand, and yet is
extremely common. He worked with all sorts of obscure people; and above
all with Mirepoix, sublieutenant of the Black Musketeers, to find out
Satan. They passed whole nights in the quarries of Vanvres and of
Vaugirard uttering invocations. M. le Duc d'Orleans, however, admitted
to me that he had never succeeded in hearing or seeing anything, and at
last had given up this folly.

At first it was only to please Madame d'Argenton, but afterwards from
curiosity, that he tried to see the present and the future in a glass of
water; so he said, and he was no liar. To be false and to be a liar are
not one and the same thing, though they closely resemble each other, and
if he told a lie it was only when hard pressed upon some promise or some
business, and in spite of himself, so as to escape from a dilemma.

Although we often spoke upon religion, to which I tried to lead him so
long as I had hope of success, I never could unravel the system he had
formed for himself, and I ended by becoming persuaded that he wavered
unceasingly without forming any religion at all.

His passionate desire, like that of his companions in morals, was this,
that it would turn out that there is no God; but he had too much
enlightenment to be an atheist; who is a particular kind of fool much
more rare than is thought. This enlightenment importuned him; he tried
to extinguish it and could not. A mortal soul would have been to him a
resource; but he could not convince himself of its existence. A God and
an immortal soul, threw him into sad straits, and yet he could not blind
himself to the truth of both the one and the other. I can say then this,
I know of what religion he was not; nothing more. I am sure, however,
that he was very ill at ease upon this point, and that if a dangerous
illness had overtaken him, and he had had the time, he would have thrown
himself into the hands of all the priests and all the Capuchins of the
town. His great foible was to pride himself upon his impiety and to wish
to surpass in that everybody else.

I recollect that one Christmas-time, at Versailles, when he accompanied
the King to morning prayers and to the three midnight masses, he
surprised the Court by his continued application in reading a volume he
had brought with him, and which appeared to be, a prayer book. The chief
femme de chambre of Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, much attached to the
family, and very free as all good old domestics are, transfixed with joy
at M. le Duc d'Orleans's application to his book, complimented him upon
it the next day, in the presence of others. M. le Duc d'Orleans allowed
her to go on some time, and then said, "You are very silly, Madame
Imbert. Do you know what I was reading? It was 'Rabelais,' that I
brought with me for fear of being bored."

The effect of this reply may be imagined. The thing was too true, and
was pure braggadocio; for, without comparison of the places, or of the
things, the music of the chapel was much superior to that of the opera,
and to all the music of Europe; and at Christmas it surpassed itself.
There was nothing so magnificent as the decoration of the chapel, or the
manner in which it was lighted. It was full of people; the arches of the
tribune were crowded with the Court ladies, in undress, but ready for
conquest. There was nothing so surprising as the beauty of the
spectacle. The ears were charmed also. M. le Duc d'Orleans loved music
extremely; he could compose, and had amused himself by composing a kind
of little opera, La Fare writing the words, which was performed before
the King. This music of the chapel, therefore, might well have occupied
him in the most agreeable manner, to say nothing of the brilliant scene,
without his having recourse to Rabelais. But he must needs play the
impious, and the wag.

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