Part 29 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: =LOUISE DE LA VALLIeRE, IN THE GARB OF THE ORDER OF THE CARMELITES=
After the painting by D. Plaats]
Louis had been in some degree punished for having played sultan.
Polygamy cannot exist without some discomfort, in a land in which women have any position. Few men, even upon the stage, have had so many quarrels with their mistresses, quarrels often violent, humiliating, as well as painful, as this majestic monarch, before whom the universe trembled. Royalty does not exist before a jealous mistress, and Louis XIV. was faithful only to one, Mme. de Maintenon.
The young King had been spoiled by Louise de La Valliere, who was gentleness itself, and whom love inclined to pardon all. None of the other mistresses really loved Louis, except perhaps Marie Mancini. Louis did not really please women; it was only the King for whose favour they disputed.
Mlle. de La Valliere had entered the Carmelite convent in 1674. Left alone upon the ”breach,” Mme. de Montespan defended the situation like a lioness. She was naturally sharp-tempered, and her fits of anger were often ungovernable,[281] as witnesses say, and Louis did not possess the force which innocence alone gives. Among the rivals who contended with Mme. de Montespan, many, in spite of her efforts, succeeded in enjoying their year, or at least their day. When she became enraged, and the King was forced to bend his neck under the tempest, ”she often scolded him and he did not a.s.sert himself.”[282] This was his method of expiation.
The ephemeral reign of Mlle. de Fontanges came. She also was pa.s.sionate, and she treated the King with ”more authority than the others.”[283] Louis called Mme. de Maintenon to his aid, and charged her to appease these furies. Stormy scenes began to weary him.
It had been remarked since 1675 that Louis aspired to moments of ”repose and of liberty.” Mme. de Montespan, with all her intelligence, could not comprehend that there comes a time of life at which men can no longer live in the midst of tempests, and this error was the cause of her ruin.
The King acquired the habit of fleeing for refuge to Mme. de Maintenon, where he found an atmosphere of peace and enjoyed refres.h.i.+ng conversation.
It was the first time that an intelligent woman had spoken seriously to him, without seeking to attract a declaration of love, nor to divert him with trifles, but to distract him agreeably from his work, and also to make him reflect upon certain subjects which did not always appeal to him. For example, what the sinner who had taken the wife of another might expect in the next world. She recalled to him the fact that there was a police in heaven as in the palaces of the King of France, and she asked him: ”What would you say if some one should tell your Majesty that one of the musketeers you love had seduced a married woman, and that this woman was actually living with him? I am certain that before evening this man would depart from the palace, never to return, however late it might be.”[284]
[Ill.u.s.tration: =MADAME DE MAINTENON=
After the painting by P. Mignard in 1694]
The King laughed. He had never been more in love with Mme. de Montespan,--this happened in 1675, before the Jubilee, which separated them three or four months,--but he was not vexed with Mme. de Maintenon; already he ”could not live without her.”[285] One may or may not feel sympathy with this last, but it is certain that without her, without the empire that she knew how to gain over a prince ardent for pleasure, but by no means a veritable libertine, Louis XIV. might have ended shamefully. To every one their deserts. The Queen Marie-Therese was right in according her friends.h.i.+p to Mme. de Maintenon, who secured for her, somewhat late it is true, a certain consideration and some affectionate demonstration to which the poor Queen was not accustomed.
When the King had pa.s.sed forty, tranquillity became a need. He believed he had a.s.sured it by giving to Mme. de Montespan her official dismissal as the recognised mistress. The date of this event is known. March 29, 1679, the Comtesse de Soissons was prayed to yield to the ancient favourite her charge as superintendent of the palace of the Queen, a position which afforded a kind of regulated retreat. The next day, Mme.
de Montespan wrote to the Duc de Noailles to announce to him this arrangement, and she added: ”Truly this is very bearable. The King only comes into my room after ma.s.s and after supper. It is much better to see each other rarely with pleasure than often with boredom.” The world was not deceived: ”I really believe,” wrote Bussy (April 11th), ”that the King, just as he is, has given this position for past favours.”
From Mme. de Scudery to Bussy, October 29, 1679: ”A diversion has been established for Mme. de Montespan for this winter, and provided that she can do without love, she will retain the consideration of the King. This is all that an honest man can do when he ceases to love.” Bussy responded, November 4th: ”If Mme. de Montespan is wise she will dream only of cards and will leave the King in peace on the subject of love; for it is impossible through complaints and scoldings to lure back unfaithful lovers.”
Mme. de Montespan was _not_ wise. In the hope of bringing the King back to her arms by force, she redoubled the disagreeable scenes. At this moment, an obscure past, filled with vague and frightful events, rose against her, and the expiation for having too much loved became almost tragic in its character.
La Voisin, the poisoner, cannot be forgotten, nor the prosecution in 1668, which had revealed to the young King the connection of his new mistress with the world of malefactors. This affair was stifled, but the evil continued in its subterranean influence. The merchants of love philters and of poisons and the priests of satanic rites saw their clients increasing in number year by year. When the crimes finally came to the surface, and Louis established (March 7, 1679) the ”_Chambre ardente_” to purify France from the gangrene, so many Parisians were connected in one way or another with the accused that the King had against him a powerful current of opinion. This is, perhaps, the most significant feature of the sad affair. Instead of being crushed with shame in learning how many were compromised, the higher cla.s.ses were indignant against the equal justice which refused to give them special consideration. They murmured loudly, and for once the people were with them, for the populace remained staunch to the sorcerers. The clamours were so menacing that the judges of the ”_Chambre ardente_” felt themselves in danger: ”I know,” wrote Bussy-Rabutin on April 1st, ”the chamber inst.i.tuted to examine the 'corrupters,' and also know that Messieurs de Bezons and de La Reynie do not pa.s.s from Paris to Vincennes without an escort of the Kings Guards.”[286] Louis XIV. was obliged several times to strengthen the resolution of these judges; sometimes in openly commanding them to ”judge truly”[287] without any distinction of person, condition, or s.e.x; sometimes by a.s.suring them through official letter of his ”protection.”[288]
The first executions before the _Chambre ardente_ took place in February, 1679, and the list of the names of those arrested or of those to whom notices of warrants to appear as witnesses had been served, a list which made so great an excitement on account of the aristocrats included,[289] is dated January 23, 1680. It had been at least four months before,[290] that there had come to the ears of the King, as some one was reading to him the account of the last examinations, two familiar names. Who is Mlle. des [OE]illets, ancient ”follower” of Mme.
de Montespan? Who is Cato, her maid, and what had they to do with La Voisin and with those like her? These same names again appearing in the list of January 6, 1680, the King, while declaring that the witnesses must certainly have lied,[291] ordered the Procurer-General, M. Robert, ”to pay strict attention to this particular case.”
This was done, with the result that Louis was forced to ask himself if the woman whom he adored above all others, and who had borne him seven children, was a vile ”corrupter”; if this perfect body for which he had risked the safety of his soul had taken part in the ign.o.ble ceremonies of the infamous Guibourg? If, discontented with the thought of sharing his favours with rivals, she might not in an access of jealousy have tried to poison him, the King? He sought the truth, but did not find it.
In waiting further developments, Louis led his mistress with him wherever he might go, and she was always making a disturbance of some sort. The King grew less patient; that was the only difference.
From Bussy-Rabutin, May 18, 1680:
”The King ... as he was mounting into his carriage with the Queen had some rough words with Mme. de Montespan, about the scents with which she deluged herself, which made his Majesty ill. The King at first spoke politely, but as she responded sharply, his Majesty grew warm.” On the 25th, Mme. de Sevigne noted another ”serious embroilment.” This time Colbert succeeded in reconciling them. The situation grew painful. A long series of letters and _memoires_ have been found in which La Reynie discusses for the King the charges acc.u.mulated against Mme. de Montespan. The picture is given of the doubts and fluctuations of an honest man whose responsibilities somewhat rankle in his breast, and who sees an equal peril in dishonouring the throne and in permitting a guilty woman to remain near the King. Louis pa.s.sed through many successive stages of conviction during the prosecution. The further the examination proceeded, the stronger became the presumption of guilt, without, however, bringing positive proofs.
On July 12, 1680, La Reynie summed up for his master the history of the ”pet.i.tion to be used in poisoning the King.” On October 11th he declared that he should be ruined in the affair, and supplicated his Majesty to reflect whether it would be for the ”welfare of the State,” to make these ”horrors” public. In the month of May following, he avowed that he had erred on some points and that there was more evil than at first appeared. The marvellous control that Louis possessed over himself prevented outward betrayal; but certainly these uncertainties, these inferior conflicts, and it is to be hoped some sense of shame and remorse, became chastis.e.m.e.nts for his faults. On her side, Mme. de Montespan, in spite of the secret of her possible guilt being well guarded both at Court and by the judges and police, could not be ignorant that Mlle. des [OE]illets had been interrogated, confronted with witnesses, and imprisoned for life in the general Hospital at Tours.[292] Mme. de Montespan then knew that she had been denounced, but with what proof? What did the King think? What curious meetings between these two beings must have taken place. What conversations during which the King and his mistress were closely observing each other.
Court life, nevertheless, pursued its monotonous course, and Mme. de Montespan continued to figure in positions of honour. In March, 1689, she goes to meet the Dauphin[293] with the rest of the Court, and it is she who has charge of the choice and arrangement of the wedding presents, ”being the woman in the world,” wrote Mademoiselle, ”who knows the best forms.” In July, the King led her to Versailles with her sister, Mme. de Thianges, and her niece, the beautiful d.u.c.h.esse de Nevers. This lady the mother and aunt were cynically offering to the Monarch.[294] In February, 1681, ”a lottery was opened at Mme. de Montespan's, of which the largest prize was one hundred thousand francs, and there were a hundred others offered of one hundred pistoles each.”
In July, 1682, the _Chambre ardente_ was suddenly suppressed. Of the three hundred accused, thirty-six people of no importance had been executed, one hundred sent to the galleys, or to prisons, or convents, or exiled; the noted among them always gaining some concessions. The dungeons of Paris and Vincennes were crowded. The smaller fry were released, and the remainder were scattered, without any other trial, through the provincial prisons, to await a death rarely slow in coming to relieve their misery.
From Louvois to M. de Chauvelin, Intendant, December 16, 1682, announcing the arrival of one of these convoys:
Above all, please take care to prevent any of these gentlemen from proclaiming aloud, a thing which has already occurred, any of the absurd statements connected with Mme. de Montespan, which have been proved to be absolutely without foundation.