Part 29 (2/2)
Threaten a punishment so severe at the first utterance that they will not dare to breathe a word further.
This letter ended the connection of Mme. de Montespan with the affair of the ”corrupters of morals” or the poisoners. She was saved, but was this due to proofs of innocence or to reasons of State, to the refusal of Louis to credit the testimony of an Abbe Guibourg or Lesage, or to the remnants of an old tenderness? The few men with whom it had been necessary to share the secrets which would respond to these questions were so perfectly mute that contemporaries suspected nothing. They saw the ancient favourite a little neglected, but always dreaming of the possibility of rea.s.serting herself, as the many pages of the _Memoires_ of Mademoiselle testify. All this was in the natural course of events.
One single indication of what Louis XIV. thought at the bottom of his soul is possessed; a letter from the King to Colbert, who knew all.
Mademoiselle had prayed Mme. de Montespan to solicit some favour for Lauzun. The King charged Colbert to reply for him (October, 1681): ”You will politely explain to her that I always receive the marks of her friends.h.i.+p and confidence with pleasure, and that I am very vexed when it is not possible to do what she desires, but at this time I can do no more than I have already done.”[295] Did he believe the mistress innocent or had he pardoned her?
The first preoccupation of Lauzun, in returning to the world, must have been to make clear to himself through legitimate or illegitimate means the chronology of the King's love affairs, a history so essential for the comprehension of the interior life of the Court.
The main facts for this record have been already given in the preceding chapter. The returned prisoner had afterwards to learn all that Mademoiselle had accomplished for him during his captivity, and of what the public thought of her efforts, and he recognised that no one in France except Segrais doubted the fact of their marriage. That the marriage had taken place before his imprisonment was the prevalent belief, which was never really shaken. It again came to light in the eighteenth century. The historian Anquetil saw at Treport, in 1744, an old person of more than seventy years of age, who resembled the portraits of the Grande Mademoiselle and did not know from whence came her pension.[296] This person believed herself to be the daughter of the d.u.c.h.esse de Montpensier, and local tradition confirmed this conviction.
There were, however, no absolute proofs, and it will be seen further on how this question of the marriage with Lauzun is brought up over and over again in the biography of the Grande Mademoiselle, with a monotony slightly fatiguing and without it being possible to ever obtain a clear response.
Whatever the fact may be, the Princess gave a very fine example of constancy and fidelity. She lived for ten years absorbed in a single thought. The _Memoires_ for the year 1673 say: ”I remember nothing which has taken place during the past winter. My grief occupies me so much that I have but little interest in the actions of others.” To liberate Lauzun had become a fixed idea, and she attached herself to the steps of the King and to those of Mme. de Montespan, without permitting herself to remember the ill that they had committed, as it was they alone who could loosen the bonds. The more they showed themselves inexorable, the more Mademoiselle redoubled her a.s.siduities. In 1676 she enjoyed for the brief s.p.a.ce of two hours the delusion that Louis XIV. at length, at the end of ten years, was moved with a feeling of compa.s.sion. The news of the attempted escape of Lauzun had just been received. ”I learned that the King had listened to the account with some sign of humanity, I can hardly say of pity. If he had felt this, would he [Lauzun] still be there?”
The Princess wrote to the King, but received no response; and again four years rolled by. Mme. de Montespan was no longer favourite. The courtiers considered it shrewd to neglect her. Better inspired, Mademoiselle continued to stand fast by her, and the result proved the wisdom of this course, in the dramatic moment, for Louis, of the affair of the corrupters. It was in the spring of 1680, while denunciations were falling upon the fallen favourite as upon all those connected with La Voisin, that Mademoiselle remarked by certain movements and a change of tone that something was stirring between Mme. de Montespan and the fortress of Pignerol:
I went to her daily and she appeared touched by the thought of M. de Lauzun.... She often said to me: ”But think how you can make yourself agreeable to the King, that he may accord to you what you desire so dearly.” She threw out such suggestions from time to time, which advised me that they were thinking of my fortune.
The phrase of a friend came back to her: ”But you should let them hope that you will make M. de Maine your heir.” She recalled other hints which at first had pa.s.sed unnoticed, and understood that a bargain was offered.
The monarch and his ancient favourite had agreed between them to sell to Mademoiselle the freedom of the man she loved so deeply. What was to be the price? This was not yet disclosed. It was some time before Mademoiselle comprehended, and then she was so disconcerted that she said nothing. She felt that the combat was not an equal one between herself, from whom pa.s.sion had taken away all judgment, and Mme. de Montespan, who was perfectly calm, and she hesitated, fearing some snare: ”Finally, I resolved to make M. de Maine my heir, provided that the King would send for Lauzun and consent that I should marry him.”
Some third person brought these conditions to Mme. de Montespan and was received with open arms. Louis XIV. thanked his cousin graciously without making any allusion to the condition; he could always a.s.sert that he had made no promise.
Mademoiselle wished that he would at least give her some news of Lauzun.
Mme. de Montespan responded to her insistence: ”It is necessary to have patience,” and affairs remained at this point.
At the end of some weeks, Mademoiselle perceived that she was no longer free. She had counted upon taking her time and having sureties before proceeding further. An immediate execution of the deed of gift was insisted upon, and she was so hara.s.sed that she no longer felt at liberty to breathe freely.
”The King must not be played with,” declared Mme. de Montespan; ”when a promise is made it must be kept.” ”But,” objected Mademoiselle, ”I wish the freedom of M. de Lauzun, and suppose that after what I have done I should find myself deceived, and my friend should not be liberated?”
Louvois was then sent to frighten her, or Colbert in order to compa.s.s some concession. It was no longer a matter of testament.
A donation while living[297] was exacted, of the Princ.i.p.ality of Dombes and of the Comte of Eu without reference to the rest, and this a.s.signment was obtained, in spite of complaints and the bitterest tears; ”for they were demanding precisely what had been given to Lauzun, and Mademoiselle could not without difficulty resolve to despoil her lover.”
She finally comprehended that the King would not cease persecuting her until she consented, and, feeling no hope of diminis.h.i.+ng the demands,[298] she yielded.
The gift to the Duc de Maine was signed February 2, 1681. It gave some agreeable days to Mademoiselle. The King a.s.sured her of his grat.i.tude.
”At supper he regarded me pleasantly and conversed with me; this was most charming.” Nevertheless, Lauzun did not appear. One day Mme. de Montespan informed the Princess that the King would never permit Lauzun to be Duc de Montpensier, and that it would be necessary to have a secret marriage. The Princess cried out: ”What! Madame, I am to permit him to live with me as my husband with no marriage ceremony! Of what will the world think me capable?”
This pa.s.sage in the _Memoires_ apparently fixes the date of marriage after the return of Lauzun from his captivity. There exist, however, a number of moral proofs against this later date.
Some time after this conversation, in the beginning of April, 1681, the Court being at Saint-Germain, Mme. de Montespan announced to Mademoiselle the immediate departure of Lauzun for the Baths of Bourbon, and she then drew her, slightly against her will, to the end of the terrace, far from indiscreet ears. ”When we were in the Val, which is a garden at the end of the Park of Saint-Germain, she said to me, 'The King has asked me to tell you that he does not wish you to dream of ever marrying M. de Lauzun, at least, officially.'”
Mademoiselle had been tricked.
”Upon this, I began to weep and to talk about the gifts I had made, only on the one condition. Mme. de Montespan said, 'I have promised nothing.'
She had gained what she wished, and was willing enough to bear anything I might say.” In the evening it was necessary to a.s.sume a delighted air and thank the King for Lauzun's freedom; a single sign of ill-humour and Mademoiselle ran the risk of receiving nothing in exchange for her millions.
There remained the task of forcing Lauzun to renounce the gifts formerly presented to him. Mme. de Montespan took the route to Bourbon, where ”she found greater difficulty than she had antic.i.p.ated.” Her demands so surpa.s.sed the expectations of the late prisoner that he revolted. There were many disputes, many despatches, and many delays,[299] at the end of which the obstinate one, having been reimprisoned,[300] was so hara.s.sed with threats and promises that he finally yielded. His signature was given; he believed himself free. Instead of liberty, he received an order of exile to Amboise. He also had been duped. This affair is odious from beginning to end.
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