Part 45 (2/2)
Since that tihtened He puts respect into his reverences; and when our two coaches past each other on the sa me
In the affair of the Protestants, he caused as at first only anxiety, religious zeal, and distrust to turn into rebellion In order to make himself necessary, he proposed his universal and peroons He caused certain excesses to be committed in order to raise a cry of disorder; and ato be paternal became, in his hands, an instru learnt that Louvois, to exonerate hi her as the real author of these rigorous and la, and publicly censured his own brother, who, in order to reeable to the Jesuits, to Bossuet, and to Louvois, had overnreat talents of M de Louvois, and the difficulty of replacing hiuard But, froer received the inti, and the estee who sits upon the steps of the throne, he can only look upon hi
His revenues are incalculable The people, seeing his enormous corpulence, eneral administration of posts alone is worth a million His other offices are in proportion
His chateau of Meudon-Fleury, a ical and quite ideal site, is the finest pleasure-house that ever yet the sun shone on The park and the gardens are in the form of an amphitheatre, and are, in my opinion, sublime, in a far different way from those of Vaux M Fouquet, condemned to death, in punishment for his superb chateau, died slowly in prison; the Marquis de Louvois will not, perhaps, die in a stronghold; but his horoscope has already warned that reat adversity He knows it; so leads one to believe that he will come to a bad end He has done more harm than people believe
CHAPTER xxxVIII
The Reforabalus--Theological Discussion with the Marquise--The King's Intervention--Louis XIV Renders His Account to the Christian and Most Christian Painter--The King's Word Is Not to Be Resisted--Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
At the ainst the public exercise of the Refor all the supplications of France and of Europe, executed for ny, five infinitely precious portraits, upon which it was his caprice only to work alternately, and which still des One of these five portraits was that of the King, copied fronard, where he was represented at the age of twenty, in the costume of a Greek hero, in all the lustre of his youth His Majesty had given me this little commission for more than a year, and I desired, with all my heart, to be able soon to fulfil his expectation He destined this miniature for the Emperor of China or the Sultan
I went to see M Petitot at Clagny When he sawme his unfinished enamel, he said to me: ”Here, madame, is your Greek hero; his new edicts finish us, but, as for me, I shall not finish him With the best intentions in the world, and all the respect that is due to hiive hiht him”
”Do you think so, monsieur?” said I to , ourwho has affection for you, and has proved it to: you so many times?”
”My memory, recalls to me all that his munificence: has done for my talent in a thousand instances,” went on the painter; ”but his edicts, his cruel decrees, have upset er norant hitherto of the faith which this able man professed; he informed me that he worshi+pped God in another fashi+on than ours, and made common cause with the Protestants
”Well,” said I to him then, ”what have you to complain of in the new edicts and decrees? They only concern, so far, your ministers,--I should say, your priests; you are not one, and are never likely to be; what do these new orders of the Council matter to you?”
”Mada the holy gospel, fulfil the first of their duties The King forbids them to preach; then, he persecutes theions which exist, the cause of the priests and the sanctuary becomes the cause of the faithful Our priests are not imbecile Trappists and Carthusians, to be reduced to inaction and silence Since their tongues are tied, they are resolved to depart; and their departure becomes an exile which it is our duty to share If you will entrust me with your portraits which have been coabalus, I will finish the them to you, already fired and in all their perfection”
Petitot, until this political crisis, had only exhibited hiood-nature Now his whole face was convulsed and al; when I looked at hi with hinorant I did all that could be done to introduce a little calain the necessary time for the completion ofthis qualification of Heliogabalus; but as his intervention was absolutely necessary to me, I persuaded hiny, which he had deserted for a long time past
”Your presence,” I said to hiical irritation of your fanatical painter A little royal amenity, a little conversation and blandishment, a la Louis XIV, will seduce his artistic vanity At the cost of that, your portrait, Sire, will be terminated It would not be without”
The surprise of his Majesty was extreious talent of Petitot was joined to a Huguenot conscience, and this talent spoke of expatriating itself ”I will go to Clagny to-morrow,” replied the prince to me; and he went there, in fact, accompanied by the Marquise de Montchevreuil and Madae
”Good-day, Monsieur Petitot,” said thehim enter ”I come to contemplate your new masterpieces Is my little miniature near completion?”