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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XIV., Volume 9
+by Duc de Saint-Simon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Memoirs of Louis XIV., Volume 9
+       And His Court and of The Regency
+
+Author: Duc de Saint-Simon
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2004 [EBook #3868]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV., ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+          MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCY
+
+                        BY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME 9.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+Let me here relate an incident which should have found a place earlier,
+but which has been omitted in order that what has gone before might be
+uninterrupted.  On the 16th of the previous July the King made a journey
+to Fontainebleau, where he remained until the 14th of September.  I
+should suppress the bagatelle which happened on the occasion of this
+journey, if it did not serve more and more to characterize the King.
+
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry was in the family way for the first time,
+had been so for nearly three months, was much inconvenienced, and had a
+pretty strong fever.  M. Fagon, the doctor, thought it would be imprudent
+for her not to put off travelling for a day or two.  Neither she nor M,
+d'Orleans dared to speak about it.  M. le Duc de Berry timidly hazarded a
+word, and was ill received.  Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans more timid
+still, addressed herself to Madame, and to Madame de Maintenon, who,
+indifferent as they might be respecting Madame la Duchesse de Berry,
+thought her departure so hazardous that, supported by Fagon, they spoke
+of it to the King.  It was useless.  They were not daunted, however, and
+this dispute lasted three or four days.  The end of it was, that the King
+grew thoroughly angry and agreed, by way of capitulation, that the
+journey should be performed in a boat instead of a coach.
+
+It was arranged that Madame la Duchesse de Berry should leave Marly,
+where the King then was, on the 13th, sleep at the Palais Royal that
+night and repose herself there all the next day and night, that on the
+15th she should set out for Petit-Bourg, where the King was to halt for
+the night, and arrive like him, on the 16th, at Fontainebleau, the whole
+journey to be by the river.  M. le Duc de Berry had permission to
+accompany his wife; but during the two nights they were to rest in Paris
+the King angrily forbade them to go anywhere, even to the Opera, although
+that building joined the Palais Royal, and M. d'Orleans' box could be
+reached without going out of the palace.
+
+On the 14th the King, under pretence of inquiry after them, repeated this
+prohibition to M. le Duc de Berry and Madame his wife, and also to M.
+d'Orleans and Madame d'Orleans, who had been included in it.  He carried
+his caution so far as to enjoin Madame de Saint-Simon to see that Madame
+la Duchesse de Berry obeyed the instructions she had received.  As may be
+believed, his orders were punctually obeyed.  Madame de Saint-Simon could
+not refuse to remain and sleep in the Palais Royal, where the apartment
+of the queen-mother was given to her.  All the while the party was shut
+up there was a good deal of gaming in order to console M. le Duc de Berry
+for his confinement.
+
+The provost of the merchants had orders to prepare boats for the trip to
+Fontainebleau.  He had so little time that they were ill chosen.  Madame
+la Duchesse de Berry embarked, however, on the 15th, and arrived, with
+fever, at ten o'clock at night at Petit-Bourg, where the King appeared
+rejoiced by an obedience so exact.
+
+On the morrow the journey recommenced.  In passing Melun, the boat of
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry struck against the bridge, was nearly
+capsized, and almost swamped, so that they were all in great danger.
+They got off, however, with fear and a delay.  Disembarking in great
+disorder at Valvin, where their equipages were waiting for there, they
+arrived at Fontainebleau two hours after midnight.  The King, pleased
+beyond measure, went the next morning to see Madame la Duchesse de Berry
+in the beautiful apartment of the queen-mother that had been given to
+her.  From the moment of her arrival she had been forced to keep her bed,
+and at six o'clock in the morning of the 21st of July she miscarried and
+was delivered of a daughter, still-born.  Madame de Saint-Simon ran to
+tell the King; he did not appear much moved; he had been obeyed!  The
+Duchesse de Beauvilliers and the Marquise de Chatillon were named by the
+King to carry the embryo to Saint-Denis.  As it was only a girl, and as
+the miscarriage had no ill effect, consolation soon came.
+
+It was some little time after this occurrence, that we heard of the
+defeat of the Czar by the Grand Vizier upon the Pruth.  The Czar, annoyed
+by the protection the Porte had accorded to the King of Sweden (in
+retirement at Bender), made an appeal to arms, and fell into the same
+error as that which had occasioned the defeat of the King of Sweden by
+him.  The Turks drew him to the Pruth across deserts supplied with
+nothing; if he did not risk all, by a very unequal battle, he must
+perish.  The Czar was at the head of sixty thousand men: he lost more
+than thirty thousand on the Pruth, the rest were dying of hunger and
+misery; and he, without any resources, could scarcely avoid surrendering
+himself and his forces to the Turks.  In this pressing extremity, a
+common woman whom he had taken away from her husband, a drummer in the
+army, and whom he had publicly espoused after having repudiated and
+confined his own wife in a convent,--proposed that he should try by
+bribery to induce the Grand Vizier to allow him and the wreck of his
+forces to retreat The Czar approved of the proposition, without hoping
+for success from it.  He sent to the Grand Vizier and ordered him to be
+spoken to in secret.  The Vizier was dazzled by the gold, the precious
+stones, and several valuable things that were offered to him.  He
+accepted and received them; and signed a treaty by which the Czar was
+permitted to retire, with all who accompanied him, into his own states by
+the shortest road, the Turks to furnish him with provisions, with which
+he was entirely unprovided.  The Czar, on his side, agreed to give up
+Azof as soon as he returned; destroy all the forts and burn all the
+vessels that he had upon the Black Sea; allow the King of Sweden to
+return by Pomerania; and to pay the Turks and their Prince all the
+expenses of the war.
+
+The Grand Vizier found such an opposition in the Divan to this treaty,
+and such boldness in the minister of the King of Sweden, who accompanied
+him, in exciting against him all the chiefs of the army, that it was
+within an ace of being broken; and the Czar, with every one left to him,
+of being made prisoner.  The latter was in no condition to make even the
+least resistance.  The Grand Vizier had only to will it, in order to
+execute it on the spot.  In addition to the glory of leading captive to
+Constantinople the Czar, his Court, and his troops, there would have been
+his ransom, which must have cost not a little.  But if he had been thus
+stripped of his riches, they would have been for the Sultan, and the
+Grand Vizier preferred having them for himself.  He braved it then with
+authority and menaces, and hastened the Czar's departure and his own.
+The Swedish minister, charged with protests from the principal Turkish
+chiefs, hurried to Constantinople, where the Grand Vizier was strangled
+upon arriving.
+
+The Czar never forgot this service of his wife, by whose courage and
+presence of mind he had been saved.  The esteem he conceived for her,
+joined to his friendship, induced him to crown her Czarina, and to
+consult her upon all his affairs and all his schemes.  Escaped from
+danger, he was a long time without giving up Azof, or demolishing his
+forts on the Black Sea.  As for his vessels, he kept them nearly all, and
+would not allow the King of Sweden to return into Germany, as he had
+agreed, thus almost lighting up a fresh war with the Turk.
+
+On the 6th of November, 1711, at about eight o'clock in the evening, the
+shock of an earthquake was felt in Paris and at Versailles; but it was so
+slight that few people perceived it.  In several places towards Touraine
+and Poitou, in Saxony, and in some of the German towns near, it was very
+perceptible at the same day and hour.  At this date a new tontine was
+established in Paris.
+
+I have so often spoken of Marshal Catinat, of his virtue, wisdom,
+modesty, and disinterestedness; of the rare superiority of his
+sentiments, and of his great qualities as captain, that nothing remains
+for me to say except that he died at this time very advanced in years,
+at his little house of Saint-Gratien, near Saint-Denis, where he had
+retired, and which he seldom quitted, although receiving there but few
+friends.  By his simplicity and frugality, his contempt for worldly
+distinction, and his uniformity of conduct, he recalled the memory of
+those great men who, after the best-merited triumphs, peacefully returned
+to the plough, still loving their country and but little offended by the
+ingratitude of the Rome they had so well served.  Catinat placed his
+philosophy at the service of his piety.  He had intelligence, good sense,
+ripe reflection; and he never forgot his origin; his dress, his
+equipages, his furniture, all were of the greatest simplicity.  His air
+and his deportment were so also.  He was tall, dark, and thin; had an
+aspect pensive, slow, and somewhat mean; with very fine and expressive
+eyes.  He deplored the signal faults that he saw succeed each other
+unceasingly; the gradual extinction of all emulation; the luxury, the
+emptiness, the ignorance, the confusion of ranks; the inquisition in the
+place of the police: he saw all the signs of destruction, and he used to
+say it was only a climax of dangerous disorder that could restore order
+to the realm.
+
+Vendome was one of the few to whom the death of the Dauphin and the
+Dauphine brought hope and joy.  He had deemed himself expatriated for the
+rest of his life.  He saw, now, good chances before him of returning to
+our Court, and of playing a part there again.  He had obtained some
+honour in Spain; he aimed at others even higher, and hoped to return to
+France with all the honours of a Prince of the Blood.  His idleness, his
+free living, his debauchery, had prolonged his stay upon the frontier,
+where he had more facilities for gratifying his tastes than at Madrid.
+In that city, it is true, he did not much constrain himself, but he was
+forced to do so to some extent by courtly usages.  He was, then, quite at
+home on the frontier; there was nothing to do; for the Austrians,
+weakened by the departure of the English, were quite unable to attack;
+and Vendome, floating upon the delights of his new dignities, thought
+only of enjoying himself in the midst of profound idleness, under pretext
+that operations could not at once be commenced.
+
+In order to be more at liberty he separated from the general officers,
+and established himself with his valets and two or three of his most
+familiar friends, cherished companions everywhere, at Vignarez, a little
+isolated hamlet, almost deserted, on the sea-shore and in the kingdom of
+Valencia.  His object was to eat fish there to his heart's content.  He
+carried out that object, and filled himself to repletion for nearly a
+month. He became unwell--his diet, as may be believed, was enough to
+cause this--but his illness increased so rapidly, and in so strange a
+manner, after having for a long time seemed nothing that the few around
+him suspected poison, and sent on all sides for assistance. But the
+malady would not wait; it augmented rapidly with strange symptoms.
+Vendome could not sign a will that was presented to him; nor a letter to
+the King, its which he asked that his brother might be permitted to
+return to Court.  Everybody near flew from him and abandoned him, so that
+he remained in the hands of three or four of the meanest valets, whilst
+the rest robbed him of everything and decamped.  He passed thus the last
+two or three days of his life, without a priest,--no mention even had
+been made of one,--without other help than that of a single surgeon.
+The three or four valets who remained near him, seeing him at his last
+extremity, seized hold of the few things he still possessed, and for want
+of better plunder, dragged off his bedclothes and the mattress from under
+him.  He piteously cried to them at least not to leave him to die naked
+upon the bare bed.  I know not whether they listened to him.
+
+Thus died on Friday, the 10th of June, 1712, the haughtiest of men; and
+the happiest, except in the later years of his life.  After having been
+obliged to speak of him so often, I get rid of him now, once and for
+ever.  He was fifty-eight years old; but in spite of the blind and
+prodigious favour he had enjoyed, that favour had never been able to make
+ought but a cabal hero out of a captain who was a very bad general, and a
+man whose vices were the shame of humanity.  His death restored life and
+joy to all Spain.
+
+Aguilar, a friend of the Duc de Noailles, was accused of having poisoned
+him; but took little pains to defend himself, inasmuch as little pains
+were taken to substantiate the accusation.  The Princesse des Ursins, who
+had so well profited by his life in order to increase her own greatness,
+did not profit less by his death.  She felt her deliverance from a new
+Don Juan of Spain who had ceased to be supple in her hands, and who might
+have revived, in the course of time, all the power and authority he had
+formerly enjoyed in France.  She was not shocked them by the joy which
+burst out without constraint; nor by the free talk of the Court, the
+city, the army, of all Spain.  But in order to sustain what she had done,
+and cheaply pay her court to M. du Maine, Madame de Maintenon, and even
+to the King, she ordered that the corpse of this hideous monster of
+greatness and of fortune should be carried to the Escurial.  This was
+crowning the glory of M. de Vendome in good earnest; for no private
+persons are buried in the Escurial, although several are to be found in
+Saint-Denis.  But meanwhile, until I speak of the visit I made to the
+Escurial--I shall do so if I live long enough to carry these memoirs up
+to the death of M. d'Orleans,--let me say something of that illustrious
+sepulchre.
+
+The Pantheon is the place where only the bodies of kings and queens who
+have had posterity are admitted.  In a separate place, near, though not
+on the same floor, and resembling a library, the bodies of children, and
+of queens who have had no posterity, are ranged.  A third place, a sort
+of antechamber to the last named, is rightly called "the rotting room;"
+whilst the other improperly bears the same name.  In whilst third room,
+there is nothing to be seen but four bare walls and a table in the
+middle.  The walls being very thick, openings are made in them in which
+the bodies are placed.  Each body has an opening to itself, which is
+afterwards walled up, so that nothing is seen.  When it is thought that
+the corpse has been closed up sufficiently long to be free from odour the
+wall is opened, the body taken out, and put in a coffin which allows a
+portion of it to be seen towards the feet.  This coffin is covered with a
+rich stuff and carried into an adjoining room.
+
+The body of the Duc de Vendome had been walled up nine years when I
+entered the Escurial.  I was shown the place it occupied, smooth like
+every part of the four walls and without mark.  I gently asked the monks
+who did me the honours of the place, when the body would be removed to
+the other chamber.  They would not satisfy my curiosity, showed some
+indignation, and plainly intimated that this removal was not dreamt of,
+and that as M. de Vendome had been so carefully walled up he might remain
+so!
+
+Harlay, formerly chief-president, of whom I have so often had occasion to
+speak, died a short time after M. de Vendome.  I have already made him
+known.  I will simply add an account of the humiliation to which this
+haughty cynic was reduced.  He hired a house in the Rue de l'Universite
+with a partition wall between his garden and that of the Jacobins of the
+Faubourg Saint-Germain.  The house did not belong to the Jacobins, like
+the houses of the Rue Saint-Dominique, and the Rue du Bac, which, in
+order that they might command higher rents, were put in connection with
+the convent garden.  These mendicant Jacobins thus derive fifty thousand
+livres a-year.  Harlay, accustomed to exercise authority, asked them for
+a door into their garden.  He was refused.  He insisted, had them spoken
+to, and succeeded no better.  Nevertheless the Jacobins comprehended that
+although this magistrate, recently so powerful, was now nothing by
+himself, he had a son and a cousin, Councillors of State, whom they might
+some day have to do with, and who for pride's sake might make themselves
+very disagreeable.  The argument of interest is the best of all with
+monks.  The Jacobins changed their mind.  The Prior, accompanied by some
+of the notabilities of the convent, went to Harlay with excuses, and said
+he was at liberty, if he liked, to make the door.  Harlay, true to his
+character, looked at them askance, and replied, that he had changed his
+mind and would do without it.  The monks, much troubled by his refusal,
+insisted; he interrupted them and said, "Look you, my fathers, I am
+grandson of Achille du Harlay, Chief-President of the Parliament, who so
+well served the State and the Kingdom, and who for his support of the
+public cause was dragged to the Bastille, where he expected to be hanged
+by those rascally Leaguers; it would ill become me, therefore, to enter
+the house, or pray to God there, of folks of the same stamp as that
+Jacques Clement."  And he immediately turned his back upon them, leaving
+them confounded.  This was his last act of vigour.  He took it into his
+head afterwards to go out visiting a good deal, and as he preserved all
+his old unpleasant manners, he afflicted all he visited; he went even to
+persons who had often cooled their heels in his antechambers.  By
+degrees, slight but frequent attacks of apoplexy troubled his speech, so
+that people had great difficulty in understanding him, and he in
+speaking.  In this state he did not cease his visits and could not
+perceive that many doors were closed to him.  He died in this misery, and
+this neglect, to the great relief of the few who by relationship were
+obliged to see him, above all of his son and his domestic.
+
+On the 17th July, a truce between France and England was published in
+Flanders, at the head of the troops of the two crowns.  The Emperor,
+however, was not yet inclined for peace and his forces under Prince
+Eugene continued to oppose us in Flanders, where, however, the tide at
+last turned in our favour.  The King was so flattered by the overflow of
+joy that took place at Fontainebleau on account of our successes, that he
+thanked the country for it, for the first time in his life.  Prince
+Eugene, in want of bread and of everything, raised the siege of
+Landrecies, which he had been conducting, and terrible desertion took
+place among his troops.
+
+About this time, there was an irruption of wolves, which caused great
+disorders in the Orleannais; the King's wolf-hunters were sent there, and
+the people were authorised to take arms and make a number of grand
+battues.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+Peace was now all but concluded between France and England.  There was,
+however, one great obstacle still in its way.  Queen Anne and her Council
+were stopped by the consideration that the king of Spain would claim to
+succeed to the Crown of France, if the little Dauphin should die.
+Neither England nor any of the other powers at war would consent to see
+the two principal crowns of Europe upon the same head.  It was necessary,
+then, above all things to get rid of this difficulty, and so arrange the
+order of succession to our throne, that the case to be provided against
+could never happen.  Treaties, renunciations, and oaths, all of which the
+King had already broken, appeared feeble guarantees in the eyes of
+Europe.  Something stronger was sought for.  It could not be found;
+because there is nothing more sacred among men than engagements which
+they consider binding on each other.  What was wanting then in mere forms
+it was now thought could be supplied by giving to those forms the
+greatest possible solemnity.
+
+It was a long time before we could get over the difficulty.  The King
+would accord nothing except promises in order to guarantee to Europe that
+the two crowns should never be united upon the same head.  His authority
+was wounded at the idea of being called upon to admit, as it were, a
+rival near it.  Absolute without reply, as he had become, he had
+extinguished and absorbed even the minutest trace, idea, and recollection
+of all other authority, all other power in France except that which
+emanated from himself alone.  The English, little accustomed to such
+maxims, proposed that the States-General should assemble in order to give
+weight to the renunciations to be made.  They said, and with reason, that
+it was not enough that the King of Spain should renounce France unless
+France renounced Spain; and that this formality was necessary in order to
+break the double bonds which attached Spain to France, as France was
+attached to Spain.  Accustomed to their parliaments, which are in effect
+their States-General, they believed ours preserved the same authority,
+and they thought such authority the greatest to be obtained and the best
+capable of solidly supporting that of the King.
+
+The effect of this upon the mind of a Prince almost deified in his own
+eyes, and habituated to the most unlimited despotism, cannot be
+expressed.  To show him that the authority of his subjects was thought
+necessary in order to confirm his own, wounded him in his most delicate
+part.  The English were made to understand the weakness and the
+uselessness of what they asked; for the powerlessness of our States-
+General was explained to them, and they saw at once how vain their help
+would be, even if accorded.
+
+For a long time nothing was done; France saying that a treaty of
+renunciation and an express confirmatory declaration of the King,
+registered in the Parliament, were sufficient; the English replying by
+reference to the fate of past treaties.  Peace meanwhile was arranged
+with the English, and much beyond our hopes remained undisturbed.
+
+In due time matters were so far advanced in spite of obstacles thrown in
+the way by the allies, that the Duc d'Aumont was sent as ambassador into
+England; and the Duke of Hamilton was named as ambassador for France.
+This last, however, losing his life in a duel with Lord Mohun, the Duke
+of Shrewsbury was appointed in his stead.
+
+At the commencement of the new year [1713] the Duke and Duchess of
+Shrewsbury arrived in Paris.  The Duchess was a great fat masculine
+creature, more than past the meridian, who had been beautiful and who
+affected to be so still; bare bosomed; her hair behind her ears; covered
+with rouge and patches, and full of finicking ways.  All her manners were
+that of a mad thing, but her play, her taste, her magnificence, even her
+general familiarity, made her the fashion.  She soon declared the women's
+head-dresses ridiculous, as indeed they were.  They were edifices of
+brass wire, ribbons, hair, and all sorts of tawdry rubbish more than two
+feet high, making women's faces seem in the middle of their bodies.  The
+old ladies wore the same, but made of black gauze.  If they moved ever so
+lightly the edifice trembled and the inconvenience was extreme.  The King
+could not endure them, but master as he was of everything was unable to
+banish them.  They lasted for ten years and more, despite all he could
+say and do.  What this monarch had been unable to perform, the taste and
+example of a silly foreigner accomplished with the most surprising
+rapidity.  From extreme height, the ladies descended to extreme lowness,
+and these head-dresses, more simple; more convenient, and more becoming,
+last even now.  Reasonable people wait with impatience for some other mad
+stranger who will strip our dames of these immense baskets, thoroughly
+insupportable to themselves and to others.
+
+Shortly after the Duke of Shrewsbury arrived in Paris, the Hotel de Powis
+in London, occupied by our ambassador the Duc d'Aumont, was burnt to the
+ground.  A neighbouring house was pulled down to prevent others catching
+fire.  The plate of M. d'Aumont was saved.  He pretended to have lost
+everything else.  He pretended also to have received several warnings
+that his house was to be burnt and himself assassinated, and that the
+Queen, to whom he had mentioned these warnings, offered to give him a
+guard.  People judged otherwise in London and Paris, and felt persuaded
+he himself had been the incendiary in order to draw money from the King
+and also to conceal some monstrous smuggling operations, by which he
+gained enormously, and which the English had complained of ever since his
+arrival.  This is at least what was publicly said in the two courts and
+cities, and nearly everybody believed it.
+
+But to return to the peace.  The renunciations were ready, towards the
+middle of March, and were agreed upon.  The King was invited to sign them
+by his own most pressing interest; and the Court of England, to which we
+owed all, was not less interested in consummating this grand work, so as
+to enjoy, with the glory of having imposed it upon all the powers, that
+domestic repose which was unceasingly disturbed by the party opposed to
+the government, which party, excited by the enemies of peace abroad,
+could not cease to cause disquiet to the Queen's minister, while, by
+delay in signing, vain hopes of disturbing the peace or hindering its
+ratification existed in people's minds.  The King of Spain had made his
+renunciations with all the solidity and solemnity which could be desired
+from the laws, customs, and usages of Spain.  It only remained for France
+to imitate him.
+
+For the ceremony that was to take place, all that could be obtained in
+order to render it more solemn was the presence of the peers.  But the
+King was so jealous of his authority, and so little inclined to pay
+attention to that of others, that he wished to content himself with
+merely saying in a general way that he hoped to find all the peers at the
+Parliament when the renunciations were made.  I told M. d'Orleans that if
+the King thought such an announcement as this was enough he might rely
+upon finding not a single peer at the Parliament.  I added, that if the
+King did not himself invite each peer, the master of the ceremonies ought
+to do so for him, according to the custom always followed.  This warning
+had its effect.  We all received written invitations, immediately.
+Wednesday, the 18th of May, was fixed for the ceremony.
+
+At six o'clock on the morning of that day I went to the apartments of M.
+le Duc de Berry, in parliamentary dress, and shortly afterwards M.
+d'Orleans came there also, with a grand suite.  It had been arranged that
+the ceremony was to commence by a compliment from the Chief-President de
+Mesmes to M. le Duc de Berry, who was to reply to it.  He was much
+troubled at this.  Madame de Saint-Simon, to whom he unbosomed himself;
+found means, through a subaltern, to obtain the discourse of the Chief-
+President, and gave it to M. le Duc de Berry, to regulate his reply by.
+This, however, seemed too much for him; he admitted so to Madame de
+Saint-Simon, and that he knew not what to do.  She proposed that I should
+take the work off his hands; and he was delighted with the expedient.
+I wrote, therefore, a page and a half full of common-sized paper in an
+ordinary handwriting.  M. le Duc de Berry liked it, but thought it too
+long to be learnt.  I abridged it; he wished it to be still shorter, so
+that at last there was not more than three-quarters of a page.  He had
+learned it by heart, and repeated it in his cabinet the night before the
+ceremony to Madame de Saint-Simon, who encouraged him as much as she
+could.
+
+At about half-past six o'clock we set out--M. le Duc d'Orleans, M. le Duc
+de Berry, myself, and M. le Duc de Saint-Aignan, in one coach, several
+other coaches following.  M. le Duc de Berry was very silent all the
+journey, appearing to be much occupied with the speech he had learned by
+heart.  M. d'Orleans, on the contrary, was full of gaiety, and related
+some of his youthful adventures, and his wild doings by night in the
+streets of Paris.  We arrived gently at the Porte de la Conference, that
+is to say--for it is now pulled down--at the end of the terrace, and of
+the Quai of the Tuileries.
+
+We found there the trumpeters and drummers of M. le Duc de Berry's guard,
+who made a great noise all the rest of our journey, which ended at the
+Palais de justice.  Thence we went to the Sainte-Chapelle to hear mass.
+The Chapelle was filled with company, among which were many people of
+quality.  The crowd of people from this building to the grand chamber was
+so great that a pin could not have fallen to the ground.  On all sides,
+too, folks had climbed up to see what passed.
+
+All the Princes of the blood, the bastards, the peers and the parliament,
+were assembled in the palace.  When M. le Duc de Berry entered,
+everything was ready.  Silence having with difficulty been obtained, the
+Chief-President paid his compliment to the Prince.  When he had finished,
+it was for M. le Duc de Berry to reply.  He half took off his hat,
+immediately put it back again, looked at the Chief-President, and said,
+"Monsieur;" after a moment's pause he repeated "Monsieur."  Then he
+looked at the assembly, and again said, "Monsieur."   Afterwards he
+turned towards M. d'Orleans, who, like himself, was as red as fire, next
+to the Chief-President, and finally stopped short, nothing else than
+"Monsieur" having been able to issue from his mouth.
+
+I saw distinctly the confusion of M. le Duc de Berry, and sweated at it;
+but what could be done?  The Duke turned again towards M. d'Orleans, who
+lowered his head.  Both were dismayed.  At last the Chief-President,
+seeing there was no other resource, finished this cruel scene by taking
+off his cap to M. le Duc de Berry, and inclining himself very low, as if
+the response was finished.  Immediately afterwards he told the King's
+people to begin.  The embarrassment of all the courtiers and the surprise
+of the magistracy may be imagined.
+
+The renunciations were then read; and by these the King of Spain and his
+posterity gave up all claim to the throne of France, and M. le Duc
+d'Orleans, and M. le Duc de Berry to succeed to that of Spain.  These and
+other forms occupied a long time.  The chamber was all the while crowded
+to excess.  There was not room for a single other person to enter.  It
+was very late when all was over.
+
+When everything was at an end M. de Saint-Aignan and I accompanied M. le
+Duc de Berry and M. le Duc d'Orleans in a coach to the Palais Royal.  On
+the way the conversation was very quiet.  M. le Duc de Berry appeared
+dispirited, embarrassed, and vexed.  Even after we had partaken of a
+splendid and delicate dinner, to which an immense number of other guests
+sat down, he did not improve.  We were conducted to the Porte Saint-
+Honore with the same pomp as that in the midst, of which we had entered
+Paris.  During the rest of the journey to Versailles M. le Duc de Berry
+was as silent as ever.
+
+To add to his vexation, as soon as he arrived at Versailles the Princesse
+de Montauban, without knowing a word of what had passed, set herself to
+exclaim, with her usual flattery, that she was charmed with the grace and
+the appropriate eloquence with which he had spoken at the Parliament, and
+paraphrased this theme with all the praises of which it was susceptible.
+M. le Duc de Berry blushed with vexation without saying a word; she
+recommenced extolling his modesty, he blushing the more, and saying
+nothing.  When at last he had got rid of her, he went to his own
+apartments, said not, a word to the persons he found there, scarcely one
+to Madame his wife, but taking Madame de Saint-Simon with him, went into
+his library, and shut himself up alone there with her.
+
+Throwing himself into an armchair he cried out that he was dishonoured,
+and wept scalding tears.  Then he related to Madame de Saint-Simon, in
+the midst of sobs, how he had stuck fast at the Parliament, without being
+able to utter a word, said that he should everywhere be regarded as an
+ass and a blockhead, and repeated the compliments he had received from
+Madame de Montauban, who, he said, had laughed at and insulted him,
+knowing well what had happened; then, infuriated against her to the last
+degree, he called her by all sots of names.  Madame de Saint-Simon spared
+no exertion in order to calm M. de Berry, assuring him that it was
+impossible Madame de Montauban could know what had taken place at the
+Parliament, the news not having then reached Versailles, and that she had
+had no other object than flattery in addressing him.  Nothing availed.
+Complaints and silence succeeded each other in the midst of tears.  Then,
+suddenly falling upon the Duc de Beauvilliers and the King, and accusing
+the defects of his education: "They thought only;" he exclaimed,
+"of making me stupid, and of stifling all my powers.  I was a younger
+son.  I coped with my brother.  They feared the consequences; they
+annihilated me.  I was taught only to play and to hunt,: and they have
+succeeded in making me a fool and an ass, incapable of anything, the
+laughing-stock and disdain of everybody."  Madame de Saint-Simon was
+overpowered with compassion, and did everything to calm M. de Berry.
+Their strange tete-a-tete lasted nearly two hours, and resumed the next
+day but with less violence.  By degrees M. le Duc de Berry became
+consoled, but never afterwards did any one dare to speak to him of his
+misadventure at the peace ceremony.
+
+Let me here say that, the ceremony over, peace was signed at Utrecht on
+the 20th April, 1713, at a late hour of the night.  It was published in
+Paris with great solemnity on the 22nd.  Monsieur and Madame du Maine,
+who wished to render themselves popular, came from Sceaux to see the
+ceremony in the Place Royale, showed themselves on a balcony to the
+people, to whom they threw some money--a liberality that the King would
+not have permitted in anybody else.  At night fires were lighted before
+the houses, several of which were illuminated: On the 25th a Te Deum was
+sung at Notre Dame, and in the evening there was a grand display of
+fireworks at the Grave, which was followed by a superb banquet given at
+the Hotel de Ville by the Duc de Tresmes, the Governor of Paris, to a
+large number of distinguished persons of both sexes of the Court and the
+city, twenty-four violins playing during the repast.
+
+I have omitted to mention the death of M. de Chevreise, which took place
+between seven and eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday, the 5th of
+November; of the previous year (1712).  I have so often alluded to M. de
+Chevreuse in the course of these pages, that I will content myself with
+relating here two anecdotes of him, which serve to paint a part of his
+character.
+
+He was very forgetful, and adventures often happened to him in
+consequence, which diverted us amazingly.  Sometimes his horses were put
+to and kept waiting for him twelve or fifteen hours at a time.  Upon one
+occasion in summer this happened at Vaucresson, whence he was going to
+dine at Dampierre.  The coachman, first, then the postilion, grew tired
+of looking after the horses, and left them.  Towards six o'clock at night
+the horses themselves were in their turn worn out, bolted, and a din was
+heard which shook the house.  Everybody ran out, the coach was found
+smashed, the large door shivered in pieces; the garden railings, which
+enclosed both sides of the court, broken down; the gates in pieces; in
+short, damage was done that took a long time to repair.  M. de Chevreuse,
+who had not been disturbed by this uproar even for an instant, was quite
+astonished when he heard of it.  M. de Beauvilliers amused himself for a
+long time by reproaching him with it, and by asking the expense.
+
+Another adventure happened to him also at Vaucresson, and covered him
+with real confusion, comical to see, every time it was mentioned.  About
+ten o'clock one morning a M. Sconin, who had formerly been his steward,
+was announced.  "Let him take a turn in the garden," said M. de
+Chevreuse, "and come back in half an hour."  He continued what he was
+doing, and completely forgot his man.  Towards seven o'clock in the
+evening Sconin was again announced.  "In a moment," replied M. de
+Chevreuse, without disturbing himself.  A quarter of an hour afterwards
+he called Sconin, and admitted him.  "Ah, my poor Sconin!" said he,
+"I must offer you a thousand excuses for having caused you to lose your
+day."
+
+"Not at all, Monseigneur," replied Sconin.  "As I have had the honour of
+knowing you for many years, I comprehended this morning that the half-
+hour might be long, so I went to Paris, did some business there, before
+and after dinner, and here I am again."
+
+M. de Chevreuse was confounded.  Sconin did not keep silence, nor did the
+servants of the house.  M. de Beauvilliers made merry with the adventure
+when he heard of it, and accustomed as M. de Chevreuse might be to his
+raillery, he could not bear to have this subject alluded to.  I have
+selected two anecdotes out of a hundred others of the same kind, because
+they characterise the man.
+
+The liberality of M. du Maine which we have related on the occasion of
+the proclamation of peace at Paris, and which was so popular, and so
+surprising when viewed in connection with the disposition of the King,
+soon took new development.  The Jesuits, so skilful in detecting the
+foibles of monarchs, and so clever in seizing hold of everything which
+can protect themselves and answer their ends, showed to what extent they
+were masters of these arts.  A new and assuredly a very original History
+of France, in three large folio volumes, appeared under the name of
+Father Daniel, who lived at Paris in the establishment of the Jesuits.
+The paper and the printing of the work were excellent; the style was
+admirable.  Never was French so clear, so pure, so flowing, with such
+happy transitions; in a word, everything to charm and entice the reader;
+admirable preface, magnificent promises, short, learned dissertations, a
+pomp, an authority of the most seductive kind.  As for the history, there
+was much romance in the first race, much in the second, and much.
+mistiness in the early times of the third.  In a word, all the work
+evidently appeared composed in order to persuade people--under the simple
+air of a man who set aside prejudices with discernment, and who only
+seeks the truth--that the majority of the Kings of the first race,
+several of the second, some even of the third, were, bastards, whom this
+defect did not exclude from the throne, or affect in any way.
+
+I say bluntly here what was very delicately veiled in the work, and yet
+plainly seen.  The effect of the book was great; its vogue such, that
+everybody, even women, asked for it.  The King spoke of it to several of
+his Court, asked if they had read it; the most sagacious early saw how
+much it was protected; it was the sole historical book the King and
+Madame de Maintenon had ever spoken of.  Thus the work appeared at
+Versailles upon every table, nothing else was talked about, marvellous
+eulogies were lavished upon it, which were sometimes comical in the
+mouths of persons either very ignorant, or who, incapable of reading,
+pretended to read and relish this book.
+
+But this surprising success did not last.  People perceived that this
+history, which so cleverly unravelled the remote part, gave but a meagre
+account of modern days, except in so far as their military operations
+were concerned; of which even the minutest details were recorded.  Of
+negotiations, cabals, Court intrigues, portraits, elevations, falls, and
+the main springs of events, there was not a word in all the work, except
+briefly, dryly, and with precision as in the gazettes, often more
+superficially.  Upon legal matters, public ceremonies, fetes of different
+times, there was also silence at the best, the same laconism; and when we
+come to the affairs of Rome and of the League, it is a pleasure to see
+the author glide over that dangerous ice on his Jesuit skates!
+
+In due time critics condemned the work which, after so much applause, was
+recognised as a very wretched history, which had very industriously and
+very fraudulently answered the purpose for which it was written.  It fell
+to the ground then; learned men wrote against it; but the principal and
+delicate point of the work was scarcely touched in France with the pen,
+so great was the danger.
+
+Father Daniel obtained two thousand francs' pension for his history,--
+a prodigious recompense,--with a title of Historiographer of France.  He
+enjoyed the fruits of his falsehood, and laughed at those who attacked
+him.  Foreign countries did not swallow quite so readily these stories
+that declared such a number of our early kings bastards; but great care
+was taken not to let France be infected by the disagreeable truths
+therein published.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+It is now time that I should say something of the infamous bull
+'Unigenitus', which by the unsurpassed audacity and scheming of Father Le
+Tellier and his friends was forced upon the Pope and the world.
+
+I need not enter into a very lengthy account of the celebrated Papal
+decree which has made so many martyrs, depopulated our schools,
+introduced ignorance, fanaticism, and misrule, rewarded vice, thrown the
+whole community into the greatest confusion, caused disorder everywhere,
+and established the most arbitrary and the most barbarous inquisition;
+evils which have doubled within the last thirty years.  I will content
+myself with a word or two, and will not blacken further the pages of my
+Memoirs.  Many pens have been occupied, and will be occupied, with this
+subject.  It is not the apostleship of Jesus Christ that is in question,
+but that of the reverend fathers and their ambitious clients.
+
+It is enough to say that the new bull condemned in set terms the
+doctrines of Saint-Paul (respected like oracles of the Holy Spirit ever
+since the time of our Saviour), and also those of Saint-Augustin, and of
+other fathers; doctrines which have always been adopted by the Popes, by
+the Councils, and by the Church itself.  The bull, as soon as published,
+met with a violent opposition in Rome from the cardinals there, who went
+by sixes, by eights, and by tens, to complain of it to the Pope.  They
+might well do so, for they had not been consulted in any way upon this
+new constitution.  Father Tellier and his friends had had the art and the
+audacity to obtain the publication of it without submitting it to them.
+The Pope, as I have said, had been forced into acquiescence, and now, all
+confused, knew not what to say.  He protested, however, that the
+publication had been made without his knowledge, and put off the
+cardinals with compliments, excuses, and tears, which last he could
+always command.
+
+The constitution had the same fate in France as in Rome.  The cry against
+it was universal.  The cardinals protested that it would never be
+received.  They were shocked by its condemnation of the doctrines of
+Saint-Augustin and of the other fathers; terrified at its condemnation of
+Saint-Paul.  There were not two opinions upon this terrible constitution.
+The Court, the city, and the provinces, as soon as they knew the nature
+of it, rose against it like one man.
+
+In addition to the articles of this constitution which I have already
+named, there was one which excited infinite alarm and indignation, for it
+rendered the Pope master of every crown!  As is well known, there is a
+doctrine of the Church, which says:
+
+"An unjust excommunication ought got to hinder [us] from doing our duty."
+
+The new constitution condemned this doctrine, and consequently proclaimed
+that:
+
+"An unjust excommunication ought to hinder [us] from doing our duty."
+
+The enormity of this last is more striking than the simple truth of the
+proposition condemned.  The second is a shadow which better throws up the
+light of the first.  The results and the frightful consequences of the
+condemnation are as clear as day.
+
+I think I have before said that Father Tellier, without any advances on
+my part, without, in fact, encouragement of any kind, insisted upon
+keeping up an intimacy with me, which I could not well repel, for it came
+from a man whom it would have been very dangerous indeed to have for an-
+enemy.  As soon as this matter of the constitution was in the wind, he
+came to me to talk about it.  I did not disguise my opinion from him, nor
+did he disguise in any way from me the unscrupulous means he meant to
+employ in order to get this bull accepted by the clergy.  Indeed, he was
+so free with me, showed me so plainly his knavery and cunning, that I
+was, as it were, transformed with astonishment and fright.  I never could
+comprehend this openness in a man so false, so artificial, so profound,
+or see in what manner it could be useful to him.
+
+One day he came to me by appointment, with a copy of the constitution in
+his hand in order that we might thoroughly discuss it.  I was at
+Versailles.  In order to understand what I am going to relate, I must
+give some account of my apartments there.  Let me say, then, that I had a
+little back cabinet, leading out of another cabinet, but so arranged that
+you would not have thought it was there.  It received no light except
+from the outer cabinet, its own windows being boarded up.  In this back
+cabinet I had a bureau, some chairs, books, and all I needed; my friends
+called it my "shop," and in truth it did not ill resemble one.
+
+Father Tellier came at the hour he had fixed.  As chance would have it,
+M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de Berry had invited themselves to a
+collation with Madame de Saint-Simon that morning.  I knew that when they
+arrived I should no longer be master of my chamber or of my cabinet.  I
+told Father Tellier this, and he was much vexed.  He begged me so hard to
+find some place where we might be inaccessible to the company, that at
+last, pressed by him to excess, I said I knew of only one expedient by
+which we might become free: and I told him that he must dismiss his
+'vatble' (as the brother who always accompanies a monk is called), and
+that then, furnished with candles, we would go and shut ourselves up in
+my back cabinet, where we could neither be seen nor heard, if we took
+care not to speak loud when anybody approached.  He thought the expedient
+admirable, dismissed his companion, and we sat down opposite each other,
+the bureau between us, with two candles alight upon it.
+
+He immediately began to sing the praises of the Constitution Unigenitus,
+a copy of which he placed on the table.  I interrupted him so as to come
+at once to the excommunication proposition.  We discussed it with much
+politeness, but with little accord.  I shall not pretend to report our
+dispute.  It was warm and long.  I pointed out to Father Tellier, that
+supposing the King and the little Dauphin were both to die, and this was
+a misfortune which might happen, the crown of France would by right of
+birth belong to the King of Spain; but according to the renunciation just
+made, it would belong to M. le Duc de Berry and his branch, or in default
+to M. le Duc d'Orleans.  "Now," said I, "if the two brothers dispute the
+crown, and the Pope favouring the one should excommunicate the other, it
+follows, according to our new constitution, that the excommunicated must
+abandon all his claims, all his partisans, all his forces, and go over to
+the other side.  For you say, an unjust excommunication ought to hinder
+us from doing our duty.  So that in one fashion or another the Pope is
+master of all the crowns in his communion, is at liberty to take them
+away or to give them as he pleases, a liberty so many Popes have claimed
+and so many have tried to put in action."
+
+My argument was simple, applicable, natural, and pressing: it offered
+itself, of itself.  Wherefore, the confessor was amazed by it; he
+blushed, he beat about the bush, he could not collect himself.  By
+degrees he did so, and replied to me in a manner that he doubtless
+thought would convince me at once.  "If the case you suggest were to
+happen," he said, "and the Pope declaring for one disputant were to
+excommunicate the other and all his followers, such excommunication would
+not merely be unjust, it would be false; and it has never been decided
+that a false excommunication should hinder us from doing our duty."
+
+"Ah! my father," I said, "your distinction is subtle and clever, I admit.
+I admit, too, I did not expect it, but permit me some few more
+objections, I beseech you.  Will the Ultramontanes admit the nullity of
+the excommunication?  Is it not null as soon as it is unjust?  If the
+Pope has the power to excommunicate unjustly, and to enforce obedience to
+his excommunication, who can limit power so unlimited, and why should not
+his false (or nullified) excommunication be as much obeyed and respected
+as his unjust excommunication?  Suppose the case I have imagined were to
+happen.  Suppose the Pope were to excommunicate one of the two brothers.
+Do you think it would be easy to make your subtle distinction between a
+false and an unjust excommunication understood by the people, the
+soldiers, the bourgeois, the officers, the lords, the women, at the very
+moment when they would be preparing to act and to take up arms?  You see
+I point out great inconveniences that may arise if the new doctrine be
+accepted, and if the Pope should claim the power of deposing kings,
+disposing of their crowns, and releasing their subjects from the oath of
+fidelity in opposition to the formal words of Jesus Christ and of all the
+Scripture."
+
+My words transported the Jesuit, for I had touched the right spring in
+spite of his effort to hide it.  He said nothing personal to me, but he
+fumed.  The more he restrained himself for me the less he did so for the
+matter in hand.  As though to indemnify himself for his moderation on my,
+account, he launched out the more, upon the subject we were discussing.
+In his heat, no longer master of himself, many things escaped him,
+silence upon which I am sure he would afterwards have bought very dearly.
+He told me so many things of the violence that would be used to make his
+constitution accepted, things so monstrous, so atrocious, so terrible,
+and with such extreme passion that I fell into a veritable syncope.  I
+saw him right in front of me between two candles, only the width of the
+table between us (I have described elsewhere his horrible physiognomy).
+My hearing and my sight became bewildered.  I was seized, while he was
+speaking, with the full idea of what a Jesuit was.  Here was a man who,
+by his state and his vows, could hope for nothing for his family or for
+himself; who could not expect an apple or a glass of wine more than his
+brethren; who was approaching an age when he would have to render account
+of all things to God, and who, with studied deliberation and mighty
+artifice, was going to throw the state and religion into the most
+terrible flames, and commence a most frightful persecution for questions
+which affected him in nothing, nor touched in any way the honour of the
+School of Molina!
+
+His profundities, the violence he spoke of--all this together, threw me
+into such an ecstasy, that suddenly I interrupted him by saying:
+
+"My father, how old are you?"
+
+The extreme surprise which painted itself upon his face as I looked at
+him with all my eyes, fetched back my senses, and his reply brought me
+completely to myself.  "Why do you ask?" he replied, smiling.  The effort
+that I made over myself to escape such a unique 'proposito', the terrible
+value of which I fully appreciated, furnished me an issue.  "Because,"
+said I, "never have I looked at you so long as I have now, you in front
+of me, these two candles between us, and your face is so fresh and so
+healthy, with all your labours, that I am surprised at it."
+
+He swallowed the answer, or so well pretended to do so, that he said
+nothing of it then nor since, never ceasing when he met me to speak to me
+as openly, and as frequently as before, I seeking him as little as ever.
+He replied at that time that he was seventy-four years old; that in truth
+he was very well; that he had accustomed himself, from his earliest
+years, to a hard life and to labour; and then went back to the point at
+which I had interrupted him.  We were compelled, however, to be silent
+for a time, because people came into my cabinet, and Madame de Saint-
+Simon, who knew of our interview, had some difficulty to keep the coast
+clear.
+
+For more than two hours we continued our discussion, he trying to put me
+off with his subtleties and authoritativeness, I offering but little
+opposition to him, feeling that opposition was of no use, all his plans
+being already decided.  We separated without having persuaded each other,
+he with many flatteries upon my intelligence, praying me to reflect well
+upon the matter; I replying that my reflections were all made, and that
+my capacity could not go farther.  I let him out by the little back door
+of my cabinet, so that nobody perceived him, and as soon as I had closed
+it, I threw myself into a chair like a man out of breath, and I remained
+there a long time alone, reflecting upon the strange kind of ecstasy I
+had been in, and the horror it had caused me.
+
+The results of this constitution were, as I have said, terrible to the
+last degree; every artifice, every cruelty was used, in order to force it
+down the throats of the clergy; and hence the confusion and sore trouble
+which arose all over the realm.  But it is time now for me to touch upon
+other matters.
+
+Towards the close of this year, 1713, peace with the Emperor seemed so
+certain, that the King disbanded sixty Battalions and eighteen men per
+company of the regiment of the guards, and one hundred and six squadrons;
+of which squadrons twenty-seven were dragoons.  At peace now with the
+rest of Europe he had no need of so many troops, even although the war
+Against the Empire had continued; fortunately, however it did not.
+Negotiations were set on foot, and on the 6th of March of the following
+year, 1714, after much debate, they ended successfully.  On that day, in
+fact, peace was signed at Rastadt.  It was shortly afterwards published
+at Paris, a Te Deum sung, and bonfires lighted at night; a grand
+collation was given at the Hotel de Ville by the Duc de Tresmes, who at
+midnight also gave, in his own house, a splendid banquet, at which were
+present many ladies, foreigners, and courtiers.
+
+This winter was fertile in balls at the Court; there were several, fancy-
+dress and masked, given by M. le Duc de Berry, by Madame la Duchesse de
+Berry, M. le Duc, and others.  There were some also at Paris, and at
+Sceaux, where Madame du Maine gave many fetes and played many comedies,
+everybody going there from Paris and the Court--M. du Maine doing the
+Honours.  Madame la Duchesse de Berry was in the family way, and went to
+no dances out of her own house.  The King permitted her, on account of
+her condition, to sup with him in a robe de chambre, as under similar
+circumstances he had permitted the two Dauphines to do.
+
+At the opera, one night this winter, the Abbe Servien, not liking certain
+praises of the King contained in a Prologue, let slip a bitter joke in
+ridicule of them.  The pit took it up, repeated it, and applauded it.
+Two days afterwards, the Abbe Servien was arrested and taken to
+Vincennes, forbidden to speak to anybody and allowed no servant to wait
+upon him.  For form's sake seals were put upon his papers, but he was not
+a man likely to have any fit for aught else than to light the fire.
+Though more than sixty-five years old, he was strangely debauched.
+
+The Duc de la Rochefoucauld died on Thursday, the 11th of January, at
+Versailles, seventy-nine years of age, and blind.  I have spoken of him
+so frequently in the course of these memoirs, that I will do nothing more
+now than relate a few particulars respecting him, which will serve in
+some sort to form his portrait.
+
+He had much honour, worth, and probity.  He was noble, good, magnificent,
+ever willing to serve his friends; a little too much so, for he
+oftentimes wearied the King with importunities on their behalf.  Without
+any intellect or discernment he was proud to excess, coarse and rough in
+his manners--disagreeable even, and embarrassed with all except his
+flatterers; like a man who does not know how to receive a visit, enter or
+leave a room.  He scarcely went anywhere except to pay the indispensable
+compliments demanded by marriage, death, etc., and even then as little as
+he could.  He lived in his own house so shut up that no, one went to see
+him except on these same occasions.  He gave himself up almost entirely
+to his valets, who mixed themselves in the conversation; and you were
+obliged to treat them with all sorts of attentions if you wished to
+become a frequenter of the house.
+
+I shall never forget what happened to us at the death of the Prince of
+Vaudemont's son, by which M. de la Rochefoucauld's family came in for a
+good inheritance.  We were at Marly.  The King had been stag-hunting.
+M. de Chevreuse, whom I found when the King was being unbooted, proposed
+that we should go and pay our compliments to M. de la Rochefoucauld.
+We went.  Upon entering, what was our surprise, nay, our shame, to find
+M. de la Rochefoucauld playing at chess with one of his servants in
+livery, seated opposite to him!  Speech failed us.  M. de la
+Rochefoucauld perceived it, and remained confounded himself.  He
+stammered, he grew confused, he tried to excuse what we had seen, saying
+that this lackey played very well, and that chess-players played with
+everybody.  M. de Chevreuse had not come to contradict him; neither had
+I; we turned the conversation, therefore, and left as soon as possible.
+As soon as we were outside we opened our minds to each other, and said
+what we thought of this rare meeting, which, however, we did not make
+public.
+
+M. de Rochefoucauld, towards the end of his career at Court, became so
+importunate, as I have said, for his friends, that the King was much
+relieved by his death.  Such have been his sentiments at the death of
+nearly all those whom he had liked and favoured.
+
+Of the courage of M. de la Rochefoucauld, courtier as he was, in speaking
+to the King, I will relate an instance.  It was during one of the visits
+at Marly, in the gardens of which the King was amusing himself with a
+fountain that he set at work.  I know not what led to it, but the King,
+usually so reserved, spoke with him of the bishop of Saint-Pons, then in
+disgrace on account of the affairs of Port Royal.  M. de la Rochefoucauld
+let him speak on to the end, and then began to praise the bishop.  The
+discouraging silence of the King warned him; he persisted, however, and
+related how the bishop, mounted upon a mule, and visiting one day his
+diocese, found himself in a path which grew narrower at every step; and
+which ended in a precipice.  There were no means of getting out of it
+except by going back, but this was impossible, there not being enough
+space to turn round or to alight.  The holy bishop (for such was his term
+as I well remarked) lifted his eyes to Heaven, let go the bridle, and
+abandoned himself to Providence.  Immediately his mule rose up upon its
+hind legs, and thus upright, the bishop still astride, turned round until
+its head was where its tail had been.  The beast thereupon returned along
+the path until it found an opening into a good road.  Everybody around
+the King imitated his silence, which excited the Duke to comment upon
+what he had just related.  This generosity charmed me, and surprised all
+who were witness of it.
+
+The day after the death of M. de la Rochefoucauld, the Chancellor took
+part in a very tragic scene.  A Vice-bailli of Alencon had just lost a
+trial, in which, apparently, his honour, or his property, was much
+interested.  He came to Pontchartrain's, where the Chancellor was at the
+moment, and waited until he came out into the court to get into his
+carriage.  The Vice-bailli then asked him for a revision of the verdict.
+The Chancellor, with much gentleness and goodness represented to the man
+that the law courts were open to him if he insisted to appeal, but that
+as to a revision of the verdict; it was contrary to usage; and turned to
+get into his coach.  While he was getting in; the unhappy bailli said
+there was a shorter way of escaping from trouble, and stabbed himself
+twice with a poniard.  At the dies of the domestics the Chancellor
+descended from the coach, had the man carried into a room, and sent for a
+doctor, and a confessor.  The bailli made confession very peacefully, and
+died an hour afterwards.
+
+I have spoken in its time of the exile of Charmel and its causes, of
+which the chief was his obstinate refusal to present himself before the
+King.  The vexation of the King against people who withdrew from him was
+always very great.  In this case, it never passed away, but hardened into
+a strange cruelty, to speak within limits.  Charmel, attacked with the
+stone, asked permission to come to Paris to undergo an operation.  The
+permission was positively refused.  Time pressed.  The operation was
+obliged to be done in the country.  It was so severe, and perhaps so
+badly done, that Charmel died three days afterwards full of penitence and
+piety.  He had led a life remarkable for its goodness, was without
+education, but had religious fervour that supplied the want of it.  He
+was sixty-eight years of age.
+
+The Marechale de la Ferme died at Paris, at the same time, more than
+eighty years old.  She was sister of the Comtesse d'Olonne, very rich and
+a widow.  The beauty of the two sisters, and the excesses of their lives,
+made a great stir.  No women, not even those most stigmatized for their
+gallantry, dared to see them, or to be seen anywhere with them.  That was
+the way then; the fashion has changed since.  When they were old and
+nobody cared for them, they tried to become devout.  They lodged
+together, and one Ash Wednesday went and heard a sermon.  This sermon,
+which was upon fasting and penitence, terrified them.
+
+"My sister," they said to each other on their return, "it was all true;
+there was no joke about it; we must do penance, or we are lost.  But, my
+sister, what shall we do?"  After having well turned it over: "My
+sister," said Madame d'Olonne, "this is what we must do; we must make our
+servants fast."  Madame d'Olonne thought she had very well met the
+difficulty.  However, at last she set herself to work in earnest, at
+piety and penitence, and died three months after her sister, the
+Marechale de la Ferme.  It will not be forgotten, that it was under cover
+of the Marechale that a natural child was first legitimated without
+naming the mother, in order that by this example, the King's natural
+children might be similarly honoured, without naming Madame de Montespan,
+as I have related in its place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+The Queen of Spain, for a long time violently attacked with the king's
+evil around the face and neck, was just now at the point of death.
+Obtaining no relief from the Spanish doctors, she wished to have
+Helvetius, and begged the King by an express command to send him to her.
+Helvetius, much inconvenienced, and knowing besides the condition of the
+Princess, did not wish to go, but the King expressly commanded him.
+He set out then in a postchaise, followed by another in case his own
+should break down, and arrived thus at Madrid on the 11th of February,
+1714.  As soon as he had seen the Queen, he said there was nothing but
+a miracle could save her.  The King of Spain did not discontinue sleeping
+with her until the 9th.  On the 14th she died, with much courage,
+consciousness, and piety.
+
+Despair was general in Spain, where this Queen was universally adored.
+There was not a family which did not lament her, not a person who has
+since been consoled.  The King of Spain was extremely touched, but
+somewhat in a royal manner.  Thus, when out shooting one day, he came
+close to the convoy by which the body of his queen was being conveyed to
+the Escurial; he looked at it, followed it with his eyes, and continued
+his sport!  Are these princes made like other human beings?
+
+The death of the Queen led to amazing changes, such as the most prophetic
+could not have foreseen.  Let me here, then, relate the events that
+followed this misfortune.
+
+I must commence by saying, that the principal cause which had so long and
+scandalously hindered us from making peace with the Emperor, was a
+condition, which Madame des Ursins wished to insert in the treaty, (and
+which the King of Spain supported through thick and thin) to the effect
+that she should be invested with a bona fide sovereignty.  She had set
+her heart upon this, and the king of Spain was a long time before he
+would consent to any terms of peace that did not concede it to her.  It
+was not until the King had uttered threats against him that he would give
+way.  As for Madame des Ursins, she had counted upon this sovereignty ,
+with as much certainty as though it were already between her fingers.
+She had counted, too, with equal certainty upon exchanging it with our
+King, for the sovereignty of Touraine and the Amboise country; and had
+actually charged her faithful Aubigny to buy her some land near Amboise
+to build her there a vast palace, with courts and outbuildings; to
+furnish it with magnificence, to spare neither gilding nor paintings, and
+to surround the whole with the most beautiful gardens.  She meant to live
+there as sovereign lady of the country.  Aubigny had at once set about
+the work to the surprise of everybody: for no one could imagine for whom
+such a grand building could be designed.  He kept the secret, pretended
+he was building a house for himself and pushed on the work so rapidly
+that just as peace was concluded without the stipulation respecting
+Madame des Ursins being inserted in the treaty, nearly all was finished.
+Her sovereignty scheme thoroughly failed; and to finish at once with that
+mad idea, I may as well state that, ashamed of her failure, she gave this
+palace to Aubigny, who lived there all the rest of his life: Chanteloup,
+for so it was called, has since passed into the hands of Madame
+d'Armantieres, his daughter.  It is one of the most beautiful and most
+singular places in all France, and the most superbly furnished.
+
+This sovereignty, coveted by Madame des Ursins, exceedingly offended
+Madame de Maintenon and wounded her pride.  She felt, with jealousy, that
+the grand airs Madame des Ursins gave herself were solely the effect of
+the protection she had accorded her.  She could not bear to be
+outstripped in importance by the woman she herself had elevated.  The
+King, too, was much vexed with Madame des Ursins; vexed also to see peace
+delayed; and to be obliged to speak with authority and menace to the King
+of Spain, in order to compel him to give up the idea of this precious
+sovereignty.  The King of Spain did not yield until he was threatened
+with abandonment by France.  It may be imagined what was the rage of
+Madame des Ursins upon missing her mark after having, before the eyes
+of all Europe, fired at it with so much perseverance; nay, with such
+unmeasured obstinacy.  From this time there was no longer the same
+concert between Madame de Maintenon and Madame des Ursins that had
+formerly existed.  But the latter had reached such a point in Spain,
+that she thought this was of no consequence.
+
+It has been seen with what art Madame des Ursins had unceasingly isolated
+the King of Spain; in what manner she had shut him up with the Queen, and
+rendered him inaccessible, not only to his Court but to his grand
+officers, his ministers, even his valets, so that he was served by only
+three or four attendants, all French, and entirely under her thumb.  At
+the death of the Queen this solitude continued.  Under the pretext that
+his grief demanded privacy, she persuaded the King to leave his palace
+and to instal himself in a quiet retreat, the Palace of Medina-Celi, near
+the Buen-Retiro, at the other end of the city.  She preferred this
+because it was infinitely smaller than the Royal Palace, and because few
+people, in consequence, could approach the King.  She herself took the
+Queen's place; and in order to have a sort of pretext for being near the
+King, in the same solitude, she caused herself to be named governess of
+his children.  But in order to be always there, and so that nobody should
+know when they were together, she had a large wooden corridor made from
+the cabinet of the King to the apartment of his children, in which she
+lodged.  By this means they could pass from one to the other without
+being perceived, and without traversing the long suite of rooms, filled
+with courtiers, that were between the two apartments.  In this manner it
+was never known whether the King was alone or with Madame des Ursins;
+or which of the two was in the apartments of the other.  When they were
+together or how long is equally unknown.  This corridor, roofed and
+glazed, was proceeded with in so much haste, that the work went on, in
+spite of the King's devotion, on fete days and Sundays.  The whole Court,
+which perfectly well knew for what use this corridor was intended, was
+much displeased.  Those who directed the work were the same.  Of this
+good proof was given.  One day, the Comptroller of the royal buildings,
+who had been ordered to keep the men hard at it, Sundays and fete days,
+asked the Pere Robinet, the King's confessor, and the only good one he
+ever had; he asked, I say, in one of those rooms Madame des Ursins was so
+anxious to avoid, and in the presence of various courtiers, if the work
+was to be continued on the morrow, a Sunday, and the next day, the Fete
+of the Virgin.  Robinet replied, that the King had said nothing to the
+contrary; and met a second appeal with the same answer.  At the third, he
+added, that before saying anything he would wait till the King spoke on
+the subject.  At the fourth appeal, he lost patience, and said that if
+for the purpose of destroying what had been commenced, he believed work
+might be done even on Easter-day itself; but if for the purpose of
+continuing the corridor, he did not think a Sunday or a fete day was a
+fitting time.  All the Court applauded; but Madame des Ursins, to whom
+this sally was soon carried, was much irritated.
+
+It was suspected that she thought of becoming something more than the
+mere companion of the King.  There were several princes.  Reports were
+spread which appeared equivocal and which terrified.  It was said that
+the King had no need of posterity, with all the children it had pleased
+God to bless him with; but now he only needed a wife who could take
+charge of those children.  Not content with passing all her days with the
+King, and allowing him, like the deceased Queen, to work with his
+ministers only in her presence, the Princesse des Ursins felt that to
+render this habit lasting she must assure herself of him at all moments.
+He was accustomed to take the air, and he was in want of it all the more
+now because he had been much shut up during the last days of the Queen's
+illness, and the first which followed her death.  Madame des Ursins chose
+four or five gentlemen to accompany him, to the exclusion of all others,
+even his chief officers, and people still more necessary.  These
+gentlemen charged with the amusement of the King, were called
+recreadores.  With so much circumspection, importunity, preparation, and
+rumour carefully circulated, it was not doubted that Madame des Ursins
+intended to marry him; and the opinion, as well as the fear, became
+general.  The King (Louis XIV.), was infinitely alarmed; and Madame de
+Maintenon, who had twice tried to be proclaimed Queen and twice failed,
+was distracted with jealousy.  However, if Madame des Ursins flattered
+herself then, it was not for long.
+
+The King of Spain, always curious to learn the news from France, often
+demanded them of his confessor, the only man to whom he could speak who
+was not under the thumb of Madame des Ursins.  The clever and courageous
+Robinet, as disturbed as others at the progress of the design, which
+nobody in the two Courts of France and Spain doubted was in execution,
+allowed himself to be pressed by questions--in an embrasure where the
+King had drawn him--played the reserved and the mysterious in order to
+excite curiosity more.  When he saw it was sufficiently excited, he said
+that since he was forced to speak, his news from France was the same as
+that at Madrid, where no one doubted that the King would do the Princesse
+des Ursins the honour to espouse her.  The King blushed and hastily
+replied, "Marry her! oh no! not that!" and quitted him.
+
+Whether the Princesse des Ursins was informed of this sharp repartee, or
+whether she despaired already of success, she changed about; and judging
+that this interregnum in the Palace of Medina-Celi could not last for
+ever, resolved to assure herself of the King by a Queen who should owe to
+her such a grand marriage, and who, having no other support, would throw
+herself into her arms by gratitude and necessity.  With this view she
+explained herself to Alberoni, who, since the death of the Duc de
+Vendome, had remained at Madrid charged with the affairs of Parma; and
+proposed to him the marriage of the Princess of Parma, daughter of the
+Duchess and of the late Duke of Parma, who had married the widow of his
+brother.
+
+Alberoni could with difficulty believe his ears.  An alliance so
+disproportioned appeared to him so much the more incredible, because he
+thought the.  Court of France would never consent to it, and that without
+its consent the marriage could not be concluded.  The Princess in
+question was the issue of double illegitimacy; by her father descended
+from a pope, by her mother from a natural daughter of Charles Quint.  She
+was daughter of a petty Duke of Parma, and of a mother, entirely
+Austrian, sister of the Dowager Empress and of the Dowager Queen of Spain
+(whose acts had excited such disapproval that she was sent from her exile
+at Toledo to Bayonne), sister too of the Queen of Portugal, who had
+induced the King, her husband, to receive the Archduke at Lisbon, and to
+carry the war into Spain.  It did not seem reasonable, therefore, that
+such a Princess would be accepted as a wife for the King of Spain.
+
+Nothing of all this, however, stopped the Princesse des Ursins; her own
+interest was the most pressing consideration with her; the will of the
+King of Spain was entirely subject to her; she felt all the change
+towards her of our King and of Madame de Maintenon; she no longer hoped
+for a return of their favour; she believed that she must look around for
+support against the very authority which had established her so
+powerfully, and which could destroy her; and occupied herself solely in
+pushing forward a marriage from which she expected everything by making
+the same use of the new queen as she had made of the one just dead.  The
+King of Spain was devout, he absolutely wanted a wife, the Princesse des
+Ursins was of an age when her charms were but the charms, of art; in a
+word, she set Alberoni to work, and it may be believed she was not
+scrupulous as to her means as soon as they were persuaded at Parma that
+she was serious and not joking.  Orry, always united with Madame des
+Ursins, and all-powerful, by her means, was her sole confidant in this
+important affair.
+
+At that time the Marquis de Brancas was French ambassador at Madrid.  He
+had flattered himself that Madame des Ursins would make him one of the
+grandees of Spain.  Instead of doing so she simply bestowed upon him the
+order of the Golden Fleece.  He had never pardoned her for this.
+Entirely devoted to Madame de Maintenon, he became on that very account
+an object of suspicion to Madame des Ursins, who did not doubt that he
+cherished a grudge against her, on account of the favour he had missed.
+She allowed him no access to her, and had her eyes open upon all he did.
+Brancas in like manner watched all her doings.  The confessor, Robinet,
+confided to him his fears respecting Madame des Ursins, and the chiefs of
+a court universally discontented went and opened their hearts to him,
+thinking it was France alone which could set to rights the situation of
+Spain.
+
+Brancas appreciated all the importance of what was told him, but warned
+by the fate of the Abbe d'Estrees, fearing even for his couriers, he took
+the precaution of sending word to the King that he had pressing business
+to acquaint him with, which he could not trust to paper, and that he
+wished to be allowed to come to Versailles for a fortnight.  The reply
+was the permission asked for, accompanied, however, with an order to
+communicate en route with the Duc de Berwick, who was about to pass to
+Barcelona.
+
+Madame des Ursins, who always found means to be informed of everything,
+immediately knew of Brancas's projected journey, and determined to get
+the start of him.  At once she had sixteen relays of mules provided upon
+the Bayonne road, and suddenly sent off to France, on Holy Thursday,
+Cardinal del Giudice, grand inquisitor and minister of state, who had
+this mean complaisance for her.  She thus struck two blows at once; she
+got rid, at least for a time, of a Cardinal minister who troubled her,
+and anticipated Brancas, which in our Court was no small point.
+
+Brancas, who felt all the importance of arriving first, followed the
+Cardinal on Good Friday, and moved so well that he overtook him at
+Bayonne, at night while he was asleep; Brancas passed straight on,
+charging the Commandant to amuse and to delay the Cardinal as long as
+possible on the morrow; gained ground, and arrived at Bordeaux with
+twenty-eight post-horses that he had carried off with him from various
+stations, to keep them from the Cardinal.  He arrived in Paris in this
+manner two days before the other, and went straight to Marly where the
+King was, to explain the business that had led him there.  He had a long
+audience with the King, and received a lodging for the rest of the visit.
+
+The Cardinal del Giudice rested four or five days at Paris, and then came
+to Marly, where he was introduced to the King.  The Cardinal was somewhat
+embarrassed; he was charged with no business; all his mission was to
+praise Madame des Ursins, and complain of the Marquis de Brancas.  These
+praises of Madame des Ursins were but vague; she had not sufficient
+confidence in the Cardinal to admit to him her real position in our
+Court, and to give him instructions accordingly, so that what he had to
+say was soon all said; against the Marquis de Brancas he had really no
+fact to allege, his sole crime that he was too sharp-sighted and not
+sufficiently devoted to the Princess.
+
+The Cardinal was a courtier, a man of talent, of business, of intrigue,
+who felt, with annoyance, that for a person of his condition and weight,
+such a commission as he bore was very empty.  He appeared exceedingly
+agreeable in conversation, of pleasant manners, and was much liked in
+good society.  He was assiduous in his attentions to the King, without
+importuning him for audiences that were unnecessary; and by all his
+conduct, he gave reason for believing that he suspected Madame des
+Ursins' decadence in our Court, and sought to gain esteem and confidence,
+so as to become by the support of the King, prime minister in Spain; but
+as we shall soon see, his ultramontane hobbies hindered the
+accomplishment of his measures.  All the success of his journey consisted
+in hindering Brancas from returning to Spain.  This was no great
+punishment, for Brancas had nothing more to hope for from Madame des
+Ursins, and was not a man to lose his time for nothing.
+
+Up to this period not a word had been said to the King (Louis XIV.) by
+the King of Spain upon the subject of his marriage; not a hint had been
+given that he meant to remarry, much less with a Parma princess.  This
+proceeding, grafted upon the sovereignty claimed by the Princesse des
+Ursine, and all her conduct with the King of Spain since the death of the
+Queen, resolved our King to disgrace her without appeal.
+
+A remark upon Madame des Ursins, accompanied by a smile, escaped from the
+King, generally so complete a master of himself, and appeared enigmatical
+to such an extent, although striking, that Torcy, to wham it was
+addressed, understood nothing.  In his surprise, he related to Castries
+what the King had said; Castries told it to Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
+who reported it to M. d'Orleans and to me.  We racked our brains to
+comprehend it, but in vain; nevertheless such an unintelligible remark
+upon a person like Madame des Ursins, who up to this time had been on
+such good terms with the King and Madame de Maintenon, did not appear to
+me to be favourable.  I was confirmed in this view by what had just
+happened with regard to her sovereignty; but I was a thousand leagues
+from the thunderbolt which this lightning announced, and which only
+declared itself to us by its fall.
+
+It wits not until the 27th of June that the King was made acquainted by
+the King of Spain with his approaching marriage.  Of course, through
+other channels, he had not failed to hear of it long before.  He passed
+in the lightest and gentlest manner in the world over this project, and
+the mystery so long and so complete! with which it had been kept from
+him, stranger, if possible, than the marriage itself.  He could not
+hinder it; but from this moment he was sure of his vengeance against her
+who had arranged and brought it about in this manner.  The disgrace of
+Madame des Ursine was in fact determined on between the King and Madame
+de Maintenon, but in a manner a secret before and since, that I know
+nobody who has found out by whom or how it was carried out.  It is good
+to admit our ignorance, and not to give fictions and inventions in place
+of what we are unacquainted with.
+
+I know not why, but a short time after this, the Princesse des Ursine
+conceived such strong suspicion of the lofty and enterprising spirit of
+the Princess of Parma that she repented having made this marriage; and
+wished to break it off.  She brought forward; therefore, I know not what
+difficulties, and despatched a courier to Rome to Cardinal Acquaviva, who
+did the King of Spain's business there, ordering him to delay his journey
+to Parma, where he had been commanded to ask the hand of the Princess,
+and to see her provisionally espoused.  But Madame des Ursins
+had changed her mind too late.  The courier did not find Acquaviva at
+Rome.  That Cardinal was already far away on the road to Parma, so that
+there were no means of retreat.
+
+Acquaviva was received with great honour and much magnificence; he made
+his demand, but delayed the espousals as long as he could, and this
+caused much remark.  The marriage, which was to have been celebrated on
+the 25th of August, did not take place until the 15th of September.
+Immediately after the ceremony the new Queen set out for Spain.
+
+An envoy from Parma, with news of the marriage of the Princess, arrived
+at Fontainebleau on the 11th October, and had an audience with the King.
+This was rather late in the day: For dowry she had one hundred thousand
+pistoles, and three hundred thousand livres' worth of jewels.  She had
+embarked for Alicante at Sestri di Levante.  A violent tempest sickened
+her of the sea.  She landed, therefore, at Monaco, in order to traverse
+by land Provence, Languedoc, and Guienne, so as to reach Bayonne, and see
+there the Queen Dowager of Spain; sister of her mother, and widow of
+Charles II.  Desgranges, master of the ceremonies, was to meet her in
+Provence, with orders to follow her, and to command the governors,
+lieutenants-general, and intendants to follow her also, and serve her,
+though she travelled incognito.
+
+The new Queen of Spain, on arriving at Pau, found the Queen Dowager, her
+aunt, had come expressly from Bayonne to meet her.  As they approached
+each other, they both descended at the same time, and after saluting,
+mounted alone into a beautiful caleche that the Queen Dowager had brought
+with her, and that she presented to her niece.  They supped together
+alone.  The Queen Dowager conducted her to Saint-Jean Pied-de-Port (for
+in that country, as in Spain, the entrances to mountain passes are called
+ports).  They separated there, the Queen Dowager making the Queen many
+presents, among others a garniture of diamonds.  The Duc de Saint-Aignan
+joined the Queen of Spain at Pau, and accompanied her by command of the
+King to Madrid.  She sent Grillo, a Genoese noble, whom she has since
+made grandee of Spain, to thank the King for sending her the Duc de
+Saint-Aignan, and for the present he brought with him.  The officers of
+her household had been named by Madame des Ursins.
+
+The Queen of Spain advanced towards Madrid with the attendants sent to
+accompany her.  She was to be met by the King of Spain at Guadalaxara,
+which is about the same distance from Madrid as Paris is from
+Fontainebleau.  He arrived there, accompanied by the attendants that the
+Princesse des Ursins had placed near him, to keep him company, and to
+allow no one else to approach him.  She followed in her coach, so as to
+arrive at the same time, and immediately afterwards he shut himself up
+alone with her, and saw nobody until he went to bed.  This was on the
+22nd of December.  The next day the Princesse des Ursins set out with a
+small suite for a little place, seven leagues further, called Quadraque,
+where the Queen was to sleep that night.  Madame des Ursins counted upon
+enjoying all the gratitude that the queen would feel for the unhoped-for
+grandeur she had obtained by her means; counted upon passing the evening
+with her, and upon accompanying her next day to Guadalaxara.  She found,
+upon arriving at Quadraque, that the Queen had already reached there.
+She at once entered into a lodging that had been prepared for her,
+opposite that of the Queen.  She was in a full Court dress.  After
+adjusting it in a hurried manner, she went to the Queen.  The coldness
+and stiffness of her reception surprised her extremely.  She attributed
+it in the first place to the embarrassment of the Queen, and tried to
+melt this ice.  Everybody withdrew, in order to leave the two alone.
+
+Then the conversation commenced.  The Queen would not long allow Madame
+des Ursins to continue it; but burst out into reproaches against her for
+her manners, and for appearing there in a dress that showed want of
+respect for the company she was in.  Madame des Ursins, whose dress was
+proper, and who, on account of her respectful manners and her discourse,
+calculated to win the Queen, believed herself to be far from meriting
+this treatment, was strangely surprised, and wished to excuse herself;
+but the Queen immediately began to utter offensive words, to cry out, to
+call aloud, to demand the officers of the guard, and sharply to; command
+Madame des Ursins to leave her presence.  The latter wished to speak and
+defend herself against the reproaches she heard; but the Queen,
+increasing her fury and her menaces, cried out to her people to drive
+this mad woman from her presence and from the house; and absolutely had
+her turned out by the shoulders.  Immediately afterwards, she called
+Amenzaga, lieutenant of the body-guard, and at the same time the ecuyer
+who had the control of her equipages.  She ordered the first to arrest
+Madame des Ursins, and not quit her until he had placed her in a coach,
+with two sure officers of the guard and fifteen soldiers as sentinels
+over her; the second she commanded to provide instantly a coach and six,
+with two or three footmen, and send off in it the Princesse des Ursins
+towards Burgos and Bayonne, without once stopping on the road.  Amenzago
+tried to represent to the Queen that the King of Spain alone had the
+power to give such commands; but she haughtily asked him if he had not
+received an order from the King of Spain to obey her in everything,
+without reserve and without comment.  It was true he had received such an
+order, though nobody knew a word about it.
+
+Madame des Ursins was then immediately arrested, and put into a coach
+with one of her waiting-women, without having had time to change her
+costume or her head-dress, to take any precaution against the cold, to
+provide herself with any money or other things, and without any kind of
+refreshment in the coach, or a chemise; nothing, in fact, to change or to
+sleep in!  She was shipped off thus (with two officers of the guard; who
+were ready as soon as the coach), in full Court dress, just as she left
+the Queen.  In the very short and tumultuous interval which elapsed, she
+sent a message to the Queen, who flew into a fresh passion upon not being
+obeyed, and made her set out immediately.
+
+It was then nearly seven o'clock in the evening, two days before
+Christmas, the ground all covered with snow and ice, and the cold extreme
+and very sharp and bitter, as it always is in Spain.  As soon as the
+Queen learned that the Princesse des Ursins was out of Quadraque, she
+wrote to the King of Spain, by an officer of the guards whom she
+despatched to Guadalaxara.  The night was so dark that it was only by
+means of the snow that anything could be seen.
+
+It is not easy to represent the state of Madame des Ursins in the coach.
+An excess of astonishment and bewilderment prevailed at first, and
+suspended all other sentiment; but grief, vexation, rage, and despair,
+soon followed.  In their turn succeeded sad and profound reflections upon
+a step so violent, so unheard-of, and so unjustifiable as she thought.
+Then she hoped everything from the friendship of the King of Spain and
+his confidence in her; pictured his anger and surprise, and those of the
+group of attached servitors, by whom she had surrounded him, and who
+would be so interested in exciting the King in her favour.  The long
+winter's night pissed thus; the cold was, terrible, there was nothing to
+ward it off; the coachman actually lost the use of one hand.  The morning
+advanced; a halt was necessary in order to bait the horses; as for the
+travellers there is nothing for them ever in the Spanish inns.  You are
+simply told where each thing you want is sold.  The meat is ordinarily
+alive; the wine, thick, flat, and strong; the bread bad; the water is
+often worthless; as to beds, there are some, but only for the mule-
+drivers, so that you must carry everything with you, and neither Madame
+des Ursins nor those with her had anything whatever.  Eggs, where they
+could find any, were their sole resource; and these, fresh or not, simply
+boiled, supported them during all the journey.
+
+Until this halt for the horses, silence had been profound and
+uninterrupted; now it was broken.  During all this long night the
+Princesse des Ursins had had leisure to think upon the course she should
+adopt, and to compose her face.  She spoke of her extreme surprise, and
+of the little that had passed between her and the Queen.  In like manner
+the two officers of the guard accustomed, as was all Spain, to fear and
+respect her more than their King, replied to her from the bottom of that
+abyss of astonishment from which they had not yet arisen.  The horses
+being put to, the coach soon started again.  Soon, too, the Princesse des
+Ursins found that the assistance she expected from the King did not
+arrive.  No rest, no provisions, nothing to put on, until Saint-Jean de
+Luz was reached.  As she went further on, as time passed and no news
+came, she felt she had nothing more to hope for.  It may be imagined what
+rage succeeded in a woman so ambitious, so accustomed to publicly reign,
+so rapidly and shamefully precipitated from the summit of power by the
+hand that she herself had chosen as the most solid support of her
+grandeur.  The Queen had not replied to the last two letters Madame des
+Ursins had written to her.  This studied negligence was of bad augury,
+but who would have imagined treatment so strange and so unheard of?
+
+Her nephews, Lanti and Chalais, who had permission to join her, completed
+her dejection.  Yet she was faithful to herself.  Neither tears nor
+regrets, neither reproaches nor the slightest weakness escaped her; not a
+complaint even of the excessive cold, of the deprivation of all things,
+or of the extreme fatigue of such a journey.  The two officers who
+guarded her could not contain their admiration.
+
+At Saint-Jean de Luz, where she arrived on the 14th of January, 1715, she
+found at last her corporeal ills at an end.  She obtained a bed, change
+of dress, food, and her liberty.  The guards, their officers, and the
+coach which had brought her, returned; she remained with her waiting-maid
+and her nephews.  She had leisure to think what she might expect from
+Versailles.  In spite of her mad sovereignty scheme so long maintained,
+and her hardihood in arranging the King of Spain's marriage without
+consulting our King, she flattered herself she should find resources in a
+Court she had so long governed.  It was from Saint-Jean de Luz that she
+despatched a courier charged with letters for the King, for Madame de
+Maintenon, and for her friends.  She briefly gave us an account in those
+letters of the thunderbolt which had fallen on her, and asked permission
+to come to the Court to explain herself more in detail.  She waited for
+the return of her courier in this her first place of liberty and repose,
+which of itself is very agreeable.  But this first courier despatched,
+she sent off Lanti with letters written less hastily, and with
+instructions.  Lanti saw the King in his cabinet on the last of January,
+and remained there some moments.  From him it was known that as soon as
+Madame des Ursins despatched her first courier, she had sent her
+compliments to the Queen Dowager of Spain at Bayonne, who would not
+receive them.  What cruel mortifications attend a fall from a throne!
+Let us now return to Guadalaxara.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+The officer of the guards, whom the Queen despatched with a letter for
+the King of Spain as soon as Madame des Ursins was out of Quadraque,
+found the King upon the point of going to bed.  He appeared moved, sent a
+short reply to the Queen, and gave no orders.  The officer returned
+immediately.  What is singular is, that the secret was so well kept that
+it did not transpire until the next morning at ten o'clock.  It may be
+imagined what emotion seized the whole Court, and what divers movements
+there were among all at Guadalaxara.  However, nobody dared to speak to
+the King, and much expectation was built upon the reply he had sent to
+the Queen.  The morning passed and nothing was said; the fate of Madame
+des Ursins then became pretty evident.
+
+Chalais and Lanti made bold to ask the King for permission to go and join
+the Princess in her isolation.  Not only he allowed them to do so, but
+charged them with a letter of simple civility, in which he told her he
+was very sorry for what had happened; that he had not been able to oppose
+the Queen's will; that he should continue to her her pensions, and see
+that they were punctually paid.  He was as good as his word: as long as
+she lived she regularly received them.
+
+The Queen arrived at Guadalaxara on the afternoon of the day before
+Christmas day, at the hour fixed, and as though nothing had occurred.
+The King received her in the same manner on the staircase, gave her his
+hand, and immediately led her to the chapel, where the marriage was at
+once celebrated; for in Spain the custom is to marry after dinner.  After
+that he led her to her chamber, and straightway went to bed; it was
+before six o'clock in the evening, and both got up again for the midnight
+mass.  What passed between them upon the event of the previous evening
+was entirely unknown, and has always remained so.  The day after
+Christmas day the King and Queen alone together in a coach, and followed
+by all the Court, took the road for Madrid, where there was no more talk
+of Madame des Ursins than if the King had never known her.  Our King
+showed not the least surprise at the news brought to him by a courier
+despatched from Guadalaxara by the Duc de Saint-Aignan, though all the
+Court was filled with emotion and affright after having seen Madame des
+Ursins so triumphant.
+
+Let us now look about for some explanations that will enable us to pierce
+this mystery--that remark to Torcy which escaped the King, which Torcy
+could not comprehend, and which he related to Castries, who told it to
+Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, from whom I learned it!  Can we imagine
+that a Parma princess brought up in a garret by an imperious mother,
+would have dared to take upon herself, while six leagues from the King of
+Spain whom she had never seen, a step so bold and unheard-of, when we
+consider against whom directed, a person possessing the entire confidence
+of that King and reigning openly?  The thing is explained by the order,
+so unusual and so secret, that Amenzago had from the King of Spain to
+obey the Queen in everything, without reserve and without comment; an
+order that became known only at the moment when she gave orders to arrest
+Madame des Ursins and take her away.
+
+Let us remark, too, the tranquillity with which our King and the King of
+Spain received the first intelligence of this event; the inactivity of
+the latter, the coldness of his letters to Madame des Ursins, and his
+perfect indifference what became of a person who was so cherished the day
+before, and who yet was forced to travel deprived of everything, by roads
+full of ice and snow.  We must recollect that when the King banished
+Madame des Ursins before, for opening the letter of the Abbe d'Estrees,
+and for the note she sent upon it, he did not dare to have his orders
+executed in the presence of the King of Spain.  It was on the frontier of
+Portugal, where our King wished him to go for the express purpose, that
+the King of Spain signed the order by which the Princesse des Ursins was
+forced to withdraw from the country.  Now we had a second edition of the
+same volume.  Let me add what I learnt from the Marechal de Brancas, to
+whom Alberoni related, a long while after this disgrace, that one evening
+as the Queen was travelling from Parma to Spain, he found her pacing her
+chamber, with rapid step and in agitation muttering to herself, letting
+escape the name of the Princesse des Ursins, and then saying with heat,
+"I will drive her away, the first thing."  He cried out to the Queen and
+sought to represent to her the danger, the madness, the inutility of the
+enterprise which overwhelmed him: "Keep all this quiet," said the Queen,
+"and never let what you have heard escape you.  Not a word!  I know what
+I am about."
+
+All these things together threw much light upon a catastrophe equally
+astonishing in itself and in its execution, and clearly show our King to
+have been the author of it; the King of Spain a consenting party and
+assisting by the extraordinary order given to Amenzago; and the Queen the
+actress, charged in some mariner by the two Kings to bring it about.  The
+sequel in France confirmed this opinion.
+
+The fall of the Princesse des Ursins caused great changes in Spain.  The
+Comtesse d'Altamire was named Camarera Mayor, in her place.  She was one
+of the greatest ladies in all Spain, and was hereditary Duchess of
+Cardonne.  Cellamare, nephew of Cardinal del Giudice, was named her grand
+ecuyer; and the Cardinal himself soon returned to Madrid and to
+consideration.  As a natural consequence, Macanas was disgraced.  He and
+Orry had orders to leave Spain, the latter without seeing the King.  He
+carried with him the maledictions of the public.  Pompadour, who had been
+named Ambassador in Spain only to amuse Madame des Ursins, was dismissed,
+and the Duc de Saint-Aignan invested with that character, just as he was
+about to return after having conducted the Queen to Madrid.
+
+In due time the Princesse des Ursins arrived in Paris, and took up her
+quarters in the house of the Duc de Noirmoutiers, her brother, in the Rue
+Saint-Dominique, close to mine.  This journey must have appeared to her
+very different from the last she had made in France, when she was Queen
+of the Court.  Few people, except her former friends and those of her
+formal cabal, came to see her; yet, nevertheless, some curious folks
+appeared, so that for the first few days there was company enough; but
+after that, solitude followed when the ill-success of her journey to
+Versailles became known.  M. d'Orleans, reunited now with the King of
+Spain, felt that it was due to his interest even more than to his
+vengeance to show in a striking manner, that it was solely owing to the
+hatred and artifice of Madame des Ursins that he had fallen into such
+disfavour on account of Spain, and had been in danger of losing his head.
+Times had changed.  Monseigneur was dead, the Meudon cabal annihilated;
+Madame de Maintenon had turned her back upon Madame des Ursins; thus M.
+d'Orleans was free to act as he pleased.  Incited by Madame la Duchesse
+d'Orleans, and more still by Madame, he begged the King to prohibit
+Madame des Ursins from appearing anywhere (Versailles not even excepted)
+where she might meet Madame la Duchesse de Berry, Madame, Monsieur le
+Duc, and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, who at the same time strictly
+forbade their households to see her, and asked the persons to whom they
+were particularly attached to hold no intercourse with her.  This made a
+great stir, openly showed that Madame des Ursins had utterly lost the
+support of Madame de Maintenon and the King, and much embarrassed her.
+
+I could not feel that M. d'Orleans was acting wrong, in thus paying off
+his wrongs for the injuries she had heaped upon him, but I represented to
+him, that as I had always been an intimate friend of Madame des Ursins,
+putting aside her conduct towards him and making no comparison between my
+attachment for him and my friendship for her, I could not forget the
+marks of consideration she had always given me, particularly in her last
+triumphant journey (as I have already explained), and that it would be
+hard if I could not see her.  We capitulated then, and M. le Duc and
+Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans permitted me to see her twice--once
+immediately; once when she left--giving my word that I would not see her
+three times, and that Madame de Saint-Simon should not see her at all;
+which latter clause we agreed to very unwillingly, but there was no
+remedy.  As I wished at least to profit by my chance, I sent word to
+Madame des Ursins, explaining the fetters that bound me, and saying that
+as I wished to see her at all events at my ease since I should see her so
+little, I would let pass the first few days and her first journey to
+Court, before asking her for an audience.
+
+My message was very well received; she had known for many years the terms
+on which I was with M. d'Orleans; she was not surprised with these
+fetters, and was grateful to me for what I had obtained.  Some days after
+she had been to Versailles, I went to her at two o'clock in the day.  She
+at once closed the door to all comers, and I was tete-a-tete with her
+until ten o'clock at night.
+
+It may be imagined what a number of things were passed in review during
+this long discourse.  Our eight hours of conversation appeared to me like
+eight moments.  She related to me her catastrophe, without mixing up the
+King or the King of Spain, of whom she spoke well; but, without violently
+attacking the Queen, she predicted what since has occurred.  We separated
+at supper time, with a thousand reciprocal protestations and regret that
+Madame de Saint-Simon could not see her.  She promised to inform me of
+her departure early enough to allow us to pass another day together.
+
+Her journey to Versailles did not pass off very pleasantly.  She dined
+with the Duchesse de Luders, and then visited Madame de Maintenon; waited
+with her for the King, but when he came did not stop long, withdrawing to
+Madame Adam's, where she passed the night.  The next day she dined with
+the Duchesse de Ventadour, and returned to Paris.  She was allowed to
+give up the pension she received from the King, and in exchange to have
+her Hotel de Ville stock increased, so that it yielded forty thousand
+livres a-year.  Her income, besides being doubled, was thus much more
+sure than would have been a pension from the King, which she doubted not
+M. d'Orleans, as soon as he became master, would take from her.  She
+thought of retiring into Holland, but the States-General would have
+nothing to do with her, either at the Hague, or at Amsterdam.  She had
+reckoned upon the Hague.  She next thought of Utrecht, but was soon out
+of conceit with it, and turned her regards towards Italy.
+
+The health of the King, meanwhile, visibly declining, Madame des Ursins
+feared lest she should entirely fall into the clutches of M. d'Orleans.
+She fully resolved, therefore, to make off, without knowing, however,
+where to fix herself; and asked permission of the King to come and take
+leave of him at Marly.  She came there from Paris on Tuesday, the 6th of
+August, so as to arrive as he left dinner, that is, about ten o'clock.
+She was immediately admitted into the cabinet of the King, with whom she
+remained tete-a-tete full half an hour.  She passed immediately to the
+apartments of Madame de Maintenon, with whom she remained an hour; and
+then got into her coach and returned to Paris.  I only knew of this
+leave-taking by her arrival at Marly, where I had some trouble in meeting
+her.  As chance would have it, I went in search of her coach to ask her
+people what had become of her, and was speaking to them when, to and
+behold! she herself arrived.  She seemed very glad to see me, and made me
+mount with her into her coach, where for little less than an hour we
+discoursed very freely.  She did not dissimulate from me her fears; the
+coldness the King and Madame de Maintenon had testified for her through
+all their politeness; the isolation she found herself in at the Court,
+even in Paris; and the uncertainty in which she was as to the choice of a
+retreat; all this in detail, and nevertheless without complaint, without
+regret, without weakness; always reassured and superior to events, as
+though some one else were in question.  She touched lightly upon Spain,
+upon the ascendency the Queen was acquiring already over the King, giving
+me to understand that it could not be otherwise; running lightly and
+modestly over the Queen, and always praising the goodness of the King of
+Spain.  Fear, on account of the passers-by, put an end to our
+conversation.  She was very gracious to me; expressed regret that we must
+part; proceeded to tell me when she should start in time for us to have
+another day together; sent many compliments to Madame de Saint-Simon; and
+declared herself sensible of the mark of friendship I had given her, in
+spite of my engagement with M. d'Orleans.  As soon as I had seen her off,
+I went to M. d'Orleans, to whom I related what I had just done; said I
+had not paid a visit, but had had simply a meeting; that it was true I
+could not hinder myself from seeking it, without prejudice to the final
+visit he had allowed me.  Neither he nor Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans
+complained.  They had fully triumphed over their enemy, and were on the
+point of seeing her leave France for ever, without hope in Spain.
+
+Until now, Madame des Ursins amused by a residue of friends, increased by
+those of M. de Noirmoutiers with whom she lodged and who had money, had
+gently occupied herself with the arrangement of her affairs, changed as
+they were, and in withdrawing her effects from Spain.  The fear lest she
+should find herself in the power of a Prince whom she had so cruelly
+offended, and who showed, since her arrival in France, that he felt it,
+hurried all her measures.  Her terror augmented by the change in the King
+that she found at this last audience had taken place since her first.
+She no longer doubted that his end was very near; and all her attention
+was directed to the means by which she might anticipate it, and be well
+informed of his health; this she believed her sole security in France.
+Terrified anew by the accounts she received of it, she no longer gave
+herself time for anything, but precipitately set out on the 14th August,
+accompanied as far as Essonne by her two nephews.  She had no time to
+inform me, so that I have never seen her since the day of our
+conversation at Marly in her coach.  She did not breathe until she
+arrived at Lyons.
+
+She had abandoned the project of retiring into Holland, where the States-
+General would not have her.  She herself, too, was disgusted with the
+equality of a republic, which counterbalanced in her mind the pleasure of
+the liberty enjoyed there.  But she could not resolve to return to Rome,
+the theatre of her former reign, and appear there proscribed and old, as
+in an asylum.  She feared, too, a bad reception, remembering the quarrels
+that had taken place between the Courts of Rome and Spain.  She had lost
+many friends and acquaintances; in fifteen years of absence all had
+passed away, and she felt the trouble she might be subjected to by the
+ministers of the Emperor, and by those of the two Crowns, with their
+partisans.  Turin was not a Court worthy of her; the King of Sardinia had
+not always been pleased with her, and they knew too much for each other.
+At Venice she would have been out of her element.
+
+Whilst agitated in this manner, without being able to make up her mind,
+she learned that the King was in extreme danger, a danger exaggerated by
+rumour.  Fear seized her lest he should die whilst she was in his realm.
+She set off immediately, therefore, without knowing where to go; and
+solely to leave France went to Chambery, as the nearest place of safety,
+arriving there out of breath, so to say.
+
+Every place being well examined, she preferred Genoa; its liberty pleased
+her; there was intercourse there with a rich and numerous nobility; the
+climate and the city were beautiful; the place was in some sort a centre
+and halting-point between Madrid, Paris, and Rome, with which places she
+was always in communication, and always hungered after all that passed
+there.  Genoa determined on, she went there.  She was well received,
+hoped to fix her tabernacle there, and indeed stayed some years.  But at
+last ennui seized her; perhaps vexation at not being made enough of.  She
+could not exist without meddling, and what is there for a superannuated
+woman to meddle with at Genoa?  She turned her thoughts, therefore,
+towards Rome.  Then, on sounding, found her course clear, quitted Genoa,
+and returned to her nest.
+
+She was not long there before she attached herself to the King and Queen
+of England (the Pretender and his wife), and soon governed them openly.
+What a poor resource!  But it was courtly and had a flavour of occupation
+for a woman who could not exist without movement.  She finished her life
+there remarkably healthy in mind and body, and in a prodigious opulence,
+which was not without its use in that deplorable Court.  For the rest,
+Madame des Ursins was in mediocre estimation at Rome, was deserted by the
+Spanish, little visited by the French, but always faithfully paid by
+France and Spain, and unmolested by the Regent.  She was always occupied
+with the world, and with what she had been, but was no longer; yet
+without meanness, nay, with courage and dignity.
+
+The loss she experienced in January, 1720, of the Cardinal de la
+Tremoille, although there was no real friendship between them, did not
+fail, to create a void in her.  She survived him three years, preserved
+all her health, her strength, her mind until death, and was carried off,
+more than eighty years of age, at Rome, on the 5th of December, 1722,
+after a very short illness.
+
+She had the pleasure of seeing Madame de Maintenon forgotten and
+annihilated in Saint-Cyr, of surviving her, of seeing at Rome her two
+enemies, Giudice and Alberoni, as profoundly disgraced as she,--one
+falling from the same height, and of relishing the forgetfulness, not to
+say contempt, into which they both sank.  Her death, which, a few years
+before, would have resounded throughout all Europe, made not the least
+sensation.  The little English Court regretted her, and some private
+friends also, of whom I was one.  I did not hide this, although,--on
+account of M. le Duc d'Orleans, I had kept up no intercourse with her;
+for the rest, nobody seemed to perceive she had disappeared.  She was,
+nevertheless, so extraordinary a person, during all the course of her
+long life, everywhere, and had so grandly figured, although in various
+ways; had such rare intellect, courage, industry, and resources; reigned
+so publicly and so absolutely in Spain; and had a character so sustained
+and so unique, that her life deserves to be written, and would take a
+place among the most curious fragments of the history of the times in
+which she lived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+But I must return somewhat now, in order to make way for a crowd of
+events which have been pressing forward all this time, but which I have
+passed by, in going straightforward at once to the end of Madame des
+Ursins' history.
+
+On Monday, the 30th April, 1714., the King took medicine, and worked
+after dinner with Pontchartrain.  This was at Marly.  About six o'clock,
+he went to M. le Duc de Berry, who had had fever all night.  M. le Duc de
+Berry had risen without saying anything, had been with the King at the
+medicine-hour, and intended to go stag-hunting; but on leaving the King's
+chamber shivering seized him, and forced him to go back again.  He was
+bled while the King was in his chamber, and the blood was found very bad;
+when the King went to bed the doctors told him the illness was of a
+nature to make them hope that it might be a case of contagion.  M. le Duc
+de Berry had vomited a good deal--a black vomit.  Fagon said,
+confidently, that it was from the blood; the other doctors fastened upon
+some chocolate he had taken on the Sunday.  From this day forward I knew
+what was the matter.  Boulduc, apothecary of the King, and extremely
+attached to Madame de Saint-Simon and to me, whispered in my ear that M.
+le Duc de Berry would not recover, and that, with some little difference,
+his malady was the same as that of which the Dauphin and Dauphine died.
+He repeated this the next day, and never once varied afterwards; saying
+to me on the third day, that none of the doctors who attended the Prince
+were of a different opinion, or hid from him what they thought.
+
+On Tuesday, the 1st of May, the Prince was bled in the foot at seven
+o'clock in the morning, after a very bad night; took emetics twice, which
+had a good effect; then some manna; but still there were two accesses.
+The King went to the sick-room afterwards, held a finance council, would
+not go shooting, as he had arranged, but walked in his gardens.  The
+doctors, contrary to their custom, never reassured him.  The night was
+cruel.  On Wednesday; the 2nd of May, the King went, after mass, to M. le
+Duc de Berry, who had been again bled in the foot.  The King held the
+Council of State, as usual, dined in Madame de Maintenon's rooms, and
+afterwards reviewed his Guards.  Coettenfao, chevalier d'honneur of
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry, came during the morning to beg the King, in
+her name, that Chirac, a famous doctor of M. d'Orleans, should be allowed
+to see M. le Duc de Berry.  The King refused, on the ground that all the
+other doctors were in accord, and that Chirac, who might differ with
+them, would embarrass them.  After dinner Mesdames de Pompadour and La
+Vieuville arrived, on the part of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, to beg the
+King that she might be allowed to come and see her husband, saying that
+she would come on foot rather than stay away.  It would have been better,
+surely, for her to come in a coach, if she so much wished, and, before
+alighting, to send to the King for permission so to do.  But the fact is,
+she had no more desire to come than M. de Berry had to see her.  He never
+once mentioned her name, or spoke of her, even indirectly.  The King
+replied to those ladies by saying that he would not close the door
+against Madame la Duchesse de Berry, but, considering the state she was
+in, he thought it would be very imprudent on her part to come.  He
+afterwards told M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans to go to
+Versailles and hinder her from coming.  Upon returning from the review
+the King went again to see M. le Duc de Berry.  He had been once more
+bled in the arm, had vomited all day much blood too--and had taken some
+Robel water three times, in order to stop his sickness.  This vomiting
+put off the communion.  Pere de la Rue had been by his side ever since
+Tuesday morning, and found him very patient and resigned.
+
+On Thursday, the 3rd, after a night worse than ever, the doctors said
+they did not doubt that a vein had been broken in the stomach.  It was
+reported that this accident had happened by an effort M. de Berry made
+when out hunting on the previous Thursday, the day the Elector of Bavaria
+arrived.  His horse slipped; in drawing the animal up, his body struck
+against the pommel of the saddle, so it was said, and ever since he had
+spit blood every day.  The vomiting ceased at nine o'clock in the
+morning, but the patient was no better.  The King, who was going stag-
+hunting, put it off.  At six o'clock at night M. de Berry was so choked
+that he could no longer remain in bed; about eight o'clock he found
+himself so relieved that he said to Madame, he hoped he should not die;
+but soon after, the malady increased so much that Pere de la Rue said it
+was no longer time to think of anything but God, and of receiving the
+sacrament.  The poor Prince himself seemed to desire it.
+
+A little after ten o'clock at night the King went to the chapel, where a
+consecrated Host had been kept prepared ever since the commencement of
+the illness.  M. le Duc de Berry received it, with extreme unction, in
+presence of the King, with much devotion and respect.  The King remained
+nearly an hour in the chamber, supped alone in his own, did not receive
+the Princesses afterwards, but went to bed.  M. le Duc d'Orleans, at ten
+o'clock in the morning, went again to Versailles, as Madame la Duchesse
+de Berry wished still to come to Marly.  M. le Duc de Berry related to
+Pere de la Rue, who at least said so, the accident just spoken of; but,
+it was added, "his head was then beginning to wander."  After losing the
+power of speech, he took the crucifix Pere de la Rue held, kissed it, and
+placed it upon his heart.  He expired on Friday, the 4th of May, 1714, at
+four o'clock in the morning, in his twenty-eighth year, having been born
+at Versailles, the last day of August, 1686.
+
+M. le Duc de Berry was of ordinary height, rather fat, of a beautiful
+blonde complexion, with a fresh, handsome face, indicating excellent
+health.  He was made for society, and for pleasure, which he loved; the
+best, gentlest, most compassionate and accessible of men, without pride,
+and without vanity, but not without dignity or self-appreciation.  He was
+of medium intellect, without ambition or desire, but had very good sense,
+and was capable of listening, of understanding, and of always taking the
+right side in preference to the wrong, however speciously put.  He loved
+truth, justice, and reason; all that was contrary to religion pained him
+to excess, although he was not of marked piety.  He was not without
+firmness, and hated constraint.  This caused it to be feared that he was
+not supple enough for a younger son, and, indeed, in his early youth he
+could not understand that there was any difference between him and his
+eldest brother, and his boyish quarrels often caused alarm.
+
+He was the most gay, the most frank, and consequently the most loved of
+the three brothers; in his youth nothing was spoken of but his smart
+replies to Madame and M. de la Rochefoucauld.  He laughed at preceptors
+and at masters--often at punishment.  He scarcely knew anything except
+how to read and write; and learned nothing after being freed from the
+necessity of learning.  This ignorance so intimidated him, that he could
+scarcely open his mouth before strangers, or perform the most ordinary
+duties of his rank; he had persuaded himself that he was an ass and a
+fool; fit for nothing.  He was so afraid of the King that he dared not
+approach him, and was so confused if the King looked hard at him, or
+spoke of other things than hunting, or gaming, that he scarcely
+understood a word, or could collect his thoughts.  As may be imagined,
+such fear does not go hand in hand with deep affection.
+
+He commenced life with Madame la Duchesse de Berry as do almost all those
+who marry very young and green.  He became extremely amorous of her;
+this, joined to his gentleness and natural complaisance, had the usual
+effect, which was to thoroughly spoil her.  He was not long in perceiving
+it; but love was too strong for him.  He found a woman proud, haughty,
+passionate, incapable of forgiveness, who despised him, and who allowed
+him to see it, because he had infinitely less head than she; and because,
+moreover, she was supremely false and strongly determined.  She piqued
+herself upon both these qualities, and on her contempt for religion,
+ridiculing M. le Duc de Berry for being devout; and all these things
+became insupportable to him.  Her gallantries were so prompt, so rapid,
+so unmeasured, that he could not help seeing them.  Her endless private
+interviews with M. le Duc d'Orleans, in which everything languished if he
+was present, made him furious.  Violent scenes frequently took place
+between them; the last, which occurred at Rambouillet, went so far that
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry received a kick * * * * , and a menace that
+she should be shut up in a convent for the rest of her life; and when M.
+le Duc de Berry fell ill, he was thumbing his hat, like a child, before
+the King, relating all his grievances, and asking to be delivered from
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry.  Hitherto I have only alluded to Madame la
+Duchesse de Berry, but, as will be seen, she became so singular a person
+when her father was Regent, that I will here make her known more
+completely than I have yet done.
+
+She was tall, handsome, well made, with, however, but little grace, and
+had something in her, eyes which made you fear what she was.  Like her
+father and mother, she spoke well and with facility.  Timid in trifles,
+yet in other things terrifyingly bold,--foolishly haughty sometimes, and
+sometimes mean to the lowest degree,--it may be said that she was a model
+of all the vices, avarice excepted; and was all the more dangerous
+because she had art and talent.  I am not accustomed to over-colour the
+picture I am obliged to present to render things understood, and it will
+easily be perceived how strictly I am reserved upon the ladies, and upon
+all gallantries, not intimately associated with what may be called
+important matters.  I should be so here, more than in any other case,
+from self-love, if not from respect for the sex and dignity of the
+person.  The considerable part I played in bringing about Madame la
+Duchesse de Berry's marriage, and the place that Madame de Saint-Simon,
+in spite of herself and of me, occupied in connection with her, would be
+for me reasons more than enough for silence, if I did not feel that
+silence would throw obscurity over all the sequel of this history.  It is
+then to the truth that I sacrifice my self-love, and with the same
+truthfulness I will say that if I had known or merely suspected, that the
+Princess was so bad as she showed herself directly after her marriage,
+and always more and more since, she would never have become Duchesse de
+Berry.
+
+I have already told how she annoyed M. le Duc de Berry by ridiculing his
+devotion.  In other ways she put his patience to severe trials, and more
+than once was in danger of public exposure.  She partook of few meals in
+private, at which she did not get so drunk as to lose consciousness, and
+to bring up all she had taken on every side.  The presence of M. le Duc
+de Berry, of M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, of ladies with
+whom she was not on familiar terms, in no way restrained her.  She
+complained even of M. le Duc de Berry for not doing as she did.  She
+often treated her father with a haughtiness which was terrifying on all
+accounts.
+
+In her gallantries she was as unrestrained as in other things.  After
+having had several favourites, she fixed herself upon La Haye, who from
+King's page had become private ecuyer of M. le Duc de Berry.  The oglings
+in the Salon of Marly were perceived by everybody; nothing restrained
+them.  At last, it must be said, for this fact encloses all the rest, she
+wished La Haye to run away with her from Versailles to the Low Countries,
+whilst M. le Duc de Berry and the King were both living.  La Haye almost
+died with fright at this proposition, which she herself made to him.  His
+refusal made her furious.  From the most pressing entreaties she came to
+all the invectives that rage could suggest, and that torrents of tears
+allowed her to pronounce.  La Haye had to suffer her attacks--now tender,
+now furious; he was in the most mortal embarrassment.  It was a long time
+before she could be cured of her mad idea, and in the meanwhile she
+subjected the poor fellow to the most frightful persecution.  Her passion
+for La Haye continued until the death of M. le Duc de Berry, and some
+time after.
+
+M. le Duc de Berry was buried at Saint-Denis on Wednesday, the 16th of
+May; M. le Duc d'Orleans was to have headed the procession, but the same
+odious reports against him that had circulated at the death of the
+Dauphin had again appeared, and he begged to be let off.  M. le Duc
+filled his place.  Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who was in the family
+way, kept her bed; and in order that she should not be seen there when
+people came to pay her the usual visits of condolence, the room was kept
+quite dark.  Many ridiculous scenes and much indecent laughter, that
+could not be restrained, thus arose.  Persons accustomed to the room
+could see their way, but those unaccustomed stumbled at every step, and
+had need of guidance.  For want of this, Pere du Trevoux, and Pere
+Tellier after him, both addressed their compliments to the wall; others
+to the foot of the bed.  This became a secret amusement, but happily did
+not last long.
+
+As may be imagined, the death of M. le Duc de Berry was a deliverance for
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry.  She was, as I have said, in the family way;
+she hoped for a boy, and counted upon enjoying as a widow more liberty
+than she had been able to take as a wife.  She had a miscarriage,
+however, on Saturday, the 16th of June, and was delivered of a daughter
+which lived only twelve hours.  The little corpse was buried at Saint-
+Denis, Madame de Saint-Simon at the head of the procession.  Madame la
+Duchesse de Berry, shortly before this event, received two hundred
+thousand livres income of pension; but the establishment she would have
+had if the child had been a boy was not allowed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII.
+
+It is time now that I should say something about an event that caused an
+immense stir throughout the land, and was much talked of even in foreign
+parts.  I must first introduce, however, a sort of a personage whose
+intimacy was forced upon me at this period; for the two incidents are in
+a certain degree associated together.
+
+M. d'Orleans for some little time had continually represented to me, how
+desirous one of his acquaintances was to secure my friendship.  This
+acquaintance was Maisons, president in the parliament, grandson of that
+superintendent of the finances who built the superb chateau of Maisons,
+and son of the man who had presided so unworthily at the judgment of our
+trial with M. de Luxembourg, which I have related in its place.  Maisons
+was a person of much ambition, exceedingly anxious to make a name,
+gracious and flattering in manners to gain his ends, and amazingly fond
+of grand society.
+
+The position of Maisons, where he lived, close to Marly, afforded him
+many opportunities of drawing there the principal people of the Court.
+It became quite the fashion to go from Marly to his chateau.  The King
+grew accustomed to hear the place spoken of, and was in no way
+displeased.  Maisons had managed to become very intimate with M. le Duc
+and M. le Prince de Conti.  These two princes being dead, he turned his
+thoughts towards M, d'Orleans.  He addressed himself to Canillac, who had
+always been an intimate friend of M. d'Orleans, and by him soon gained
+the intimacy of that prince.  But he was not yet satisfied.  He wished to
+circumvent M. d'Orleans more completely than he could by means of
+Canillac.  He cast his eye, therefore, upon me.  I think he was afraid of
+me on account of what I have related concerning his father.  He had an
+only son about the same age as my children.  For a long time he had made
+all kinds of advances, and visited them often.  The son's intimacy did
+not, however, assist the father; so that at last Maisons made M. le Duc
+d'Orleans speak to me himself.
+
+I was cold; tried to get out of the matter with compliments and excuses.
+M. d'Orleans, who believed he had found a treasure in his new
+acquaintance, returned to the charge; but I was not more docile.  A few
+days after, I was surprised by an attack of the same kind from M. de
+Beauvilliers.  How or when he had formed an intimacy with Maisons, I have
+never been able to unravel; but formed it, he had; and he importuned me
+so much, nay exerted his authority over me, that at last I found I must
+give way.  Not to offend M. d'Orleans by yielding to another after having
+refused to yield to him, I waited until he should again speak to me on
+the subject, so that he might give himself the credit of vanquishing me.
+I did not wait long.  The Prince attacked me anew, maintained that
+nothing would be more useful to him than an intimacy between myself and
+Maisons, who scarcely dared to see him, except in secret, and with whom
+he had not the same leisure or liberty for discussing many things that
+might present themselves.  I had replied to all this before; but as I had
+resolved to surrender to the Prince (after the authority of the Duc de
+Beauvilliers had vanquished me), I complied with his wish.
+
+Maisons was soon informed of it, and did not let my resolution grow,
+cold.  M. le Duc d'Orleans urged me to go and sleep a night in Paris.
+Upon arriving there, I found a note from Maisons, who had already sent an
+ocean of compliments to me by the Prince and the Duke.  This note, for
+reasons to be told me afterwards, appointed a meeting at eleven o'clock
+this night, in the plain behind the Invalides, in a very mysterious
+manner.  I went there with an old coachman of my mother's and a lackey to
+put my people off the scent.  There was a little moonlight.  Maisons in a
+small carriage awaited me.  We soon met.  He mounted into my coach.  I
+never could comprehend the mystery of this meeting.  There was nothing on
+his part but advances, compliments, protestations, allusions to the
+former interview of our fathers; only such things, in fact, as a man of
+cleverness and breeding says when he wishes to form a close intimacy with
+any one.  Not a word that he said was of importance or of a private
+nature.
+
+I replied in the civillest manner possible to the abundance he bestowed
+upon me.  I expected afterwards something that would justify the hour,
+the place, the mystery, in a word, of our interview.  What was my
+surprise to hear no syllable upon these points.  The only reason Maisons
+gave for our secret interview was that from that time he should be able
+to come and see me at Versailles with less inconvenience, and gradually
+increase the number and the length of his visits until people grew
+accustomed to see him there!  He then begged me not to visit him in
+Paris, because his house was always too full of people.  This interview
+lasted little less than half an hour.  It was long indeed, considering
+what passed.  We separated with much politeness, and the first time he
+went to Versailles he called upon me towards the middle of the day.
+
+In a short time he visited me every Sunday.  Our conversation by degrees
+became more serious.  I did not fail to be on my guard, but drew him out
+upon various subjects; he being very willing.
+
+We were on this footing when, returning to my room at Marly about midday-
+on Sunday, the 29th of July, I found a lackey of Maisons with a note from
+him, in which he conjured me to quit all business and come immediately to
+his house at Paris, where he would wait for me alone, and where I should
+find that something was in question, that could not suffer the slightest
+delay, that could not even be named in writing, and which was of the most
+extreme importance.  This lackey had long since arrived, and had sent my
+people everywhere in search of me.  I was engaged that day to dine with
+M. and Madame de Lauzun.  To have broken my engagement would have been to
+set the curiosity and the malignity of M. de Lauzun at work.  I dared not
+disappear; therefore I gave orders to my coachman, and as soon as I had
+dined I vanished.  Nobody saw me get into my chaise; and I quickly
+arrived at Paris, and immediately hastened to Maisons' with eagerness
+easy to imagine.
+
+I found him alone with the Duc de Noailles.  At the first glance I saw
+two dismayed men, who said to me in an exhausted manner, but after a
+heated though short preface, that the King had declared his two bastards
+and their male posterity to all eternity, real princes of the blood, with
+full liberty to assume all their dignities, honours, and rank, and
+capacity to succeed to the throne in default of the others.
+
+At this news, which I did not expect, and the secret of which had
+hitherto been preserved, without a particle of it transpiring, my arms
+fell.  I lowered my head and remained profoundly silent, absorbed in my
+reflections.  They were soon disturbed by cries which aroused me.  These
+two men commenced pacing the chamber; stamped with their feet; pushed and
+struck the furniture; raged as though each wished to be louder than the
+other, and made the house echo with their noise.  I avow that so much
+hubbub seemed suspicious to me on the part of two men, one so sage and so
+measured, and to whom this rank was of no consequence; the other always
+so tranquil, so crafty, so master of himself.  I knew not why this sudden
+fury succeeded to such dejected oppression; and I was not without
+suspicion that their passion was put on merely to excite mine.  If this
+was their design, it succeeded ill.  I remained in my chair, and coldly
+asked them what was the matter.  My tranquillity sharpened their fury.
+Never in my life have I seen anything so surprising.
+
+I asked them if they had gone mad, and if instead of this tempest it
+would not be better to reason, and see whether something could not be
+done.  They declared it was precisely because nothing could be done
+against a thing not only resolved on, but executed, declared, and sent to
+the Parliament, that they were so furious; that M. le Duc d'Orleans, on
+the terms he was with the King, would not dare even to whisper
+objections; that the Princes of the blood, mere children as they were,
+could only tremble; that the Dukes had no means of opposition, and that
+the Parliament was reduced to silence and slavery.  Thereupon they set to
+work to see who could cry the louder and reviled again, sparing neither
+things nor persons.
+
+I, also, was in anger, but this racket kept me cool and made me smile.
+I argued with them and said, that after all I preferred to see the
+bastards princes of the blood, capable of succeeding to the throne, than
+to see them in the intermediary rank they occupied.  And it is true that
+as soon as I had cooled myself, I felt thus.
+
+At last the storm grew calm, and they told me that the Chief-President
+and the Attorney-General--who, I knew, had been at Marly very early in
+the morning at the Chancellor's--had seen the King in his cabinet soon
+after he rose, and had brought back the declaration, all prepared.
+Maisons must, however, have known this earlier; because when the lackey
+he sent to me set out from Paris, those gentlemen could not have returned
+there.  Our talk led to nothing, and I regained Marly in all haste, in
+order that my absence might not be remarked.
+
+Nevertheless it was towards the King's supper hour when I arrived.  I
+went straight to the salon, and found it very dejected.  People looked,
+but scarcely dared to approach each other; at the most, a sign or a
+whisper in the ear, as the courtiers brushed by one another, was ventured
+out.  I saw the King sit down to table; he seemed to me more haughty than
+usual, and continually looked all around.  The news had only been known
+one hour; everybody was still congealed and upon his guard.
+
+As soon as the King was seated (he had looked very hard at me in passing)
+I went straight to M. du Maine's.  Although the hour was unusual, the
+doors fell before me; I saw a man, who received me with joyful surprise,
+and who, as it were, moved through the air towards me, all lame that he
+was.  I said that I came to offer him a sincere compliment, that we (the
+Dukes) claimed no precedence over the Princes of the blood; but what we
+claimed was, that there should be nobody between the Princes of the blood
+and us; that as this intermediary rank no longer existed, we had nothing
+more to say, but to rejoice that we had no longer to support what was
+insupportable.  The joy of M. du Maine burst forth at my compliments, and
+he startled me with a politeness inspired by the transport of triumph.
+
+But if he was delighted at the declaration of the King, it was far
+otherwise with the world.  Foreign dukes and princes fumed, but
+uselessly.  The Court uttered dull murmurs more than could have been
+expected.  Paris and the provinces broke out; the Parliament did not keep
+silent.  Madame de Maintenon, delighted with her work, received the
+adoration of her familiars.
+
+As for me, I will content myself with but few reflections upon this most
+monstrous, astounding, and frightful determination of the King.  I will
+simply say, that it is impossible not to see in it an attack upon the
+Crown; contempt for the entire nation, whose rights are trodden under
+foot by it; insult to all the Princes of the blood; in fact the crime of
+high treason in its most rash and most criminal extent.  Yes!  however
+venerable God may have rendered in the eyes of men the majesty of Kings
+and their sacred persons, which are his anointed; however execrable may
+be the crime known as high treason, of attempting their lives; however
+terrible and singular may be the punishments justly invented to prevent
+that crime, and to remove by their horror the most infamous from the
+infernal resolution of committing it, we cannot help finding in the crime
+in question a plenitude not in the other, however abominable it may be:
+Yes!  to overthrow the most holy laws, that have existed ever since the
+establishment of monarchy; to extinguish a right the most sacred--the
+most important--the most inherent in the nation: to make succession to
+the throne, purely, supremely, and despotically arbitrary; in a word, to
+make of a bastard a crown prince, is a crime more black, more vast, more
+terrible, than that of high treason against the chief of the State.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII
+
+But let me now explain by what means the King was induced to arrive at,
+and publish this terrible determination.
+
+He was growing old, and though no external change in him was visible,
+those near him had for some time begun to fear that he could not live
+long.  This is not the place to descant upon a health hitherto so good
+and so even: suffice it to mention, that it silently began to give way.
+Overwhelmed by the most violent reverses of fortune after being so long
+accustomed to success, the King was even more overwhelmed by domestic
+misfortunes.  All his children had disappeared before him, and left him
+abandoned to the most fatal reflections.  At every moment he himself
+expected the same kind of death.  Instead of finding relief from his
+anguish among those who surrounded him, and whom he saw most frequently,
+he met with nothing but fresh trouble there.  Excepting Marechal, his
+chief surgeon, who laboured unceasingly to cure him of his suspicions,
+Madame de Maintenon, M. du Maine, Fagon, Bloin, the other principal
+valets sold to the bastard and his former governors,--all sought to
+augment these suspicions; and in truth it was not difficult to do so.
+Nobody doubted that poison had been used, nobody could seriously doubt
+it; and Marechal, who was as persuaded as the rest, held a different
+opinion before the King only to deliver him from a useless torment which
+could not but do him injury.  But M. du Maine, and Madame de Maintenon
+also, had too much interest to maintain him in this fear, and by their,
+art filled him with horror against M. d'Orleans, whom they named as the
+author of these crimes, so that the King with this prince before his eyes
+every day, was in a perpetual state of alarm.
+
+With his children the King had lost, and by the same way, a princess, who
+in addition to being the soul and ornament of his court, was, moreover,
+all his amusement, all his joy, all his affection, in the hours when he
+was not in public.  Never, since he entered the world, had he become
+really familiar with any one but her; it has been seen elsewhere to what
+extent.  Nothing could fill up this great void: The bitterness of being
+deprived of her augmented, because he could find no diversion.  This
+unfortunate state made him seek relief everywhere in abandoning himself
+more and more to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine.
+
+They soon managed to obtain possession of him, as it were, entirely;
+leaving no art unexhausted in order to flatter, to amuse, to please, and
+to interest him.  He was made to believe that M. du Maine was utterly
+without ambition; like a good father of a family, solely occupied with
+his children, touched with the grandeur of his nearness to the King,
+simple, frank, upright, and one who after working at his duties all day,
+and after giving himself time for prayer and piety, amused himself in
+hunting, and drew upon his natural gaiety and cheerfulness, without
+knowing anything of the Court, or of what was passing!  Compare this
+portrait with his real character, and we shall feel with terror what a
+rattlesnake was introduced into the King's privacy.
+
+Established thus in the mind and heart of the King, the opportunity
+seemed ripe for profiting by precious time that could not last long.
+Everybody smiled upon the project of M. du Maine and Madame de Maintenon.
+They had rendered M. d'Orleans odious in the eyes of the King and of the
+whole country, by the most execrable calumnies.  How could he defend
+himself?  shut up as the King was, how oppose them?  how interfere with
+their dark designs?  M. du Maine wished not only to be made prince of the
+blood, but to be made guardian of the heir to the throne, so as to dwarf
+the power of the Regent as much as possible.  He flattered himself that
+the feeling he had excited against M. d'Orleans in the Court, in Paris,
+and in the provinces would be powerfully strengthened by dispositions so
+dishonourable; that he should find himself received as the guardian and
+protector of the life of the royal infant, to whom was attached the
+salvation of France, of which he would then become the idol; that the
+independent possession of the young King, and of his military and civil
+households, would strengthen with the public applause the power with
+which he would be invested in the state by this testament; that the
+Regent, reviled and stripped in this manner, not only would be in no
+condition to dispute anything, but would be unable to defend himself from
+any attempts the bastard might afterwards make against him.  M. du Maine
+wished in fact to take from M. d'Orleans everything, except the name of
+Regent, and to divide all the power between himself and his brother.
+Such was his scheme, that the King by incredible art was induced to
+sanction and approve.
+
+But the schemers had tough work before they obtained this success.
+They found that the King would not consent to their wishes without much
+opposition.  They hit upon a devilish plan to overpower his resistance.
+Hitherto, they had only been occupied in pleasing him, in amusing him,
+in anticipating his wishes, in praising him--let me say the word--
+in adoring him.  They had redoubled their attention, since, by the
+Dauphine's death, they had become his sole resource.
+
+Not being able now to lead him as they wished, but determined to do so at
+all cost, they adopted another system, certain as they were that they
+could do so with impunity.  Both became serious, often times dejected,
+silent, furnishing nothing to the conversation, letting pass what the
+King forced himself to say, sometimes not even replying, if it was not a
+direct interrogation.  In this manner all the leisure hours of the King
+were rendered dull and empty; his amusements and diversions were made
+fatiguing and sad and a weight was cast upon him, which he was the more
+unable to bear because it was quite new to him, and he was utterly
+without means to remove it.  The few ladies who were admitted to the
+intimacy of the King knew not what to make of the change they saw in
+Madame de Maintenon.  They were duped at first by the plea of illness;
+but seeing at last that its duration passed all bounds, that it had no
+intermission, that her face announced no malady, that her daily life was
+in no way deranged, that the King became as serious and as sad as she,
+they sounded each other to find out the cause.  Fear, lest it should be
+something in which they, unknowingly, were concerned, troubled them; so
+that they became even worse company to the King than Madame de Maintenon.
+
+There was no relief for the King.  All his resource was in the
+commonplace talk of the Comte de Toulouse, who was not amusing, although
+ignorant of the plot, and the stories of his valets, who lost tongue as
+soon as they perceived that they were not seconded by the Duc du Maine in
+his usual manner.  Marechal and all the rest, astonished at the
+mysterious dejection of the Duc du Maine, looked at each other without
+being able to divine the cause.  They saw that the King was sad and
+bored; they trembled for his health, but not one of them dared to do
+anything.  Time ran on, and the dejection of M. du Maine and Madame de
+Maintenon increased.  This is as far as the most instructed have ever
+been able to penetrate.  To describe the interior scenes that doubtless
+passed during the long time this state of things lasted, would be to
+write romance.  Truth demands that we should relate what we know, and
+admit what we are ignorant of.  I cannot go farther, therefore, or pierce
+deeper into the density of these dark mysteries.
+
+What is certain is, that cheerfulness came back all at once, with the
+same surprise to the witnesses of it, as the long-continued dejection had
+caused them, simply because they understood no more of the end than of
+the commencement.  The double knowledge did not come to them until they
+heard the frightful crash of the thunderbolt which fell upon France, and
+astonished all Europe.
+
+To give some idea of the opposition from the King, M. du Maine and Madame
+de Maintenon had to overcome, and to show how reluctantly he consented to
+their wishes, more than one incident may be brought forward.  Some days
+before the news transpired, the King, full of the enormity of what he had
+just done for his bastards, looked at them in his cabinet, in presence of
+the valets, and of D'Antin and D'O, and in a sharp manner, that told of
+vexation, and with a severe glance, suddenly thus addressed himself to M.
+du Maine:
+
+"You have wished it; but know that however great I may make you, and you
+may be in my lifetime, you are nothing after me; and it will be for you
+then to avail yourself of what I have done for you, if you can."
+
+Everybody present trembled at a thunder-clap so sudden, so little
+expected, so entirely removed from the character and custom of the King,
+and which showed so clearly the extreme ambition of the Duc du Maine, and
+the violence he had done to the weakness of the King, who seemed to
+reproach himself for it, and to reproach the bastard for his ambition and
+tyranny.  The consternation of M. du Maine seemed extreme at this rough
+sally, which no previous remark had led to.  The King had made a clean
+breast of it.  Everybody fixed his eyes upon the floor and held his
+breath.  The silence was profound for a considerable time: it finished
+only when the King passed into his wardrobe.  In his absence everybody
+breathed again.  The King's heart was full to bursting with what he had
+just been made to do; but like a woman who gives birth to two children,
+he had at present brought but one into the world, and bore a second of
+which he must be delivered, and of which he felt all the pangs without
+any relief from the suffering the first had caused him.
+
+Again, on Sunday, the 27th August, the Chief-President and the Attorney-
+General were sent for by the King.  He was at Versailles.  As soon as
+they were alone with him, he took from a drawer, which he unlocked, a
+large and thick packet, sealed with seven seals (I know not if by this M.
+du Maine wished to imitate the mysterious book with Seven Seals, of the
+Apocalypse, and so sanctify the packet).  In handing it to them, the King
+said: "Gentlemen, this is my will.  No one but myself knows its contents.
+I commit it to you to keep in the Parliament, to which I cannot give a
+greater testimony of my esteem and confidence than by rendering it the
+depository of it.  The example of the Kings my predecessors, and that of
+the will of the King, my father, do not allow me to be ignorant of what
+may become of this; but they would have it; they have tormented me; they
+have left me no repose, whatever I might say.  Very well!  I have bought
+my repose.  Here is the will; take it away: come what may of it, at
+least, I shall have rest, and shall hear no more about it."
+
+At this last word, that he finished with a dry nod, he turned his back
+upon them, passed into another cabinet, and left them both nearly turned
+into statues.  They looked at each other frozen by what they had just
+heard, and still more by what they had just seen in the eyes and the
+countenance of the King; and as soon as they had collected their senses,
+they retired, and went to Paris.  It was not known until after dinner
+that the King had made a will and given it to them.  In proportion as the
+news spread, consternation filled the Court, while the flatterers, at
+bottom as much alarmed as the rest, and as Paris was afterwards,
+exhausted themselves in praises and eulogies.
+
+The next day, Monday, the 28th, the Queen of England came from Chaillot,
+where she almost always was, to Madame de Maintenon's.  As soon as the
+King perceived her, "Madame," said he to her, like a man full of
+something and angry, "I have made my will; I have been tormented to do
+it;" then casting his eyes upon Madame de Maintenon, "I have bought
+repose; I know the powerlessness and inutility of it.  We can do all we
+wish while we live; afterwards we are less than the meanest.  You have
+only to see what became of my father's will immediately after his death,
+and the wills of so many other Kings.  I know it well; but nevertheless
+they have wished it; they gave me no rest nor repose, no calm until it
+was done; ah, well! then, Madame, it is done; come what may of it, I
+shall be no longer tormented."
+
+Words such as these so expressive of the extreme violence suffered by the
+King, of his long and obstinate battle before surrendering, of his
+vexation, and uneasiness, demand the clearest proofs.  I had them from
+people who heard them, and would not advance them unless I were perfectly
+persuaded of their exactness.
+
+As soon as the Chief-President and the Attorney-General returned to
+Paris, they sent for some workmen, whom they led into a tower of the
+Palace of justice, behind the Buvette, or drinking-place of the grand
+chamber and the cabinet of the Chief-President.  They had a big hole made
+in the wall of this tower, which is very thick, deposited the testament
+there, closed up the opening with an iron door, put an iron grating by
+way of second door, and then walled all up together.  The door and the
+grating each had three locks, the same for both; and a different key for
+each of the three, which consequently opened each of the two locks, the
+one in the door and the one in the grating.  The Chief-President kept one
+key, the Attorney-General another, and the Chief-Greffier of the
+Parliament the third.  The Parliament was assembled and the Chief-
+President flattered the members as best he might upon the confidence
+shown them in entrusting them with this deposit.
+
+At the same time was presented to the Parliament an edict that the Chief-
+President and the Attorney-General had received from the hand of the
+Chancellor at Versailles the same morning the King had given them his
+will, and the edict was registered.  It was very short.  It declared that
+the packet committed to the Chief-President and to the Attorney-General
+contained the will of the King, by which he had provided for the
+protection and guardianship of the young King, and had chosen a Regency
+council, the dispositions of which--for good reasons he had not wished to
+publish; that he wished this deposit should be preserved during his life
+in the registry of the Parliament, and that at the moment when it should
+please God to call him from the world, all the chambers of the
+Parliament, all the princes of the royal house, and all the peers who
+might be there, should assemble and open the will; and that after it was
+read, all its dispositions should be made public and executed, nobody to
+be permitted to oppose them in any way.
+
+Notwithstanding all this secrecy, the terms of the will were pretty
+generally guessed, and as I have said, the consternation was general.
+It was the fate of M. du Maine to obtain what he wished; but always with
+the maledictions of the public.  This fate did not abandon him now, and
+as soon as he felt it, he was overwhelmed, and Madame de Maintenon
+exasperated, and their attentions and their care redoubled, to shut up
+the King, so that the murmurs of the world should not reach him.  They
+occupied themselves more than ever to amuse and to please him, and to
+fill the air around him with praises, joy, and public adoring at an act
+so generous and so grand, and at the same time so wise and so necessary
+to the maintenance of good order and tranquillity, which would cause him
+to reign so gloriously even after his reign.
+
+This consternation was very natural, and is precisely why the Duc du
+Maine found himself deceived and troubled by it.  He believed he had
+prepared everything, smoothed everything, in rendering M. d'Orleans so
+suspected and so odious; he had succeeded, but not so much as he
+imagined.  His desires and his emissaries had exaggerated everything;
+and he found himself overwhelmed with astonishment, when instead of the
+public acclamations with which he had flattered himself the will would be
+accompanied, it was precisely the opposite.
+
+It was seen very clearly that the will assuredly could not have been made
+in favour of M. d'Orleans, and although public feeling against him had in
+no way changed, no one was so blind as not to see that he must be Regent
+by the incontestable right of his birth; that the dispositions of the
+testament could not weaken that right, except by establishing a power
+that should balance his; and that thus two parties would be formed in the
+state the chief of each of which would be interested in vanquishing the
+other, everybody being necessitated to join one side or other, thereby
+running a thousand risks without any advantage.  The rights of the two
+disputants were compared.  In the one they were found sacred, in the
+other they could not be found at all.  The two persons were compared.
+Both were found odious, but M. d'Orleans was deemed superior to M. du
+Maine.  I speak only of the mass of uninstructed people, and of what
+presented itself naturally and of itself.  The better informed had even
+more cause to arrive at the same decision.
+
+M. d'Orleans was stunned by the blow; he felt that it fell directly upon
+him, but during the lifetime of the King he saw no remedy for it.
+Silence respectful and profound appeared to him the sole course open;
+any other would only have led to an increase of precautions.  The King
+avoided all discourse with him upon this matter; M. du Maine the same.
+M. d'Orleans was contented with a simple approving monosyllable to both,
+like a courtier who ought not to meddle with anything; and he avoided
+conversation upon this subject, even with Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
+and with anybody else.  I was the sole person to whom he dared to unbosom
+himself; with the rest of the world he had an open, an ordinary manner,
+was on his guard against any discontented sign, and against the curiosity
+of all eyes.  The inexpressible abandonment in which he was, in the midst
+of the Court, guaranteed him at least from all remarks upon the will.  It
+was not until the health of the King grew more menacing that he began to
+speak and be spoken to thereon.
+
+As for M. du Maine, despite his good fortune, he was not to be envied At
+Sceaux, where he lived, the Duchesse du Maine, his wife, ruined him by
+her extravagance.  Sceaux was more than ever the theatre of her follies,
+and of the shame and embarrassment of her husband, by the crowd from the
+Court and the town, which abounded there and laughed at them.  She
+herself played there Athalie (assisted by actors and actresses) and other
+pieces several times a week.  Whole nights were passed in coteries,
+games, fetes, illuminations, fireworks, in a word, fancies and fripperies
+of every kind and every day.  She revelled in the joy of her new
+greatness--redoubled her follies; and the Duc du Maine, who always
+trembled before her, and who, moreover, feared that the slightest
+contradiction would entirely turn her brain, suffered all this, even
+piteously doing the honours as often as he could without ceasing in his
+conduct to the King.
+
+However great might be his joy, whatever the unimaginable greatness to
+which he had arrived, he was not tranquil.  Like those tyrants who have
+usurped by their crimes the sovereign power, and who fear as so many
+conspiring enemies all their fallen citizens they have enslaved--he felt
+as though seated under that sword that Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,
+suspended by a hair over his table, above the head of a man whom he
+placed there because he believed him happy, and in this manner wished to
+make him feel what passed unceasingly in himself.  M. du Maine, who
+willingly expressed in pleasantry the most serious things, frankly said
+to his familiars, that he was "like a louse between two fingernails" (the
+Princes of the blood and the peers), by which he could not fail to be
+cracked if he did not take care!  This reflection troubled the excess of
+his pleasure, and that of the greatness and the power to which so many
+artifices had elevated him.  He feared the Princes of the blood as soon
+as they should be of age to feel the infamy and the danger of the wound
+he had given them; he feared the Parliament, which even under his eyes
+had not been able to dissimulate its indignation at the violence he had
+committed against the most holy and the most inviolable laws; he even
+feared the Dukes so timid are injustice and tyranny!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX
+
+Let me return to Maisons.  Five days after the King's will had been
+walled up, in the manner I have described, he came to me and made a
+pathetic discourse upon the injustice done to M. le Duc d'Orleans by this
+testament, and did all he could to excite me by railing in good set terms
+against dispositions intended to add to the power and grandeur of the
+bastards.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Admit our ignorance, and not to give fictions and inventions
+Arranged his affairs that he died without money
+For penance: "we must make our servants fast"
+The argument of interest is the best of all with monks
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Louis XIV., Volume 9
+by Duc de Saint-Simon
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+The Project Gutenberg Memoirs Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, v9
+#9 in our series by The Duc de Saint-Simon
+#31 in our series Historic Court Memoirs
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+Title: The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, v9
+
+Author: Duc de Saint-Simon
+
+Official Release Date: March, 2003  [Etext #3868]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext Memoirs of Louis XIV. and The Regency, v9
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+
+
+          MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCY
+
+                        BY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON
+
+
+                                VOLUME 9.
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+The King's Selfishness.--Defeat of the Czar.--Death of Catinat.--Last
+Days of Vendome.--His Body at the Escurial.--Anecdote of Harlay and the
+Jacobins.--Truce in Flanders.--Wolves.
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+Settlement of the Spanish Succession.--Renunciation of France.--Comic
+Failure of the Duc de Berry.--Anecdotes of M. de Chevreuse.--Father
+Daniel's History and Its Reward.
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+The Bull Unigenitus.--My Interview with Father Tellier.--Curious
+Inadvertence of Mine.--Peace.--Duc de la Rochefoucauld.--A Suicide in
+Public.--Charmel.--Two Gay Sisters.
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+The King of Spain a Widower.--Intrigues of Madame des Ursins.--Choice of
+the Princes of Parma.--The King of France Kept in the Dark.--Celebration
+of the Marriage.--Sudden Fall of the Princesse des Ursins.--Her Expulsion
+from Spain.
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+The King of Spain Acquiesces in the Disgrace of Madame des Ursins.--Its
+Origin.--Who Struck the Blow.--Her journey to Versailles.--Treatment
+There.--My Interview with Her.--She Retires to Genoa.--Then to Rome.--
+Dies.
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI
+
+Sudden Illness of the Duc de Berry--Suspicious Symptoms.--The Duchess
+Prevented from Seeing Him.--His Death.--Character.--Manners of the
+Duchesse de Berry.
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII
+
+Maisons Seeks My Acquaintance.--His Mysterious Manner.--Increase of the
+Intimacy.--Extraordinary News.--The Bastards Declared Princes of the
+Blood.--Rage of Maisons and Noailles.--Opinion of the Court and Country.
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII
+
+The King Unhappy and Ill at Ease.--Court Paid to Him.--A New Scheme to
+Rule Him.--He Yields.--New Annoyance.--His Will.--Anecdotes Concerning
+It.--Opinions of the Court.--M. du Maine.
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX
+
+A New Visit from Maisons.--His Violent Project.--My Objections.--He
+Persists.--His Death and That of His Wife. --Death of the Duc de
+Beauvilliers.--His Character.--Of the Cardinal d'Estrees.--Anecdotes.--
+Death of Fenelon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+Let me here relate an incident which should have found a place earlier,
+but which has been omitted in order that what has gone before might be
+uninterrupted.  On the 16th of the previous July the King made a journey
+to Fontainebleau, where he remained until the 14th of September.  I
+should suppress the bagatelle which happened on the occasion of this
+journey, if it did not serve more and more to characterize the King.
+
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry was in the family way for the first time,
+had been so for nearly three months, was much inconvenienced, and had a
+pretty strong fever.  M. Fagon, the doctor, thought it would be imprudent
+for her not to put off travelling for a day or two.  Neither she nor M,
+d'Orleans dared to speak about it.  M. le Duc de Berry timidly hazarded a
+word, and was ill received.  Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans more timid
+still, addressed herself to Madame, and to Madame de Maintenon, who,
+indifferent as they might be respecting Madame la Duchesse de Berry,
+thought her departure so hazardous that, supported by Fagon, they spoke
+of it to the King.  It was useless.  They were not daunted, however, and
+this dispute lasted three or four days.  The end of it was, that the King
+grew thoroughly angry and agreed, by way of capitulation, that the
+journey should be performed in a boat instead of a coach.
+
+It was arranged that Madame la Duchesse de Berry should leave Marly,
+where the King then was, on the 13th, sleep at the Palais Royal that
+night and repose herself there all the next day and night, that on the
+15th she should set out for Petit-Bourg, where the King was to halt for
+the night, and arrive like him, on the 16th, at Fontainebleau, the whole
+journey to be by the river.  M. le Duc de Berry had permission to
+accompany his wife; but during the two nights they were to rest in Paris
+the King angrily forbade them to go anywhere, even to the Opera, although
+that building joined the Palais Royal, and M. d'Orleans' box could be
+reached without going out of the palace.
+
+On the 14th the King, under pretence of inquiry after them, repeated this
+prohibition to M. le Duc de Berry and Madame his wife, and also to M.
+d'Orleans and Madame d'Orleans, who had been included in it.  He carried
+his caution so far as to enjoin Madame de Saint-Simon to see that Madame
+la Duchesse de Berry obeyed the instructions she had received.  As may be
+believed, his orders were punctually obeyed.  Madame de Saint-Simon could
+not refuse to remain and sleep in the Palais Royal, where the apartment
+of the queen-mother was given to her.  All the while the party was shut
+up there was a good deal of gaming in order to console M. le Duc de Berry
+for his confinement.
+
+The provost of the merchants had orders to prepare boats for the trip to
+Fontainebleau.  He had so little time that they were ill chosen.  Madame
+la Duchesse de Berry embarked, however, on the 15th, and arrived, with
+fever, at ten o'clock at night at Petit-Bourg, where the King appeared
+rejoiced by an obedience so exact.
+
+On the morrow the journey recommenced.  In passing Melun, the boat of
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry struck against the bridge, was nearly
+capsized, and almost swamped, so that they were all in great danger.
+They got off, however, with fear and a delay.  Disembarking in great
+disorder at Valvin, where their equipages were waiting for there, they
+arrived at Fontainebleau two hours after midnight.  The King, pleased
+beyond measure, went the next morning to see Madame la Duchesse de Berry
+in the beautiful apartment of the queen-mother that had been given to
+her.  From the moment of her arrival she had been forced to keep her bed,
+and at six o'clock in the morning of the 21st of July she miscarried and
+was delivered of a daughter, still-born.  Madame de Saint-Simon ran to
+tell the King; he did not appear much moved; he had been obeyed!  The
+Duchesse de Beauvilliers and the Marquise de Chatillon were named by the
+King to carry the embryo to Saint-Denis.  As it was only a girl, and as
+the miscarriage had no ill effect, consolation soon came.
+
+It was some little time after this occurrence, that we heard of the
+defeat of the Czar by the Grand Vizier upon the Pruth.  The Czar, annoyed
+by the protection the Porte had accorded to the King of Sweden (in
+retirement at Bender), made an appeal to arms, and fell into the same
+error as that which had occasioned the defeat of the King of Sweden by
+him.  The Turks drew him to the Pruth across deserts supplied with
+nothing; if he did not risk all, by a very unequal battle, he must
+perish.  The Czar was at the head of sixty thousand men: he lost more
+than thirty thousand on the Pruth, the rest were dying of hunger and
+misery; and he, without any resources, could scarcely avoid surrendering
+himself and his forces to the Turks.  In this pressing extremity, a
+common woman whom he had taken away from her husband, a drummer in the
+army, and whom he had publicly espoused after having repudiated and
+confined his own wife in a convent,--proposed that he should try by
+bribery to induce the Grand Vizier to allow him and the wreck of his
+forces to retreat The Czar approved of the proposition, without hoping
+for success from it.  He sent to the Grand Vizier and ordered him to be
+spoken to in secret.  The Vizier was dazzled by the gold, the precious
+stones, and several valuable things that were offered to him.  He
+accepted and received them; and signed a treaty by which the Czar was
+permitted to retire, with all who accompanied him, into his own states by
+the shortest road, the Turks to furnish him with provisions, with which
+he was entirely unprovided.  The Czar, on his side, agreed to give up
+Azof as soon as he returned; destroy all the forts and burn all the
+vessels that he had upon the Black Sea; allow the King of Sweden to
+return by Pomerania; and to pay the Turks and their Prince all the
+expenses of the war.
+
+The Grand Vizier found such an opposition in the Divan to this treaty,
+and such boldness in the minister of the King of Sweden, who accompanied
+him, in exciting against him all the chiefs of the army, that it was
+within an ace of being broken; and the Czar, with every one left to him,
+of being made prisoner.  The latter was in no condition to make even the
+least resistance.  The Grand Vizier had only to will it, in order to
+execute it on the spot.  In addition to the glory of leading captive to
+Constantinople the Czar, his Court, and his troops, there would have been
+his ransom, which must have cost not a little.  But if he had been thus
+stripped of his riches, they would have been for the Sultan, and the
+Grand Vizier preferred having them for himself.  He braved it then with
+authority and menaces, and hastened the Czar's departure and his own.
+The Swedish minister, charged with protests from the principal Turkish
+chiefs, hurried to Constantinople, where the Grand Vizier was strangled
+upon arriving.
+
+The Czar never forgot this service of his wife, by whose courage and
+presence of mind he had been saved.  The esteem he conceived for her,
+joined to his friendship, induced him to crown her Czarina, and to
+consult her upon all his affairs and all his schemes.  Escaped from
+danger, he was a long time without giving up Azof, or demolishing his
+forts on the Black Sea.  As for his vessels, he kept them nearly all, and
+would not allow the King of Sweden to return into Germany, as he had
+agreed, thus almost lighting up a fresh war with the Turk.
+
+On the 6th of November, 1711, at about eight o'clock in the evening, the
+shock of an earthquake was felt in Paris and at Versailles; but it was so
+slight that few people perceived it.  In several places towards Touraine
+and Poitou, in Saxony, and in some of the German towns near, it was very
+perceptible at the same day and hour.  At this date a new tontine was
+established in Paris.
+
+I have so often spoken of Marshal Catinat, of his virtue, wisdom,
+modesty, and disinterestedness; of the rare superiority of his
+sentiments, and of his great qualities as captain, that nothing remains
+for me to say except that he died at this time very advanced in years,
+at his little house of Saint-Gratien, near Saint-Denis, where he had
+retired, and which he seldom quitted, although receiving there but few
+friends.  By his simplicity and frugality, his contempt for worldly
+distinction, and his uniformity of conduct, he recalled the memory of
+those great men who, after the best-merited triumphs, peacefully returned
+to the plough, still loving their country and but little offended by the
+ingratitude of the Rome they had so well served.  Catinat placed his
+philosophy at the service of his piety.  He had intelligence, good sense,
+ripe reflection; and he never forgot his origin; his dress, his
+equipages, his furniture, all were of the greatest simplicity.  His air
+and his deportment were so also.  He was tall, dark, and thin; had an
+aspect pensive, slow, and somewhat mean; with very fine and expressive
+eyes.  He deplored the signal faults that he saw succeed each other
+unceasingly; the gradual extinction of all emulation; the luxury, the
+emptiness, the ignorance, the confusion of ranks; the inquisition in the
+place of the police: he saw all the signs of destruction, and he used to
+say it was only a climax of dangerous disorder that could restore order
+to the realm.
+
+Vendome was one of the few to whom the death of the Dauphin and the
+Dauphine brought hope and joy.  He had deemed himself expatriated for the
+rest of his life.  He saw, now, good chances before him of returning to
+our Court, and of playing a part there again.  He had obtained some
+honour in Spain; he aimed at others even higher, and hoped to return to
+France with all the honours of a Prince of the Blood.  His idleness, his
+free living, his debauchery, had prolonged his stay upon the frontier,
+where he had more facilities for gratifying his tastes than at Madrid.
+In that city, it is true, he did not much constrain himself, but he was
+forced to do so to some extent by courtly usages.  He was, then, quite at
+home on the frontier; there was nothing to do; for the Austrians,
+weakened by the departure of the English, were quite unable to attack;
+and Vendome, floating upon the delights of his new dignities, thought
+only of enjoying himself in the midst of profound idleness, under pretext
+that operations could not at once be commenced.
+
+In order to be more at liberty he separated from the general officers,
+and established himself with his valets and two or three of his most
+familiar friends, cherished companions everywhere, at Vignarez, a little
+isolated hamlet, almost deserted, on the sea-shore and in the kingdom of
+Valencia.  His object was to eat fish there to his heart's content.  He
+carried out that object, and filled himself to repletion for nearly a
+month. He became unwell--his diet, as may be believed, was enough to
+cause this--but his illness increased so rapidly, and in so strange a
+manner, after having for a long time seemed nothing that the few around
+him suspected poison, and sent on all sides for assistance. But the
+malady would not wait; it augmented rapidly with strange symptoms.
+Vendome could not sign a will that was presented to him; nor a letter to
+the King, its which he asked that his brother might be permitted to
+return to Court.  Everybody near flew from him and abandoned him, so that
+he remained in the hands of three or four of the meanest valets, whilst
+the rest robbed him of everything and decamped.  He passed thus the last
+two or three days of his life, without a priest,--no mention even had
+been made of one,--without other help than that of a single surgeon.
+The three or four valets who remained near him, seeing him at his last
+extremity, seized hold of the few things he still possessed, and for want
+of better plunder, dragged off his bedclothes and the mattress from under
+him.  He piteously cried to them at least not to leave him to die naked
+upon the bare bed.  I know not whether they listened to him.
+
+Thus died on Friday, the 10th of June, 1712, the haughtiest of men; and
+the happiest, except in the later years of his life.  After having been
+obliged to speak of him so often, I get rid of him now, once and for
+ever.  He was fifty-eight years old; but in spite of the blind and
+prodigious favour he had enjoyed, that favour had never been able to make
+ought but a cabal hero out of a captain who was a very bad general, and a
+man whose vices were the shame of humanity.  His death restored life and
+joy to all Spain.
+
+Aguilar, a friend of the Duc de Noailles, was accused of having poisoned
+him; but took little pains to defend himself, inasmuch as little pains
+were taken to substantiate the accusation.  The Princesse des Ursins, who
+had so well profited by his life in order to increase her own greatness,
+did not profit less by his death.  She felt her deliverance from a new
+Don Juan of Spain who had ceased to be supple in her hands, and who might
+have revived, in the course of time, all the power and authority he had
+formerly enjoyed in France.  She was not shocked them by the joy which
+burst out without constraint; nor by the free talk of the Court, the
+city, the army, of all Spain.  But in order to sustain what she had done,
+and cheaply pay her court to M. du Maine, Madame de Maintenon, and even
+to the King, she ordered that the corpse of this hideous monster of
+greatness and of fortune should be carried to the Escurial.  This was
+crowning the glory of M. de Vendome in good earnest; for no private
+persons are buried in the Escurial, although several are to be found in
+Saint-Denis.  But meanwhile, until I speak of the visit I made to the
+Escurial--I shall do so if I live long enough to carry these memoirs up
+to the death of M. d'Orleans,--let me say something of that illustrious
+sepulchre.
+
+The Pantheon is the place where only the bodies of kings and queens who
+have had posterity are admitted.  In a separate place, near, though not
+on the same floor, and resembling a library, the bodies of children, and
+of queens who have had no posterity, are ranged.  A third place, a sort
+of antechamber to the last named, is rightly called "the rotting room;"
+whilst the other improperly bears the same name.  In whilst third room,
+there is nothing to be seen but four bare walls and a table in the
+middle.  The walls being very thick, openings are made in them in which
+the bodies are placed.  Each body has an opening to itself, which is
+afterwards walled up, so that nothing is seen.  When it is thought that
+the corpse has been closed up sufficiently long to be free from odour the
+wall is opened, the body taken out, and put in a coffin which allows a
+portion of it to be seen towards the feet.  This coffin is covered with a
+rich stuff and carried into an adjoining room.
+
+The body of the Duc de Vendome had been walled up nine years when I
+entered the Escurial.  I was shown the place it occupied, smooth like
+every part of the four walls and without mark.  I gently asked the monks
+who did me the honours of the place, when the body would be removed to
+the other chamber.  They would not satisfy my curiosity, showed some
+indignation, and plainly intimated that this removal was not dreamt of,
+and that as M. de Vendome had been so carefully walled up he might remain
+so!
+
+Harlay, formerly chief-president, of whom I have so often had occasion to
+speak, died a short time after M. de Vendome.  I have already made him
+known.  I will simply add an account of the humiliation to which this
+haughty cynic was reduced.  He hired a house in the Rue de l'Universite
+with a partition wall between his garden and that of the Jacobins of the
+Faubourg Saint-Germain.  The house did not belong to the Jacobins, like
+the houses of the Rue Saint-Dominique, and the Rue du Bac, which, in
+order that they might command higher rents, were put in connection with
+the convent garden.  These mendicant Jacobins thus derive fifty thousand
+livres a-year.  Harlay, accustomed to exercise authority, asked them for
+a door into their garden.  He was refused.  He insisted, had them spoken
+to, and succeeded no better.  Nevertheless the Jacobins comprehended that
+although this magistrate, recently so powerful, was now nothing by
+himself, he had a son and a cousin, Councillors of State, whom they might
+some day have to do with, and who for pride's sake might make themselves
+very disagreeable.  The argument of interest is the best of all with
+monks.  The Jacobins changed their mind.  The Prior, accompanied by some
+of the notabilities of the convent, went to Harlay with excuses, and said
+he was at liberty, if he liked, to make the door.  Harlay, true to his
+character, looked at them askance, and replied, that he had changed his
+mind and would do without it.  The monks, much troubled by his refusal,
+insisted; he interrupted them and said, "Look you, my fathers, I am
+grandson of Achille du Harlay, Chief-President of the Parliament, who so
+well served the State and the Kingdom, and who for his support of the
+public cause was dragged to the Bastille, where he expected to be hanged
+by those rascally Leaguers; it would ill become me, therefore, to enter
+the house, or pray to God there, of folks of the same stamp as that
+Jacques Clement."  And he immediately turned his back upon them, leaving
+them confounded.  This was his last act of vigour.  He took it into his
+head afterwards to go out visiting a good deal, and as he preserved all
+his old unpleasant manners, he afflicted all he visited; he went even to
+persons who had often cooled their heels in his antechambers.  By
+degrees, slight but frequent attacks of apoplexy troubled his speech, so
+that people had great difficulty in understanding him, and he in
+speaking.  In this state he did not cease his visits and could not
+perceive that many doors were closed to him.  He died in this misery, and
+this neglect, to the great relief of the few who by relationship were
+obliged to see him, above all of his son and his domestic.
+
+On the 17th July, a truce between France and England was published in
+Flanders, at the head of the troops of the two crowns.  The Emperor,
+however, was not yet inclined for peace and his forces under Prince
+Eugene continued to oppose us in Flanders, where, however, the tide at
+last turned in our favour.  The King was so flattered by the overflow of
+joy that took place at Fontainebleau on account of our successes, that he
+thanked the country for it, for the first time in his life.  Prince
+Eugene, in want of bread and of everything, raised the siege of
+Landrecies, which he had been conducting, and terrible desertion took
+place among his troops.
+
+About this time, there was an irruption of wolves, which caused great
+disorders in the Orleannais; the King's wolf-hunters were sent there, and
+the people were authorised to take arms and make a number of grand
+battues.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+Peace was now all but concluded between France and England.  There was,
+however, one great obstacle still in its way.  Queen Anne and her Council
+were stopped by the consideration that the king of Spain would claim to
+succeed to the Crown of France, if the little Dauphin should die.
+Neither England nor any of the other powers at war would consent to see
+the two principal crowns of Europe upon the same head.  It was necessary,
+then, above all things to get rid of this difficulty, and so arrange the
+order of succession to our throne, that the case to be provided against
+could never happen.  Treaties, renunciations, and oaths, all of which the
+King had already broken, appeared feeble guarantees in the eyes of
+Europe.  Something stronger was sought for.  It could not be found;
+because there is nothing more sacred among men than engagements which
+they consider binding on each other.  What was wanting then in mere forms
+it was now thought could be supplied by giving to those forms the
+greatest possible solemnity.
+
+It was a long time before we could get over the difficulty.  The King
+would accord nothing except promises in order to guarantee to Europe that
+the two crowns should never be united upon the same head.  His authority
+was wounded at the idea of being called upon to admit, as it were, a
+rival near it.  Absolute without reply, as he had become, he had
+extinguished and absorbed even the minutest trace, idea, and recollection
+of all other authority, all other power in France except that which
+emanated from himself alone.  The English, little accustomed to such
+maxims, proposed that the States-General should assemble in order to give
+weight to the renunciations to be made.  They said, and with reason, that
+it was not enough that the King of Spain should renounce France unless
+France renounced Spain; and that this formality was necessary in order to
+break the double bonds which attached Spain to France, as France was
+attached to Spain.  Accustomed to their parliaments, which are in effect
+their States-General, they believed ours preserved the same authority,
+and they thought such authority the greatest to be obtained and the best
+capable of solidly supporting that of the King.
+
+The effect of this upon the mind of a Prince almost deified in his own
+eyes, and habituated to the most unlimited despotism, cannot be
+expressed.  To show him that the authority of his subjects was thought
+necessary in order to confirm his own, wounded him in his most delicate
+part.  The English were made to understand the weakness and the
+uselessness of what they asked; for the powerlessness of our States-
+General was explained to them, and they saw at once how vain their help
+would be, even if accorded.
+
+For a long time nothing was done; France saying that a treaty of
+renunciation and an express confirmatory declaration of the King,
+registered in the Parliament, were sufficient; the English replying by
+reference to the fate of past treaties.  Peace meanwhile was arranged
+with the English, and much beyond our hopes remained undisturbed.
+
+In due time matters were so far advanced in spite of obstacles thrown in
+the way by the allies, that the Duc d'Aumont was sent as ambassador into
+England; and the Duke of Hamilton was named as ambassador for France.
+This last, however, losing his life in a duel with Lord Mohun, the Duke
+of Shrewsbury was appointed in his stead.
+
+At the commencement of the new year [1713] the Duke and Duchess of
+Shrewsbury arrived in Paris.  The Duchess was a great fat masculine
+creature, more than past the meridian, who had been beautiful and who
+affected to be so still; bare bosomed; her hair behind her ears; covered
+with rouge and patches, and full of finicking ways.  All her manners were
+that of a mad thing, but her play, her taste, her magnificence, even her
+general familiarity, made her the fashion.  She soon declared the women's
+head-dresses ridiculous, as indeed they were.  They were edifices of
+brass wire, ribbons, hair, and all sorts of tawdry rubbish more than two
+feet high, making women's faces seem in the middle of their bodies.  The
+old ladies wore the same, but made of black gauze.  If they moved ever so
+lightly the edifice trembled and the inconvenience was extreme.  The King
+could not endure them, but master as he was of everything was unable to
+banish them.  They lasted for ten years and more, despite all he could
+say and do.  What this monarch had been unable to perform, the taste and
+example of a silly foreigner accomplished with the most surprising
+rapidity.  From extreme height, the ladies descended to extreme lowness,
+and these head-dresses, more simple; more convenient, and more becoming,
+last even now.  Reasonable people wait with impatience for some other mad
+stranger who will strip our dames of these immense baskets, thoroughly
+insupportable to themselves and to others.
+
+Shortly after the Duke of Shrewsbury arrived in Paris, the Hotel de Powis
+in London, occupied by our ambassador the Duc d'Aumont, was burnt to the
+ground.  A neighbouring house was pulled down to prevent others catching
+fire.  The plate of M. d'Aumont was saved.  He pretended to have lost
+everything else.  He pretended also to have received several warnings
+that his house was to be burnt and himself assassinated, and that the
+Queen, to whom he had mentioned these warnings, offered to give him a
+guard.  People judged otherwise in London and Paris, and felt persuaded
+he himself had been the incendiary in order to draw money from the King
+and also to conceal some monstrous smuggling operations, by which he
+gained enormously, and which the English had complained of ever since his
+arrival.  This is at least what was publicly said in the two courts and
+cities, and nearly everybody believed it.
+
+But to return to the peace.  The renunciations were ready, towards the
+middle of March, and were agreed upon.  The King was invited to sign them
+by his own most pressing interest; and the Court of England, to which we
+owed all, was not less interested in consummating this grand work, so as
+to enjoy, with the glory of having imposed it upon all the powers, that
+domestic repose which was unceasingly disturbed by the party opposed to
+the government, which party, excited by the enemies of peace abroad,
+could not cease to cause disquiet to the Queen's minister, while, by
+delay in signing, vain hopes of disturbing the peace or hindering its
+ratification existed in people's minds.  The King of Spain had made his
+renunciations with all the solidity and solemnity which could be desired
+from the laws, customs, and usages of Spain.  It only remained for France
+to imitate him.
+
+For the ceremony that was to take place, all that could be obtained in
+order to render it more solemn was the presence of the peers.  But the
+King was so jealous of his authority, and so little inclined to pay
+attention to that of others, that he wished to content himself with
+merely saying in a general way that he hoped to find all the peers at the
+Parliament when the renunciations were made.  I told M. d'Orleans that if
+the King thought such an announcement as this was enough he might rely
+upon finding not a single peer at the Parliament.  I added, that if the
+King did not himself invite each peer, the master of the ceremonies ought
+to do so for him, according to the custom always followed.  This warning
+had its effect.  We all received written invitations, immediately.
+Wednesday, the 18th of May, was fixed for the ceremony.
+
+At six o'clock on the morning of that day I went to the apartments of M.
+le Duc de Berry, in parliamentary dress, and shortly afterwards M.
+d'Orleans came there also, with a grand suite.  It had been arranged that
+the ceremony was to commence by a compliment from the Chief-President de
+Mesmes to M. le Duc de Berry, who was to reply to it.  He was much
+troubled at this.  Madame de Saint-Simon, to whom he unbosomed himself;
+found means, through a subaltern, to obtain the discourse of the Chief-
+President, and gave it to M. le Duc de Berry, to regulate his reply by.
+This, however, seemed too much for him; he admitted so to Madame de
+Saint-Simon, and that he knew not what to do.  She proposed that I should
+take the work off his hands; and he was delighted with the expedient.
+I wrote, therefore, a page and a half full of common-sized paper in an
+ordinary handwriting.  M. le Duc de Berry liked it, but thought it too
+long to be learnt.  I abridged it; he wished it to be still shorter, so
+that at last there was not more than three-quarters of a page.  He had
+learned it by heart, and repeated it in his cabinet the night before the
+ceremony to Madame de Saint-Simon, who encouraged him as much as she
+could.
+
+At about half-past six o'clock we set out--M. le Duc d'Orleans, M. le Duc
+de Berry, myself, and M. le Duc de Saint-Aignan, in one coach, several
+other coaches following.  M. le Duc de Berry was very silent all the
+journey, appearing to be much occupied with the speech he had learned by
+heart.  M. d'Orleans, on the contrary, was full of gaiety, and related
+some of his youthful adventures, and his wild doings by night in the
+streets of Paris.  We arrived gently at the Porte de la Conference, that
+is to say--for it is now pulled down--at the end of the terrace, and of
+the Quai of the Tuileries.
+
+We found there the trumpeters and drummers of M. le Duc de Berry's guard,
+who made a great noise all the rest of our journey, which ended at the
+Palais de justice.  Thence we went to the Sainte-Chapelle to hear mass.
+The Chapelle was filled with company, among which were many people of
+quality.  The crowd of people from this building to the grand chamber was
+so great that a pin could not have fallen to the ground.  On all sides,
+too, folks had climbed up to see what passed.
+
+All the Princes of the blood, the bastards, the peers and the parliament,
+were assembled in the palace.  When M. le Duc de Berry entered,
+everything was ready.  Silence having with difficulty been obtained, the
+Chief-President paid his compliment to the Prince.  When he had finished,
+it was for M. le Duc de Berry to reply.  He half took off his hat,
+immediately put it back again, looked at the Chief-President, and said,
+"Monsieur;" after a moment's pause he repeated "Monsieur."  Then he
+looked at the assembly, and again said, "Monsieur."   Afterwards he
+turned towards M. d'Orleans, who, like himself, was as red as fire, next
+to the Chief-President, and finally stopped short, nothing else than
+"Monsieur" having been able to issue from his mouth.
+
+I saw distinctly the confusion of M. le Duc de Berry, and sweated at it;
+but what could be done?  The Duke turned again towards M. d'Orleans, who
+lowered his head.  Both were dismayed.  At last the Chief-President,
+seeing there was no other resource, finished this cruel scene by taking
+off his cap to M. le Duc de Berry, and inclining himself very low, as if
+the response was finished.  Immediately afterwards he told the King's
+people to begin.  The embarrassment of all the courtiers and the surprise
+of the magistracy may be imagined.
+
+The renunciations were then read; and by these the King of Spain and his
+posterity gave up all claim to the throne of France, and M. le Duc
+d'Orleans, and M. le Duc de Berry to succeed to that of Spain.  These and
+other forms occupied a long time.  The chamber was all the while crowded
+to excess.  There was not room for a single other person to enter.  It
+was very late when all was over.
+
+When everything was at an end M. de Saint-Aignan and I accompanied M. le
+Duc de Berry and M. le Duc d'Orleans in a coach to the Palais Royal.  On
+the way the conversation was very quiet.  M. le Duc de Berry appeared
+dispirited, embarrassed, and vexed.  Even after we had partaken of a
+splendid and delicate dinner, to which an immense number of other guests
+sat down, he did not improve.  We were conducted to the Porte Saint-
+Honore with the same pomp as that in the midst, of which we had entered
+Paris.  During the rest of the journey to Versailles M. le Duc de Berry
+was as silent as ever.
+
+To add to his vexation, as soon as he arrived at Versailles the Princesse
+de Montauban, without knowing a word of what had passed, set herself to
+exclaim, with her usual flattery, that she was charmed with the grace and
+the appropriate eloquence with which he had spoken at the Parliament, and
+paraphrased this theme with all the praises of which it was susceptible.
+M. le Duc de Berry blushed with vexation without saying a word; she
+recommenced extolling his modesty, he blushing the more, and saying
+nothing.  When at last he had got rid of her, he went to his own
+apartments, said not, a word to the persons he found there, scarcely one
+to Madame his wife, but taking Madame de Saint-Simon with him, went into
+his library, and shut himself up alone there with her.
+
+Throwing himself into an armchair he cried out that he was dishonoured,
+and wept scalding tears.  Then he related to Madame de Saint-Simon, in
+the midst of sobs, how he had stuck fast at the Parliament, without being
+able to utter a word, said that he should everywhere be regarded as an
+ass and a blockhead, and repeated the compliments he had received from
+Madame de Montauban, who, he said, had laughed at and insulted him,
+knowing well what had happened; then, infuriated against her to the last
+degree, he called her by all sots of names.  Madame de Saint-Simon spared
+no exertion in order to calm M. de Berry, assuring him that it was
+impossible Madame de Montauban could know what had taken place at the
+Parliament, the news not having then reached Versailles, and that she had
+had no other object than flattery in addressing him.  Nothing availed.
+Complaints and silence succeeded each other in the midst of tears.  Then,
+suddenly falling upon the Duc de Beauvilliers and the King, and accusing
+the defects of his education: "They thought only;" he exclaimed,
+"of making me stupid, and of stifling all my powers.  I was a younger
+son.  I coped with my brother.  They feared the consequences; they
+annihilated me.  I was taught only to play and to hunt,: and they have
+succeeded in making me a fool and an ass, incapable of anything, the
+laughing-stock and disdain of everybody."  Madame de Saint-Simon was
+overpowered with compassion, and did everything to calm M. de Berry.
+Their strange tete-a-tete lasted nearly two hours, and resumed the next
+day but with less violence.  By degrees M. le Duc de Berry became
+consoled, but never afterwards did any one dare to speak to him of his
+misadventure at the peace ceremony.
+
+Let me here say that, the ceremony over, peace was signed at Utrecht on
+the 20th April, 1713, at a late hour of the night.  It was published in
+Paris with great solemnity on the 22nd.  Monsieur and Madame du Maine,
+who wished to render themselves popular, came from Sceaux to see the
+ceremony in the Place Royale, showed themselves on a balcony to the
+people, to whom they threw some money--a liberality that the King would
+not have permitted in anybody else.  At night fires were lighted before
+the houses, several of which were illuminated: On the 25th a Te Deum was
+sung at Notre Dame, and in the evening there was a grand display of
+fireworks at the Grave, which was followed by a superb banquet given at
+the Hotel de Ville by the Duc de Tresmes, the Governor of Paris, to a
+large number of distinguished persons of both sexes of the Court and the
+city, twenty-four violins playing during the repast.
+
+I have omitted to mention the death of M. de Chevreise, which took place
+between seven and eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday, the 5th of
+November; of the previous year (1712).  I have so often alluded to M. de
+Chevreuse in the course of these pages, that I will content myself with
+relating here two anecdotes of him, which serve to paint a part of his
+character.
+
+He was very forgetful, and adventures often happened to him in
+consequence, which diverted us amazingly.  Sometimes his horses were put
+to and kept waiting for him twelve or fifteen hours at a time.  Upon one
+occasion in summer this happened at Vaucresson, whence he was going to
+dine at Dampierre.  The coachman, first, then the postilion, grew tired
+of looking after the horses, and left them.  Towards six o'clock at night
+the horses themselves were in their turn worn out, bolted, and a din was
+heard which shook the house.  Everybody ran out, the coach was found
+smashed, the large door shivered in pieces; the garden railings, which
+enclosed both sides of the court, broken down; the gates in pieces; in
+short, damage was done that took a long time to repair.  M. de Chevreuse,
+who had not been disturbed by this uproar even for an instant, was quite
+astonished when he heard of it.  M. de Beauvilliers amused himself for a
+long time by reproaching him with it, and by asking the expense.
+
+Another adventure happened to him also at Vaucresson, and covered him
+with real confusion, comical to see, every time it was mentioned.  About
+ten o'clock one morning a M. Sconin, who had formerly been his steward,
+was announced.  "Let him take a turn in the garden," said M. de
+Chevreuse, "and come back in half an hour."  He continued what he was
+doing, and completely forgot his man.  Towards seven o'clock in the
+evening Sconin was again announced.  "In a moment," replied M. de
+Chevreuse, without disturbing himself.  A quarter of an hour afterwards
+he called Sconin, and admitted him.  "Ah, my poor Sconin!" said he,
+"I must offer you a thousand excuses for having caused you to lose your
+day."
+
+"Not at all, Monseigneur," replied Sconin.  "As I have had the honour of
+knowing you for many years, I comprehended this morning that the half-
+hour might be long, so I went to Paris, did some business there, before
+and after dinner, and here I am again."
+
+M. de Chevreuse was confounded.  Sconin did not keep silence, nor did the
+servants of the house.  M. de Beauvilliers made merry with the adventure
+when he heard of it, and accustomed as M. de Chevreuse might be to his
+raillery, he could not bear to have this subject alluded to.  I have
+selected two anecdotes out of a hundred others of the same kind, because
+they characterise the man.
+
+The liberality of M. du Maine which we have related on the occasion of
+the proclamation of peace at Paris, and which was so popular, and so
+surprising when viewed in connection with the disposition of the King,
+soon took new development.  The Jesuits, so skilful in detecting the
+foibles of monarchs, and so clever in seizing hold of everything which
+can protect themselves and answer their ends, showed to what extent they
+were masters of these arts.  A new and assuredly a very original History
+of France, in three large folio volumes, appeared under the name of
+Father Daniel, who lived at Paris in the establishment of the Jesuits.
+The paper and the printing of the work were excellent; the style was
+admirable.  Never was French so clear, so pure, so flowing, with such
+happy transitions; in a word, everything to charm and entice the reader;
+admirable preface, magnificent promises, short, learned dissertations, a
+pomp, an authority of the most seductive kind.  As for the history, there
+was much romance in the first race, much in the second, and much.
+mistiness in the early times of the third.  In a word, all the work
+evidently appeared composed in order to persuade people--under the simple
+air of a man who set aside prejudices with discernment, and who only
+seeks the truth--that the majority of the Kings of the first race,
+several of the second, some even of the third, were, bastards, whom this
+defect did not exclude from the throne, or affect in any way.
+
+I say bluntly here what was very delicately veiled in the work, and yet
+plainly seen.  The effect of the book was great; its vogue such, that
+everybody, even women, asked for it.  The King spoke of it to several of
+his Court, asked if they had read it; the most sagacious early saw how
+much it was protected; it was the sole historical book the King and
+Madame de Maintenon had ever spoken of.  Thus the work appeared at
+Versailles upon every table, nothing else was talked about, marvellous
+eulogies were lavished upon it, which were sometimes comical in the
+mouths of persons either very ignorant, or who, incapable of reading,
+pretended to read and relish this book.
+
+But this surprising success did not last.  People perceived that this
+history, which so cleverly unravelled the remote part, gave but a meagre
+account of modern days, except in so far as their military operations
+were concerned; of which even the minutest details were recorded.  Of
+negotiations, cabals, Court intrigues, portraits, elevations, falls, and
+the main springs of events, there was not a word in all the work, except
+briefly, dryly, and with precision as in the gazettes, often more
+superficially.  Upon legal matters, public ceremonies, fetes of different
+times, there was also silence at the best, the same laconism; and when we
+come to the affairs of Rome and of the League, it is a pleasure to see
+the author glide over that dangerous ice on his Jesuit skates!
+
+In due time critics condemned the work which, after so much applause, was
+recognised as a very wretched history, which had very industriously and
+very fraudulently answered the purpose for which it was written.  It fell
+to the ground then; learned men wrote against it; but the principal and
+delicate point of the work was scarcely touched in France with the pen,
+so great was the danger.
+
+Father Daniel obtained two thousand francs' pension for his history,--
+a prodigious recompense,--with a title of Historiographer of France.  He
+enjoyed the fruits of his falsehood, and laughed at those who attacked
+him.  Foreign countries did not swallow quite so readily these stories
+that declared such a number of our early kings bastards; but great care
+was taken not to let France be infected by the disagreeable truths
+therein published.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+It is now time that I should say something of the infamous bull
+'Unigenitus', which by the unsurpassed audacity and scheming of Father Le
+Tellier and his friends was forced upon the Pope and the world.
+
+I need not enter into a very lengthy account of the celebrated Papal
+decree which has made so many martyrs, depopulated our schools,
+introduced ignorance, fanaticism, and misrule, rewarded vice, thrown the
+whole community into the greatest confusion, caused disorder everywhere,
+and established the most arbitrary and the most barbarous inquisition;
+evils which have doubled within the last thirty years.  I will content
+myself with a word or two, and will not blacken further the pages of my
+Memoirs.  Many pens have been occupied, and will be occupied, with this
+subject.  It is not the apostleship of Jesus Christ that is in question,
+but that of the reverend fathers and their ambitious clients.
+
+It is enough to say that the new bull condemned in set terms the
+doctrines of Saint-Paul (respected like oracles of the Holy Spirit ever
+since the time of our Saviour), and also those of Saint-Augustin, and of
+other fathers; doctrines which have always been adopted by the Popes, by
+the Councils, and by the Church itself.  The bull, as soon as published,
+met with a violent opposition in Rome from the cardinals there, who went
+by sixes, by eights, and by tens, to complain of it to the Pope.  They
+might well do so, for they had not been consulted in any way upon this
+new constitution.  Father Tellier and his friends had had the art and the
+audacity to obtain the publication of it without submitting it to them.
+The Pope, as I have said, had been forced into acquiescence, and now, all
+confused, knew not what to say.  He protested, however, that the
+publication had been made without his knowledge, and put off the
+cardinals with compliments, excuses, and tears, which last he could
+always command.
+
+The constitution had the same fate in France as in Rome.  The cry against
+it was universal.  The cardinals protested that it would never be
+received.  They were shocked by its condemnation of the doctrines of
+Saint-Augustin and of the other fathers; terrified at its condemnation of
+Saint-Paul.  There were not two opinions upon this terrible constitution.
+The Court, the city, and the provinces, as soon as they knew the nature
+of it, rose against it like one man.
+
+In addition to the articles of this constitution which I have already
+named, there was one which excited infinite alarm and indignation, for it
+rendered the Pope master of every crown!  As is well known, there is a
+doctrine of the Church, which says:
+
+"An unjust excommunication ought got to hinder [us] from doing our duty."
+
+The new constitution condemned this doctrine, and consequently proclaimed
+that:
+
+"An unjust excommunication ought to hinder [us] from doing our duty."
+
+The enormity of this last is more striking than the simple truth of the
+proposition condemned.  The second is a shadow which better throws up the
+light of the first.  The results and the frightful consequences of the
+condemnation are as clear as day.
+
+I think I have before said that Father Tellier, without any advances on
+my part, without, in fact, encouragement of any kind, insisted upon
+keeping up an intimacy with me, which I could not well repel, for it came
+from a man whom it would have been very dangerous indeed to have for an-
+enemy.  As soon as this matter of the constitution was in the wind, he
+came to me to talk about it.  I did not disguise my opinion from him, nor
+did he disguise in any way from me the unscrupulous means he meant to
+employ in order to get this bull accepted by the clergy.  Indeed, he was
+so free with me, showed me so plainly his knavery and cunning, that I
+was, as it were, transformed with astonishment and fright.  I never could
+comprehend this openness in a man so false, so artificial, so profound,
+or see in what manner it could be useful to him.
+
+One day he came to me by appointment, with a copy of the constitution in
+his hand in order that we might thoroughly discuss it.  I was at
+Versailles.  In order to understand what I am going to relate, I must
+give some account of my apartments there.  Let me say, then, that I had a
+little back cabinet, leading out of another cabinet, but so arranged that
+you would not have thought it was there.  It received no light except
+from the outer cabinet, its own windows being boarded up.  In this back
+cabinet I had a bureau, some chairs, books, and all I needed; my friends
+called it my "shop," and in truth it did not ill resemble one.
+
+Father Tellier came at the hour he had fixed.  As chance would have it,
+M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de Berry had invited themselves to a
+collation with Madame de Saint-Simon that morning.  I knew that when they
+arrived I should no longer be master of my chamber or of my cabinet.  I
+told Father Tellier this, and he was much vexed.  He begged me so hard to
+find some place where we might be inaccessible to the company, that at
+last, pressed by him to excess, I said I knew of only one expedient by
+which we might become free: and I told him that he must dismiss his
+'vatble' (as the brother who always accompanies a monk is called), and
+that then, furnished with candles, we would go and shut ourselves up in
+my back cabinet, where we could neither be seen nor heard, if we took
+care not to speak loud when anybody approached.  He thought the expedient
+admirable, dismissed his companion, and we sat down opposite each other,
+the bureau between us, with two candles alight upon it.
+
+He immediately began to sing the praises of the Constitution Unigenitus,
+a copy of which he placed on the table.  I interrupted him so as to come
+at once to the excommunication proposition.  We discussed it with much
+politeness, but with little accord.  I shall not pretend to report our
+dispute.  It was warm and long.  I pointed out to Father Tellier, that
+supposing the King and the little Dauphin were both to die, and this was
+a misfortune which might happen, the crown of France would by right of
+birth belong to the King of Spain; but according to the renunciation just
+made, it would belong to M. le Duc de Berry and his branch, or in default
+to M. le Duc d'Orleans.  "Now," said I, "if the two brothers dispute the
+crown, and the Pope favouring the one should excommunicate the other, it
+follows, according to our new constitution, that the excommunicated must
+abandon all his claims, all his partisans, all his forces, and go over to
+the other side.  For you say, an unjust excommunication ought to hinder
+us from doing our duty.  So that in one fashion or another the Pope is
+master of all the crowns in his communion, is at liberty to take them
+away or to give them as he pleases, a liberty so many Popes have claimed
+and so many have tried to put in action."
+
+My argument was simple, applicable, natural, and pressing: it offered
+itself, of itself.  Wherefore, the confessor was amazed by it; he
+blushed, he beat about the bush, he could not collect himself.  By
+degrees he did so, and replied to me in a manner that he doubtless
+thought would convince me at once.  "If the case you suggest were to
+happen," he said, "and the Pope declaring for one disputant were to
+excommunicate the other and all his followers, such excommunication would
+not merely be unjust, it would be false; and it has never been decided
+that a false excommunication should hinder us from doing our duty."
+
+"Ah! my father," I said, "your distinction is subtle and clever, I admit.
+I admit, too, I did not expect it, but permit me some few more
+objections, I beseech you.  Will the Ultramontanes admit the nullity of
+the excommunication?  Is it not null as soon as it is unjust?  If the
+Pope has the power to excommunicate unjustly, and to enforce obedience to
+his excommunication, who can limit power so unlimited, and why should not
+his false (or nullified) excommunication be as much obeyed and respected
+as his unjust excommunication?  Suppose the case I have imagined were to
+happen.  Suppose the Pope were to excommunicate one of the two brothers.
+Do you think it would be easy to make your subtle distinction between a
+false and an unjust excommunication understood by the people, the
+soldiers, the bourgeois, the officers, the lords, the women, at the very
+moment when they would be preparing to act and to take up arms?  You see
+I point out great inconveniences that may arise if the new doctrine be
+accepted, and if the Pope should claim the power of deposing kings,
+disposing of their crowns, and releasing their subjects from the oath of
+fidelity in opposition to the formal words of Jesus Christ and of all the
+Scripture."
+
+My words transported the Jesuit, for I had touched the right spring in
+spite of his effort to hide it.  He said nothing personal to me, but he
+fumed.  The more he restrained himself for me the less he did so for the
+matter in hand.  As though to indemnify himself for his moderation on my,
+account, he launched out the more, upon the subject we were discussing.
+In his heat, no longer master of himself, many things escaped him,
+silence upon which I am sure he would afterwards have bought very dearly.
+He told me so many things of the violence that would be used to make his
+constitution accepted, things so monstrous, so atrocious, so terrible,
+and with such extreme passion that I fell into a veritable syncope.  I
+saw him right in front of me between two candles, only the width of the
+table between us (I have described elsewhere his horrible physiognomy).
+My hearing and my sight became bewildered.  I was seized, while he was
+speaking, with the full idea of what a Jesuit was.  Here was a man who,
+by his state and his vows, could hope for nothing for his family or for
+himself; who could not expect an apple or a glass of wine more than his
+brethren; who was approaching an age when he would have to render account
+of all things to God, and who, with studied deliberation and mighty
+artifice, was going to throw the state and religion into the most
+terrible flames, and commence a most frightful persecution for questions
+which affected him in nothing, nor touched in any way the honour of the
+School of Molina!
+
+His profundities, the violence he spoke of--all this together, threw me
+into such an ecstasy, that suddenly I interrupted him by saying:
+
+"My father, how old are you?"
+
+The extreme surprise which painted itself upon his face as I looked at
+him with all my eyes, fetched back my senses, and his reply brought me
+completely to myself.  "Why do you ask?" he replied, smiling.  The effort
+that I made over myself to escape such a unique 'proposito', the terrible
+value of which I fully appreciated, furnished me an issue.  "Because,"
+said I, "never have I looked at you so long as I have now, you in front
+of me, these two candles between us, and your face is so fresh and so
+healthy, with all your labours, that I am surprised at it."
+
+He swallowed the answer, or so well pretended to do so, that he said
+nothing of it then nor since, never ceasing when he met me to speak to me
+as openly, and as frequently as before, I seeking him as little as ever.
+He replied at that time that he was seventy-four years old; that in truth
+he was very well; that he had accustomed himself, from his earliest
+years, to a hard life and to labour; and then went back to the point at
+which I had interrupted him.  We were compelled, however, to be silent
+for a time, because people came into my cabinet, and Madame de Saint-
+Simon, who knew of our interview, had some difficulty to keep the coast
+clear.
+
+For more than two hours we continued our discussion, he trying to put me
+off with his subtleties and authoritativeness, I offering but little
+opposition to him, feeling that opposition was of no use, all his plans
+being already decided.  We separated without having persuaded each other,
+he with many flatteries upon my intelligence, praying me to reflect well
+upon the matter; I replying that my reflections were all made, and that
+my capacity could not go farther.  I let him out by the little back door
+of my cabinet, so that nobody perceived him, and as soon as I had closed
+it, I threw myself into a chair like a man out of breath, and I remained
+there a long time alone, reflecting upon the strange kind of ecstasy I
+had been in, and the horror it had caused me.
+
+The results of this constitution were, as I have said, terrible to the
+last degree; every artifice, every cruelty was used, in order to force it
+down the throats of the clergy; and hence the confusion and sore trouble
+which arose all over the realm.  But it is time now for me to touch upon
+other matters.
+
+Towards the close of this year, 1713, peace with the Emperor seemed so
+certain, that the King disbanded sixty Battalions and eighteen men per
+company of the regiment of the guards, and one hundred and six squadrons;
+of which squadrons twenty-seven were dragoons.  At peace now with the
+rest of Europe he had no need of so many troops, even although the war
+Against the Empire had continued; fortunately, however it did not.
+Negotiations were set on foot, and on the 6th of March of the following
+year, 1714, after much debate, they ended successfully.  On that day, in
+fact, peace was signed at Rastadt.  It was shortly afterwards published
+at Paris, a Te Deum sung, and bonfires lighted at night; a grand
+collation was given at the Hotel de Ville by the Duc de Tresmes, who at
+midnight also gave, in his own house, a splendid banquet, at which were
+present many ladies, foreigners, and courtiers.
+
+This winter was fertile in balls at the Court; there were several, fancy-
+dress and masked, given by M. le Duc de Berry, by Madame la Duchesse de
+Berry, M. le Duc, and others.  There were some also at Paris, and at
+Sceaux, where Madame du Maine gave many fetes and played many comedies,
+everybody going there from Paris and the Court--M. du Maine doing the
+Honours.  Madame la Duchesse de Berry was in the family way, and went to
+no dances out of her own house.  The King permitted her, on account of
+her condition, to sup with him in a robe de chambre, as under similar
+circumstances he had permitted the two Dauphines to do.
+
+At the opera, one night this winter, the Abbe Servien, not liking certain
+praises of the King contained in a Prologue, let slip a bitter joke in
+ridicule of them.  The pit took it up, repeated it, and applauded it.
+Two days afterwards, the Abbe Servien was arrested and taken to
+Vincennes, forbidden to speak to anybody and allowed no servant to wait
+upon him.  For form's sake seals were put upon his papers, but he was not
+a man likely to have any fit for aught else than to light the fire.
+Though more than sixty-five years old, he was strangely debauched.
+
+The Duc de la Rochefoucauld died on Thursday, the 11th of January, at
+Versailles, seventy-nine years of age, and blind.  I have spoken of him
+so frequently in the course of these memoirs, that I will do nothing more
+now than relate a few particulars respecting him, which will serve in
+some sort to form his portrait.
+
+He had much honour, worth, and probity.  He was noble, good, magnificent,
+ever willing to serve his friends; a little too much so, for he
+oftentimes wearied the King with importunities on their behalf.  Without
+any intellect or discernment he was proud to excess, coarse and rough in
+his manners--disagreeable even, and embarrassed with all except his
+flatterers; like a man who does not know how to receive a visit, enter or
+leave a room.  He scarcely went anywhere except to pay the indispensable
+compliments demanded by marriage, death, etc., and even then as little as
+he could.  He lived in his own house so shut up that no, one went to see
+him except on these same occasions.  He gave himself up almost entirely
+to his valets, who mixed themselves in the conversation; and you were
+obliged to treat them with all sorts of attentions if you wished to
+become a frequenter of the house.
+
+I shall never forget what happened to us at the death of the Prince of
+Vaudemont's son, by which M. de la Rochefoucauld's family came in for a
+good inheritance.  We were at Marly.  The King had been stag-hunting.
+M. de Chevreuse, whom I found when the King was being unbooted, proposed
+that we should go and pay our compliments to M. de la Rochefoucauld.
+We went.  Upon entering, what was our surprise, nay, our shame, to find
+M. de la Rochefoucauld playing at chess with one of his servants in
+livery, seated opposite to him!  Speech failed us.  M. de la
+Rochefoucauld perceived it, and remained confounded himself.  He
+stammered, he grew confused, he tried to excuse what we had seen, saying
+that this lackey played very well, and that chess-players played with
+everybody.  M. de Chevreuse had not come to contradict him; neither had
+I; we turned the conversation, therefore, and left as soon as possible.
+As soon as we were outside we opened our minds to each other, and said
+what we thought of this rare meeting, which, however, we did not make
+public.
+
+M. de Rochefoucauld, towards the end of his career at Court, became so
+importunate, as I have said, for his friends, that the King was much
+relieved by his death.  Such have been his sentiments at the death of
+nearly all those whom he had liked and favoured.
+
+Of the courage of M. de la Rochefoucauld, courtier as he was, in speaking
+to the King, I will relate an instance.  It was during one of the visits
+at Marly, in the gardens of which the King was amusing himself with a
+fountain that he set at work.  I know not what led to it, but the King,
+usually so reserved, spoke with him of the bishop of Saint-Pons, then in
+disgrace on account of the affairs of Port Royal.  M. de la Rochefoucauld
+let him speak on to the end, and then began to praise the bishop.  The
+discouraging silence of the King warned him; he persisted, however, and
+related how the bishop, mounted upon a mule, and visiting one day his
+diocese, found himself in a path which grew narrower at every step; and
+which ended in a precipice.  There were no means of getting out of it
+except by going back, but this was impossible, there not being enough
+space to turn round or to alight.  The holy bishop (for such was his term
+as I well remarked) lifted his eyes to Heaven, let go the bridle, and
+abandoned himself to Providence.  Immediately his mule rose up upon its
+hind legs, and thus upright, the bishop still astride, turned round until
+its head was where its tail had been.  The beast thereupon returned along
+the path until it found an opening into a good road.  Everybody around
+the King imitated his silence, which excited the Duke to comment upon
+what he had just related.  This generosity charmed me, and surprised all
+who were witness of it.
+
+The day after the death of M. de la Rochefoucauld, the Chancellor took
+part in a very tragic scene.  A Vice-bailli of Alencon had just lost a
+trial, in which, apparently, his honour, or his property, was much
+interested.  He came to Pontchartrain's, where the Chancellor was at the
+moment, and waited until he came out into the court to get into his
+carriage.  The Vice-bailli then asked him for a revision of the verdict.
+The Chancellor, with much gentleness and goodness represented to the man
+that the law courts were open to him if he insisted to appeal, but that
+as to a revision of the verdict; it was contrary to usage; and turned to
+get into his coach.  While he was getting in; the unhappy bailli said
+there was a shorter way of escaping from trouble, and stabbed himself
+twice with a poniard.  At the dies of the domestics the Chancellor
+descended from the coach, had the man carried into a room, and sent for a
+doctor, and a confessor.  The bailli made confession very peacefully, and
+died an hour afterwards.
+
+I have spoken in its time of the exile of Charmel and its causes, of
+which the chief was his obstinate refusal to present himself before the
+King.  The vexation of the King against people who withdrew from him was
+always very great.  In this case, it never passed away, but hardened into
+a strange cruelty, to speak within limits.  Charmel, attacked with the
+stone, asked permission to come to Paris to undergo an operation.  The
+permission was positively refused.  Time pressed.  The operation was
+obliged to be done in the country.  It was so severe, and perhaps so
+badly done, that Charmel died three days afterwards full of penitence and
+piety.  He had led a life remarkable for its goodness, was without
+education, but had religious fervour that supplied the want of it.  He
+was sixty-eight years of age.
+
+The Marechale de la Ferme died at Paris, at the same time, more than
+eighty years old.  She was sister of the Comtesse d'Olonne, very rich and
+a widow.  The beauty of the two sisters, and the excesses of their lives,
+made a great stir.  No women, not even those most stigmatized for their
+gallantry, dared to see them, or to be seen anywhere with them.  That was
+the way then; the fashion has changed since.  When they were old and
+nobody cared for them, they tried to become devout.  They lodged
+together, and one Ash Wednesday went and heard a sermon.  This sermon,
+which was upon fasting and penitence, terrified them.
+
+"My sister," they said to each other on their return, "it was all true;
+there was no joke about it; we must do penance, or we are lost.  But, my
+sister, what shall we do?"  After having well turned it over: "My
+sister," said Madame d'Olonne, "this is what we must do; we must make our
+servants fast."  Madame d'Olonne thought she had very well met the
+difficulty.  However, at last she set herself to work in earnest, at
+piety and penitence, and died three months after her sister, the
+Marechale de la Ferme.  It will not be forgotten, that it was under cover
+of the Marechale that a natural child was first legitimated without
+naming the mother, in order that by this example, the King's natural
+children might be similarly honoured, without naming Madame de Montespan,
+as I have related in its place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+The Queen of Spain, for a long time violently attacked with the king's
+evil around the face and neck, was just now at the point of death.
+Obtaining no relief from the Spanish doctors, she wished to have
+Helvetius, and begged the King by an express command to send him to her.
+Helvetius, much inconvenienced, and knowing besides the condition of the
+Princess, did not wish to go, but the King expressly commanded him.
+He set out then in a postchaise, followed by another in case his own
+should break down, and arrived thus at Madrid on the 11th of February,
+1714.  As soon as he had seen the Queen, he said there was nothing but
+a miracle could save her.  The King of Spain did not discontinue sleeping
+with her until the 9th.  On the 14th she died, with much courage,
+consciousness, and piety.
+
+Despair was general in Spain, where this Queen was universally adored.
+There was not a family which did not lament her, not a person who has
+since been consoled.  The King of Spain was extremely touched, but
+somewhat in a royal manner.  Thus, when out shooting one day, he came
+close to the convoy by which the body of his queen was being conveyed to
+the Escurial; he looked at it, followed it with his eyes, and continued
+his sport!  Are these princes made like other human beings?
+
+The death of the Queen led to amazing changes, such as the most prophetic
+could not have foreseen.  Let me here, then, relate the events that
+followed this misfortune.
+
+I must commence by saying, that the principal cause which had so long and
+scandalously hindered us from making peace with the Emperor, was a
+condition, which Madame des Ursins wished to insert in the treaty, (and
+which the King of Spain supported through thick and thin) to the effect
+that she should be invested with a bona fide sovereignty.  She had set
+her heart upon this, and the king of Spain was a long time before he
+would consent to any terms of peace that did not concede it to her.  It
+was not until the King had uttered threats against him that he would give
+way.  As for Madame des Ursins, she had counted upon this sovereignty ,
+with as much certainty as though it were already between her fingers.
+She had counted, too, with equal certainty upon exchanging it with our
+King, for the sovereignty of Touraine and the Amboise country; and had
+actually charged her faithful Aubigny to buy her some land near Amboise
+to build her there a vast palace, with courts and outbuildings; to
+furnish it with magnificence, to spare neither gilding nor paintings, and
+to surround the whole with the most beautiful gardens.  She meant to live
+there as sovereign lady of the country.  Aubigny had at once set about
+the work to the surprise of everybody: for no one could imagine for whom
+such a grand building could be designed.  He kept the secret, pretended
+he was building a house for himself and pushed on the work so rapidly
+that just as peace was concluded without the stipulation respecting
+Madame des Ursins being inserted in the treaty, nearly all was finished.
+Her sovereignty scheme thoroughly failed; and to finish at once with that
+mad idea, I may as well state that, ashamed of her failure, she gave this
+palace to Aubigny, who lived there all the rest of his life: Chanteloup,
+for so it was called, has since passed into the hands of Madame
+d'Armantieres, his daughter.  It is one of the most beautiful and most
+singular places in all France, and the most superbly furnished.
+
+This sovereignty, coveted by Madame des Ursins, exceedingly offended
+Madame de Maintenon and wounded her pride.  She felt, with jealousy, that
+the grand airs Madame des Ursins gave herself were solely the effect of
+the protection she had accorded her.  She could not bear to be
+outstripped in importance by the woman she herself had elevated.  The
+King, too, was much vexed with Madame des Ursins; vexed also to see peace
+delayed; and to be obliged to speak with authority and menace to the King
+of Spain, in order to compel him to give up the idea of this precious
+sovereignty.  The King of Spain did not yield until he was threatened
+with abandonment by France.  It may be imagined what was the rage of
+Madame des Ursins upon missing her mark after having, before the eyes
+of all Europe, fired at it with so much perseverance; nay, with such
+unmeasured obstinacy.  From this time there was no longer the same
+concert between Madame de Maintenon and Madame des Ursins that had
+formerly existed.  But the latter had reached such a point in Spain,
+that she thought this was of no consequence.
+
+It has been seen with what art Madame des Ursins had unceasingly isolated
+the King of Spain; in what manner she had shut him up with the Queen, and
+rendered him inaccessible, not only to his Court but to his grand
+officers, his ministers, even his valets, so that he was served by only
+three or four attendants, all French, and entirely under her thumb.  At
+the death of the Queen this solitude continued.  Under the pretext that
+his grief demanded privacy, she persuaded the King to leave his palace
+and to instal himself in a quiet retreat, the Palace of Medina-Celi, near
+the Buen-Retiro, at the other end of the city.  She preferred this
+because it was infinitely smaller than the Royal Palace, and because few
+people, in consequence, could approach the King.  She herself took the
+Queen's place; and in order to have a sort of pretext for being near the
+King, in the same solitude, she caused herself to be named governess of
+his children.  But in order to be always there, and so that nobody should
+know when they were together, she had a large wooden corridor made from
+the cabinet of the King to the apartment of his children, in which she
+lodged.  By this means they could pass from one to the other without
+being perceived, and without traversing the long suite of rooms, filled
+with courtiers, that were between the two apartments.  In this manner it
+was never known whether the King was alone or with Madame des Ursins;
+or which of the two was in the apartments of the other.  When they were
+together or how long is equally unknown.  This corridor, roofed and
+glazed, was proceeded with in so much haste, that the work went on, in
+spite of the King's devotion, on fete days and Sundays.  The whole Court,
+which perfectly well knew for what use this corridor was intended, was
+much displeased.  Those who directed the work were the same.  Of this
+good proof was given.  One day, the Comptroller of the royal buildings,
+who had been ordered to keep the men hard at it, Sundays and fete days,
+asked the Pere Robinet, the King's confessor, and the only good one he
+ever had; he asked, I say, in one of those rooms Madame des Ursins was so
+anxious to avoid, and in the presence of various courtiers, if the work
+was to be continued on the morrow, a Sunday, and the next day, the Fete
+of the Virgin.  Robinet replied, that the King had said nothing to the
+contrary; and met a second appeal with the same answer.  At the third, he
+added, that before saying anything he would wait till the King spoke on
+the subject.  At the fourth appeal, he lost patience, and said that if
+for the purpose of destroying what had been commenced, he believed work
+might be done even on Easter-day itself; but if for the purpose of
+continuing the corridor, he did not think a Sunday or a fete day was a
+fitting time.  All the Court applauded; but Madame des Ursins, to whom
+this sally was soon carried, was much irritated.
+
+It was suspected that she thought of becoming something more than the
+mere companion of the King.  There were several princes.  Reports were
+spread which appeared equivocal and which terrified.  It was said that
+the King had no need of posterity, with all the children it had pleased
+God to bless him with; but now he only needed a wife who could take
+charge of those children.  Not content with passing all her days with the
+King, and allowing him, like the deceased Queen, to work with his
+ministers only in her presence, the Princesse des Ursins felt that to
+render this habit lasting she must assure herself of him at all moments.
+He was accustomed to take the air, and he was in want of it all the more
+now because he had been much shut up during the last days of the Queen's
+illness, and the first which followed her death.  Madame des Ursins chose
+four or five gentlemen to accompany him, to the exclusion of all others,
+even his chief officers, and people still more necessary.  These
+gentlemen charged with the amusement of the King, were called
+recreadores.  With so much circumspection, importunity, preparation, and
+rumour carefully circulated, it was not doubted that Madame des Ursins
+intended to marry him; and the opinion, as well as the fear, became
+general.  The King (Louis XIV.), was infinitely alarmed; and Madame de
+Maintenon, who had twice tried to be proclaimed Queen and twice failed,
+was distracted with jealousy.  However, if Madame des Ursins flattered
+herself then, it was not for long.
+
+The King of Spain, always curious to learn the news from France, often
+demanded them of his confessor, the only man to whom he could speak who
+was not under the thumb of Madame des Ursins.  The clever and courageous
+Robinet, as disturbed as others at the progress of the design, which
+nobody in the two Courts of France and Spain doubted was in execution,
+allowed himself to be pressed by questions--in an embrasure where the
+King had drawn him--played the reserved and the mysterious in order to
+excite curiosity more.  When he saw it was sufficiently excited, he said
+that since he was forced to speak, his news from France was the same as
+that at Madrid, where no one doubted that the King would do the Princesse
+des Ursins the honour to espouse her.  The King blushed and hastily
+replied, "Marry her! oh no! not that!" and quitted him.
+
+Whether the Princesse des Ursins was informed of this sharp repartee, or
+whether she despaired already of success, she changed about; and judging
+that this interregnum in the Palace of Medina-Celi could not last for
+ever, resolved to assure herself of the King by a Queen who should owe to
+her such a grand marriage, and who, having no other support, would throw
+herself into her arms by gratitude and necessity.  With this view she
+explained herself to Alberoni, who, since the death of the Duc de
+Vendome, had remained at Madrid charged with the affairs of Parma; and
+proposed to him the marriage of the Princess of Parma, daughter of the
+Duchess and of the late Duke of Parma, who had married the widow of his
+brother.
+
+Alberoni could with difficulty believe his ears.  An alliance so
+disproportioned appeared to him so much the more incredible, because he
+thought the.  Court of France would never consent to it, and that without
+its consent the marriage could not be concluded.  The Princess in
+question was the issue of double illegitimacy; by her father descended
+from a pope, by her mother from a natural daughter of Charles Quint.  She
+was daughter of a petty Duke of Parma, and of a mother, entirely
+Austrian, sister of the Dowager Empress and of the Dowager Queen of Spain
+(whose acts had excited such disapproval that she was sent from her exile
+at Toledo to Bayonne), sister too of the Queen of Portugal, who had
+induced the King, her husband, to receive the Archduke at Lisbon, and to
+carry the war into Spain.  It did not seem reasonable, therefore, that
+such a Princess would be accepted as a wife for the King of Spain.
+
+Nothing of all this, however, stopped the Princesse des Ursins; her own
+interest was the most pressing consideration with her; the will of the
+King of Spain was entirely subject to her; she felt all the change
+towards her of our King and of Madame de Maintenon; she no longer hoped
+for a return of their favour; she believed that she must look around for
+support against the very authority which had established her so
+powerfully, and which could destroy her; and occupied herself solely in
+pushing forward a marriage from which she expected everything by making
+the same use of the new queen as she had made of the one just dead.  The
+King of Spain was devout, he absolutely wanted a wife, the Princesse des
+Ursins was of an age when her charms were but the charms, of art; in a
+word, she set Alberoni to work, and it may be believed she was not
+scrupulous as to her means as soon as they were persuaded at Parma that
+she was serious and not joking.  Orry, always united with Madame des
+Ursins, and all-powerful, by her means, was her sole confidant in this
+important affair.
+
+At that time the Marquis de Brancas was French ambassador at Madrid.  He
+had flattered himself that Madame des Ursins would make him one of the
+grandees of Spain.  Instead of doing so she simply bestowed upon him the
+order of the Golden Fleece.  He had never pardoned her for this.
+Entirely devoted to Madame de Maintenon, he became on that very account
+an object of suspicion to Madame des Ursins, who did not doubt that he
+cherished a grudge against her, on account of the favour he had missed.
+She allowed him no access to her, and had her eyes open upon all he did.
+Brancas in like manner watched all her doings.  The confessor, Robinet,
+confided to him his fears respecting Madame des Ursins, and the chiefs of
+a court universally discontented went and opened their hearts to him,
+thinking it was France alone which could set to rights the situation of
+Spain.
+
+Brancas appreciated all the importance of what was told him, but warned
+by the fate of the Abbe d'Estrees, fearing even for his couriers, he took
+the precaution of sending word to the King that he had pressing business
+to acquaint him with, which he could not trust to paper, and that he
+wished to be allowed to come to Versailles for a fortnight.  The reply
+was the permission asked for, accompanied, however, with an order to
+communicate en route with the Duc de Berwick, who was about to pass to
+Barcelona.
+
+Madame des Ursins, who always found means to be informed of everything,
+immediately knew of Brancas's projected journey, and determined to get
+the start of him.  At once she had sixteen relays of mules provided upon
+the Bayonne road, and suddenly sent off to France, on Holy Thursday,
+Cardinal del Giudice, grand inquisitor and minister of state, who had
+this mean complaisance for her.  She thus struck two blows at once; she
+got rid, at least for a time, of a Cardinal minister who troubled her,
+and anticipated Brancas, which in our Court was no small point.
+
+Brancas, who felt all the importance of arriving first, followed the
+Cardinal on Good Friday, and moved so well that he overtook him at
+Bayonne, at night while he was asleep; Brancas passed straight on,
+charging the Commandant to amuse and to delay the Cardinal as long as
+possible on the morrow; gained ground, and arrived at Bordeaux with
+twenty-eight post-horses that he had carried off with him from various
+stations, to keep them from the Cardinal.  He arrived in Paris in this
+manner two days before the other, and went straight to Marly where the
+King was, to explain the business that had led him there.  He had a long
+audience with the King, and received a lodging for the rest of the visit.
+
+The Cardinal del Giudice rested four or five days at Paris, and then came
+to Marly, where he was introduced to the King.  The Cardinal was somewhat
+embarrassed; he was charged with no business; all his mission was to
+praise Madame des Ursins, and complain of the Marquis de Brancas.  These
+praises of Madame des Ursins were but vague; she had not sufficient
+confidence in the Cardinal to admit to him her real position in our
+Court, and to give him instructions accordingly, so that what he had to
+say was soon all said; against the Marquis de Brancas he had really no
+fact to allege, his sole crime that he was too sharp-sighted and not
+sufficiently devoted to the Princess.
+
+The Cardinal was a courtier, a man of talent, of business, of intrigue,
+who felt, with annoyance, that for a person of his condition and weight,
+such a commission as he bore was very empty.  He appeared exceedingly
+agreeable in conversation, of pleasant manners, and was much liked in
+good society.  He was assiduous in his attentions to the King, without
+importuning him for audiences that were unnecessary; and by all his
+conduct, he gave reason for believing that he suspected Madame des
+Ursins' decadence in our Court, and sought to gain esteem and confidence,
+so as to become by the support of the King, prime minister in Spain; but
+as we shall soon see, his ultramontane hobbies hindered the
+accomplishment of his measures.  All the success of his journey consisted
+in hindering Brancas from returning to Spain.  This was no great
+punishment, for Brancas had nothing more to hope for from Madame des
+Ursins, and was not a man to lose his time for nothing.
+
+Up to this period not a word had been said to the King (Louis XIV.) by
+the King of Spain upon the subject of his marriage; not a hint had been
+given that he meant to remarry, much less with a Parma princess.  This
+proceeding, grafted upon the sovereignty claimed by the Princesse des
+Ursine, and all her conduct with the King of Spain since the death of the
+Queen, resolved our King to disgrace her without appeal.
+
+A remark upon Madame des Ursins, accompanied by a smile, escaped from the
+King, generally so complete a master of himself, and appeared enigmatical
+to such an extent, although striking, that Torcy, to wham it was
+addressed, understood nothing.  In his surprise, he related to Castries
+what the King had said; Castries told it to Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
+who reported it to M. d'Orleans and to me.  We racked our brains to
+comprehend it, but in vain; nevertheless such an unintelligible remark
+upon a person like Madame des Ursins, who up to this time had been on
+such good terms with the King and Madame de Maintenon, did not appear to
+me to be favourable.  I was confirmed in this view by what had just
+happened with regard to her sovereignty; but I was a thousand leagues
+from the thunderbolt which this lightning announced, and which only
+declared itself to us by its fall.
+
+It wits not until the 27th of June that the King was made acquainted by
+the King of Spain with his approaching marriage.  Of course, through
+other channels, he had not failed to hear of it long before.  He passed
+in the lightest and gentlest manner in the world over this project, and
+the mystery so long and so complete! with which it had been kept from
+him, stranger, if possible, than the marriage itself.  He could not
+hinder it; but from this moment he was sure of his vengeance against her
+who had arranged and brought it about in this manner.  The disgrace of
+Madame des Ursine was in fact determined on between the King and Madame
+de Maintenon, but in a manner a secret before and since, that I know
+nobody who has found out by whom or how it was carried out.  It is good
+to admit our ignorance, and not to give fictions and inventions in place
+of what we are unacquainted with.
+
+I know not why, but a short time after this, the Princesse des Ursine
+conceived such strong suspicion of the lofty and enterprising spirit of
+the Princess of Parma that she repented having made this marriage; and
+wished to break it off.  She brought forward; therefore, I know not what
+difficulties, and despatched a courier to Rome to Cardinal Acquaviva, who
+did the King of Spain's business there, ordering him to delay his journey
+to Parma, where he had been commanded to ask the hand of the Princess,
+and to see her provisionally espoused.  But Madame des Ursins
+had changed her mind too late.  The courier did not find Acquaviva at
+Rome.  That Cardinal was already far away on the road to Parma, so that
+there were no means of retreat.
+
+Acquaviva was received with great honour and much magnificence; he made
+his demand, but delayed the espousals as long as he could, and this
+caused much remark.  The marriage, which was to have been celebrated on
+the 25th of August, did not take place until the 15th of September.
+Immediately after the ceremony the new Queen set out for Spain.
+
+An envoy from Parma, with news of the marriage of the Princess, arrived
+at Fontainebleau on the 11th October, and had an audience with the King.
+This was rather late in the day: For dowry she had one hundred thousand
+pistoles, and three hundred thousand livres' worth of jewels.  She had
+embarked for Alicante at Sestri di Levante.  A violent tempest sickened
+her of the sea.  She landed, therefore, at Monaco, in order to traverse
+by land Provence, Languedoc, and Guienne, so as to reach Bayonne, and see
+there the Queen Dowager of Spain; sister of her mother, and widow of
+Charles II.  Desgranges, master of the ceremonies, was to meet her in
+Provence, with orders to follow her, and to command the governors,
+lieutenants-general, and intendants to follow her also, and serve her,
+though she travelled incognito.
+
+The new Queen of Spain, on arriving at Pau, found the Queen Dowager, her
+aunt, had come expressly from Bayonne to meet her.  As they approached
+each other, they both descended at the same time, and after saluting,
+mounted alone into a beautiful caleche that the Queen Dowager had brought
+with her, and that she presented to her niece.  They supped together
+alone.  The Queen Dowager conducted her to Saint-Jean Pied-de-Port (for
+in that country, as in Spain, the entrances to mountain passes are called
+ports).  They separated there, the Queen Dowager making the Queen many
+presents, among others a garniture of diamonds.  The Duc de Saint-Aignan
+joined the Queen of Spain at Pau, and accompanied her by command of the
+King to Madrid.  She sent Grillo, a Genoese noble, whom she has since
+made grandee of Spain, to thank the King for sending her the Duc de
+Saint-Aignan, and for the present he brought with him.  The officers of
+her household had been named by Madame des Ursins.
+
+The Queen of Spain advanced towards Madrid with the attendants sent to
+accompany her.  She was to be met by the King of Spain at Guadalaxara,
+which is about the same distance from Madrid as Paris is from
+Fontainebleau.  He arrived there, accompanied by the attendants that the
+Princesse des Ursins had placed near him, to keep him company, and to
+allow no one else to approach him.  She followed in her coach, so as to
+arrive at the same time, and immediately afterwards he shut himself up
+alone with her, and saw nobody until he went to bed.  This was on the
+22nd of December.  The next day the Princesse des Ursins set out with a
+small suite for a little place, seven leagues further, called Quadraque,
+where the Queen was to sleep that night.  Madame des Ursins counted upon
+enjoying all the gratitude that the queen would feel for the unhoped-for
+grandeur she had obtained by her means; counted upon passing the evening
+with her, and upon accompanying her next day to Guadalaxara.  She found,
+upon arriving at Quadraque, that the Queen had already reached there.
+She at once entered into a lodging that had been prepared for her,
+opposite that of the Queen.  She was in a full Court dress.  After
+adjusting it in a hurried manner, she went to the Queen.  The coldness
+and stiffness of her reception surprised her extremely.  She attributed
+it in the first place to the embarrassment of the Queen, and tried to
+melt this ice.  Everybody withdrew, in order to leave the two alone.
+
+Then the conversation commenced.  The Queen would not long allow Madame
+des Ursins to continue it; but burst out into reproaches against her for
+her manners, and for appearing there in a dress that showed want of
+respect for the company she was in.  Madame des Ursins, whose dress was
+proper, and who, on account of her respectful manners and her discourse,
+calculated to win the Queen, believed herself to be far from meriting
+this treatment, was strangely surprised, and wished to excuse herself;
+but the Queen immediately began to utter offensive words, to cry out, to
+call aloud, to demand the officers of the guard, and sharply to; command
+Madame des Ursins to leave her presence.  The latter wished to speak and
+defend herself against the reproaches she heard; but the Queen,
+increasing her fury and her menaces, cried out to her people to drive
+this mad woman from her presence and from the house; and absolutely had
+her turned out by the shoulders.  Immediately afterwards, she called
+Amenzaga, lieutenant of the body-guard, and at the same time the ecuyer
+who had the control of her equipages.  She ordered the first to arrest
+Madame des Ursins, and not quit her until he had placed her in a coach,
+with two sure officers of the guard and fifteen soldiers as sentinels
+over her; the second she commanded to provide instantly a coach and six,
+with two or three footmen, and send off in it the Princesse des Ursins
+towards Burgos and Bayonne, without once stopping on the road.  Amenzago
+tried to represent to the Queen that the King of Spain alone had the
+power to give such commands; but she haughtily asked him if he had not
+received an order from the King of Spain to obey her in everything,
+without reserve and without comment.  It was true he had received such an
+order, though nobody knew a word about it.
+
+Madame des Ursins was then immediately arrested, and put into a coach
+with one of her waiting-women, without having had time to change her
+costume or her head-dress, to take any precaution against the cold, to
+provide herself with any money or other things, and without any kind of
+refreshment in the coach, or a chemise; nothing, in fact, to change or to
+sleep in!  She was shipped off thus (with two officers of the guard; who
+were ready as soon as the coach), in full Court dress, just as she left
+the Queen.  In the very short and tumultuous interval which elapsed, she
+sent a message to the Queen, who flew into a fresh passion upon not being
+obeyed, and made her set out immediately.
+
+It was then nearly seven o'clock in the evening, two days before
+Christmas, the ground all covered with snow and ice, and the cold extreme
+and very sharp and bitter, as it always is in Spain.  As soon as the
+Queen learned that the Princesse des Ursins was out of Quadraque, she
+wrote to the King of Spain, by an officer of the guards whom she
+despatched to Guadalaxara.  The night was so dark that it was only by
+means of the snow that anything could be seen.
+
+It is not easy to represent the state of Madame des Ursins in the coach.
+An excess of astonishment and bewilderment prevailed at first, and
+suspended all other sentiment; but grief, vexation, rage, and despair,
+soon followed.  In their turn succeeded sad and profound reflections upon
+a step so violent, so unheard-of, and so unjustifiable as she thought.
+Then she hoped everything from the friendship of the King of Spain and
+his confidence in her; pictured his anger and surprise, and those of the
+group of attached servitors, by whom she had surrounded him, and who
+would be so interested in exciting the King in her favour.  The long
+winter's night pissed thus; the cold was, terrible, there was nothing to
+ward it off; the coachman actually lost the use of one hand.  The morning
+advanced; a halt was necessary in order to bait the horses; as for the
+travellers there is nothing for them ever in the Spanish inns.  You are
+simply told where each thing you want is sold.  The meat is ordinarily
+alive; the wine, thick, flat, and strong; the bread bad; the water is
+often worthless; as to beds, there are some, but only for the mule-
+drivers, so that you must carry everything with you, and neither Madame
+des Ursins nor those with her had anything whatever.  Eggs, where they
+could find any, were their sole resource; and these, fresh or not, simply
+boiled, supported them during all the journey.
+
+Until this halt for the horses, silence had been profound and
+uninterrupted; now it was broken.  During all this long night the
+Princesse des Ursins had had leisure to think upon the course she should
+adopt, and to compose her face.  She spoke of her extreme surprise, and
+of the little that had passed between her and the Queen.  In like manner
+the two officers of the guard accustomed, as was all Spain, to fear and
+respect her more than their King, replied to her from the bottom of that
+abyss of astonishment from which they had not yet arisen.  The horses
+being put to, the coach soon started again.  Soon, too, the Princesse des
+Ursins found that the assistance she expected from the King did not
+arrive.  No rest, no provisions, nothing to put on, until Saint-Jean de
+Luz was reached.  As she went further on, as time passed and no news
+came, she felt she had nothing more to hope for.  It may be imagined what
+rage succeeded in a woman so ambitious, so accustomed to publicly reign,
+so rapidly and shamefully precipitated from the summit of power by the
+hand that she herself had chosen as the most solid support of her
+grandeur.  The Queen had not replied to the last two letters Madame des
+Ursins had written to her.  This studied negligence was of bad augury,
+but who would have imagined treatment so strange and so unheard of?
+
+Her nephews, Lanti and Chalais, who had permission to join her, completed
+her dejection.  Yet she was faithful to herself.  Neither tears nor
+regrets, neither reproaches nor the slightest weakness escaped her; not a
+complaint even of the excessive cold, of the deprivation of all things,
+or of the extreme fatigue of such a journey.  The two officers who
+guarded her could not contain their admiration.
+
+At Saint-Jean de Luz, where she arrived on the 14th of January, 1715, she
+found at last her corporeal ills at an end.  She obtained a bed, change
+of dress, food, and her liberty.  The guards, their officers, and the
+coach which had brought her, returned; she remained with her waiting-maid
+and her nephews.  She had leisure to think what she might expect from
+Versailles.  In spite of her mad sovereignty scheme so long maintained,
+and her hardihood in arranging the King of Spain's marriage without
+consulting our King, she flattered herself she should find resources in a
+Court she had so long governed.  It was from Saint-Jean de Luz that she
+despatched a courier charged with letters for the King, for Madame de
+Maintenon, and for her friends.  She briefly gave us an account in those
+letters of the thunderbolt which had fallen on her, and asked permission
+to come to the Court to explain herself more in detail.  She waited for
+the return of her courier in this her first place of liberty and repose,
+which of itself is very agreeable.  But this first courier despatched,
+she sent off Lanti with letters written less hastily, and with
+instructions.  Lanti saw the King in his cabinet on the last of January,
+and remained there some moments.  From him it was known that as soon as
+Madame des Ursins despatched her first courier, she had sent her
+compliments to the Queen Dowager of Spain at Bayonne, who would not
+receive them.  What cruel mortifications attend a fall from a throne!
+Let us now return to Guadalaxara.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+The officer of the guards, whom the Queen despatched with a letter for
+the King of Spain as soon as Madame des Ursins was out of Quadraque,
+found the King upon the point of going to bed.  He appeared moved, sent a
+short reply to the Queen, and gave no orders.  The officer returned
+immediately.  What is singular is, that the secret was so well kept that
+it did not transpire until the next morning at ten o'clock.  It may be
+imagined what emotion seized the whole Court, and what divers movements
+there were among all at Guadalaxara.  However, nobody dared to speak to
+the King, and much expectation was built upon the reply he had sent to
+the Queen.  The morning passed and nothing was said; the fate of Madame
+des Ursins then became pretty evident.
+
+Chalais and Lanti made bold to ask the King for permission to go and join
+the Princess in her isolation.  Not only he allowed them to do so, but
+charged them with a letter of simple civility, in which he told her he
+was very sorry for what had happened; that he had not been able to oppose
+the Queen's will; that he should continue to her her pensions, and see
+that they were punctually paid.  He was as good as his word: as long as
+she lived she regularly received them.
+
+The Queen arrived at Guadalaxara on the afternoon of the day before
+Christmas day, at the hour fixed, and as though nothing had occurred.
+The King received her in the same manner on the staircase, gave her his
+hand, and immediately led her to the chapel, where the marriage was at
+once celebrated; for in Spain the custom is to marry after dinner.  After
+that he led her to her chamber, and straightway went to bed; it was
+before six o'clock in the evening, and both got up again for the midnight
+mass.  What passed between them upon the event of the previous evening
+was entirely unknown, and has always remained so.  The day after
+Christmas day the King and Queen alone together in a coach, and followed
+by all the Court, took the road for Madrid, where there was no more talk
+of Madame des Ursins than if the King had never known her.  Our King
+showed not the least surprise at the news brought to him by a courier
+despatched from Guadalaxara by the Duc de Saint-Aignan, though all the
+Court was filled with emotion and affright after having seen Madame des
+Ursins so triumphant.
+
+Let us now look about for some explanations that will enable us to pierce
+this mystery--that remark to Torcy which escaped the King, which Torcy
+could not comprehend, and which he related to Castries, who told it to
+Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, from whom I learned it!  Can we imagine
+that a Parma princess brought up in a garret by an imperious mother,
+would have dared to take upon herself, while six leagues from the King of
+Spain whom she had never seen, a step so bold and unheard-of, when we
+consider against whom directed, a person possessing the entire confidence
+of that King and reigning openly?  The thing is explained by the order,
+so unusual and so secret, that Amenzago had from the King of Spain to
+obey the Queen in everything, without reserve and without comment; an
+order that became known only at the moment when she gave orders to arrest
+Madame des Ursins and take her away.
+
+Let us remark, too, the tranquillity with which our King and the King of
+Spain received the first intelligence of this event; the inactivity of
+the latter, the coldness of his letters to Madame des Ursins, and his
+perfect indifference what became of a person who was so cherished the day
+before, and who yet was forced to travel deprived of everything, by roads
+full of ice and snow.  We must recollect that when the King banished
+Madame des Ursins before, for opening the letter of the Abbe d'Estrees,
+and for the note she sent upon it, he did not dare to have his orders
+executed in the presence of the King of Spain.  It was on the frontier of
+Portugal, where our King wished him to go for the express purpose, that
+the King of Spain signed the order by which the Princesse des Ursins was
+forced to withdraw from the country.  Now we had a second edition of the
+same volume.  Let me add what I learnt from the Marechal de Brancas, to
+whom Alberoni related, a long while after this disgrace, that one evening
+as the Queen was travelling from Parma to Spain, he found her pacing her
+chamber, with rapid step and in agitation muttering to herself, letting
+escape the name of the Princesse des Ursins, and then saying with heat,
+"I will drive her away, the first thing."  He cried out to the Queen and
+sought to represent to her the danger, the madness, the inutility of the
+enterprise which overwhelmed him: "Keep all this quiet," said the Queen,
+"and never let what you have heard escape you.  Not a word!  I know what
+I am about."
+
+All these things together threw much light upon a catastrophe equally
+astonishing in itself and in its execution, and clearly show our King to
+have been the author of it; the King of Spain a consenting party and
+assisting by the extraordinary order given to Amenzago; and the Queen the
+actress, charged in some mariner by the two Kings to bring it about.  The
+sequel in France confirmed this opinion.
+
+The fall of the Princesse des Ursins caused great changes in Spain.  The
+Comtesse d'Altamire was named Camarera Mayor, in her place.  She was one
+of the greatest ladies in all Spain, and was hereditary Duchess of
+Cardonne.  Cellamare, nephew of Cardinal del Giudice, was named her grand
+ecuyer; and the Cardinal himself soon returned to Madrid and to
+consideration.  As a natural consequence, Macanas was disgraced.  He and
+Orry had orders to leave Spain, the latter without seeing the King.  He
+carried with him the maledictions of the public.  Pompadour, who had been
+named Ambassador in Spain only to amuse Madame des Ursins, was dismissed,
+and the Duc de Saint-Aignan invested with that character, just as he was
+about to return after having conducted the Queen to Madrid.
+
+In due time the Princesse des Ursins arrived in Paris, and took up her
+quarters in the house of the Duc de Noirmoutiers, her brother, in the Rue
+Saint-Dominique, close to mine.  This journey must have appeared to her
+very different from the last she had made in France, when she was Queen
+of the Court.  Few people, except her former friends and those of her
+formal cabal, came to see her; yet, nevertheless, some curious folks
+appeared, so that for the first few days there was company enough; but
+after that, solitude followed when the ill-success of her journey to
+Versailles became known.  M. d'Orleans, reunited now with the King of
+Spain, felt that it was due to his interest even more than to his
+vengeance to show in a striking manner, that it was solely owing to the
+hatred and artifice of Madame des Ursins that he had fallen into such
+disfavour on account of Spain, and had been in danger of losing his head.
+Times had changed.  Monseigneur was dead, the Meudon cabal annihilated;
+Madame de Maintenon had turned her back upon Madame des Ursins; thus M.
+d'Orleans was free to act as he pleased.  Incited by Madame la Duchesse
+d'Orleans, and more still by Madame, he begged the King to prohibit
+Madame des Ursins from appearing anywhere (Versailles not even excepted)
+where she might meet Madame la Duchesse de Berry, Madame, Monsieur le
+Duc, and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, who at the same time strictly
+forbade their households to see her, and asked the persons to whom they
+were particularly attached to hold no intercourse with her.  This made a
+great stir, openly showed that Madame des Ursins had utterly lost the
+support of Madame de Maintenon and the King, and much embarrassed her.
+
+I could not feel that M. d'Orleans was acting wrong, in thus paying off
+his wrongs for the injuries she had heaped upon him, but I represented to
+him, that as I had always been an intimate friend of Madame des Ursins,
+putting aside her conduct towards him and making no comparison between my
+attachment for him and my friendship for her, I could not forget the
+marks of consideration she had always given me, particularly in her last
+triumphant journey (as I have already explained), and that it would be
+hard if I could not see her.  We capitulated then, and M. le Duc and
+Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans permitted me to see her twice--once
+immediately; once when she left--giving my word that I would not see her
+three times, and that Madame de Saint-Simon should not see her at all;
+which latter clause we agreed to very unwillingly, but there was no
+remedy.  As I wished at least to profit by my chance, I sent word to
+Madame des Ursins, explaining the fetters that bound me, and saying that
+as I wished to see her at all events at my ease since I should see her so
+little, I would let pass the first few days and her first journey to
+Court, before asking her for an audience.
+
+My message was very well received; she had known for many years the terms
+on which I was with M. d'Orleans; she was not surprised with these
+fetters, and was grateful to me for what I had obtained.  Some days after
+she had been to Versailles, I went to her at two o'clock in the day.  She
+at once closed the door to all comers, and I was tete-a-tete with her
+until ten o'clock at night.
+
+It may be imagined what a number of things were passed in review during
+this long discourse.  Our eight hours of conversation appeared to me like
+eight moments.  She related to me her catastrophe, without mixing up the
+King or the King of Spain, of whom she spoke well; but, without violently
+attacking the Queen, she predicted what since has occurred.  We separated
+at supper time, with a thousand reciprocal protestations and regret that
+Madame de Saint-Simon could not see her.  She promised to inform me of
+her departure early enough to allow us to pass another day together.
+
+Her journey to Versailles did not pass off very pleasantly.  She dined
+with the Duchesse de Luders, and then visited Madame de Maintenon; waited
+with her for the King, but when he came did not stop long, withdrawing to
+Madame Adam's, where she passed the night.  The next day she dined with
+the Duchesse de Ventadour, and returned to Paris.  She was allowed to
+give up the pension she received from the King, and in exchange to have
+her Hotel de Ville stock increased, so that it yielded forty thousand
+livres a-year.  Her income, besides being doubled, was thus much more
+sure than would have been a pension from the King, which she doubted not
+M. d'Orleans, as soon as he became master, would take from her.  She
+thought of retiring into Holland, but the States-General would have
+nothing to do with her, either at the Hague, or at Amsterdam.  She had
+reckoned upon the Hague.  She next thought of Utrecht, but was soon out
+of conceit with it, and turned her regards towards Italy.
+
+The health of the King, meanwhile, visibly declining, Madame des Ursins
+feared lest she should entirely fall into the clutches of M. d'Orleans.
+She fully resolved, therefore, to make off, without knowing, however,
+where to fix herself; and asked permission of the King to come and take
+leave of him at Marly.  She came there from Paris on Tuesday, the 6th of
+August, so as to arrive as he left dinner, that is, about ten o'clock.
+She was immediately admitted into the cabinet of the King, with whom she
+remained tete-a-tete full half an hour.  She passed immediately to the
+apartments of Madame de Maintenon, with whom she remained an hour; and
+then got into her coach and returned to Paris.  I only knew of this
+leave-taking by her arrival at Marly, where I had some trouble in meeting
+her.  As chance would have it, I went in search of her coach to ask her
+people what had become of her, and was speaking to them when, to and
+behold! she herself arrived.  She seemed very glad to see me, and made me
+mount with her into her coach, where for little less than an hour we
+discoursed very freely.  She did not dissimulate from me her fears; the
+coldness the King and Madame de Maintenon had testified for her through
+all their politeness; the isolation she found herself in at the Court,
+even in Paris; and the uncertainty in which she was as to the choice of a
+retreat; all this in detail, and nevertheless without complaint, without
+regret, without weakness; always reassured and superior to events, as
+though some one else were in question.  She touched lightly upon Spain,
+upon the ascendency the Queen was acquiring already over the King, giving
+me to understand that it could not be otherwise; running lightly and
+modestly over the Queen, and always praising the goodness of the King of
+Spain.  Fear, on account of the passers-by, put an end to our
+conversation.  She was very gracious to me; expressed regret that we must
+part; proceeded to tell me when she should start in time for us to have
+another day together; sent many compliments to Madame de Saint-Simon; and
+declared herself sensible of the mark of friendship I had given her, in
+spite of my engagement with M. d'Orleans.  As soon as I had seen her off,
+I went to M. d'Orleans, to whom I related what I had just done; said I
+had not paid a visit, but had had simply a meeting; that it was true I
+could not hinder myself from seeking it, without prejudice to the final
+visit he had allowed me.  Neither he nor Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans
+complained.  They had fully triumphed over their enemy, and were on the
+point of seeing her leave France for ever, without hope in Spain.
+
+Until now, Madame des Ursins amused by a residue of friends, increased by
+those of M. de Noirmoutiers with whom she lodged and who had money, had
+gently occupied herself with the arrangement of her affairs, changed as
+they were, and in withdrawing her effects from Spain.  The fear lest she
+should find herself in the power of a Prince whom she had so cruelly
+offended, and who showed, since her arrival in France, that he felt it,
+hurried all her measures.  Her terror augmented by the change in the King
+that she found at this last audience had taken place since her first.
+She no longer doubted that his end was very near; and all her attention
+was directed to the means by which she might anticipate it, and be well
+informed of his health; this she believed her sole security in France.
+Terrified anew by the accounts she received of it, she no longer gave
+herself time for anything, but precipitately set out on the 14th August,
+accompanied as far as Essonne by her two nephews.  She had no time to
+inform me, so that I have never seen her since the day of our
+conversation at Marly in her coach.  She did not breathe until she
+arrived at Lyons.
+
+She had abandoned the project of retiring into Holland, where the States-
+General would not have her.  She herself, too, was disgusted with the
+equality of a republic, which counterbalanced in her mind the pleasure of
+the liberty enjoyed there.  But she could not resolve to return to Rome,
+the theatre of her former reign, and appear there proscribed and old, as
+in an asylum.  She feared, too, a bad reception, remembering the quarrels
+that had taken place between the Courts of Rome and Spain.  She had lost
+many friends and acquaintances; in fifteen years of absence all had
+passed away, and she felt the trouble she might be subjected to by the
+ministers of the Emperor, and by those of the two Crowns, with their
+partisans.  Turin was not a Court worthy of her; the King of Sardinia had
+not always been pleased with her, and they knew too much for each other.
+At Venice she would have been out of her element.
+
+Whilst agitated in this manner, without being able to make up her mind,
+she learned that the King was in extreme danger, a danger exaggerated by
+rumour.  Fear seized her lest he should die whilst she was in his realm.
+She set off immediately, therefore, without knowing where to go; and
+solely to leave France went to Chambery, as the nearest place of safety,
+arriving there out of breath, so to say.
+
+Every place being well examined, she preferred Genoa; its liberty pleased
+her; there was intercourse there with a rich and numerous nobility; the
+climate and the city were beautiful; the place was in some sort a centre
+and halting-point between Madrid, Paris, and Rome, with which places she
+was always in communication, and always hungered after all that passed
+there.  Genoa determined on, she went there.  She was well received,
+hoped to fix her tabernacle there, and indeed stayed some years.  But at
+last ennui seized her; perhaps vexation at not being made enough of.  She
+could not exist without meddling, and what is there for a superannuated
+woman to meddle with at Genoa?  She turned her thoughts, therefore,
+towards Rome.  Then, on sounding, found her course clear, quitted Genoa,
+and returned to her nest.
+
+She was not long there before she attached herself to the King and Queen
+of England (the Pretender and his wife), and soon governed them openly.
+What a poor resource!  But it was courtly and had a flavour of occupation
+for a woman who could not exist without movement.  She finished her life
+there remarkably healthy in mind and body, and in a prodigious opulence,
+which was not without its use in that deplorable Court.  For the rest,
+Madame des Ursins was in mediocre estimation at Rome, was deserted by the
+Spanish, little visited by the French, but always faithfully paid by
+France and Spain, and unmolested by the Regent.  She was always occupied
+with the world, and with what she had been, but was no longer; yet
+without meanness, nay, with courage and dignity.
+
+The loss she experienced in January, 1720, of the Cardinal de la
+Tremoille, although there was no real friendship between them, did not
+fail, to create a void in her.  She survived him three years, preserved
+all her health, her strength, her mind until death, and was carried off,
+more than eighty years of age, at Rome, on the 5th of December, 1722,
+after a very short illness.
+
+She had the pleasure of seeing Madame de Maintenon forgotten and
+annihilated in Saint-Cyr, of surviving her, of seeing at Rome her two
+enemies, Giudice and Alberoni, as profoundly disgraced as she,--one
+falling from the same height, and of relishing the forgetfulness, not to
+say contempt, into which they both sank.  Her death, which, a few years
+before, would have resounded throughout all Europe, made not the least
+sensation.  The little English Court regretted her, and some private
+friends also, of whom I was one.  I did not hide this, although,--on
+account of M. le Duc d'Orleans, I had kept up no intercourse with her;
+for the rest, nobody seemed to perceive she had disappeared.  She was,
+nevertheless, so extraordinary a person, during all the course of her
+long life, everywhere, and had so grandly figured, although in various
+ways; had such rare intellect, courage, industry, and resources; reigned
+so publicly and so absolutely in Spain; and had a character so sustained
+and so unique, that her life deserves to be written, and would take a
+place among the most curious fragments of the history of the times in
+which she lived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+But I must return somewhat now, in order to make way for a crowd of
+events which have been pressing forward all this time, but which I have
+passed by, in going straightforward at once to the end of Madame des
+Ursins' history.
+
+On Monday, the 30th April, 1714., the King took medicine, and worked
+after dinner with Pontchartrain.  This was at Marly.  About six o'clock,
+he went to M. le Duc de Berry, who had had fever all night.  M. le Duc de
+Berry had risen without saying anything, had been with the King at the
+medicine-hour, and intended to go stag-hunting; but on leaving the King's
+chamber shivering seized him, and forced him to go back again.  He was
+bled while the King was in his chamber, and the blood was found very bad;
+when the King went to bed the doctors told him the illness was of a
+nature to make them hope that it might be a case of contagion.  M. le Duc
+de Berry had vomited a good deal--a black vomit.  Fagon said,
+confidently, that it was from the blood; the other doctors fastened upon
+some chocolate he had taken on the Sunday.  From this day forward I knew
+what was the matter.  Boulduc, apothecary of the King, and extremely
+attached to Madame de Saint-Simon and to me, whispered in my ear that M.
+le Duc de Berry would not recover, and that, with some little difference,
+his malady was the same as that of which the Dauphin and Dauphine died.
+He repeated this the next day, and never once varied afterwards; saying
+to me on the third day, that none of the doctors who attended the Prince
+were of a different opinion, or hid from him what they thought.
+
+On Tuesday, the 1st of May, the Prince was bled in the foot at seven
+o'clock in the morning, after a very bad night; took emetics twice, which
+had a good effect; then some manna; but still there were two accesses.
+The King went to the sick-room afterwards, held a finance council, would
+not go shooting, as he had arranged, but walked in his gardens.  The
+doctors, contrary to their custom, never reassured him.  The night was
+cruel.  On Wednesday; the 2nd of May, the King went, after mass, to M. le
+Duc de Berry, who had been again bled in the foot.  The King held the
+Council of State, as usual, dined in Madame de Maintenon's rooms, and
+afterwards reviewed his Guards.  Coettenfao, chevalier d'honneur of
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry, came during the morning to beg the King, in
+her name, that Chirac, a famous doctor of M. d'Orleans, should be allowed
+to see M. le Duc de Berry.  The King refused, on the ground that all the
+other doctors were in accord, and that Chirac, who might differ with
+them, would embarrass them.  After dinner Mesdames de Pompadour and La
+Vieuville arrived, on the part of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, to beg the
+King that she might be allowed to come and see her husband, saying that
+she would come on foot rather than stay away.  It would have been better,
+surely, for her to come in a coach, if she so much wished, and, before
+alighting, to send to the King for permission so to do.  But the fact is,
+she had no more desire to come than M. de Berry had to see her.  He never
+once mentioned her name, or spoke of her, even indirectly.  The King
+replied to those ladies by saying that he would not close the door
+against Madame la Duchesse de Berry, but, considering the state she was
+in, he thought it would be very imprudent on her part to come.  He
+afterwards told M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans to go to
+Versailles and hinder her from coming.  Upon returning from the review
+the King went again to see M. le Duc de Berry.  He had been once more
+bled in the arm, had vomited all day much blood too--and had taken some
+Robel water three times, in order to stop his sickness.  This vomiting
+put off the communion.  Pere de la Rue had been by his side ever since
+Tuesday morning, and found him very patient and resigned.
+
+On Thursday, the 3rd, after a night worse than ever, the doctors said
+they did not doubt that a vein had been broken in the stomach.  It was
+reported that this accident had happened by an effort M. de Berry made
+when out hunting on the previous Thursday, the day the Elector of Bavaria
+arrived.  His horse slipped; in drawing the animal up, his body struck
+against the pommel of the saddle, so it was said, and ever since he had
+spit blood every day.  The vomiting ceased at nine o'clock in the
+morning, but the patient was no better.  The King, who was going stag-
+hunting, put it off.  At six o'clock at night M. de Berry was so choked
+that he could no longer remain in bed; about eight o'clock he found
+himself so relieved that he said to Madame, he hoped he should not die;
+but soon after, the malady increased so much that Pere de la Rue said it
+was no longer time to think of anything but God, and of receiving the
+sacrament.  The poor Prince himself seemed to desire it.
+
+A little after ten o'clock at night the King went to the chapel, where a
+consecrated Host had been kept prepared ever since the commencement of
+the illness.  M. le Duc de Berry received it, with extreme unction, in
+presence of the King, with much devotion and respect.  The King remained
+nearly an hour in the chamber, supped alone in his own, did not receive
+the Princesses afterwards, but went to bed.  M. le Duc d'Orleans, at ten
+o'clock in the morning, went again to Versailles, as Madame la Duchesse
+de Berry wished still to come to Marly.  M. le Duc de Berry related to
+Pere de la Rue, who at least said so, the accident just spoken of; but,
+it was added, "his head was then beginning to wander."  After losing the
+power of speech, he took the crucifix Pere de la Rue held, kissed it, and
+placed it upon his heart.  He expired on Friday, the 4th of May, 1714, at
+four o'clock in the morning, in his twenty-eighth year, having been born
+at Versailles, the last day of August, 1686.
+
+M. le Duc de Berry was of ordinary height, rather fat, of a beautiful
+blonde complexion, with a fresh, handsome face, indicating excellent
+health.  He was made for society, and for pleasure, which he loved; the
+best, gentlest, most compassionate and accessible of men, without pride,
+and without vanity, but not without dignity or self-appreciation.  He was
+of medium intellect, without ambition or desire, but had very good sense,
+and was capable of listening, of understanding, and of always taking the
+right side in preference to the wrong, however speciously put.  He loved
+truth, justice, and reason; all that was contrary to religion pained him
+to excess, although he was not of marked piety.  He was not without
+firmness, and hated constraint.  This caused it to be feared that he was
+not supple enough for a younger son, and, indeed, in his early youth he
+could not understand that there was any difference between him and his
+eldest brother, and his boyish quarrels often caused alarm.
+
+He was the most gay, the most frank, and consequently the most loved of
+the three brothers; in his youth nothing was spoken of but his smart
+replies to Madame and M. de la Rochefoucauld.  He laughed at preceptors
+and at masters--often at punishment.  He scarcely knew anything except
+how to read and write; and learned nothing after being freed from the
+necessity of learning.  This ignorance so intimidated him, that he could
+scarcely open his mouth before strangers, or perform the most ordinary
+duties of his rank; he had persuaded himself that he was an ass and a
+fool; fit for nothing.  He was so afraid of the King that he dared not
+approach him, and was so confused if the King looked hard at him, or
+spoke of other things than hunting, or gaming, that he scarcely
+understood a word, or could collect his thoughts.  As may be imagined,
+such fear does not go hand in hand with deep affection.
+
+He commenced life with Madame la Duchesse de Berry as do almost all those
+who marry very young and green.  He became extremely amorous of her;
+this, joined to his gentleness and natural complaisance, had the usual
+effect, which was to thoroughly spoil her.  He was not long in perceiving
+it; but love was too strong for him.  He found a woman proud, haughty,
+passionate, incapable of forgiveness, who despised him, and who allowed
+him to see it, because he had infinitely less head than she; and because,
+moreover, she was supremely false and strongly determined.  She piqued
+herself upon both these qualities, and on her contempt for religion,
+ridiculing M. le Duc de Berry for being devout; and all these things
+became insupportable to him.  Her gallantries were so prompt, so rapid,
+so unmeasured, that he could not help seeing them.  Her endless private
+interviews with M. le Duc d'Orleans, in which everything languished if he
+was present, made him furious.  Violent scenes frequently took place
+between them; the last, which occurred at Rambouillet, went so far that
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry received a kick * * * * , and a menace that
+she should be shut up in a convent for the rest of her life; and when M.
+le Duc de Berry fell ill, he was thumbing his hat, like a child, before
+the King, relating all his grievances, and asking to be delivered from
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry.  Hitherto I have only alluded to Madame la
+Duchesse de Berry, but, as will be seen, she became so singular a person
+when her father was Regent, that I will here make her known more
+completely than I have yet done.
+
+She was tall, handsome, well made, with, however, but little grace, and
+had something in her, eyes which made you fear what she was.  Like her
+father and mother, she spoke well and with facility.  Timid in trifles,
+yet in other things terrifyingly bold,--foolishly haughty sometimes, and
+sometimes mean to the lowest degree,--it may be said that she was a model
+of all the vices, avarice excepted; and was all the more dangerous
+because she had art and talent.  I am not accustomed to over-colour the
+picture I am obliged to present to render things understood, and it will
+easily be perceived how strictly I am reserved upon the ladies, and upon
+all gallantries, not intimately associated with what may be called
+important matters.  I should be so here, more than in any other case,
+from self-love, if not from respect for the sex and dignity of the
+person.  The considerable part I played in bringing about Madame la
+Duchesse de Berry's marriage, and the place that Madame de Saint-Simon,
+in spite of herself and of me, occupied in connection with her, would be
+for me reasons more than enough for silence, if I did not feel that
+silence would throw obscurity over all the sequel of this history.  It is
+then to the truth that I sacrifice my self-love, and with the same
+truthfulness I will say that if I had known or merely suspected, that the
+Princess was so bad as she showed herself directly after her marriage,
+and always more and more since, she would never have become Duchesse de
+Berry.
+
+I have already told how she annoyed M. le Duc de Berry by ridiculing his
+devotion.  In other ways she put his patience to severe trials, and more
+than once was in danger of public exposure.  She partook of few meals in
+private, at which she did not get so drunk as to lose consciousness, and
+to bring up all she had taken on every side.  The presence of M. le Duc
+de Berry, of M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, of ladies with
+whom she was not on familiar terms, in no way restrained her.  She
+complained even of M. le Duc de Berry for not doing as she did.  She
+often treated her father with a haughtiness which was terrifying on all
+accounts.
+
+In her gallantries she was as unrestrained as in other things.  After
+having had several favourites, she fixed herself upon La Haye, who from
+King's page had become private ecuyer of M. le Duc de Berry.  The oglings
+in the Salon of Marly were perceived by everybody; nothing restrained
+them.  At last, it must be said, for this fact encloses all the rest, she
+wished La Haye to run away with her from Versailles to the Low Countries,
+whilst M. le Duc de Berry and the King were both living.  La Haye almost
+died with fright at this proposition, which she herself made to him.  His
+refusal made her furious.  From the most pressing entreaties she came to
+all the invectives that rage could suggest, and that torrents of tears
+allowed her to pronounce.  La Haye had to suffer her attacks--now tender,
+now furious; he was in the most mortal embarrassment.  It was a long time
+before she could be cured of her mad idea, and in the meanwhile she
+subjected the poor fellow to the most frightful persecution.  Her passion
+for La Haye continued until the death of M. le Duc de Berry, and some
+time after.
+
+M. le Duc de Berry was buried at Saint-Denis on Wednesday, the 16th of
+May; M. le Duc d'Orleans was to have headed the procession, but the same
+odious reports against him that had circulated at the death of the
+Dauphin had again appeared, and he begged to be let off.  M. le Duc
+filled his place.  Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who was in the family
+way, kept her bed; and in order that she should not be seen there when
+people came to pay her the usual visits of condolence, the room was kept
+quite dark.  Many ridiculous scenes and much indecent laughter, that
+could not be restrained, thus arose.  Persons accustomed to the room
+could see their way, but those unaccustomed stumbled at every step, and
+had need of guidance.  For want of this, Pere du Trevoux, and Pere
+Tellier after him, both addressed their compliments to the wall; others
+to the foot of the bed.  This became a secret amusement, but happily did
+not last long.
+
+As may be imagined, the death of M. le Duc de Berry was a deliverance for
+Madame la Duchesse de Berry.  She was, as I have said, in the family way;
+she hoped for a boy, and counted upon enjoying as a widow more liberty
+than she had been able to take as a wife.  She had a miscarriage,
+however, on Saturday, the 16th of June, and was delivered of a daughter
+which lived only twelve hours.  The little corpse was buried at Saint-
+Denis, Madame de Saint-Simon at the head of the procession.  Madame la
+Duchesse de Berry, shortly before this event, received two hundred
+thousand livres income of pension; but the establishment she would have
+had if the child had been a boy was not allowed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII.
+
+It is time now that I should say something about an event that caused an
+immense stir throughout the land, and was much talked of even in foreign
+parts.  I must first introduce, however, a sort of a personage whose
+intimacy was forced upon me at this period; for the two incidents are in
+a certain degree associated together.
+
+M. d'Orleans for some little time had continually represented to me, how
+desirous one of his acquaintances was to secure my friendship.  This
+acquaintance was Maisons, president in the parliament, grandson of that
+superintendent of the finances who built the superb chateau of Maisons,
+and son of the man who had presided so unworthily at the judgment of our
+trial with M. de Luxembourg, which I have related in its place.  Maisons
+was a person of much ambition, exceedingly anxious to make a name,
+gracious and flattering in manners to gain his ends, and amazingly fond
+of grand society.
+
+The position of Maisons, where he lived, close to Marly, afforded him
+many opportunities of drawing there the principal people of the Court.
+It became quite the fashion to go from Marly to his chateau.  The King
+grew accustomed to hear the place spoken of, and was in no way
+displeased.  Maisons had managed to become very intimate with M. le Duc
+and M. le Prince de Conti.  These two princes being dead, he turned his
+thoughts towards M, d'Orleans.  He addressed himself to Canillac, who had
+always been an intimate friend of M. d'Orleans, and by him soon gained
+the intimacy of that prince.  But he was not yet satisfied.  He wished to
+circumvent M. d'Orleans more completely than he could by means of
+Canillac.  He cast his eye, therefore, upon me.  I think he was afraid of
+me on account of what I have related concerning his father.  He had an
+only son about the same age as my children.  For a long time he had made
+all kinds of advances, and visited them often.  The son's intimacy did
+not, however, assist the father; so that at last Maisons made M. le Duc
+d'Orleans speak to me himself.
+
+I was cold; tried to get out of the matter with compliments and excuses.
+M. d'Orleans, who believed he had found a treasure in his new
+acquaintance, returned to the charge; but I was not more docile.  A few
+days after, I was surprised by an attack of the same kind from M. de
+Beauvilliers.  How or when he had formed an intimacy with Maisons, I have
+never been able to unravel; but formed it, he had; and he importuned me
+so much, nay exerted his authority over me, that at last I found I must
+give way.  Not to offend M. d'Orleans by yielding to another after having
+refused to yield to him, I waited until he should again speak to me on
+the subject, so that he might give himself the credit of vanquishing me.
+I did not wait long.  The Prince attacked me anew, maintained that
+nothing would be more useful to him than an intimacy between myself and
+Maisons, who scarcely dared to see him, except in secret, and with whom
+he had not the same leisure or liberty for discussing many things that
+might present themselves.  I had replied to all this before; but as I had
+resolved to surrender to the Prince (after the authority of the Duc de
+Beauvilliers had vanquished me), I complied with his wish.
+
+Maisons was soon informed of it, and did not let my resolution grow,
+cold.  M. le Duc d'Orleans urged me to go and sleep a night in Paris.
+Upon arriving there, I found a note from Maisons, who had already sent an
+ocean of compliments to me by the Prince and the Duke.  This note, for
+reasons to be told me afterwards, appointed a meeting at eleven o'clock
+this night, in the plain behind the Invalides, in a very mysterious
+manner.  I went there with an old coachman of my mother's and a lackey to
+put my people off the scent.  There was a little moonlight.  Maisons in a
+small carriage awaited me.  We soon met.  He mounted into my coach.  I
+never could comprehend the mystery of this meeting.  There was nothing on
+his part but advances, compliments, protestations, allusions to the
+former interview of our fathers; only such things, in fact, as a man of
+cleverness and breeding says when he wishes to form a close intimacy with
+any one.  Not a word that he said was of importance or of a private
+nature.
+
+I replied in the civillest manner possible to the abundance he bestowed
+upon me.  I expected afterwards something that would justify the hour,
+the place, the mystery, in a word, of our interview.  What was my
+surprise to hear no syllable upon these points.  The only reason Maisons
+gave for our secret interview was that from that time he should be able
+to come and see me at Versailles with less inconvenience, and gradually
+increase the number and the length of his visits until people grew
+accustomed to see him there!  He then begged me not to visit him in
+Paris, because his house was always too full of people.  This interview
+lasted little less than half an hour.  It was long indeed, considering
+what passed.  We separated with much politeness, and the first time he
+went to Versailles he called upon me towards the middle of the day.
+
+In a short time he visited me every Sunday.  Our conversation by degrees
+became more serious.  I did not fail to be on my guard, but drew him out
+upon various subjects; he being very willing.
+
+We were on this footing when, returning to my room at Marly about midday-
+on Sunday, the 29th of July, I found a lackey of Maisons with a note from
+him, in which he conjured me to quit all business and come immediately to
+his house at Paris, where he would wait for me alone, and where I should
+find that something was in question, that could not suffer the slightest
+delay, that could not even be named in writing, and which was of the most
+extreme importance.  This lackey had long since arrived, and had sent my
+people everywhere in search of me.  I was engaged that day to dine with
+M. and Madame de Lauzun.  To have broken my engagement would have been to
+set the curiosity and the malignity of M. de Lauzun at work.  I dared not
+disappear; therefore I gave orders to my coachman, and as soon as I had
+dined I vanished.  Nobody saw me get into my chaise; and I quickly
+arrived at Paris, and immediately hastened to Maisons' with eagerness
+easy to imagine.
+
+I found him alone with the Duc de Noailles.  At the first glance I saw
+two dismayed men, who said to me in an exhausted manner, but after a
+heated though short preface, that the King had declared his two bastards
+and their male posterity to all eternity, real princes of the blood, with
+full liberty to assume all their dignities, honours, and rank, and
+capacity to succeed to the throne in default of the others.
+
+At this news, which I did not expect, and the secret of which had
+hitherto been preserved, without a particle of it transpiring, my arms
+fell.  I lowered my head and remained profoundly silent, absorbed in my
+reflections.  They were soon disturbed by cries which aroused me.  These
+two men commenced pacing the chamber; stamped with their feet; pushed and
+struck the furniture; raged as though each wished to be louder than the
+other, and made the house echo with their noise.  I avow that so much
+hubbub seemed suspicious to me on the part of two men, one so sage and so
+measured, and to whom this rank was of no consequence; the other always
+so tranquil, so crafty, so master of himself.  I knew not why this sudden
+fury succeeded to such dejected oppression; and I was not without
+suspicion that their passion was put on merely to excite mine.  If this
+was their design, it succeeded ill.  I remained in my chair, and coldly
+asked them what was the matter.  My tranquillity sharpened their fury.
+Never in my life have I seen anything so surprising.
+
+I asked them if they had gone mad, and if instead of this tempest it
+would not be better to reason, and see whether something could not be
+done.  They declared it was precisely because nothing could be done
+against a thing not only resolved on, but executed, declared, and sent to
+the Parliament, that they were so furious; that M. le Duc d'Orleans, on
+the terms he was with the King, would not dare even to whisper
+objections; that the Princes of the blood, mere children as they were,
+could only tremble; that the Dukes had no means of opposition, and that
+the Parliament was reduced to silence and slavery.  Thereupon they set to
+work to see who could cry the louder and reviled again, sparing neither
+things nor persons.
+
+I, also, was in anger, but this racket kept me cool and made me smile.
+I argued with them and said, that after all I preferred to see the
+bastards princes of the blood, capable of succeeding to the throne, than
+to see them in the intermediary rank they occupied.  And it is true that
+as soon as I had cooled myself, I felt thus.
+
+At last the storm grew calm, and they told me that the Chief-President
+and the Attorney-General--who, I knew, had been at Marly very early in
+the morning at the Chancellor's--had seen the King in his cabinet soon
+after he rose, and had brought back the declaration, all prepared.
+Maisons must, however, have known this earlier; because when the lackey
+he sent to me set out from Paris, those gentlemen could not have returned
+there.  Our talk led to nothing, and I regained Marly in all haste, in
+order that my absence might not be remarked.
+
+Nevertheless it was towards the King's supper hour when I arrived.  I
+went straight to the salon, and found it very dejected.  People looked,
+but scarcely dared to approach each other; at the most, a sign or a
+whisper in the ear, as the courtiers brushed by one another, was ventured
+out.  I saw the King sit down to table; he seemed to me more haughty than
+usual, and continually looked all around.  The news had only been known
+one hour; everybody was still congealed and upon his guard.
+
+As soon as the King was seated (he had looked very hard at me in passing)
+I went straight to M. du Maine's.  Although the hour was unusual, the
+doors fell before me; I saw a man, who received me with joyful surprise,
+and who, as it were, moved through the air towards me, all lame that he
+was.  I said that I came to offer him a sincere compliment, that we (the
+Dukes) claimed no precedence over the Princes of the blood; but what we
+claimed was, that there should be nobody between the Princes of the blood
+and us; that as this intermediary rank no longer existed, we had nothing
+more to say, but to rejoice that we had no longer to support what was
+insupportable.  The joy of M. du Maine burst forth at my compliments, and
+he startled me with a politeness inspired by the transport of triumph.
+
+But if he was delighted at the declaration of the King, it was far
+otherwise with the world.  Foreign dukes and princes fumed, but
+uselessly.  The Court uttered dull murmurs more than could have been
+expected.  Paris and the provinces broke out; the Parliament did not keep
+silent.  Madame de Maintenon, delighted with her work, received the
+adoration of her familiars.
+
+As for me, I will content myself with but few reflections upon this most
+monstrous, astounding, and frightful determination of the King.  I will
+simply say, that it is impossible not to see in it an attack upon the
+Crown; contempt for the entire nation, whose rights are trodden under
+foot by it; insult to all the Princes of the blood; in fact the crime of
+high treason in its most rash and most criminal extent.  Yes!  however
+venerable God may have rendered in the eyes of men the majesty of Kings
+and their sacred persons, which are his anointed; however execrable may
+be the crime known as high treason, of attempting their lives; however
+terrible and singular may be the punishments justly invented to prevent
+that crime, and to remove by their horror the most infamous from the
+infernal resolution of committing it, we cannot help finding in the crime
+in question a plenitude not in the other, however abominable it may be:
+Yes!  to overthrow the most holy laws, that have existed ever since the
+establishment of monarchy; to extinguish a right the most sacred--the
+most important--the most inherent in the nation: to make succession to
+the throne, purely, supremely, and despotically arbitrary; in a word, to
+make of a bastard a crown prince, is a crime more black, more vast, more
+terrible, than that of high treason against the chief of the State.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII
+
+But let me now explain by what means the King was induced to arrive at,
+and publish this terrible determination.
+
+He was growing old, and though no external change in him was visible,
+those near him had for some time begun to fear that he could not live
+long.  This is not the place to descant upon a health hitherto so good
+and so even: suffice it to mention, that it silently began to give way.
+Overwhelmed by the most violent reverses of fortune after being so long
+accustomed to success, the King was even more overwhelmed by domestic
+misfortunes.  All his children had disappeared before him, and left him
+abandoned to the most fatal reflections.  At every moment he himself
+expected the same kind of death.  Instead of finding relief from his
+anguish among those who surrounded him, and whom he saw most frequently,
+he met with nothing but fresh trouble there.  Excepting Marechal, his
+chief surgeon, who laboured unceasingly to cure him of his suspicions,
+Madame de Maintenon, M. du Maine, Fagon, Bloin, the other principal
+valets sold to the bastard and his former governors,--all sought to
+augment these suspicions; and in truth it was not difficult to do so.
+Nobody doubted that poison had been used, nobody could seriously doubt
+it; and Marechal, who was as persuaded as the rest, held a different
+opinion before the King only to deliver him from a useless torment which
+could not but do him injury.  But M. du Maine, and Madame de Maintenon
+also, had too much interest to maintain him in this fear, and by their,
+art filled him with horror against M. d'Orleans, whom they named as the
+author of these crimes, so that the King with this prince before his eyes
+every day, was in a perpetual state of alarm.
+
+With his children the King had lost, and by the same way, a princess, who
+in addition to being the soul and ornament of his court, was, moreover,
+all his amusement, all his joy, all his affection, in the hours when he
+was not in public.  Never, since he entered the world, had he become
+really familiar with any one but her; it has been seen elsewhere to what
+extent.  Nothing could fill up this great void: The bitterness of being
+deprived of her augmented, because he could find no diversion.  This
+unfortunate state made him seek relief everywhere in abandoning himself
+more and more to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine.
+
+They soon managed to obtain possession of him, as it were, entirely;
+leaving no art unexhausted in order to flatter, to amuse, to please, and
+to interest him.  He was made to believe that M. du Maine was utterly
+without ambition; like a good father of a family, solely occupied with
+his children, touched with the grandeur of his nearness to the King,
+simple, frank, upright, and one who after working at his duties all day,
+and after giving himself time for prayer and piety, amused himself in
+hunting, and drew upon his natural gaiety and cheerfulness, without
+knowing anything of the Court, or of what was passing!  Compare this
+portrait with his real character, and we shall feel with terror what a
+rattlesnake was introduced into the King's privacy.
+
+Established thus in the mind and heart of the King, the opportunity
+seemed ripe for profiting by precious time that could not last long.
+Everybody smiled upon the project of M. du Maine and Madame de Maintenon.
+They had rendered M. d'Orleans odious in the eyes of the King and of the
+whole country, by the most execrable calumnies.  How could he defend
+himself?  shut up as the King was, how oppose them?  how interfere with
+their dark designs?  M. du Maine wished not only to be made prince of the
+blood, but to be made guardian of the heir to the throne, so as to dwarf
+the power of the Regent as much as possible.  He flattered himself that
+the feeling he had excited against M. d'Orleans in the Court, in Paris,
+and in the provinces would be powerfully strengthened by dispositions so
+dishonourable; that he should find himself received as the guardian and
+protector of the life of the royal infant, to whom was attached the
+salvation of France, of which he would then become the idol; that the
+independent possession of the young King, and of his military and civil
+households, would strengthen with the public applause the power with
+which he would be invested in the state by this testament; that the
+Regent, reviled and stripped in this manner, not only would be in no
+condition to dispute anything, but would be unable to defend himself from
+any attempts the bastard might afterwards make against him.  M. du Maine
+wished in fact to take from M. d'Orleans everything, except the name of
+Regent, and to divide all the power between himself and his brother.
+Such was his scheme, that the King by incredible art was induced to
+sanction and approve.
+
+But the schemers had tough work before they obtained this success.
+They found that the King would not consent to their wishes without much
+opposition.  They hit upon a devilish plan to overpower his resistance.
+Hitherto, they had only been occupied in pleasing him, in amusing him,
+in anticipating his wishes, in praising him--let me say the word--
+in adoring him.  They had redoubled their attention, since, by the
+Dauphine's death, they had become his sole resource.
+
+Not being able now to lead him as they wished, but determined to do so at
+all cost, they adopted another system, certain as they were that they
+could do so with impunity.  Both became serious, often times dejected,
+silent, furnishing nothing to the conversation, letting pass what the
+King forced himself to say, sometimes not even replying, if it was not a
+direct interrogation.  In this manner all the leisure hours of the King
+were rendered dull and empty; his amusements and diversions were made
+fatiguing and sad and a weight was cast upon him, which he was the more
+unable to bear because it was quite new to him, and he was utterly
+without means to remove it.  The few ladies who were admitted to the
+intimacy of the King knew not what to make of the change they saw in
+Madame de Maintenon.  They were duped at first by the plea of illness;
+but seeing at last that its duration passed all bounds, that it had no
+intermission, that her face announced no malady, that her daily life was
+in no way deranged, that the King became as serious and as sad as she,
+they sounded each other to find out the cause.  Fear, lest it should be
+something in which they, unknowingly, were concerned, troubled them; so
+that they became even worse company to the King than Madame de Maintenon.
+
+There was no relief for the King.  All his resource was in the
+commonplace talk of the Comte de Toulouse, who was not amusing, although
+ignorant of the plot, and the stories of his valets, who lost tongue as
+soon as they perceived that they were not seconded by the Duc du Maine in
+his usual manner.  Marechal and all the rest, astonished at the
+mysterious dejection of the Duc du Maine, looked at each other without
+being able to divine the cause.  They saw that the King was sad and
+bored; they trembled for his health, but not one of them dared to do
+anything.  Time ran on, and the dejection of M. du Maine and Madame de
+Maintenon increased.  This is as far as the most instructed have ever
+been able to penetrate.  To describe the interior scenes that doubtless
+passed during the long time this state of things lasted, would be to
+write romance.  Truth demands that we should relate what we know, and
+admit what we are ignorant of.  I cannot go farther, therefore, or pierce
+deeper into the density of these dark mysteries.
+
+What is certain is, that cheerfulness came back all at once, with the
+same surprise to the witnesses of it, as the long-continued dejection had
+caused them, simply because they understood no more of the end than of
+the commencement.  The double knowledge did not come to them until they
+heard the frightful crash of the thunderbolt which fell upon France, and
+astonished all Europe.
+
+To give some idea of the opposition from the King, M. du Maine and Madame
+de Maintenon had to overcome, and to show how reluctantly he consented to
+their wishes, more than one incident may be brought forward.  Some days
+before the news transpired, the King, full of the enormity of what he had
+just done for his bastards, looked at them in his cabinet, in presence of
+the valets, and of D'Antin and D'O, and in a sharp manner, that told of
+vexation, and with a severe glance, suddenly thus addressed himself to M.
+du Maine:
+
+"You have wished it; but know that however great I may make you, and you
+may be in my lifetime, you are nothing after me; and it will be for you
+then to avail yourself of what I have done for you, if you can."
+
+Everybody present trembled at a thunder-clap so sudden, so little
+expected, so entirely removed from the character and custom of the King,
+and which showed so clearly the extreme ambition of the Duc du Maine, and
+the violence he had done to the weakness of the King, who seemed to
+reproach himself for it, and to reproach the bastard for his ambition and
+tyranny.  The consternation of M. du Maine seemed extreme at this rough
+sally, which no previous remark had led to.  The King had made a clean
+breast of it.  Everybody fixed his eyes upon the floor and held his
+breath.  The silence was profound for a considerable time: it finished
+only when the King passed into his wardrobe.  In his absence everybody
+breathed again.  The King's heart was full to bursting with what he had
+just been made to do; but like a woman who gives birth to two children,
+he had at present brought but one into the world, and bore a second of
+which he must be delivered, and of which he felt all the pangs without
+any relief from the suffering the first had caused him.
+
+Again, on Sunday, the 27th August, the Chief-President and the Attorney-
+General were sent for by the King.  He was at Versailles.  As soon as
+they were alone with him, he took from a drawer, which he unlocked, a
+large and thick packet, sealed with seven seals (I know not if by this M.
+du Maine wished to imitate the mysterious book with Seven Seals, of the
+Apocalypse, and so sanctify the packet).  In handing it to them, the King
+said: "Gentlemen, this is my will.  No one but myself knows its contents.
+I commit it to you to keep in the Parliament, to which I cannot give a
+greater testimony of my esteem and confidence than by rendering it the
+depository of it.  The example of the Kings my predecessors, and that of
+the will of the King, my father, do not allow me to be ignorant of what
+may become of this; but they would have it; they have tormented me; they
+have left me no repose, whatever I might say.  Very well!  I have bought
+my repose.  Here is the will; take it away: come what may of it, at
+least, I shall have rest, and shall hear no more about it."
+
+At this last word, that he finished with a dry nod, he turned his back
+upon them, passed into another cabinet, and left them both nearly turned
+into statues.  They looked at each other frozen by what they had just
+heard, and still more by what they had just seen in the eyes and the
+countenance of the King; and as soon as they had collected their senses,
+they retired, and went to Paris.  It was not known until after dinner
+that the King had made a will and given it to them.  In proportion as the
+news spread, consternation filled the Court, while the flatterers, at
+bottom as much alarmed as the rest, and as Paris was afterwards,
+exhausted themselves in praises and eulogies.
+
+The next day, Monday, the 28th, the Queen of England came from Chaillot,
+where she almost always was, to Madame de Maintenon's.  As soon as the
+King perceived her, "Madame," said he to her, like a man full of
+something and angry, "I have made my will; I have been tormented to do
+it;" then casting his eyes upon Madame de Maintenon, "I have bought
+repose; I know the powerlessness and inutility of it.  We can do all we
+wish while we live; afterwards we are less than the meanest.  You have
+only to see what became of my father's will immediately after his death,
+and the wills of so many other Kings.  I know it well; but nevertheless
+they have wished it; they gave me no rest nor repose, no calm until it
+was done; ah, well! then, Madame, it is done; come what may of it, I
+shall be no longer tormented."
+
+Words such as these so expressive of the extreme violence suffered by the
+King, of his long and obstinate battle before surrendering, of his
+vexation, and uneasiness, demand the clearest proofs.  I had them from
+people who heard them, and would not advance them unless I were perfectly
+persuaded of their exactness.
+
+As soon as the Chief-President and the Attorney-General returned to
+Paris, they sent for some workmen, whom they led into a tower of the
+Palace of justice, behind the Buvette, or drinking-place of the grand
+chamber and the cabinet of the Chief-President.  They had a big hole made
+in the wall of this tower, which is very thick, deposited the testament
+there, closed up the opening with an iron door, put an iron grating by
+way of second door, and then walled all up together.  The door and the
+grating each had three locks, the same for both; and a different key for
+each of the three, which consequently opened each of the two locks, the
+one in the door and the one in the grating.  The Chief-President kept one
+key, the Attorney-General another, and the Chief-Greffier of the
+Parliament the third.  The Parliament was assembled and the Chief-
+President flattered the members as best he might upon the confidence
+shown them in entrusting them with this deposit.
+
+At the same time was presented to the Parliament an edict that the Chief-
+President and the Attorney-General had received from the hand of the
+Chancellor at Versailles the same morning the King had given them his
+will, and the edict was registered.  It was very short.  It declared that
+the packet committed to the Chief-President and to the Attorney-General
+contained the will of the King, by which he had provided for the
+protection and guardianship of the young King, and had chosen a Regency
+council, the dispositions of which--for good reasons he had not wished to
+publish; that he wished this deposit should be preserved during his life
+in the registry of the Parliament, and that at the moment when it should
+please God to call him from the world, all the chambers of the
+Parliament, all the princes of the royal house, and all the peers who
+might be there, should assemble and open the will; and that after it was
+read, all its dispositions should be made public and executed, nobody to
+be permitted to oppose them in any way.
+
+Notwithstanding all this secrecy, the terms of the will were pretty
+generally guessed, and as I have said, the consternation was general.
+It was the fate of M. du Maine to obtain what he wished; but always with
+the maledictions of the public.  This fate did not abandon him now, and
+as soon as he felt it, he was overwhelmed, and Madame de Maintenon
+exasperated, and their attentions and their care redoubled, to shut up
+the King, so that the murmurs of the world should not reach him.  They
+occupied themselves more than ever to amuse and to please him, and to
+fill the air around him with praises, joy, and public adoring at an act
+so generous and so grand, and at the same time so wise and so necessary
+to the maintenance of good order and tranquillity, which would cause him
+to reign so gloriously even after his reign.
+
+This consternation was very natural, and is precisely why the Duc du
+Maine found himself deceived and troubled by it.  He believed he had
+prepared everything, smoothed everything, in rendering M. d'Orleans so
+suspected and so odious; he had succeeded, but not so much as he
+imagined.  His desires and his emissaries had exaggerated everything;
+and he found himself overwhelmed with astonishment, when instead of the
+public acclamations with which he had flattered himself the will would be
+accompanied, it was precisely the opposite.
+
+It was seen very clearly that the will assuredly could not have been made
+in favour of M. d'Orleans, and although public feeling against him had in
+no way changed, no one was so blind as not to see that he must be Regent
+by the incontestable right of his birth; that the dispositions of the
+testament could not weaken that right, except by establishing a power
+that should balance his; and that thus two parties would be formed in the
+state the chief of each of which would be interested in vanquishing the
+other, everybody being necessitated to join one side or other, thereby
+running a thousand risks without any advantage.  The rights of the two
+disputants were compared.  In the one they were found sacred, in the
+other they could not be found at all.  The two persons were compared.
+Both were found odious, but M. d'Orleans was deemed superior to M. du
+Maine.  I speak only of the mass of uninstructed people, and of what
+presented itself naturally and of itself.  The better informed had even
+more cause to arrive at the same decision.
+
+M. d'Orleans was stunned by the blow; he felt that it fell directly upon
+him, but during the lifetime of the King he saw no remedy for it.
+Silence respectful and profound appeared to him the sole course open;
+any other would only have led to an increase of precautions.  The King
+avoided all discourse with him upon this matter; M. du Maine the same.
+M. d'Orleans was contented with a simple approving monosyllable to both,
+like a courtier who ought not to meddle with anything; and he avoided
+conversation upon this subject, even with Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans,
+and with anybody else.  I was the sole person to whom he dared to unbosom
+himself; with the rest of the world he had an open, an ordinary manner,
+was on his guard against any discontented sign, and against the curiosity
+of all eyes.  The inexpressible abandonment in which he was, in the midst
+of the Court, guaranteed him at least from all remarks upon the will.  It
+was not until the health of the King grew more menacing that he began to
+speak and be spoken to thereon.
+
+As for M. du Maine, despite his good fortune, he was not to be envied At
+Sceaux, where he lived, the Duchesse du Maine, his wife, ruined him by
+her extravagance.  Sceaux was more than ever the theatre of her follies,
+and of the shame and embarrassment of her husband, by the crowd from the
+Court and the town, which abounded there and laughed at them.  She
+herself played there Athalie (assisted by actors and actresses) and other
+pieces several times a week.  Whole nights were passed in coteries,
+games, fetes, illuminations, fireworks, in a word, fancies and fripperies
+of every kind and every day.  She revelled in the joy of her new
+greatness--redoubled her follies; and the Duc du Maine, who always
+trembled before her, and who, moreover, feared that the slightest
+contradiction would entirely turn her brain, suffered all this, even
+piteously doing the honours as often as he could without ceasing in his
+conduct to the King.
+
+However great might be his joy, whatever the unimaginable greatness to
+which he had arrived, he was not tranquil.  Like those tyrants who have
+usurped by their crimes the sovereign power, and who fear as so many
+conspiring enemies all their fallen citizens they have enslaved--he felt
+as though seated under that sword that Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,
+suspended by a hair over his table, above the head of a man whom he
+placed there because he believed him happy, and in this manner wished to
+make him feel what passed unceasingly in himself.  M. du Maine, who
+willingly expressed in pleasantry the most serious things, frankly said
+to his familiars, that he was "like a louse between two fingernails" (the
+Princes of the blood and the peers), by which he could not fail to be
+cracked if he did not take care!  This reflection troubled the excess of
+his pleasure, and that of the greatness and the power to which so many
+artifices had elevated him.  He feared the Princes of the blood as soon
+as they should be of age to feel the infamy and the danger of the wound
+he had given them; he feared the Parliament, which even under his eyes
+had not been able to dissimulate its indignation at the violence he had
+committed against the most holy and the most inviolable laws; he even
+feared the Dukes so timid are injustice and tyranny!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX
+
+Let me return to Maisons.  Five days after the King's will had been
+walled up, in the manner I have described, he came to me and made a
+pathetic discourse upon the injustice done to M. le Duc d'Orleans by this
+testament, and did all he could to excite me by railing in good set terms
+against dispositions intended to add to the power and grandeur of the
+bastards.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Admit our ignorance, and not to give fictions and inventions
+Arranged his affairs that he died without money
+For penance: "we must make our servants fast"
+The argument of interest is the best of all with monks
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Memoirs of Louis XIV. and The Regency,
+v9, by the Duc de Saint-Simon
+
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