Mademoiselle at the Luxembourg—Her Salon—The "Anatomies" of the Heart—Projects of Marriage, and New Exile—Louis XIV. and the Libertines—Fragility of Fortune in Land—FÊtes Galantes.

WITH the approach of her thirty-fifth year, the Grande Mademoiselle perceived by diverse signs that she was no longer young. She was forced to recognise that her strength had its limitations, which fact had never before been forced upon her. On February 7, 1662, Louis XIV. danced for the first time a grand ballet entitled the "Amours of Hercules," and his cousin of Montpensier took part. She was ill from fatigue. Another kind of weariness overcame her; she became bored with fÊtes. She had been present at so many gala occasions since her entrance into the world, and had seen so many festivals and fireworks, garlands of flowers and allegorical chariots, that she was now quickly satiated.

The King still loved this kind of abundant pleasure; those which he offered to his Court sometimes lasted successive days and nights, without giving time to breathe, and all being expected to feel continued amusement. Mademoiselle was no longer capable of this. She was beginning to long for the repose of home. Her sick headaches contributed to this disability; age had increased them, and all women know that it is better to suffer a headache in solitude. After a lively struggle, she had returned to the palace of the Luxembourg and was lodging under the same roof as her stepmother. The old Madame would have gladly relinquished a neighbour whose presence presaged nothing good, but no one had sustained the contention as no one was in the least interested in her welfare. One reads in a fugitive leaf of the times issued on July 21, 1660: "This affair was deliberated upon in the Court, and it was found that Mademoiselle had the right to demand one of the apartments free, and that Madame could not refuse it." It is said that the King wrote to Madame in order to soften the blow; it was necessary to drain the bitter cup to the dregs, and at a time in which Madame had great need of tranquillity to install at her very door this tempestuous stepdaughter, with whom no peace was possible.

Madame had "vapours," otherwise called a nervous malady. She was afraid of noise, of movement, and of being forced to speak, and Mademoiselle insisted upon making "scenes." "I teased her often," says the Princess in her MÉmoires, "and very much despised her (in which I was wrong), and she always responded as one who feared me, and with much submission." The public did not consider it worth while to waste pity upon Madame, because she bored every one; a fault never pardoned. Anne of Austria, herself a very amiable woman, when not opposed, could never suffer her inoffensive sister-in-law. The Queen Mother said to Mademoiselle, who did not need this encouragement: "Her person, her temper, and her manners are odious to me." The public was fundamentally right in its antipathy. Madame was one of those people who render virtue hateful, and in thus doing are very injurious to humanity.

The Luxembourg was commodious and gay. Mademoiselle enjoyed it, and it pleased her to arrange for herself a grand existence as a Princess, rich and independent. Nothing could be more displeasing to the Court. As soon as Louis XIV. had assumed full power, he let it be seen that he wished no social centre in his kingdom other than his own palace. His cousin did not take this fact into account. This was not bravado. It was due to the impossibility of comprehending that "a person of her quality" could be reduced to the rÔle of satellite.

It is certain that nature had not prepared her for this rÔle. "I would rather pass my life in solitude," wrote she, "than restrain in any way my proud humour, even at the expense of my fortune. I have no complaisance, and I demand a great deal from others."[94] She also adds: "I do not willingly praise others and very rarely blame myself." With this avowed disposition, it would perhaps have been wiser not to go too often to the Louvre. It was a great imprudence to attract the crowd to herself as she had done at the time in which she was openly opposing the Tuileries.

The salon of Mademoiselle became the first in Paris, the most interesting and select. Since Paris had tasted the pleasures of clever conversation and discovered, under the direction of Mme. de Rambouillet, the genius of this delicate art, it could not do without it. The initiator was still living, but she was old and ill, and her circle had long been dispersed.[95]

Mlle. de ScudÉry had collected together as many of the remnants of her first salon as she could, and had thus laid the foundation for the famous Saturdays, at which wit and knowledge were dispensed in abundance. Nevertheless, it was not the same. The Saturdays of "Sapho" brought back the literary people to the pedantry from which Mme. de Rambouillet had more or less delivered them. They were left too much to themselves, and, thus isolated, they had lost a certain intellectual grace acquired by the friction between the aristocrats and the blue-stockings.

The mind as well as the body has its own manners, and they may be bad or good. In 1661, the Court alone had breeding. There existed no other society in which the first comer understood how to speak a language easy and galant, well adapted to plumed hats and elegant bows. These belonged to the traditions of the place. Such courtesies were lacking with the learned friends of Mlle. de ScudÉry, who no longer felt themselves spurred on by the fine gentlemen, so alert, capable of such light railleries, and detesting pedants.

The feminine society of the Saturdays had also too little intercourse with duchesses and marquises to replace the HÔtel Rambouillet. Mlle. Bocquet, who filled a large place in the chronicles of the Saturdays, was very amiable and played the lute "marvellously,"[96] but she belonged to the small bourgeoisie. Mlle. DuprÉ, another intimate, was an intelligent and educated girl, who had made a special study of philosophy. She quoted Descartes too often to have "the air galant" in conversation. As much could be said of others. Mlle. de ScudÉry herself, who had been received in the best company and who had formally combated the "Blue-stockingism" with admirable good sense, had not written thirty-two octavo volumes with impunity. There still remained a little ink on the end of her fingers. It seemed as if all the pedants of France held their classes in her house. Plays upon words filled the papers scattered about, upon which "Prosecutions" were held. The "Illustrious Sapho" had truly inspired MoliÈre when he wrote Les PrÉcieuses Ridicules; in vain, M. Cousin refuses to believe it.[97] I do not myself think that she escaped.

Mademoiselle rendered to the wits of the day the service of sending them back to the Court for lessons in language and manners. We are well informed of this, thanks to the fantasy of a Princess which produced a little literature upon the model offered by the Luxembourg.

In 1657, Mademoiselle, being at Champigny for the Richelieu lawsuit, the Princess of Tarente[98] and Mlle. de la TrÉmouille[99] showed her their literary portraits written by themselves.[100] These were imitations of those which Mlle. de ScudÉry, creator of the kind, gave in her romances,—the personalities to be divined with a key. "I had never before seen anything of the kind; I found them very galants, and wrote my own." After her own, she made others, and exacted them from those about her.

From this resulted a repertoire unique of its kind, in which noble personages, of both sexes and all ages, have been so obliging as not to leave us ignorant of themselves, from the state of their teeth to their opinions upon love, nor have they omitted to present similar details concerning their friends.

The collection of these Portraits[101] reveals to us how the aristocracy then viewed itself, or, at least, how it wished to be estimated by others. The ordinary beginning was to picture the face and bearing. The fashion was to do this with sincerity, which by no means indicates modesty. The famous Duchesse de ChÂtillon warned readers that she was going to speak with a naÏvetÉ "the greatest possible."

This is why [continues she] I can say that I have the most beautiful and best formed figure which has ever been seen. There is none so regular, so free, so easy. My bearing is entirely agreeable, and in all my actions I have an air infinitely spirituel. My face is a most perfect oval, according to all standards; my forehead is slightly elevated, which aids the regularity of the oval. My eyes are brown, very brilliant, and very deeply set; the gaze is very gentle and, at the same time, full of fire and spirit. I have a well-made nose, and as for the mouth, it is not only fine and well coloured, but infinitely agreeable, made so by a thousand little natural expressions not to be seen in any other mouths. My teeth are very beautiful and regular. I have a very small chin. I have not a very white skin. My hair is a clear chestnut, and very lustrous. My neck is more beautiful than ugly. As for my arms and hands, I am not proud of them; but the skin is very soft and smooth. It would be impossible to find a thigh better made than mine or a foot better turned.

The description of the physique was a rule of the Portraits, not even the religieuses believing that it should be dispensed with.

Among the Portraits is found one of an Abbess who visited Mademoiselle, the inspiring Marie-ÉlÉonore de Rohan, a person much esteemed on account of her mother, the famous Duchesse de Montbazon, but very disconcerting, notwithstanding, for our modern ideals of monastic life.

She divided herself between the cloister and the world, sufficiently edifying when it was needful, lively and brilliant the remainder of the time, and as natural in the one rÔle as in the other. The Abbess composed works of piety for her nuns,—among others La Morale de Salomon, many times re-edited, and the Paraphrases des sept Psaumes de la PÉnitence. The lady of society placed herself before her mirror and wrote without a shade of embarrassment: "I have some haughtiness in my physiognomy and some modesty. I have too large a nose, a mouth not disagreeable, lips suitable, and teeth neither beautiful nor ugly." This "nose too large" shocked the savant Huet. In reproducing the portrait of Mme. l'Abbesse, he wrote: "As the beauty of the nose is one to which I am very sensitive, permit, Madame, that I should begin with yours. It is large; it is white, slightly aquiline, and gives something spirituel to your smile."

Another phrase of Huet's gives us a vision of how these pseudo-religieuses, whose species was destined to disappear with the reform of convents, a not regrettable fact, accommodated the convent garb with coquetry: "One cannot imagine," pursued the future bishop, "more beautiful hair than yours; it is ash colour, blond, curls in a very agreeable manner, and admirably suits your face, as far as I have been able to judge, when it has escaped by chance, in spite of your care to conceal it."

After the body comes the temper, tastes, qualities, and defects of the mind. Here lies the lasting interest of the Portraits. It is valuable to know from first hand, through its own confidences, that this aristocratic society, from which the King exacted the complete sacrifice of its independence, hated nothing more than restraint, and did not hesitate to say so. Men and women, speaking for themselves, return constantly to this point, and always in the same terms: "I hate restraint. Restraint is insupportable to me." "I have an aversion for all that is called restraint." "I suffer oppression impatiently and I passionately love liberty."

From the point of view of absolute monarchy and the discipline which it wished to impose upon the Court, the French nobility had very bad habits. This nobility professed love of the chivalric virtues, and hatred of anything resembling baseness or disloyalty. In this, it was sincere, only we must admit that opinions are constantly changing even in relation to morals, and that to-day, we might have difficulty in agreeing with a gentleman of 1660 as to what is loyal or base and what is not. Honour commanded the gentleman to avenge offences against himself without too closely examining into the methods of so doing. Custom authorised him to be unjust and to act with bad faith towards the lowly, common, and feeble, in particular when money was owed. Honesty was a bourgeois virtue. Mademoiselle considered it unworthy that people of quality should abuse their authority to "ruin miserable creditors," but she was an exception.

The obligations of "honour" were extending to all conditions. Vatel was praised for having killed himself because the fish did not rise. "It was said," wrote Mme. de SÉvignÉ, "that this sort of honour was a strength."

It was not the same with another sentiment which filled the plays of Corneille and which is constantly referred to in all the writings of the time. General consent reserved for people of quality the privilege of having ideas of "Glory and of the 'Beautiful' or the True," which led, according to Huet's definition, to the desire for grand things. The desire for "true glory," which is carefully distinguished from what he called the "halo of glory," was the aristocratic sentiment "par excellence." Even among the authors of the Portraits, every one was not considered to possess the high capacity for strongly feeling this longing.

In spite of the prevailing licentiousness of the Court, there still remained in this brilliant society many pure women. At the same time, virtue was not particularly honoured. It was a matter of personal taste, the nobility only attaching a secondary and conventional importance to its practice. The women "pure," or those who were supposed so to be, received praise from friendly pens. The others were not looked at askance, except by the Jansenists and other sombre spirits.

The young Comtesse de Fiesque, with whom Mademoiselle had been embroiled at Saint-Fargeau, had a well-established reputation for gallantry. The anonymous author of her Portrait makes allusion to this, and hastens to add, "Truly this does her no harm." No harm at all! Mademoiselle did not think of it when Mme. de Fiesque came to demand pardon for her impertinences: "She threw herself on her knees before me; I raised her up and embraced her; she wept with joy. She is a worthy woman, only too easily led away, but good at heart."

Naturally men spoke very freely of women; it was like the crowing of cocks. An anonymous writer, who might have been the poet Racan,[102] represents himself as "very ugly, very stammering, and very disagreeable, very grumbling besides and untruthful," and goes on, "I am very bold with women and quite as successful as if I were good-looking and possessed the most agreeable qualities in the world to make myself well received. I have indeed found myself sometimes as you see me..." There is still greater contempt expressed for women in the following passage from the Portrait of La Rochefoucauld by himself: "Formerly I was a little galant; now not at all, although still youthful. I have renounced all flirtations. I am only astonished that there should still be so many worthy people who occupy themselves in culling these 'little flowers.'" Considering Mme. de Longueville, this statement is rather hard. I would remark in passing, that La Rochefoucauld was forty-five[103] at the moment in which he found himself somewhat "young to renounce flirtations." MoliÈre, however, was soon to make all Paris laugh at the expense of Arnolphe,[104] who indulged in love affairs at the age of forty-two. Shall we conclude that MoliÈre attempted to lessen the limit of the age of love, or was it only in the theatre that fashion exacted young lovers? I leave this question to the clever. It is not without importance in the history of sentiments.

The fashion of Portraits lasted but little more than two years with those who were its sponsors; as soon as the custom reached the bourgeoisie, the people of quality abandoned it. The very lively taste developed in the middle class, in their turn, for this diversion proved of real service to literature. The imitators of the "Galerie" learned, as previously the creators of the game had done, to know the "interior of people."[105] "The anatomies" of their own hearts, imperfect as they were, habituated them to discern the "qualities and temper of people,"[106] and thus a large public was prepared to comprehend the women of Racine.

Mademoiselle was one of the first to profit by the "soul studies" which she had brought into favour. There remains a little passage in a portion of her MÉmoires, written after 1660, which clearly indicates this. Progress is equally marked in a little romance with a key, entitled Histoire de la Princesse de Paphlagonie, which was composed and printed at Bordeaux in 1659, during the prolonged sojourn of the Court at that place.

This is not the only imaginative work for which this facile pen[107] is responsible, but it is the only one worthy of notice. The subject is without interest; Mademoiselle has incorporated in a literary tale the absurd quarrels of her household: "I made a little history which was finished in three days, by writing in the evening after returning from the Queen." In compensation, there are in the Princesse de Paphlagonie some sketches after nature, written with a firm and live touch, a novelty with Mademoiselle. A passage upon the blue room of Mme. de Rambouillet will prove a great aid in any attempt to reconstruct an elegant interior under Louis XIV., if the experiment should ever be made as has been suggested of playing the comedies of MoliÈre in the true "chamber" of Philaminte or of CÉlimÈne. Others have spoken of the rooms in which Mme. de Rambouillet received. The harmonious decoration and the scholarly disorder have been before described, yet no one but Mademoiselle has given us the intimate atmosphere of the sanctuary, with its measured and discreet light, its luxury of flowers, its objects of art, and its small but choice library betraying the tastes and the preferences of the divinity of the place. The description resembles more nearly the salon of an intelligent woman of the twentieth century than a suite of the ChÂteau of Versailles.

The guests of Mademoiselle profited also by the refinement of her tastes. She enforced one single rule in her salon: cards were banished. No one was exposed to the danger of being ruined, as was the case in the circle of the King, who encouraged heavy play. It did not displease Louis XIV. to be the Providence of the losers, this again being a method of keeping his nobles in hand. His cousin in no way shared in such considerations. She said: "I hate to play cards," and only played when it was impossible to avoid doing so. She did not at all like to lose. It was remarked that the Luxembourg had gained in gaiety with the exclusion of gambling games. "There is a hundred times as much laughter," relates the AbbÉ de Choisy,[108] at this date very young and a frequent guest at the palace of the Luxembourg, where he met numerous companions of his own age.

The three daughters of the old Madame, Mlles. d'OrlÉans, d'AlenÇon, and de Valois,[109] were always with their step-sister. They escaped from their deserted apartment to run towards the noise and movement; their life was too sad with Madame and her eternal "vapours." Relegated to their chambers as at Blois, with some childish companions, among whom was Louise de La ValliÈre,[110] still unknown, they lived in a state of distrust of their almost invisible mother, who never addressed a word to them except in scolding.

At least, with Mademoiselle one had the right to move. Young people had great freedom. Little games were organised. Parties of hide and seek and blind-man's-buff were enjoyed. "As I had violin players, it was easy to dance in any room sufficiently distant from Madame." The AbbÉ de Choisy adds a gracious detail: "There were violinists, but ordinarily they were silent and we danced to singing. It is so charming to dance to the sound of the voice." While the young moved gaily about, their elders had also their little games.

Everything yielded, however, to the unequalled pleasure of conversation. Among those who gave Éclat to the Luxembourg, the names of La Rochefoucauld, Segrais, Mme. de Lafayette, and Mme. de SÉvignÉ may be mentioned. Mademoiselle herself often led the conversation, beating the drums a little, her fashion in everything, but also with a certain spontaneity which she always displayed.

Conversation was, during more than a century, even to the time of the Revolution, to be the great delight of intelligent France, and this pleasure rendered incomparable service to the French language, which had rather deteriorated during the first periods of the seventeenth century. It was immediately perceived that the worst fault for a talker was to speak like a book, and the French owe to this simple observation the lesson which taught them to become the first in the world for vivacity and naturalness in the art of conversation. The habituÉs of the Luxembourg only regretted that the conversation did not oftener turn upon love. But, in this respect, Mademoiselle was not as complaisant as at Saint-Fargeau. We have seen that, in practice, she closed her eyes; this simplified life. For her own pleasure, she preferred other topics; this particular one became at length insupportable to her. "I am much criticised," says she in her Portrait, "because the verses I like the least, are those which are passionate, for I have not a tender soul." Besides, she had really nothing more to say upon the subject of love. She had just made her profession of faith in a correspondence with Mme. de Motteville, who, while awaiting something better, circulated a manuscript in which one reads, "Its conditions are shameful; it is robbery and unjust, without faith and without equity. It is an impiety; it mocks the holy sacrament. Marriage adjusts nothing: everything is given to man."

"Let us escape from slavery," cried Mademoiselle. "Let there be at least one corner of the globe in which one can say that women are their own mistresses." Every one has the right to despise love and marriage, provided only that one does not insist on applying this sentiment only to others. The youth of the Luxembourg knew too well that Mademoiselle sought with an increasing ardour that "slavery" against which in conversation or in writing she called her sex to revolt. Her intimate friends realised that she was inventing illusions, under the influence of a possible possession which induced a belief in their reality. She had believed in an eager tenderness on the part of the little Monsieur who had married some one else. After the restoration of the Stuarts (April, 1660), she imagined (the recital is fully given in her MÉmoires) that the King, Charles II., whom she had refused with disdain when he was only a poor pretender, had no other intention in remounting the throne than again to demand her hand, and that she would nobly respond: "I do not deserve this, having rejected your suit when you were in disgrace. The remembrance of this would always rest on our two hearts and would prevent true happiness." This fine response has been quoted a hundred times. Unfortunately, it is very clearly proved through the testimony of English documents[111] that Mademoiselle had no occasion to make it.

Advances, alas! had come from one side only and had been ill received. "I very much desire the marriage of Mademoiselle," wrote Lady Derby[112] to her sister-in-law, Mme. de la TrÉmouille, through whom passed the "insinuations," "but the King has a great aversion to it on account of the contempt which she has shown him. I have spoken of her to Marquis d'Ormond, but I have met with little encouragement." In another letter: "I have proposed Mademoiselle, but I have little hope. If the King looks for wealth, we can hardly expect greater than with Mademoiselle. But I fear that having been despised in his poverty, he may be little disposed to regard such a marriage." Charles II. would listen to nothing; he had guarded a grudge against his cousin. On the other hand, there is every appearance of truth when she states that the old Duc Charles III. de Lorraine,[113] had demanded her "on his knees" for a youth of eighteen, Prince Charles de Lorraine, his nephew, who became afterwards one of the most famous Austrian generals. It was a question, as can well be understood, of a political combination.

Unfortunately, Prince Charles himself had another project, better suited to his age. He was in love with the eldest daughter of Madame, Marguerite d'OrlÉans, who returned his affection with all her heart. The youthful society of the Luxembourg accuses Mademoiselle of having, through jealousy, caused this project to fail. "The affair had been advanced," relates that gossip, the AbbÉ de Choisy, "but the old Mademoiselle had talked and cackled so much that she spoiled everything." She was desperate at the thought of her younger sisters, beggars compared to herself, marrying under her very eyes. Marguerite d'OrlÉans made, out of spite, a marriage which turned out badly,[114] but through which Mademoiselle in no way profited. Owing to a singular change of desire, from the day on which it had depended upon herself to marry Prince Charles, she had only felt contempt for this little prince "sans forts."[115]

These caprices made the King impatient, who ended by making negotiations with Lorraine without any longer occupying himself with his cousin. Louis XIV. still retained the old monarchical principles in relation to the marriage of princesses. He regarded them simply from the point of view of politics; questions to be settled by governments and into which sentiments must not be permitted to intrude. The idea that every human being has a right to happiness did not belong to his times, and if it had been suggested, the King would have surely condemned it, for it insisted upon individual interests as opposed to those of the community, the rights of which appeared specially sacred to the people of the seventeenth century.

Louis XIV. did not believe for himself that he had the right to accept only the agreeable duties belonging to his "trade of king," since he had undertaken an existence devoted to strenuous labour, when it would have been so pleasant to do nothing. According to his principle, the higher the position of an individual, the more it was fitting that he should sacrifice his own desires to the public good. Mademoiselle had the honour of being his first cousin; he had firmly resolved to marry her, or not to marry her, to bestow her hand upon a hero or a monster, according as he should judge it useful to "the service of the King." There was a certain grandeur in this fashion of recognising relationship.

It had not occurred to the King that Mademoiselle would ever have the audacity to resist him. It can be said that any real understanding between the two was an impossibility. Mademoiselle had lived too long in the midst of the opposition to yield to the notion of absolute royal power without limitations and including all possible persons. Louis XIV. had a too profound faith in the doctrine of the divine right of kings to refuse for himself any of the prerogatives devolving upon him. Both these opinions represented Frenchmen at large; but for the moment Mademoiselle was being borne along by the ebbing tide, Louis XIV. by the rising one.

This Prince had entered the world at an opportune moment to profit by a doctrine which, according to a happy expression, seemed made for him as he for it. After the Reform, the enforcing the old theory of the divine origin of power had a beneficial result. The populace in many a country and province had found themselves as much interested as the sovereigns in suppressing the political power of the Pope outside of his own States, and resenting his interference in the affairs of other countries.

In France, in the sixteenth century, one meets with Calvinist theologians amongst the writers who claimed that princes received their power directly from God, and from God alone. The immediate consequence of this doctrine was to heighten the Éclat of royalty. Princes became images of divinity, and even something more; Louis XIV., not yet five, heard himself spoken of as the "Divinity made visible." Two years later, the Royal Catechism[116] explained to him that he was "Vice-Dieu." Twenty years later Louis XIV. was "Dieu," without any qualification, and Bossuet himself declared it from the pulpit. On April 2, 1662, preaching at the Louvre and speaking of the duties of kings, Bossuet cried: "O Gods of nations and of lands, you must die like mortals; nevertheless, until Death, you are Gods."

When a man hears such statements without shrinking, he is quite ready to accept all the consequences. "Kings," writes an anonymous person, "are absolute lords of all who breathe in any portion of their empire."[117]

Louis XIV. has very clearly formulated the same thought in his MÉmoires: "The one who has given kings to men has wished that they should be respected as his lieutenants, reserving for himself alone the right to examine their conduct. It is the divine wish that any one born a subject should obey without question."[118] It must be added that Louis had arrived at these conclusions under a pressure of public opinion, which had become impatiently desirous of giving to monarchy the strength needed to place the shattered land again in a condition of order.

On the death of Mazarin, France resembled a large establishment whose cupboards, confided to a negligent steward, had not during an entire generation been put in order. A flash of vivid hope passed through France on seeing its young monarch, vigorously aided by Colbert, put the broom to the mass of abuses and inequities which bore the name of administration, and show himself resolved, in spite of resistance, to introduce into the great public services order and moral cleanliness.

This was not finished without tears and grinding of teeth, not without some injustice also, as in the case of Foucquet, assuredly culpable, but paying for many others, of whom Mazarin was the first. But this cleansing was accomplished. First, the finances were attacked, with the happy result that people paid less and that the imposts returned more; then justice,—law reform was commenced in 1665, and the "grands jours" of Auvergne were opened the same year; the army,—the soldiers, paid regularly, committed fewer disorders, and the nobility learned, willingly or not, military obedience.

At the same time, industry and commerce increased to such an extent that, from 1668, orders flooded Paris "from the entire world" for a vast number of articles which ten years previous had been imported. The ambassador from Venice, Giustiniani, writes this statement to his government.

The strong will of the master had put the country in motion. Louis XIV. was confirmed in his high opinion of absolute monarchy. The same year in which Bossuet had encouraged him to believe himself above ordinary humanity, the King decided, with a perfectly equable conscience, to marry the Grande Mademoiselle to a veritable monster, in the interest of a political combination which he held at heart, for he returns to it several times in his MÉmoires. His father-in-law, Philippe IV., menaced the independence of Portugal.[119] Louis XIV. hesitated to assist Portugal openly, on account of the treaty of the PyrÉnÉes.[120] On the other hand, he considered double-dealing more honest to the Spaniards than their conduct might be to him if opportunity permitted. "I cannot doubt that they would have been the first to violate the treaty of the PyrÉnÉes on a thousand points, and I should believe myself failing in my duty to the State, if, through being more scrupulous, I should permit them freely to ruin Portugal, and to fall back upon me with their entire strength."

It seemed to him that he could conciliate all by aiding Portugal secretly, and Turenne had no repugnance to this course. This kind of action was then called, and is often still designated, sagacious statesmanship.

Such being the situation, Turenne came one afternoon to seek Mademoiselle in her cabinet. The account of this interview has been preserved for us by the Princess, and we can this time trust her accuracy. Her MÉmoires are in accord with contemporary witnesses. It was towards the end of the winter of 1662. Turenne seated himself at the corner of the fireplace and began with tender protestations. "As I am somewhat brusque, I at once demanded of him, 'What is the question?' He replied: 'I wish to marry you.' I interrupted him, saying: 'That is not easy; I am content with my condition.'

"'I will make you Queen. Listen to me. Let me tell you everything, and afterward you can speak. I wish to make you Queen of Portugal.' 'Fi!' cried I to myself, 'I do not wish it.' He went on: 'Maidens of your quality have no desires; they must act as the King wills.'"

The monarch whose mention makes Mademoiselle cry "Fi!" was called Alphonse VI., and was not yet twenty. At twenty-three, the AbbÉ de Saint-Romain,[121] our envoy to Portugal, reported that he could neither read nor write. In compensation, he pulled the ears and tore out the hair of those who approached him, and this was in his "good days"; in the bad ones, he struck, indifferently with his feet, hands, or sword, any one who vexed him. His subjects no longer dared to pass through the streets at night, because one of his diversions was to charge at them suddenly in the "darkness and to try to spit them."

In person, Alphonse VI. was a fat little barrel, paralysed in one limb, "gluttonous and dirty," almost always drunk, and vomiting after his meals. He wore six or seven coats one over the other, amongst which "a petticoat of three hundred taffetas, embroidered with pistol shots"; upon his head, a hood falling over his eyes, several caps over this, one of which covered the ears, and an "English bonnet" over all. "His body," pursues the AbbÉ, "smells horribly, and he has always bad ulcers in the softer portions ... and these offences could not be supported if he did not bathe once daily in winter, twice in other seasons." Fear obliged him to make "seventeen people always sleep in his chamber."

Turenne, however, forced himself to gild this rather bitter pill. He pointed out to Mademoiselle how useful it would be and for what reasons to have a French princess on the throne of Portugal. He promised her, knowing her special weakness, that she should be absolute mistress of the "great and powerful army"; that the King would give it entirely over to her by degrees. Without doubt, Alphonse VI. was a paralytic, "but," asserted Turenne, "this does not appear when he is dressed; he only slightly drags one leg, and is a little awkward with his arm. So much the better, if his intelligence also is a little slow. It is not known whether or not he has any wit; after all, it is only good form for husbands to be gay."

"But," replied Mademoiselle, "to be the link of a perpetual war between France and Spain seems to me a very undesirable position." The situation would be still worse if, as she was convinced would be the case, the two crowns should arrive at an accommodation.

"A truly beautiful future: to have a drunken and paralytic husband, whom the Spaniards would chase from his kingdom, and to return to France to demand alms, when all my wealth has been dissipated, and to remain only the queen of some little village. It is good to be Mademoiselle in France with five hundred thousand francs of income, and nothing to demand of the Court. Thus placed, it is foolish to move. If the Court becomes weariness, one can retire to one's chÂteau in the country, in which a little private court of one's own can be held. It is very diverting also to build new houses. Finally, as mistress of one's own wishes one is happy, for one does what one wills."

"But," returned Turenne, "remaining Mademoiselle, even admitting all that you have said, you are still subject to the King. He commands what he wills; when his wishes are refused, he scolds; a thousand disagreeable things are felt at Court; often the King goes farther, he chases people away. When they are content in one place, he sends them to another. He orders journeys from one end of the kingdom to the other. Sometimes, he imprisons recalcitrants in their own homes, or sends them into convents, and in the end, obedience must come. What can you reply to this?"

"That people of your station do not menace those of mine," cried Mademoiselle in anger; "that I know what I must do; that if the King says anything contrary, I will see what I shall respond to him."

She forbade Turenne to mention this affair again, and withdrew. "Five or six days later, he again addressed me." At this time, some common friends were present. Mademoiselle grew anxious. How far was Turenne the authorised messenger of the King? She wrote to the latter to provoke an explanation. No response. She confided her trouble to the Queen Mother, who confined herself to these words: "If the King wishes this, it is a terrible pity; he is master; as for me, I have nothing to say in the matter."

"I was in frightful haste," adds Mademoiselle, "that the time for the Baths of Forges should come, and that I might go away." The season arrived. It was needful to take leave of the King. She wished to have the Court plainly understand her intention: "'Sire, if your Majesty is thinking of my establishment, here is M. de BÉziers, who will go to Turin; he can negotiate my marriage with M. de Savoie.'—'I will think of you when it suits me, and marry you when it will be of service to me,' in a dry tone which much frightened me. After this, he saluted me very coldly, and I went away and I took my waters."

Mademoiselle had the imprudence both to talk and write. Bussy-Rabutin even pretends that "she had written a letter to the King of Spain, which was intercepted," suggesting a fÊte in his neighbourhood; but this is difficult to believe, however inconsiderate Mademoiselle sometimes was.

From Forges, Mademoiselle went to the ChÂteau d'Eu, which she had bought a short time before. It was at this place, October 15, 1662, that she received from the King commands to return to Saint-Fargeau, "until new orders." Upon the route she met letters from every one.

To be banished for having refused to marry Alphonse VI.,—the country was not yet ready for these consequences of the new rÉgime. It was soon known that Mademoiselle had ordered from Paris "needles, canvas, and silk," as if she expected to have on her hands plenty of spare time. But if affairs remained at this point, she was not paying too dearly for the pleasure of escaping being made Queen of Portugal. This was her own opinion, and she became very amiable.

The departure of Mademoiselle did not leave a large vacuum in the young Court; there was at the official ceremonies one princess the less, and this was all. For the new generation had passed with the King to the front ranks; the Grande Mademoiselle was now only the "old Mademoiselle," as AbbÉ de Choisy called her. The youthful loves and the pleasures belonging to twenty years had nothing to do with her, nor, what is more, with the Queen Mother, who had in old age become a preacher, and who now belonged to the "dÉvots" grouped under her protection.

MoliÈre by his impiety scandalised these pious people who considered it wicked for the King to have mistresses.

The question still waiting to be solved was, on which side the master would definitely range himself. For the moment, Louis XIV. leaned very strongly towards the friends of good-nature and of his joyous freedom. Would he be gained over by these? Would the logic of events and ideas lead him to shake off the trammel of religious practices, then that of belief, in the fashion of Hugues de Lionne, of the Bussy-Rabutins, of the Guiche, of the Roquelaure, of the Vardes, and a hundred other "Libertins," who only saw in the practices of religion a collection of silly tricks? The obtaining an answer to this query was really the important affair of the year 1662, a much more serious interest than any preoccupation in regard to the chronicle of the doings at the Luxembourg or at Saint-Fargeau.

The young Queen was anxious; she scented danger, but she knew only how to groan and weep, without comprehending that red eyes and a grumbling tone were not the best attractions for retaining a husband. She had not even the consolation of being pitied, having only made the one friend, Anne of Austria, who in default of something better, forced herself to preserve some illusions upon the melancholy of the little Queen's destiny.

It would have been hard to find a better creature than Marie-ThÉrÈse, fresh and round, who leapt with joy the day following her marriage, and related ingenuously to Mme. de Motteville her little romance. Marie-ThÉrÈse had always remembered that her mother,[122] who died when she was only six, had repeated that she desired to see her Queen of France; that this was the only possible happiness, or, if not attained, nothing remained but a convent. The little Princess had grown up with the thought of France. Louis XIV. had been the Prince Charmant of her infant dreams. When she knew that a French lord came "post haste" to demand her hand for his master, it seemed to her entirely natural. She had spied from a window the arrival of M. de Gramont.[123] He had passed by very quickly, followed by many other Frenchmen, decorated with gold and silver, and covered with feathers and ribbons of all colours. One might have said, "a parterre of flowers, bearing the royal demand," related the young Queen, becoming poetical for the first and last time in her life.

Once married, Marie-ThÉrÈse had demanded of her husband the promise that they should never be separated, either by day or night, if it possibly could be avoided. Louis XIV. promised and kept his word, but it was a useless precaution.

According to Mme. de Motteville and Mme. de Maintenon,[124] the Queen did not know how to conduct herself toward her husband. She was stupid in her manner of showing her devotion; if the King wanted her, she would refuse to sacrifice a prayer in order to be with him. She had also an "ill-directed" jealousy; if the King did not desire her company, she did not sufficiently distinguish, in her complaints, against those who wiled him away, between Mlle. de La ValliÈre and the Council of Ministers. Her ill temper was discouraging. If the King led her with him, she complained of everything; if he did not, there were floods of tears. If the dinner was not to her taste she sulked; if it pleased her, tormented herself: "Everything will be eaten, nothing will be left for me." "And the King jeered at her," added Mademoiselle, having the honour, through her birth, of being often found amongst those who "eat everything."

Marie-ThÉrÈse was good, generous, virtue itself, she had a violent passion for her husband, and with all this she was a person to be avoided. Mme. de Maintenon summed up the situation in saying that "the Queen knew how to love but not how to please; the reverse of the King, who possessed qualities for pleasing all, without being capable of a strong affection. All women except his own wife were agreeable to him."

Free-thinkers and debauchees did not have to consider Marie-ThÉrÈse; she had not a shadow of influence over her husband. For different reasons, neither Monsieur, the brother of the King, nor the wife of Monsieur were any obstacles. Much has been said of the seductive power of Mme. Henrietta of England[125]; of her irresistible grace, her delicate beauty, and her special charm. These characteristics, very rare with a great princess, had proved of great value during her youth of humiliating poverty, when she was reduced to living as a "private person." She had then met with "all celebrities, all civility, and all humanity, even upon ordinary conditions,[126] and nothing perhaps had contributed more to make her love men and adore women." Her faults were great, but they were not weighed against her, on account of that gift of pleasing which was in her and which circumstances had developed. Madame was a hidden evil influence, and an openly dangerous one. She could become the centre of low Court intrigues, without losing, or even risking, the loss of her empire over hearts. To this first good fortune was united that of having Bossuet to shelter her memory.

Henrietta of England has traversed "centuries protected by his [Bossuet's] funeral oration," as she passed through her life protected by the fascination with which nature endows certain women, by no means always the best ones.

Monsieur since our last encounter with him had not improved. He had, as might be said, publicly and without shame, established himself in vice, and in vice of the worst kind. Marriage had done nothing for him. "The miracle of inflaming the heart of this prince," discreetly explains Mme. de La Fayette, "was reserved for no woman belonging to the social world."[127] Delivered over to a crowd of very exacting favourites who never left him a moment free from domestic complications, Monsieur had, according to the expressive word of his mother, become indisputably an intriguer. Between Madame and himself, their court was a place of inconceivable agitation, a sink of lies and calumnies, of small perfidies, and little treasons, which make one sick, even when related by Mme. de La Fayette.

Truly, I hardly know whether or not in writing her Histoire de Madame Henriette this latter has rendered a service to her dear Princess. With the exception of the first pages, before the marriage, and of the beautiful death scene at the end, the rest is a tissue of nothings so contemptible in every respect that the book falls from one's hands: and this is all that the author of the Princesse de ClÈves has found to say about a person so prominent; of a sister-in-law to whom Louis XIV. confided political secrets and whom he loved almost too dearly.

Among all the personages belonging to the royal family, the Libertins had only to consider the Queen Mother, their declared enemy, and the King himself, as yet too reserved for it to be divined how he contemplated accommodating pleasure and religion. It had not taken long to perceive that he would not restrain himself in pleasure. He was married, June 9, 1660. A year later commenced the series of mistresses imposed upon the royal household and upon France, they and their children, in a fashion which recalls Oriental polygamy rather than the manners of the Occident. Louis XIV. had felt himself incapable of a virtuous life. One day, when his mother, profiting by the tenderness awakened by a reconciliation—they had not spoken for some time to each other—represented the scandal of his liaison with Mlle. de La ValliÈre, he responded cordially with tears of grief which proceeded from the bottom of his heart, where were still some remains of his former piety,—"that he knew his wrong; that he felt sometimes the pain and shame of it; that he had tried his best not to offend God and not to yield to his passions, but he was forced to confess that they were stronger than his reason, that he could not resist their violence, and that he no longer felt any desire so to do."[128]

This conversation took place in July, 1664. The following autumn, the King having found the Queen, his wife, in tears in her oratoire on account of a too-well founded jealousy, he gave her the hope of finding him at thirty "a good husband,"—a somewhat cynical suggestion.

He not only had "violent passions," but he had not discovered any reasons for restraining himself in regard to women. One reads in his MÉmoires, which were written for the dauphin to see, a passage worthy of Lord Chesterfield, in which he gives his son his ideas upon the subject of kings' mistresses.

The page referred to relates to the year 1667, in which commenced the war of the DÉvolution:[129]

Before departing for the army, I sent an edict to Parliament. I raised to a Duchy the territory of Vaujours in favour of Mlle. de La ValliÈre and recognised a daughter of mine by her. For, resolving in accompanying the army not to remain apart from possible perils, I thought it just to assure to the child the honour of her birth, and to give to her mother an establishment suitable to the affection which since her sixth year I had felt for her. I might have done well not to mention this attachment, the example of which is not good to follow; but having drawn much instruction from the failings of others, I have not wished to deprive you of the lessons you may learn from mine.

The first instruction to draw from his failings was that it was not needful to waste time on women; "that the time devoted to love should never be taken to the prejudice of other duties." The second consideration was that in abandoning the heart it was necessary to remain absolute master of one's mind: that the tenderness of a lover should be separated from the resolutions of a sovereign; that the fair one who gives pleasure should never be permitted to speak of affairs, or of those who serve us, and that the two portions of life should be kept entirely apart. "You will remember how I have warned you on various occasions of the harmful influence of favourites; that of a mistress is still more dangerous."

Louis XIV. insisted at length upon the mental weakness which makes women dangerous. He had studied them from an intimate point of view, and he judged "these animals" almost as did Arnolphe. "They are," said he to the Dauphin, "eloquent in their expressions, pressing in their prayers, obstinate in their sentiments. No secret can be safe with them. They always act with calculation, and consequently use 'cunning and artifice.' However much it may cost to a loving heart, a Prince cannot take too many 'precautions' with his mistresses. This is a duty imposed upon him by the throne itself."

Poor La ValliÈre, so disinterested, so little of an intriguer! What grief if she had read these cruel pages!

The counsels we have just read are very politic, very prudent; they have nothing to do with either morality or religion. The royal MÉmoires, in another part indeed, add that "the Prince should always be a perfect model of virtue," and also that it is a Christian duty to abstain from all illicit commerce, "which is almost never innocent."

As a matter of fact, Louis XIV. had not extracted much in regard to moral discipline from a cult of which he knew only the forms. During his infancy, his mother had reserved to herself his religious education. She had led him at an early age into the churches, where she passed a portion of each day, and she had communicated to him a little of her narrow and mechanical piety. Louis XIV. never understood any other kind. He knew his catechism but little better than his Latin grammar. This ignorance was, perhaps, aggravated by the fact of his realising the need of a knowledge of Latin in order to read diplomatic despatches, while he could see no use whatever in knowing the facts of religion.

He never changed in this respect; Mme. de Maintenon herself made vain efforts. The second Madame, La Palatine, did not succeed better. She wrote: "If he only believed that he should listen to his confessor and recite his Pater Noster, all would go well and his devotion would be perfect."[130]

Holding these ideas, the King was very vexed, deified as he was by a crowd of adulators, to meet among his subjects men sufficiently bold to blame his conduct and to frankly tell him so. Some prelates showed severity. It belonged to their profession to do so. But that courtiers, and even, as it was related, a simple bourgeois of Paris, should dare to address remonstrances to their sovereign,—this could not be tolerated,—especially as their reproaches excited his mother against him,—at the risk of an embroilment, which in fact occurred.

As good politics, if for no other reason, Louis XIV. was resolved not to permit any interference in his affairs. He felt somewhat vaguely that all these people were uniting to teach him a lesson. He suspected a considerable organised force behind this Cabale des DÉvots, who represented austerity at Court, and whom the Libertins of the Louvre ridiculed.

We know this organised force. We have seen it at work in a former chapter under the name of The Compagnie du Saint Sacrement, when it was engaged with Vincent de Paul in the great charitable undertakings of the century.[131] The malevolent nickname of Cabale des DÉvots had been given, towards the year 1658, by the many who abominated the society without knowing its true title or its organisation, simply because it disturbed the course of their own existence.

Since the date at which we last saw the organisation at work, the management had been offering the same mixture of good and evil.

Everything that it had done for the relief of the poor, the prisoners, the galley slaves, and other miserable beings, to protect them against abuse and tyranny, and to raise them morally, had been above all praise; as had also its efforts to assure a certain amount of decency in the streets, or to combat in the higher classes the two curses of the time, duels and gambling. As much cannot be said of the narrow and fanatical opinions which rendered it a persecutor and police agent, of its taste for spying or accusing, of its barbarity in regard to heretics and men of genius. It easily became dangerous and malignant, and it was difficult to find defence against this occult power which had "eyes and ears everywhere." Mazarin, whom it secretly tormented through anonymous letters, had sought and pursued it with eagerness, and during the last months of his life the society was forced to hide itself. After the death of the Cardinal, the Compagnie again put itself in motion, and it is evident that it had regained confidence, for with only the Queen Mother for its friend it dared to attack the King.

At this epoch, Anne of Austria is a very interesting person. The Compagnie du Saint Sacrement had become a political party since it tried to make sure of the King, and if it had succeeded, the history of the entire reign would have been altered. Delivered to its influence, the State would not have delayed until the Great Revolution to trouble its conscience about the duties towards the people at large.

The imprudence of the conduct of the society towards the King, and his indiscretions, gave the game to the Libertins. They did not despair, considering the discontent of the King, of attracting him to themselves, to their incredulity, their lack of docility towards religious belief, and in truth, without going to the point of regretting their final check, we can hardly be sorry that this "routine intelligence" should have received a slight shock.

The mind of Louis XIV., so remarkable for its justice and solidity, was the opposite of the modern mind in its total absence of curiosity and in the difficulty of changing its point of view. The King had need of skeptical reading. As he never read, the assaults of the Libertins rendered him the service of slightly moving his ideas; they deranged him in his habits of mechanical practices.

Olivier d'Ormesson, who was of the Compagnie du Saint Sacrement, wrote, after the Pentecost of 1664, "that the King had not performed his devotions at the fÊte, and that Monsieur having demanded if he intended to 'practice,' he had replied that he was no longer going to be a hypocrite like himself, who was confessing only to please the Queen Mother."[132]

The conscience of the King was passing through a crisis; every one felt this. In the presence of an event of such importance, the misfortunes of the Grande Mademoiselle, already but little in the thoughts of the rising generation, completely lost interest. Everything was forgotten.

During the first months of her exile, Mademoiselle was occupied in opposing the King. Louis XIV. had not abandoned the idea of marrying her to Alphonse VI., and Turenne was endeavouring to make her "reasonable," from which resulted an "interchange of letters" and of official visits which had the good side of breaking the monotony at Saint-Fargeau. This time, the life there was very dull. The old animation had not returned. Too proud to avow it, Mademoiselle expressed herself cheerfully in her letters. On November 9, 1662, she wrote to Bussy-Rabutin: "I believe that the sojourn which I shall make here will be longer than you desire. If I were not afraid of appearing too indifferent, I should say that I care but little. Perhaps this would be true; but it is not well to always speak the truth."[133]

Her MÉmoires are more sincere. She relates that at the end of five months, she wrote to the King that she should die if she remained longer; that it was an unhealthy place on account of the marshes by which the chÂteau was surrounded; that she "did not believe herself to have done anything which merited death, and such a death, ... and if he wished her to make a long penitence for the crimes which she had not committed, she supplicated him to permit her to go to Eu." Louis XIV. permitted Eu, but made Mademoiselle understand that he had not renounced the project of marriage with the King of Portugal, and that he hoped to lead her, through his kindness, "to the sentiments she should have." She did not delay to discuss the matter. "I departed at once and quitted Saint-Fargeau without regret." This was a final adieu.

Mademoiselle had just bought the ComtÉ d'Eu, under circumstances which show how the landed and manorial estates of the ancient rÉgime, which from a distance appear so solid, were in reality held by the most fragile tenure and at the mercy of any accident. The ComtÉ d'Eu was the property of the illustrious and powerful family of Guise. In 1654, the proprietor of the moment, Louis de Lorraine, duc de Joyeuse, was killed at the siege of Arras, leaving an only son of youthful age, Louis Joseph de Lorraine, Prince de Joinville. This child had for guardian his aunt, Mlle. de Guise, an intelligent and important person, the oracle of the family, says Saint-Simon. He had also two other guardians, one of whom, Claude de Bourdeville, Comte de Montresor, had secretly married Mlle. de Guise. These three guardians soon perceived that they were powerless to defend the interests confided to them. The ComtÉ d'Eu was burdened with two million francs of debt, a figure which would not have led to disaster if the Duc de Joyeuse had been there to make his rights respected and to reclaim his share of the monarchical manna; such as pensions, gratifications of the King, benefices, governments, Court charges. But he was dead, and the property of the minor had been put to the quarry, by the people of affairs on the one hand, and the Norman peasants on the other. Against these business sharks, the guardians were obliged, after years of struggle, to invoke the aid of Parliament. They addressed a petition[134] in which they stated that their ward, because he was a child "destitute of the powerful means" which his father would have possessed, had become the victim of usurers and rogues. The two million debt of the ComtÉ d'Eu had been largely bought up by artificial and suspicious creditors, with whom it was impossible to arrive at any settlement.

These fishers in troubled waters had brought the disorder to its height in practising seizures. The entire revenue was exhausted by expenses. The guardians besought Parliament to extricate them from this slough in ordering a replevin "of all the seizures and judgments, and in according that there should be a reprieve from all prosecutions and executions against them during two years." They hoped with this respite to arrive at a general liquidation.

Against the Norman peasants no one saw anything to do but quickly to outwit them through the sale of the ComtÉ d'Eu to a master capable of overawing them. The difficulty, under the conditions in France at that time, was to find a person of quality able to dispose of several millions.

Mademoiselle, who always had money, had at once been thought of. At first, she was too occupied in fighting her father, but the idea struck her favourably, and as soon as her hands were free she remembered the suggestion. The bargain was concluded in 1657. This affair did not suit the pettifoggers. There were so many opposing clauses, so many legal complications, so many lawsuits, and so many decrees needed in order to place Mademoiselle in power, and to make it possible for her to possess Eu in due form, that years rolled by, as the petition of the two guardians testifies, before the peasants of Eu were deranged in their work of moles. During the delay, they had continued to devour the substance of the princely orphan, aided it must be said by other Normans not peasants, who did not show themselves more scrupulous or less avaricious.

How both gentles and peasants acted can be exactly known through the Archives of Eu. At the time of the guardian petition, Mademoiselle had sent one of her men to take account of the state of affairs.

The report of the agent, completed by other business papers,[135] establishes that the ComtÉ of Eu drew more than half its revenue from its forest. This forest, which still exists, contains from ten to eleven thousand acres,[136] is eight to nine leagues long, and should have been formed of trees of all ages, if the inhabitants had not worked so industriously that it was difficult to find a "piece of timber." It was, at the date of which we are speaking, only underwood, and often only scrub bushes, on account of the cattle which "damaged it." The entire neigbourhood had contributed to this extraordinary destruction of a forest of eight leagues.

The inhabitants of twenty villages, several abbeys, gentlemen, priests, simple private people had come, under pretext of "ancient rights," to take the wood as if it belonged to them. The guards of the forest and their relatives and friends had likewise helped themselves. The officials of the domain had cut, wrongly or rightly, what the public had left, and to complete the ruin of the woods, every one had sent cows or pigs to run through the young bushes.

The agent of Mademoiselle concluded that it was absolutely needful to stop this pillage, or even "fifty thousand francs' worth of wood could never be secured annually." He pointed out other abuses; in the absence of a firm hand the nature of seignorial privilege rendered these inevitable. I have myself seen many tables of the revenues of the ComtÉ Eu in the seventeenth century. The frauds must have been easy and tempting, the collecting of imposts most costly. One notes a payment due at Christmas, in money and material, by inhabitants, possessors of any real estate, "house or hovel," field or garden:

"Francis Guignon of the village of Cyrel owes 40 sols 2 capons, on account of a house in the said Cyrel." "FranÇois de Buc ... owes 8 sols a third of a capon, on account of a house." "Guillaume Fumechon ... owes 43 sols and 2 capons on account of half an acre of land." "The heirs of Jean Dree owe 8 sols and the half of a capon." "Jean Rose 31 sols, 2 fowls and 11 eggs, on account of meadow lands." "The Sieur de Saint-Igny of Mesnil at Caux owes 4 francs 9 sols, 10 bushels of wheat and the same quantity of oats." "Alizon owes 3 sols, 6 deniers and one third of a capon." A cultivator owes "78 quarts of wheat, 15 bushels of oats and a fowl." Another "2 bushels 1 quart of oats and a quarter of a goose." Another "5 quarters of a goose,"

and so on through 350 folio pages.

The impost called "du travers" was enforced upon merchandise entering Eu by the gate of Picardy. So much was paid by chariot or loaded horse. Butchers paid for "every head of cattle, sow, or pig, one denier, for each white beast, an obole"; vendors of fish for each basket borne upon the arm, "2 deniers"; furriers for each skin, an obole.

Then comes the impost "upon the 'old clothes,' or 'dyed materials' for which is due for every bed sold in the city of Eu, new or old, 4 deniers; and for each robe, doublet, or pair of stockings, or any other article for the use of man or woman, when sold, 1 denier."

The linen merchant also owed one denier, upon pain of amend, for each cut sold. There was levied a tax upon the measuring of grain and the weighing of merchandise. The mills were the property of the Lord of Eu, and grinding was not permitted except for him. The agent of Mademoiselle recommended the enforcing of this, which had been neglected, with the result of diminished revenue.

The fishers of TrÉport paid 500 herrings at each drawing of the nets; outsiders who came to fish in the TrÉport, 100 herrings. All stray animals not reclaimed before one year belonged to the Lord of Eu, and all royal fish, like sturgeons, whales, porpoises, 8 "oues de mer," and other large fish.

This is not all, but it is sufficient to explain the rapidity with which the revenue of a seignorial property melted away when the master was not there to make the little world afraid, to solicit judges, in case of lawsuits, according to the usage, and to apply to the King in need, for an important person, having, according to the popular expression, "the long arm."

Both evil and possible remedy were known. The deplorable state in which affairs had been found had not at all disturbed the agent of Mademoiselle. Knowing his mistress, he did not doubt that she would get the better of the Normans, and he predicted success. "When everything is put in order," said he, "(as appears will easily be accomplished) the ComtÉ of Eu will be a profitable estate yielding a great revenue." The use of the word "easily" was a slight exaggeration. The ComtÉ of Eu was finally "adjudged" to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, by "decree" of the Parliament of Paris, August 20, 1660, for the sum of 2,550,000 francs. She undertook at once to save the remnants of the forest and found the population leagued against her to guard its prey.

At the end of six months, Mademoiselle felt that she was hardly strong enough for the task, and addressed herself to the King.[137] She explained to him that for the surveillance of her forest she had established a numerous guard which "cost much to support," but that the inhabitants had

formed the habit of entering boldly into the said forest and of committing all sorts of misdemeanours, boasting that they would continue so to do; that they had just killed with a gun shot in his stomach, one of her guards for having tried to prevent a theft of wood; that they were threatening others to have them appointed collectors of imposts, which would leave them no time to guard; that they taxed them as peasants, also with other impositions; that, in one word, the best was done to render the position of guard untenable.

Mademoiselle consequently begged the King that he would particularly forbid the inhabitants to carry arms or to have them in their homes, and, on the other hand, that he would permit her guards to be armed. She reclaimed for them also certain privileges which would enable them to punish delinquents. Louis XIV. accorded all, and it proved possible to stop the depredations. On the death of Mademoiselle, the forest of Eu was again filled with full-grown trees.

As to suppressing the "rights," it was useless to be first cousin to the King; this could not be accomplished. All that could be done was to prevent these rights multiplying and to limit as far as practicable their exactions. Between the possessors of these "rights" and the proprietor, there was a chronic state of hostility.

There still exist special "rights" in France; every one can for himself observe the inconvenience of the system. The only one of those interested who derived no profits from the game was the little Prince de Joinville, his creditors having continued their manoeuvres to avoid any settlement.

On March 27, 1661, the Parliament of Paris rendered a decree which obliged them to accept payment. Eight years had elapsed since the death of the Duc de Joyeuse. The budget of debts had reached the sum of two millions of francs.[138] When all was finally settled, instead of having a balance for their ward, the guardians found themselves in face of a deficit of more than 150,000 francs.

We have already seen how Gaston, in his position as chief of the House, had boldly pillaged the fortune of his minor daughter. In the present case, on the contrary, it was the loss of the father which had given opportunity for the spoliation of a child. Mazarin had left Gaston alone as a punishment to Mademoiselle for her conduct during the Fronde. Louis XIV. seems to have taken little interest in the offshoot of the turbulent and ambitious family of Guise. In both cases, the favourable or unfavourable attitude of royalty had decided the issue of an affair of money.

Mademoiselle took official possession of Eu on August 24, 1661. An entry such as she loved had been arranged, with procession, banners, Venetian lanterns, speeches, musket salutes, and the firing of cannon from all the artillery in the city[139]—one dozen pieces of cannon and forty boËtes upon the ramparts and eight cannon and forty boËtes upon the terrace of the chÂteau. Mademoiselle returned the following year, but only actually installed herself at Eu in 1663 after having obtained permission to leave Saint-Fargeau: "I am resolved to pass my winter here, without any chagrin at the thought." She watched her workmen, walked a great deal, and busied herself in the domestic offices. She also received visits: "There were many provincial people, reasonable enough; a number of persons of rank; but my heart was heavy. Comedians came to offer themselves; but I was in no humour for them. I began to be discouraged. I read; I worked; days were occupied in writing; all these things made the time pass insensibly."

This page of the MÉmoires permits a glimpse of a rather restricted life. A letter from Mademoiselle to Bussy-Rabutin confirms and accentuates the impression:

Eu, November 28, 1663.

Here is the single response to your letters. I claim that you should write four to my one, and I believe that this will be better for you; for what can one send from a desert like this, in which one sees no one all winter, the roads being impracticable for people from a distance, from Paris for instance, and the winds being so strong on the plains through which neighbours must pass that the north-west wind is feared by all as a furious beast.

The situation of the ChÂteau d'Eu is melancholy enough, the sea wind truly "ferocious" in the environs. The gazettes from Paris were filled with descriptions of fÊtes and visions of glory, which contrasted with the mediocrity of a provincial court. Mademoiselle had in vain decided not to be bored. She discovered that she, like the rest of France, had no life far from the King; there was nothing left but shadow.

In the memorable conversation in which Louis XIV. avowed to his mother that he was no longer master of his passions, Anne of Austria had warned him that he was "too intoxicated with his own grandeur."[140] She spoke truly; the infatuation had been rapid. The excuse for the King was the fact that the entire world shared in his self-admiration. It is not our plan to give any account of the internal government, or of diplomatic action, which relates to the early attempts of Louis XIV., so fruitful in great results and so glorious for himself. We limit ourselves to stating the fact. The superiority of France is manifested in the first contact with England and Spain, and was not less clearly felt on the other side of the Rhine. Louis, says a German historian, possessed an influence in the German Empire, at least in its western portions, equal if not superior to the authority of the Emperor.[141]

Strangers were almost always struck by the solicitude of his government for artisans and commercial people.

Without doubt, sentimental reasons did not count for much; when Colbert forbade the collectors of taxes to take the cattle from the labourers, he was simply applying in the name of the King the principles of a good business man who considers his debtor. But the benefit was no less great. From whatever point of view one looked, France gave to other nations the impression of a progressive people. It was recognised that she had taken the position of head of Europe. The country at large felt this. It very justly considered this upward flight due to the personal efforts of its young King, and was grateful for his enormous labour.

Louis well understood this. It was a "party cry" to insist on all occasions upon the trouble which he took in his "trade of King" and the great fatigues which he endured for the public good. The Gazette, as an official journal, never failed to emphasise this. Every event was coloured to this end.

Apropos of a trip of eight days, the journal wrote[142]: "This Prince, as indefatigable as Hercules in his labours," etc. It justified the royal ballets, which were most costly, by the excuse of the excessive brain work of the chief of state.

"On the eighth [January, 1663], the King, wearied with the pains with which His Majesty works so indefatigably for the welfare of his subjects, enjoyed in the palace of the Cardinal the diversion of a ballet of seven acts, called the Ballet des Arts."

Louis XIV. danced in the Ballet des Arts three times; Mlles. de ValliÈre, de SÉvignÉ, and de Mortemart had a lively success in it; the latter was on the eve of becoming Mme. de Montespan.[143] The accounts of the representations of the new ballet alternate in the Gazette with the funeral ceremonies in honour of a daughter of the King and Queen, who died at six weeks of age on December 30th.

Louis XIV. had wept over his loss with that superficial sensibility in which he resembles, strange as it seems, the philosophers of the seventeenth century. He could have given points to Diderot in regard to the facility of pouring out torrents of tears, and he often astonished the Court by his emotion. He deceived the Queen from morning till evening, and he cried to see her weep when he quitted her. He brought forth crocodile tears for the death of his father-in-law.[144] In a turn of the hand, again like Diderot, he forgot his existence, and lost on his account neither a step in the dance nor a galant rendezvous.

To the ballet succeeded other "relaxations," and it is curious to see the Gazette taking the pains to explain that the King had well earned a simple trip for pleasure (April 7, 1663): "This week the King, in order to gain some relief from the continual application for the establishing the felicity of his subjects, has enjoyed the diversion of a little journey to Saint-Germain-en-Laye and to Versailles."

The mundane chronicles[145] falling into line, Louis XIV. saw his "glory" as a great worker ascending into the clouds, together with his "glory" as a man of war, and in one word as "universal hero." He could not even exercise his musketeers without the Gazette's issuing an extra leaf upon the "admiration of all spectators."[146]

All France struck the same note. When he went to take possession of Dunkerque,[147] he passed before a plaster Olympus, fabricated for the occasion. "He witnessed Neptune, who respectfully lowered his trident; the spirits of the Earth and Sea prostrated before this mighty Prince"—that is to say, himself, and he permitted his official journal to regale the country with these follies; it was clear in his eyes that Neptune and his Court only did their duty. Every one was prepared to deify him, and he received this homage with pleasure. This atmosphere of worship was very harmful to a man born with much good sense and with many superior parts. The brilliancy of his Court, for which he was considered responsible, contributed also to the general dazzle.

The surging crowd of twenty years later did not yet exist, when the ChÂteau of Versailles was finished, and Louis XIV. held his nobility lodged under his own hand,[148] only moving from his side to make a campaign. The young Court was only numerous at intervals. It will shortly be seen how much it had increased in May, 1664. On the 27th of the following month, the Duc d'Enghien wrote from Fontainebleau: "There are almost no women here, and but few men. Never has the Court been so small."[149] On August 16th, also at Fontainebleau, the Queen Mother gave a ball; she had only sixteen ladies and as many men.[150] In October, the Court is at Paris, and the King gives a fÊte: "The ball was not fine," writes the grand CondÉ, "the greater number of the ladies being still in the country. In all Paris, only fourteen could be found."[151]

During these first years, the nobility was not yet encouraged to leave all, to come to live under the shadow of the throne. Those having provincial charges "obtained with difficulty leave of absence."[152] Those lacking money to appear with fitting magnificence had little aid to expect from royalty; the shower of gold did not begin to fall until later, and Louis XIV. even passed for being close-fisted.

"Besides his natural temperament," said CondÉ, "which is not given to lavishness, he is held back by M. Colbert, who is still less given to spending, particularly when he is not persuaded of the advantage of the affair for which money must be scattered."[153] It is well known that Colbert did not love waste; but he did know how to be liberal, even for expenses of luxury. No one was more convinced of the advantage of display for a sovereign, and he spared neither pains nor state pennies in making the grand festivals with which his master entertained the Court and city, unrivalled in Europe. And they were unparalleled, especially in the early years when tastes, like everything else, were young. Even the faults, by which perhaps the tastes were benefited, were youthful.

What is called impulse with the very young man takes the name of vice with the mature, and, whatever may be said, the one is much uglier than the other.

Louis XIV. was only twenty-three when he fell in love with Mlle. de La ValliÈre, and the festivities which he offered in her honour expressed this freshness. There were exquisite fairy scenes with the light decorations of flowers and leaves. The most famous, on account of MoliÈre's partial authorship, was called the Plaisirs de l'Ile enchantÉe, which was given at Versailles in May, 1664. It lasted three days, and was prolonged three days more, in spite of the great number of invitations and the difficulties occasioned by the immense crowd. The Court, says a "Relation,"[154] arrived the fifth of May, and the King entertained till the fourteenth six hundred guests, beside a quantity of people needed for the dance and comedy, and of artisans of all sorts from Paris, so numerous that it appeared a small army.

All now known of Versailles must be forgotten if we wish to picture it in 1664. Versailles was then a small village surrounded on three sides by fields and marshes.[155] The fourth side was occupied by a chÂteau which would have been spacious for a private person, but which meant little for a court; a few dependencies; the beginning of a garden planted by Le NÔtre. That was all.

Colbert considered Versailles already too large, as soon as Louis XIV. decided to offer anything more to his guests than the four walls of their chambers. It will be remembered[156] that when Mademoiselle came to Saint-Germain to visit the Queen Mother she brought her own furniture and cook. Not even food was provided. This was the general rule.

Louis XIV. aspired to great hospitality, and commenced his reform at Versailles. "What is very peculiar in this house," wrote Colbert in 1663, "is that his Majesty has desired all apartments given to guests to be furnished. He also orders every one to be fed and provided with all necessities, even to the wood and candles in the chambers, which has never been the custom in royal establishments."

Colbert was evidently in a bad humour. There were, however, but few apartments to offer in the ChÂteau of Versailles; the 600 guests soon perceived this fact themselves.

The journal of Olivier d'Ormesson contains on the date of May 13 the following lines: "This same day, Mme. de SÉvignÉ has related to us the diversions of Versailles, which have lasted from Wednesday till Sunday[157]: courses of bague, ballets, comedies, fireworks, and other beautiful inventions; but all the courtiers were enraged, for the King took no care of them, and Monsieurs de Guise and d'Elbeuf could hardly find a hole in which to shelter themselves." It is to be noted that the Duc de Guise must costume himself and all his lackeys.

The thÊme of the fÊte had been drawn from Roland furieux, and had been made to accord with up-to-date episodes, by a courtier expert in this kind of work, the Duc de Saint-Aignan. During three days and three nights, a volunteer company, composed of Louis XIV., MoliÈre, and the greatest nobles of France, with the prettiest actresses of Paris, embellished the imaginations of Ariosto, in the presence of two queens and of an immense Court which seemed, says the Gazette, to have "exhausted the Indies"[158] in order to cover itself with precious stones. Halls of verdure, arches of flowers, and the vault of heaven formed the frame in which deployed the mythological processions, the games of chivalry, the ballets, the festivities for the "little army," and the first two representations of MoliÈre, of which one was to be the striking literary event of the century. In the evening, lamps hung upon the trees were lighted and the fÊte continued during the night. Gentle and tender music softened this apotheosis of love, of which the heroine—and this gave an added charm—remained hidden in the crowd; Louise de La ValliÈre was still neither "recognised" nor duchess.

The first of the great days of the fÊte was open to all. The King of France and the flower of the nobility as Paladins of Charlemagne, clothed and armed "À la grecque," according to the seventeenth century ideas of local colour, took part in a tournament before a sumptuous assembly who, at the appearance of the master, uttered "cries of joy and admiration."[159]

Louis XIV. sought these exhibitions. He shone in them and attributed to them an importance which in his MÉmoires he explains to his son. He believed them very efficacious for binding together the affections of the people, above all those of high rank, and the sovereign. The populace have always loved spectacles, and for the nobility, the more closely the King keeps it at Court, the more pains he must take to show that there is no aversion between sovereign and subject, but simply a question of reason and duty. Nothing serves better for this than carrousels and other diversions of the same nature: "This society of pleasure, which gives to the courtiers an honest familiarity with us, touches and charms them more than can be told."

The partakers in the "Tournament" of 1664 had in reality been very proud of the honour done them. They appeared covered with gold, silver, and jewelry, escorted by pages and gentlemen gallantly equipped. After them, defiled allegorical chariots, personages of fable, and strange animals, MoliÈre as the god Pan, one of his comrades mounted upon an elephant, another upon a camel.

At the supper in the open air, which terminated the day, the royal table was served by the corps de ballet, who, dancing and whirling bore in the different dishes. The cavaliers of the tournament, with their helmets covered with feathers of various colours, and wearing the mantles of the course, stood erect behind the guests. Two hundred masks, bearing torches of white wax illumined this admirable living picture, worthy of the great poet who inspired it.

The next day was occupied in giving to the two hundred guests a lesson in natural philosophy, no longer symbolical and veiled, but clear and direct; it was perfectly comprehended and the spectators were convinced. The lesson was from MoliÈre, who had written his Princesse d'Elide[160] in the design well formed of "celebrating" and "justifying" the loves of the King and La ValliÈre. The RÉcit de l'Aurore will be recalled which opens the piece.