Memoirs of Madame la Marquise de Montespan Part 3

The motive for this was some trifling tax which he had ordered to be collected before this had been ratified by the magistrates and registered in the usual way.

But the Queen knew how to win over the n.o.bles. Her cardinal was recalled, and the apathy of the Parisians put an end to these dissensions, from which, one must admit, the people and the bourgeoisie got all the ills and the n.o.bility all the profits.

As comptroller of the list of benefices, M. le Cardinal allotted the wealthiest abbeys of the realm to himself.

Having made himself an absolute master of finance, like M. Fouquet, he ama.s.sed great wealth. He built a magnificent palace in Rome, and an equally brilliant one in Paris, conferring upon himself the wealthy governors.h.i.+ps of various towns or provinces. He had a guard of honour attached to his person, and a captain of the guard in attendance, just as Richelieu had.

He married one of his nieces to the Prince of Mantua, another to the Prince de Conti, a third to the Comte de Soissons, a fourth to the Constable Colonna (an Italian prince), a fifth to the Duc de Mercoeur (a blood relation of Henri IV.), and a sixth to the Duc de Bouillon. As to Hortense, the youngest, loveliest of them all,--Hortense, the beauteous-eyed, his charming favourite,--he appointed her his sole heiress, and having given her jewelry and innumerable other presents, he married her to the agreeable Duc de la Meilleraye, son of the marshal of that name.

Society was much astonished when it came out that M. le Cardinal had disinherited his own nephew, a man of merit, handing over his name, his fortune, and his arms to a stranger.

[De Mancini, Duc de Nevers, a relative of the last Duc de Nivernois. He married, soon after, Madame de Montespan's niece.--Editor's Note]

This was an error; in taking the name and arms of Mazarin, young De la Meilleraye was giving up those which he ought to have given up, and a.s.suming those which it behove him to a.s.sume.

Nor did he retain the great possessions of the La Meilleraye family.

Herein, certainly, he did not consult his devotion; since the secret and fatherly avowal of M. le Cardinal he had no right whatever to the estates of this family.

Beneath the waving folds of his large scarlet robe, the Cardinal showed such ease and certainty of address, that he never put one in mind of a cardinal and a bishop. To such manners, however, one was accustomed; in a leading statesman they were not unpleasant.

He often gave magnificent b.a.l.l.s, at which he displayed all the accomplishments of his nieces and the sumptuous splendour of his furniture. At such entertainments, always followed by a grand banquet, he was wont to show a liberality worthy of crowned heads. One day, after the feast, he announced that a lottery would be held in his palace.

Accordingly, all the guests repaired to his superb gallery, which had just been brilliantly decorated with paintings by Romanelli, and here, spread out upon countless tables, we saw pieces of rare porcelain, scent-bottles of foreign make, watches of every size and shape, chains of pearls or of coral, diamond buckles and rings, gold boxes adorned by portraits set in pearls or in emeralds, fans of matchless elegance,--in a word, all the rarest and most costly things that luxury and fas.h.i.+on could invent.

The Queens distributed the tickets with every appearance of honesty and good faith. But I had reason to remark, by what happened to myself, that the tickets had been registered beforehand. The young Queen, who felt her garter slipping off, came to me in order to tighten it. She handed me her ticket to hold for a moment, and when she had fastened her garter, I gave her back my ticket instead of her own. When the Cardinal from his dais read out the numbers in succession, my number won a portrait of the King set in brilliants, much to the surprise of the Queen-mother and his Eminence; they could not get over it.

To me this lottery of the Rue Neuve-des-Pet.i.ts-Changes

[The gallery to which the Marquise alludes is to-day called the Ma.n.u.script Gallery. It belongs to the Royal Library in the Rue de Richelieu. Mazarin's house is now the Treasury.]

I brought good luck, and we often talked about it afterwards with the King, regarding it as a sort of prediction or horoscope.

CHAPTER IX.

Marriage of Monsieur, the King's Brother.--His Hope of Mounting a Throne.--His High-heeled Shoes.--His Dead Child.--Saint Denis.

Monsieur would seem to have been created in order to set off his brother, the King, and to give him the advantage of such relief. He is small in stature and in character, being ceaselessly busied about trifles, details, nothings. To his toilet and his mirror, he devotes far more time than a pretty woman; he covers himself with scents, with laces, with diamonds.

He is pa.s.sionately fond of fetes, large a.s.semblies, and spectacular displays. It was in order to figure as the hero of some such entertainment that he suddenly resolved to get married.

Mademoiselle--the Grande Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselle de Saint-Fargeau, Mademoiselle de la Roche-sur-Yon, Mademoiselle d'Orleans--had come into the world twelve or thirteen years before he had, and they could not abide each other. Despite such trifling differences, however, he proposed marriage to her. The princess, than whom no one more determined exists, answered, "You ought to have some respect for me; I refused two crowned husbands the very day you were born."

So the Prince begged the Queen of England to give him her charming daughter Henrietta, who, having come to France during her unfortunate father's captivity, had been educated in Paris.

The Princess possessed an admirable admixture of grace and beauty, wit being allied to great affability and good-nature; to all these natural gifts she added a capacity and intelligence such as one might desire sovereigns to possess. Her coquetry was mere amiability; of that I am convinced. Being naturally vain, the Prince, her husband, made great use at first of his consort's royal coat-of-arms. It was displayed on his equipages and stamped all over his furniture.

"Do you know, madame," quoth he gallantly, one day, "what made me absolutely desire to marry you? It was because you are a daughter and a sister of the Kings of England. In your country women succeed to the throne, and if Charles the Second and my cousin York were to die without children (which is very likely), you would be Queen and I should be King."

"Oh, Sire, how wrong of you to imagine such a thing!" replied his wife; "it brings tears to my eyes. I love my brothers more than I do myself. I trust that they may have issue, as they desire, and that I may not have to go back and live with those cruel English who slew my father-in-law."

The Prince sought to persuade her that a sceptre and a crown are always nice things to have. "Yes," replied Henrietta slyly, "but one must know how to wear them."

Soon after this, he again talked of his expectations, saying every minute, "If ever I am King, I shall do so; if ever I am King, I shall order this; if ever I am King," etc., etc.

"Let us hope, my good friend," replied the Princess, "that you won't be King in England, where your gewgaws would make people call out after you; nor yet in France, where they would think you too little, after the King."

At this last snub, Monsieur was much mortified. The very next day he summoned his old bootmaker, Lambertin, and ordered him to put extra heels two inches high to his shoes. Madame having told this piece of childish folly to the King, he was greatly amused, and with a view to perplex his brother, he had his own shoe-heels heightened, so that, beside his Majesty, Monsieur still looked quite a little man.

The Princess gave premature birth to a child that was scarcely recognisable; it had been dead in its mother's womb for at least ten days, so the doctors averred. Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans, however, insisted upon having this species of monstrosity baptised.

My sister, De Thianges, who is raillery personified, seeing how embarra.s.sed was the cure of Saint Cloud by the Prince's repeated requests for baptism, gravely said to the cleric in an irresistibly comic fas.h.i.+on, "Do you know, sir, that your refusal is contrary to all good sense and good breeding, and that to infants of such quality baptism is never denied?"

When this species of miscarriage had to be buried, as there was urgent need to get rid of it, Monsieur uttered loud cries, and said that he had written to his brother so that there might be a grand funeral service at Saint Denis.

Of so absurd a proposal as this no notice was taken, which served to amaze Monsieur for one whole month.

CHAPTER X.

M. Colbert.--His Origin.--He Unveils and Displays Mazarin's Wealth.--The Monarch's Liberality.--Resentment of the Cardinal's Heirs.

A few moments before he died, Cardinal Mazarin, through strategy, not through repentance, besought the King to accept a deed of gift whereby he was appointed his universal legatee. Touched by so n.o.ble a resolve, the King gave back the deed to his Eminence, who shed tears of emotion.

"Sire, I owe all to you," said the dying man to the young prince, "but I believe that I shall pay off my debt by giving Colbert, my secretary, to your Majesty. Faithful as he has been to me, so will he be to you; and while he keeps watch, you may sleep. He comes from the n.o.ble family of Coodber, of Scottish origin, and his sentiments are worthy of his ancestors."

A few moments later the death-agony began, and M. Colbert begged the King to listen to him in an embrasure. There, taking a pencil, he made out a list of all the millions which the Cardinal had hidden away in various places. The monarch bewailed his minister, his tutor, his friend, but so astounding a revelation dried his tears. He affectionately thanked M.

Colbert, and from that day forward gave him his entire consideration and esteem.

M. Colbert was diligent enough to seize upon the millions hidden at Vincennes, the millions secreted in the old Louvre, at Courbevoie and the other country seats. But the millions in gold, hidden in the bastions of La Fere, fell into the hands of heirs, who, a few moments after the commencement of the Cardinal's death-agony, sent off a valet post-haste.

The Cardinal's family pretended to know nothing of this affair; but they could never bear M. Colbert nor any of his kinsfolk. The King, being of a generous nature, distributed all this wealth in the best and most liberal manner possible. M. Colbert told him to what use Mazarin meant to put all these riches; he hoped to have prevailed upon the Conclave to elect him Pope, with the concurrence of Spain, France, and the Holy Ghost.

CHAPTER XI.

The Young Queen.--Her Portrait.--Her Whims.--Her Love for the King.--Her Chagrin.

MARIA THERESA, the King's new consort, was the daughter of the King of Spain and Elizabeth of France, daughter of Henri IV. At the time of her marriage she had lost her mother, and it was King Philip, Anne of Austria's brother, who himself presented her to us at Saint Jean de Luz, where he signed the peace-contract. The Spanish monarch admired his nephew, the King, whose stalwart figure, comely face, and polished manners, were, indeed, well calculated to excite surprise.