Memoirs of Madame la Marquise de Montespan Part 31

The fishermen of Choisy had just caught a salmon of enormous size, which they had been pursuing for four or five days; they had intended to offer it to Mademoiselle; the presence of the King inspired them with another design. They wove with great diligence a large and pretty basket of reeds, garnished it with foliage, young gra.s.s, and flowers, and came and presented to the King their salmon, all leaping in the basket.

The fisherman charged with the address only uttered a few words; they were quite evidently improvised, so that they gave more pleasure and effect than those of academicians, or persons of importance. The fisherman expressed himself thus:

"You have brought us good fortune, Sire, by your presence, as you bring fortune to your generals. You arrive on the Monday; on the Tuesday the town is taken. We come to offer to the greatest of kings the greatest salmon that can be caught."

The King desired this speech to be instantly transcribed; and, after having bountifully rewarded the sailors, his Majesty said to Mademoiselle:

"This man was born to be a wit; if he were younger, I would place him in a college. There is wit at Choisy in every rank of life."

CHAPTER VI.

Departure of the King.--Ghent Reduced in Five Days.--Taking of Ypres.--Peace Signed.--The Prince of Orange Is at Pains Not to Know of It.--Horrible Cruelties.

I have related in what manner Charles II., suddenly p.r.o.nouncing in favour of his nephew, the Prince of Orange, had signed a league with his old enemies, the Dutch, in order to counteract the success of the King of France and compel him to sign a humiliating and entirely inadmissible peace.

The King left Versailles suddenly on the 4th of February, 1678, taking, with his whole Court, the road to Lorraine, while waiting for the troops which had wintered on the frontiers, and were investing at once Luxembourg, Charlemont, Namur, Mons, and Ypres, five of the strongest and best provisioned places in the Low Countries. By this march and manoeuvre, he wished to hoodwink the allied generals, who were very far from imagining that Ghent was the point towards which the Conqueror's intentions were directed.

In effect, hardly had the King seen them occupied in preparing the defence of the above named places, when, leaving the Queen and the ladies in the agreeable town of Metz, he rapidly traversed sixty leagues of country, and laid siege to the town of Ghent, which was scarcely expecting him.

The Spanish governor, Don Francisco de Pardo, having but a weak garrison and little artillery, decided upon releasing the waters and inundating the country; but certain heights remained which could not be covered, and from here the French artillery started to storm the ramparts and the fort.

The siege was commenced on the 4th of March; upon the 9th the town opened its gates, and two days later the citadel. Ypres was carried at the end of a week, in spite of the most obstinate resistance. Our grenadiers performed prodigies, and lost all their officers, without exception. I lost there one of my nephews, the one hope of his family; my compliments to the King, therefore, were soon made.

He went to Versailles to take back the Queen, and returned to Ghent with the speed and prompt.i.tude of lightning. The same evening he sent an order to a detachment of the garrison of Maestricht to hasten and seize the town and citadel of Leuwe, in Brabant, which was executed on the instant. It was then that the Dutch sent their deputation, charged to plead for a suspension of hostilities for six weeks. The King granted it, although these blunderers hardly merited it. They undertook that Spain should join them in the peace, and finally, after some difficulties, settled more or less rightly, the treaty was signed on the 10th of August, just as the six weeks were about to expire.

The Prince of Orange, naturally bellicose, and, above all things, pa.s.sionately hostile to France, pretended to ignore the existence of this peace, which he disapproved. The Marechal de Luxembourg, informed of the treaty, gave himself up to the security of the moment; he was actually at table with his numerous officers when he was warned that the Prince of Orange was advancing against him. The alarm was quickly sounded; such troops and cavalry as could be were a.s.sembled, and a terrible action ensued.

At first we were repulsed, but soon the Marshal rallied his men; he excited their indignation by exposing to them the atrocity of M.

d'Orange, and after a terrible ma.s.sacre, in which two thousand English bit the dust, the Marechal de Luxembourg remained master of the field.

He was victorious, but in this unfortunate action we lost, ourselves, the entire regiment of guards, that of Feuquieres, and several others besides, with an incredible quant.i.ty of officers, killed or wounded.

The name of the Prince of Orange, since that day, was held in horror in both armies, and he would have fallen into disgrace with the States General themselves had it not been for the protection of the King of England, to whom the Dutch were greatly bound.

On the following day, this monster sent a parliamentary officer to the French generals to inform them that during the night official news of the peace had reached him.

CHAPTER VII.

Mission of Madame de Maintenon to Choisy.--Mademoiselle Gives the Princ.i.p.alities of Eu and Dombes in Exchange for M. de Lauzun.--He Is Set at Liberty.

The four or five words which had escaped Mademoiselle de Montpensier had remained in the King's recollection. He said to me: "If you had more patience, and a sweeter and more pliant temper, I would employ you to go and have a little talk with Mademoiselle, in order to induce her to explain what intentions she may have relative to my son."

"I admit, Sire," I answered him, "that I am not the person required for affairs of that sort. Your cousin is proud and cutting; I would not endure what she has made others endure. I cannot accept such a commission. But Madame de Maintenon, who is gentleness itself, is suitable--no one more so for this mission; she is at once insinuating and respectful; she is attached to the Duc du Maine. The interests of my son could not be in better hands."

The King agreed with me, and both he and I begged the Marquise to conduct M. du Maine to Choisy.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier received him with rapture. He thanked her for what she had done for him, in granting him her colours, and upon that Mademoiselle asked his permission to embrace him, and to tell him how amiable and worthy of belonging to the King she found him. She led him to the hall, in which he was to be seen represented as a colonel-general of Swiss.

"I have always loved the Swiss," she said, "because of their great bravery, their fidelity, and their excellent discipline. The Marechal de Ba.s.sompierre made his corps the perfection which it is; it is for you, my cousin, to maintain it."

She pa.s.sed into another apartment, where she was to be seen represented as Bellona. Two Loves were presenting her, one with his helm adorned with martial plumes, the other with his buckler of gold, with the Orleans-Montpensier arms. The laurel crown, with which Triumphs were ornamenting her head, and the scaled cuira.s.s of Pallas completed her decoration. M. le Duc du Maine praised, without affectation, the intelligence of the artist; and as for the figure and the likeness, he said to the Princess: "You are good, but you are better." The calm and the naivety of this compliment made Mademoiselle shed tears. Her emotion was visible; she embraced my son anew.

"You have brought him up perfectly," she said to Madame de Maintenon.

"His urbanity is of good origin; that is how a king's son ought to act and speak:

"His Majesty," said Madame de Maintenon, "has been enchanted with your country-house; he spoke of it all the evening. He even added that you had ordered it all yourself, without an architect, and that M. le Notre would not have done better."

"M. le Notre," replied the Princess, "came here for a little; he wanted to cut and destroy, and upset and disarrange, as with the King at Versailles. But I am of a different mould to my cousin; I am not to be surprised with big words. I saw that Le Notre thought only of expenditure and tyranny; I thanked him for his good intentions, and prayed him not to put himself out for me. I found there thickets already made, of an indescribable charm; he wanted, on the instant, to clear them away, so that one could testify that all this new park was his. If you please, madame, tell his Majesty that M. le Notre is the sworn enemy of Nature; that he sees only the pleasures of proprietors.h.i.+p in the future, and promises us cover and shade just at that epoch of our life when we shall only ask for suns.h.i.+ne in which to warm ourselves."

She next led her guests towards the large apartments. When she had come to her bedroom, she showed the Marquise the mysterious portrait, and asked if she recognised it.

"Ah, my G.o.d! 'tis himself!" said Madame de Maintenon at once. "He sees, he breathes, he regards us; one might believe one heard him speak. Why do you give yourself this torture?" continued the amba.s.sadress. "The continual presence of an unhappy and beloved being feeds your grief, and this grief insensibly undermines you. In your place, Princess, I should put him elsewhere until a happier and more favourable hour."

"That hour will never come," cried Mademoiselle.

"Pardon me," resumed Madame de Maintenon; "the King is never inhuman and inexorable; you should know that better than any one. He punishes only against the protests of his heart, and, as soon as he can relent without impropriety or danger, he pardons. M. de Lauzun, by refusing haughtily the marshal's baton, which was offered him in despite of his youth, deeply offended the King, and the disturbance he allowed himself to make at Madame de Montespan's depicted him as a dangerous and wrong-headed man. Those are his sins. Rest a.s.sured, Princess, that I am well informed. But as I know, at the same time, that the King was much attached to him,--and is still so, to some extent, and that a captivity of ten years is a rough school, I have the a.s.surance that your Highness will not be thought importunate if you make today some slight attempt towards a clemency."

"I will do everything they like," Mademoiselle de Montpensier said then; "but shall I have any one near his Majesty to a.s.sist and support my undertaking? I have no more trust in Madame de Montespan; she has betrayed us, she will betray us again; the offence of M. de Lauzun is always present in her memory, and she is a lady who does not easily forgive. As for you, madame, I know that the King considers you for the invaluable services of the education given to his children. Deign to speak and act in favour of my unhappy husband, and I will make you a present of one of my fine t.i.tled territories."

Madame de Maintenon was too acute to accept anything in such a case; she answered the Princess that her generosities, to please the King, should be offered to M. le Duc du Maine, and that, by a.s.suring a part of her succession to that young prince, she had a sure method of moving the monarch, and of turning his paternal grat.i.tude to the most favourable concessions. The Princess, enchanted, then said to the negotiatrix:

"Be good enough to inform his Majesty, this evening, that I offer to give, at once, to his dear and amiable child the County of Eu and my Sovereignty of Dombes, adding the revenues to them if it is necessary."

Madame de Maintenon, who wors.h.i.+ps her pupil, kissed the hand of Mademoiselle, and promised to return and see her immediately.

That very evening she gave an account to the King of her emba.s.sy; she solicited the liberty of the Marquis de Lauzun, and the King commenced by granting "the authorisation of mineral waters."

Meanwhile, Mademoiselle, presented by Madame de Maintenon, went to take counsel with the King. She made a formal donation of the two princ.i.p.alities which I have named. His Majesty, out of courtesy, left her the revenues, and, in fine, she was permitted to marry her M. de Lauzun, and to a.s.sure him, by contract, fifty thousand livres of income.

CHAPTER VIII.

M. de Brisacier and King Casimir.--One Is Never so Well Praised as by Oneself.--He Is Sent to Get Himself Made a Duke Elsewhere.

The Abbe de Brisacier, the famous director of consciences, possessed enough friends and credit to advance young Brisacier, his nephew, to the Queen's household, to whom he had been made private secretary. Slanderers or impostors had persuaded this young c.o.xcomb that Casimir, the King of Poland, whilst dwelling in Paris in the quality of a simple gentleman, had shown himself most a.s.siduous to Madame Brisacier, and that he, Brisacier of France, was born of these a.s.siduities of the Polish prince.

When he saw the Comte Casimir raised to the elective throne of Poland, he considered himself as the issue of royal blood, and it seemed to him that his position with the Queen, Maria Theresa, was a great injustice of fortune; he thought, nevertheless, that he ought to remain some time longer in this post of inferiority, in order to use it as a ladder of ascent.