Chapter V: Introduction: By C.-A. Sainte-Beuve (4)

Three or four years before Monsieur's death I had, to please him, been reconciled with the Chevalier de Lorraine; after which he did me no more harm. The chevalier died so poor that his friends had to pay for his burial. He had, however, an income of three hundred thousand crowns; but he was a bad manager, and his people robbed him. As long as they gave him a thousand pistoles for his gambling and debauchery he let them dissipate and pillage his property as they chose. La Grançay contrived to get a great deal of money out of him. He came to a dreadful end. He was sitting with Mme. de Maré, sister of Mme. de Grançay, and was telling her how he had passed the night in debauchery, relating the utmost horrors, when he was struck with apoplexy, lost his speech at once, and never recovered consciousness.

If I could have given my blood to prevent the marriage of my son I would have done it; but after the thing was done I consulted only concord. Monsieur felt much attachment to his daughter-in-law during the first months, but after he imagined that she looked with too favourable an eye on the Chevalier de Roye [Marquis de la Rochefoucauld] he hated her like the devil. To prevent him from bursting out I was obliged to represent to him daily with all my strength that he would dishonour himself, and his son too, by making a scene, which would lead to nothing but unhappiness with the king. As no one had wished for that marriage less than I, my advice was not suspicious; it was plain I spoke, not from attachment to my daughter-in-law, but for the purpose of avoiding scandal and from love of my son and his family. So long as an outburst could be prevented the thing was at least doubtful to the eyes of the public; an opposite behaviour would have given proof that it was true.

I am now satisfied with Mme. d'Orléans; she shows me great respect, and I, too, do my best to please her in everything, and I live with her now as politely as possible. She never could resolve to dine with the king, her father, therefore she cannot take that pains for me. She is always lying down when she eats, with a little table and her favourite, the Duchesse Sforza, beside her. At mid-day my son is always with her.

PARIS, 1716.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that the dauphin [the Duc de Bourgogne] was in love with the dauphine. She had much intelligence and was very agreeable when she chose to be. Her husband was devout and rather melancholy in temperament, while she was always gay; that served to animate him and disperse his gloom; and as he had a strong liking for women (humpbacked persons always have), but was so pious that he thought he committed a sin by looking at any other woman than his wife, it is very simple that he was much in love with her. I have seen him squint to make himself ugly when a lady told him he had fine eyes; though it was not necessary, for the good soul was ugly enough without endeavouring to make himself more so. He had a shocking mouth, a sickly skin, was very short, humpbacked, and deformed. His wife lived very well with him, but she did not love him; she saw him as others did; and yet I think she was touched by the passion he had for her; it is certain that no greater attachment could be than that of the dauphin for his wife. He had many good qualities; he was very charitable and helped great numbers of officers, though no one knew it. At his birth the public rejoicings were universal. The dauphine could make him believe whatever she liked; he was so in love with her that whenever she looked favourably at him he went into ecstasy and was quite beside himself. When the king scolded him he seemed so distressed that the king was obliged to soften down. The old aunt [Mme. de Maintenon] would also seem so troubled that the king had enough to do to tranquillize her. In short, to get peace the king at last left the old mistress to direct all such domestic matters, and no longer concerned himself about them.

Nangis, who commanded the king's regiment, was not displeasing to the dauphine, but he had more liking for the little La Vrillière. The dauphin was fond of Nangis, and thought it was to please him that his wife talked to Nangis; he was convinced that his favourite had gallant relations with Mme. de La Vrillière.

My son is no longer a young man of twenty; he is forty-two, and therefore they cannot pardon him in Paris for running after women like a hare-brained youth when he has all the weighty affairs of the kingdom on his hands. When the late king took possession of his crown the kingdom was in a state of prosperity, and he could then very well divert himself; but to-day it is not the same thing; my son must work night and day to repair what the king, or rather, his faithless ministers, ruined.

I cannot deny that my son has a great inclination for women; he has now a sultana-queen, named Mme. de Parabère. Her mother, Mme. de la Vieuville, was lady of the bed-chamber to the Duchesse de Berry, and that is where he made her acquaintance. She is now a widow, with a fine figure, tall and well-made; her skin is dark and she does not paint; she has a pretty mouth, and pretty eyes, but very little mind; she is a fine bit of flesh. My son has become alarmingly delicate; he cannot kneel down without dropping over from weakness. When he drinks too much he does not use strong liquors, only champagne; he does not care for any other wine.

PARIS, 1716.

Cardinal de Richelieu, in spite of all his talent, used to have fits of madness; he fancied sometimes he was a horse, and would gallop round a billiard-table, neighing, and making a great noise for a hour, and trying to kick his attendants. After that they would put him to bed and cover him up to induce perspiration, and when he woke up he had no recollection of what had happened.

The late king used to say: "I own I am piqued when I see that with all my authority as king over this country, I have complained in vain against those tall head-dresses; for not one person has shown the least desire to please me by lowering them. And yet a stranger arrives, an English nobody, with a flat cap, and suddenly all the princesses have gone from one extreme to the other."

Mme. d'Orléans looks older than she is, for she puts on a great deal of rouge, and her cheeks and nose are pendent; moreover the small-pox has left her with a trembling of the head like that of an old woman. She is so indolent she expects to have larks drop roasted into her mouth, but as we do not live in a land where things are to be had for the asking, that is past wishing for. She would like very well to govern; but she does not understand true dignity, she is too badly bred for that; she knows how to live as a simple duchess but not as a grand-daughter of France.

My son's intentions are always good and upright; if some things happen that ought not to be, they are certain to be the doing of some one else. He is too easy and is not sufficiently distrustful; consequently he is often deceived; for wicked people know his kindness and abuse it shamefully. It is a fact that my son has enough education to keep him from ever being bored; he knows music well, and composes, not badly; he paints very prettily; he understands several languages, and he likes to read; he is well-informed about chemistry and comprehends without trouble very difficult sciences. And yet, all that does not keep him from being bored by everything. I have reason myself to be satisfied with him. He lives very well with me and gives me no ground to complain of him. He pays me much attention, and I know few persons in whom he has more confidence than he has in me.

In early days they always called me sister-pacificator, because I did my best to keep the peace between Monsieur and his cousin la Grande Mademoiselle, and also her sister, the Grand-duchess of Tuscany. They quarrelled often, and like children, for the merest nonsense. Monsieur was very jealous of his children; he kept them as much as he could away from me; he let me have more authority over my daughter and the Queen of Sicily than over my son; but he could not prevent me from telling him plain truths. My daughter never in her life did anything to cause me uneasiness.

Monsieur did not like hunting. He never could bring himself to mount a horse--except at the wars. He wrote so badly that he frequently brought me the letters he had written to get me to read them to him, saying with a laugh, "You are so accustomed to my writing, madame, do read that to me, for I don't know what I said." We often laughed over this with all our hearts.

The Duc du Maine thought he could have married my daughter, but certain merchants who were in Mme. de Montespan's apartment overheard her speaking to Mme. de Maintenon of the marriage,--those ladies thinking such common persons would not understand them. But the merchants spoke up and said, "Mesdames, don't try that; it will cost you your lives if you make that marriage." That prevented the thing; for Mme. de Montespan was so frightened she went to the king and begged him not to think of it any longer.

The King of Denmark, Frederick IV., seems to me rather a fool; he wants to pass himself off as being in love with my daughter; in dancing he presses her hand and rolls his eyes up to heaven; he began a minuet at one end of the hall and ought to have ended it at the other, but he stopped in the middle to be told what to do. That distressed me for him; so I rose, took him by the hand, and led him back to his place; I think without that he would be still in the same spot. The good soul does not know what is and what is not the thing to do.

The Pretender has been well received in Scotland and proclaimed king; but I cannot tell you more, for we have very little news from England. The Queen of England is so happy in hearing of her son's safe arrival and good reception. The poor woman is not accustomed to rejoice; her satisfaction has been so great that a fever which she had has passed off. I know from a good source that the pope and the King of Spain furnished the money for the Pretender. The pope gave thirty thousand crowns, and the king three hundred thousand; as for my son, he did not give a penny.

Religion used to be very reasonable in France before the old _guenipe_ reigned here; but she ruined everything and introduced all sorts of silly devotions,--rosaries and such-like. If any persons wanted to reason upon that matter she and the confessor sent them to prison or exiled them. Those two caused all the persecutions that were levelled in France against the poor Reformers and Lutherans. That Jesuit with the long ears, Père La Chaise, began the work in union with the old _guenipe_, and Père Tellier finished it; it was thus that France has been utterly ruined.

The old woman was implacable, and when she had once taken a dislike to any one it was for life, and that person became the object of a secret persecution that never ceased. I experienced this; she laid many traps for me, which I escaped by the help of God. She was dreadfully weary of her old husband, who was always in her room. Some persons assert that she poisoned Mansard; they say she discovered that Mansard intended that very day to show certain papers to the king which would prove how she had made money from the post without the king's knowledge. Never in his life did the king hear of this adventure, nor of that of Louvois, because no one was inclined to be poisoned--that kept all tongues respectful.

Long before his death the king was entirely converted and no longer ran after women; when he was young the women ran after him; but he renounced all that sort of life when he imagined that he became devout. The real truth was that the old witch watched him so closely he dared not look at a woman; she disgusted him with society, to have him and govern him alone, and this under pretence of taking care of his soul. She controlled him so well that he even exiled the Duchesse de la Ferté who posed as being in love with him. When that duchess could not see him she had his portrait in her carriage, in order to look at him constantly. The king said she made him ridiculous, and sent her an order to go and live on her estates. It was suspected, however, that the Duchesse de Roquelaire, of the family of Laval, had made a conquest of the king; certainly his Majesty was not angry about her as he was with the Duchesse de la Ferté. Gossip had a great deal to say about this intrigue, but I never put my nose into it.

PARIS, 1716.

A Frenchman, a refugee in Holland, used to write to me how the affairs of the Prince of Orange were going. I thought that I should do the king a service in communicating to him what I thus heard; I did so. The king was much obliged and thanked me; but in the evening he said, laughing: "My ministers insist that you are ill-informed; they say there is not a word of truth in what was written to you." I answered: "Time will show who is best informed, your ministers, or the person who wrote to me; my intentions were good, monsieur." Some time later, after it was proved that King William had gone to England, M. de Torcy came to me and said that I ought to inform him of the news I received. I replied: "You assured the king that I received false news; on which I ordered that nothing more should be written to me; for I do not like to spread false reports." He laughed, as he usually did, and said: "Your news is always very good." To which I answered: "A great and able minister must have surer news than I, for he knows all things." That evening the king said to me: "You have been ridiculing my ministers." I replied: "I only returned them what they gave."

III.

LETTERS OF 1717-1718.

PARIS, 1717.

M. le dauphin [Monseigneur] never really loved or hated, but he was malicious; his greatest pleasure was in giving pain; when he had a trick to play on any one he began by treating them graciously. In every respect he had the most inconceivable character that could be imagined. When one thought him angry he was often in the best humour; when he seemed content he was cross; never could we guess correctly. He had not heart enough to know what true friendship was; he loved only those persons who procured him amusement, and disliked all others. For over twenty years, as long as he was in the hands of the _grande_ Princesse de Conti,[11] I was on very good terms with him and he had great confidence in me; but after he passed into those of Mme. la Duchesse he completely changed. He behaved as if he had never seen or known me in his life, and as, after Monsieur's death, I never hunted with his Highness I had very few relations with him to his death. If he had had good sense he would have preferred the Princesse de Conti to Mme. la Duchesse, for she had a much better heart; she loved him unselfishly, whereas the other loved nothing in the world, and thought only of her pleasures, her interests, and her ambition. As long as she attained her ends she cared very little for the dauphin, who gave clear proof of his weak-mindedness by his dependence upon her.

When the King of Spain [his son, the Duc d'Anjou] departed the king wept bitterly, and the dauphin too, but he had previously never given to any of his sons the slightest sign of attachment. He never had them in his apartments morning or evening; when he was not hunting he was always in those of the Princesse de Conti, or, later, in those of Mme. la Duchesse. No one would ever have guessed that the sons were his; he treated them as strangers and never called them "my son," always "M. le Duc de Bourgogne," "M. le Duc d'Anjou," "M. le Duc de Berry;" and they called him "Monseigneur."

He lived very well with his wife for two or three years; that is to say, as long as the old woman was satisfied with the dauphine; but as soon as there came a little coolness between them she set herself to make the dauphin believe that his wife did not love him, that she cared only for Bessola [her maid], and that everybody thought him a fool for spending his time in a room where more German was talked than French. He was told also that Bessola was the confidante of the dauphine's gallantries, and helped her to make pleasure-parties with the maids-of-honour. I heard all these details from the dauphine herself [Marie-Anne-Victoire of Bavaria], for her husband, who still loved her, related them to her. But the old witch returned so often to the charge, and gave the dauphin so many opportunities, that he finally became enamoured of Mlle. de Rambure, afterwards Mme. de Polignac, and as soon as that amour began all his friendship for the dauphine departed.

At times the dauphine was not ugly, when, for instance, she had a fine colour. If she had not had such a passion for that faithless Bessola, she might perhaps have been happy. But that woman, in order to rule her and to maintain herself with the Maintenon, made the poor princess the most wretched creature upon earth. She died tranquil and resigned, but they sent her into another world as surely as if they had put a pistol to her head. In giving birth to the Duc de Berry she was so badly managed that she became deformed; before that she had a very pretty figure. From that time she never had an hour's health. The evening before her death, while the little Duc de Berry was sitting on her bed, she said to him: "My dear Berry, I love you much, but you have cost me dear." M. le dauphin was not affected. They had told him so much harm of his wife that he did not care for her, and when he muffled himself up in his great mourning-cloak he burst out laughing. The old _guenipe_ hoped (as really happened) to govern the dauphin through his mistresses, which she could not have done had he continued to love his wife. That old woman had conceived such a terrible hatred to the poor princess, that I believe she had given orders to Clément, the _accoucheur_, to manage her ill. What confirms me in this idea is that she nearly killed the dauphine by going to see her in perfumed gloves; she afterwards said it was I who wore them, which was not true.

The dauphine often said to me: "We are both unhappy, but the difference between us is that your Excellency endeavoured as much as you possibly could to avoid your fate; whereas I did my best to come here, and so I deserve what has happened to me." She loved the dauphin as a husband, but more as if he were her son. They tried to make her pass for crazy when she complained. An hour before her death she said to me: "I shall prove to-day that I was not crazy when I complained and said that I was ill." The old _guenipe_ sent her agents among the populace to spread a rumour that the dauphine hated France and wanted to create new taxes and lay burdens on the people.

PARIS, 1717.

Though the late Monsieur received much property with me, I was obliged to give it all up to him,--jewels, furniture, pictures, in short, all that came to me from my family; and I really had not means to live according to my rank and maintain my household, which is very considerable. I have been ill-used in this respect, but it was rather the fault of the Princess Palatine, who allowed my marriage-contract to be so ill-drawn. All the Madames have had pensions from the king; but as these are established on the old footing, they do not afford sufficient means to reach the end of the year. I have been obliged to cede my jewels to my son; otherwise I could not live as I should and keep up my establishment, which is very large; but to do so is, to my thinking, more commendable than to be decked with jewels.

I cannot see why people should have so many different garments. All I have are either full-dress gowns, or my hunting habit for horseback. I never in my life had a dressing-gown, and I have but one wrapper [_robe de nuit_] in my wardrobe to go to bed and get up in.

I was very glad when the late Monsieur, after the birth of his daughter, took a bed to himself, for I never liked the business of making children. When his Highness made me the proposal I said: "Yes, with all my heart, Monsieur; I shall be very glad of it, provided you do not hate me and continue to be a little kind to me." He promised me that, and we were always very well satisfied with each other.

It was very annoying to sleep with Monsieur; he could not endure that any one should disturb his sleep; I was obliged to keep myself on the very edge of the bed, so that sometimes I fell out like a sack. I was therefore extremely pleased when Monsieur, in good friendship and without bitterness, proposed that we should sleep in separate rooms. I am like you; I cannot imagine that any one should remarry; there is but one motive that I can conceive, and that is dying of hunger and getting one's bread that way.

I never had but one hundred louis for cards until the death of my mother; after Monsieur received the money of the Palatinate he doubled that allowance.

The Maréchale de Villars runs after the Comte de Toulouse; my son is also in her good graces, and he is not discreet. The Maréchal de Villars came to see me one day, and as he assumes to know much about medals he asked to see mine. Baudelot,[12] a very honourable and learned man, who is in charge of them, was obliged to show them. Baudelot is not the most discreet of men, and moreover he is little informed as to what goes on at Court. So he made a dissertation on one of my medals to prove, against the opinion of other savants, that a head with horns which appears upon it is that of Pan, and not that of Jupiter Ammon. To prove his erudition the worthy soul said to M. de Villars, "Ah! monseigneur, here is one of the finest medals Madame has; it is the triumph of Cornificius; he has all sorts of horns. He was a great general like yourself, monseigneur; he has the horns of Juno and of Faunus. Cornificius, as you know, monseigneur, was a very able general." I interrupted him. "Go on," I said; "if you stop to talk about each medal, you will not have time to show them all." But, full of his subject, he replied: "Oh, Madame, this one is worth all the rest. Cornificius is really one of the rarest medals on earth. Consider it, Madame, look at it; here is a crowned Juno crowning that great general." In spite of all I did, I could not prevent Baudelot from harping on horns to the marshal. "Monseigneur knows all about such things," he said, "and I want him to judge whether I am not right in saying that those horns are the horns of Pan, and not of Jupiter Ammon." Everybody in the room had all they could do not to laugh. If it had been done on purpose it could not have been more complete. When the marshal had gone, I laughed out; but I had the greatest difficulty in convincing Baudelot that he had blundered.

PARIS, 1717.

It is certain that the Comtesse de Soissons, Angélique-Cunégonde, daughter of François-Henri de Luxembourg, has much virtue and capacity, though, like all the world, she has defects. One may say of her indeed that she is a poor princess. Her husband, Louis-Henri, Comte de Soissons, is very ugly. If her children had been like their mother they would have been very handsome, for all her features are fine; eyes, mouth, and lines of the face could not be better; her nose is a little too large, and her skin not delicate. All her sons, except Prince Eugène, have not been worth much, and any one who resembles Eugène cannot be good-looking. When he was young he was not so very ugly; but he has grown ugly in growing old; he never had a fine countenance or the noble air; his eyes are not bad, but his nose spoils his face; his teeth are too large and protrude from his mouth; he is always dirty, and he wears greasy hair which he never curls. I think a good deal of Prince Eugène, for he is not selfish. He did a fine action: he left behind him here a great many debts; after he entered the service of the emperor and acquired a fortune he paid to the last farthing all that he owed, even to those who had no bill or written engagement with him and never dreamed of being paid. Therefore it is impossible that a man who acted with such loyalty could have betrayed his master for money. The accusations of the traitor Nimtsch are lies and the work of that devil of an Alberoni. I see from the "Gazette of Vienna" which you sent me that Prince Eugène does not intend to let so horrible an accusation drop, but will pursue the Comte de Nimtsch to the death. That is right.

I thank you for the silver coin you send; it comes extremely _à propos_. I have also the Doctor Luther in gold and in silver. I am convinced that Luther would have done much better not to make a separate Church, but to have confined himself to opposing the abuses of the papacy; more good would have come from it.

To go back to what I was beginning to tell you on Wednesday--I assure you that my son has more enemies than friends. His brother-in-law [the Duc du Maine] and his wife are working with the greatest ardour to rouse the hatred of the populace against him. Mme. du Maine is circulating writings against him. The children of the Montespan come of a malignant race.

The little king has a pretty face and much judgment, but he is a spiteful child; he loves no one in the world but his governess, Mme. de Ventadour; he takes aversions to people without any cause, and likes to say the most wounding things to them. I am not in his good graces, but that does not trouble me; for when he is of an age to reign I shall not be in this world and dependent on his caprices. When I advise my son to be on his guard against all these wicked people, he only laughs and says: "You know, Madame, that we cannot avoid what God has ordained for us throughout all time; therefore, if I am to perish I cannot avoid it; therefore I shall do only what is reasonable for my preservation, but nothing extraordinary."

[This is a favourable opportunity to reveal Madame's French spelling; the letter is in German, but she quotes her son in French, as follows:

"Vous saves bien, Madame, qu'on ne peust Evitter ce que Dieu vous a de tout temps destines; ainsi, sije le suis à perir, je ne Le pourris Evitter; ainsi je feres que ce qui est raisonnable pour ma Conservation, mais rien dextraordinaire."]

My son has studied much; he has a good memory; he expresses himself well on all sorts of subjects; above all, he speaks extremely well in public; but he is a man, he has his faults like others. They do harm to himself only, for he is only too kind and good to other people. I tell him every day he is too kind; he laughs and asks me if it is not better to be kind than harsh. I don't know where he gets his great patience; Monsieur had none, nor I either.

When he was fourteen or fifteen years of age he was not ugly; but since then the sun of Italy and Spain so burned him that his skin became a deep red. He is not tall, and yet he is stout, with fat cheeks; his bad sight makes him squint, and his eyes protrude; and he has a bad walk. And yet I do not think he is disagreeable-looking. When he dances or rides on horseback he makes a good appearance; but when he goes about in his usual way he does not appear to advantage. Close by he sees very well, and can read the finest writing, but at the distance of half the length of a room he recognizes no one without spectacles. Though he talks well on matters of science or knowledge, one can easily see that they give him no pleasure; on the contrary, they bore him. I have often observed this to him; he admits that at first he has the greatest desire to know a thing, but as soon as he thoroughly knows what he studies it gives him no longer the least satisfaction. I love him from the bottom of my heart, but I cannot understand how women should be enamoured of him; for he has in no way the manners of gallantry, and he is not discreet; besides, he is incapable of feeling a passion and of being attached for any length of time to the same person. On the other hand, his manners are not polite or seductive enough to make him beloved. He is very indiscreet and relates all that happens to him. I have told him a hundred times that I am amazed that those women run after him so madly when I should think they would rather run away from him. He laughs and says: "You don't know the loose women of the present day. To say you have been their lover pleases them."

PARIS, 1717.

I am very glad that my letters have reached you at last. M. de Torey is no friend of mine; if he could find occasion to do me harm he would not let it escape him; but I do not trouble myself about that. My son knows me well; he knows how sincere my attachment to him is, and it would be difficult to make us quarrel. There is no use in sealing letters with wax; they have a species of composition, made of quicksilver and other substances, which lifts the wax, and when the letters have been opened, read, and copied, they seal them up so adroitly that no one can perceive that they have been opened. My son knows how to manufacture that composition; they call it _gama_. The Queen of Sicily once wrote and asked me if I no longer walked with the king, as in her day. I answered with these lines:--

"Those happy days are gone; the face of all is changed
Since to these parts the gods have brought
The daughter of the Cretan king and Pasiphaë."

Torey took them to the _guenipe_, as if I meant her--which was true enough; and the king was sulky with me for a long time about it.

The late king contracted a great many debts because he would not retrench his luxury in anything; and that has been the cause of great malversations on the part of business men and their partisans; for when one sou had been lent to the king they turned it by agreement with their creatures into a pistole. Thanks to their rascality, on which no check was put, they have enriched themselves, but the king, and now the country, have been impoverished. My son works night and day, with no thanks from anybody, to bring things back to a good condition. He has many enemies, who pour out against him all sorts of horrid threats, and do all they can to rouse the hatred of the people against him; in which they succeed easily, especially because he is no bigot. He is so little self-interested that he has never touched a farthing of what comes to him as regent, although he has great needs because of his numerous children. The young king has around him persons who are very ill-disposed towards my son,--one especially, though he is his brother-in-law; but he is also the falsest of hypocrites. He has an air as if he would eat the very images of saints, but he is none the less the most wicked man on earth. In the days of the late king when that man flattered any one and spoke to him kindly it was taken as a proof that he had played him some evil trick. He contributed to get his mother sent away from Court so as to please the old woman, and he was so anxious to prevent her return to Versailles that he ordered her furniture turned out of doors, as it were. You can imagine what a man of that nature is capable of doing. I fear him for my son as I do the devil; and I think that my son is not sufficiently on his guard against him. The old woman wants his life; all that they say of that diabolical woman is below the truth.

When my son reproached the Maintenon quite gently for slandering him, and asked her to look into her conscience, where she knew that what she said were falsehoods, she replied: "I spread that rumour because I believed it."

My son said: "No, you could not have believed it, for you knew the contrary."

Thereupon she answered insolently (and I admired the patience of my son): "Did not the dauphine die?"

"Could she not have died without me?" asked my son, "was she immortal?"

The old woman replied: "I was in such despair at her loss that I blamed the person who they told me had caused it."

My son said to her, "But, madame, you knew of the report that was rendered to the king; you knew that I had done nothing, and that Mme. la dauphine was not poisoned at all."

"That is true," she replied, "I will say no more about it."

That humpback Fagon, the favourite of the old _guenipe_, used to say that what displeased him in Christianity was that he could not raise a temple to the Maintenon and an altar for her worship.

PARIS, 1717.

I have received to-day a great visit,--that of my hero, the czar [Peter the Great]. I think he has very good manners, taking that expression in the sense of the manners of a person without affectation or ceremony. He has much judgment; he speaks bad German, but he makes himself understood without difficulty, and he converses very well. He is polite to everybody, and is much liked.

He went to Saint-Cyr and saw the old _guenipe_, who keeps herself completely retired there; no one can say that she has meddled in the slightest thing; which makes me think that woman has still some project in her head, though I can't imagine what it can be. She used to reproach me, and say it was a shame I had no ambition and never took part in anything, and one day I answered: "If a person had intrigued a great deal to become Madame, might she not be permitted to enjoy that title in tranquillity? Imagine that to be my case, and leave me in peace."

She said, "You are very obstinate."

I answered: "No, madame, but I like my peace and I regard your ambition as pure vanity." I really thought she would burst her skin, she was so angry.

She said: "Make the attempt; you will be aided."

"No, madame," I replied; "when I think that you, who have a hundred-fold more cleverness than I, have not been able to maintain yourself at Court as you wished, what would happen to me, a poor foreigner, who knows nothing of intrigues and does not like them?"

She was angry and said: "Fie! you are good for nothing."

She never could forgive the king for not having declared her queen. She gave herself out to the King of England as so pious and humble that the queen took her for a saint. The old _guenipe_ knew very well that I was a German who could never in my life endure a misalliance, and she imagined that it was partly because of me that the king would not acknowledge his marriage. The hatred she bore me came from that; as long as the queen lived she did not hate me. After the death of the king, and since we left Versailles, my son has not seen the old woman. The mistresses of the late king did not tarnish his glory as much as she did; she has drawn upon France the greatest misfortunes. She occasioned the persecution of the Reformers; she caused the price of wheat to rise, which brought a famine; she helped the ministers to rob the king; she was guilty of the death of the king in consequence of the worry she caused him about that Constitution [the bull Unigenitus]; she made the marriage of my son, and tried to put the bastards on the throne. In short, she threw all things into confusion and ruined them. The ministers also served the king very ill. The king never thought that his will would be sustained. He said to several persons: "They made me write my will and other things; I did it to get peace, but I know that all that will not stand hereafter."

PARIS, 1717.

I will tell you frankly why I will not interfere in anything. I am old; I need to rest, and do not care to torment myself. I am not willing to undertake anything that I cannot be sure of carrying through to a good end; I have never learned to govern; politics I do not understand, nor State affairs, and I am much too old now to learn such difficult things. My son, thanks to God, has capacity enough to guide things without me; besides, I should excite the jealousy of his wife, and his eldest daughter, whom he loves better than he does me; from this, perpetual quarrels would result, and that is something that would in no wise suit me. I have been much urged and tormented to use my influence, but I held firm. I said I wished to set a good example to the wife and daughter of my son. This kingdom has, to its sorrow, been too long governed by women, young and old. It is time to let men take the helm. I have therefore adopted the course of meddling in nothing. In England women can reign; but in France, in order to have things go well, men must govern. What advantage should I gain by tormenting myself night and day? I ask for only peace and rest. All my own nearest ones are dead; for whom, therefore, should I give myself cares? My life is nearly over; there remains to me only enough to prepare for a tranquil death, and it is difficult in great public matters to keep one's conscience peaceful.

I was born at Heidelberg, in September, 1652. When I can by my influence help those poor people of the Palatinate in the councils which decide their affairs, I employ it with all my heart. If it succeeds I am very glad; if it fails I think it is the will of God, and I am still content.

The king had a better opinion of my brain than it deserves. He wanted with all his might to make me regent with my son. God be praised it was not done. I should have gone crazy very quickly.

I have never had Trench manners and I never could assume them; I have even made it a point of honour to be a German woman, and to preserve German manners and ways, which are little to the taste of people here. In the matter of soup, I never eat any but milk soup, or beer or wine soup; I cannot endure broths; I am made ill at once if there is the merest little broth in the dishes I eat; my body swells up, I have colics, and I am forced to be bled; blood puddings[13] and ham settle my stomach.

The king used to say of me: "Madame cannot endure misalliances; she is always mocking at them." But all the great ladies who contract such marriages are well rewarded; they are usually unhappy in wedlock and ill-treated by their husbands. That is the case of the Princesse de Deux-Ponts, who married her equerry. She finds herself very badly off, but I do not pity her; she deserves it. I can't help laughing when I think how I forewarned her of what would happen. She was with me at the opera and wanted with all her might to have that equerry sit behind us. I said, "For the love of God, Madame, let your Highness keep quiet, and not worry yourself so about Gersdorf; you do not know this country; when people show such anxiety about their servants it is always supposed they are in love with them."

"Cannot persons feel an interest in their people?" she asked.

I said, "Yes; and they can take them to the opera, but there is no need to have them close beside us." I did not know then that I had guessed true.

PARIS, 1717.

For the last six months, in consequence of a terrible blow my son received in the face when playing tennis, one of his eyes is all inflamed and full of blood. He consulted an oculist who prescribed good remedies and made him promise, above all, to restrain himself in eating and drinking, etc.; but he cannot resolve to keep that promise and he leads his usual life. The condition of the eye has therefore grown much worse; my son has had recourse to all the remedies, but he will not interrupt his pleasures, or his business, which gives him a great deal of reading and writing to do. Yesterday, he let himself be bled and purged; to-day he is trying a powder which a priest gave him, having got it from Germany. This powder has begun by causing a great inflammation; he will have to use it two or three times. I really fear it will end in his losing his sight; and you cannot think into what anxiety that idea throws me.

To answer the other points in your letter, I must tell you that it is not allowable to take the communion in one's chamber, unless in case of illness. I should like very much to hear sermons in Advent; but after dinner it is impossible; for if I listen to preaching just after eating it does not depend on me not to go to sleep.

The Princess of Wales is, thank God, safely delivered of a son. It is quite common that pregnancies should be delayed, like hers, to the tenth month. As for me, I have had three children, but without anything extraordinary. I never had a miscarriage, and bore them all to the end of the ninth month. I lost my first son; my doctor, old M. Esprit, killed him as if he had shot him through the head; but all that is ancient history. He was called the Duc de Valois; but as that name is unlucky, Monsieur would not let my second son bear it; that is why he received the name of Duc de Chartres, which he bore till the death of his father; then he took the name of Duc d'Orléans, and his son is now the Duc de Chartres.

PARIS, 1717.

The moment I get an instant of liberty I go to the chapel to pray for my son, whose eye is rather better. He could not at one time distinguish colours; but Cardinal de Polignac came to see him to-day when I was with him, and my son could perfectly discern the cardinal's red robe; which proves him really better. As long as he was taking remedies he kept himself from excesses of eating and drinking and ill-conduct of every kind, but I fear that as soon as he is cured he will go back to his disorderly life. Those loose women will run after him again and get him back to their little suppers, and then his eye will inflame once more. After the visit to my son I sat down to table, and after dinner I read four chapters of the Book of Job, four psalms, and two chapters of Saint John. The two others I put off till this morning.

It is quite true, as you say, that my son's mistresses if they really loved him would think about his life and health; but I see, my dear Louise, that you know nothing about Frenchwomen. Nothing leads them except selfishness and a liking for debauchery; these mistresses think of nothing but their pleasure and money; for the individual himself they would not give a hair. That inspires me with utter disgust; and if I were in my son's place I should find nothing seductive in such connections. But he is so accustomed to them; it is all the same to him what those women are, provided they amuse him. There is also another thing I cannot comprehend. He is never jealous; he will let his own servants have relations with his mistresses. That seems to me dreadful, and proves that he has no love for them. He is so accustomed to eat and drink and lead that debauched life that he cannot tear himself from it. It often afflicts me to the bottom of my heart; but I hope that God will in the end draw him through this labyrinth and wrench him from the hands of these wicked people, who are only wanting to get money from him. But that is saying enough about vexations.

The little king makes me two visits a year much against his will; he cannot endure me. I think that is because I told him once it did not become a great king to be so refractory and obstinate as he is. He was in despair one day because Mme. de Ventadour left him. She said: "Sire, I shall return this evening; be very good during my absence." "No, my dear mamma," he replied, "not if you leave me."

He is well made and has the straightest figure that was ever seen and beautiful brown hair in abundance. His face is pretty, but he only speaks to those persons who habitually surround him. He has intelligence, that is very certain, but he ought to talk more. He has invented an Order which he gives to the boys who play with him; it is a blue and white ribbon, from which hangs an oval piece of enamelled metal, on which is a star and the outline of a little tent which stands on the terrace where he plays. He has eyes as black as jet, and what may be called a noble look; the eyes are much softer than he really is, for he has a violent little temper. His vanity is already dreadful, and he knows very well what reverence is.

PARIS, 1717.

The late king told me a story about the Queen of Sweden, Christina. She never wore night-caps, but she twisted a towel round her head. Once, not being able to sleep, she had music played beside her bed. As the concert pleased her she suddenly protruded her head beyond the curtains and called out, "Devil's death! how well they play!" The eunuchs and Italians, who are not the bravest of the brave, were so terrified at the aspect of that singular figure that they were struck speechless, and the music had to stop. We can still see at Fontainebleau in the great salon the blood of the man she caused to be murdered there. She did not wish that all that he knew about her should come to be known, and she thought certain things would surely be divulged unless she put an end to his life. He had already begun to tattle, out of jealousy for another man who had supplanted him in her good graces. She was very vindictive and given to all sorts of debauchery. If she had not had so much intellect no one could have endured her. She owed her vices to Frenchmen, especially to old Bourdelot, who was the doctor of the great Condé; he encouraged her in her license. She talked of things that the worst men only could have imagined. She was considered to be an hermaphrodite. The Frenchmen who were with her in Stockholm were very depraved men, and it was they who led her into such licentiousness. Duke Frederick Augustus of Brunswick was charmed with Christina; he said that in all his life he had never met with any woman who had so much intellect and was so agreeable and diverting; he never found the time long when he was with her. I told him I heard that her talk was most licentious; he said that was true, but that she knew so well how to present things that they did not inspire disgust. This queen could never please women, because she despised them one and all.

PARIS, 1718.

My last letters from England are to the 16th of January; everything is in a sad state there. They say in Paris that the refugees are doing their best to excite the king and the Prince of Wales against each other in the hope that a regent may be chosen by the parliament, and that the country will thus escape the authority of the prince. That seems very likely to be true; but it also seems to me that father and son ought to perceive the scheme and thus be led to reconciliation with each other; if not, great evils will result. There is no motive in the world which can justify a son in not submitting to a father, and when, moreover, that father is his king. I believe there has never existed any tenderness between them; our dear Electress used to say it was the son who was in fault. The dear Princess of Wales inspires me with such compassion that yesterday I wept over her. Her departure from Saint James' palace as Countess of Buckenburg [_sic_] was described to me; it was truly deplorable; she fainted several times when her three little princes, all in tears, took leave of her; that touched me deeply. The King of England, if I may dare to say so, treats her too harshly. She has done nothing to justify his forbidding her to see her children, whom she loves with such tenderness. Where can they be better brought up than beside so sensible and virtuous a mother? According to my ideas, the whole thing is very blamable.