Chapter VII: Introduction: By C.-A. Sainte-Beuve (6)

Parliament is now on good terms with my son, and has rendered a judgment wholly in his favour; that shows how the du Maines had stirred it up against him. The Jesuits may, very likely, be secretly plotting against my son, for all the partisans of the Constitution [bull Unigenitus] are his adversaries; but they keep themselves quiet, and nothing is shown to compromise them. They are clever people. Mme. d'Orléans is beginning to laugh and show satisfaction; which worries me, because I know she has consulted the president of parliament [Mesmes] and other persons to learn whether in case of her husband's death, she could be appointed regent with her son. The president answered no; that the regency would devolve on M. le Duc, which answer seemed to greatly disturb her.

My son made me laugh yesterday. I asked him how the Maintenon was; he answered, "Wonderfully well." I said, "How can that be, at her age?" to which he replied: "Don't you know that the good God to punish the devil makes him stay a very long time in a villanous body?"

PARIS, April 20, 1719.

Saturday evening we lost a pious soul at Saint-Cyr, the old Maintenon. The news of the arrest of the Duc du Maine and his wife made her faint away, and it may have been the cause of her death, for from that moment she had no rest. Anger and the loss of the hope to reign through him turned her blood and gave her the measles, and for twenty days she had continual fever. A storm which came up made the disease strike inward, and it stifled her. She was eighty-six years old. I have it in my head that what grieved her most at the last was leaving my son and me behind her in good health.

She died like a young person. She gave herself eighty-two years, but she was really eighty-six. If she had died twenty years ago I should have cordially rejoiced, but now it gives me neither pleasure nor pain. There is nothing to wonder at in her dying like a young person. In the other world, where all are equal and there is no difference in rank, it will be decided whether she stays with the king or the paralytic Scarron; but if the king knows then all that was hidden from him in this world, there is no doubt he will return her very willingly to Scarron.

PARIS, 1719.

It appears that the Duc de Richelieu was not in the conspiracy of the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, but had a plot of his own, which has put him in the Bastille. He took it into his head that he was so considerable a person he could not be refused a certain marriage far above his just pretensions. When that hope vanished, he began, in his vexation, to plot. He is an arch-debauchee, and a coward; he believes in neither God nor His word; in all his life he never has done, and never will do a worthy thing; he is ambitious and false as the devil. He is not yet twenty-four years old. I do not think him as handsome as the Court women do, who are mad about him. He has a pretty figure and fine hair, an oval face and very brilliant eyes, but everything about him indicates a rascal; he is graceful and is not without cleverness, but his insolence is great; he is the worst of spoiled youths. The first time he was put in the Bastille was for saying he was an actual lover of the Duchesse de Bourgogne and all her young ladies; which was a horrible lie.

SAINT-CLOUD, 1719.

You ask me what has recently made me so angry; I cannot tell it in detail, only in the gross. It is the horrible coquetry of Mlle. de Valois with that cursèd Duc de Richelieu, who has shown the letters that he had from her, for he only loves her from vanity. All the young seigneurs of the Court have read the letters in which she assigns him rendezvous. Her mother wanted me to take her here with me, which I refused curtly; but she is now returning to the charge. I am horribly vexed; the human species disgusts me. I cannot endure the idea of having her; but I must, to avoid worse scandal; the very sight of that heedless creature will make me ill. All this is the result of the apathy and nullity of the mother; may God forgive her! but she has brought up her daughters very ill.

The Duc de Richelieu is bold and full of impertinence; he knows the kindness of my son and abuses it; if justice were done he would pay for his manoeuvres and his temerity with his head; he has triply deserved it. I am not cruel, but I could see him hanging from a gibbet without a tear. He is now walking about on the rampart of the Bastille, curled and bedecked, while the ladies are standing in the street below to see that beautiful image. Many tears will be shed in Paris, for every woman is in love with him; I don't know why, for he is a little toad in whom I can see nothing agreeable. He has no courage; he is impertinent, faithless, and indiscreet; he says harm of all his mistresses; and yet a princess of the blood-royal [Mlle. de Charolais, grand-daughter of M. le Prince de Condé] is so in love with him that when he became a widower she wanted to marry him. Her grandmother and brother formally opposed it, and with reason, for independently of the misalliance she would have been, all her life, most unhappy. He has had each of his mistresses painted in the various habits of the religious orders: Mlle. de Charolais as a Franciscan nun,--they say it is an excellent likeness; the Maréchale de Villars and the Maréchale d'Estrées in the Capucin habit.

SAINT-CLOUD, 1719.

I do not mingle in any way with what is going on in Rome. The pope and I have no relations with each other; therefore no one need address himself to me to get a dispensation.

It is not true that I have changed my name; I cannot be called in France by any other title than that of Madame, for my husband, as brother of the king, bore the title of Monsieur, and I as his wife cannot bear any other than that of Madame. The daughters of the king are also called so, but, to distinguish them, the baptismal name is added; for instance, the three daughters of Henri II. were called: Madame Élisabeth, who became Queen of Spain; Madame Henriette, who became Queen of England; and Madame Christine, who was afterwards Duchesse de Savoie. The daughters of the king's brother are called Mademoiselle; the eldest bears that title with nothing added to it; the others add the name of their appanage; that is how it is there is a Mademoiselle de Chartres, Mademoiselle de Valois, Mademoiselle de Montpensier. It is the same with the grandsons of the king; they should be called Monsieur with the names of their appanages attached; it was always an abuse to say the Duc de Bourgogne, the Duc de Berry: they ought to have been called Monsieur de Bourgogne, Monsieur de Berry.

I went last Sunday to see the Duchesse de Berry and found her in a sad state. She had such frightful pains in the soles and toes of her feet that the tears came into her eyes. I saw that my presence prevented her from screaming and so I came away. I thought she looked very ill. They have had a consultation of three physicians, who decided on bleeding from the foot. It was difficult to bring her to consent, for the suffering in her feet is so unbearable that she screams if the sheets merely touch them. However, the bleeding succeeded and she has suffered less since. It was gout in both feet.

SAINT-CLOUD, 1719.

I went yesterday to see the Duchesse de Berry; she is better, thank God, but she cannot walk yet. Two great boils have come upon the soles of her feet, which burn them as if with red-hot iron; it is a very singular illness. Twice a week they give her medicine, and the other days an enema; both do her good. It seems that her illness comes from the frightful gluttony in which she indulged last year.

I told you my son had a fever; he is better now; but I fear a relapse, for he is, to say the least, as much of a glutton as his daughter; and he will not listen to any advice.

The English nation is a wicked nation, false and ungrateful. Most of the persons of rank who were at Saint-Germain, whom the late queen supported (imposing upon herself personally the greatest privations in order to do so) now declaim against her, and tell a thousand lies of that good and virtuous queen. All this fills me with wrath.

My son is really too kind; that little Duc de Richelieu having assured him that he had fully intended to reveal to him the plot, he believed him and has set him at liberty. It is true that the duke's mistress, Mlle. de Charolais, never left my son a moment's peace about it. It is a horrible thing for a princess of the blood to declare in the face of all the world that she is as amorous as a cat, and that her passion is for a scoundrel of a rank so beneath her own that she cannot marry him, and who is moreover unfaithful to her, for he is known to have half a dozen other mistresses. When she is told of that she replies: "Pooh! he only has them to sacrifice them to me and to tell me all that passes between them." It is really an awful thing.

If I believed in sorcery I should say that that duke possessed a supernatural power; for he has never yet found a woman who opposed him the slightest resistance; they all run after him, and it is literally shameful. He is not handsomer than others, and he is so indiscreet and gabbling that he says himself if an empress beautiful as an angel fell in love with him and wished to be his on condition that he would not tell of it, he should prefer to leave her on the spot and never look at her again. He is a great poltroon, but very insolent, without heart or soul. I revolt at the thought that he is the petted darling of women, and I am quite sure he will only show ingratitude for my son's kindness--but I will not say another word about that personage; he puts me out of all patience.

The harm that is said of M. Law and his bank is the effect of jealousy; for nothing better could be found. He is paying off the fearful debts of the late king, and he has diminished the taxes, lessening in that way the burdens that are weighing down the people; wood does not cost the half of what it did; the duties on wine, meats, in fact, all that is consumed in Paris have been abolished; and that has caused great joy among the people, as you may suppose. M. Law is very polite. I think a great deal of him; he does all he can to be agreeable to me. He does not wish to act secretly, like those who have preceded him in the management of the finances, but publicly, with honour. It is quite false that he has bought a palace from the Duchesse de Berry; she has none to sell; all the houses she has return to the king,--such as Meudon, Châville, and La Muette.

Law is so pursued that he has no peace day or night; a duchess kissed his hands in sight of everybody, and if duchesses kiss his hands, what will not the other women kiss? Impossible to have more capacity than he, but I would not for all the gold in the world be in his place; he is tormented like a lost soul; besides which his enemies are spreading all sorts of wicked tales about him. I am tired out with hearing of nothing but shares and millions, and I cannot hide my ill-humour. People are flocking here from all corners of Europe; during the last month there have been in Paris two hundred and fifty thousand more persons than usual; they have had to make rooms in lofts and barns, and Paris is so full of carriages that there is great difficulty in getting through the streets, and many persons have been crushed. One lady meaning to say to M. Law, "Give me a concession," called out in a loud voice, "Ah! monsieur, give me a conception;" to which M. Law replied: "Madame, you have come too late; there is no way at present by which you can obtain one."

SAINT-CLOUD, 1719.

I am afraid that the excesses of the Duchesse de Berry in eating and drinking will put her underground. The fever never leaves her and she has two paroxysms of it daily. She shows neither impatience nor anger, though she suffered greatly from the emetic they gave her yesterday. She has become as thin and shrunken as she was fat; yesterday she confessed and received the communion.

July 17, 1719.

The Duchesse de Berry died last night between two and three o'clock; her end was very gentle; they say she died as if she fell asleep. My son remained beside her until she had entirely lost consciousness. She was his favourite child.

The poor duchess took her own life as surely as if she had put a pistol to her head; she secretly ate melons, figs, milk; she owned it to me herself, and her physician told me she locked her door against him and all the other doctors for fourteen days in order to do as she liked. When the storm came up, as it did, she turned to death. She said to me last night: "Ah! Madame, that peal of thunder did me great harm,"--and indeed it was very visible. She received the last sacraments with such firmness that it wrung our hearts.

My son has lost the power to sleep; his poor daughter could not have been saved; her head was full of water; she had an ulcer in the stomach, another in the hip, the rest of her inside was like _bouillie_ and the liver attacked. She was taken at night, secretly, with all her household, to Saint-Denis. Such embarrassment was felt about her funeral oration that it was judged best to have none at all. She said she died without regret, because she was reconciled with God, and that if her life were prolonged she might offend Him again. That touched us in a way I cannot express. At heart she was a good person; and if her mother had taken more care of her and had brought her up better there would be nothing but good to say of her. I own that her loss goes to my heart--but let us talk of something else; this is too sad.

The reason you could not read my last letter was that it was partly torn by one of my dogs just as I finished it. I see you do not like dogs, for if you loved them as I do you would forgive their little faults. I have one, named _Reine inconnue_, which understands as well as a man, and never leaves me an instant without weeping and howling as long as I am out of her sight.

SAINT-CLOUD, 1719.

Yesterday, directly after my dinner, I went to Paris, and found my poor son in a state to melt a heart of rock. He is afflicted to the soul, and all the more because he sees that if he had not shown such excessive indulgence to his dear daughter, if he had better acted a father's part, she would now be living and healthy.

With all her revenues she leaves behind her debts amounting to 400,000 francs, for my son to pay. Those people about her robbed and pillaged the poor princess horribly; but that is always the way with a brood of favourites. Her marriage with that toad's head [Rion] is unhappily but too true. He is not, however, of a bad stock; he is allied to good families; the Duc de Lauzun is his uncle, and Biron his nephew; but, for all that, he was not worthy of the honours that came to him. He was only a captain in the king's regiment. Women ran after him. I thought him ugly and repulsive, and sickly looking besides. When the news of the Duchesse de Berry's death reached the army, the Prince de Conti went to find Rion and made him this pretty speech: "She is dead, your milch cow, and you need not talk any more about her." My son feels rather stung; but he does not wish to seem to know of it.

SAINT-CLOUD, 1719.

I promised to tell you about my journey to Chelles [to witness the installation of her grand-daughter as abbess of the convent of Chelles]. I started Thursday at seven o'clock, with the Duchesse de Brancas, Mme. de Châteauthiers, and Mme. de Rathsamhausen; we arrived at half-past ten. My grandson, the Duc de Chartres, had already arrived; my son came a few minutes later; then Mlle. de Valois. Mme. d'Orléans had herself bled expressly to be unable to come. She and the abbess are not very good friends; and besides, her extreme laziness would prevent her from getting up so early.

We went to the church. The _prie-dieu_ of the abbess was placed in the nun's choir; it was violet velvet covered with gold _fleur-de-lis_; my _prie-dieu_ was against the balustrade; my son and his daughter were behind my chair, because the princes of the blood cannot kneel upon my carpet; that is a right reserved to the grandsons of France. The whole of the king's band was in the loft. Cardinal de Noailles said mass. The altar is a very fine one of black and white marble with four thick columns of black marble; there are four beautiful statues of sainted abbesses, one so like our own abbess you might think it was her portrait; it was, however, carved before my grand-daughter was born, for she is only twenty-one years old.

Twelve monks of her Order, robed in splendid chasubles, came to serve the mass. After the cardinal had read the epistle, the master of ceremonies entered the nun's choir and brought out the abbess; she came with a very good air, followed by two abbesses, and half a dozen nuns of her own convent. She made a deep curtsey to the altar, then to me, and knelt down before the cardinal, who was seated in a great armchair before the altar. They brought in state the confession of faith, which she read, and after the cardinal had recited many prayers, he gave her a book containing the rules of the convent. She then returned to her place; and after the _Credo_ and the offertory had been read, she came forward again, accompanied by an abbess and her nuns. Two great wax tapers and two loaves of bread, one gilt, the other silvered, were brought, with which she made her offering. After the cardinal had taken the communion, she again knelt before him and he gave her the crozier. Then he took her to her seat, not at her _prie-dieu_, but to her seat as abbess, a sort of throne surmounted by the dais of a princess of the blood with the _fleurs-de-lis_. As soon as she was seated the trumpets and the hautboys sounded, and the cardinal, followed by all his priests, placed himself near the altar on the left side, crozier in hand, and they chanted the Te Deum. Next, all the nuns of the convent came forward, two and two, to testify their submission to their new abbess, making her a deep obeisance. That reminded me of the honours they pay Athys when they make him high priest of Cybele in the opera, and I almost thought they were going to sing, "Before thee all bow down and tremble," etc.

After the Te Deum, we entered the convent about half-past twelve and sat down to table, my son and I, my grandson, the Duc de Chartres, the Princesse Victoire de Soissons, the young Demoiselle d'Auvergne, daughter of Duc d'Albret, and my three ladies. The abbess went to a table in her refectory with her sister, Mlle. de Valois, the two ladies who accompanied her, twelve abbesses, and all the nuns of the convent. It was droll to see so many black robes round a table. My son's people served a very fine repast; and after dinner was over they let the people come in and pillage the dessert and confectionery. At a quarter to five my carriage came, and I returned to Saint-Cloud.

You ask me if my Abbé de Saint-Albin and his brother the Chevalier d'Orléans have the same mother; no. The chevalier is legitimatized, but the poor abbé has not been so at all. He has the family look, and strongly resembles the late Monsieur; he is something like his father and is very like Mlle. de Valois. He is some years older than the chevalier and is very grieved to see his younger brother so much above him. The chevalier, who for some time past has been the grand-prior of France in the Order of Malta, is the son of Mlle. de Séry, formerly my maid-of-honour; she now calls herself Mme. d'Argenton. The mother of the abbé is an opera-dancer named Florence. My son has also a daughter by the left hand, whom he does not recognize; he has married her to a Marquis de Ségur; her mother was Desmares, one of the best actresses in the king's troupe. I love the Abbé de Saint-Albin, and he deserves it. In the first place, he loves me sincerely, and in the next he conducts himself extremely well. He has intellect; he is reasonable, and there is no canting bigotry about him. He is not in as much favour with my son as he deserves, but he is the best young man in the world; well brought-up, pious, and virtuous; he is well educated but has no conceit. He is more like the late Monsieur than he is like his father; but it is plain where he comes from; my son cannot deny him; and it is a great pity that he is not my son's legitimate child.

The enormous wealth that is now in France is inconceivable. All the talk is in millions. I cannot understand it; but I see plainly that the God Mammon reigns in Paris absolutely. The late king would gladly have employed M. Law in the finances; but as he was not a Catholic the king said he could not trust him. Nothing is now thought of but Law's bank; a hundred tales are told of it. A lady gave her coachman an order to upset her in front of it, and when M. Law ran out, supposing from the cries that she had broken her neck or legs, she hastened to acknowledge it was only a stratagem to get speech with him. It is certainly a droll thing to see how everybody runs after that man, jostling each other merely to see him or his son.

M. le Duc and his mother have made, they say, two hundred and fifty millions; the Prince de Conti rather less, though people declare his gains amount to many millions; the two cousins never budge from the rue Quincampoix. But the one who has gained the most money is d'Antin, who is terribly grasping.

M. Law has abjured at Melun; he has become a Catholic, and so have his children; his wife is in despair. He is not avaricious; he does much in charity, without letting it be known, and gives away great sums; he helps large numbers of poor people.

V.

LETTERS OF 1720-1722.

PARIS, 1720.

I have often walked about at night in the gallery of the château of Fontainebleau, where they say the ghost of the late king François I. appears; but the good man never did me the honour to appear to me; perhaps he does not think my prayers sufficiently efficacious to call him out of purgatory; and in that he may be right enough.

I was very gay in my youth; that is why they called me in German _Rauschen petten Knecht_. I remember the birth of the King of England [George I.] as if it had been yesterday. I was a very roguish, inquisitive child. They put a doll in a clump of rosemary and tried to make me believe that it was the child that I was told my aunt was going to have; but just at that moment I heard her scream, which did not agree with the baby in the rosemary bush. I pretended that I believed them, but I slipped into my aunt's chamber as if I were playing hide and seek with young Bulau and Haxthausen, and hid behind a great screen they had placed beside the chimney next the door. Presently they brought the child to the fireplace to bathe it, and I ran out of my hiding-place. I ought to have been whipped, but in honour of the happy event I was only well scolded.

The late king was so attached to the old customs of the royal family that he would not have allowed any of them to be changed for all the world. Mme. de Fiennes used to say that they clung so to old ways in the royal household that the queen died with a frilled cap on her head such as they tie on children when they put them to bed. When the king wished a thing he never allowed any one to argue against it; the thing he ordered must be done at once without reply. He was too used to "such is our good pleasure" to brook an observation. He was very severe in the etiquette he established about him. At Marly it was quite another thing; there he allowed no ceremony. Neither ambassadors nor envoys were invited to go there, and he never gave audiences; there was no etiquette, and everything went along pell-mell. On the promenades the king made the men wear their hats, and in the salon every one, down to the captains and sub-lieutenants of the foot-guards, was allowed to sit down. That gave me such a disgust for the salon that I never chose to stay there. My son is like all the rest of the family, he wants the things to which he has been accustomed from his youth to go on forever. That is why he cannot part with the Abbé Dubois, though he knows his knavery. That abbé wanted to persuade me, myself, that the marriage of my son was very advantageous for him. I replied: "And Honour, monsieur, what can repair that?" The Maintenon had made great promises to him and also to my son, but, thanks be to God, she did not keep her word to either of them.

We have had few queens in France who have been perfectly happy. Marie de' Medici died in exile; the mother of the king and Monsieur was miserable as long as her husband lived; and our own queen, Marie-Thérèse, used to say that since she became queen she had never had but one day of true contentment. She was certainly excessively silly, but the best and most virtuous woman on earth; she had grandeur, and she knew well how to hold a Court. She believed all the king told her, good and bad. Her accoutrements were ridiculous; and her teeth were black and decayed, which came, they said, from eating chocolate, and she also ate a great deal of garlic. She was clumsy and short, and had a very white skin; when she neither danced nor walked she looked taller than she was. She ate frequently, and was very long about it, because it was always in little scraps as if for a canary. She never forgot her native land, and many of her ways were Spanish. She loved cards beyond measure, and played at _bassette_, _reversi_, and _ombre_, sometimes at _petit prime_, but she never won, because she could never learn to play well. While she and the first dauphine lived there was never anything at Court but modesty and dignity. Those who were licentious in secret affected propriety in public; but after the old _guenipe_ began to govern and to introduce the bastards among the royal family everything went topsy-turvy.

The queen had such a passion for the king that she tried to read in his eyes what would please him, and provided he looked at her kindly she was gay all day. She was glad when the king passed the night with her, for being a true Spanish woman she did not dislike that business; whenever it happened she was so gay everybody knew of it. She liked to be joked about it, and would laugh, wink her eyes, and rub her little hands.

She died of an abscess which she had under the arm. Instead of drawing it outside, Fagon, who by great ill-luck was just then her doctor, bled her; that made the abscess break within; the whole of it fell upon the heart, and the emetic which he gave her choked her. The surgeon who bled her said to Fagon: "Monsieur, have you reflected? This will be the death of my mistress." Fagon replied: "Do as I order you, Gervais." The surgeon wept and said to Fagon: "Do you compel me to be the one to kill my mistress?" At eleven o'clock he bled her; at twelve Fagon gave her a great dose of emetic, and at three the queen departed for another world. We may indeed say that the happiness of France died with her. The king was much moved, but that old devil of a Fagon did it on purpose, in order to bring about the fortunes of the old _guenipe_. The king always showed consideration for his wife, and required his mistresses to respect her. He liked her because of her virtue and the sincere attachment she felt for him in spite of his infidelities. He was sincerely afflicted when she died.

PARIS, 1720.

One hears of nothing every day but bank-bills. I think it very hard not to see gold. For forty-eight years I have always had fine gold pieces in my pocket, and now there is nothing to be seen but silver money, and that of little value.

It is very certain that M. Law is now most horribly disliked. My son told me something in the carriage to-day which moved me so much that the tears came into my eyes. He said: "The populace said a thing that touched me to the heart; I feel it deeply." I asked him what it was, and he replied that when the Comte de Horn was executed the people said: "If anything is done against the regent personally he forgives it all; but if anything is done against us, he listens to no nonsense, but does justice." M. Law has no bad intentions; he buys landed property and shows in that way that he means to stay in France. I do not believe that he is sending money to England, Holland, and Hamburg.

We no longer know here what a Court is. No ladies come to see me, because I will not allow them to present themselves before me as they do before Mme. d'Orléans, with scarfs, and no bodies to their loose gowns. Those are things that I will not tolerate. I prefer to see no one at all than to permit such familiarities. Mme. d'Orléans has spoilt these women; she does not make herself respected and does not really know what rank is. Mmes. de Montesson and de Maintenon, who brought her up, did not know either. She is too proud to be willing to learn anything from me; she thinks it would be beneath her, believing herself far superior to me when she sees how her room is filled and mine is empty. She would not imitate me, neither would I imitate her; and so each of us keeps to her own way.

PARIS, May, 1720.

My son has been obliged to dismiss Law, who has hitherto been adored as a god. He is no longer controller-general, though still the director of the Bank and the Company of the Indies. They are obliged to give him a guard, for his life is not safe; and it is pitiable to see how great his terror is. All sorts of satires are being written and spread about him.

The jewellers refuse to work; they value their merchandise at three times the price it can now bring on account of paper-money. I have often wished that hell-fire would burn up those bank-bills. They give my son more trouble than comfort. There is no describing all the results they have brought about. My son spares himself no trouble, but after working from morning till night he likes to amuse himself at supper with his little black crow [the regent's name for Mme. de Parabère].

According to public clamour things are going horribly ill. I wish Law had been at the devil with his system, and had never set foot in France. The people do me too much honour in saying that if my advice had been listened to things would have gone better; I have no advice to give in matters concerning the government; I meddle in nothing of the kind. But Frenchmen are so accustomed to see women with their fingers in everything that it seems to them impossible that I should be aloof from what happens. The good Parisians, with whom I am in favour, choose to attribute to me whatever is good; I am very much obliged to those poor souls for the affection they feel to me, but I do not deserve it. The Parisians are the best people in the world, and if the parliament did not excite them they would never revolt. Poor people, they touch me very much, for while they shout against Law they do not attack my son, and when I passed in my carriage through the crowd they called out benedictions. That touched me so much I could not help crying. It is not surprising that they do not like my son as much as they do me, for his enemies spare nothing to decry him and make him out a reprobate and a tyrant; whereas he is really the best man in the world--he is too good. I have never understood the system of M. Law, but I have firmly believed that no good would come of it. As I cannot disguise my thoughts I have always told my son plainly what I think of it. He assured me I was mistaken and he wanted to explain the matter to me; but the more he tried to make me comprehend it, the less I could understand a word of it.

Law is like a dead man, pale as linen; he cannot get over that last fright of his. His good friend, the Duc d'Antin, wants to get his place as director of the Bank. No one was ever more terrified than M. Law; my son, who is not intimidated in spite of the threats addressed to him, laughs till he makes himself ill over Law's cowardice. Though everything at present is quiet here, Law does not dare go out; the market-women have placed spies round his house to know if he leaves it, which bodes no good to him, and I fear some new disturbance. But I never in my life knew an Englishman or a Scotchman so cowardly as Law; it is the possession of fortune that destroys courage; men do not willingly give up wealth.

SAINT-CLOUD, 1720.

For the last week I have had a number of letters threatening to burn me at Saint-Cloud and my son in the Palais-Royal. My son never tells me a word of such things; he follows the example of his father, who used to say: "It is all well, provided Madame knows nothing about it."

M. Law has gone to Brussels. Mme. de Prie [M. le Duc's mistress] lent him her post-chaise; in returning it he wrote to thank her, and sent her a ring worth a hundred thousand francs. M. le Duc had given him relays and sent four of his servants with him. On taking leave of my son Law said to him: "Monseigneur, I have made great mistakes; I made them because I was human; but you will find neither malice nor dishonesty in my conduct." His wife would not leave Paris till all their debts were paid; he owed his provision man alone ten thousand francs.

SAINT-CLOUD, 1720.

I am firmly persuaded that my days are counted, but I do not occupy my mind with that thought for a moment. I place all in the hands of Almighty God, and do not give myself any anxiety as to what may come to me; for it would indeed be great folly in men and women to imagine that human beings are not equal before God, and that He would do special things for any of them. I have not, thanks to God, either such presumption or such pride. I know who I am and I do not deceive myself in that respect.

I am irritated when I look back and think how ill they speak of the late king, and how little his Majesty has been regretted by those to whom he did most good.

The daughter whom he loved best was the tall Princesse de Conti. She did not stand ill with the Maintenon; who thought it an honour to herself to pay attentions to the princess, who had always led a regular life and renounced frivolity. She lived at last in great devotion, and when they told her that death was near she said: "Dying is the smallest event of my life."

The king often complained that in his youth he had never been allowed to mingle with people and converse with them. But that is a matter of nature, for Monsieur, who was brought up with the king, was always ready to talk with anybody. The king said, laughing, that Monsieur's gabble had disgusted him with speech. "Good God!" he used to say, "must I, in order to please people, talk such paltry and silly nonsense as my brother?" It is true, however, that Monsieur was more beloved in Paris than the king on account of his affability. But when the king wanted to please any one he had the most seductive manners in the world, and he could win hearts much better than my husband. Monsieur (and it is the same with my son), was very amiable to everybody, but he did not distinguish persons sufficiently; he only showed regard to those who liked the Chevalier de Lorraine and his other favourites.

After Monsieur's death the king sent to ask me where I wished to go, whether to a convent in Paris or to Montargis, or elsewhere. I answered that as I had the honour to belong to the royal family I could not wish for any other residence than that of the king, and I wished to go at once to Versailles. That pleased him; he came to see me; but he rather piqued me by saying that he had not thought I should wish to stay in the same place with himself. I replied I did not know who could have made to his Majesty such false reports about me, and that I had more respect and attachment to him than those who had accused me falsely. Then the king made every one leave the room and we had a grand explanation, in which the king reproached me for hating Mme. de Maintenon. I said it was true that I hated her, but it was only out of attachment to him, and because of the evil offices she did me with him; nevertheless, I added, if it would be agreeable to him that I should be reconciled with her I was ready to be so. The good lady had not foreseen that, otherwise she would never have let the king come near me; but he was acting in such good faith that he continued friendly to me to his last hour. He sent for the old woman and said to her: "Madame is very willing to be reconciled with you;" he made us embrace and the affair ended that way. Ever after he wished her to live on good terms with me; which she did outwardly, but she played me, underhand, all sorts of tricks. I should not have minded making a trip to Montargis, but I did not want it to look like a disgrace,--as if I had done something to deserve being sent from Court. There was also danger that I should be left there to die of hunger; I much preferred to be reconciled with the king. As for retiring to a convent, that was not at all my reckoning--though it was just what the old woman would have liked to make me do. The château de Montargis is my dower-house; at Orléans there is no house; Saint-Cloud is not an appanage, it is private property which Monsieur bought with his own money. Now my dower is nothing; all that I have to live upon comes from the king and my son. At the beginning of my widowhood I was left without a penny till they finally owed me three hundred thousand francs which was never paid till after the king's death. What would have become of me, therefore, had I chosen Montargis for my residence?

SAINT-CLOUD, 1720.

The king forgot La Vallière as completely as if he had never seen her or known her in his life. She had as many virtues as the Montespan had vices. The sole weakness that she had for the king was very excusable. The king was young, gallant, and handsome; she herself very young; all the world led her and drove her to her fault. At bottom she was modest and virtuous, with a most kind heart. I told her sometimes that she had transposed her love and carried to God just that which she had for the king. They did her the utmost injustice in accusing her of loving any one but the king--but lies cost the Montespan nothing. It was at her instigation that the king so ill-treated La Vallière. The poor creature's heart was pierced; but she fancied she was offering the greatest sacrifice to God in immolating to him the source of her sin on the very spot where the sin was committed. Therefore, she stayed on, as penance, with the Montespan. The latter, who had more cleverness, laughed at her publicly, treated her ill, and made the king do likewise. Yet she bore it with patience.

Her glance had a charm that can never be described; she had a graceful figure, but her teeth were vile; her eyes seemed to me much more beautiful than those of Mme. de Montespan; her whole bearing was modesty itself. She limped slightly, but it was not unbecoming. When the king made her a duchess and legitimatized her children she was in despair, for she thought till then that no one knew she had them. When I came to France she had not yet retired to a convent; in fact, she remained two years longer at Court. We became intimately acquainted at the time she took the veil. I was greatly touched to see that charming creature persist in her resolution, and when they put her beneath the pall I wept so bitterly I could not see the rest. When the ceremony was over she came to me to comfort me, and told me that I ought to congratulate her and not pity her because she was beginning, from that instant, to be happy; she said she should never in her life forget the favour and friendship I had shown to her, which she had never deserved to receive from me. Shortly after, I went to see her again; I was curious to know why she had remained so long as a servant to the Montespan. God, she told me, had touched her heart, and had given her to know her sin; she then thought that she ought to do penance and suffer in the way most painful to her,--that of sharing the king's heart with another, and seeing him despise her. During the three years that the king's love was ceasing she had suffered like a lost soul, and had offered to God her sorrow in expiation of her past sin, because, having sinned publicly, she thought her repentance should be public also. They had taken her, she said, for a silly fool who noticed nothing, and it was precisely then that she suffered most, until God put into her mind to leave all and serve Him only, which she had now done, although on account of her vices she was not worthy to live among the pure and pious souls of the other Carmelites. I saw that what she said came from the depths of her spirit.

You tell me that you are never fatigued listening to your two preachers. I must confess to my shame that I know nothing more wearisome than a sermon; opium could not make me sleep more soundly. I cannot go to church in the afternoon, for I fall asleep at once; and as I am not in a pew here, but facing the pulpit in an armchair where everybody sees me, it would be a real scandal. Besides, since I have grown old, I snore very loud, which would make people laugh, and the preacher himself might be disconcerted.

I have three fine Bibles: that of Mérian, which my aunt, the Abbess of Maubuisson, bequeathed to me; an edition of Luneburg which is very fine, and another sent to me last year by the Princess of Oldenbourg. The latter is like me, short and thick, and neither the print nor the engravings are as good as in the two others. When I came to France every one was forbidden to read the Bible; for the last few years it has been permitted, but lately the Constitution (Unigenitus), about which there has been so much talk, has again forbidden it. It is true no one minds the injunction. As for me, I laugh and say I am perfectly willing to obey the Constitution, and will bind myself to read no French Bible; in fact, I never open any but my German ones. The Bible is good and wholesome nourishment; and what is more, very agreeable. But the German Catholics never have recourse to it, they are so inclined to superstition.

When a person has lived like M. Leibnitz I cannot believe that he needs to have priests about him; they can teach him nothing, for he knows more than they. Habit does not form a true fear of God, and the communion, considered as the result of habit, has no moral value if the heart is devoid of praiseworthy feelings. I do not doubt M. Leibnitz's salvation, and I think he is very fortunate not to have suffered longer.

I know a person who has been the very intimate friend of a learned abbé That abbé knew most particularly well the celebrated Descartes at the time when he was living in Amsterdam, before he went to Sweden to visit Queen Christina. The abbé often told my friend that Descartes used to laugh at his own system and say: "I have cut them out a fine piece of work; we'll see who will be fool enough to take hold of it" [or "be taken in by it." _Je leur ai taillé de la besogne; nous verrons qui sera assez sot pour y donner_].

I have seen that other philosopher, M. de La Mothe Vayer; with all his talent he scurried along like a crazy man. He always wore furred boots and a cap lined with fur, which he never took off, very broad neck-bands, and a velvet coat.

As long as I was at Heidelberg I never read a novel; his Highness, my father, would not let me do so; but since I have been here I have compensated myself finely. There are none that I have not read: "Astrée," "Cléopatre," "Aléfie," "Cassandre," "Poliesandre" [Madame's own spelling]. Besides which I have read lesser ones: "Tarcis et Célie," "Lissandre et Calixte," "Caloandro," "Endimiro," "Amadis" (but as to the last I only got as far as the seventeenth volume, and there are twenty-four); also the "Roman des Romans," "Théagène and Chariclée," of which there are pictures at Fontainebleau in the king's cabinet.

The monks of Saint-Mihiel have the original of the "Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz," and they have printed and sold them at Nancy. Many things are lacking in that edition. But Mme. de Caumartin, who possesses the memoirs in manuscript, where not a word is missing, is obstinate in not letting them be seen, so that the work is incomplete.

SAINT-CLOUD, 1720.

I think that Madame [her predecessor] was more wronged than wronging; she had to do with very wicked people, about whom I could tell many things if I chose. Madame was very young, beautiful, agreeable, and full of grace, and surrounded by the greatest coquettes in the world, the mistresses of Madame's enemies, who sought only to get her into trouble and make Monsieur quarrel with her. They say here that she was not handsome; but she had so much grace that everything became her. She was not capable of forgiving, and was determined to drive away the Chevalier de Lorraine. In that she succeeded, but it cost her her life. He sent the poison from Italy by a Provençal gentleman named Morel, and to reward the latter he was made chief _maître-d'hôtel_. He robbed and pillaged me and was made to sell his office, for which he got a high price. This Morel had the cleverness of a devil, but knew neither law nor gospel. He owned to me himself that he believed in nothing. When he was dying he would not hear of God, and said of himself, "Let this carcass alone; it is good for nothing more."

It is very true that Madame was poisoned, but without Monsieur's knowledge. When those scoundrels held counsel with one another to determine how they should poison poor Madame, they discussed whether or not they should warn Monsieur. The Chevalier de Lorraine said, "No, do not let us tell him, for he cannot hold his tongue. If he does not speak of it the first year, he will get us hanged ten years later." And it is known that one of the wretches added, "Be careful not to let Monsieur know of it; he would tell it to the king, and that would hang us." They made Monsieur believe that the Dutch had given Madame a slow poison in chocolate: but here is the truth:--

D'Effiat did not poison the chicory water, but he poisoned Madame's cup; and that was well imagined, because no one drinks from our cups but ourselves. The cup was not brought out as soon as asked for; they said it was mislaid. A _valet de chambre_ whom I had, and who had been in the service of the late Madame (he is dead now), related to me that in the morning, while Monsieur and Madame were at mass, d'Effiat went to the buffet, found the cup, and rubbed it with some paper. The _valet de chambre_ said to him: "Monsieur, what are you doing in our closet, and why are you touching Madame's cup?" He answered: "I am dying of thirst, and as the cup was dirty I cleaned it with paper." That evening Madame asked for her chicory water, and as soon as she drank it she cried out that she was poisoned. Those who were there had drunk of the same water, but not from her cup, and they were not taken ill. They put her to bed, and she grew worse and worse, and died two hours after midnight in frightful suffering.

Monsieur never troubled his wife about her gallantries with the king his brother; he himself related to me the whole of Madame's life, and he never would have passed that matter over in silence had he believed it. I think that as to this circumstance the world has been unjust to Madame.