Chapter CLXIX: Letter IV: PARIS, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 1670

I have received your answers to my letters. I can easily conceive the astonishment you were in at what passed between the 15th and 20th of this month; the subject called for it all. I admire likewise your penetration and judgment, in imagining so great a machine could never support itself from Monday to Sunday. Modesty prevents my launching out in your praise on this head, because I said and thought exactly as you did. I told my daughter on Monday, “This will never go on as it should do till Sunday; I will wager, notwithstanding this wedding seems to be sure, that it will never come to a conclusion.” In effect the sky was overcast on Thursday morning, and about ten o’clock, as I told you, the cloud burst. That very day I went about nine in the morning to pay my respects to mademoiselle, having been informed that she was to go out of town to be married, and that the coadjutor of Rheims[311] was to perform the ceremony. These were the resolves on Wednesday night, but matters had been determined otherwise at the Louvre ever since Tuesday. Mademoiselle was writing; she made me place myself on my knees at her bed-side; she told me to whom she was writing, and upon what subject, and also of the fine presents she had made the night before, and the titles she had conferred; and as there was no match in any of the courts of Europe for her, she was resolved, she said, to provide for herself. She related to me, word for word, a conversation she had had with the king, and appeared overcome with joy, to think how happy she should make a man of merit. She mentioned, with a great deal of tenderness, the worth and gratitude of M. de Lauzun. To all which I made her this answer: “Upon my word, mademoiselle, your highness seems quite happy! but why was not this affair finished at once last Monday? Do not you perceive that the delay will give time and opportunity to the whole kingdom to talk, and that it is absolutely tempting God, and the king, to protract an affair of so extraordinary a nature as this is to so distant a period?” She allowed me to be in the right, but was so sure of success, that what I said made little or no impression on her at the time. She repeated the many amiable qualities of Monsieur de Lauzun, and the noble house he was descended from. To which I replied in these lines of Corneille’s Polyeuctus:

Du moins on ne la peut blâmer d’un mauvais choix,
Polyeucte a du nom, et sort du sang des rois.

Her choice of him no one can surely blame,
Who springs from kings, and boasts a noble name.

[311] Charles Maurice le Tellier.

Upon which she embraced me tenderly. Our conversation lasted above an hour. It is impossible to repeat all that passed between us, but I may without vanity say that my company was agreeable to her, for her heart was so full that she was glad of any one to unburden it to. At ten o’clock she devoted her time to the nobility, who crowded to pay their compliments to her. She waited all the morning for news from court, but none came. All the afternoon she amused herself with putting M. de Montpensier’s apartment in order, which she did with her own hands. You know what happened at night. The next morning, which was Friday, I waited upon her, and found her in bed; her grief redoubled at seeing me; she called me to her, embraced me, and whelmed me with tears.

“Ah!” said she, “you remember what you said to me yesterday? What foresight! what cruel foresight!” In short, she made me weep to see her weep so violently. I have seen her twice since; she still continues in great affliction, but behaves to me as to a person that sympathizes with her in her distress; in which she is not mistaken, for I really feel sentiments for her that are seldom felt for persons of such superior rank. This, however, between us two and Madame de Coulanges; for you are sensible that this chit-chat would appear ridiculous to others.