Chapter II: 1635 to 1642 (2)

We may by this judge what Chantilly must have been eight or ten years before, when all there were young; when the great Condé was still the Duke d’Enghien; Madame de Longueville, Mademoiselle de Bourbon; Madame de Montausier, Mademoiselle de Rambouillet; when, instead of the civil war, a flourishing peace or glorious victories filled every heart with gladness. The Duke d’Enghien was never there except amid a crowd of brave and gallant gentlemen, who afterwards fought with him at Rocroy, at Fribourg, at Dunkirk, at Lens, but who then shared his pleasures at the hôtel de Condé and at Chantilly—devoted confidants of his designs and of his loves. Among these were the Duke de Nemours, so suddenly slain, and whose brother—inheritor of his title, of his beauty, and his bravery—perished also in a frightful duel in the midst of the Fronde; Coligny, killed also, at an early age, in a duel of another character; his brother, Dandelot, afterwards Duke de Châtillon, one of the heroes of Lens, who promised to be a great warrior, and who perished at the attack of Charenton, during the first days of the Fronde; Laval, the son of the Marquis de Sablé, handsome, brave, and witty, who distinguished himself, and was slain at the siege of Dunkirk; La Moussaye, his aid-de-camp and principal officer in every battle, who, too, died young at Sténay, in 1650; Chabot, who married the beautiful and rich heiress of the Rohans; Pisani, the son of the Marchioness de Rambouillet, who fell sword in hand; the Marquis de Fors Du Vigean, Nangis, Tavannes, Seneçay, and many others, among whom arose the young Montmorency-Boutteville, afterwards Duke Maréchal-de-Luxembourg; all this school of Condé, entirely different from that of Turenne, into which the Duke d’Enghien early breathed his genius and the divine part of art, as Napoleon so well expressed it, the instinct of war, the glance which seized the strategic point of an affair, with audacity and obstinacy in execution; that admirable school, which began at Rocroy, and from which arose twelve marshals, without counting those generals who sustained the honor of France to the very end of the century. These were the youth who amused themselves at Chantilly, preluding glory by gallantry.

Mademoiselle de Bourbon, in selecting companions, was equal to her brother. She formed a connection with the Marchioness de Sablé, who became the friend of her whole life; but she had younger friends, if not more dear, at least with whom she was more familiar; she had formed a little private society, composed chiefly of Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, of Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean, and of her two cousins, Mesdemoiselles de Boutteville. It must be confessed that it was a circle of charming and redoubtable beauties, harmonious in their graceful youth, but destined soon to be separated, and to become rivals or enemies.

Voiture, we may conceive, took great care of these beautiful ladies, and especially of Mademoiselle de Bourbon: he celebrated her in verse and in prose, in every tune, and upon every occasion. Even in his letters written to others, he cannot cease speaking of her mind and beauty: “The mind of Mademoiselle de Bourbon,” says he, “is all that can cause one to doubt whether her beauty is the most perfect thing in the world.” He is continually comparing her to an angel:

“of pearls and stars and flowers of finest shade,
Bourbon, the heaven hath thy complexion made,
And ’mid thy charms it hath enshrined
An angel’s mind.”

In another place he says:

“The Bourbon, you might safely swear,
Seeing her skin so fresh, so fair,
Had from a lily sprung.”

It is to her again that he addresses this agreeable song, intended, doubtless, to be chanted in a low tone by the side of Mademoiselle de Bourbon, as she lay dozing in one of the groves of Chantilly:

“Our Aurora ’mid roses
Now gently reposes;
Let each keep silence once more,
And let no one disturb her,
Unless it be life to restore.”[157]

And if these ladies staid too long in the country, when Voiture was not with them, he called them back to Paris, in his burlesque, sentimental complaints.[158]

But they did not spend the whole summer at Chantilly. Madame the Princess possessed several other country-seats in the vicinity: Marlou, La Versine, Méru, l’Isle-Adam, charming places to which she often went. She was also obliged to visit the cardinal and Madame d’Aiguillon in their beautiful summer residence at Ruel, on the borders of the Seine, between Saint-Germain and Paris.[159] The pleasures of these places were very different from those of Chantilly. Art reigned at Ruel. Like Paris, it had a theatre, where the cardinal caused the representation of pieces with machinery brought from Italy. He gave great mythological ballets, like those of the Louvre, and feasts of a magnificence almost royal; whilst at Chantilly, much more removed from Paris, there was doubtless grandeur and opulence, but a grandeur full of quiet, and an opulence which placed especially at its service the beauties of nature. Ruel was also quite as lively as the Palais-Cardinal. Richelieu labored there with his ministers: there he received the court, France, Europe. Business was there mingled with diversion. The Duchess d’Aiguillon was worthy of her uncle, ambitious and prudent, devoted to him to whom she owed every thing, sharing his cares as well as his fortune, and governing admirably his house. She was still young enough, of a regular beauty, and not implicated in any affair of gallantry. Calumny or slander had attacked her relations with Richelieu, and even with Madame Du Vigean. She had more sense than wit, and was by no means a _précieuse_, although she frequented the hôtel de Rambouillet. Madame the Princess did not like Richelieu; she could not pardon the death of her brother, Montmorency, whom all her prayers and tears had not been able to save; but she subscribed to the political opinions of her husband. She had been obliged to agree to the marriage of the Duke d’Enghien with Mademoiselle de Brézé, and she was continually with his children at the Palais-Cardinal and at Ruel. She was received there in a manner that was unavoidable, and the poets of the cardinal chanted the praises of both the mother and daughter. Richelieu, as is well known, had five poets whom he employed to labor for his theatre: Bois-Robert, Colletet, l’Etoile, Corneille, and Retrou. They were called the five authors, and as such, produced in common several pieces: _l’Aveugle de Smyrne_, _La Comédie des Tuileries_, etc. This did not prevent the presence of other poets at the palace of his Eminence: Georges Scudéry, Voiture himself, who paid court to Richelieu and celebrated the Duchess d’Aiguillon. It was at Ruel that, meeting in an avenue Queen Anne, and challenged by her to make some verses on the spot, Voiture improvised that little piece, remarkable especially for the ease and boldness with which he ventured to speak to her of Buckingham. But the two favorites of the cardinal were Desmarets and Bois-Robert; he employed their pens upon every occasion, in what was light as well as in what was serious. It seems that Desmarets had been instructed to do the poetic honors of Ruel to Madame the Princess and to her daughter. We find in fact, in the collection, now rare enough and very little read, of the works of the king’s counsellor and minister of war, Desmarets, dedicated to Richelieu, and handsomely printed,[160] a multitude of very agreeable verses, which were sung in the mythological ballets of Ruel, and of which several are addressed to Mademoiselle de Bourbon, and to Madame the Princess. In a _Mascarade of the Graces and the Loves, addressing themselves to Madame the Duchess d’Aiguillon in presence of Madame the Princess and of Mademoiselle de Bourbon_, the Graces say to the latter:

Wonderful beauty! offspring too of royalty,
Whose charms to own the gods have e’en repined,
We truly thought we were but three,
Yet now a thousand graces in thee find.

These are but insipid affairs, while the two following pieces have at least the advantage of describing the person of Mademoiselle de Bourbon, as she then was before her marriage, a few years after the portrait of Ducayer. We here see Mademoiselle de Bourbon beginning to fulfil the promise of her youth, and the angelic face described to us by Madame de Motteville, already accompanied by other attractions of true beauty:

_To Mademoiselle de Bourbon._

Thou with whose charms naught can compare,
Pride of a nation’s heart,
Whose beauteous tints, whose graces rare
The strongest love impart,

To win thee, ah! why should I aim,
Since e’en the purest flame,
Though nurtured in the skies,
Could not deserve a glance from thy bright eyes! etc.

_To the same._

Complexion where the rose and lily wed,
Beauty of magic powers,
Charming these souls of ours;
Tresses so lustrous, lips so ruby red;
Who ever could resist, who could resign
Attractions so divine? etc.

A few leagues from Chantilly were the beautiful lands of Liancourt, which Jeanne de Schomberg, at first Duchess de Brissac, then Duchess de Liancourt, had converted into a magnificent abode. She was a person of the greatest merit, and we have received from her pen a very remarkable work,[161] destined for the education of her granddaughter, Mademoiselle de La Roche-Guyon, who, in 1659, married the son of La Rochefoucauld. She took pleasure in planning and carrying out the arrangements of a sumptuous establishment. She bought Rue de Seine, the ancient hôtel de Bouillon, and erected in its place the hôtel de Liancourt, afterwards called the hôtel de La Rochefoucauld, which extended from the Rue de Seine to the Rue des Augustins, in the space now occupied by the Rue des Beaux Arts. “At Liancourt,” says Tallemant,[162] “the duchess had done all that any one could do for avenues and meadows. Every year she added some new beauty.” In 1656, Silvestre designed and engraved the _different views of the castle and gardens, fountains, cascades, canals, and parterres of Liancourt_.[163] Madame the Princess often made a visit to this beautiful place. At one time when the small-pox was making fearful ravages in the neighborhood of Chantilly, and in the domains of the princess, Marlou, La Versine, Méru, she sent her children, with all their young friends, to pass some time at Liancourt. The Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean alone were wanting, having been called to Paris by their mother. The only son of the house, La Roche-Guyon, was one of the friends of the Duke d’Enghien; he was slain in 1646, while serving under him at the bloody siege of Mardyck. It was autumn. On All-Saints’ Day, these young ladies performed their devotions with accustomed exactitude. They then gave themselves up to quiet diversions, and, for want of better, and sharing the dominant taste for wit, also in the company perhaps of Montreuil or Sarrazin, they employed themselves in making rhymes; so that even on All-Saints’ Day they addressed to Marlou, where Madame the Princess was then staying, _The Life and Miracles of Saint Marguerite Charlotte de Montmorency, Princess de Condé, versified at Liancourt_. These verses, says the manuscript from which we borrow these details,[164] were made upon the spot, and the authors appear to have been Mademoiselle de Bourbon, and Mesdemoiselles de Rambouillet, de Boutteville, and de Brienne.

Yet to a living saint, on this Saints’ Day,
A charming saint, we ought to pray.
...
As soon as she was born, her matchless eyes
Beam’d like two suns in summer skies:
Her cheeks of lilies made—her lips, when closed,
Were beds whereon the rose reposed;
And then in partly opening them to smile,
Pearls of the East she showed the while, etc.

It was impossible for them to forget the two amiable absentees, Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean, who were fatiguing themselves at Paris, while they were passing the time so agreeably at Liancourt. They wrote to them a very long letter in verse, wherein they regretted their absence, and enumerated their consolations. These unpublished verses, like the preceding, are also very mediocre; but it must not be forgotten that they are the impromptus of young girls and noble-born ladies.[165]

_Letter of Mademoiselle de Bourbon, and of Mesdemoiselles de Rambouillet, de Boutteville, and de Brienne, sent from Liancourt to Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean at Paris._

Four clever nymphs, perhaps more free
Than even those of wood and sea,
To two who with their hearts in pain
Curse bitterly the prisoner’s chain;

We who pretended every wise
That praise for us was always stored,
That by an arrow from our eyes
We might be everywhere adored.

...

Of empire we have been deprived;
We’ve been forsaken, frown’d upon:
At Méru, scarce had we arrived,
Than to Versine we’re forced to run.

...

There, too, that foe to female grace,
That death to all of woman’s charms,
Our vanity still to abase,
O’erwhelm’d us with the worst alarms.

At noise of this disease so fell,
Each hurries off with looks forlorn;
For, sooth, to lovers all farewell,
If, of our beauty we are shorn!

Of Love’s keen weapons to make sure,
In some place fit for his domains,
We came at last to Liancourt,
Where Flora with sweet Zephyr reigns,

Where full a hundred walks are found,
A hundred fountains and cascades—
A hundred meads where streams abound,
Made for the pleasures of the Naiads.

A place, like which, there are so few,
We hoped some length of time to own,
But here now comes that Richelieu,[166]
And hence, at last, we must be gone.

See us, whom lovers all agreed
The brightest stars of France to call;
But we are wand’ring stars indeed,
Who now possess no power at all.

What was most curious and unexpected was, that the mania for rhyming took possession of Condé himself. As we have said, he had much wit and gayety, and he entered willingly into the society with which he was surrounded. In the midst of the Fronde, when war was also carried on by means of songs, he made more than one, bearing his own peculiar stamp. During the first war of Paris, in which Condé, still faithful to the true interests of his house, sided with the court, one of the most ardent chieftains of the opposing party was the Count de Maure, a cadet of the Duke de Mortemart, uncle of Madame de Montespan, husband of the witty Anne Doni d’Attichy, intimate friend of Madame de Sablé. In the councils of the Fronde, the count always favored the most rash resolutions. The Mazarins turned him into ridicule, and overwhelmed him with a shower of epigrams. Bachaumont, one of the authors of the celebrated _Voyage de Chapelle et Bachaumont_, had written against him some little verses, which terminated thus:[167]

Oh! a buff-jacket, with black velvet sleeves,
Is worn by the great Count de Maure;
And over this hero, whom well it relieves,
There is a buff-jacket, with black velvet sleeves:
Look out, Sir Condé, one easy perceives
You are destined for food to this hero in war.
Oh! a buff-jacket, with black velvet sleeves,
Is worn by the great Count de Maure.

Condé, according to the testimony of Tallemant, whom we have no reason to discredit, added the following lines:

He’s a blood-thirsty tiger, the worst of his kind,
This very same brave Count de Maure;
When to be ’mong the foremost in fight he’s a mind,
He’s a blood-thirsty tiger, the worst of his kind.
But he’s not very oft with the foremost we find,
Thus is it that Condé was not kill’d before.
He’s a blood-thirsty tiger, the worst of his kind,
This very same brave Count de Maure.

Among his best lieutenants was the Count de Marsin, father of the marshal, indeed much superior to him, and a veritable warrior. Condé esteemed him highly, but for all that he did not spare him. One day at table, in drinking his health, he improvised to a tune, then very common, this little song,[168] which has never been published, and which seems to us very piquant:

My dear Marsin, I drink to thee,
Mars truly must thy cousin be,
Bellona sure thy ma,
But who may be thy pa
Is more than I can see.
Tin, tin, trelin, tin, tin, tin.

At Liancourt, having nothing to do, and vexed because his sister and her beautiful friends stayed so long at church on All-Saints’ Day, he addressed to them the following epigram:[169]

Impose on others, if you may,
A hundred pater-nosters say,
And mumble o’er to day your prayers.
You’re very artful, we believe,
For, if a beau his love declares,
You’re ready then your prayers to leave.

Among other friends whom he had with him at Liancourt, was the Marquis de Roussillon, an excellent officer and man of spirit, together with the intrepid La Moussaye, who was faithful to him to the last, and who, during the captivity of Condé, shut himself up with Madame de Longueville in the citadel of Sténay, where he died. Roussillon and La Moussaye, having been compelled to leave Liancourt for Lyons, Condé, in imitation of his sister’s letter to the Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean, wrote, or caused to be written, one of the same kind to his two absent friends. We give this piece almost entire, because it is written by Condé, or because Condé, at least, had a hand in it, and especially because it describes so naturally the life lead at Liancourt, at Chantilly, and in all the grand abodes of that aristocracy of the seventeenth century, so badly appreciated, and which, during peace, honored and cultivated the arts, which gave to letters a Rochefoucauld, a Retz, a Saint-Evremond, a Saint-Simond, without speaking of Madame de Sévigné and Madame de La Fayette, and which, when war broke out, flew to the battle-field, and lavished its blood in the cause of France. These are the verses of the future hero of Rocroy:

_Letter[170] of Monseigneur the Duke d’Enghien, written from Liancourt to MM. de Roussillon, and de La Moussaye at Lyons._

Since you’ve been gone, a hundred dear delights
Have e’er consumed our days and nights;
And to recount these pastimes so diverse,
We are compell’d to write in verse.

Upon the spot most beautiful of earth,
To pleasures ever giving birth,
Where Art, with Nature, every charm employs,
We daily find a thousand joys;

A troop of young and peerless maids,
More beautiful by virtue’s aids,
In sports commingle with a hundred youth,
Sage, gallant, handsome too forsooth.

Each, in a way to envy, e’er displays
His person and his winning ways;
At every moment, too, he tries his best
To please the one who rules his breast:

Talks of his love ’mid groves and promenades,
While leaning o’er the bright cascades,
And really seems the utmost bliss to gain
When sadly he recounts his pain.

A dozen gallants, blest with stoutest lungs,
In comedies employ their tongues;
Display their forms in garments rich and rare,
And strut with a majestic air.

At night, we list to charming serenades,
Or please ourselves with mascarades;
But still, among the pastimes most in quest,
The _Ballet du Printemps_ seems best.

...

The ladies oft, when favor’d by the sky,
Love on their well-train’d nags to fly;
To scare the partridge, give the wolf a chase,
And o’er to Marlou have a race.

And lovers meantime whisper in their ear,
Oh! beauty, to the gods so dear!
Leave birds and beasts, since from your eyes fly darts
That daily pierce the bravest hearts.

These are our pastimes, these the sports we take,
And happiness enough they make.
Did you imagine that you hence could bear
A portion of the joys we share?[171]

A very natural feeling leads us to inquire into the destiny of this court of young and brave gentlemen, of gay and charming young women, then surrounding Mademoiselle de Bourbon and her brother. We have told that of the gentlemen: all of them became illustrious warriors; most of them died upon the battle-field. But what became of their amiable companions, that swarm of youthful beauties whom we followed upon the steps of Mademoiselle de Bourbon to Chantilly, to Ruel, to Liancourt,—those five inseparable friends, whose verses, less pleasing than their faces, we have published, Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Brienne, Mademoiselle de Montmorency-Boutteville, Mademoiselle Du Vigean? They had the most dissimilar fortunes, as we shall rapidly indicate.

Marie-Antoinette de Lomélie, daughter of the Count de Brienne, one of the ministers of Queen Anne, married, in 1642, the Marquis de Gamache, who became lieutenant-general. Her portraits, traced by herself, may be seen among the _Portraits_ of Mademoiselle, with those of her father and mother. She made no noise; all her life passed on quietly and piously. She died at the age of eighty years, in 1704. She kept up continually, with Madame de Longueville, the most friendly intercourse. She was the least brilliant of the five friends, but she was the most fortunate.

What became of Mademoiselle de Rambouillet is well known. Spirituelle but ambitious, after having married Montausier, in 1645, she sought, as well as her husband, the favors of the court, and obtained them by paying the ransom. It is sad to begin in youth with harshness to one’s lovers, as they said at the hôtel de Rambouillet, and to be married only as a sort of favor, like the Armande of the _Femmes Savantes_, in order to become one of the most obliging of duennas. At first appointed a maid of honor of Queen Marie-Thérèse, she had, in 1664, the courage to take the place of the virtuous Duchess de Navailles, who would not countenance the love of the young king, Louis XIV., and Mademoiselle de La Vallière. Hence the well-founded accusations entertained by the benevolent Madame de Motteville herself, and which, at a later period, were confirmed by her weakness, when the king abandoned Mademoiselle de La Vallière for Madame de Montespan.[172] It was in the midst of all these rumors that her husband was named Governor of the Dauphin. Montausier was certainly a man of merit, and, like his wife, he had great qualities, which he spoiled by great defects. He made a great show of virtue, under which was hidden much that was pitiful. He was very free in censuring every one, and suffered no one to fail in rendering him his due. He was abrupt, headstrong, of an insupportable haughtiness and pride.[173] Charged provisionally and by commission with the government of Normandy, at the death of M. de Longueville, in 1663, he assumed the dignity of a prince of the blood, and exacted all the honor that was rendered to M. de Longueville himself. Hard towards his inferiors, difficult with his equals, he knew perfectly how to manage his credit and push his fortune. Born a Protestant, he became converted for the sake of his wife, as well as for political purposes.[174] Madame de Montausier was more amiable, but quite as careful of her own interests. She was of that same school of which Madame de Maintenon was the consummate mistress,—that school which seeks the appearance of good rather than good itself, which accommodates itself to meanness, skilfully concealed, and bestows all its care, all its study upon not compromising itself; whilst proud and truly honest souls, whom passion misleads, take no pains to hide their faults, being careless of reputation when virtue is lost. Madame de Montausier was especially occupied with herself. She had the confidence of the king. She became a duchess. Her career was brilliant, but was she happy? She became embroiled and reconciled more than once with Madame de Longueville. She died in 1671, after her mother, the noble marchioness, who died in 1665, and, like her, she was buried in that convent of the Carmelites of the Rue Saint-Jacques, which most of the friends of Mademoiselle de Bourbon seem to have made a place of rendezvous during life and after death.

Mademoiselle de Montmorency-Boutteville, Isabelle Angélique,[175] possessed at an early age a beauty which she preserved to the end. Her younger sister, Marie Louise, yielded to her, says Lenet,[176] not as to the more beautiful, but as to the elder. She married the Marquis de Valency, and disappeared ten years before her sister, in 1684. Isabelle de Montmorency had much mind, and to the brilliancy of her charms united at first great coquetry, and afterwards the most shameful artifices. The first pages of her life are a romance—the last, a vulgar story. Protected, as well as her sister and brother, by Madame the Princess, and placed almost upon an equality with Mademoiselle de Bourbon and the Duke d’Enghien, she made, or seemed to make, some impression upon the latter; but she inflamed especially the handsome and the brave Dandelot. Madame de Boutteville refused to give him her daughter, because he was a Protestant and simply a younger brother, his elder brother, Coligny, being heir to the fortune and title of the Châtillons. But, after the death of Coligny, Dandelot who took his name, feeling himself upheld by the Duke d’Enghien and by his sister, carried off Mademoiselle de Boutteville, with her own consent of course, and after that it became necessary to marry the two fugitives.[177] Voiture wrote some very lively verses upon this elopement,[178] and Sarrazin made a ballad upon the method of conducting such matters.[179] It would be supposed that a marriage so passionately desired on both sides would result in continued happiness to both parties. It was not, however, so. Coligny having become Duke de Châtillon, thought much more of war than of his wife: he covered himself with glory at Lens; but, as we have said, he perished in a miserable combat at Charenton in 1649. It must be confessed that he was the first to do wrong, and in dying he asked pardon of her whose pride he had especially wounded.[180] The young and beautiful widow soon found consolation; she got possession of the heart of Condé, which had been for some time unoccupied, and exerted herself to keep it without bestowing her own, or even giving it to another, skilful in the art of promoting her interests and her pleasures. The memoirs of the times, and particularly those of La Rochefoucauld, describe her as managing at once the imperious Condé, from whom she drew great advantages, and the suspicious Nemours, whom she preferred, striving to conciliate them, and to win them both to the court with which she had a secret treaty. A little while after she plunges into the most diverse intrigues, connecting herself with the Marshal d’Hoquincourt and with the Abbé Fouquet, retaining over the absent Condé the power of her charms, trying this power upon the young king Louis XIV., marrying in 1664 the Duke de Meklembourg in the hope of a crown in Germany, and leaving after her the reputation of having been as beautiful and as selfish as the Duchess de Montbazon. The latter doubtless possessed beauty of a superior style, but the other, less imposing, was a thousand times more agreeable. They were by turns the two most dangerous rivals and mortal enemies of Madame de Longueville.[181]

But we now present a very different person, whose destiny, like her character, forms a perfect contrast with that of Madame de Châtillon; very beautiful also, but less dazzling and more touching; a person who had not perhaps the mind and the finesse of the seductive friend of her childhood, but who knew none of her artifices and intrigues; who glittered a moment only to be quickly extinguished, but who has left a virtuous and sweet memory; a person superior perhaps to Mademoiselle de La Vallière herself, for she also loved and was able to resist her heart, and, without falling, deceived in her affections, she determined to finish her life like the sister Louise de la Miséricorde. Let us not pity her too much: she tasted in this world an inexpressible happiness; she felt beating for her the heart of a hero, that of the conqueror of Rocroy and of Fribourg, of the ardent and impetuous Duke d’Enghien, who could not quit her without shedding tears and without fainting. Sensible to a passion so true, and which promised to be so durable, but disarmed in some measure by the charm of a modest and sincere virtue, she made Condé know, at least once in his life, what was true love. After that he knew nothing but the transient intoxication of the senses, especially the passion of war, for which he was born—his true passion indeed, his mistress, his part, his country, his king, the true object of all his life, and by turns his shame and his glory.

This charming creature, who for several years was the idol of Condé, was the young Mademoiselle Du Vigean. Her destiny was so touching, and it was so intimately connected with that of Mademoiselle de Bourbon and of Madame de Longueville, that we shall be pardoned for dwelling a few moments upon it.

Mademoiselle Du Vigean was the youngest daughter of François Poussart de Fors, at first Baron, then Marquis Du Vigean, a man of little importance,[182] and of Anne de Neubourg, who was a very great character under Louis XIII., thanks to the friendship of the Duchess d’Aiguillon, niece of Richelieu. Admitted into the first society, the letters and poesy of Voiture show that Madame Du Vigean held well her place.[183] This success, and the connection which was the occasion of it, could not fail to make her the subject of envy, and various rumors were spread concerning her and Madame d’Aiguillon, equally injurious to both, and of which we find no feeble echo in the scandalous chronicle of Tallemant and in the songs of the times.[184] She possessed at La Barre, near Paris, above Saint-Denis and d’Enghien, and quite near to Montmorency, a charming residence which Voiture has described, and where she received magnificently the best and choicest society, even to Madame the Princess and Mademoiselle de Bourbon.[185]

Madame Du Vigean had two sons and two daughters. The eldest of the sons, the Marquis de Fors, was an officer of the greatest promise, who was killed at the age of twenty years at the siege of Arras, where the Duke d’Enghien served as a volunteer. He had been made a prisoner twice, but he perished finally, after prodigies of valor. He was wept by the Duke d’Enghien and by all his comrades. Magnificent funeral ceremonies were performed over him, and Desmarets, one of the poets of Richelieu, consecrated to him a long elegy.[186] His young brother, who also served, finished his career still more sadly: he was assassinated under circumstances which could never be discovered.

As to the two sisters, their eulogy is found in all the gallant poems of this epoch. They are praised equally with Mademoiselle de Boutteville and Mademoiselle de Bourbon, in a piece in the manuscript collection of Maurepas,[187] and Voiture places them in a review of the beauties of the court of Chantilly, addressed to Madame the Princess.[188] He is pleased to celebrate the mother and the two daughters, and particularly the young Du Vigean:

Baroness so sweet, so fair too,
The mother, or the sister, are you
Of these two gentle belles whom all
Your daughters call?

...

Upon her face, (De Fors, Du Vigean’s eldest sister) beneath her feet,
Spring flowers beautiful and sweet,
Which elsewhere no one sees, etc.

A rising sun this Vigean (the younger) glows,
A bud just ready to unclose, etc.

Of love though ignorant indeed,
Yet in her eyes one may love read,
And everywhere she sets it free
Unconsciously.[189]

Here again are a few words of Voiture, hitherto unintelligible, and which now have a certain application:

Our Aurora, de La Barre,
Is now a glowing sun.
...
These matchless charms, in truth,
Revive my long lost youth.

Evidently the poet speaks of Mademoiselle Du Vigean the younger, who, after having been a rising sun, an aurora, became, in a few years, a sun in full splendor. She was called the Aurora of La Barre, from the name of the house of which she was the most amiable ornament.

In writing all these verses in honor of Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean, Voiture had doubtless under his eyes the devices which had been made for them and for their mother, and which are preserved in the papers of Conrart:[190] “For Madame Du Vigean, who had lost her eldest son, an orange-tree, having at its foot its topmost branch cut off, covered with flowers and fruit: _Quis dolor_.” “For Mademoiselle de Fors, her eldest daughter, a rose among several flowers: _Dat decor imperium_.” “For Mademoiselle Du Vigean, her second daughter, a lighted taper, surrounded with moths: _Oblecto sed uro_.” Let us add these two devices, which describe so well the character, and already the reputation of those who were the subject of them: “For Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, a crown with this inscription: _Me quieren todos_.” “For Mademoiselle de Bourbon, an ermine: _Intus candidior_.”

In 1635, at the great ball given at the Louvre by Louis XIII., to which Mademoiselle de Bourbon consented to go with so much difficulty, and which proved the ruin of her religious ardor, among the ladies who danced with her, André d’Ormesson[191] mentions Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean. The eldest, Anne Fors Du Vigean, was pretty, sweet, insinuating,[192] and, says Madame de Motteville, ambitious and prone to flattery. She was married to M. de Pons, who had not much property, but who pretended to be connected with the illustrious house d’Albredt. Becoming a widow in 1648, and the confidant of the Duchess d’Aiguillon, intimate friend of her mother, she succeeded in obtaining the love of the nephew, the young Duke de Richelieu, and in marrying him, notwithstanding the duchess and notwithstanding the queen, thanks to the protection of Condé and of Madame de Longueville. For this fortunate protection she was indebted to the remembrances of childhood, especially to the tender and profound sentiment which Condé and his sister had early felt and ever preserved for her younger sister, the young, beautiful, virtuous, and unfortunate—Mademoiselle Du Vigean.

Contemporaneous memoirs give neither the particular name, nor the precise date of the birth of this amiable person. But, thanks to the unpublished documents which have been placed in our hands, we know that the young Du Vigean was born in 1622, and that she was called Martha,[193] a modest name, and answering well to her character and destiny. She was then almost of the same age as Mademoiselle de Bourbon. She had been brought up with her, and, when they appeared together, it was almost with the same éclat. It is impossible to find any portrait or engraving of her which can be relied upon. Her charms were greatly heightened by a modesty full of grace, and the verses which we have quoted from Voiture, show her still young, in the innocence of a beauty of which she was ignorant, and which excited passions which she herself did not share.

Let us say, in the first place, in order to justify Condé and her who received his first homage, that the inclination of the Duke d’Enghien for the young Du Vigean, preceded his marriage with Mademoiselle de Brézé, niece of the cardinal, and continued till the year 1640, when the young duke was leading, at Paris, at the hôtel de Condé, at Chantilly, and elsewhere, the innocent life which we have described, surrounded by his comrades in arms, and among the charming and dangerous companions of Mademoiselle de Bourbon. It was then that he met Madame Du Vigean and her two daughters, and that he began, says Lenet, “to feel for Mademoiselle Du Vigean an esteem and a friendship which became, by degrees, a strong and tender love.”[194]

Indeed, the Duke d’Enghien might have imagined that it would not be impossible for him to obtain from his father and from the king, that is, from the Cardinal de Richelieu, their consent to a marriage, disproportionate, without doubt, but in no wise degrading to him. Mademoiselle Du Vigean was very rich, and her family was in great credit; Richelieu favored her; and it would not have been displeasing to him to see a prince of the blood descending somewhat from his own rank. The marriage which was imposed upon Condé some time after, was not much above what this might have been. A little delusion was permitted to the age and impetuosity of the young duke, and, once the affections engaged, they yielded only to time and necessity.

With such a sentiment in the heart, one can imagine how much the Duke d’Enghien must have suffered from the marriage to which he was condemned in 1641. It is to his chagrin upon this occasion, that the sickness with which he was then attacked is attributed. Although his young wife, Claire-Clémence Maillé de Brézé, was very agreeable, he did not live with her, and formed, from the moment of his marriage, the design of repudiating her as soon as he could. He protested against the violence which had been done to him. He made this protestation in the shape of a national deed, clothed with all legal forms, and signed by himself, by the president of Vernon, superintendent of his house, and by Perrault, at that time his secretary.[195]

We have related how, notwithstanding his disorder, as soon as he learned that the campaign was about to open, nothing could retain him, neither the prayers of his family, nor the tears of his mistress; he set out hardly convalescent, and returned covered with glory. On his return, he “continued to give to Mademoiselle Du Vigean all the marks of a tender and respectful passion.”[196]

In 1642, being at the waters of Bourbon with the Cardinal de Richelieu, the Duke d’Enghien, at a most critical period, seized a pretext for going to Paris, “where the passion which he felt for Mademoiselle Du Vigean called him.”[197]

It was especially after the death of the cardinal, in the years 1643 and 1644, that the amours of Condé were chiefly observable. Gallantry being then fashionable, these amours were neither a mystery nor a scandal. The National Library possesses more than one manuscript history of the regency of Anne of Austria, the author of which declares that he was the witness of every thing that he relates, and, in a letter addressed to the Prince de Condé, dedicates these memoirs to him.[198] The tenderness of the two young people is here several times alluded to. After the campaign of Flanders, in which the Duke d’Orleans had taken Gravelines, and in which Condé had taken Fribourg, “these illustrious conquerors,” says our manuscript, “having carried their laurels to the feet of the regent, who was then at Fontainebleau, retired, the first to Paris, and the other to Chantilly. If the court of Fontainebleau surpassed that of Chantilly in number, the latter did not yield to it in gallantry and in pleasures. The Princess de Condé, the Duchesses d’Anguyen and de Longueville, were there, accompanied by a dozen of the most agreeable persons of quality in France. In addition to the beauty of the place, games and promenades, music and the chase, and every thing generally that can make a place agreeable, were to be found here. The young Du Vigean was there, for whom the Duke d’Anguyen had then much esteem and friendship. She, on her side, responded to it, and every one favored them.”

It is necessary to look into the memoirs of the times for the details of this curious episode of the youth of Condé, the vicissitudes of this connection, as tender as it was pure, the hopes, the fears, the jealousies, all the troubles which accompany love. Mademoiselle Du Vigean had besought[199] Condé to conceal his sentiments in public; she had engaged him, in joke, perhaps, to make believe that he loved Mademoiselle de Boutteville; but the latter was so beautiful, and the game was so dangerous, that Mademoiselle Du Vigean hastened to countermand her order, and to forbid the duke to see Mademoiselle de Boutteville and to speak to her. Condé again obeyed her; he discontinued all intercourse with his cousin, and yielded his place to Dandelot, whose projects he was the more eager to favor, as he felt some anxiety in regard to his own; for Mademoiselle Du Vigean had warned him that her father was thinking of marrying her to this same Dandelot, and that he had offered the Marshal de Châtillon a very considerable dower to have his son as a son-in-law.[200] “This news,” says Madame de Motteville, “gave the prince the utmost alarm: he often faced the enemies of the State, but his heart was not so valiant against love as against them.”[201] He took fright therefore, and, to parry the blow, he entered so earnestly into the cause of Dandelot, that he counselled him to elope with Mademoiselle de Boutteville.

In the mean time he continued all his efforts to break his own marriage; he labored for it with ardor and perseverance. The Duchess d’Enghien falling sick, he anticipated the accomplishment of his wishes; but she recovered; it was therefore necessary to obtain a judicial dissolution of his marriage. The thing was almost impossible, for the Duchess d’Enghien was then, at least, perfectly irreproachable, and moreover he had by her a son. Such, however, was the passion of Condé, that he addressed himself to Cardinal Mazarin,[202] who, not being very scrupulous, would have permitted the rupture, if he had not feared that Condé, once at liberty, might aspire to Mademoiselle, and become much too powerful.

Thus we are enabled to judge of the depth of Condé’s feelings. These feelings were inspired not only by the beauty of Mademoiselle Du Vigean, but by her candor and her modesty, by that tenderness at once devoted and virtuous, which led her far enough to be compromised somewhat in the eyes of the world, while it suffered her to do nothing which might mar in the mind of Condé the ideal of angelic purity which she represented to him. Hence that passion mingled with respect and ardor which he burned to satisfy in despite of all obstacles, and which was never gratified. Madame de Motteville, who was informed of the least details of this amorous intrigue by Madame de Montausier, its witness and almost confidant, says expressly, as “a thing to be believed by every one,”[203] that Mademoiselle Du Vigean “is the only one whom Condé truly loved.” Mademoiselle, who from different motives did not love those whom Condé loved, and who was very severe upon Madame de Châtillon, expresses herself thus in regard to the loves of Condé and of Mademoiselle Du Vigean: “She was very beautiful; this illustrious lover was also deeply moved. When he set out for the army, the desire of glory did not prevent him from feeling the grief of separation, and he could not bid adieu without shedding tears; and when he departed on his last journey to Germany (where he achieved the victory of Nortlingen), he fainted when he left her.”

Such a passion was too violent to continue for a great length of time; it was prolonged even beyond ordinary bounds. Mademoiselle Du Vigean would consent to be the wife alone of Condé, and the marriage of the latter could not be broken: things advanced on neither side, and every one grew weary.

It may be imagined that the interest which Condé manifested for Mademoiselle Du Vigean intimidated those who would have aspired to her hand. Two marriages were proposed to her. Among her admirers was the Marquis d’Huxelles, who afterwards married Marie de Bailleul, daughter of the Superintendent of Finances. D’Huxelles was a very distinguished military man, who expected to become Marshal of France, and whose services and premature death in consequence of his wounds,[204] enabled his son to obtain that honor. He thought very seriously of marrying Mademoiselle Du Vigean.[205] He hesitated on account of the reports which did not fail to find circulation. “Although,” says Lenet, from whom we obtain these facts, “I know with all the certainty that one can have in regard to matters of this kind, that love was never more passionate than that on the part of the prince, nor listened to with more discretion and modesty, than was exhibited on the part of Mademoiselle Du Vigean.” And in this Madame de Motteville and Mademoiselle agree perfectly with Lenet.

Mademoiselle Du Vigean had been also sought by another amiable and brave gentleman, the Marquis Jacques Stuart de Saint-Mégrin, brother of the beautiful Saint-Mégrin of whom the Duke d’Orleans was so fond. Saint-Mégrin continued for a long time his affection for Mademoiselle Du Vigean;[206] but he dared not come in competition with Condé. At a later period he learned with extreme joy that his suit might be heard; and he addressed himself at once to the parents of Mademoiselle Du Vigean. The marriage did not take place: a passion such as that which we have just described was destined to have a very different dénouement.

It is known that after the German campaign of 1645, and the disputed victory of Nortlingen, Condé was seized with a violent sickness. It was then that, despairing of a dissolution of his marriage, and of conquering the virtuous scruples of Mademoiselle Du Vigean, he resolved to turn his thoughts in another direction. Mademoiselle Du Vigean did not complain; she closed her ears to all propositions, resisted the counsels and even the orders of her family, and in the full splendor of her beauty and her youth she cast herself among the Carmelites of the Rue Saint-Jacques.[207] Condé did not attempt to see her again, but he always preserved for her, says Lenet, a remembrance full of respect.[208] The love of Condé was not, then, a transient caprice. It began before his marriage; it continued four long years; it remained ardent and pure in the midst of camps, and was extinguished only in the despair of bringing it to a happy conclusion, and after a long and critical disorder, from which the hero of Nortlingen arose ever to renounce love for glory and ambition.

It would be gratifying to follow Mademoiselle Du Vigean to the convent of the Carmelites, to know at what time precisely she entered it, what occupied her there, and when she died. These are points upon which no contemporaries enlighten us, and all that we are now able to assert with certainty is, that Mademoiselle Du Vigean made a profession in 1649. Thus, she must have joined the Carmelites in 1647, since the vows can be taken only after a service of one or two years as a candidate and a novice. She took the name of sister Marthe de Jésus;[209] she died in 1665; she was never prioress; she was sub-prioress in 1659, and ceased to be so in 1662. According to custom, she must have held this situation six years, and consequently her term of service was between the years 1656 and 1662; whence it follows that all the letters of Madame de Longueville, addressed to sister Marthe and to the Mother Sub-prioress, between 1656 and 1662, are to the same nun, and that this nun was Mademoiselle Du Vigean, which accounts for the particularly affectionate tone of these letters. In fact, we have found in the National Library, in the collection of Doctor Vallant[210] and in those of Gaignières,[211] two billets from Mademoiselle Du Vigean, then sister Marthe, to Madame de Sablé, and another to that very Marchioness d’Huxelles whose place she might have occupied. These billets are the only relics which remain to us of this interesting person, who, because she was too pleasing to a prince, was compelled to bury her beauty and her virtue in a cloister.

Such is often the end of the pleasures of youth, the inclinations of the most generous, the feasts of the heart and of life. Mademoiselle de Bourbon witnessed the birth, growth, and death of the loves of Condé and of Mademoiselle Du Vigean. Villefore says that she thwarted them, but he produces no proof of this. It is at least very certain that she strove to repair, as much as she could, the injury which her brother had done to her young and charming friend. For her sake, she loaded her sister with benefits, and, when the poor forlorn creature sought an asylum among the Carmelites, she maintained with her an affectionate intercourse; she visited her, wrote to her often, and, even to the end of life, retained for her a place in her heart by the side of Madame de Sablé.

But let us not anticipate the future. We are still amid the illusions of youth, still in the season of pleasures and love. Whilst around her, at the hôtel de Rambouillet and at the hôtel de Condé, at Chantilly, at Ruel, at Liancourt, all was heroism and gallantry, whilst surrounded by young and brilliant cavaliers, destined to become great captains; with agreeable female friends who drew after them all hearts, what did Mademoiselle de Bourbon do with her own? Did she bestow it as did Mademoiselle Du Vigean and Mademoiselle de Boutteville? Among so many adorers who crowded around her, did she distinguish none? Tender and somewhat coquettish, with the soul and the eyes of Chimène, what Rodrigue among the heroes of her brother’s court found her sensible? At the age of nineteen, she had been promised to the Prince de Joinville, son of Henri de Lorraine, Duke de Guise. A powerful alliance would this have been, which had united the Montmorencys, the Condés, and the Guises; but the Prince de Joinville died in Italy, where he went to meet his father, in the violent and obstinate persecution which the implacable avenger and indefatigable promoter of royal authority, Cardinal de Richelieu, did not cease to exercise against the Guises in remembrance of the League. It is said that a marriage was also contemplated between her and d’Armand, Marquis de Brézé, nephew of Cardinal Richelieu, brother of her who was forced upon the Duke d’Enghien, the intrepid sailor who twice beat the fleets of Spain, and perished at the age of twenty-seven, from a cannon shot, at the siege of Orbitello, in 1646. This marriage would have placed in the hands of the house of Condé, by means of the two heroic brothers-in-law, all the forces of France, both by sea and land; but this marriage was defeated, for reasons in regard to which there are various opinions.[212]

Mademoiselle de Bourbon attracted whilst she discouraged. There was not a gentleman who would not have given his life for her favor; but no one was rash enough to aspire to her hand. Many then sighed for her, and some even paid her the most marked homage. Mention is made, among others, of the Duke de Beaufort, more brave than witty, loyal and chivalrous enough, who, being politely rejected, fell at the feet of Madame de Montbazon, and served her till death. Especial notice is taken of Maurice de Coligny, the son of Marshal de Châtillon. In 1642 M. the Prince and Madame the Princess, not finding a single young lord in all the kingdom to whom policy permitted them to give Mademoiselle de Bourbon, proposed to her the greatest lord of France, after the princes of the blood, the Duke de Longueville. He was the widower of Louise de Bourbon, daughter of the Count de Soissons, by whom he had Marie d’Orleans, who was already seventeen or eighteen years of age: he was forty-seven, and even at this age was said to be still attached to Madame de Montbazon. Mademoiselle de Bourbon resisted, or at least testified at first a great repugnance; it was, however, necessary to yield; herein she displayed the resolution which she testified on all great occasions. She married then on the 2d of June, 1642, at the age of twenty-three years, her heart and mind filled with poetry and gallantry, a man much older than herself, and who was not even sufficiently touched with her charms to renounce his old mistress.

The fêtes on the occasion of this marriage were still more brilliant than those which took place at the marriage of the Duke d’Enghien. Mademoiselle de Bourbon walked to the altar with a sort of intrepidity, and she seemed almost gay at the hôtel de Longueville, occupying the spectators so much with her dazzling beauty that they did not remark the violence which she did to her feelings. It is her historian, the Jansenist Villefore, who has preserved for us this tradition. Scarcely a year had flown by, when, without even giving her heart, for a long time yet unoccupied, she was the involuntary cause of a most tragic quarrel, in which Coligny, who had sighed for her, perished in the flower of youth, and perhaps under her own eyes, by the hand of one of those Guises to whom she had been for a moment destined. Sinister prelude of the storms that awaited her first adventure, which consecrated her beauty in so sad a manner, and which won for her, at the age of twenty-four years, in the world of gallantry, a renown, a popularity even, almost equal to that which victory had achieved for her brother, the Duke d’Enghien.