I am sensible, my Lord, as I should be, of the honour which you have wished to do me, whilst, notwithstanding, permit me to consider it strange that a man of your importance has cared to meddle in such a negotiation. His Majesty the King of France did not consult me when he wished to make my wife his mistress; it is somewhat remarkable that so great a prince expects my intervention today to recompense conduct that I have disapproved, that I disapprove, and shall disapprove to my last breath. His Majesty has got eight or ten children from my wife without saying a word to me about it; this monarch can surely, therefore, make her a present of a duchy without summoning me to his a.s.sistance.
According to all laws, human and divine, the King ought to punish Madame de Montespan, and, instead of censuring her, he wishes to make her a d.u.c.h.ess! . . . Let him make her a princess, even a highness, if he likes; he has all the power in his hands. I am only a twig; he is an oak.
If madame is fostering ambition, mine has been satisfied for forty years; I was born a marquis; a marquis--apart from some unforeseen catastrophe--I will die; and Madame la Marquise, as long as she does not alter her conduct, has no need to alter her degree.
I will, however, waive my severity, if M. le Duc du Maine will intervene for his mother, and call me his father, however it may be. I am none the less sensible, my lord, of the honour of your acquaintance, and since you form one of the society of Madame la Marquise, endeavour to release yourself from her charms, for she can be an enchantress when she likes.... It is true that, from what they tell me, you were not quite king in your England.
I am, from out my exile (almost as voluntary as yours), the most obliged and grateful of your servants,
DE GONDRIN MONTESPAN.
The Marquise de Thianges felt a certain irritation at the reading of this letter; she offered all our excuses for it to the English Chancellor, and said to me: "I begin to fear that the King of Versailles is not acting with good faith towards you, when he makes your advancement depend on the Marquis de Montespan; it is as though he were giving you a duchy in the moon."
I sent word to the King that the Marquis refused to a.s.sist his generous projects; he answered me:
"Very well, we must look somewhere else."
Happily, this domestic humiliation did not transpire at Bourbonne; for M.
de la Bruyere had arrived there with Monsieur le Prince, and that model satirist would unfailingly have made merry over it at my expense.
The best society lavished its attentions on me; Coulanges, whose flatteries are so amusing, never left us for a moment.
The Prince, after the States were over, had come to relax himself at Bourbonne, which was his property. After having done all in his power formerly to dethrone his master, he is his enthusiastic servitor now that he sees him so strong. He was fascinated with Mademoiselle de Nantes, and asked my permission to seek her hand for the Duc de Bourbon, his grandson; my reply was, that the alliance was desirable on both sides, but that these arrangements were settled only by the King.
In spite of the insolent diatribe of M. de Montespan, the waters proved good and favourable; my blood, little by little, grew calm; my pains, pa.s.sing from one knee to the other, insensibly faded away in both; and, after having given a brilliant fete to the Prince de Mont-Beliard, the English Chancellor, and our most distinguished bathers, I went back to Versailles, where the work seemed to me to have singularly advanced.
The King went in advance of us to Corbeil; Madame de Maintenon, her pretty nieces, and my children were in the carriage. The King received me with his ordinary kindness, and yet said no word to me of the harshness which I had suffered from my husband. Two or three months afterwards he recollected his royal word, and gave me to understand that the Prince de Bourbon was shortly going to give up Navarre, in Normandy, and that this vast and magnificent estate would be raised to a duchy for me.
It has not been yet, at the moment that I write. Perhaps it is written above that I shall never be a d.u.c.h.ess. In such a case, the King would not deserve the inward reproaches that my sensibility addresses him, since his good-will would be fettered by destiny.
It is my kindness which makes me speak so.
CHAPTER II.
The Venetian Drummer.--The Little Olivier.--Adriani"s Love.--His Ingrat.i.tude.--His Punishment.--His Vengeance.--Complaint on This Account.
At the great slaughter of Candia, M. de Vivonne had the pleasure of saving a young Venetian drummer whom he noticed all covered with blood, and senseless, amongst the dead and dying, with whom the field was covered far and wide. He had his wounds dressed and cared for by the surgeons of the French navy, with the intention of giving him me, either as a valet de chambre or a page, so handsome and agreeable this young Italian was. Adriani was his name. He presented him to me after the return of the expedition to France, and I was sensible of this amiable attention of my brother, for truly the peer of this young drummer did not exist.
Adrien was admirable to see in my livery, and when my carriage went out, he attracted alone all the public attention. His figure was still not all that it might be; it developed suddenly, and then one was not wrong in comparing him with a perfect model for the Academy. He took small time in losing the manners which he had brought with him from his original calling. I discovered the best "ton" in him; he would have been far better seated in the interior than outside my equipage.
Unfortunately, this young impertinent gave himself airs of finding my person agreeable, and of cherishing a pa.s.sion for me; my first valet de chambre told me of it at once. I gave him to the King, who had sometimes noticed him in pa.s.sing.
Adrien was inconsolable at first at this change, for which he was not prepared, but his vanity soon came uppermost; he understood that it was an advancement, and took himself for a great personage, since he had the honour of approaching and serving the King.
The little Olivier--the first a.s.sistant in the shop of Madame Camille, my dressmaker--saw Adrien, inspired him with love, and herself with much, and they had to be married. I was good-natured enough to be interested in this union, and as I had never any fault to find with the intelligent services and attentions of the little modiste, I gave her two hundred louis, that she might establish herself well and without any waiting.
She had a daughter whom she was anxious to call Athenais. I thought this request excessive; I granted my name of Francoise only.
The young couple would have succeeded amply with their business, since my confidence and favour were sufficient to give them vogue; but I was not slow in learning that cruel discord had already penetrated to their household, and that Adrien, in spite of his adopted country, had remained at heart Italian. Jealous without motive, and almost without love, he tormented with his suspicions, his reproaches, and his harshness, an attentive and industrious young wife, who loved him with intense love, and was unable to succeed in persuading him of it. From her condition, a modiste cannot dispense with being amiable, gracious, engaging. The little Olivier, as pretty as one can be, easily secured the homage of the cavaliers. For all thanks she smiled at the gentlemen, as a well brought up woman should do. Adrien disapproved these manners,--too French, in his opinion. One day he dared to say to his wife, and that before witnesses: "Because you have belonged to Madame de Montespan, do you think you have the same rights that she has?" And with that he administered a blow to her.
This indecency was reported to me. I did not take long in discovering what it was right to do with Adrien. I had him sent to Clagny, where I happened to be at the time.
"Monsieur the Venetian drummer," I said to him, with the hauteur which it was necessary to oppose to his audacity, "Monsieur le Marechal de Vivonne, who is always too good, saved your life without knowing you. I gave you to the King, imagining that I knew you. Now I am undeceived, and I know, without the least possibility of doubt, that beneath the appearance of a good heart you hide the ungrateful and insolent rogue.
The King needs persons more discreet, less violent, and more polite.
Madame de Montespan gave you up to the King; Madame de Montespan has taken you back this morning to her service. You depend for the future on n.o.body but Madame de Montespan, and it is her alone that you are bound to obey. Your service in her house has commenced this morning; it will finish this evening, and, before midnight, you will leave her for good and all. I have known on all occasions how to pardon slight offences; there are some that a person of my rank could not excuse; yours is of that number. Go; make no answer! Obey, ingrate! Disappear, I command you!"
At these words he tried to throw himself at my feet. "Go, wretched fellow!" I cried to him; and, at my voice, my lackeys ran up and drove him from the room and from the chateau.
Almost always these bad-natured folks have cowardly souls. Adrien, his head in a whirl, presented himself to my Suisse at Versailles, who, finding his look somewhat sinister, refused to receive him. He retired to my hotel in Paris, where the Suisse, being less of a physiognomist, delivered him the key of his old room, and was willing to allow him to pa.s.s the night there.
Adrien, thinking of naught but how to harm me and give me a memorable proof of his vengeance, ran and set fire to my two storehouses, and, to put a crown on his rancour, went and hanged himself in an attic.
About two o"clock in the morning, a sick-nurse, having perceived the flames, gave loud cries and succeeded in making herself heard. Public help arrived; the fire was mastered. My Suisse sought everywhere for the Italian, whom he thought to be in danger; he stumbled against his corpse.
What a scene! What an affliction! The commissary having had his room opened, on a small bureau a letter was found which he had been at the pains of writing, and in which he accused me of his despair and death.
The people of Paris have been at all times extravagance and credulity itself. They looked upon this young villain as a martyr, and at once dedicated an elegy to him, in which I was compared with Medea, Circe, and Fredegonde.
It is precisely on account of this elegy that I have cared to set down this cruel anecdote. My readers, to whom I have just narrated the facts with entire frankness, can see well that, instead of having merited reproaches, I should only have received praise for my restraint and moderation.
It is, a.s.suredly, most painful to have to suffer the abuse of those for whom we have never done aught; but the outrages of those whom we have succoured, maintained, and favoured are insupportable injuries.
CHAPTER III.
The Equipage at Full Speed.--The Poor Vine-grower.--Sensibility of Madame de Maintenon.--Her Popularity.--One Has the Right to Crush a Man Who Will Not Get Out of the Way.--What One Sees.--What They Tell You.--All Ends at the Opera.--One Can Be Moved to Tears and Yet Like Chocolate.
Another event with a tragical issue, and one to which I contributed even less, served to feed and foster that hatred, mixed with envy, which the rabble populace guards always so persistently towards the favourites of kings or fortune.
Naturally quick and impatient, I cannot endure to move with calm and state along the roads. My postilions, my coachmen know it, driving in such fashion that no equipage is ever met which cleaves the air like mine.
I was descending one day the declivity of the Coeur-Volant, between Saint Germain and Marly. The Marquises de Maintenon and d"Hudicourt were in my carriage with M. le Duc du Maine, so far as I can remember. We were going at the pace which I have just told, and my outriders, who rode in advance, were clearing the way, as is customary. A vine-grower, laden with sticks, chose this moment to cross the road, thinking himself, no doubt, agile enough to escape my six horses. The cries of my people were useless. The imprudent fellow took his own course, and my postilions, in spite of their efforts with the reins, could not prevent themselves from pa.s.sing over his body; the wheels followed the horses; the poor man was cut in pieces.
At the lamentations of the country folk and the horrified pa.s.sers-by, we stopped. Madame de Maintenon wished to alight, and when she perceived the unfortunate vine-grower disfigured with his wounds, she clasped her hands and fell to weeping. The Marquise d"Hudicourt, who was always simplicity itself, followed her friend"s example; there was nothing but groans and sorrowful exclamations. My coachman blamed the postilions, the postilions the man"s obstinacy.
Madame de Maintenon, speaking as though she were the mistress, bade them be silent, and dared to say to them before all the crowd: "If you belonged to me, I would soon settle you." At these words all the spectators applauded, and cried: "Vive Madame de Maintenon!"
Irritated at what I had just heard, I put my head out of the door, and, turning to these sentimental women, I said to them: "Be good enough to get in, mesdames; are you determined to have me stoned?"
They mounted again, after having left my purse with the poor relations of the dead man; and as far as Ruel, which was our destination, I was compelled to listen to their complaints and litanies.
"Admit, madame," I declared to Madame de Maintenon, "that any person except myself could and would detest you for the harm you have done me.
Your part was to blame the postilions lightly and the rustic very positively. My equipage did not come unexpectedly, and my two outriders had signalled from their horses."
"Madame," she replied, "you have not seen, as I did, those eyes of the unhappy man forced violently from their sockets, his poor crushed head, his palpitating heart, from which the blood soaked the pavement; such a sight has moved and broken my own heart. I was, as I am still, quite beside myself, and, in such a situation, it is permissible to forget discretion in one"s speech and the proprieties. I had no intention of giving you pain; I am distressed at having done so. But as for your coachmen I loathe them, and, since you undertake their defence, I shall not for the future show myself in your equipage."