"Explain it to me at once, my brother, and I promise to satisfy you."
"Do you give me your word?"
"I give it you, my good and dear friend, with pleasure. Inform me of what is in progress."
"Madame de Maintenon, whom, having loved once greatly, you no longer love, had the kindness to have me summoned to her this morning."
"The kindness!"
"Do not interrupt me--yes, the kindness. From the moment that she is in favour, all that comes from her requires consideration. She had me taken into her small salon, and there she charged me to tell you that she has always loved you, that she always will; that your rupture with her has displeased the King; that for a long time, and on a thousand occasions, she has excused you to his Majesty, but that things are now hopeless; that your retreat is required at all costs, and that it will be joined with an annual pension of six hundred thousand livres."
"And you advise me--?" I said to my brother.
"I advise you, I implore you, I conjure you, to accept these propositions which save everything."
My course was clear to me on the instant. Wishing to be relieved of the importunities of the Marshal (a courtier, if ever there was one), I embraced him with tears in my eyes. I a.s.sured him that, for the honour of the family and out of complacence, I accepted his propositions. I begged him to take me back to Versailles, where I had to gather together my money, jewels, and papers.
The Duc de Vivonne, well as he knew me, did not suspect my trickery; he applied a score of kisses to my "pretty little white hands," and his postilions, giving free play to their reins, speedily brought us back to the chateau.
All beaming with joy and satisfaction, he went to convey his reply to Madame de Maintenon, who was probably expecting him. Twenty minutes hardly elapsed. The King himself entered my apartment.
He came towards me with a friendly air, and, hardly remarking my agitation, which I was suppressing, he dared to address the following words to me:
"The shortest follies are the best, dear Marquise; you see things at last as they should be seen. Your determination, which the Marechal de Vivonne has just informed me of, gives me inexpressible pleasure; you are going to take the step of a clever woman, and everybody will applaud you for it. It will be eighteen years to-morrow since we took a fancy for each other. We were then in that period of life when one sees only that which flatters, and the satisfaction of the heart surpa.s.ses everything.
Our attachment, if it had been right and legitimate, might have begun with the same ardour, but it could not have endured so long; that is the property of all contested affections.
"From our union amiable children have been born, for whom I have done, and will do, all that a father with good intentions can do. The Act which acknowledged them in full Parliament has not named you as their mother, because your bonds prevented it, but these respectful children know that they owe you their existence, and not one of them shall forget it while I live.
"You have charmed by your wit and the liveliness of your character the busiest years of my life and reign. That pleasant memory will never leave me, and separated though we be, as good sense and propriety of every kind demands, we shall still belong to each other in thought.
Athenais will always be to me the mother of my dear children. I have been mindful up to this day, to increase at different moments the amount of your fortune: I believe it to be considerable, and wish, nevertheless, to add to it even more. If the pension that Vivonne had just suggested to you appear insufficient, two lines from your pen will notify me that I must increase it.
"Your children being proclaimed Princes of France, the Court will be their customary residence, but you will see them frequently, and can count on my commands. Here they are coming,--not to say good-bye to you, but, as of old, to embrace you on the eve of a journey.
"If you are prudent, you will write first to the Marquis de Montespan, not to annul and revoke the judicial and legal separation which exists, but to inform him of your return to reasonable ideas, and of your resolve to be reconciled with the public."
With these words the King ceased speaking. I looked at him with a fixed gaze; a long sigh escaped from my heaving breast, and I had with him, as nearly as I can remember, the following conversation:
"I admire the sang-froid with which a prince who believes himself, and is believed by the whole universe, to be magnanimous, gives the word of dismissal to the tender friend of his youth,--to that friend who, by a misfortune which is too well known, knew how to leave all and love him alone.
"From the day when the friendship which had united us cooled and was dissipated, you have resumed with regard to me that distance which your rank authorises you, and on my side, I have submitted to see in you only my King. This revolution has taken effect without any shock, or noise, or scandal. It has continued for two years already; why should it not continue in the same manner until the moment when my last two children no longer require my eyes, and presence, and care? What sudden cause, what urgent motive, can determine you to exclude me? Does not, then, the humiliation which I have suffered for two years any longer satisfy your aversion?"
"What!" cried the prince, in consternation, "is your resolution no longer the same? Do you go back upon what you promised to your brother?"
"I do not change my resolution," I resumed at once; "the places which you inhabit have neither charm nor attraction for my heart, which has always detested treachery and falseness. I consent to withdraw myself from your person, but on condition that the odious intriguer who has supplanted me shall follow the unhappy benefactress who once opened to her the doors of this palace. I took her from a state of misery, and she plunges daggers into my breast."
"The Kings of Europe," said the prince, white with agitation and anger, "have not yet laid down the law to me in my palace; you shall not make me submit to yours, madame. The person whom, for far too long, you have been offending and humiliating before my eyes, has ancestors who yield in nothing to your forefathers, and if you have introduced her to this palace, you have introduced here goodness, sweetness, talent, and virtue itself. This enemy, whom you defame in every quarter, and who every day excuses and justifies you, will abide near this throne, which her fathers have defended and which her good counsel now defends. In sending you today from a Court where your presence is without motive and pretext, I wished to keep from your knowledge, and in kindness withdraw from your eyes an event likely to irritate you, since everything irritates you.
Stay, madame, stay, since great catastrophes appeal to and amuse you; after to-morrow you will be more than ever a supernumerary in this chateau."
At these words I realised that it was a question of the public triumph of my rival. All my firmness vanished; my heart was, as it were, distorted with the most rapid palpitations. I felt an icy coldness run through my veins, and I fell unconscious upon my carpet.
My woman cameo to bring me help, and when my senses returned, I heard the King saying to my intendant: "All this wearies me beyond endurance; she must go this very day."
"Yes, I will go," I cried, seizing a dessert-knife which was on my bureau. I rushed forward with a mechanical movement upon my little Comte de Toulouse, whom I s.n.a.t.c.hed from the hands of his father, and I was on the verge of sacrificing this child.
I shudder every time I think of that terrible and desperate scene. But reason had left me; sorrow filled my soul; I was no longer myself. My reader must be penetrated by my misfortune and have compa.s.sion on me.
Madame de Maintenon, informed probably of this storm, arrived and suddenly showed herself. To rush forward, s.n.a.t.c.h away the dagger and my child was but one movement for her. Her tears coursed in abundance; and the King, leaning on the marble of my chimney-piece, shed tears and seemed to feel a sort of suffocation.
My women had removed my children. My intendant alone had remained in the deep embrasure of a shutter; the poor man had affliction and terror painted on his face. Madame de Maintenon had slightly wounded herself in seizing my knife. I saw her tearing her handkerchief, putting on lavender water in order to moisten the bandage. As she left me she took my hand with an air of kindness, and her tears began again.
The King, seeing her go out, retired without addressing me a word. I might call as much as I would; he did not return.
Until nightfall I seemed to be in a state of paralysis. My arms were like lead; my will could no longer stir them. I was distressed at first, and then I thanked G.o.d, who was delivering me from the torments of existence. All night my body and soul moved in the torrent and waves of a fever handed over to phantoms; I saw in turn the smiling plains of Paradise and the dire domain of h.e.l.l. My children, covered with wounds, asked me for pardon, kneeling before me; and Madame de Maintenon, one ma.s.s of blood, reproached me for having killed her.
On the following day a copious blood-letting, prescribed by my doctor, relieved my head and heart.
The following week Madame de Maintenon, entirely cured of her scratch, consented to the King"s will, which she had opposed in order to excite it, and in the presence of the Marquis and Marquise de Montchevreuil, the Duc de Noailles, the Marquis de Chamarante, M. Bontems, and Mademoiselle Ninon, her permanent chambermaid, was married to the King of France and Navarre in the chapel of the chateau.
The Abbe de Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, a.s.sisted by the Bishop of Chartres and Pere de la Chaise, had the honour of blessing this marriage and presenting the rings of gold. After the ceremony, which took place at an early hour, and even by torchlight, there was a slight repast in the small apartments. The same persons, taking carriages, then repaired to Maintenon, where the great ceremony, the ma.s.s, and all that is customary in such cases were celebrated.
At her return, Madame de Maintenon took possession of an extremely sumptuous apartment that had been carefully arranged and furnished for her. Her people continued to wear her livery, but she scarcely ever rode any more except in the great carriage of the King, where we saw her in the place which had been occupied by the Queen. In her interior the t.i.tle of Majesty was given her; and the King, when he had to speak of her, only used the word Madame, without adding Maintenon, that having become too familiar and trivial.
He was desirous of proclaiming her; she consistently opposed it, and this prudent and wise conduct regained for her, little by little, the opinions which had been shocked.
A few days after the marriage, my health being somewhat reestablished, I went to Pet.i.t-Bourg; but the Marechal de Vivonne, his son Louis de Vivonne, all the Mortemarts, all the Rochehouarts, Thianges, Damas, Seignelays, Blainvilles, and Colberts,--in a word, counts, marquises, barons, prelates, and d.u.c.h.esses, came to find me and attack me in my desert, in order to represent to me that, since Madame de Maintenon was the wife of the monarch, I owed her my homage and respectful compliments.
The whole family has done so, said these cruel relations; you only have not yet fulfilled this duty. You must do it, in G.o.d"s name. She has neither airs nor hauteur; you will be marvellously well received. Your resistance would compromise us all.
Not desiring to harm or displease my family, and wishing, above all, to reinstate myself somewhat in the King"s mind, I resolutely prepared for this distressing journey, and G.o.d gave me the necessary strength to execute it.
I appeared in a long robe of gold and silver before the new spouse of the monarch. The King, who was sitting at a table, rose for a moment and encouraged me by his greeting. I made the three pauses and three reverences as I gradually approached Madame de Maintenon, who occupied a large and rich armchair of brocade. She did not rise; etiquette forbade it, and princ.i.p.ally the presence of the all-powerful King of kings. Her complexion, ordinarily pale, and with a very slight tone of pink, was animated suddenly, and took all the colours of the rose. She made me a sign to seat myself on a stool, and it seemed to me that her amiable gaze apologised to me. She spoke to me of Pet.i.t-Bourg, of the waters of Bourbon, of her country-place, of my children, and said to me, smiling kindly: "I am going to confide in you. Monsieur le Prince has already asked Mademoiselle de Names for his grandson, M. le Duc de Bourbon, and his Highness promises us his granddaughter for our Duc du Maine. Two or three years more, and we shall see all that."
After half an hour spent thus, I rose from this uncomfortable stool and made my farewell reverences. Madame de Maintenon, profiting by the King having leaned over to write, rose five or six inches in her chair, and said to me these words: "Do not let us cease to love one another, I implore you."
I went to rest myself in the poor apartment which was still mine, since the keys had not yet been returned, and I sent for M. le Duc du Maine, who said to me coldly: "I have much pleasure in seeing you again; we were going to write to you."
I had come out from Madame de Maintenon by the door of mirrors, which leads to the great gallery. There was much company there at the moment; M. le Prince de Salm came to me and said: "Go and put on your peignoir; you are flushed, and I can perfectly well understand why." He pressed my hand affectionately. In all the salons they were eager to see me pa.s.s.
Some courageous persons came even within touch of my fan; and all were more or less pleased with my mishap and downfall. I had seen all these figures at my feet, and almost all were under obligations to me. I left Versailles again very early. When I was seated in my carriage I noticed the King, who, from the height of his balcony in the court of marble, watched me set off and disappear.
I settled at Paris, where my personal interest and my great fortune gave me an existence which many might have envied. I never returned to Versailles, except for the weddings of my eldest daughter, and of my son, the Serious;--[Louis Augusts de Bourbon, Duc du Maine, a good man, somewhat devout and melancholy. (See the Memoirs of Dubois and Richelieu.)--EDITOR"S NOTE.]--I always loved him better than he did me.
Pere de Latour, my director, obtained from me then, what I had refused hitherto to everybody, a letter of reconciliation to M. le Marquis de Montespan: I had foreseen the reply, which was that of an obstinate, ill-bred, and evil man.
Pere de Latour, going further, wished to impose hard, not to say murderous, penances on me; I begged him to keep within bounds, and not to make me impatient. This Oratorian and his admirers have stated that I wore a hair shirt and shroud. Pious slanders, every word of them! I give many pensions and alms, that is to say, I do good to several families; the good that I bestow about me will be more agreeable to G.o.d than any harm I could do myself, and that I maintain.
The Marquis d"Antin, my son, since my disgrace.......
HERE END THE MEMOIRS OF MADAME DE MONTESPAN.