CHAPTER IV
Increasing Importance of the Affairs of Love – The Corrupters of Morals – Birth of Dramatic Music and its Influence – Love in Racine – Louis XIV. and the Nobility – The King is Polygamous
IT was neither through compassion nor through friendship that Louis XIV. had recalled from exile a second time his cousin Mlle. de Montpensier. He had renounced the idea of marrying her to Alphonse VI. since she persisted in her refusal, but he pursued the plan of giving her in marriage "where it would be useful to his service."
And there was reason for entertaining another project. While she was in penitence at Eu, one of the little sisters, Mlle. de Valois, had married the Duc de Savoie, Charles Emmanuel II., and had died (January 14, 1664), at the end of some months of wedded life. The widowhood of princes is rarely a matter of long duration. The King had immediately arranged to offer the millions of the Grande Mademoiselle to the Duc de Savoie, it being of first importance to bring back this territory to France, and to recompense the King of Portugal by giving him one of the princesses of Nemours.163
The new combination was well known in the political world. One reads in the journal of Olivier d'Ormesson on the date of June 4, 1664: "M. Le Pelletier164 tells me of the return of Mlle. d'Orléans, and that the King had written to her with his own hand, permitting her to come back, without saying anything to the Queen Mother; but this was with the Savoie marriage in sight." Louis XIV. had not resigned himself without effort to the idea of procuring so fine an establishment for an ancient Frondeuse. It may be seen through a letter from the grand Condé to the Queen of Poland that the royal rancour had yielded for reasons of State:
Fontainebleau, June 3, 1664.
Mademoiselle having written to the King about the pregnancy of the Queen, his Majesty has himself responded, which is a mark of softened feelings, and every one believes that she will return and that his Majesty will consent to her marriage with M. de Savoie, which up to this time he has not desired, because he preferred that of Mlle. d'Alençon165: but as she is very ugly, and as an additional distinction is badly marked with small-pox, he has reason to believe that M. de Savoie will not be willing to espouse her; and he fears that there may be a question of a union with the Austrian House, and thus I believe, in spite of his own dislikes, he will wish to hasten the marriage of Mademoiselle which, however, is not so certain as it appears.166
There was no danger of pouts in regard to this prospective husband; this the King well understood. Mademoiselle arrived at Fontainebleau during the first fortnight of June, 1664. The entire Court had met her upon the highway.
Mademoiselle was the first to whom the King had yielded since assuming the reins of government. This was a glory; she, indeed, felt it and held her head high. Louis XIV. had the good taste to ignore this attitude. He greeted her graciously and limited his vengeance to teasing her during the few days she passed with him. "Confess," said he to her, "that you are very bored." She cried, "I assure you not at all, and I often think that the Court is very much deceived if it believes me disenchanted, for I have not experienced a moment's dulness."
The King, however, believed only what pleased him. One evening, after the play, he led her upon a little terrace and spoke in these terms: "The past must be forgotten. Be persuaded that you will receive all good treatment from me in the future, and that I am contemplating your establishment. Naturally, M. de Savoie is a better match than formerly; his mother is dead. He will recognise the difference between your sister and yourself. Thus you will be very happy and I shall work seriously to accomplish this." The King's discourse was followed by an exchange of effusions. "We embraced each other, my cousin and I," said the King in reappearing before his Court, and the signal word was at once comprehended.
The Grande Mademoiselle passed an almost triumphal week at Fontainebleau. The repose of provincial life was hard to bear in comparison. The King, the ministers, and the ambassadors all worked for the marriage. There was nothing to do but to leave them to act. Mademoiselle wished to aid. To commence she undertook to reduce to silence the old Madame, who was outraged by her eagerness to replace her younger sister.
Dissatisfactions grew into quarrels and Louis XIV. was forced to intervene, and to silence all these women. He wrote to Mademoiselle:
TO MY COUSIN
My Cousin:
I cannot prevent my aunt's people from talking, but I hardly believe that she would say that I have promised her protection against you.
I love you and consider you, as much as the most pressing desires which pass through your brain are capable of inspiring me, and assuredly it is my intention to give you pleasure in every degree possible. I only avow that you can do much on your part in facilitating things a little; this is my only request, and having nothing to add to so sincere an explanation of my sentiments, I finish this letter, praying God, etc.
Written at Fontainebleau, July 12, 1664.Signed: Louis.167
It was beyond the strength of Mademoiselle to abstain from interference. Her anxiety to be the fly on the wheel drew upon her a new letter from the King. The tone is that of a very impatient man.
TO MY COUSIN
My Cousin:
I see clearly by your last letter that you are not accurately informed of what is passing in Piedmont; for I have been obliged to be very badly satisfied with my ambassador, in that he has executed my orders with so much warmth that the Duc de Savoie complains through his despatches to Count Carrocio of apparently being forced into an action which should be the freest, even to the smallest particular. Judge by this fact if the conduct proposed and suggested to you is wise?
I perceive even malice in those who give you such advice; for their desire is to put you in such a state of mind that if the affair fail it is I who am to blame.
I see that you are already persuaded that success depends upon my simple wish expressing my desire on one side or the other, but I am not resolved to conduct myself according to the caprices of those people.
I have told you that I sincerely wish your satisfaction and I again affirm it. The friendship alone which I have for you would give me this feeling, and I realise also that the scheme is beneficial for me.
You must not doubt, therefore, that I will do all which will be really useful in furthering the affair; as for the means, it is not too much to say that I see better what should be done than those who speak and write to you. However, I pray God, etc.
At Vincennes, September 2, 1664.Signed; Louis.
The King spoke the truth: the Duc de Savoie did not want the Grande Mademoiselle. Charles Emmanuel had never digested the affront received upon the journey to Lyons, from which he had seen his sister return Duchess of Parma when he had imagined to receive her as Queen of France.168 He was not averse to revenging himself on Louis XIV. by refusing a princess of his family whose age above all "made him afraid, for he desired children."169
He had also an account to regulate with Mademoiselle, who had disdained him at the time in which she was young and beautiful. At this distant date, Charles Emmanuel, although her junior by seventeen years, had not concealed the fact that he would have been ready to marry her, "so much did he esteem her person and also her great wealth."170
But it was with the Duc de Savoie as with the Prince of Wales, and later with the Prince de Lorraine:
Quoi? moi! quoi? ces gens-là! l'on radote, je pense,
A moi les proposer! hélas! ils font pitié:
Voyez un peu la belle espèce.171
Having become less exacting with years, Mademoiselle at length found a man who did not disdain to play the part of substitute for his betters.
The Duke remained firm, and it was again a Nemours,172 sister of the Queen of Portugal, who inherited the husband destined for the Grande Mademoiselle.
Equally difficult, the same fate fell upon Mademoiselle as upon the marriageable daughter in La Fontaine: she was to be reduced to wed a cadet of Gascony, the malotru of the fable. I believe that La Fontaine had Mademoiselle in his mind when writing La Fille. It has been queried whether this subject was not borrowed from the Epigram of Martial. There is no need for so distant a search. On July 8, 1664, La Fontaine had been appointed "gentleman-in-waiting to the dowager Duchesse d'Orléans."173 He was, therefore, in a position to be well informed concerning the projects for marriage which failed, and the ridiculous actions of the daughter of the house. We possess his confidences upon the household of the Luxembourg, on the one side of the apartments of Madame, on the other those of Mademoiselle, in an epistle dedicated to Mignon, the little dog of his mistress.
For La Fontaine, the Luxembourg was the palace in which there was no place for lovers. The tender passion was forbidden chez Madame, where it was necessary to be contented with the "pious smiles" of Mme. de Crissé, the original of the Countess de Pimbesche, and to bear in mind the presence of an old Capuchin become Bishop of Bethléem in Nivernais,174 who supervised the conversations. "Speak low," says the letter Pour Mignon.
Si l'évêque de Bethléem
Nous entendait, Dieu sait la vie.
There was not even the resource of fleeing to the "Divinity" opposite. Under that shelter, lovers were less well regarded year by year, and La Fontaine divined why: the antipathy always evinced by Mademoiselle was now doubled by envy.
The check in regard to the Savoie marriage had brought on a painful crisis in the life of this poor unattached heroine. For the first time, she had been made to feel that she had passed the marriageable age, and she was one of those unfortunates who cannot easily resign themselves to the fall from the purely feminine portion of existence.
The revolt against nature frequently causes whimsicalities; a terrible injustice toward those doleful creatures who often have asked no better than to obey nature's laws in becoming wives and mothers. Nervous maladies give to the soul-tragedy a burlesque outside, and the world laughs without comprehending. Mademoiselle was one of these unfortunates. La Fontaine had well discovered it when he wrote:
Son miroir lui disait: "Prenez vite un mari."
Je ne sais quel désir le lui disait aussi:
Le désir peut loger chez une précieuse.
It is very difficult to relate the decline of the Grande Mademoiselle without provoking a smile at least, and it would be a pity, however, if this proud figure should leave the even slight impression of that of Bélise. She was left disabled, without aim in life, at the very moment in which women in general were being excluded from action, after having been slightly intoxicated with power under Anne of Austria. Men had at that time encouraged women to enter into public life. Thanks to masculine complicity, feminine influence and power had mounted high, and the weaker sex enjoyed one of the most romantic moments of its entire history.
The habit of treating women as the equals of men had been fully formed when the will of a monarch who distrusted them precipitated the sex from its giddy height.
It has been seen à propos of La Vallière with what contempt Louis XIV. spoke of women in his Mémoires. Upon this subject he had truly Oriental ideas, approaching those held by his Spanish ancestors, inherited by them from the Moors. Louis could not do without women, but he wanted them only for amusement. He did not really believe them capable of giving anything else, judging them inferior and dangerous, perhaps in remembrance of Marie Mancini, who had almost enticed him into a crime against royalty.
Hardly had the King come to power when all who had issued from their sphere must re-enter it. Love was the only affair of importance in which women were permitted to share. Louis XIV. made no exception in favour of his mistresses. Mme. de Montespan tyrannised a little over him in spite of his fine theories. The others, however, were looked upon only in the light of beautiful and amusing creatures.
When, towards the end of the reign, Mme. de Maintenon had the glory of again raising the sex to the position of being esteemed by the King, she alone benefited. In general, nothing was gained for women at large; the impression in regard to their true position had been too deep. Suddenly reduced to an existence with a narrow horizon, women found it colourless and mean. They demanded love, since this was all that was left to them to supply those violent emotions to which they had become accustomed in the camps and councils. As the result of this new attitude many strange events occurred, but they were little noticed as long as the Queen Mother remained of this world. Anne of Austria succeeded in saving appearances, if in nothing else. Once dead, there came the downfall, and strange things became frightful ones.
It was at Versailles in the midst of the Bengal fires of the "Île enchantée" that the Queen Mother felt the first pangs of the cancer which finally caused her death.
Paris followed with grief the course of her illness. Anne of Austria, remaining without influence, had again become popular. "She preserves harmony," wrote d'Ormesson, "and although she cannot be credited with much good, she still prevents much that is evil" (June 5, 1665). It is known that it was owing to her that a certain decency was maintained at the Court of France; that without her, Louis XIV. and his sister-in-law Henrietta would not have perceived in time that they already cared too much for each other and that the rumour of this was "making much noise at Court."175
The Queen Mother was forced to open eyes which wished to remain closed. She had spoken frankly, and her plainness had perhaps saved the kingdom of France from an ineffaceable stain. Such service cannot be forgotten by honest people. To gratitude was added a sincere admiration for her courage under suffering. The poor woman endured without complaint, and with an incredible tranquillity, nine months of sharp pain increased by the barbarous remedies applied by a crowd of quacks.
In the royal family, the sentiments were mixed. Louis XIV., as Mme. de Motteville had well remarked, was a man full of "contradictions." He cherished his mother. During a previous malady, a short time before the cancer declared itself, he had cared for her night and day with a devotion and also a skill which astonished the attendants.
The thought of now losing her gave him seasons of stifling sobs. At the same time, his mother was a little too much of a personage. She troubled him by her clairvoyance. He experienced a certain relief at the knowledge that the time was approaching when she would no longer be able to watch his course of life. In all probability, he was himself ignorant of this feeling, but it was apparent to observers. When she was actually dying, affection bore away all other considerations, and the King almost fainted. Hardly was she interred when the pleasure of feeling himself entirely free again became ascendant.
The attachment of Monsieur for his mother was his best emotion. His grief possessed no hidden relief and forced him to be always near the invalid's bed. "The odour was so frightful," reports Mademoiselle, "that after seeing the wound dressed it was impossible to sup." Monsieur passed all his time in the chamber and tried to demonstrate his tenderness. Sometimes most ridiculous ideas occurred to him; but he was not the less touching, through his never-failing tears, on account of his sincerity.
At length, Anne of Austria herself sent her son away. Monsieur returned to his pleasures and forgot his grief in them; he would not have been Philippe Duc d'Anjou if he had acted differently. When the end drew near, timid and submissive as he was, he would not be sent away. The King withdrew, obeying the custom which forbids princes, as formerly gods, to witness death. Louis twice told his brother not to remain longer, and only received the response "that he could not obey him in this, but he promised that it was the only point, during his entire life, on which he would ever disobey."176
A cry of Monsieur piercing the walls announced to Louis that the end had come.
The young Queen Marie-Thérèse, who was losing all, justified the reputation of "fool" which the Court gave her. She permitted herself to be persuaded that her position would be made higher, through all the privileges left to her by the death of the Queen Mother, and she was more than half consoled by this chimera.
Mademoiselle scrupulously observed the proprieties; which is all that can be said. Anne of Austria had emphasised in a solemn hour the tenacity of the rancour against her niece. The evening before death, she took farewell of all. Two only appeared forgotten; "I was astonished, after all that had passed," relates Mademoiselle, "that she did not say a word to M. le Prince or to me, who were both there, especially slighting me who was brought up near her." It was precisely on account of "all that had passed." Anne of Austria gave a good example to the King: she expired without pardoning the leaders of the Fronde.
Great changes followed this death. Louis XIV. lost his mother January 20, 1660; on the 27th of the same month, a deputation came from Parliament "to pay their compliments to the King." D'Ormesson was of this body. "I went afterwards," says his Journal, "to mass with the King, at which there were present the Queen, M. le Dauphin, Monsieur and Mlle. de La Vallière, whom the Queen has taken near her, through complaisance for the King, in which she shows her wisdom." Louis XIV. officially presented his mistress to the people, and assigned her rank immediately below that of his legitimate wife. During his mother's life he would not have dared to do this.
Two months later he was delivered from the Cabale des Dévots, and from its intrusive observations, through the disappearance of the Compagnie du Saint Sacrement. It does not appear impossible that the death of the Queen may have slightly hastened this event. Anne of Austria had been acquainted with the society for a long period,177 and had testified for it during many years of absolute devotion. She had guarded it from Mazarin. She did more: there is proof that she deceived her minister for the sake of the Compagnie. The situation changed with the death of the Cardinal. There is nothing to warrant the belief that Anne of Austria, whether restrained by fear or by some scruple, was willing, after the death of Mazarin, to deceive Louis XIV. for the sake of a secret society.
Actively pursued by Colbert, who divined an occult force behind the adversaries to his power, the Compagnie fell back upon its habitual protector, and had the bitter disappointment of beseeching in vain. The devotion of Anne of Austria was henceforth to be a silent one. As long as she remained on earth, all hope was not lost; she might be brought back to the bosom of the fold, and better success might be looked for another time. Her death caused the final disorganisation. The society had not, during a long period, dared to reunite. Deprived of the mother of the King, it practically yielded. It dissolves and vanishes into thin air. Its register stops April 8, 1666. Have the records of the various prosecutions been destroyed or scattered? Have all the documents been destroyed through prudence? Suppositions are free. It is with this mysterious brotherhood as with those water-courses which disappear under the ground. Their traces are lost. It even happens that they bear another name when they again spring to the surface. Such without doubt has been the fate of the "Compagnie du Saint Sacrement," for the sectarian spirit which has been its most significant mark has never lost its rights in the land; in our own days we still see it placing itself in France at the service of very different schools of thought and belief.
In this beginning of April (1666) in which the Cabale des Dévots had avowed itself vanquished, the Court was struck with the animation of the King.
"A journey was made to Mouchy," wrote Mademoiselle, "where three days were passed in reviews. The King ordered a quantity of troops to be assembled; he also invited many ladies. All these were in mourning. There was much diversion; the King was in gay spirits; he sang and made verses during the progress." Although these were not the only ones, Louis did not compose many songs during his life.
He enjoyed feeling free from those wearisome persons who had abused the patronage of his mother in creating themselves censors of their sovereign. No one except his confessor and his preachers concerned themselves further with his sins. When Bossuet and Bourdaloue were appointed Court preachers they restrained themselves but little; but Louis XIV. bore their reproaches with equanimity. It was their duty, and Christians of that date, even bad ones, recognised what they owed to the Church, and bent their heads before the pulpit. Bossuet cried out in the presence of the entire Court that "immoral manners are always bad manners," and that "there is a God in heaven who avenges the sins of the people, and who, above all, avenges the sins of Kings."178 He launched apostrophies at Mlle. de La Vallière: "O creatures, shameful idols, withdraw from this Court. Shadows, phantoms, dissipate yourselves in the presence of the truth; false love, deceitful love, canst thou stand before it?"
Bourdaloue, who found Mme. de Montespan in the place of Mlle. de La Vallière, reproached the King for his "debauches," and openly demanded of him in his sermon if he had kept his promise of rupture: "Have you not again seen this person fatal to your firmness and constancy? Have you no more sought occasions so dangerous for you?"
Mme. de Sévigné went one day to hear him at Saint-Germain, where he preached a Lenten sermon before the King and Queen. She returned confounded and angry at his boldness: "We heard after dinner the sermon of Bourdaloue, who speaks with all his force, launching truths with lowered bridle, attacking adultery on every side; regardless of all, he rides straight on."179 Louis XIV. accepted these public reproaches without protest; there was, however, but little result.
One effect of the death of the Queen Mother was that rivals to Mlle. de La Vallière were free to appear; also there was a great increase in the number of charlatans and alchemists, who found more easily an aristocratic clientèle. Diviners and sorcerers also played an important rôle in the love life of this society – the most polished in the world.
The practice of the magic arts was at that date considered one of the most flourishing Parisian industries. The inhabitants of the streets little frequented, or of the suburbs, were accustomed to the movement which took place in the early morning, or in the evening at dusk, around certain isolated houses.180 People of all ranks, on foot, in carriages or in chairs, women masked or muffled, succeeded each other before a closed door, which only opened at a particular sign.
The state of mind which led this crowd to the clairvoyant was to be found in all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest. Public credulity was passing through a period of expansion, apparently very much at odds with the splendid intellect of France at that date, at which, however, those who believe the simple formulas of history will not be astonished. Two of our grand classic writers have left pages which bear witness to the extent of the evil, existing at the very moment in which France became the actual head of Europe.
Molière mocks at occult science and its adepts, through a long play, or rather a libretto for a ballet,181 which he wrote for the King in 1670, named as we already know, Les Amants Magnifiques. The dramatis personæ are divided into two camps according to a rule of his own, in a fashion very unpleasant for the grandees of this world, Molière allowing them the precedence in folly. It was sufficient for his heroes to be illustrious through rank, to endow them with a blind faith in all conjurers. "The truth of astrology," says the Prince Iphicrate, "is an incontestable fact, and no one can dispute against the certitude of its predictions." This is also the opinion of the Prince Timoclès: "I am sufficiently incredulous in regard to many things, but as for astrology, there is nothing more certain and more constant than the success with which horoscopes may be drawn." The Princess Aristione also agrees, and is anxious in finding that her daughter is less convinced.
This is a commencement of a freedom of thought, and one cannot know to what it may lead: "My daughter," says the mother, "you have a little incredulity which never leaves you."
Disbelief in astrology and sorcery is represented in the play of Molière, figuring in the name of "Clitidas, court jester," and of another person of obscure birth, "Sostrate, general of the army," who takes the part of Clitidas against the calmer prophets and other exploiters of human folly.
There is nothing more agreeable [says he] than all the great promises of this sublime knowledge. To transform everything into gold; to find immortal life; to heal by words; to make oneself beloved by the person of one's desires; to know all the secrets of the future; to call down from the sky at will impressions upon metals which bear happiness to mortals182; to command demons; to render armies invisible and soldiers invulnerable – all this is doubtless charming, and there are people who have no trouble in believing in the possibility; it is the easiest thing in the world for some men to be convinced, but for me, I avow that my grosser mind has some difficulty in comprehending and in believing.
La Fontaine has treated the same subject in three of his fables. It is in one of these, Les Devineresses, published in 1678, consequently before the famous drama Les Poisons, in which he shows himself very well acquainted with what the police had not yet been sufficiently clever to discover. He knew marvellously well the existence of the poudre de succession and of the poudre pour l'amour:
Une femme, à Paris, faisait la pythonisse.
On l'allait consulter sur chaque événement;
Perdait-on un chiffon, avait-on un amant,
Un mari vivant trop, au gré de son épouse,
Une mère fâcheuse, une femme jalouse,
Chez la Devineuse on courait,
Pour se faire annoncer ce que l'on désirait.
The warning was not heeded, and it needed the "burning chamber" of 1680 to make honest people comprehend that "clairvoyant" was too often another name for "seller of poisons." La Fontaine had, however, given no new information about the confidence inspired. This fact was already too well known.
This dangerous agency, of which we have already had a glimpse on the occasion of the first search for Lesage and Mariette, merits some descriptive details. In Paris, during a period of twenty years, it was so mixed up with intrigues and crimes that it exercised a real influence over the morals of the Parisian world and through it over the affairs at Court.
Like a wave of madness it swept over the heads especially of the women. Many of these, even those not directly mingling in political life, were in a state of revolt, inconsolable for having lost the importance acquired during the civil troubles.
Women had been emancipated by the force of affairs. During the actual fighting and the general disorders which ensued, the habit of remaining in the shade of obedience was lost; also the considering themselves only as objects of luxury.
Louis XIV. had undertaken the task of bringing the sex back to the playing of a decorative or utilitarian rôle. It was almost as if to-day we should demand of our daughters, so free, so mingled with the general movement, to return suddenly to the self-effacement and the thousand restraints of our own youth. They would be transported with rage.
In 1666, the larger portion of the clients of the necromancer sought above everything else a secret by the aid of which they might shake off the yoke that had again fallen upon their shoulders. The husband was the natural incarnation of this yoke. It was therefore against him that the revolt was habitually directed. The wives addressed themselves to a clairvoyant. The first consultation was generally innocent enough.
The clairvoyant counselled new-comers to go to the good Saint Denis, always a succour for women unhappy in their domestic life, and to the indefatigable Saint Antoine de Padua. She reserved until later the giving of certain powders, only hinting at their existence, the secret of which had been brought from Italy and which were sought at Paris by both provincials and strangers.
It is now known through contemporaneous documents that arsenic was an element in these powders, and that so many persons accused themselves in confession of having "poisoned some one" that the priests of Nôtre-Dame at length gave warning to the authorities (1673). Did the penitents, especially the women, always speak the truth? Popular imagination is so quickly fired when poisoning is suggested, that it may well be queried whether a portion of the unfortunates were not rather hysterical and victims of hallucinations. It is probable that the true answer will never be known. Physicians at that time were the doctors of Molière, and the science of chemistry did not exist.
With the husband softened or suppressed, the women demanded love to replace emotion in their contracted and faded existence. The task of the necromancer thus consisted in interesting God or the devil in the heart pangs of her client and of arousing an affection in the breast of the man she designated. This was the beginning for the new clients; the end was the black mass with its obscene rites or the bloody mass, for which a small infant was strangled.
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