"The Comte de Poitiers having died whilst hunting, Honorinde learnt of her old serving-man in what refuge, in what asylum, he had long ago deposited the little one. This good mother proceeded there, and the monks, after some hesitation, confessed what had become of it. She wished to see it; they showed it her. At its aspect she felt the same inward commotion which had, years before, perverted nature. She groaned, fainted, burst into tears, and never had the courage and firmness to embrace what she had seen.

"Her grat.i.tude was not less lively and sincere; she handed a considerable sum to the Benedictines of Fontevrault, charging them to continue their good work and charity.

"The reverend Prior, reflecting that his hideous inmate came of a great family, and of a family of great property, resolved to procure it as a wife for his nephew. He sounded the young man, who looked fixedly at his future bride, and avowed that he was satisfied.

"She is a good Christian," he replied to his uncle, since you have baptised her here. She is of a good family, since Honorinde has recognised her. There are many as ugly as she is to be seen who still find husbands. I will put a pretty mask on her, and the mask will give me sufficient illusion. Benedicte, so far as she goes, is well-made; I hope to have fine children who will talk.

"The Prior commenced by marrying them; he then confided in Honorinde, who, not daring to noise abroad this existence, was compelled to submit to what had been done.

"The marriage of the young she-monster was not happy. She bit her husband from morning to night. She did not know how to sit at table, and would only eat out of a trough. She needed neither an armchair, a sofa, nor a couch; she stretched herself out on the sand or on the pavement.

"Her husband, in despair, demanded the nullification of his marriage; and as the courts did not proceed fast enough for his impatience, he killed his companion, Benedicte, with a pistol-shot, at the moment when she was biting and tearing him before witnesses.

"Honorinde had her buried at Fontevrault, and over her tomb, at the end of the year, she built a convent, to which her immense property was given, where she retired herself as a simple nun, and of which she was appointed first abbess by the Pope who reigned at the time.

"There, madame," added the King, "is the somewhat singular origin of the ill.u.s.trious abbey which your sister rules with such eclat. You must have remarked the boar's head, perfectly imitated in sculpture, in the dome; that mask is the speaking history of the n.o.ble community of Fontevrault, where more than a hundred Benedictine monks obey an abbess."

CHAPTER XI.

Fine Couples Make Fine Children.--The Dauphine of Bavaria.--She Displeases Madame de Montespan.--First Debut Relating to Madame de Maintenon, Appointed Lady-in-waiting.--Conversation between the Two Marquises.

The King, in his moments of effusion and abandonment (then so full of pleasantness), had said more than once: "If I have any physical beauty, I owe it to the Queen, my mother; if my daughters have any beauty, they owe it to me: it is only fine couples who get fine children."

When I saw him decided upon marrying Monseigneur le Dauphin, I reminded him of his maxim. He fell to smiling, and answered me: "Chance, too, sometimes works its miracles. My choice for my son is a decided thing; my politics come before my taste, and I have asked for the daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, whose portrait I will show you. She is not beautiful, like you; she is prettier than Benedicte, and I hope that she will not bite Monseigneur le Dauphin in her capricious transports."

The portrait that the King showed me was a flattering one, as are, in general, all these preliminary samples. For all that, the Princess seemed to me hideous, and even disagreeable, especially about her eyes, that portion of the face which confirms the physiognomy and decides everything.

"Monseigneur will never love that woman," I said to the King. "That constrained look in the pupil, those drooping eyes,--they make my heart ache."

"My son, happily," his Majesty answered, "is not so difficult as you and I. He has already seen this likeness, and at the second look he was taken; and as we have a.s.sured him that the young person is well made, he cries quits with her face, and proposes to love her as soon as he gets her."

"G.o.d grant it!" I added; and the King told me, more or less in detail, of what important personages he was going to compose his household. The eternal Abbe Bossuet was to become first chaplain, as being the tutor-in-chief to the Dauphin; the d.u.c.h.esse de Richelieu, for her great name, was going to be lady of honour; and the two posts of ladies in waiting were destined for the Marquise de Rochefort, wife of the Marshal, and for Madame de Maintenon, ex-governess of the Duc du Maine. The gesture of disapproval which escaped me gave his Majesty pain.

"Why this air of contempt or aversion?" he said, changing colour. "Is it to the Marechale de Rochefort or the Marquise de Maintenon that you object? I esteem both the one and the other, and I am sorry for you if you do not esteem them too."

"The Marechale de Rochefort," I replied, without taking any fright, "is aged, and almost always sick; a lady of honour having her appearance will make a contrast with her office. As to the other, she still has beauty and elegance; but do you imagine, Sire, that the Court of Bavaria and the Court of France have forgotten, in so short a time, the pleasant and burlesque name of the poet Scarron?"

"Every one ought to forget what I have forgotten," replied the King, "and what my grat.i.tude will not, and cannot forget, I am surprised that you, madame, should take pleasure in forgetting."

"She has taken care of my children since the cradle, I admit it with pleasure," said I to his Majesty, without changing my tone; "you have given her a marquisate for recompense, and a superb hotel completely furnished at Versailles. I do not see that she has any cause for complaint, nor that after such bounty there is more to add."

"Of eight children that you have brought into the world, madame, she has reared and attended perfectly to six," replied the King. "The estate of Maintenon has, at the most, recompensed the education of the Comtes de Vegin, whose childhood was so onerous. And for the remainder of my little family, what have I yet done that deserves mention?"

"Give her a second estate and money," I cried, quite out of patience, "since it is money which pays all services of that nature; but what need have you to raise her to great office, and keep her at Court? She dotes, she says, on her old chateau of Maintenon; do not deprive her of this delight. By making her lady in waiting, you would be disobliging her."

"She will accept out of courtesy," he said to me, putting on an air of mockery. And as the time for the Council was noted by him on my clock, he went away without adding more.

Since M. le Duc du Maine had grown up, and Mademoiselle de Nantes had been confided to the Marquise de Montchevreuil, Madame de Maintenon continued to occupy her handsome apartment on the Princes' Court. There she received innumerable visits, she paid a.s.siduous court to the Queen, who had suddenly formed a taste for her, and took her on her walks and her visits to the communities; but this new Marquise saw me rarely. Since the affair of the vine-grower, killed on the road, she declared that I had insulted her before everybody, and that I had ordered her imperiously to return to my carriage, as though she had been a waiting-maid, or some other menial. Her excessive sensibility readily afforded her this pretext, so that she neglected and visibly overlooked me.

As she did not come to me, I betook myself to her at a tolerably early hour, before the flood of visitors, and started her on the history of the lady in waiting.

"His Majesty has spoken of it to me," she said, "as of a thing possible; but I do not think there is anything settled yet in the matter."

"Will you accept," I asked her, "supposing the King to insist?"

"I should like a hundred times better," she replied, "to go and live in independence in my little kingdom of Maintenon, and with my own hands gather on my walls those velvet, brilliant peaches, which grow so fine in those districts. But if the King commands me to remain at Court, and form our young Bavarian Princess in the manners of this country, have I the right, in good conscience, to refuse?"

"Your long services have gained you the right to desire and take your retirement," I said to her; "in your place, I should insist upon the necessities of my health. And the Court of France will not fall nor change its physiognomy, even if a German or Iroquois Dauphine should courtesy awry, or in bad taste."

Madame de Maintenon began to laugh, and a.s.sured me that "her post as lady in waiting would be an actual burden, if the King had destined her for it in spite of herself, and there should be no means of withdrawing from it."

At this speech I saw clearly that things were already fixed. Not wishing to call upon me the reproaches of my lord, I carried the conversation no further.

CHAPTER XII.

The "Powder of Inheritance."--The Chambre Ardente.--The Comtesse de Soissons's Arrest Decreed.--The Marquise de Montespan Buys Her Superintendence of the Queen's Council.--Madame de Soubise.--Madame de Maintenon and the King.

At the time of the poisonings committed by Madame de Brinvilliers, the Government obtained evidence that a powder, called "the powder of inheritance," was being sold in Paris, by means of which impatient heirs shortened the days of unfortunate holders, and entered into possession before their time.

Two obscure women, called La Vigoureuse and La Voisine, were arrested, having been caught redhanded. Submitted to the question, they confessed their crime, and mentioned several persons, whom they qualified as "having bought and made use of the said powder of inheritance."

We saw suddenly the arrest of the Marechal de Luxembourg, the Princesse de Tingry, and many others. The 'Chambre Ardente'--[The French Star Chamber.]--issued a warrant also to seize the person of the d.u.c.h.esse de Bouillon and the Comtesse de Soissons, the celebrated nieces of the Cardinal Mazarin, sisters-in-law, both, of my niece De Nevers, who was dutifully afflicted thereby.

The Comtesse de Soissons had possessed hitherto an important office, whose functions suited me in every respect,--that of the superintendence of the Queen's household and council. I bought this post at a considerable price. The Queen, who had never cared for the Countess, did me the honour of a.s.suring me that she preferred me to the other, when I came to take my oath in her presence.

Madame la Princesse de Rohan-Soubise had wished to supplant me at that time, and I was aware of her constant desire to obtain a fine post at Court. She loved the King, who had shown her his favours in more than one circ.u.mstance; but, as she had a place neither in his esteem nor in his affection, I did not fear her. I despatched to her, very adroitly, a person of her acquaintance, who spoke to her of the new household of a Dauphine, and gave her the idea of soliciting for herself the place of lady in waiting, destined for Madame de Maintenon.

The Princesse de Soubise put herself immediately amongst the candidates.

She wrote to the King, her friend, a pressing and affectionate letter, to which he did not even reply. She wrote one next in a more majestic and appropriate style. It was notified to her that she was forbidden to reappear at Court.

The prince had resolutely taken his course. He wished to put Madame de Maintenon in evidence, and what he has once decided he abandons never.

I was soon aware that costumes of an unheard-of magnificence were being executed for the Marquise. Gold, silver, precious stones abounded. I was offered a secret view of her robe of ceremony, with a long mantle train.

I saw this extraordinarily rich garment, and was sorry in advance for the young stranger, whose lady in waiting could not fail to eclipse her in everything.

I then put some questions to myself,--asked myself severely if my disapproval sprang from natural haughtiness, which would have been possible, and even excusable, or whether, mingled with all that, was some little agitation of jealousy and emulation.

I collected together a crowd of slight and scattered circ.u.mstances; and in this union of several small facts, at first neglected and almost unperceived, I distinguished on the part of the King a gradual and increasing attachment for the governess, and at the same time a negligence in regard to me,--a coldness, a cooling-down, at least, and that sort of familiarity, close parent of weariness, which comes to sight in the midst of courtesies and attentions the most satisfying and the most frequent.

The King, in the old days, never glanced towards my clock till as late as possible, and always at the last moment, at the last extremity. Now he cast his eyes on it a score of times in half an hour. He contradicted me about trifles. He explained to me ingeniously the faults, or alleged faults, of my temper and character. If it was a question of Madame de Maintenon, she was of a birth equal and almost superior to the rest of the Court. He forgot himself so far as to quote before me the subtilty of her answers or the delight of her most intimate conversation. Did he wish to describe a n.o.ble carriage, an att.i.tude at once easy and distinguished, it was Madame de Maintenon's. She possessed this, she possessed that, she possessed everything.