At these words, p.r.o.nounced in a melancholy and celestial voice, I felt as though my heart were broken, and burst into tears.

"I pity you, Athenais," she resumed. "Is, then, what I have been told lightly, and almost in haste, only too certain for you? How is it you did not expect it? How could you believe him constant and immutable, after what happened to me?

"To-day, I make no secret to you of it, and I say it with the peaceful indifference which G.o.d has generously granted me, after such dolorous tribulations. I make no secret of it to you, Athenais; a thousand times you plunged the sword and dagger into my heart, when, profiting by my confidence in you, by my sense of entire security, you permitted your own inclination to subst.i.tute itself for mine, and a young man seething with desires to be attracted by your charms. These unlimited sufferings exhausted, I must believe, all the sensibility of my soul. And when this corrosive flame had completely devoured my grief, a new existence grew up in me; I no longer saw in the father of my children other than a young prince, accustomed to see his dominating will fulfilled in everything.

Knowing how little in this matter he is master of himself, he who knows so well how to be master of himself in everything to do with his numerous inferiors, I deplored the facility he enjoys from his attractions, from his wealth, from his power to dazzle the hearts which he desires to move and subdue.

"Recognise these truths, my dear Marquise," she added, "and gain, for it is time, a just idea of your position. After the unhappiness I felt at being loved no longer, I should have quitted the Court that very instant, if I had been permitted to bring up and tend my poor children. They were too young to abandon! I stayed still in the midst of you, as the swallow hovers and flits among the smoke of the fire, in order to watch over and save her little ones. Do not wait till disdain or authority mingles in the matter. Do not come to the sad necessity of resisting a monarch, and of detesting to the point of scandal that which you have so publicly loved; pity him, but depart. This kind of intimacy, once broken, cannot be renewed. However skilfully it may be patched up, the rent always reappears."

"My good Louise," I replied to the amiable Carmelite, "your wise counsels touch me, persuade me, and are nothing but the truth. But in listening to you I feel overwhelmed; and that strength which you knew how to gain, and show to the world, your former companion will never possess.

"I see with astonished eyes the supernatural calm which reigns in your countenance; your health seems to me a prodigy, your beauty was never so ravishing; but this barbarous garb pierces me to the heart.

"The King does not yet hate me; he shows me even a remnant of respect, with which he would colour his indifference. Permit me to ask from him for you an abbey like that of Fontevrault, where the felicities of sanctuary and of the world are all in the power of my sister. He will ask nothing better than to take you out, be a.s.sured."

"Speak to him of me," answered Louise; "I do not oppose that; but leave me until the end the role of obedience and humility that his fault and mine impose on me. Why should he wish that I should command others,--I who did not know how to command myself at an epoch when my innocence was so dear to me, and when I knew that, in losing that, one is lost?"

As she said these words two nuns came to announce her Serene Highness, that is to say, her daughter, the Princesse de Conti. I prayed Madame de la Valliere to keep between ourselves the communications that had just taken place in the intimacy of confidence. She promised me with her usual candour. I made a profound reverence to the daughter, embraced the mother weeping, and regained my carriage, which the Princess must have remarked on entering.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Reflections.--The Future.--The Refuge of Foresight.--Community of Saint Joseph.--Wicked Saying of Bossuet.

I wept much during the journey; and to save the spectacle of my grief from the pa.s.sers-by, I was at the pains to lower the curtains. I pa.s.sed over in my mind all that the d.u.c.h.ess had said to me. It was very easy for me to understand that the monarch's heart had escaped me, and that, owing to his character, all resistance, all contradiction would be vain.

The figure, as it had been supernumerary and on sufferance, which the d.u.c.h.ess had made in the midst of the Court when she ceased to be loved, returned to my memory completely, and I felt I had not the courage to drink a similar cup of humiliation.

I reminded myself of what the prince had told me several times in those days when his keen affection for me led him to wish for my happiness, even in the future,--even after his death, if I were destined to survive him.

"You ought," he said to me, at those moments, "you ought to choose and a.s.sure yourself beforehand of an honourable retreat; for it is rarely that a king accords his respect or his good-will to the beloved confidante of his predecessor."

Not wishing to ask a refuge of any one, but, on the contrary, being greatly set upon ruling in my own house, I resolved to build myself, not a formal convent like Val-de-Grace or Fontevrault, but a pretty little community, whose nuns, few in number, would owe me their entire existence, which would necessarily attach them to all my interests. I held to this idea. I charged my intendant to seek for me a site s.p.a.cious enough for my enterprise; and when he had found it, had showed it to me, and had satisfied me with it, I had what rambling buildings there were pulled down, and began, with a sort of joy, the excavations and foundations.

The first blow of the hammer was struck, by some inconceivable fortuity, at the moment when the d.u.c.h.esse de Fontanges expired. Her death did not weaken my resolutions nor slacken my ardour. I got away quite often to cast an eye over the work, and ordered my architect to second my impatience and spur on the numerous workmen.

The rumour was current in Paris that the example of "Soeur Louise" had touched me, and that I was going to take the veil in my convent. I took no notice of this fickle public, and persisted wisely in my plan.

The unexpected and almost sudden decease of Mademoiselle de Fontanges had singularly moved the King. Extraordinary and almost incredible to relate, he was for a whole week absent from the Council. His eyes had shed so many tears that they were swollen and unrecognisable. He shunned the occasions when there was an a.s.sembly, buried himself in his private apartments or in his groves, and resembled, in every trait, Orpheus weeping for his fair Eurydice, and refusing to be consoled.

I should be false to others and to myself if I were to say that his extreme grief excited my compa.s.sion; but I should equally belie the truth if I gave it to be understood that his "widowhood" gave me pleasure, and that I congratulated myself on his sorrow and bitterness.

He came to see me when he found himself presentable, and, for the first few days, I abstained from all reprisal and any allusion. The innumerable labours of his State soon threw him, in spite of himself, into those manifold distractions which, in their nature, despise or absorb the sensibilities of the soul. He resumed, little by little, his accustomed serenity, and, at the end of the month, appeared to have got over it.

"What," he asked me, "are those buildings with which you are busy in Paris, opposite the Ladies of Belle-Cha.s.se? I hear of a convent; is it your intention to retire?"

"It is a 'refuge of foresight,'" I answered him. "Who can count upon the morrow? And after what has befallen Mademoiselle de Fontanges, we must consider ourselves as persons already numbered, who wait only for the call."

He sighed, and soon spoke of something else.

I reminded myself that, to speak correctly, I had in Paris no habitation worthy of my children and of my quality. That little hotel in the Rue Saint Andre-des-Arcs I could count for no more than a little box. I sought amongst my papers for a design of a magnificent hotel which I had obtained from the famous Blondel. I found it without difficulty, with full elevations and sections. The artist had adroitly imitated in it the beautiful architecture of the Louvre; this fair palace would suit me in every respect.

My architect, at a cursory glance, judged that the construction and completion of this edifice would easily cost as much as eighteen hundred thousand livres. This expense being no more than I could afford, I commissioned him to choose me a s.p.a.cious site for the buildings and gardens over by Roule and La Pepiniere.

Not caring to superintend several undertakings at once, I desired, before everything, that my house in the Faubourg Saint Germain should be complete and when the building and the chapel were in a condition to receive the little colony, I dedicated my "refuge of foresight" to Saint Joseph, the respectful spouse of the Holy Virgin and foster-father of the Child Jesus. This agreeable mansion lacked a large garden. I felt a sensible regret for this, especially for the sake of my inmates; but there was a little open s.p.a.ce furnished with vines and fruit-walls, and one of the largest courtyards in the whole of the Faubourg Saint Germain.

Having always loved society, I had multiplied in the two princ.i.p.al blocks of the sleeping-rooms and the entrance-hall complete apartments for the lady inmates. And a proof that I was neither detested by the world nor unconsidered is that all these apartments were sought after and occupied as soon as the windows were put in and the painting done. My own apartment was simple, but of a majestic dignity. It communicated with the chapel, where my tribune, closed with a handsome window, was in face of the altar.

I decided, once for all, that the Superior should be my nomination whilst G.o.d should leave me in this world, but that this right should not pa.s.s on to my heirs. The bell of honour rang for twenty minutes every time I paid a visit to these ladies; and I only had incense at high ma.s.s, and at the Magnificat, in my quality of foundress.

I went from time to time to make retreats, or, to be more accurate, vacations, in my House of Saint Joseph. M. Bossuet solicited the favour of being allowed to preach there on the day of the solemn consecration. I begged him to preserve himself for my funeral oration. He answered cruelly that there was nothing he could refuse me.

BOOK 6.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Court Travels in Picardy and Flanders.--The Boudoir Navy.--Madame de Montespan Is Not Invited.--The King Relates to Her the Delights of the Journey.--Reflections of the Marquise.

The King, consoled as he was for the death of the d.u.c.h.esse de Fontanges, did not, on that account, return to that sweet and agreeable intimacy which had united us for the s.p.a.ce of eleven or twelve years. He approached me as one comes to see a person of one's acquaintance, and it was more than obvious that his only bond with me was his children.

Being a man who loved pomp and show, he resolved upon a journey in Flanders,--a journey destined to furnish him, as well as his Court, with numerous and agreeable distractions, and to give fresh alarm to his neighbours.

Those "Chambers of Reunion," as they were called, established at Metz and at Brisach, competed with each other in despoiling roundly a host of great proprietors, under the pretext that their possessions had formerly belonged to Alsace, and that this Alsace had been ceded to us by the last treaties. The Prince Palatine of the Rhine saw himself stripped, on this occasion, of the greater part of the land which he had inherited from his ancestors, and when he would present a memoir on this subject to the ministers, M. de Croissy-Colbert answered politely that he was in despair at being unable to decide the matter himself; but that the Chambers of Metz and Brisach having been inst.i.tuted to take cognisance of it, it was before these solemn tribunals that he must proceed.

The Palatine lost, amongst other things, the entire county of Veldentz, which was joined to the church of the Chapter of Verdun.

The King, followed by the Queen and all his Court,--by Monsieur le Dauphin, Madame la Dauphine and the legitimate princes, whom their households accompanied as well,--set out for Flanders in the month of July. Madame de Maintenon, as lady in waiting, went on this journey; and of me, superintendent of the Queen's Council, they did not even speak.

The first town at which this considerable Court stopped was at Boulogne, in Picardy, the fortifications of which were being repaired. On the next day the King went on horseback to visit the port of Ambleteuse; thence he set out for Calais, following the line of the coast, while the ladies took the same course more rapidly. He inspected the harbours and diverted himself by taking a sail in a wherry. He then betook himself to Dunkirk, where the Marquis de Seignelay--son of Colbert--had made ready a very fine man-of-war with which to regale their Majesties. The Chevalier de Ury, who commanded her, showed them all the handling of it, which was for those ladies, and for the Court, a spectacle as pleasant as it was novel. The whole crew was very smart, and the vessel magnificently equipped. There was a sham fight, and then the vessel was boarded. The King took as much pleasure in this sight as if Fontanges had been the heroine of the fete, and our ladies, to please him, made their hands sore in applauding. This naval fight terminated in a great feast, which left nothing to be desired in the matter of sumptuousness and delicacy.

On the following day, there was a more formal fight between two frigates, which had also been prepared for this amus.e.m.e.nt.

The King was in a galley as spectator; the Queen was in another. The Chevalier de Lery took the helm of that of the King; the Capitaine de Selingue steered that of the Queen. The sea was calm, and there was just enough wind to set the two frigates in motion. They cannonaded one another briskly for an hour, getting the weather gauge in turn; after this, the combat came to an end, and they returned to the town to the sound of instruments and the noise of cannon.

The King gave large bounties to the crew, as a token of his satisfaction.

The prince was on board his first vessel, when the Earl of Oxford, and the Colonel, afterwards the Duke of Marlborough, despatched by the King of England, came to pay him a visit of compliment on behalf of that sovereign.

The Duke of Villa-Hermosa, Spanish Governor of the Low Countries, paid him the same compliment in the name of his master.

Both parties were given audience on this magnificent vessel, where M. de Seignelay had raised a sort of throne of immense height.