Your position of superintendent with the Queen has been from the very first almost a sinecure. Give up to Madame de Maintenon, or to any one else, a dignity which is of no use to you, for which you will be paid now its full value; which, later, is likely to cause you a sensible disappointment; for that is always sold at a loss which must be sold at a given moment.

Nature, so prodigal to you, Madame la Marquise, has not yet deflowered, nor recalled in the least degree, those graces and attractions which were lavished on you. Retire with the honours of war.

Annoyance, vexation, irritation, do not make your veins flow with milk and honey; you would lose upon the field of battle all those treasures which it is in your power to save.

Adieu, madame.

This communication, though anonymous, is none the less benevolent. I desire your peace and your happiness.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Madame de Maintenon at Loggerheads with Madame de Thianges.--The Mint of the D'Aubigne Family.--Creme de Negresse, the Elixir of Long Life.--Ninon's Secret for Beauty.--The King Would Remain Young or Become So.--Good-will of Madame de Maintenon.

This letter was not, in my eyes, a masterpiece, but neither was it from a vulgar hand. For a moment I suspected Madame de Maintenon. She was named in it, it is true, as though by the way, but her interest in it was easy to discover, since the writer dared to try to induce me to sell her, to give up to her, my superintendence. I communicated my suspicions to the Marquise de Thianges. She said to me: "We must see her,--her face expresses her emotions very clearly; she is not good at lying; we shall easily extract her secret, and make her blush for her stratagem."

Ibrahim, faithful to his old friendship for me, had recently sent me stuffs of Asia and essences of the seraglio, under the pretence of politeness and as a remembrance. I wrote two lines to the Marquise, engaging her to come and sacrifice half an hour to me to admire with me these curiosities. Suspecting nothing, she came to my apartments, when she accepted some perfumes, and found all these stuffs divine. My sister, Madame de Thianges, said to her:

"Madame, I do not wish to be the last to congratulate you on that boundless confidence and friendship that our Queen accords you.

a.s.suredly, no one deserves more than you this feeling of preference; it appears that the princess is developing, and that, at last, she is taking a liking for choice conversation and for wit."

"Madame," answered the lady in waiting, "her Majesty does not prefer me to any one here. You are badly informed. She has the goodness to accord to me a little confidence; and since she finds in me some facility in the Spanish tongue, of which she wishes to remain the idolater all her life, she loves to speak that tongue with me, catching me up when I go wrong either in the p.r.o.nunciation or the grammar, as she desires to be corrected herself when she commits some offence against our French."

"You were born," added Madame de Thianges, "to work at the education of kings. It is true that few governesses or tutors are as amiable. There is a sound in your voice which goes straight to the heart; and what others teach rudely or monotonously, you teach musically and almost singing. Since the Queen loves your French and your Spanish, everything has been said; you are indispensable to her. Things being so, I dare to propose to you, Madame, a third occupation, which will suit you better than anything else in the world, and which will complete the happiness of her Majesty.

"Here is Madame de Montespan, who is growing disgusted with grandeur, after having recognised its emptiness, who is enthusiastically desiring to go and enjoy her House of Saint Joseph, and wishes to get rid of her superintendence forthwith, at any cost."

"What!" said Madame de Maintenon. Then to me, "You wish to sell your office without having first a.s.sured yourself whether it be pleasing to the King? It appears to me that you are not acting on this occasion with the caution with which you are generally credited."

"What need has she of so many preliminary cautions," added the Marquise, "if it is to you that she desires to sell it? Her choice guarantees the consent of the princess; your name will make everything easy."

"I reason quite otherwise, Madame la Marquise," replied the former governess of the princes; "the Queen may have her ideas. It is right and fitting to find out first her intention and wishes."

"Madame, madame," said my sister then, "everything has been sufficiently considered, and even approved of. You will be the purchaser; you desire to buy, it is to you that one desires to sell."

Madame de Maintenon began to laugh, and besought the Marquise to believe that she had neither the desire nor the money for that object.

"Money," answered my sister, "will cause you no trouble on this occasion.

Money has been coined in pour family."

[Constant d'Aubigne, father of Madame de Maintenon, in his wild youth, was said to have taken refuge in a den of comers.--Ed. Note]

Madame de Maintenon, profoundly moved, said to the Marquise:

"I thought, madame, that I had come to see Madame de Montespan, to look at her stuffs from the seraglio, and not to receive insults. All your teasing affects me, because up to to-day I believed in your kindly feeling. It has been made clear to me now that I must put up with this loss; but, whatever be your injustice towards me, I will not depart from my customs or from my element. The superintendence of the Queen's Council is for sale, or it is not; either way, it is all the same to me.

I have never made any claim to this office, and I never shall."

These words, of which I perceived the sincerity, touched me. I made some trifling excuses to the lady in waiting, and, tired of all these insignificant mysteries, I went and took the anonymous letter from my bureau and showed it to the governess.

She read it thoughtfully. After having read it, she a.s.sured me that this script was a riddle to her.

Madame de Maintenon, on leaving us, made quite a deep courtesy to my sister, which caused me pain, preserving an icy gravity and exaggerating her salutation and her courtesy.

When we were alone, I confessed to the Marquise de Thianges that her words had pa.s.sed all bounds, and that she could have reached her end by other means.

"I cannot endure that woman," she answered. "She knows that you have made her, that without you she would be languishing still in her little apartment in the Maree; and when for more than a year she sees you neglected by the King and almost deserted, she abandons you to your destiny, and does not condescend to offer you any consolation. I have mortified her; I do not repent of it in the least, and every time that I come across her I shall permit myself that gratification.

"What is she thinking of at her age; with her pretensions to a fine figure, an ethereal carriage, and beauty? And yet it must be admitted that her complexion is not made up. She has the sheen of the lily mingled with that of the rose, and her eyes exhibit a smiling vivacity which leaves our great coquettes of the day far behind!"

"She is nature unadorned as far as her complexion goes, believe me," said I to my sister. "During my constant journeys she has always slept at my side, and her face at waking has always been as at noon and all day long.

She related to us once at the Marechale d'Albret's, where I knew her, that at Martinique--that distant country which was her cradle--an ancient negress, well preserved and robust, had been kind enough to take her into her dwelling. This woman led her one day into the woods. She stripped of its bark some shrub, after having sought it a long time. She grated this bark and mixed it with the juice of chosen herbs. She wrapped up all this concoction in half a banana skin, and gave the specific to the little D'Aubigne.

"This mess having no nasty taste, the little girl consented to return fifteen or twenty times into the grove, where her negress carefully composed and served up to her the same feast.

"'Why do you care to give me this green paste?' the young creole asked her one day.

"The old woman said: 'My dear child, I cannot wait till you have enough sense to learn to understand these plants, for I love you as if you were my own daughter, and I want to leave you a secret which will cause you to live a long time. Though I look as I do, I am 138 years old already. I am the oldest person in the colony, and this paste that I make for you has preserved my strength and my freshness. It will produce the same effect on my dear little girl, and will keep her young and pretty too for a long time.'

"This negress, unhappily, fell asleep one day under a wild pear-tree in the Savannah, and a crocodile came out of the river hard by and devoured her."

"I have heard tell," replied my sister, "that Mademoiselle d'Aubigne, after the death of her mother, or husband, was bound by the ties of a close friendship with Ninon de l'Enclos, whose beauty made such a sensation among the gallants, and still occupies them.

"One was a.s.sured, you know, that Ninon possesses a potion, and that in her generosity to her friend, the fair Indian, she lent her her phial of elixir."

"No, no," said I to the Marquise, "that piece of gallantry of Ninon is only a myth; it is the composition of Martinique, or of the negress, which is the real recipe of Madame de Maintenon. She talked of it one day, when I was present, in the King's carriage. His Majesty said to her: 'I am astonished that, with your natural intelligence, you have not kept in your mind the nature of this Indian shrub and herbs; with such a secret you would be able to-day to make many happy, and there are some kings, who, to grow young again, would give you half their empire.'

"'I am not a worshipper of riches,' said this mistress of talk; 'bad kings might offer me all the treasures and crowns they liked, and I would not make them young again.'

"'And me, madame,' said the prince, 'would you consent to make me young again?'

"'You will not need it for a long time,' she replied, cleverly, with a smile; 'but when the moment comes, or is near, I should set about it with zeal.'

"The whole carriage applauded this reply, and the King took the hand of the Marquise and insisted on kissing it."

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Casket of M. de Lauzun.--His Historical Gallery.--He Makes Some Nuns.--M. de Lauzun in the Lottery.--The Loser Wins.--Queen out of Pique.--Letter from the Queen of Portugal.--The Ingrat.i.tude of M. de Lauzun.

Twice during the captivity of M. de Lauzun the Queen of Portugal had charged her amba.s.sador to carry to the King that young sovereign's solicitations in favour of the disgraced gentleman. Each time the negotiators had been answered with vague and ambiguous words; with those promises which potentates are not chary of, even between themselves, and which we poor mortals of the second rank call Court holy water. These exertions of the Court of Lisbon were speedily discovered, and it then became known how many women of high degree M. de Peguilain had the honour of fluttering. The officer of D'Artagnan, who had the task of seizing his papers when he was arrested to be taken to Pignerol, was obliged, in the course of his duty, to open a rather large casket, where he found the portraits of more than sixty women, of whom the greater number lived almost in the odour of sanct.i.ty. There were descriptive or biographical notes upon all these heroines, and correspondence to match. His Majesty had cognisance of it, and forbade the publication of the names. But the Marquis d'Artagnan and his subordinate officer committed some almost inevitable indiscretions, and all these ladies found their names public property. Several of them, who were either widows or young ladies, retired into convents, not daring to show their faces in the light of day.

The Queen of Portugal, before this scandal, had pa.s.sionately loved the Marquis de Lauzun. She was then called Mademoiselle d'Aumale, and her sister who was soon afterwards d.u.c.h.ess of Savoy was called at Paris Mademoiselle de Nemours. These two princesses, after having exchanged confidences and confessions, were astonished and grieved to find themselves antagonists and rivals. Happily they had a saving wit, both of them, and made a treaty of peace, by which it was recognised and agreed that, since their patrimony was small, it should be neither divided nor drawn upon, in order that it might make of M. de Lauzun, when he came to marry, a rich man and a great lord. The two rivals, in the excess of their love, stipulated that this indivisible inheritance should be drawn for by lot, that the victorious number should have M. de Lauzun thrown in, and that the losing number should go and bury herself in a convent.