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Memoirs of Madame la Marquise de Montespan — Complete. Madame de Montespan
His host readily shared this opinion. He at once gave the requisite instructions, which that very night were executed by torchlight with the utmost secrecy by all the workmen of the locality whose services at such an hour it was possible to secure.
When next day the monarch stepped out on to his balcony, he saw a beautiful green wood in place of the clearings with which on the previous evening he had found fault.
Service more prompt or tasteful than this it was surely impossible to have; but kings only desire to be obeyed when they command.
Fouquet, with airy presumption, expected thanks and praise. This, however, was what he had to hear: “I am shocked at such expense!”
Soon afterwards the Court moved to Nantes; the ministers followed; M. Fouquet was arrested.
His trial at the Paris Arsenal lasted several months. Proofs of his defalcations were numberless. His family and proteges made frantic yet futile efforts to save so great a culprit. The Commission sentenced him to death, and ordered the confiscation of all his property.
The King, content to have made this memorable and salutary example, commuted the death penalty, and M. Fouquet learned with gratitude that he would have to end his days in prison.
Nor did the King insist upon the confiscation of his property, which went to the culprit’s widow and children, all that was retained being the enormous sums which he had embezzled.
CHAPTER VII.
Close of the Queen-mother’s Illness.—The Archbishop of Auch.—The Patient’s Resignation.—The Sacrament.—Court Ceremony for its Reception.—Sage Distinction of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.—Her Prudence at the Funeral.
As the Queen-mother’s malady grew worse, the Court left Saint Germain to be nearer the experts and the Val-de-Grace, where the princess frequently practised her devotions with members of the religious sisterhood that she had founded.
Suddenly the cancer dried up, and the head physician declared that the Queen was lost.
The Archbishop of Auch said to the King, “Sire, there is not an instant to be lost; the Queen may die at any moment; she should be informed of her condition, so that she may prepare herself to receive the Sacrament.”
The King was troubled, for he dearly loved his mother. “Monsieur,” he replied, with emotion, “it is impossible for me to sanction your request. My mother is resting calmly, and perhaps thinks that she is out of danger. We might give her her death-blow.”
The prelate, a man of firm, religious character, insisted, albeit reverently, while the prince continued to object. Then the Archbishop retorted, “It is not with nature or the world that we have here to deal. We have to save a soul. I have done my duty, and filial tenderness will at any rate bear the blame.”
The King thereupon acceded to the churchman’s wishes, who lost no time in acquainting the patient with her doom.
Anne of Austria was grievously shocked at so terrible an announcement, but she soon recovered her resignation and her courage; and M. d’ Auch made noble use of his eloquence when exhorting her to prepare for the change that she dreaded.
A portable altar was put up in the room, and the Archbishop, assisted by other clerics, went to fetch the Holy Sacrament from the church of Saint Germain de l’Auxerrois in the Louvre parish.
The princes and princesses hereupon began to argue in the little closet as to the proper ceremony to be observed on such occasions. Madame de Motteville, lady-in-waiting to the Queen, being asked to give an opinion, replied that, for the late King, the nobles had gone out to meet the Holy Sacrament as far as the outer gate of the palace, and that it would be wise to do this on the present occasion.
Mademoiselle de Montpensier interrupted the lady-in-waiting and those who shared her opinion. “I cannot bring myself to establish such a precedent,” she said, in her usual haughty tone. “It is I who have to walk first, and I shall only go half-way across the courtyard of the Louvre. It’s quite far enough for the Holy Wafer-box; what’s the use of walking any further for the Holy Sacrament?”
The princes and princesses were of her way of thinking, and the procession advanced only to the limits aforesaid.
When the time came for taking the Sacred Heart to Val-de-Grace with the funeral procession, Mademoiselle, in a long mourning cloak, said to the Archbishop before everybody, “Pray, monsieur, put the Sacred Heart in the best place, and sit you close beside it. I yield my rank up to you on the present occasion.” And, as the prelate protested, she added, “I shall be very willing to ride in front on account of the malady from which she died.” And, without altering her resolution, she actually took her seat in front.
CHAPTER VIII.
Cardinal Mazarin.—Regency of Anne of Austria.—Her Perseverance in Retaining Her Minister.—Mazarin Gives His Nieces in Marriage.—M. de la Meilleraye.—The Cardinal’s Festivities.—Madame de Montespan’s Luck at a Lottery.
Before taking holy orders, Cardinal Mazarin had served as an officer in the Spanish army, where he had even won distinction.
Coming to France in the train of a Roman cardinal, he took service with Richelieu, who, remarking in him all the qualities of a supple, insinuating, artificial nature—that is to say, the nature of a good politician—appointed him his private secretary, and entrusted him with all his secrets, as if he had singled him out as his successor.
Upon the death of Richelieu, Mazarin did not scruple to avow that the great Armand’s sceptre had been a tyrant’s sceptre and of bronze. By such an admission he crept into the good graces of Louis XIII., who, himself almost moribund, had shown how pleased he was to see his chief minister go before him to the grave.
Louis XIII. being dead, his widow, Anne of Austria, in open Parliament cancelled the monarch’s testamentary depositions and constituted herself Regent with absolute authority. Mazarin was her Richelieu.
In France, where men affect to be so gallant and so courteous, how is it that when women rule their reign is always stormy and troublous? Anne of Austria—comely, amiable, and gracious as she was—met with the same brutal discourtesy which her sister-in-law, Marie de Medici, had been obliged to bear. But gifted with greater force of intellect than that queen, she never yielded aught of her just rights; and it was her strong will which more than once astounded her enemies and saved the crown for the young King.
They lampooned her, hissed her, and burlesqued her publicly at the theatres, cruelly defaming her intentions and her private life. Strong in the knowledge of her own rectitude, she faced the tempest without flinching; yet inwardly her soul was torn to pieces. The barricading of Paris, the insolence of M. le Prince, the bravado and treachery of Cardinal de Retz, burnt up the very blood in her veins, and brought on her fatal malady, which took the form of a hideous cancer.
Our nobility (who are only too glad to go and reign in Naples, Portugal, or Poland) openly declared that no foreigner ought to hold the post of minister in Paris. Despite his Roman purple, Mazarin was condemned to be hanged.
The motive for this was some trifling tax which he had ordered to be collected before this had been ratified by the magistrates and registered in the usual way.
But the Queen knew how to win over the nobles. Her cardinal was recalled, and the apathy of the Parisians put an end to these dissensions, from which, one must admit, the people and the bourgeoisie got all the ills and the nobility all the profits.
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