Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle, 1652-1693. Barine Arvède
rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_0786880c-c448-55c0-acef-14d76570f4f4">62 After the painting by Greg Huret.
Louis XIV. as a Young Man72 From a chalk drawing in the British Museum Print Room.
François de la Rochefoucauld130 From the engraving by Hopwood after the painting by Petitot.
Hélenè Lambert, Madame de Motteville150 After the painting by De Largillière.
Louise de la Vallière154 From the engraving by Flameng after the painting by Petitot.
Jean Baptiste Colbert170 After the painting by Champaign.
"Pleasures of the Island of Enchantment."
Scene on the First Day of the Play, before the King at Versailles172 From the engraving by Israel Silvestre.
"Pleasures of the Island of Enchantment." Second Day174 From the engraving by Israel Silvestre.
General View of the Château of Versailles176 From the engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1664.
The Front of the Louvre in Course of Erection178 From the engraving by S. le Clerc, 1677.
Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molière180 After the painting by Noël Coypel.
Madame Henriette d'Orléans194 From the painting by Mignard in the National Portrait Gallery. (Photograph by Walker, London.)
Madame de Montespan200 From the engraving by Flameng after the painting by Mignard.
La Voisin206 From a print in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
Jean Baptiste de Lulli216 After a contemporary print by Bonnart.
Boileau220 After the painting by H. Rigaud.
Duc de Lauzun244 By permission of Messrs. Hachette & Co.
Madame de Sévigné282 From the painting by Pietro Mignard in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. (Photograph by Alinari.)
View of the Palace and Gardens of the Tuileries330 From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1673.
View of the Residence of Colbert, Showing also his Seal332 From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1675.
View of the Château of Versailles, Showing The
Fountain of the Dragon334 From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1676.
Duchesse de la Vallière and her Children336 From the painting by P. Mignard in the possession of the Marquise d'Oilliamson.
Louise de la Vallière, in the Garb of the Order
of the Carmelites338 After the painting by D. Plaats.
Madame de Maintenon340 After the painting by P. Mignard in 1694.
LOUIS XIV. AND LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
CHAPTER I
Exile—Provincial Life—Conversation at Saint-Fargeau—Sentiment towards Nature in the Seventeenth Century—Differences between Mademoiselle and her Father—Mademoiselle Returns to Court.
THE Fronde was an abortive revolution. It was condemned in advance, the leaders having never clearly known what ends they were seeking. The consequences of its failure proved to be of profound importance to France. The civil disorders existing between 1648 and 1652 were the last efforts of the French against the establishing of absolute monarchy, to the strengthening of which the entire regency of Anne of Austria had tended. The end of these disorders signified that the nation, wearied and discouraged, had accepted the new régime. The result was a great transformation, political and moral, so great that the Fronde may be considered as clearly marking a separation between two periods of French history—a deep abyss as it were between the times which precede and those which follow.
The leaders of the Fronde had been dispersed by the return of the King to his capital on October 21, 1652. When the exiles returned, some sooner, some later, the last after the Peace of the Pyrénées (November 7, 1659), so great a change had taken place in ideas and customs that more than one exile felt himself in a strange land.
It was necessary to adjust oneself to the new atmosphere. It was very much the same situation—though the Frondeurs were under much lighter accusations—as that experienced by the émigrés returning under the Consulate. The Princess, the events of whose heroic years have been related, offers an excellent example of this condition.
When the Grande Mademoiselle, who had urged on the civil war in order to force Louis XIV. into marriage with herself, obtained at the end of five years, permission to return to Court, she brought with her the old undisciplined habits which were no longer in fashion, and in the end incurred much that was disagreeable. Exile had not weakened her pride. According to a celebrated formula, she had learned nothing, she had forgotten nothing; she remained that person of impulse of whom Mme. de Sévigné said, "I do not care to mix myself with her impetuosities."[1]
Far be it from me to reproach Mademoiselle! All honour be to her who stood firm in the age of servility which succeeded the Fronde! In other respects exile had been most healthful for her. She had been obliged to seek in herself resources the finding of which surprised her. Mademoiselle naïvely admires herself in her Mémoires[2] for never having experienced a single moment of ennui "in the greatest desert in the world," and surely she deserves praise, as her first experiences at Saint-Fargeau would have crushed most women.
The reader will be convinced of this if he imagines himself in her company the night of arrival in the early days of November, 1652. At the end of The Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle we left her weeping without shame before her entire suite. Her dream of glory had evaporated. Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans would never be queen of France. She would take no more cities; pass no more troops at review to the sound of trumpet and cannon. Three weeks previous, the great Condé had treated her as a companion in arms. She rejoiced the soldiers by her martial carriage, and any one of them would have been not only surprised but very indignant if it had been suggested that she was capable of being almost as cowardly as her father, the "triste Gaston."
Now all that was finished, even the romantic flight. While playing hide-and-seek with imaginary pursuers, the Grande Mademoiselle had fallen into a state of physical and moral prostration. The heroine of Orléans and of Porte Saint-Antoine sobbed like a little child because she "had too much grief" and was "too afraid"[3]; the aspect of her future home had taken away the last remnants of courage.
The Château of Saint-Fargeau, begun under Hugh Capet and often repaired, particularly during the fifteenth century, seemed more like a fortress than a peaceful dwelling. Its heavy mass dominated the valley of the Loing, a region of great and dense forests, with few clearings. Itself enveloped with brushwood and protected by deep moats, the château harmonised well with the surroundings. Its windows opened at a great height above the ground, and its towers were strong. The body of the building was massive and bare, united by strong ramparts forming an enceinte irregular with severe appearance.
The ensemble was imposing, never smiling. Saint-Fargeau, long uninhabited, was almost a ruin filled with rats at the time when Mademoiselle presented herself as a fugitive. She was shown into a room with a prop in the centre. Coming from the palace of the Tuileries, this sight overwhelmed her, and made her realise the depth of her fall. She had an access of despair: "I am most unfortunate to be absent from Court, to have only a dwelling as ugly as this, and to realise that this is the best