THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 ifimurawri 
 
RIVAL FRENCH COURTS 
 
TO 
 ANABEL DOUGLAS 
 
 J^e charme est d F esprit ce que la grdce est au corps 
 
HENRI JULES DE ROURBON, 
 PRINCE DK COND. 
 
 Fron tispiece. 
 
RIVAL 
 FRENCH COURTS 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF A LADY-IN-WAITING 
 
 AT SCEAUX, AT VERSAILLES, AND 
 
 IN THE BASTILLE 
 
 BY S. H. LOMBARDINI 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. 
 1913 
 
DC i ss 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE heroine of the following pages was without 
 wealth, without position, without influence, at 
 least as these are counted in the circles in which 
 she moved ; she could not bestow great favours 
 upon her friends, nor awaken even small fears 
 in the heart of her enemies. Yet her Memoirs, 
 when they appeared a few years after her death, 
 were greeted with an eagerness, read with a 
 glow of interest which few writings have called 
 forth. 
 
 Madame de Sevigne, the Due de Saint-Simon, 
 whose eyes had seen more and that more clearly 
 than is given to most mortals to see, were never 
 read, as authors, by their contemporaries. Nearly 
 forty years elapsed after Madame de Sevigne's 
 death before her letters, Memoirs in matter if 
 not in form, were published and circulated ; more 
 than a hundred years had heaped their dust 
 upon Saint-Simon's ruthless portraits before they 
 were revealed to the public ; but scarcely three 
 years had passed after Madame de Staal's death, 
 
 before Paris began to turn over eagerly the 
 
 v a 2 
 
 782 
 
vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 leaves of her newly published Memoirs. They 
 were in all hands, her name was on all lips. . . . 
 
 "Yes, all the women think so, but all the 
 men do not ..." said Troublet, sweeping all 
 Paris into his answer to an ill-natured remark 
 upon the topic of the hour. The remark had 
 come from Fontenelle ; he was then close upon 
 his hundredth year, and his soul had dried within 
 him. " I am sorry for her," he had said of 
 Madame de Staal, whom he had counted 
 among his friends, "this is written with agree- 
 able elegance, but it was not worth writing 
 at all." 
 
 Posterity has not sided with Fontenelle ; over 
 and over again, from women whom time and 
 distance have rendered impartial, as well as from 
 men endowed by heaven with natural fairness, 
 we hear these spontaneous expressions of delight 
 which a truly human document cannot fail to 
 call forth. Madame de Staal has a sense of 
 humour deliciously companionable, a charming 
 directness most unique in that time of meander- 
 ing periphrases, a philosophy so true and so dis- 
 cerning that it holds and fascinates. 
 
 "It seems to me," says Sainte-Beuve, "that 
 the Memoirs of Madame de Staal should be 
 re-read at the beginning of each winter, at the 
 end of autumn, beneath the November trees to 
 the sound of the falling foliage." 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 Yes, a certain note of sadness runs all through 
 these Memoirs, and yet they read like a fairy 
 tale but a fairy tale with a human ending : joy 
 declines through its pages, as it declines through 
 the human years, as the sun declines through 
 the autumn to the winter. There is a sudden 
 turn of the wheel of fate, and instead of " living 
 happily ever after " the heroine meets unhappiness 
 face to face, and hears its footsteps dogging her 
 own for ever on the unexpected path into which 
 she has been forced. 
 
 Her childhood and her youth had been en- 
 compassed with joy and love and adulation ; like 
 a veritable little queen she had seen all who 
 approached her acknowledge her sway, forestall 
 her desires, extoll her decisions, and she had 
 taken it as a matter of course. Her grace, her 
 wit, her wisdom had been to her like so many 
 magic wands then the unexpected happens, and 
 the young queen wakes up one morning to find 
 herself a waiting maid ! How does she bear her- 
 self under such crushing conditions ; how does she 
 draw from her very servitude the elements of the 
 triumph which she is to accomplish, the greatest 
 triumph, immortality in the minds of men ? that 
 question stimulates for ever the imagination, as one 
 turns over the pages of Madame de Staal's Memoirs. 
 
 It is true she lived at a time peculiarly charged 
 with dramatic possibilities; the last years of 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Louis XlV.'s reign, the first years which followed 
 his death were perhaps more fraught with passion 
 than any other time in French history. The 
 fortress of absolutism and of tradition was 
 crumbling down, the walls had fallen, and there 
 lay revealed to eager and passionate eyes avenues 
 endless and unexplored. But fate had enclosed 
 Madame de Staal Delaunay within a magic circle 
 in which all eyes were resolutely closed to 
 realities. While the rest of France was coming 
 fast into its natural inheritance; a sane desire to 
 test the efficacy of thought by the efficacy of 
 deeds, the little court of Sceaux, where Madame 
 de Staal lived, persisted in treating thought as a 
 futile plaything, and jangled words as a court 
 jester jangles his bells, for the mere pleasure of 
 hearing them tinkle. Madame du Maine, u queen 
 of Sceaux " as she liked to hear herself called, 
 masqueraded through life, a be-ribonned shep- 
 herdess, a nymph, a goddess, as fancy prompted, 
 and forced into her masquerade all those who came 
 into contact with her. She also dragged them 
 with her into a conspiracy, which has its place in 
 history, yet savours more of a comedy than of a 
 political undertaking, dragged them incidentally 
 into prison, and having herself emerged from a 
 " cruel " captivity without having learned anything 
 therefrom about the realities of life, she went 
 back unchanged to her absurdities. 
 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 For fully twenty-five years longer she afforded 
 the France of Voltaire and of the Encyclopaedists 
 the astonishing spectacle of a topsy-turvydom, 
 where all played at being something which 
 they were not, and strove night and day to 
 outdo one another in futilities. Madame du 
 Maine did it from choice, and her courtiers 
 were hypnotised into it with or without their 
 consent. As a representative of the " divine " 
 right of the greater to impose their whims upon 
 the smaller, Madame du Maine is indeed 
 unsurpassed. 
 
 " If you wish," says Sainte-Beuve, "to study in 
 a perfect specimen, and as if under the microscope, 
 the dainty egotism the fantastic and coquettish 
 despotism of a princess of the blood in the olden 
 time, and the artless impossibility in which she 
 lived of conceiving any other existence in the 
 world than her own, go to Sceaux, there you 
 will see these gross defects in miniature, just 
 as we see gold-fish moving in the sunshine in 
 a transparent bowl." 
 
 It is that " transparent bowl " which Madame 
 de Staal Delaunay holds up to our eyes, and 
 upon it she brings to play most skilfully the 
 light of her humorous wisdom and philosophy. 
 She lived in the atmosphere of Sceaux, yet was 
 not of it ; though she breathed it day after 
 day, its narcotic properties could not dull her 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 clear vision nor drug her independent spirit. 
 She is that rare exception among exceptions : 
 an insider capable of taking an outsider's point 
 of view. She has been much read, much dis- 
 cussed the details of her life not mentioned 
 in her Memoirs have been supplied by enthusi- 
 astic biographers. One rather unaccountable 
 error seems to have slipped into most of these 
 biographies ; started by one, repeated by the 
 others, it gave rise to a good deal of controversy : 
 the date of Mademoiselle Delaunay's birth has been 
 stated over and over again as 1693, and accord- 
 ing to that she would have been barely eighteen 
 when she entered Madame du Maine's service 
 What ! said sceptic readers, a girl of eighteen, 
 inexperienced, impressionable, delicately nurtured 
 is suddenly called to fight life at most cruel 
 odds and bears no apparent marks of its blows ! 
 The "indelible mark of the waiting-maid," as 
 she herself calls it, is stamped so early upon her 
 character, yet her dignity rises above it as a tall 
 lily rises undefiled above the swamp in which it 
 is rooted impossible ! there is some falsification ! 
 womanlike, Madame de Staal Delaunay has 
 tampered with her dates ! Upon closer inspec- 
 tion one realises, however, that there has been 
 no voluntary error of date in the Memoirs. 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay does not state with any 
 precision the year of her birth ; moreover the 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 fact that certain historical events are mentioned 
 by her as contemporary with certain circumstances 
 of her life might have prevented the initial error. 
 It is now commonly thought that Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay was not in her nineteenth but close 
 upon her twenty-sixth year when she entered 
 Madame du Maine's service. She was ready to 
 unravel the bewildering complexity of elements 
 which were to make up her life at Sceaux, and 
 although the sum total of it all was to be sad- 
 ness, it was also to be fullness and richness of 
 experience. It was given to her to taste of the 
 bitterness and of the joy of life, of its futility 
 and of its fervour ; to her was given, moreover, 
 that gift of expression which is the true liberator 
 of the soul. 
 
 " She saw true," says Sainte - Beuve, in the 
 charming chapter which he devotes to her, " and 
 it was given to her to transmit to us what she saw. 
 If she missed more than one gift of fate, she 
 at least had those of mind, language, and taste. 
 Some of her least sayings have come into the 
 circulation of society and have added to the 
 riches of the mind of France. More than that 
 by her noble conduct during a miserable 
 conspiracy, she has won a place in all future 
 history. How many statesmen who think them- 
 selves great men and who are striving all their 
 lives, do not obtain as much ! " 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. AT THE CONVENT OF SAINT-SATJVEUR ... 1 
 
 H. THE MARQUIS DE SILLY ^ 8 
 
 HE. KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE . . 21 
 
 IV. THE DUC AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE ... 39 
 
 V. THE COURT OF SCEAUX . . ... .53 
 
 VI. GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS ... 67 
 
 VH. SLAVES OF PLEASURE AT SCEAUX ... 81 
 
 Vm. THE TRAGIC END OF A LONG REIGN ... 91 
 
 IX. THE KING'S WILL 100 
 
 X. RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES .... 109 
 
 XI. HUMILIATION OF THE HOUSE OF MAINE . . 129 
 
 XH. THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REGENCY . . . 154 
 
 Xm. AT THE BASTILLE 159 
 
 XTV. LOVE AND TREACHERY WITHIN PRISON WALLS . 169 
 XV. RELEASE OF THE SCEAUX CONSPIRATORS . .187 
 
 XVI. EVENTFUL YEARS 1720-1730 .... 197 
 
 XVII. V ANITAS, VANITATUM 204 
 
 XVIEI. MADAME DU MAINE AS A MATRIMONIAL AGENT . 216 
 
 XIX. THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX .... 225 
 
 XX. THE CLOSE OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE . . . 242 
 
 INDEX . 255 
 
 Xlll 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 HENRI JULES DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDE^ Frontispiece 
 
 MADAME DE STAAL-DELAUNAY . . . To face p. 16 
 
 ANNE LOUISE DE COND^, DUCHESSE^DU MAINE 
 LE DUO DU MAINE ET MADAME DE MONTESPAN 
 
 MADAME FILLON \ 
 
 MICHEL, BARON OF THE COM^DIE FRANC, AISEj 
 
 MADEMOISELLE D'ORL^ANS, DAUGHTER OF THE 
 REGENT PHILIPPE D'ORL^ANS . 
 
 PERE LE TELUER 
 
 ADELAIDE DE SAVOIE, DUCHESSE DE BOUR- 
 GOGNE 
 
 DUG DE BOURGOGNE 
 
 LOUIS DE BOURBON, COMTE DE TOULOUSE . 
 GUILLAUME, CARDINAL DUBOIS 
 
 PHILIPPE, DUG D'ORL^ANS. REGENT : 1715- 
 1723 
 
 ARMAND DU PLESSIS, DUC DE RICHELIEU 
 MADAME DU CHATELET . 
 
 40 
 48 
 
 56 
 
 64 
 92 
 
 96 
 
 102 
 144 
 
 160 
 182 
 
 208 
 
 xv 
 
RIVAL FRENCH COURTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AT THE CONVENT OF SAINT- SAUVEUR 
 
 IN the year 1684 an obscure French artist 
 named Cordier Delaunay emigrated to England, in 
 the hope of finding there the sustenance, if not 
 the fame, which his work had not brought him in 
 France. His efforts did not meet with success; 
 he was never able to send for the young wife 
 whom he had left behind him in Paris, but in 
 that same year, 1684, his name was rescued 
 from oblivion through the birth of his second 
 daughter, the future Madame de Staal Delaunay. 
 Her charming Memoirs, in which that most 
 modern element, the power not to take one's 
 self too seriously, mixes so naturally with 
 eighteenth - century sensibility, are among the 
 most refreshing documents of a century famous 
 for picturesque contrasts. 
 
 The first years of little Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 were spent at the convent of Saint - Sauveur 
 d'Evreux in Normandy, where, through the 
 
2 AT THE CONVENT OF SAINT-SAUVEUR 
 
 introduction of some influential friends, her 
 mother had been admitted as a non-paying 
 dame pensionnaire. The abbess, Madame de 
 la Rochefoucauld, was a sister of the famous 
 Due de la Rochefoucauld, author of the 
 pessimistic " Maximes," and the fact that the 
 abbess was an exclusive lover of dogs may be 
 taken as an indication that she shared in some 
 measure her brother's misanthropy. She had 
 made of her apartment a home for homeless 
 dogs. The lame, the blind, the weak, the aged 
 filled it with whinings and with barkings, and 
 with deep canine sighs of contentment and 
 resignation ; the place was theirs, and human 
 invaders were warned to tread cautiously, for 
 fear of infringing upon superior rights. 
 
 The child, who had found a shelter in the 
 convent too, had lived there two years with her 
 mother, and was four years old before her baby 
 helplessness had been allowed to come into collision 
 with lame paws and battered tails. In consequence 
 the abbess hardly knew her, at a time when the 
 other religieuses were already her devoted slaves. 
 It happened then that one day she was asked 
 with her mother to dine in Madame de la 
 Rochefoucauld's apartment. 
 
 Very carefully, with serious baby intensity, she 
 steered through the dangers against which she had 
 been warned, when lo ! there was a loud howl, and 
 
CHILDHOOD 8 
 
 the abbess' face assumed an expression of awe- 
 inspiring sternness. The little girl stopped short, 
 very much frightened, and some one whispered in 
 her ear " II faut demander pardon." With childish 
 equity, the offender walked straight to the offended 
 dog though he was and asked his pardon 
 in regretful, well-chosen language. Everybody 
 laughed ; she was already famous all through the 
 convent for her wonderful choice of words, this 
 little four-year old pleader, but the abbess had 
 never noticed it before ; this time she loved her 
 for it and remained her friend from that day 
 onward. 
 
 The child had need of friends indeed. Very 
 soon her mother had to leave her, in order to accept 
 the post of governess to the Duchesse de Venta- 
 dour's daughter, and shortly after Monsieur Cordier 
 Delaunay died in England. His little daughter 
 had never seen him, and her later comment on her 
 childish grief at the news of his death does not 
 sound emotional. " Je ne me souviens plus d'ou 
 mes larmes partirent," she says in her Memoirs. 
 
 Madame de la Rochefoucauld proved a very 
 good friend to the little orphan ; but better friends 
 still were two ladies then staying at the convent, 
 Mesdames de Grieu, whose affection seemed to 
 have amounted to extravagant devotion. "They 
 were unoccupied," as Madame de Staal Delaunay 
 explains in her Memoirs, analysing the situation 
 
4 AT THE CONVENT OF SAINT-SAUVEUR 
 
 with her customary balance, " and loved me with 
 the vehemence which solitude and listlessness are 
 apt to give to all feelings." Madame de Grieu, 
 former abbess of Saint- Jouarre, and her sister were 
 awaiting in the convent of Saint Sauveur the issue 
 of the quarrel between Louis XIV. and the Holy 
 See, concerning the right of nominating abbesses 
 for the " Urbanist " convents. The quarrel lasted 
 long, and when at last, after five years, Madame 
 de Grieu took possession of the convent of Saint 
 Louis in Rouen, she adopted the child who 
 had filled with interest the empty days of her 
 interregnum. 
 
 At Saint Louis, little Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 held absolute sway : she lived in the abbess' private 
 apartments ; four nuns, and with them Madame de 
 Grieu's unwilling nieces, were bidden to wait upon 
 her, and a pension which the abbess derived from 
 private sources was spent almost exclusively on 
 the child's education, entrusted to numerous and 
 expensive tutors. As they passed in and out of 
 the convent gates, these masters, who were part of 
 the luxury lavished upon the abbess' protegee, 
 were no doubt followed by many a disapproving 
 glance and gesture of the good nuns ; but they 
 must have been immensely gratified with their 
 pupil, who, at the age of thirteen, studied " passion- 
 ately " the philosophy of Descartes and " amused " 
 herself by anticipating his deductions, in order to 
 
THE FIRST LITERARY SUCCESS 5 
 
 ascertain whether she had rightly grasped his 
 meaning ! 
 
 She soon had an opportunity of putting her 
 dialectical talents to a practical use, and that in 
 the defence of Madame de Grieu's interests against 
 those of a rival abbess, nominated to Saint Louis 
 by the Archbishop of Rouen. Madame de Grieu 
 was then in a very difficult position : the murmurs 
 of the gossiping nuns had swelled to the pro- 
 portions of a rebellion, and the abbess was accused 
 of spending the revenues of the convent on her 
 nieces and her adopted daughter. 
 
 There were no grounds for this accusation ; the 
 convent of Saint Louis was wretchedly poor, and 
 even the wisest of administrations had failed to 
 raise it to a state of prosperity, but not one sou 
 of its revenues had been put to private or illegal 
 use. Unable to prove her integrity, but deter- 
 mined to stand her ground, the abbess at last 
 proposed to give up the temporal administration 
 of the convent and the living which she herself 
 derived from it, undertaking to depend entirely 
 on her private income. 
 
 Many negotiations were necessary to arrive at 
 a satisfactory agreement, and when this was reached 
 at last, the legal advisers of the abbess were obliged 
 to own that the most conclusive arguments in the 
 case had come from the pen of a girl of fourteen 
 little Mademoiselle Delaunay. Her talents had, 
 
 A2 
 
6 AT THE CONVENT OF SAINT-SAUVEUR 
 
 by this time, won her more than mere technical 
 admiration. The Memoirs mention among others 
 a certain Monsieur Brunei who besieged her with 
 love sonnets, which, however, seem to have made 
 very little impression upon the recipient, and which 
 certainly remained unanswered. In spite of rebuffs, 
 and driven by an infatuation which thirsted to 
 communicate itself, Brunei introduced to her a 
 friend who speedily became a rival. It was a 
 certain Abbe de Vertot, an impecunious and 
 enthusiastic bookworm, the terror of all book- 
 sellers, whose books he thumbed rapturously from 
 morning till night, without ever being able to buy 
 them. The books now profited by his being in 
 love ; but not so the booksellers, for their ears 
 rang with the praises of Mademoiselle Delaunay's 
 genius and charms, while the books lay unheeded 
 on the counter. It may have been during one of 
 these rhapsodical but one-sided conversations that 
 the famous Monsieur de Fontenelle, staying at 
 Rouen for a few days, pushed open the door of the 
 bookshop, and, after listening for a while in his usual 
 deliberate manner, decided that Madame de Grieu's 
 young protegee must be worth knowing. At any 
 rate his voice joins the chorus of her praises 
 about that time, and no weightier admiration 
 could have been won than that of the feted author 
 of "La Pluralite des Mondes." Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay does not, however, seem to have attached 
 
A SLACKENING ESCORT 7 
 
 much importance to the tribute of his apprecia- 
 tion ; she was then very interested in some friends 
 who lived near the convent gates, and to whom she 
 paid daily visits, very interested also in a relative 
 of theirs, a Monsieur de Rey, who, after each visit, 
 never failed to offer her his hand to escort her 
 back to Saint Louis. The length and breadth of 
 a public square lay between the house in question 
 and the convent gates, and as Monsieur de Rey 
 and Mademoiselle Delaunay sauntered through it 
 observant onlookers might have noticed that at 
 first they skirted the outer edge of the square, 
 lengthening the road to the utmost. As the days 
 went by, however, the couple steered more and 
 more towards the diagonal crossing line, until at 
 last the convent gates were reached with astonish- 
 ing alacrity. " Calculate the quantitative difference 
 between a 6 square ' and a < diagonal ' affection" 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay set herself that problem 
 which she had helped to illustrate, and shed no 
 tears over its solution! 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MARQUIS DE SILLY 
 
 A CONVENT, in spite of its liberal attitude of 
 two hundred years ago, would hardly seem the 
 best possible school wherein to gain a knowledge 
 of love, but Mademoiselle Delaunay's natural 
 understanding of its laws and vagaries developed 
 quite independently of her surroundings, 
 
 Of the vague stirrings of her young imagina- 
 tion before she meets the man whom she will 
 love passionately to the end, she tells in a 
 charming tone of amused detachment; and here 
 and there, shining like little crystal drops of 
 wisdom, are reflections which, collected and 
 classified, would make an excellent "guide to 
 love." " The heart hardly ever fails to rebel against 
 any demands which it could not reciprocate" is 
 her summing up of the hesitations and rejections 
 awakened in her by the courtship of Monsieur 
 Brunei. He was, as she describes him 
 
 "a man of exquisite discernment, possessed of 
 much knowledge, yet lacking in those graces 
 
 8 
 
NEW SOCIAL INTERESTS 9 
 
 which are only acquired in society, and which 
 please more readily than do more sterling advan- 
 tages. It interested me," she owns a little later 
 on, "to unravel his real thoughts and feelings 
 about me, but if he expressed them too clearly 
 and seemed to expect some return, I felt a great 
 distaste for him." 
 
 The first time she met a man of really polished 
 manners, the social instinct -in her leapt up and 
 exulted, and she imagined that her heart was 
 touched. It happened in an old Normandy 
 chateau, very lonely and dull, where she was 
 visiting a young convent friend. 
 
 " I had only met there a few country squires," 
 she says, "who had not at all attracted my 
 attention, when the chevalier d'Herb . . . carne 
 to call. He was asked to join in a game of 
 cards, after which he went away, promising to 
 return for a longer visit a little later." 
 
 Meanwhile Mademoiselle Delaunay made a 
 discovery which seemed rather perturbing to her. 
 
 " I discovered," she continues, " that I desired 
 his return ; I thought over the reasons which I 
 could have for that and finally explained to myself 
 that he was a witty man, a man with social clever- 
 ness whose company one must naturally desire in a 
 place as lonely as this was. Then, on examining 
 more closely upon what I had based my opinion of 
 his wit, and on trying to remember what I had 
 heard him say, the only words of his which I could 
 
10 THE MARQUIS DE SILLY 
 
 recall were 'gano, trois matadors' and 'sans 
 prendre." 
 
 After that she was perhaps not quite unprepared 
 for the disillusion which was to follow, and she 
 closes the episode by remarking quite cheerfully: 
 "When he came back and spoke at greater 
 length, the wit with which I had endowed him 
 so gratuitously vanished entirely." 
 
 It was at that same chateau, the Chateau de 
 Silly in Normandy, that she met the man who 
 was to colour and control the whole of her 
 emotional life. The young Marquis de Silly was 
 not at the chateau when Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 first stayed there as the guest of his sister, but 
 he was rarely absent from their conversations. 
 His extreme selfishness had in fact a rare power 
 of creating in others a total absorption in his 
 interests ; but of this the ardent young girl, 
 ready for worship and seeking it, could know 
 nothing yet. Besides, recent circumstances had 
 contributed to lend still more interest to his 
 personality. He was a soldier ; he had fought 
 bravely, had been taken prisoner at the battle 
 of Hochstadt l and sent to England. There he had 
 remained for some time, but, 
 
 "owing to the climate of that country," as 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay reports, "he had been 
 threatened with consumption, and had obtained 
 
 1 Better known as the battle of Blenheim, 13th August 1704. 
 
FIRST LOVE 11 
 
 leave to return to France on his parole; the 
 Paris doctors had advised him to go to Normandy 
 to breathe his native air. Monsieur de Silly had 
 spent his life in the best society and on a very 
 agreeable footing, I had heard so much about 
 him that I was very impatient to make his 
 acquaintance." 
 
 However, Mademoiselle Delaunay had to wait 
 till the return of the summer,^ for Monsieur de Silly 
 could not be expected to endure the dullness of 
 a winter in the country! The wished-for day 
 arrived at last, and she went back to Silly full 
 of anticipations. 
 
 "The son of the house was expected," she 
 writes, "and all were already full of him. He 
 arrived; everybody went to meet him. I went 
 like every one else, but with a little less pre- 
 cipitation, and when I arrived upon the scene, he 
 was already going up the stairs to his apartments. 
 He turned round to give some orders. I was 
 struck by the charm of his expression, and by a 
 certain nobility in his bearing which made him 
 look different from any one I had seen before." 
 
 From that ineffaceable moment her love for 
 Monsieur de Silly was to remain the strongest 
 element in her life, and his indifference was but 
 to strengthen her passion. 
 
 " He did not invite conversation from any 
 one," she adds, "and sought little intercourse at 
 
12 THE MARQUIS DE SILLY 
 
 first. Some books which he had brought with 
 him afforded him companionship, and except at 
 meals, he was rarely seen. But although he 
 seldom took the trouble to speak, he spoke so 
 well and with so much grace that his wit shone 
 in spite of himself." 
 
 After this note of infatuation we are glad to 
 find some natural feeling of pique. 
 
 "His charms and his disdain stung me to 
 the quick, and his sister who had seen him 
 more sociable was hardly less hurt by it than 
 I was; this formed the constant subject of our 
 conversations. ..." 
 
 And then we hear that one fine day this 
 very disdainful young hero, wandering through 
 a wood, happened to overhear his name and 
 deigned to stop and listen. Behind a hawthorn 
 bush two young girls were hotly discussing a 
 subject of paramount importance to himself his 
 own personality. He listened to all they said 
 this time his interest was fettered; and then he 
 stole back quietly to the house, awaited their 
 return, and told them that he had overheard a 
 conversation, that it had been about himself 
 "qu'on en avait dit beaucoup de mal, et que ce 
 n'etait pas en riant. On n'a pas envie de rire, lui 
 dis-je, quand on se plaint de vous. ..." O charm- 
 ing mixture of flattery and bold sincerity ! 
 did Monsieur de Silly appreciate the tone as 
 
"ABSOLUTE HAPPINESS" 13 
 
 much as the preoccupation with his character? 
 Be that as it may, henceforth he seemed to 
 find these two negligeable young women worthy 
 of his society, and Mademoiselle Delaunay had 
 the "joy to see continually some one whose 
 presence was sufficient in itself to cause absolute 
 happiness." 
 
 The whole atmosphere of the house favoured 
 the expansion of her feelings. 
 
 "It was so much in the air," she says, "to be 
 wholly absorbed in him, that I could follow my 
 inclination to it, without making myself con- 
 spicuous. However, my actions were sometimes 
 so marked, in spite of myself, that they could 
 not fail to carry conviction. One day, for instance, 
 I had given him a purse which had just been 
 sent to me from my convent, and he threw 
 his own into the hands of one of his mother's 
 maids who was not among the least of his 
 admirers. Whether I wanted to have that purse 
 or merely wanted to prevent the other from having 
 it, I caught it in the air before it reached its 
 destination, and that in the presence of the 
 old Marquise de Silly, a very grave and stern 
 woman. ..." 
 
 Thus Mademoiselle Delaunay gloried, woman- 
 like, in throwing all prudence to the winds, as a 
 small tribute to her love. Monsieur de Silly, on the 
 other hand, exercised all that male caution which 
 is so conspicuous whenever passion has not been 
 
14 THE MARQUIS DE SILLY 
 
 roused. The Memoirs strike a little note of irony 
 on that subject. 
 
 " The fear of giving me an opportunity to 
 explain myself made Monsieur de Silly very 
 careful not to remain alone with me. I was 
 very determined, on my part, not to say any- 
 thing to him ; yet I desired passionately that 
 meeting which he avoided so studiously, and 
 when I had fully understood the reason of his 
 circumspection, I wished even more fervently ta 
 have with him some private conversation which 
 would reassure him and make him understand 
 how far I was from forgetting what I owed to 
 myself." 
 
 After that charming little outburst of youthful 
 dignity, she tells, with a smile of humorous retro- 
 spection, how the interview came to pass. 
 
 " One day, as we were starting out for our 
 usual walk, Mademoiselle de Silly, not feeling 
 very well, decided to remain at home. The old 
 Marquise, anxious to provide entertainment for 
 her son, asked me to go with him. We walked 
 as far as a big meadow, some distance away. 
 He was walking without speaking, much more 
 embarrassed than I was ; this little triumph gave 
 me courage to speak, and I remarked upon the 
 beauty of the fields ; but this topic not seeming 
 yet distant enough from the subject I wished to 
 avoid, I left mere earth for the heavens, soared 
 across the entire planet system and firmly did \ 
 
PAINS OF JEALOUSY 15 
 
 hold my ground in those transcendental regions, 
 until we got back to the chateau." 
 
 It was a small triumph, but her first taste of the 
 "bitter-sweet herb of self-mastery" ; and after long 
 years had passed, she still remembered the austere 
 joy with which it had filled her young soul. " I 
 experienced," she says, "that delicious exultation 
 which is unknown to those who cannot master 
 the impulses of their heart." 
 
 There were less exalted moments to recall 
 also: she saw Monsieur de Silly flirt with rivals, 
 and she was outrageously jealous. One of these 
 rivals had over her the advantage of having 
 travelled in England and in Germany, and thus 
 being a woman with whom a man of the world could 
 compare experiences ! Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 resented this bitterly, but to hide her jealousy 
 she made exaggerated advances to her rival ; 
 she made all the mistakes which a woman 
 of her temperament and of her inexperience 
 would have made, but she never attempted 
 to pull her hero down to her own erring 
 level by owning to any imperfections in his 
 conduct ! 
 
 And then the end of her visit to Silly drew 
 near, and shortly before that the departure of 
 the young Marquis, heralded by the arrival of 
 mysterious letters and packets which caused many 
 secret conferences between mother and son, and 
 
16 THE MARQUIS DE SILLY 
 
 great heart-burnings to the young girl who was 
 excluded from the conversations. 
 
 "I perceived," she writes, "that something 
 which was of great importance to him was being 
 discussed, and that he meant to say nothing of 
 it to me. This seemed to me an insult; I no 
 longer spoke to him, and hardly answered when 
 he spoke to me. He noticed my displeasure, 
 without understanding the reason of it, and as 
 he felt real friendship for me, he wished to clear 
 up matters and to appease me. He stopped me, 
 therefore, one day, when I was about to enter 
 the Marquise de Silly's apartment. I was crossing 
 very hurriedly a hall in which he was wandering 
 about aimlessly, and I pretended not to see him ; 
 but he came up to me, stopped me, and made 
 me sit down by his side, saying that he wished 
 to talk to me. He spoke with so much charm 
 and feeling, made up so well for the lack of 
 confidence which had offended me, appeared so 
 touched by my grief, so flattered by its cause, 
 that I never felt more satisfied with him, and 
 more comforted about the power which he had 
 gained over me." 
 
 That unequal relation of rather flattered friend- 
 ship on one side and of whole-hearted devotion 
 on the other, never changed all through the long 
 years of their intercourse, and in speaking of it 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay never tried to give her- 
 self the more interesting role of the one who is 
 
MADAME DE STAAL-DELAUNAY 
 
 (From the painting by MlGNARD) 
 
 [To face /. 16- 
 
THE FIRST PARTING 17 
 
 sought for. The description of their first part- 
 ing marks the contrast very sharply ; its abandon 
 and ingenuous directness make of it a real little 
 eighteenth-century vignette. 
 
 "His departure, though there was nothing 
 final about it, caused me great unhappiness, but 
 I succeeded pretty well in saving appearances. 
 When he said good-bye to us, Mademoiselle 
 de Silly burst into tears, I hid mine from him, 
 for in his eyes I could read more curiosity than 
 emotion ; but when he had gone, I felt as if life 
 itself had left me. My eyes, accustomed to seek 
 him only, had no more desire to rest on anything ; 
 I no more deigned to speak, since he could hear 
 me no more ; it seemed to me that even thought 
 had left me. . . ." 
 
 The Marquis de Silly went back to court, and 
 the enchanted palace which he had left behind 
 him turned straightway into a wilderness from 
 which Mademoiselle Delaunay fled back to her 
 convent. A letter from the Marquis reached her 
 there shortly after, a letter which stirred her 
 emotions so much that thirty years later she 
 could still remember every feature of it. 
 
 " The shape and the appearance of this letter," 
 she writes, "have remained so clearly imprinted 
 on my memory, that when I looked for it just 
 now, in connection with what I am writing (for 
 I have always kept it, as I have done with nearly 
 
18 THE MARQUIS DE SILLY 
 
 all the letters which I have received from him) 
 I detected it at once, among a thousand other 
 letters." 
 
 Yes, the hand has found it, the eye has 
 detected it at once, the senses have remained in 
 bondage, but the independent spirit adds its 
 comment, piquant enough to be worth recording: 
 "I am tempted to quote the letter here, in 
 order that I may marvel at having been touched 
 by a thing so little touching. ..." 
 
 She quotes it in all its nakedness, and after 
 having read it and some others which followed 
 in the course of time, one is tempted in one's 
 turn to ask wonderingly of what stuff were 
 made these chains which bound Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay for so long. The letters are very wise, 
 sufficiently witty, but selfish and cold to freezing 
 point. Their recipient kept her eyes resolutely 
 closed to this for a long time, and yet, as time 
 passed, the selfishness of the letters increased 
 steadily. When some years later Monsieur de 
 Silly was in Germany, he made of her something 
 between an errand boy and a weekly gazetteer. 
 She owns it, with her usual sincerity. 
 
 " His letters adopted by degrees the tone one 
 takes with a business agent. I have received 
 yours of the ...th instant, pray continue to inform 
 me of what is taking place . . . you failed to 
 
AN UNAMIABLE PEDANT 19 
 
 apprise me of such and such a thing . . . nothing 
 more. In spite of this," she continues, " I was 
 beside myself at the sight of his writing and of 
 his seal. I awaited with the greatest impatience 
 the day and the hour of their arrival, and I can 
 well remember a quarrel I once had at Versailles 
 with a courier who brought me one of his letters 
 and would neither take my money nor give me 
 my letter, because neither of us had any change. 
 In vain I repeated to him that I did not care 
 about the change, he insisted on going away with 
 the letter, saying coldly, ' I will call again later 
 on.' ' What is this?' said my room mate, waked 
 up by the noise we were making, * is not a letter 
 as good at one time as at another ? ' She gave 
 the few pence required, just to get us quiet, and 
 went to sleep again." 
 
 Although Mademoiselle Delaunay's portrait of 
 her hero would leave our mind quite unbiassed in 
 his favour, it might be as well perhaps to hear 
 other opinions about him. Grimm calls the 
 Marquis de Silly " a pedant and not amiable " ; 
 Saint-Simon devotes to him a few pages of a 
 peculiarly venomous character. He shows us the 
 cold ambition which is the motive power of all his 
 actions, his steady rise from dignity to dignity, 
 and at last the bitter disappointment which so 
 unhinges his mind that it drives him to suicide. 
 Monsieur de Silly, after being a member of the 
 Privy Council under the Regent's administration, 
 
20 THE MARQUIS DE SILLY 
 
 had hopes of entering upon a ministerial career, 
 but at the eleventh hour his ambition was 
 frustrated. Unable to bear this check which 
 seemed to destroy the efforts of a lifetime, he 
 threw himself from one of the windows in his 
 Chateau de Silly and was killed. There is only 
 one allusion to this in the Memoirs, and it is full 
 of tenderness and of the wish to excuse and to 
 explain. 
 
 " Ambition was the mainspring of his emotions," 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay confesses, " and perhaps 
 it has obscured his virtues, it was the reason of 
 all his wrongs and the cause of his ruin ; yet in 
 him ambition seemed less a wish to rise above 
 others than a desire to take the place which was 
 naturally due to him." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 A GREAT misfortune befell Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 just after she had reached her twenty - fourth 
 birthday; it came so unexpectedly and so swiftly 
 that the catastrophe was upon her before she 
 had had time to face its inevitable consequences. 
 Madame de Grieu fell dangerously ill, and died 
 after a fortnight's illness. With their share of 
 human perversity, her nuns regretted her as 
 much after her death as they had tormented 
 her during her lifetime, yet in spite of their 
 tardy show of affection, they passed over the 
 only practical way in which they could have 
 testified to their devotion. 
 
 Madame de Grieu's trusted sister, who had 
 resided with her at Saint Louis, had considerable 
 claims to the position of abbess ; but old intrigues 
 were renewed, and one of the nuns who had 
 once headed the rebellion was chosen for the 
 vacant post. Under these circumstances it was 
 impossible for Mademoiselle Delaunay and her 
 
 benefactress to remain at Saint Louis. Madame 
 
 21 s2 
 
22 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 de Grieu's sister could have retired to the convent 
 of Jouarre to which she belonged, but she would 
 not abandon her niece and the young girl whom 
 she loved as dearly as a daughter and yet her 
 small income was not sufficient for three people. 
 
 During the days of anxious deliberations 
 which followed many offers of help came to 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay ; and they prove that 
 she must have understood the delicate process 
 by which love is changed into friendship. 
 Monsieur Brunei, in spite of many past rebuffs, 
 besought her to accept a considerable sum of 
 money, and the Abbe de Vertot, impecunious no 
 more, as it seems, sent her from Paris a letter 
 containing fifty pistoles. 
 
 She returned the notes and refused the offers 
 of money, determined to incur no obligations 
 unless she saw a certain chance of redeeming 
 them. Another offer was perhaps harder to 
 refuse : it came from unknown quarters, and 
 an imagination more open to compromise than 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay's might have seen in 
 it an effort at restitution made in memory 
 of Madame de Grieu. It was transmitted 
 through the Frere Maillard, who was then to 
 the famous Pere La Chaise what the much 
 discussed "Eminence grise" had been to Cardinal 
 Richelieu. Less skilful, however, than his wily 
 confrere, he did not know how to hide his credit 
 
AN ANONYMOUS KINDNESS 23 
 
 with the king, and his exile to Rouen had been 
 decided upon and announced before he realised 
 his mistakes. 
 
 It was a very innocent intrigue in which 
 he was helping now; he brought Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay the necessary sum of money to pay 
 for her residence at the convent for three months, 
 and the assurance that the allowance would be 
 continued indefinitely, - on " condition that the 
 recipient would remain at Saint Louis. 
 
 The anonymous giver was later discovered to 
 be the Marquis de Silly, and the clause which 
 stipulated residence at the convent might perhaps 
 have betrayed the man who felt so strongly 
 the desirability and the necessity of regulations 
 and limitations ! The whole proceeding, however, 
 in its delicate, impersonal generosity, certainly 
 vindicates the character of the man whom former 
 circumstances had somewhat belittled. A letter 
 which he wrote to Mademoiselle Delaunay a little 
 later, when she was staying with some acquaintances 
 at a small hotel in Paris, is a model of excellent 
 feeling and of youthful censoriousness : 
 
 " I hear that you are in Paris, Mademoiselle, 
 and as I bear a great interest in all that concerns 
 you, I learned with great pleasure the decision 
 which you have taken." (Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 was then endeavouring to obtain a post as 
 governess). "You will perhaps be surprised to 
 
24 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 find this letter full of precepts ; it is not generally 
 my habit to give advice, still less to write it, but 
 I count you one of my friends, and I feel that I 
 ought to write to you in this vein. I think that 
 with the aim you have in view, the shorter time you 
 stay in furnished apartments, the better chance you 
 will have of ultimate success. The house in which 
 you are now is not one from which I should wish 
 you to make your first acquaintance with Paris life. 
 
 " I shall perhaps seem to moralize to excess, 
 but I feel that, in your place, I should avoid 
 any coquetry in dress. Your youth may be an 
 obstacle to you, and it is in your interest to dis- 
 simulate it. I should wish you, for the same 
 reason, to exercise a little circumspection in the 
 choice of your friends, and to be more desirous 
 of a reputation for judgment than for wit. I beg 
 you to make use of the simplest expressions only, 
 and above all to dispense entirely with technical 
 terms ; although they may be more expressive than 
 others, do not, I pray you, yield to the temptation 
 of using them. Finally, I should wish you to be 
 occupied solely in establishing for yourself a solid 
 reputation, without trying to please through charm 
 and accomplishments. I fear, however, that my 
 last precept may be opposed to nature ; the wish 
 to please might be very natural to your sex, and 
 without asking you to reverse the order of nature, 
 let me beg of you to endeavour to please through 
 simplicity only, and not through artifices. 
 
 " I have said enough, perhaps too much. Adieu, 
 Mademoiselle. I beg you to be assured that you 
 can confidently count on me most assuredly." 
 
EFFORTS AGAINST DISCOURAGEMENT 25 
 
 This letter, less discerning perhaps than well- 
 meant, did not altogether please the girl to whom 
 it was addressed. Advice, however good, may be 
 unreasonable, and although Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 was grateful for the interest shown to her, she 
 frankly protested against the necessity of so much 
 cautioning. It is greatly to her credit, too, that 
 she found the energy to retaliate, for the coldness 
 of the outer world, after her sheltered retreat of 
 Saint Louis, was a paralysing influence indeed. 
 In her Memoirs she laughs retrospectively at the 
 bitter surprises and startling disillusionments of 
 these days. While Madame de Grieu and her 
 nieces were staying with a relative who had not 
 included her in his invitation, she was obliged to 
 accept a very casually proffered hospitality at the 
 country house of some acquaintances. Whilst 
 there she one day had a bad migraine, and it 
 did not revolutionise the whole household! 
 
 "Before then," she says, "my migraines had 
 been enough to engage the attention of the whole 
 convent, from the abbess to the lowest sceur 
 servante \ Here they simply sent to ask whether 
 I needed anything! I shall never forget my 
 surprise in seeing treated so lightly what had 
 before been attended by so much pomp." 
 
 She made the last stage of her journey to Paris, 
 where she was to join Madame de Grieu, in a 
 company of which her self-instituted mentor 
 
26 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 would have disapproved very strongly. Her 
 travelling companions, Mesdemoiselles de Neuville, 
 had been pensionnaires at Saint Louis; the eldest, 
 a girl of eighteen, "extremely pretty, tolerably 
 amiable, with no money and very little distinction," 
 moreover a thorough adventuress by temperament, 
 was secretly starting for Paris with her younger 
 sister and a chaperone ; and, 6i women never having 
 anything more pressing to do than to tell their 
 secrets," she had confided to Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay the object of her journey. It seems 
 that an old Comte de Novion, while opposing her 
 marriage with his son, had fallen in love with her 
 himself. Of late, however, his ardent letters had 
 been scarcer, and his fervour had cooled ominously. 
 Mademoiselle de Neuville had therefore determined 
 to take the matter into her own hands and to bring 
 the pressure of her presence to bear upon future 
 developments. Her enterprising spirit might well 
 have been infectious, but it did not rouse exultant 
 hope in her sober and rather sceptical companion. 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay was starting out to seek 
 her fortune too, but Paris frightened her, and 
 she had nothing wherewith to coax its favours, 
 except the limited resources of her mind and a very 
 small sum of money, borrowed from a distant 
 relative. 
 
 For many days her intellectual accomplishments 
 found no market ; in vain she peddled them from 
 
THREE MONTHS' RESPITE 27 
 
 door to door, with her letters of introduction and 
 her heavy heart. At last she had to fall back on 
 the small funds she was keeping in reserve, and 
 recklessly devoted all the money she possessed to 
 the paying of three months' residence at the 
 convent of the "Presentation," where Madame 
 de Grieu and her niece had just been admitted 
 as dames pensionnaires. She dared not look 
 beyond this three months' respite, and when, 
 towards the end of it, she fell dangerously ill, 
 her one hope was that death might come as a 
 welcome solution to an otherwise insoluble 
 problem. But death did not come ; " one seldom 
 dies a propos," she remarks, looking back on those 
 days which were so utterly devoid of hope. 
 
 The solution came from a most unexpected 
 quarter. Mademoiselle Delaunay had in Paris an 
 elder sister whom she hardly knew, and who was 
 a waiting woman to the Duchesse de la Ferte. 
 Pretty, naturally witty and graceful, she had won 
 the Duchesse's special favour, and might have 
 offered her help from the start, had she wished to 
 do so. But she was jealous of a sister whom she 
 had once, on a visit to Saint Louis, seen courted 
 and adulated. She had broken off all relations 
 with her, and only relented now that she saw her 
 so utterly "fallen from her glory." She rushed in 
 one morning on her convalescent sister, with all 
 the eagerness and importance of a bearer of great 
 
28 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 news. On accompanying Madame de la Fert to 
 Versailles the day before, she had, it seems, told 
 her of the existence of her younger sister, whom 
 she had described as a creature of innumerable 
 talents and fathomless knowledge. "Knowing 
 nothing herself," says the modest object of these 
 laudations, " she found small difficulty in believing 
 that I knew everything. The Duchesse, who was 
 no better informed, credited all she heard, and 
 believed me to be a prodigy ! " 
 
 In so doing, Madame de la Ferte was only 
 following her natural bent; she was famous for 
 taking innumerable and unaccountable fancies, and 
 no one attached much importance to the ecstasies 
 into which her latest discoveries were wont to 
 throw her. Her imagination, however, was not 
 dependent on encouragement, and once more she 
 had arrived at Versailles, full of a new interest, 
 namely, Mademoiselle Delaunay ! She talked of 
 "her prodigy" wherever she went, especially at 
 her sister's, Madame de Ventadour, where she met 
 the Cardinal Rohan, and "said a hundred more 
 things than she had been told." 
 
 Imagination is a kindling fire. By degrees the 
 sceptical audience felt its glow, and, in spite of 
 reluctant commonsense, was drawn by degrees 
 into the magic ring of the Duchesse's fantasies. 
 How could this newly discovered treasure be 
 exploited ? What fields would be worthy of 
 
TO MAKE PRODIGIES 29 
 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay's activities ? An eager 
 discussion followed : if, as it was expected, the 
 Dauphine should give birth to a child, and if that 
 child should be a girl, who better than this 
 " genius " could imbue the mind of the little 
 Princess with all knowledge and all the sciences ? 
 A splendid sphere of activity in truth, but 
 rather distant still, it had to be owned, and 
 so it was decided, at the Cardinal de Rohan's 
 suggestion, that Mademoiselle Delaunay should 
 enter the convent of Jouarre, where the Cardinal's 
 three nieces were being educated, and that once 
 there, she should " make prodigies of all three. ..." 
 
 Before the girl, who had just been staring into 
 the black emptiness of despair, had had time to 
 feel incredulous at these promised glories, she had 
 been urged by her sister to dress immediately and 
 to go and present her respects to the Duchesse, 
 who was that very day going back to Versailles. 
 There was a prosaic obstacle in the way : the 
 future mentor of royal princesses had no seemly 
 dress to wear, and was obliged to borrow one, 
 just for two or three hours, from a pensionnaire 
 at the convent. Thus attired in borrowed clothes, 
 and feeling as uncomfortable in mind as she did 
 in body, she started out with her sister. 
 
 The Duchesse was just preparing to dress when 
 they arrived ; she at once declared her future 
 protegee charming. " She was bound to do so, she 
 
30 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 owed it to her imagination," says Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, before proceeding to describe in her 
 Memoirs the very characteristic scene which 
 follows. 
 
 "After a few simple and perhaps rather flat 
 remarks which I made, ' Really,' she exclaimed, 
 6 Mademoiselle speaks entrancingly, and she has 
 come just in time to write to Monsieur Desmarets 
 a letter which I want him to receive at once. 
 Here, Mademoiselle, they will give you some 
 paper, you will only have to write ! ' ' Write 
 what, Madame ? ' I rejoined, in some perturbation. 
 ' You will turn it just as you like,' she continued, 
 6 only it must be well expressed. I want him to 
 grant me what I am asking.' ' But, Madame,' I 
 objected, ' it would at least be necessary to know 
 what you want to say to him ! ' ' No, no, you 
 understand.' ' 
 
 From a few disconnected remarks, the impro- 
 vised secretary at last succeeded in catching at a 
 guiding thread, and very diffidently presented her 
 production to the Duchesse. Great was its success. 
 "This is exactly what I wanted to tell him," 
 exclaimed Madame de la Ferte, "it is truly 
 wonderful that she should have expressed my 
 very thoughts ! Henriette, your sister is astonish- 
 ing ; and since she writes so well, she must write 
 another letter, to my lawyer now, it will be done 
 by the time I am dressed." 
 
ON THE WAY TO VERSAILLES 31 
 
 A torrent of explanations followed facts, 
 names, commentaries; the writer was naturally 
 perplexed, and made some confusion in the names. 
 The Duchesse's criticism after reading this letter 
 has a flavour quite its own : " The business is well 
 stated," she remarked ; " but I cannot understand 
 how a girl with so much wit could call my lawyer 
 by the name of my attorney." "Thus," says 
 the defaulter, "she discovered the limits of my 
 genius ! Luckily it did not entirely rob me of 
 her esteem." 
 
 The interview came to an end at last; the 
 unwilling secretary heaved a sigh of relief, and 
 the Duchesse had already stepped into the coach 
 which was to take her to Versailles when a new 
 idea occurred to her. " I think," she said to her 
 protegee, "that I had better take you with me; 
 come in, come in, Mademoiselle, I will show 
 you to Madame de Ventadour." With speechless 
 dismay Mademoiselle Delaunay obeyed, and not 
 the least of her anxieties was the thought of the 
 dress which she had borrowed for two hours, 
 and in which she seemed likely to be taken round 
 the world ! 
 
 The Duchesse was delighted with her plan. All 
 the way to Versailles she talked with even more 
 than her usual verve, and the girl, who felt very 
 keenly the element of danger which lurked in 
 her patroness' versatility, was yet fascinated, in 
 
32 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 spite of herself, by her absolute naturalness and 
 her irresistible piquancy. Completely engrossed 
 by her interest of the moment, Madame de la 
 Ferte was making it yield its utmost. Was 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay really acquainted with all 
 the sciences which her sister had enumerated? 
 The Duchesse enumerated them herself, mispro- 
 nouncing them for the most part, but with 
 a warmth of tone which showed true regard, 
 in spite of unfamiliarity. She would approach 
 them all seriously some time or other, and 
 with one of them at least she felt quite at 
 ease ; she put it forward eagerly : " As you are 
 so learned, Mademoiselle," she said, "you will 
 no doubt be able to tell me my horoscope; it 
 is the thing which interests me most in the 
 world." 
 
 Great was her surprise on hearing that this 
 profound science had been neglected by her 
 interlocutor. 
 
 " But," she exclaimed, " what was the object 
 of studying so many other things, which are 
 perfectly useless ? " 
 
 The arrival at the Duchesse's apartments in 
 Versailles is somewhat of a revelation as to the 
 kind of pied-a-terre with which the great nobles 
 were satisfied when they followed the king to 
 his favourite residence. Of the miraculous effect 
 of true monarchic feeling on weary muscles and 
 
KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 33 
 
 exhausted nerves, we hear a good deal in the 
 Memoirs of the time. They have pencilled many 
 a portrait of the perfect courtier, standing 
 obsequiously for hours in the king's antechamber, 
 first on one foot, then on the other, as much a 
 part of the royal furniture as any of the gilded 
 chairs along the walls, and with as little impetus 
 to move away as they; and still the case of 
 Madame de la Ferte throws some sidelights of 
 its own upon this subject. 
 
 As a Duchesse, she was spared some, but by 
 no means all, of the physical discomforts of Court 
 life. To her, for instance, belonged by right of 
 rank the privilege of the tabouret, that divin 
 tabouret as Madame de Sevigne calls it, for the 
 sake of which one of her friends had married the 
 ugliest man in the kingdom. But when the Court 
 was at Versailles, Madame de la Ferte's tabouret 
 dwelt dans les combles right under the roof, in 
 the dark, garret-like rooms in which its owner 
 herself resided. "It was so high up," says 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, "that if one of the 
 servants had not carried me up the last flight 
 of stairs, I should never have reached the 
 top." 
 
 She reached it, dazed in mind and exhausted 
 in body; she was but convalescent yet, and her 
 nerves were beginning to give way. For several 
 
 hours she waited for some message from the 
 
 c 
 
34 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 Duchesse, who had gone straight to her sister's, 
 Madame de Ventadour. No message came, how- 
 ever, and she was only shaken out of her apathy 
 by the stormy arrival of the Duchesse herself, who 
 on her side had waited all afternoon to exhibit 
 her new discovery, and whose indignation was 
 only equalled by the impetuosity of her reproaches. 
 No excuses could pacify her ! What had been a 
 misunderstanding was to her a gross disregard of 
 her commands; Mademoiselle Delaunay's chances 
 were ruined, irretrievably lost ! 
 
 The storm raged, ran its course, subsided, and 
 was followed by smiling serenity. The loss of 
 to-day, she promised herself, was to be com- 
 pensated by the glories of to-morrow, and the 
 morrow was filled to overflowing with over- 
 whelming honours: a visit to Madame de 
 Ventadour, to the Due de Bretagne, to the 
 future Louis XV. still a child in his cradle an 
 inspection of all the sights of Versailles, a never 
 ceasing stream of newcomers, anxious to see the 
 " prodigy whose reputation was already spreading ! " 
 Madame de la Ferte was filled with exultation, 
 and at the souper du Roi to which she dragged 
 her "protegee " as a befitting end to so great a 
 day, she insisted on calling the Due de Bourgogne's 
 attention to her and her innumerable talents and 
 accomplishments. 
 
 This introduction to the great world of 
 
WIT WHILE YOU WAIT 35 
 
 Versailles lasted five days. "I felt," says 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, "as if I were a monkey 
 made to exhibit his tricks at a country fair/' 
 There are certain scenes in this little Versailles 
 comedy which, as they appear in the " Memoires," 
 might have been taken straight from the "Bour- 
 geois Gentilhomme." Here is, for instance, an un- 
 conscious parody of Monsieur Jourdain's childish 
 delight in showing off the Turkish speech of his 
 pseudo Turkish friend : 
 
 "Madame de la Ferte," says Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, " having gone to the Duchesse de 
 Noailles, bade me join her there. I arrived. 
 'This is, Madame,' she said, 'the person of 
 whom I have spoken to you, who is so 
 witty and who knows so many things ; allons, 
 Mademoiselle, speak ! Madame, you will see how 
 well she speaks ! ' She saw me hesitate and, 
 treating me like a singer who must execute a 
 little prelude in order to clear her voice, and to 
 whom one proposes, for that purpose, a theme 
 which one would like to hear. ' First speak a 
 little about religion,' she said to me, 'after that 
 you will talk of something else ! ' My confusion 
 was such that it defies description, and I cannot 
 even remember how I extricated myself from 
 this difficulty!" 
 
 In spite of so many efforts, the brilliant results 
 pictured by Madame de la Ferte's imagination 
 were not forthcoming. Versailles saw, listened, 
 
36 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 commented, and passed on to other interests. 
 The Duchesse was full of indignation, especially 
 against her sister and the Cardinal de Rohan, 
 who had woven the first shimmering threads of 
 that golden vision, the education of the Dauphine's 
 problematic daughter. Now, no one even pro- 
 posed to pay the " pension " necessary for 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay's admittance into the 
 convent of Jouarre, where the Cardinal's three 
 nieces were waiting in vain to be "turned into 
 masterpieces ! " 
 
 On the evening of her fifth day in Versailles, 
 Madame de la Fertd returned to her apartments 
 in a fine fury against her unappreciative friends. 
 "Eh bien!" she said, speaking to Henriette 
 Delaunay, "since they want so much pressing, I 
 shall do without them ; 1 am myself in a position 
 to make her fortune. I shall take her into my 
 own household; she will be better off with me 
 than anywhere else." 
 
 "This was just what I feared," comments 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay. " I remained speechless 
 and motionless, unable to make up my mind to 
 acquiesce either by word or gesture; luckily she 
 was too excited herself to notice my impassibility." 
 
 The few days which the discriminating young 
 girl had spent with the whimsical, inconsequent 
 women had been sufficient to make her feel the 
 danger of the favours held out to her. She had 
 
CHEATING THE ROBBERS 37 
 
 learned the number of rivals already existing in 
 the Duchesse's household ; she knew that besides 
 her sister, whose jealousy she was naturally 
 unwilling to rouse, there was a certain Louison 
 who had been raised from the position of waiting 
 woman to that of a confident^ and also a Sylvine, 
 belle comme le jour, a young peasant girl whom 
 Madame de la Ferte had picked up in the fields 
 on one of her estates. " SHe idolised this nymph, 
 and spared no money to enhance her charms and 
 to cultivate her talents, chief among which was an 
 admirable voice. These fancies were forsaken one 
 after the other, in fact their fate was as inevitable 
 as that of Circe's lovers." 
 
 Even the greatest judiciousness would have 
 been of no avail in such a whirlpool of unexpected 
 happenings. No one could calculate the Duchesse's 
 movements, and her unconventionally, though 
 undoubtedly refreshing, was apt to be disconcert- 
 ing at times. At her country house, for instance, 
 she would assemble round a table not only her 
 maids and valets, but also t her purveyors, butchers, 
 bakers, grocers, and play cards with them. " I 
 cheat them," she would whisper delightedly into 
 the ear of one of her house guests, " but then 
 they rob me ! " 
 
 Gourmets were wise in exercising circum- 
 spection towards her invitations, for unpleasant 
 
 surprises might be in store for them. Her 
 
 c 2 
 
38 KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF FORTUNE 
 
 country-house guests once fared very indifferently, 
 as at the last moment she had refused to take 
 her cook with her. That presumptuous individual 
 had asked her for new spits. " Always new spits ! " 
 she had exclaimed, "this is the way in which 
 great houses are ruined. The Marechal de la 
 Ferte spent twelve hundred thousand francs on 
 spits. No ! rather than give in, I will eat my 
 porter's food." And she did, and her unfortunate 
 guests shared it with her, only they had not, to 
 sustain them, the uplifted feeling which comes 
 to those who do great deeds of justice ! 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE DUC AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DELAUNAY begged to be allowed 
 some time to consider the proposition of her 
 erratic patroness, though the latter had been 
 drawing a very tempting picture of the things 
 which were to be : a private apartment at her 
 Paris residence, where Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 was to be entirely her own mistress, one of the 
 ducal carriages always at her disposal, and, above 
 all, no compulsion of any kind. This Elyseum was, 
 however, not quite ready ; the private apartment, 
 for instance, had yet to be built, but this circum- 
 stance was quite a negligeable one to a mind 
 like Madame de la Ferte's. 
 
 After her disappointment at the undiscerning 
 attitude of Versailles, the Duchesse had expressed 
 the decision to go back to Paris immediately, and 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay was thinking with long- 
 ing of the peaceful retreat at " La Presentation " 
 to which she would return at last, when Madame 
 de la Ferte suddenly changed her mind again. 
 She would go on to Sceaux and show her 
 
 39 
 
40 THE DUC AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE 
 
 protegee to the Duchesse du Maine, the " queen " 
 of Versailles' rival court. 
 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay knew the Duchesse du 
 Maine by reputation ; there could hardly have been 
 any one in France, however slightly acquainted 
 with court Society, who did not know the " Queen 
 of Sceaux," the one woman who had dared to 
 shake off the heavy yoke of Versailles, to seek 
 pleasure in her own way, and to achieve power 
 by her own methods. 
 
 Her unconquerable individuality and prodigious 
 energy were racial traits, as were also her wilfulness 
 and her predisposition to eccentricity. Anne 
 Louise Bndicte de Conde, Duchesse du Maine, 
 was the granddaughter of that famous Conde 
 who had led the armies of France and used his 
 indomitable courage, his boundless energy, and 
 reckless impetuosity now for, now against, his 
 king, but who, in spite of many errings, has gone 
 down to posterity as " le grand CondeY' 
 
 His son, Henri- Jules de Bourbon, the Duchesse's 
 father, had inherited his seething vitality and 
 turbulent ambition ; but the only healthy field 
 for the development of his energies being denied 
 him in consequence of a natural distaste for war, 
 his activities degenerated into active eccentricities, 
 and his ambition to govern into household tyranny. 
 His wife, a Bavarian princess, reduced by fear to 
 a meek and passive Griselda, endeavoured with 
 
ANNE LOUISE DE CONDE, 
 DUCHESSE DU MAINE. 
 
 To face p. 40. 
 
MAGNIFICENCE AT CHANTILLY 41 
 
 shaking limbs and ever perturbed mind to obey 
 her master's whims. To anticipate them would 
 have been impossible: unexpectedness was the 
 very essence of the Prince's decision ; and the 
 entire household was at the mercy of his vagaries. 
 No trust could be placed in the stability of even 
 the most elementary time - sanctioned household 
 rites, and Henri-Jules de Bourbon's family never 
 knew where or when they would dine. If, for 
 instance, dinner had been ordered at Chantilly, 
 Monsieur le Prince would at the last moment 
 decide that he could only dine at his Paris 
 residence ; but hardly had the lumbering coach 
 conveying the family to the capital, reached the 
 end of the avenue, when postilions, coachman, 
 and coach would have to turn back, as dinner 
 in Paris seemed impossible. 
 
 " Monsieur le Prince," says the luxury-loving 
 Due de Saint-Simon, "was most magnificent in 
 his liberalities." Magnificence was one of the 
 enduring traditions of Chantilly ; its majestic 
 proportions, imposing terraces, and stately gardens 
 proclaimed it equal to any royal residence. The 
 Condes received regally and entertained lavishly 
 the King and a retinue of several hundreds of 
 courtiers, and once when through untoward circum- 
 stances something had happened which threw dis- 
 credit on the perfection of all appointments, their 
 chief steward Vatel, deeming his honour lost, had 
 
' 
 42 THE DUC AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE 
 
 not hesitated to take his own life. Monsieur le 
 Prince remembered it well: the tardy arrival of 
 the fish ordered for the royal tables on Good 
 Friday morning, the hurried search for Vatel, the 
 discovery of his desperate deed. There is an echo 
 of all this in one of Madame de Sevigne's letters, 
 of the impression it made on host and guests, on 
 the sensitive opinion of Paris ever ready to extol 
 or to blame, of the effect on Monsieur le Prince, 
 on Monsieur le Due, whom the episode stamps 
 for ever with a little touch of ridicule. "They 
 blamed and they praised his courage, . . . Monsieur 
 le Prince was in despair. . . . Monsieur le Due 
 cried, he had counted entirely on Vatel for the 
 comforts of his journey to Burgundy. . . ." 
 
 Now that Henri-Jules was head of the house 
 of Conde his liberalities were often as useless as 
 they were extravagant. To ensure comfort for 
 his gallantries, for instance, he bought the whole 
 of one side of a Paris street, had a communica- 
 tion established between all the houses, and 
 furnished them with the greatest luxury. His 
 mind, inclined at all times to deviate from the 
 straight road of commonsense, sometimes lost 
 its bearings altogether, especially during the latter 
 part of his life. During these excesses he used 
 to fancy himself a hound, and pursued with his 
 barkings some imaginary deer. Even the awe- 
 inspiring presence of the King could not dispel 
 
THE CHIEF OF THE CONDES 4$ 
 
 his idee -fixe. Out of respect for the august 
 presence he would then desist from his " roarings," 
 but his mouth continued to open and close 
 mechanically in voiceless yapping. 
 
 Another of his fancies might have proved fatal 
 to himself; he would at times declare that he was 
 dead, and very logically refuse to eat. Luckily 
 his logic was as easily swayed as that of any 
 opportunist. One of his physicians, a resourceful 
 man, assured him at those times that, although 
 the dead do not eat as a rule, he knew of some 
 who did, adding that his Serene Highness would 
 do well to dine with them. The Prince generally 
 consented quite readily to join the more convivial 
 of the departed spirits, and a sumptuous table was 
 laid for them. The physician, usually present at 
 these " agapes " of a new kind, published later on 
 some of the strange conversations he had heard, 
 and alluding light-heartedly to the famous work 
 written by Fenelon for the Due de Bourgogne, 
 he used to say that he also had published his 
 " Dialogues des Morts." 
 
 The even-mannered, well-regulated Bavarian 
 Princess, whom Madame de Maintenon calls in one 
 of her letters " la vertue meme" seems to have had 
 as little part in the making of her children's 
 temperament as in the ruling of her house. The 
 Bourbon joie de vivre transmitted straight to them 
 from their jovial ancestor Henry IV. was in all 
 
44 THE DUG AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE 
 
 these Condes. The brother of the Duchesse du 
 Maine, Monsieur le Due, worthy son of his father, 
 and with the same taste for expensive privacy in 
 his affaires de cceur, ordered to be built for his 
 mistress, the beautiful Madame de Prie, a coach 
 painted grey on the outside to look like a hackney 
 coach, the inside of which, however, was lined with 
 velvet and brocade, and embossed with solid gold. 
 The history of the alliances of the Conde's in 
 that generation is an illustration of a royal measure 
 which had raised the most violent criticism at the 
 Court. A few years before Anne Louise Benedicte 
 became Duchesse du Maine, Monsieur le Due, her 
 brother, had been compelled to marry Mademoiselle 
 de Nantes, the King's illegitimate daughter by 
 Madame de Montespan. Never was Louis XIV.'s 
 stupendous tyranny over all the royal family 
 exercised more autocratically than in this vexed 
 question of the marriages of his bastards. Re- 
 luctance, indignation, rebellion, where there was 
 courage for rebellion, were of no avail, and princes 
 of the blood had to obey without reward, where 
 noblemen were bribed by heavy prices. During 
 the latter part of his reign the King seems to have 
 found a peculiar pleasure in ignoring all rules of 
 decency in this matter, and in flaunting before the 
 eyes of all Europe the scandalous alliances between 
 his legitimate and his illegitimate descendants. 
 Even the Due d'Oiieans, future Regent of France, 
 
"A LITTLE TIMID MOLE" 45 
 
 who stood so near the throne that, at one time, 
 he all but felt the magic touch of the crown within 
 his grasp, had been forced to accept as his wife 
 the illegitimate Mademoiselle de Blois. 
 
 Convention has decided that in the husband's 
 power lies the subtle virtue of changing the caste 
 of the woman he weds. No such occult trans- 
 formation, however, could excuse and glorify the 
 marriage of the Duchesse du Maine, and the 
 alliance of the proud daughter of the Condes with 
 the puny, lame son of Madame de Montespan had 
 roused very active comments. The Due du Maine 
 had no personal magnetism, no outward fascination 
 wherewith to win public favour. Nature had not 
 cut him out for a hero, and it is difficult even to 
 conjure up his shifty, shadowy personality ; but the 
 best silhouette of him, perhaps, is that drawn by 
 Saint - Simon's masterpen, though it is partly 
 dictated by personal spite. " The Due du Maine," 
 he says, " was a little timid mole, excessively clever 
 and cunning in reaching his goal through under- 
 ground passages, but blind and groping above 
 ground, shrinking and ineffective. " His un- 
 conquerable timidity, was partly the result of his 
 deformity which, from his childhood onward, had 
 made him shun public notice ; and yet he had 
 been, in a manner, an infant prodigy, whose writings 
 were handed round to a circle of intellectual con- 
 noisseurs, and who, at the age of seven, had seriously 
 
46 THE DUC AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE 
 
 been proposed by a fawning courtier for a vacant 
 seat at the Academy ! 
 
 He had been Madame de Maintenon's favourite 
 pupil, and her love for him bordered on idolatry. 
 
 " Monsieur le Due du Maine is ill," she writes, 
 in 1674 to the Abbe Gobelin, her confessor, "... 
 it is a terrible thing to see loved ones suffer. 
 I feel, with excessive grief, that I do not love 
 this child less than I loved the other, 1 and this 
 weakness on my part caused me to weep all 
 through Mass ; nothing is more foolish than to love 
 to such excess a child who is not mine, and over 
 whose future I shall never have any influence." 
 
 The delicate child's frequent illnesses seem 
 to be an ever-recurring refrain in Madame de 
 Maintenon's letters. " Monsieur le Due du Maine 
 a la fievre quarte." ..." Monsieur le Due du 
 Maine a la fievre double quarte." Nothing that 
 devotion could suggest was omitted on her 
 part to strengthen the child's weak constitution ; 
 she took him to the wonder-working waters of 
 Barege in the Pyrennees, she even went secretly 
 with him to Holland, to consult a certain famous 
 quack doctor who was supposed to effect 
 miraculous cures. The quack did his best, 
 pulled the shorter leg of his little patient with 
 confident vigour, but when Madame de Maintenon 
 brought her little charge back to France, the 
 
 1 Madame de Montespan's first child who died in 1672, 
 
DEVOTED PARTISANSHIP 47 
 
 short leg was longer than the normal one, and 
 the limping had only changed sides. 
 
 The tenderness which had watched over the 
 childhood of the Due du Maine, merged by 
 degrees into the devoted partisanship which 
 sought by all possible means to strengthen his 
 position at Court. No doubt it was not love un- 
 alloyed which prompted Madame de Maintenon's 
 efforts ; ambition lurked in the background, and 
 also hatred against the Due d'Orleans and his 
 faction, a hatred ever ready to foster the King's 
 natural distrust of his nephew, but though mixed 
 with baser passions, her feeling had all the force 
 which removes mountains. Her power of persuasion 
 certainly had been strongest in overcoming the 
 King's reluctance to provide an establishment 
 for his illegitimate son. " Ces enfants," he had 
 remarked, "ne sont pas pour faire souche," but 
 Madame de Maintenon had overthrown his 
 objections one by one. 
 
 When at last the marriage of the Due du 
 Maine was discussed, as a real proposition, the 
 King's attention was directed towards the Conde 
 princesses, the three daughters of Mousieur le 
 Prince. They had been waiting for an " establish- 
 ment" rather longer than would have been admitted 
 by their rank, but the smallness of their stature 
 might well have caused suitors to demur. They 
 were so small, so infinitesimally small, that their 
 
48 THE DUG AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE 
 
 sister-in-law, the former Mademoiselle de Nantes, 
 who never missed an opportunity to prick the 
 Conde pride, had nicknamed them " les poupees 
 du sang." 
 
 Anne Louise Benedicte, on whom the King's 
 choice fell at last, was thirteen years old, and 
 the tallest and prettiest of the sisters ; the 
 "royal command" which reached Monsieur le 
 Prince on behalf of the Due du Maine would 
 have seemed preposterous a few years before, but 
 the way to it had been prepared in some measure 
 by the marriage of Monsieur le Due de Bourbon 
 with Mademoiselle de Nantes, and the Prince de 
 Conde acceded to the King's wishes, won over 
 by the consideration of Monsieur du Maine's 
 very marked favour at Court, and of the enormous 
 riches which he had inherited from the grande 
 Mademoiselle. 
 
 Had the consent of Anne Benedicte been 
 asked, she would have given it most unreservedly ; 
 but the natural omission of this formality did 
 not trouble her. She wasted not one thought 
 on the unprepossessing appearance of the man 
 whom fate had selected for her husband, but 
 determined without further ado to use his credit 
 with the King for the purpose of scaling those 
 giddy heights to which her ambition secretly 
 aspired. Even without ambition, she would have 
 greeted with delight this open door into the 
 
OPINION OF DE MAINTENON 49 
 
 freedom of married life, this way of escape from 
 the restraint of Chantilly, and from the out- 
 bursts of rage of Monsieur le Prince, who " beat 
 his wife and his children most brutally," as Saint- 
 Simon assures us. The little Princesse de Conde 
 was passionately fond of pleasure, and her child- 
 hood had been utterly devoid of it. Power and 
 pleasure were the two rare gifts which she 
 expected from her new position, and from the day 
 of her marriage she set to work to pursue her 
 end with the most admirable single-mindedness. 
 
 Madame de Maintenon also had founded great 
 hopes on the Due du Maine's marriage, but her 
 hopes were to be utterly frustrated. Her letters 
 about the young bride, written in the first glow 
 of her delight, are full of the tenderest solicitude. 
 
 "God grant," she writes in 1692, to Madame 
 de Brion, a religieuse at the convent of Mont- 
 buisson, "that they (the King and Monsieur du 
 Maine) may be as satisfied with this marriage 
 as I am at present. I am told that she (Madame 
 du Maine) is to spend the holy week at Mont- 
 buisson. Make her rest well ; she is being worn 
 out here by the constraint and the fatigues of 
 the Court ; she is weighed down with gold and 
 precious stones, and her head-dress is heavier 
 than the whole of her person. It will prevent 
 her from growing and from keeping in good 
 health, and she is even prettier without her head- 
 dress than with all her adornments; she hardly 
 
50 THE DUC AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE 
 
 eats, she does not get enough sleep, and I am 
 very much afraid that they may have married her 
 too young. I should like to keep her at Saint-Cyr, 
 dressed like one of my veriest and running about 
 the gardens as light-heartedly as they." 
 
 A later letter, addressed to the same friend, 
 sounds a slight note of misgiving. Madame de 
 Maintenon's confidence in her power to influence 
 the small Duchesse is slightly shaken. 
 
 "I should not like her to be a devote de pro- 
 fession" she writes, " but I must confess to you 
 that I should have liked to see her more regular 
 in her religious duties, and leading a life which 
 would be pleasing in the eyes of God, of the 
 King, and of Monsieur le Due du Maine, who 
 has enough wisdom to wish his wife to be ' steadier ' 
 than some others. Apart from that, she is, as you 
 described her, pretty, amiable, gay, witty, and, 
 above all, she loves her husband, who, on his 
 side, loves her passionately, and will spoil her 
 rather than give her any pain. If she evades me, 
 I shall give up my efforts, convinced that it is 
 not possible for the King to find in his family a 
 woman who can be influenced for good." 
 
 The last sentence is most significant. Madame 
 de Maintenon had counted on finding in the 
 little princess a malleable nature, ready to be 
 used for any purpose, an invaluable link with 
 the great Conde' family, and a child who might 
 
 1 Some of the youngest pupils at Saint-Cyr. 
 
A RIVAL COURT 51 
 
 by cajoleries and caresses win from the King 
 such favours as it would be inconvenient to 
 formulate in the lucid, well-reasoned speech for 
 which La Marquise de Maintenon was famous. 
 
 The Duchesse du Maine came to Versailles, 
 was present at the levers and the couchers, the 
 grands converts and the petits converts, walked 
 back and forth with a crowd of Tartuffe courtiers 
 to numberless masses at the Chapel Royal, 
 followed the royal hunt to Marly in the King's 
 own carriage, with all the windows down 
 (according to Louis XIV.'s "odious" habit), her 
 powder and her rouge at the mercy of wind 
 and dust and sun. She went through the whole 
 gamut of Court pleasures, decided that Versailles 
 was the very temple of ennui, and determined 
 without hesitation to shun it forthwith. Her 
 passion for pleasure should have its dues and 
 her ambition should find its satisfaction at the 
 same time ; the Duchesse du Maine would have 
 her own court, a rival of Versailles, and perhaps 
 in time a favoured and triumphant rival. A 
 great dream for a small Duchesse, but she made 
 it come true, and though her triumph was short- 
 lived, its taste was none the less exhilarating. 
 She did not ask her husband's opinion as to her 
 plans, for his opinion in all things was from 
 the first, and remained to the last, a matter of 
 perfect indifference to her. 
 
52 THE DUG AND DUCHESSE DU MAINE 
 
 After two or three unsuccessful attempts at 
 finding the ideal spot for her "Parnassus," 
 Madame du Maine persuaded the Due, at 
 Colbert's death, to acquire Sceaux, the vast 
 domain on which the famous controleur general 
 had erected a sumptuous palace. Very little 
 remains of it now, and though it is constantly 
 mentioned in the writings of the period, it would 
 be hard to trace its real outlines, through the 
 haze of allegorical effusions lavished upon it, 
 and the processions of gods and goddesses, cupids 
 and sylphs which are for ever winding in and 
 out of its sylvan glades. Its more prosaic 
 admirers, however, give us some facts : the stately 
 gardens had been designed by Lenotre, of 
 Versailles fame, and the famous Puget had 
 adorned them with gleaming marble statues ; 
 beyond the park stretched the softly undulating 
 valley of the Bievre in all its simple charm and 
 discreet serenity, full of mobile lights and 
 shadows, and of the sound of bubbling water. 
 The hills which surrounded this Arcadia, and 
 the river winding round its confines, made it a 
 little world in itself. Madame du Maine declared 
 it enchanting. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 / 
 
 THE COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 THE little court of Sceaux had reached the 
 twelfth year of its power, and its " sovereign " 
 was commonly alluded to as the "Divinity of 
 Sceaux," when on one (for her) memorable day 
 of the year 1710, Mademoiselle Delaunay was 
 introduced to it by her indefatigable cicerone, 
 the Duchesse de la Ferte. Though something 
 of its fame was known to her, she was not pre- 
 pared for the orgy of entertainments theatrical, 
 intellectual, operatic, gastronomic which filled the 
 days she spent there. " This way of living," she 
 exclaims with curt disparagement, " seemed 
 unbearable to me." 
 
 And indeed the slavery of Court life at 
 Versailles, from which Madame du Maine had fled 
 with such determination, was as supreme liberty 
 compared with the exactions of the Court of 
 Sceaux. To live there was to attempt to move 
 through the glorious inconsequence of a fairy tale, 
 
 in defiance of all the natural frailties inherent to 
 
 53 D 2 
 
54, THE COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 the human body. Shame upon him who enter- 
 tained any idea of sleep at night, or of rest at 
 any time of the day ! Let him rank with the 
 unthinking brutes, who could eat of a dish lacking 
 the condiments of anagrams and epigrams, or don 
 his doublet and hose without being reminded of 
 Achilles or Hercules, and straightway informing 
 of this, in gallant verses, Madame la Marquise or 
 Madame la Comtesse next door, who in their 
 turn must needs find inspiration for a worthy 
 retort. 
 
 Madame du Maine had decreed that "gaiety 
 should ever be coupled with wit," and not one of 
 the irrevocable laws of the Medes and Persians 
 could ever have called for more herculean efforts 
 than this. Music, dancing, acting, were but the 
 commonplace foundations upon which the fancy of 
 her courtiers must weave ever new and original 
 designs. The Duchesse had excellent professional 
 performers to execute the mechanical part of her 
 entertainments ; but the ideas came from her 
 and her satellites. The best dancers from the 
 " Academic de Danse " in Paris were often called 
 to Sceaux, and must often have been dismayed at 
 the extravagances presented to them. One can 
 imagine their amazement at the following fancy, 
 for instance, which sprang from the brain of 
 Malezieu, chief wit of intellectual Sceaux, and 
 occurs in a divertissement in which he appears 
 
THE ELIXIR OF TERPSICHORE 55 
 
 himself as half-magician, half-quack. Producing a 
 little flask labelled " Esprit de contredanses," he 
 harangues his audience in the following startling 
 fashion. " The liquid which you see here has virtues 
 which could not be enumerated in a century. 
 Let some one show me the most delicate lady in 
 the world, the least flighty, the most sedentary, 
 if she allows but one drop of this elixir to fall upon 
 her in the region of the nips, you will see her 
 instantly more agile than a spirit of the air, now 
 clear a haystack at one bound, now soar like a 
 balloon and dance the 'Fontaine,' the 'Pistolet,' 
 the * Derviche,' the ' Sissone,' the * Fricolets,' 
 and 'Madame la Mare." 
 
 If adaptability were required of the dancers, 
 great modesty was necessary in the actors. When 
 they left the stage of the Comedie Francaise in 
 Paris, to answer some bidding from Sceaux, they 
 had to forswear ambition also, for it was Madame 
 du Maine's habit to claim all the most important 
 parts for herself comedy or tragedy, a farce or 
 an allegory, she undertook all with equal confidence, 
 and was always ready to spend interminable hours 
 in learning her parts. 
 
 " I cannot understand," said the Due du Maine, 
 in whom the histrionic faculty was lacking, " why 
 the Duchesse should take so much trouble in order 
 to appear on the planches in public, like a mere 
 professional mummer ! " 
 
56 THE COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 In this case, as in most others, she could dis- 
 pense with her husband's approval, for she was 
 strongly supported, and by her own set ; the 
 Due de Nevers, the Comte d'Harcourt, the Due 
 de Coislin, the Marquis de Sassay, the Duchesse 
 d'Enghien, the Duchess of Albemarle, the Comtesse 
 d'Artagnan, the Duchesse de Choiseul figured 
 among the many who formed an assiduous and 
 enthusiastic audience. Even Madame la Princesse 
 came and looked on, wondering each time afresh 
 at the unaccountable tastes of her puzzling daughter ; 
 and Monsieur le Prince came too, with a mis- 
 chievous light in his strange burning eyes which 
 set his whole face aglow. He looked on, and 
 remembering the delight he had taken in donning 
 all manner of disguises to add spice to his entre- 
 prises d'amour, he found it easier no doubt than 
 his unimaginative wife to account for what 
 he saw. 
 
 It was, of course, chiefly to the "intellectual 
 bureau " of the court that Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 was to be exhibited. Where the demand for 
 intellect was so great, a well-organised supply 
 was indispensable, and Madame du Maine had a 
 small corps of familiers, whose task and profession 
 it was to be witty, philosophical, ingenuous, or 
 profound, according to the needs of the moment. 
 First and foremost among these was Malezieu, 
 the former tutor of the Due du Maine ; a brilliant 
 
r 
 
 CQ W 
 
 i 2 
 
 I i v^J 
 
 = I 
 
 u u 
 
 S g 
 
THE ABBE GENEST 57 
 
 mathematician, an able writer and fertile rhymester, 
 he was the oracle of Sceaux. " His decisions," says 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, " were as infallible as the 
 conclusions of Pythagoras, and the most heated 
 disputes ceased as soon as some one declared : he 
 has said so." 
 
 Among the lesser lights shone 1'Abbe Genest, 
 a worthy rival of Moliere's Mascarilk, who had 
 put into verse the whole of Descartes's Treatise on 
 Physics ; his other claims to intellectual apprecia- 
 tion are unknown, and his former career is hardly 
 enlightening in this matter. After being an ox- 
 driver, he had become an abbe and, as such, had 
 been engaged as overseer of the Due de Nevers's 
 stables; those who now enjoyed his society at 
 Sceaux might often have seen him there discharg- 
 ing his congenial duties among horses and stable- 
 boys, striding along in his cassock, and using with 
 great point and fluency the vocabulary he had 
 acquired in his oxen-driving days ! 
 
 Others were there who were more obviously 
 fitted to their sphere: the President Renault, 
 whose wit is sufficiently guaranteed by the life- 
 long admiration of Madame du DefFand, quickest 
 of all quick wits, sharpest of all sharp tongues ; 
 Fontenelle, the pearl of philosophers and scientists, 
 for drawing-room use ; and later on Voltaire, in 
 all the verve of unbridled youth. 
 
 Madame du Maine took but little heed of 
 
58 THE COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 Madame de la Ferte, when the latter, just as full 
 of her discovery as if Versailles had not scorned 
 it, insisted on vaunting her protegees talents. It 
 was not the custom of the divinity of Sceaux to 
 waste her time on other people's interests ; she 
 hardly looked at Mademoiselle Delaunay, and 
 nothing remained to Madame de la Ferte but to 
 turn to Monsieur de Malezieu, and beg the 
 "oracle" to pronounce himself on the value of 
 her treasure. He did so, as we learn from the 
 Memoirs, after spending a considerable time in 
 conversation with Mademoiselle Delaunay, and 
 discussing with her several matters in which he 
 found her tolerably well informed. 
 
 "His wish to oblige Madame de la Ferte," 
 says the judicious object of this cross examination, 
 " a natural inclination to exaggeration and perhaps 
 also a certain desire to help me, made him confirm 
 all the marvels which had been proclaimed about 
 me. He declared that I was an exceptional person, 
 and people believed it ; they never tired of admiring 
 me. Baron, the famous comedian who had left the 
 Paris stage thirty years before, was just then acting 
 at Sceaux. He prided himself upon his wit, and 
 came, like the others, to examine mine. During 
 one of his visits he said to me ironically that 
 Les Femmes Savantes would be acted the next day, 
 and that, without doubt, he would see me there. 
 I made him understand," continues his worthy 
 opponent in this fencing with words, " that ' quand 
 
BACK IN THE CONVENT 59 
 
 bien meme on jouerait les femmes Savantes, il ne 
 me jouerait pas ! ' 
 
 Thus we learn that flattery had its sting at 
 Sceaux, as it has in less Olympian circles. 
 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay was much relieved, 
 when at last she was allowed to return to more 
 commonplace haunts. She took leave of Madame 
 de la Ferte, who deposited her at the gates of the 
 convent with " a thousand caresses," and as many 
 assurances that she would see her again before 
 long. " If the affair at Sceaux is not concluded 
 speedily," she added, with her customary optimism, 
 " I shall take other measures." 
 
 In truth there were soon palpable proofs that 
 the Duchesse's energies had not abated. A few 
 chansons composed by Monsieur de Malezieu 
 were sent to Mademoiselle Delaunay, with a 
 request that she should write an appreciation of 
 them, which Madame de la Ferte would under- 
 take to remit into the author's hands. "I do 
 not remember what I wrote," says the improvised 
 critic, " many praises apparently, for they brought 
 me a magnificent answer." It is quite evident 
 that this timely praise did more to convince 
 Malezieu of the writer's wisdom than the most 
 oracular speeches which could have dropped from 
 her lips during their past conversations. His 
 answer, as a pretty example of the lavishness 
 
60 THE COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 with which at that time people meted out praise 
 to themselves and to their neighbours, deserves 
 to be read, at least in part. 
 
 " You have persuaded me so entirely of the pre- 
 cision and the infallibility of your judgment that 
 it is not possible for me to differ from you. And 
 now, Mademoiselle, by the knowledge which you 
 must have of your own self, I beg you to tell 
 me what I must think of your merit. Great 
 geniuses like you cannot under-rate themselves. 
 They render to themselves the justice which they 
 extend to others, nothing is more inherent to 
 them than their power of discernment, and even 
 the greatest effort of their modesty can but tend 
 towards gratitude to the first origin, to the 
 Eternal author of their talents. You owe Him, 
 Mademoiselle, more gratitude than any one else, 
 and I, on my side, owe infinite thanks to Madame 
 la Duchesse de la Ferte, for having graciously 
 consented to unfold to me so rare a treasure. I 
 should esteem myself happy, if it were permitted 
 to me, to approach it sometimes, and if I might, 
 were it but once in my life, testify by my services 
 to the esteem and the sincere respect with which 
 I am, Mademoiselle, yours, etc. etc. MALEZIEU. 
 " At SCEAUX, on the 30th of May 1710." 
 
 This epistle, with its rhetorical peroration, 
 much encouraged Madame de la Ferte, and she 
 was of the opinion that it should be taken 
 seriously. There were renewed visits to Sceaux 
 
CARDINAL DE ROHAN 61 
 
 in consequence, days full of fetes and of the 
 
 assurances of Monsieur de Malezieu's " increasing 
 
 esteem " but with no substantial results. Madame 
 
 du Maine made no sign of wishing to add to her 
 
 intellectual collection, and Madame de la Ferte still 
 
 oscillated between her wish to secure her discovery 
 
 for herself and her fear of offending Louison, 
 
 Sylvine, and other domestic nymphs and tyrants. 
 
 A satisfactory solution seemed as far as ever, 
 
 when at last Madame de Ventadour intervened. 
 
 She was a well poised, judicious woman, and 
 
 sincerely desirous of furthering the interests of a 
 
 talented young girl whose mother had once belonged 
 
 to her household. She reminded the Cardinal de 
 
 Rohan of his alluring suggestions, but the Cardinal 
 
 eluded all responsibility. He did it gracefully 
 
 and tactfully, as was his custom, but none the 
 
 less decidedly. In truth little sympathy could 
 
 be expected from the Cardinal, and this was only 
 
 one of the many instances which might serve to 
 
 illustrate his character, as drawn later on by the 
 
 shrewd and keen-sighted Marquis d'Argenson. 
 
 " His politeness," he says of De Rohan, " knows 
 so well how to wear the mask of friendship or 
 of interest that even while one realises that it is 
 not sincere, one is fascinated by it. Whenever 
 you meet him, he seems to have a thousand 
 confidences to make to you, but he soon leaves 
 you to run on to another." 
 
62 THE COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 This time the Cardinal masked his indifference 
 behind very befitting scruples; before anything 
 could be done, Mademoiselle Delaunay's religious 
 soundness must be tested, and the exact shade 
 of her convictions ascertained a very plausible 
 plea from a zealous defender of the true doctrine, 
 at a time when Jesuits, Jansenists, and Quietists 
 made the echoes of France ring with their dis- 
 sensions, but it ill-befitted the man in praise of 
 whose religion all d'Argenson finds to say is that 
 
 " he discharged his religious duties without betray- 
 ing either too much boredom or too much devotion, 
 and that he was careful not to debase the Church 
 in his person by satisfying his taste for gallantry 
 only with great princesses and high born 
 chanoinesses" 
 
 As may easily be inferred, the Cardinal did not 
 propose to burden himself with the examination 
 of Mademoiselle Delaunay's religious views let 
 those decide, he urged judiciously, who knew her 
 in her early years. Monsieur de Fontenelle was 
 accordingly consulted on the subject; but here 
 again indifference threatened to check advance. 
 The philosopher's chief object in life was to keep 
 himself immune from the wear and tear of human 
 responsibilities ; he could not allow altruistic 
 efforts to mar the perfection of a constitution 
 which was to carry him serene and safe into his 
 hundredth year ; and so, dismissing the subject in 
 
A SPIRITUAL EXAMINATION 63 
 
 as few words as possible, Monsieur de Fontenelle 
 declared that all he knew about this was that 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay had been brought up in 
 a convent under the Jesuits. Reassuring as this 
 sounded to devotees of religious court etiquette, 
 it was hardly exhaustive, and the Abb de Fressan, 
 future Archbishop of Rouen, was called in by 
 Madame de la Ferte to conduct the examination 
 on more business-like principles. He arrived, and, 
 according to Mademoiselle Delaunay, his orthodox 
 method in doctrinal examination consisted in an 
 interchange of pleasantries, to which the young 
 postulant's contributions were so apt that they 
 won her the most favourable testimonials! 
 
 Her newly - acquired certificates of religious 
 soundness did not lead directly to anything, but 
 why give up hope ? There was certainly, as Madame 
 de la Ferte truthfully remarked, "no scarcity of 
 young girls, daughters of great houses, who were 
 in need of a good education, and in still greater 
 need of good principles." 
 
 The Duchesse was discussing this question one 
 day with one of those abbes, whose little black 
 collets were constantly flitting in and out of 
 salons and boudoirs, and he bethought himself 
 that Madame la Princesse might be glad to avail 
 herself of such superior talents for the education of 
 her niece, Mademoiselle de Clermont. Monsieur 
 de Malezie\i, hearing of this suggestion, thought, 
 
64 THE COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 with masculine simplicity, that he could hasten 
 matters by getting Madame du Maine's recom- 
 mendation, but he only delayed everything by 
 rousing in his patroness the truly feminine dis- 
 position to discover a sudden fascination in any- 
 thing offered to another woman. " If this girl 
 has so much merit," exclaimed the Duchesse with 
 irrefutable candour, " why give her to my niece ? 
 Would it not be better to engage her for myself ? " 
 
 Monsieur de Malezieu agreed most heartily, 
 and the affair might have been considered as 
 settled, had its conclusion depended on more stable 
 factors than Madame du Maine and Madame de la 
 Ferte. A sudden jealousy leaped up between 
 them, a duel of outraged feeling ensued, and 
 grieved astonishment, indignant surprise, haughty 
 aloofness, accusations of double-dealing, afforded 
 fine weapons for either opponent, and were wielded 
 indiscriminately by both. 
 
 Meanwhile Mademoiselle Delaunay was still 
 at the convent, still without anything to do, but 
 to bear from time to time with the Duchesse de 
 la Ferte's stormy scenes, to read her volcanic 
 letters, and to steer as best she could between her 
 anger and her infatuation. In this manner months 
 went by, and the young girl's natural diplomacy 
 seems to have forsaken her during that unhappy 
 time ; she deplores it herself in her Memoirs, and 
 holds herself responsible to a great extent for the 
 
MADEMOISELLE D'ORLEANS, 
 DAUGHTER OF THE REGENT PHILIPPE D'ORLEANS. 
 
 To face p. 64. 
 
AN OPENING AT COURT 65 
 
 fatal consequences. One or two unwise letters 
 in which she described her position to Monsieur 
 de Malezieu fell into Madame de la Ferte's hands, 
 and brought about a denouement which proved 
 to be a vengeance, planned and carried out in one 
 of the Duchesse's impulsive moods. 
 
 A very non - committal letter was the first 
 herald of the catastrophe. It was addressed to 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay by Monsieur de Malezieu 
 and ran thus : 
 
 " At last, Mademoiselle, the time has come. 
 I am bidden by Madame la Duchesse du Maine 
 to inform you that she has determined not to 
 demur any longer. It will be a great pleasure 
 to me, Mademoiselle, soon to be in a position to 
 render you some slight services, and to prove 
 to you in deed that I am, beyond all expression, 
 your very humble, etc., etc. 
 11 At SCBAUX, on the llth Sept. 1711." 
 
 A fulminating epistle from Madame de la Ferte 
 accompanied this, at the end of which she ordered 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay to come to Sceaux the 
 next day, where she would herself present her 
 to Their Serene Highnesses, the Due and the 
 Duchesse du Maine. 
 
 Henriette Delaunay, who had brought the two 
 letters, completed her mission by enlightening her 
 sister as to their true significance. It seems that 
 one of Madame du Maine's waiting- women having 
 
66 THE COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 been dismissed, her place had been judged good 
 enough for Mademoiselle Delaunay, whose reputa- 
 tion was very much on the wane. Madame de la 
 Ferte had strongly advocated this as a means of 
 revenge ; and she promised herself much pleasure 
 from the spectacle of her former protegee's humilia- 
 tion. " I foresaw my ruin in this event," says the 
 victim of these circumstances, " and I felt that the 
 indelible mark of servitude upon me would always 
 prevent any favourable turn of my fortune. It 
 was, however, impossible to draw back. I could 
 not disown all the steps I had taken to belong to 
 Madame du Maine's household, and I could not 
 insist on any conditions as to my position. I had 
 to bend my neck under the yoke. I arrived at 
 Sceaux in obedience to Madame de la Ferte's 
 orders ; she led me in triumph to the Duchesse, 
 who hardly deigned to throw a glance at me, and 
 then she continued to drag me round, chained to 
 her chariot, to all the people to whom I was to be 
 presented ; I followed her with the countenance of 
 a vanquished captive. When this ceremonial had 
 at last come to an end, she told me that now I 
 had no more need of her, and that henceforth she 
 would have nothing more to do with me." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS 
 
 EVEN in the half-dazed state in which Madame 
 de la Ferte's departure left her, Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay's heart must have sunk within her when 
 she saw the wretched quarters allotted to her. In 
 her most pessimistic moods she could never have 
 imagined herself in such a hovel. It was so low 
 that one had to bend one's neck in order to save 
 one's head, and its darkness would have satisfied 
 the darkest conspirators. The outer air hardly 
 penetrated into it, and there were no means of 
 heating it in cold weather. Moreover, this com- 
 modious residence was to be at her exclusive 
 disposal for the night only, the rest of the time 
 she shared it with one of Madame du Maine's 
 women who did night duty, and who resorted to 
 the entresol in the day time, either to sleep or 
 to play cards and quarrel noisily with her husband. 
 No other refuge remained then to the unwilling 
 witness of these scenes except the distant alleys 
 of the park, and when the rain or the cold drove 
 
 her indoors she tried to get a little warmth by 
 
 67 
 
68 GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS 
 
 walking up and down the half open galleries which 
 ran round the castle. 
 
 In the first days of her " servitude " she had 
 hazarded some objections to Monsieur de Malezieu, 
 but " her very humble servant " had forgotten all 
 his former protestations of devotion; he hardly 
 listened to her, and she did not expose herself 
 a second time to his disdain, nor to that of so 
 many others who possessed in an equal degree 
 the convenient talent of opportune forgetfulness. 
 
 She schooled herself to indifference, or at 
 least to a semblance of it, and as an aspirant to 
 stoicism, she certainly had excellent opportunities 
 for a thorough apprenticeship. She soon dis- 
 covered that an absence of fireplaces and the 
 presence of one woman to share an apartment 
 might be indescribable boons; for at the abode 
 of the Duchesse du Maine in Versailles her rooms 
 were always full of stifling smoke, and she had 
 two colleagues to share them night and day. 
 "Never had the smallest ray of light penetrated 
 into them," she moans ; " besides, the want of 
 space made it necessary to quarrel incessantly in 
 order to hold your ground, whilst the smoke 
 made you abandon it the moment after. My 
 two room mates were on bad terms with each 
 other, and it was impossible to conciliate one, 
 without alienating the other." 
 
 The unfortunate girl, accustomed to the 
 
FRICTION 69 
 
 niceties of speech and mind of cultivated people, 
 felt that there could exist no system by which 
 one might gauge the inscrutable workings of 
 a servant's mind. " I should have liked to con- 
 ciliate all, but even the cleverest politician would 
 have failed," she exclaims in her despair. "One 
 might gain some influence over people with sane 
 views, familiar interests, ordinary passions, but not 
 over those creatures whose ideas are topsy-turvy, 
 whose reasonings defy reason and whose interests 
 grovel in the dust." 
 
 She offended mortally the susceptibilities of 
 the high and mighty corps of the waiting- women ; 
 it was inevitable, but none the less dangerous, 
 for the stability of her position. Her sister, 
 having heard of the difficulties, implored her to 
 mend matters. " What am I to do ? " enquired 
 the culprit, with the docility born of utter dis- 
 couragement. The remedy suggested seemed 
 simple enough pay a few calls on the divers 
 waiting-women belonging to the house guests, 
 and soothe their ruffled feelings with compliments 
 and advances. Circumstances happened to be 
 favourable, a great number of these "ladies," 
 being off duty, were just then assembled in the 
 common garde-robe, playing cards and gossiping. 
 
 The women of the Duchesse d'Anjou were 
 approached first, as the highest in the land ; 
 though they were not the rose, they lived nearest 
 
 E2 
 
70 GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS 
 
 the rose, some of its fragrance might cling to 
 them and make them a connecting link between 
 two hostile species. Alas for the disastrous results ! 
 They asked Mademoiselle Delaunay how much 
 profit she derived from this, how much from that, 
 and as she appeared totally ignorant on these 
 important points, they turned their backs with 
 contempt upon a person so evidently weak- 
 minded and resourceless. The next move was 
 not much happier ; the determined peace-maker 
 seized upon the first individual who hove in 
 sight, and poured upon her all the praise with 
 which she had formerly intended to win the 
 whole corps ; her shortsightedness had played 
 her a trick, she had hit upon the last person to 
 deserve her laudations, and it was so generally 
 evident that a loud burst of laughter greeted 
 her unlucky efforts ! 
 
 Incongruously enough she seemed doomed 
 to appear stupid in a position which was in 
 reality much below her mental capacities. Partly 
 from timidity and inexperience, partly owing to 
 her bad sight, she committed incredible blunders, 
 some of which she describes in her Memoirs, 
 when she dwells on past miseries. 
 
 " When I entered upon the duties of my office," 
 she relates, " I was given as my first task some 
 chemises to cut out. I felt greatly puzzled, for 
 I had never done any needlework, except the 
 
DRESSING-ROOM TROUBLES 71 
 
 useless fancy work with which one whiles away 
 one's time in convents. I spent a whole day in 
 taking measurements and in trying to carry 
 out this great enterprise ; . . . but, when Madame 
 du Maine put on her chemise she found at the 
 wrist the part which ought to have been at the 
 elbow ! " 
 
 Luckily for her inexperienced waiting-woman 
 Madame du Maine's petulance was not wasted 
 on the fit of her chemises. 
 
 " She asked who had performed this beautiful 
 feat, and on being informed of it she said quite 
 undisturbed that I evidently did not know how 
 to sew, and that henceforth this work would have 
 to be allotted to some one else." 
 
 The Duchesse had need of an unruffled dis- 
 position, in order to put up with Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay's gaucheries. The first time she asked 
 for some water, her new waiting-woman poured 
 it over one of her most delicate court dresses, 
 and the unlucky girl could never find anything 
 she was ordered to fetch. 
 
 "One day," she says, "the Duchesse told me 
 to bring her some rouge and a little cup of 
 water from her dressing-table. I went into her 
 room, where I remained bewildered, not knowing 
 in which direction to turn. The Princesse de 
 Guise happened to be passing through, and 
 astonished to see me in this state of confusion, 
 
72 GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS 
 
 6 What are you doing here ? ' she asked. ' Eh, 
 Madame/ I replied, * a cup, some rouge, a dressing- 
 table, I can see nothing of all these/ Touched by 
 my despair, she put into my hands what I would 
 have looked for in vain, without her help. Another 
 day, Madame la Duchesse du Maine, being at her 
 dressing-table, asked me for some powder. I took 
 the box by the lid ; it dropped open, as it naturally 
 would, and all the powder fell on the dress of 
 the Princess, who said quietly : ' When you take 
 up a thing you should hold it at the bottom. 1 I 
 remembered this lesson so well that several days 
 after, when the Duchesse asked me for her purse, 
 I took it up by the bottom part, and was most 
 astonished to see its contents, a hundred louis or 
 so, scattered on the floor." 
 
 What we seem to be has a curious power of 
 making us into what we are, or what we think 
 we are for the time being, and we grope in vain 
 after our personality when untoward circumstances 
 have distorted it beyond the power of even our 
 own recognition. For a time, at least, Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay felt mentally annihilated, and if she ever 
 read over again the letter which the Marquis de 
 Silly had written to her when she entered Madame 
 du Maine's household, some parts of it must have 
 seemed to her the very bitterest irony. 
 
 " Do not," wrote this cautious adviser, " reveal 
 more of your wit than is adapted to the needs of 
 
THE DONKEY'S KICK 73 
 
 those to whom you are speaking. Be satisfied 
 with showing wisdom and pleasant accomplish- 
 ments. They are far more appreciated than wit ; 
 which is apt to be feared." 
 
 The recipient of this good advice had come to 
 feel very safe from the complications incumbent on 
 superior qualities of the mind. Had not an old 
 cure strengthened her in this peculiar security by 
 asking her, as she was standing sponsor to a 
 child, if she would be capable of signing her 
 name in the parish register ! " This was truly," 
 she remarks, "the donkey's kick." 
 
 To make matters worse, she was soon to find 
 out that her position, however lowly, was not out 
 of the reach of intrigues. One of Madame du 
 Maine's ladies-in-waiting, whose chief occupation 
 was to play the part of the classical confidente on 
 the Sceaux theatre, took pity on Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay's disconsolate wanderings in the park, 
 and offered her the use of her rooms. At 
 Versailles, shortly after, she asked her to repay 
 her favours by allowing her the use of the entresol, 
 if she should happen to need it. Puzzled at the 
 thought that her very unenviable quarters could 
 be wanted, but feeling under an obligation, she 
 acceded to the request. Unluckily the lady in 
 question put the said entresol to an injudicious 
 use, the nature of which brought down upon her 
 
74 GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS 
 
 the righteous wrath of her lord and master. A 
 scandal ensued, in which Mademoiselle Delaunay's 
 name was mixed up ; and this circumstance 
 wounded to the quick the delicate sensibilities of 
 the waiting- women's corps ! Mademoiselle Manette, 
 chosen as spokeswoman, was sent to express the 
 general feeling. "This adventure," she said, 
 "is very unpleasant for all of us, people are 
 speaking of one of Madame du Maine's women, 
 and Ion se voit confondue." "Je me trouvais 
 moi-mtme" remarks the victim, "si confondue de 
 vivre avec elle, que je rfaurais jamais pense que 
 ce malheur dut la regarder" 
 
 From her utter weariness, humiliation, and 
 despair, Mademoiselle Delaunay saw but one 
 escape death, and she resolved to force open 
 its gates. Before she put an end to her life, 
 however, she would allow her cramped soul one 
 moment of blissful expansion, she would strip her 
 heart naked and revel in its nakedness, she would 
 write to Monsieur de Silly all that she had never 
 dared to say to him. The letter was written, but 
 was never sent. "Having yielded so far to my 
 madness," says its writer, " I felt my reason return 
 to me and resolved to live." She kept the letter 
 "as a warning" against herself, and as a proof of 
 " the excesses into which one falls when one gives 
 way to one's passions." A letter dictated by 
 passion and confiscated by reason has seldom 
 
A MOVING LETTER 75 
 
 escaped the flames the exceptional fate of this 
 one makes it worthy of being quoted: 
 
 " Five years ago I saw you for the first time. 
 You treated me with an indifference which seemed 
 to border on contempt. Irritated against you, 
 I sought to discover faults in you, and only 
 discovered charms and virtues. I wished to hate 
 you, and I loved you ; then my sole endeavour 
 was to hide from you feelings which I well believed 
 could not be reciprocated. And yet I could not 
 bear that your insensibility should keep you 
 ignorant of them. The slightest attentions from 
 you touched me very deeply, and so ardently 
 did I wish to be indebted to you that I found 
 reasons for my gratitude even in your coldness. 
 I looked upon it as a laudable effort to tear out 
 of my heart hopes which would prove vain and 
 dangerous. You might even have treated me 
 with harshness, without any other consequence 
 than the increase of the esteem in which I held 
 you, an esteem so perfect and so respectful that 
 it even made me condemn to myself the desire 
 to please you without, however, robbing me of 
 it. Neither a long absence, nor the changes in 
 my fortune, nor the efforts of experienced reason- 
 ing have prevailed upon me to make me forget. 
 I went further in my endeavours, I wished to 
 see, and I saw those who were reputed most 
 worthy of being loved. How different from you 
 they seemed to me! No one resembles you and 
 nothing resembles the feeling which I have for 
 you. I cannot accustom myself to seeing people 
 
76 GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS 
 
 in love with each other, and I do not understand 
 that one could love any one but you. What are 
 you thinking at the present moment of the con- 
 fession which I am making to you? As to me, 
 I feel no shame for it, and a feeling such as 
 mine commands respect. I am not endeavouring 
 to touch you. I only wanted to make known to 
 you what I feel, and my resolution to put an 
 end to my unhappiness. I feel too deeply that 
 I belong to you, to think of disposing of myself 
 without giving you an account of my decision. 
 I await one word from you, and it is the only 
 thing I shall await before bidding you adieu for 
 
 ever." 
 
 Just about that time one of those "civic" 
 agitations which sometimes convulsed the little 
 court of Sceaux, occurred very opportunely to 
 rescue Mademoiselle Delaunay from her state of 
 despondency. From the secluded vantage ground 
 of her entresol, unsuspected by any one, she took 
 her humorous share in the agitation. It was due 
 this time to one of the Duchesse du Maine's 
 ingenious institutions for the pursuit of intellectual 
 pleasure. On one of her most creative days she 
 had founded the Order of the " Mouche-a-miel," 
 or " Order of the Bee." of which she was naturally 
 the grande-maitresse. Its motto, " Piccola si, ma 
 fa pur gravi le ferite," was an allusion to her 
 stature and a retort to the taunts of her dis- 
 agreeable sister-in-law, the former Mademoiselle 
 
ORDER OF THE BEE 77 
 
 de Nantes. The order had its own statutes ; and 
 its limited number of members could be elected 
 from either sex. Its ceremonies were conducted 
 with the utmost gravity, and no Chevalier du 
 Saint Esprit could have received his grand cordon 
 from the hands of the king with greater awe 
 than did the chevaliers and the chevalieres de la 
 Mouche-a-miel fasten on their shoulder the little 
 golden bee, which was the emblem of their dignity. 
 On bended knee they took the oath which savoured 
 strongly of Malezieu's pomposity, and in which 
 they swore " by all the bees of Mount Hymettus " 
 to be loyal to their queen, and asked that in case 
 of defection their miel might be turned into fid, 
 and that other laboriously thought out jeux de 
 mots might be turned into serious realities, 
 expressly for their chastisement. 
 
 The election of a new member was to take 
 place a few months after Mademoiselle Delaunay's 
 arrival, and the whole court was in a flutter of 
 excitement. Among a great number of candi- 
 dates, the most eligible, it seems, were the 
 Comtesse de Brassac, the Comtesse d'Uzs, and the 
 President de Romanet. Whether the grande- 
 maitresse was influenced by the latter's dignity 
 or by his sex, is a debatable point ; at any rate 
 he gained the victory over his two feminine 
 rivals. They owed it to themselves and to their 
 sex to recriminate, and the whole of Sceaux was 
 
78 GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS 
 
 formed into two hostile camps bandying at each 
 other accusations of unfair dealings and illegal 
 procedure. 
 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, in her entresol, with 
 plenty of leisure for mental gymnastics, gathered 
 up these complaints which were rending the very 
 air, and amused herself by writing them up in 
 legal style, giving free play to the tone of 
 chicanery with which Madame de Grieu's legal 
 difficulties had made her familiar. She even 
 went so far as to send them in the form of a 
 petition, and in the defendants' name, to the 
 President de Romanet. This composition, small 
 as may seem its chances of providing entertain- 
 ment, engrossed Sceaux for the better part of 
 two weeks. Monsieur de Malezieu, in his quality 
 of first wit, was the first to be charged with the 
 authorship; he regretfully denied it, and the 
 accusation went on from greater to lesser until 
 it fell upon the most witless. "But no one," 
 sighs Mademoiselle Delaunay, "ever thought of 
 me as the author!" She had to comfort herself 
 with the silent enjoyment of the fruitless search, 
 and by composing thereupon a few verses which 
 nobody ever read, until she put them in her 
 Memoirs. 
 
 Her next interference with public affairs met 
 with more success, and she owed it to the 
 famous Monsieur de Fontenelle and the obscure 
 
A DEMI-GOD'S SUBJUGATION 79 
 
 Mademoiselle Tetar. This damsel proclaimed 
 that she had been chosen by the powers above 
 as an instrument for occult demonstrations. All 
 Paris went to see her, and Monsieur de Fontenelle 
 went too, not from mere curiosity, like the 
 common herd, but as a champion of the reliability 
 of Nature's character, and in order to expose these 
 alleged insults to the immutability of her laws. 
 His investigations lasted longer than would have 
 been deemed necessary, and were inspired, so 
 it was rumoured, less by an interest in science 
 than by a quite unscientific infatuation with 
 Mademoiselle Tetar 's natural charms. Great was 
 the merriment over the demi-god's subjugation, 
 and even his Olympian calm was at length stung 
 into retaliation, so numerous were the merciless 
 gibes thrown at him. 
 
 In the midst of the battle of words and jeers 
 which ensued, Mademoiselle Delaunay, who was 
 always staunch in her friendships, wrote to 
 Monsieur de Fontenelle a letter assuring him of 
 her partisanship and laughing at his detractors. 
 
 This letter was not particularly witty, one 
 would now consign it to the waste-paper basket 
 without a regret, even if one were the author of 
 it, but in that golden age, when intellect was at 
 such a premium, it met with a wonderful fate. 
 Fontenelle, being one day at the Marquis de 
 Lassays, and finding himself again a butt to the 
 
80 GREAT TRIALS AND SMALL TRIUMPHS 
 
 usual pleasantries, drew his letter out of his 
 pocket and showed it all round, saying: "This 
 contains better pleasantries." It was read by 
 all who were present, it was copied and circulated 
 at large. " All the Germans here," wrote Monsieur 
 de Silly from Friburg later on, " wish to have a 
 copy of it." 
 
 The Duchesse du Maine was one of the last 
 to ask for the wonderful letter, and discovering 
 that all who were present at Sceaux had a copy 
 of it in their pocket, she began to realise the 
 glory emanating from her household. " She read 
 the letter," reports Mademoiselle Delaunay, 
 u approved of it, and understood that she could 
 derive greater profit from me than she had 
 done so far. I myself began to wish, like all 
 the others, to possess a copy of my letter and to 
 think highly of it." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SLAVES OF PLEASURE AT SCEAUX 
 
 THE T^tar episode had done a great deal towards 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay's advancement. Now her 
 Serene Highness did condescend sometimes to hold 
 some real conversation with her, she seemed to 
 appreciate her mind, and even allowed her 
 occasionally to be present at the discussions of 
 the wits of Sceaux. Henceforth Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay was not quite a waiting-woman, but 
 she was nothing else yet, and woe to her if she 
 presumed to cross the boundary lines. It was 
 just then that every evening in the Duchesse's 
 boudoir, the Latin poem, The Anti-Lucretia, 
 used to be read and discussed before a fluttering, 
 chiefly feminine, audience, by its exquisite 
 but rather malicious author, the Cardinal de 
 Polignac. The lonely tenant of the dark entresol 
 hungered for intellectual pastures, and she dared 
 to beg for admittance. The very genius of pride 
 and vainglory must have been at work in her 
 mind, when she had thus presumed to ignore 
 
 proper distances ; she realised it too late alas, 
 
 81 F 
 
82 SLAVES OF PLEASURE AT SCEAUX 
 
 when a crushing and peremptory refusal brought 
 her to her senses! 
 
 To balance small failures, however, there were 
 small successes: the number of her friends in- 
 creased steadily, and it happened more and more 
 frequently that some of them found their way 
 to her entresol ; " though," she said, " it was a 
 difficult matter to discover me under the stairs 
 where I made my residence." To her came one 
 day the Abbe de Vaubrun, one of those petits 
 collets permanently attached to the court of 
 Sceaux. He was full of a new plan for a totally 
 novel divertissement, very elated at his ideas too, 
 and his elation was pardonable indeed, for it 
 must have needed a prodigious inventiveness to 
 think of something new in the face of the endless 
 succession of fetes, ballets, and masquerades 
 through the medium of which mythology, history, 
 and allegory paid their homage to the queen of 
 Sceaux. One cannot help thinking that there 
 must have been an element of satiety in the fact 
 that the denoument of these elaborately con- 
 structed intrigues could always be apprehended 
 with absolute certainty. Was it not irksome to 
 the Divinity of Sceaux to know, without any 
 possibility of doubt, that the treasures for which 
 Merlin and a procession of lesser magicians were 
 searching so diligently, would inevitably prove 
 to be the treasures of her own incomparable 
 mind, and that the lost girdle of Venus would 
 
NIGHT AND DETESTABLE SLEEP 83 
 
 naturally be discovered encircling her own waist. 
 But no, she never wearied of these flatteries, 
 was she not the Divinity of Sceaux, and do not 
 the gods drink nectar for ever, with ever-smiling 
 serenity ? 
 
 The Abbe's original idea was not quite as 
 original as he thought ; it needed, as usual, the 
 help of allegorical figures for its interpretation ; 
 but its novelty lay in the prdposal to exploit the 
 Duchesse's peculiar partiality for the night, as 
 opposed to the day, and in the suggestion to 
 make that the keynote of the whole. Night was 
 looked upon with great disfavour at Sceaux, and 
 sleep stood in utter disrepute. 
 
 " Detestable sleep ! " exclaim some verses 
 dedicated to the Duchesse, "leave our enchanted 
 fields, and go to feed the laziness of the monks. 
 Go to fatten sluggish canons, and to instil into 
 their numb senses the elixir of thy poppies. 
 These dullards think to lengthen their life by 
 the means of sleep, but they are dead already, 
 and sleep has performed upon them the offices 
 of Atropos ! " 
 
 This was very well for the Duchesse, who seems 
 to have really been immune from most frailties 
 of the flesh ; but the strongest courtier's instinct 
 must have been needed in others, to keep up 
 nodding heads, to keep clear the weary eyes 
 clouding over with sleep. There is no miracle 
 that is impossible, however, to the true monarchic 
 
84 SLAVES OF PLEASURE AT SCEAUX 
 
 feeling, and night after night the subjects stayed 
 awake with their queen; they professed to share 
 her horror for the garish light of day, and here 
 was a self-sacrificing courtier actually ready with 
 suggestions for further night revels ! His idea 
 was to make Night appear as an allegorical figure, 
 in order to thank Madame du Maine in well- 
 polished verses, of course, for the preference 
 accorded to her. Noblesse oblige .... there 
 would henceforth be less sleep than ever ! As 
 the Abbe's strong point was not the making 
 of verses, he asked Mademoiselle Delaunay to 
 compose the harangue of Night, adding gallantly 
 that she would also be the one most capable of 
 delivering it. She acceded to his request, and 
 this was the beginning of the famous Grandes 
 Nuits de Sceaux a harassing series of night- 
 entertainments, applauded by many, cursed 
 perhaps by not a few in the safe sanctum of 
 their inner privacy. 
 
 "The only merit of the first performance," 
 says its modest author, " was its element of 
 unexpectedness. I executed it very badly, for 
 I was seized with terror at the idea of speaking 
 in public, and remembered only very insufficiently 
 what I had to say 1 " 
 
 In spite of this, she was asked several times 
 again to recite and even to sing, until it was 
 proved that her stage fright was incurable ; then 
 
LITERARY LOTTERIES 85 
 
 she was allowed to retire, and was granted as a 
 compensation the dignity of an advising member 
 to the committee for the planning of the Grandes 
 Nuits. 
 
 It was no doubt a great honour, and not a 
 sinecure ; none knew it better than the unfortunate 
 Monsieur de Malezieu, President of the Committee, 
 and reponsible for all its vagaries reponsible also, 
 alas ! for any absence of novel ideas. The stress 
 of circumstances made him at last turn to Fate for 
 help, and he instituted the so-called, "literary 
 lotteries" which must have daunted the most 
 dauntless. The letters of the alphabet were put 
 in a bag, into which all the members of the 
 committee had to dip, and to draw out, each in 
 turn, the fateful letter from which there was no 
 escape. " S " stood for a sonnet it was a favourite 
 letter, and probably elusive in consequence ; " F " 
 meant a fable ; " C " demanded a comedy ; alas 
 for the serious-minded who drew it 1 " O " was 
 the most formidable. He whose unlucky hand fell 
 upon " O " had to produce a whole operetta unless 
 he could attune his mind to the lofty strains of an 
 ode in which case his levity was excused in favour 
 of the nobler sentiment. The last of the Grandes 
 Nuits was composed entirely by Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, and she was publicly proclaimed the 
 author of it. It was a great success, and could 
 hardly have failed to entrance the spectators, so 
 
 F2 
 
86 SLAVES OF PLEASURE AT SCEAUX 
 
 deftly had she mixed into it the ingredients which 
 make that special incense which is peculiarly agree- 
 able to the nostrils of gods and semi-gods. 
 
 The main thread, connecting more or less success- 
 fully the various incidents, was the idea that " good 
 taste " had found a refuge in Sceaux, had selected 
 it as a permanent residence, and was the presiding 
 genius over all Madame du Maine's actions. The 
 author's own account of her production, as it appears 
 in her Memoirs, is not entrancing, and it is a relief 
 to get to the end of her description : " At last 
 the Genii of Laughter appear and erect a stage 
 for the performance of a comedy in one act, the 
 grand finale of the whole." The theme of this 
 play was one of the Duchesse's latest intellectual 
 passions : the search for the " magic square," a 
 pursuit which had kept Sceaux in breathless 
 suspense for several weeks, and specially harassed 
 poor Monsieur de Malezieu, who was occasionally 
 obliged to pay dearly for his title of "Euclid of 
 Sceaux." The success of the comedy, whatever 
 its merits or demerits may have been, was assured 
 by the fact that Madame du Maine herself was to 
 act the chief part in it a circumstance which made 
 it appear perfect to all eyes, her own included. 
 
 It was a great occasion for Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, and was marked by the bestowal upon 
 her of a very special favour a miniature portrait 
 of the Duchesse represented as Hebe. As a likeness, 
 
A FINANCIAL CHECK 87 
 
 it may have been indifferent, but it was received 
 with transports of delights which were duly 
 modelled into enthusiastic verses. The Duchesse 
 answered these delirious protestations with four 
 lines, which sound refreshingly simple. 
 
 " Vous me payez avec usure, 
 Launay, d'un mediocre don, 
 L' original et la peinture 
 Ne valent pas votre chanson." 
 
 The enormous expenses entailed by these gorgeous 
 night entertainments made it at last necessary to 
 interrupt them; had it not been for this prosaic 
 but merciful circumstance, the court of Sceaux 
 might have perished from exhaustion, without even 
 risking a stifled yawn! But alas! the load had 
 only been shifted ; the Duchesse having retrenched, 
 now went to the other extreme, henceforth only 
 the pure treasures of the mind were to be expended 
 on pleasure, and this called for the most strenuous 
 mental efforts. One dined and supped and lived 
 on " quatrains " and " sextains " anagrams, epigrams, 
 and enigmas. Some happy minds would at times 
 produce quite tolerably pretty lines ; Saint Aulaire, 
 for instance, when he gently railed at the Duchesse 
 for her excessive interest in philosophy. 
 
 " Bergere, detachons-nous 
 De Newton, de Descartes, 
 Ces deux especes de fous 
 N'ont jamais vu le dessous 
 Des cartes." 
 
88 SLAVES OF PLEASURE AT SCEAUX 
 
 Fontenelle, too, was occasionally quite felicitous. 
 It was he who at one of the Sceaux suppers 
 made, to a riddle proposed, the happy answer 
 which has become classical : " What is," some 
 one asked, " the difference between a clock and 
 the mistress of the house ? " " The one records the 
 hours, the other makes you forget them," 
 answered quickly the gallant Fontenelle. 
 
 On the other hand, it is hardly to be 
 wondered at that sometimes the Muse refused 
 to be coaxed, and that De Malezieu being one 
 day called upon to "versify" could find nothing 
 but these lame and pathetic three lines : 
 
 " Lorsque Minerve nous ordonne, 
 On a toujours assez d'esprit ; 
 Si Ton n'en a pas, elle en donne." 
 
 Alas! even Minerva's wit ran short sometimes, 
 as is sufficiently proved by her anagram on the 
 Abbe Charles Genest, who shared with the im- 
 mortal Cyrano the inconvenience of having too 
 large a nose. The Duchesse was lost in deep 
 thought for a while, considering with knitted 
 brows the letters which made up the Abbe's 
 name, then suddenly clapping her hands, she 
 exclaimed triumphantly, "Eh, cest large nez!" 
 
 This brilliant anagram is preserved in the 
 Divertissements de Sceaux with other gems of 
 its kind. Even Mademoiselle Delaunay quotes 
 from them with complacency sayings which 
 
A RELEGATED DUKE 89 
 
 would have made her yawn in any other 
 atmosphere ; but sublimity is a powerful narcotic 
 to common-sense. The Due du Maine was 
 the only one at Sceaux who was excluded 
 from intellectual divertissements. The Duchesse 
 had recognised from the first her husband's 
 peculiar talents, and had allotted him his part 
 accordingly. For him the patient toil, the 
 cunning machinations, the persevering cringing 
 by which credit and influence are won at Court, 
 for her the benefits attained. He was continually 
 at Versailles, or in the vicinity of the King, 
 where the true courtier must ever be seen, 
 and if by chance he was at Sceaux, he was under 
 strict orders for the use of his time. While his 
 guests were discussing the Pluralities of the 
 Worlds he was relegated to one of the pavilions 
 at the far end of the park, and advised to 
 cultivate his talent for figures, or as a relaxation 
 was sometimes allowed to draw designs for 
 flower-beds or new avenues in the park of 
 Sceaux. He submitted readily enough, as a 
 rule, rebelling only in a few cases, when pro- 
 vocation proved too great. It had happened, 
 for instance, in connection with the Anti-Lucrcce. 
 In spite of a literary reputation achieved at the 
 early age of seven, the Due had been excluded 
 from the readings, and his sense of justice was 
 sore within him. At the far end of the park of 
 
90 SLAVES OF PLEASURE AT SCEAUX 
 
 Sceaux, in his secluded tower, he meditated upon 
 means of retaliation, and one day, tremulously, 
 for he understood his position, yet with a 
 pathetic eagerness for praise, he brought his 
 wife a French version of the Anti-Lucrece, the 
 first part of which he had just completed. Great 
 was the Duchesse's indignation. "Yes," she said 
 to him with fine scorn, "you will wake up one 
 day to find yourself a member of the Academy ; 
 but the Due d'Orleans will have been appointed 
 Regent of France ! " 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TRAGIC END OF A LONG REIGN 
 
 MEANWHILE history was shaping itself, and 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay was not to be con- 
 demned altogether to the lonely exclusiveness 
 of Sceaux. Versailles, which once had been the 
 object of the Duchesse du Maine's contempt and 
 aversion, was rapidly becoming a strong magnet 
 for her ambition. From the powerful though 
 still hidden drama, which centred round the 
 King's residence, emanated an atmosphere which 
 drew her irresistibly to watch for coming events. 
 A catastrophe was impending, inevitable the 
 disintegration of the country, the falling of the 
 old regime ? Who knew ! and who knew how 
 the spoils would be divided! 
 
 France, struggling in the throes of an end- 
 less fight, the war of the Spanish succession, was 
 vainly trying to solve an insoluble problem 
 how to raise funds from exhausted sources. For 
 the first time the King had been known to throw 
 
 up his hands publicly, to break down in the very 
 
 91 
 
92 THE TRAGIC END 
 
 presence of his council, and to declare that the 
 situation was hopeless. Le " Hoi Soleil," who had 
 run his course with such splendid ruthlessness, 
 was becoming human at last; and there was 
 something demoralising in that spectacle. Once 
 already, on addressing his Breton States on the 
 subject of a new tax voted unanimously by 
 them, he had surprised his audience by using 
 the word "gratitude" towards them, and he 
 himself had started visibly as this unaccustomed 
 word had fallen from his lips. Private financiers, 
 gens de peu, as the haughty Saint-Simon described 
 them, were admitted into the inner presence to 
 discuss with the King himself, as man to man, the 
 matter of loans and the raising of funds. Times 
 were changed indeed ! 
 
 The country had hardly recovered from the 
 terrible famine which had followed upon the hard 
 winter of 1709. It had been the haunting horror 
 of the Dauphin's last months, and he had not dared 
 to show his face in the streets of Paris, where 
 clamours for bread and entreaties surged round 
 him like the waves of an angry sea. He was dead 
 now his unheroic soul had escaped from 
 threatening responsibilities, and the King, an 
 enfeebled old man, was wearily continuing the 
 struggle. 
 
 In 1710, just before the death of the Emperor 
 of Austria had turned the course of events by 
 directing English apprehensions towards Austria's 
 
PERE LE TELLIER. 
 
 7i; face p. 92. 
 
A ROYAL REIGN OF TERROR 93 
 
 pretensions, Louis XIV., to provide for the 
 gigantic expenses of the war, had declared a tax 
 of one-tenth on all income. This new burden had 
 raised a storm of rebellion, and while the country 
 was groaning under ever-renewed impositions, 
 a kind of reign of terror had been inaugurated in 
 the Church by the coming into power of Father 
 Le Tellier, confessor to the King. He had 
 succeeded Pere La Chaise in 1710, and the hold 
 which he had immediately obtained over the 
 King's mind had an element of the sinister in 
 it. Totally devoid of conscience, devoured by 
 ambition, and shrinking from no crime, he had 
 deliberately set to work to exile from the Court, 
 and to oust from positions of importance all those 
 who were not ready to be his willing tools. 
 By his system of intimidation and delation he 
 brought about the downfall of much that was still 
 honourable in the Church, and there were priests, 
 bishops, and even cardinals, who lived in daily fear 
 of the lettre de cachet which would send them to 
 the Bastille. 
 
 Madame de Maintenon disapproved, but re- 
 mained silent ; the burden of her life at Court was 
 becoming intolerable to her her private letters at 
 that time bear ample testimony to this. As to the 
 King, he was entirely subjugated. Le Tellier was 
 his conscience ; he was the arbiter and the fate of 
 France. There had been a startling proof of that 
 in the case of the recently proposed income tax. 
 
94 THE TRAGIC END 
 
 While this measure was under discussion the 
 King had seemed harassed and preoccupied, and 
 his confessor had asked the reason of this. Louis 
 had expressed his many scruples. " Oh ! " Le Tellier 
 had replied, " these hesitations are a proof of too 
 delicate a conscience ! however, in order that your 
 Majesty's mind may be quite at rest, I will consult 
 the casuists of my order." 
 
 A few days later the confessor assured the 
 King that the matter in question was not one to 
 cause scruples, since a monarch is always, and in 
 any case, the real owner of all the possessions in 
 his kingdom. " You have relieved my mind very 
 much," sighed the King, " now I shall feel at peace 
 about this," and the tax was imposed. 
 
 Father Le Tellier exercised his ruthless power 
 with all the more violence, because he could not 
 but fear that his days were limited. The Jesuits 
 were loathed, their tyranny still held many souls 
 in bondage ; but rebellion was astir, and the 
 number of Jesuit confessors whose supreme 
 ministrations at death-beds had been deliberately 
 refused, was becoming the scandal of the order. 
 It happened more and more frequently that the 
 spirit standing on the threshold of Death cast off 
 its bondage, and there were some striking 
 defections. Monsieur le Prince himself, father of 
 the Duchesse du Maine and courtier par excellence 
 declared his religious standing at the last by an 
 
THE ROSE OF SAVOY 95 
 
 act of stupendous independence. He closed his 
 doors to his own Jesuit confessor, and sent for the 
 Pere la Tour, a member of the Oratorians, and 
 the bete noire of the Jesuits. A Stuart princess, 
 Louisa Mary, followed suit; she refused on her 
 death-bed to give admittance to her Jesuit con- 
 fessor, and sent instead for a poor priest of the 
 parish of Saint-Germain des Pres. 
 
 The Church and the State, traditions and laws, 
 all that had been and had appeared immutable, 
 had reached an unexpected turning point and 
 France was about to enter the tragic year of 
 1712. A few months before the Dauphin had died, 
 and the country had mourned but little over 
 this loss, all hopes being centred round his son, 
 the Due de Bourgogne. To him life had given of 
 its best gifts ; unbounded energy, a clear vision, a 
 rich imagination, wisdom and sympathy beyond 
 the ken of his contemporaries, a passionate desire 
 to realise great aspirations. His young wife, the 
 Duchesse de Bourgogne, the Rose of Savoy, as 
 history has caressingly named her, illumined 
 the gloom of Versailles with the young light of 
 her gaiety and of her charm. Louis XIV. 
 idolised her; her naturalness and her spontaneity 
 were as draughts of cool spring water to the 
 jaded sensibility of Madame de Maintenon. The 
 Court, while shaking its head over her im- 
 petuosity, or envying her popularity, was conquered 
 
96 THE TRAGIC END 
 
 by the rare quality of her youth and of her 
 vitality. 
 
 No heirs to the throne ever possessed the heart 
 of the country more entirely than the Due and 
 the Duchesse de Bourgogne. Alas ! before the 
 second month of the year 1712 had reached its 
 end both were lying dead on their bed of state, 
 and the same funeral procession which carried 
 their remains to Saint-Denis conveyed also the 
 body of the little Due de Bretagne, their eldest 
 son, who had died a few days after them. 
 
 Then a panic seized the minds of the public, 
 the word " poison " was whispered in dark corners, 
 and grew into a rumour which arose threateningly, 
 and mounted higher and higher, until the ugly tide 
 besmirched the name of the King's own nephew, 
 the Due d' Orleans. Public voice called him em- 
 poisonneur, and the King, his judgment obscured by 
 infection from public passion, very nearly yielded 
 to his nephew's indignant request that he might 
 be arrested publicly, and with him his famous 
 master in chemistry, Hombert, and that both might 
 be kept prisoners until the outrageous allegations 
 made against them should either be proved or 
 disproved. Luckily the King's arm was stayed 
 in time, and the Royal House of France was saved 
 from an action, the very finality of which would 
 have indelibly impressed the public mind with 
 a conviction of guilt. 
 
a a 
 
 3 a 
 
 i i V3 
 
 5 3 
 
 
HEAVY DAYS 97 
 
 Passion subsided ; reason and the medical 
 faculty spoke enlighteningly, the King himself 
 remembered with what inner conviction he had 
 once exclaimed : " Mon neveu est un fanfaron de 
 crimes." Whatever the suspicions had been, the 
 Due d'Orteans's guilt was evidently quite out of 
 the question ; but as dramatic agitation died out, 
 the gloom which settled upon the Court seemed 
 the heavier. In the beginning of March 1712 
 Madame de Maintenon writes to the Princesse 
 des Ursins: 
 
 " All is death here, Madame, life has fled from 
 us ; this princess (the Duchesse de Bourgogne) put 
 life into everything, charmed us all ; we feel still 
 heavy and stunned with our loss, and every day 
 makes us realise it more. I cannot see the King, 
 nor think of this loss without utter despair." 
 
 All that meant hope and youth seemed to 
 have deserted Versailles ; of the sons of the 
 Dauphin only one remained, and the policy which 
 aimed ever at preventing younger sons from being 
 dangerous rivals to the heir had been entirely 
 successful in the case of the Due de Berry. The 
 King had had many proofs of it, and was soon to 
 witness a public exhibition of his grandson's pathetic 
 incapability. In consequence of the treaties made 
 at the close of the war of the Spanish succession, 
 the Due de Berry was to sign, in the presence 
 
 of the assembled Parliament, a formal renunciation 
 
 G 
 
98 THE TRAGIC END 
 
 to all claims upon the Spanish throne; he was, 
 upon this occasion, to repeat a very short speech 
 which had been written for him, and which he had 
 learned by heart. " Monsieur," he began, address- 
 ing the President of the council, " Monsieur, ..." 
 and after vainly repeating that word five or six 
 times he broke down entirely, and there was 
 nothing left for Monsieur le President but to 
 wait tactfully the length of time which the speech 
 would have taken, and then to dispel the general 
 embarrassment by answering it, as if it had been 
 delivered. Thus at least the remote parts of the 
 assembly hall could be under the illusion that the 
 Prince had spoken. Duclos, who in his secret 
 Memoirs, gives many details about this, tells of 
 the Due's return to Versailles in gloomy silence 
 and with downcast eyes, he tells of his passionate 
 outburst, when he reached at last the privacy of 
 his apartments. 
 
 "I was a younger son, they were afraid of 
 me," he sobbed, denouncing the unfairness of the 
 education which had made him what he was, 
 "they tried to make an idiot of me, and they 
 have succeeded, they never taught me anything, 
 except hunting ; I am incapable of doing anything 
 else." 
 
 So many healthy shoots had, in this way, been 
 maimed and cut down to preserve the strength 
 of the main trunk that now after the lightning 
 
THE DYING KING 99 
 
 of fate had struck it, it stood strangely stripped 
 and isolated. The heir to the throne was a child 
 of two, whose feeble health struck dismay into 
 the hearts of loyal subjects, and raised hopes in 
 those disloyal ones who were beginning to count 
 on it as a strong asset. The Due d'Orleans's party 
 on one side, the Due du Maine's faction on the 
 other, were busy building plans and hopes for a 
 near future. Madame du Maine, without seeming 
 to descend from the clouds where she dwelt with 
 her sister divinities, her intellectual puzzles, and 
 her complicated diversions, was yet secretly bracing 
 herself to a political struggle. 
 
 The King's apathy increased from day to day ; 
 his body, so pitilessly trained to defy all onslaughts 
 of old age and fatigue, seemed to show the same 
 immunity as before ; he dressed, undressed, dined, 
 supped, played cards, hunted, drove the Royal 
 coach under the perpetual observation of hundreds 
 of critical courtiers. Madame de Maintenon may 
 moan : " My poor head feels as if it had been 
 quartered between four horses, . . ." but no com- 
 plaint escapes from the King's lips. Only his spirit 
 sinks more and more into the slough of indifference 
 and despondency no effort to rouse him is of any 
 avail, and Madame de Maintenon driven by black 
 despair into total recklessness of expression is 
 heard to exclaim : " Quel supplice d'avoir a amuser 
 un homme qui n'est plus amusable ! " 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE KING'S WILL 
 
 THE reproof quoted at the end of Chapter VII. 
 was undeserved ; the Due du Maine had worked 
 hard in his own subterranean way, and had amply 
 proved that his talent for intrigue could be relied 
 upon. In concert with Madame de Maintenon, 
 his faithful ally, he had diligently helped to 
 promote all those lapses from etiquette, those 
 confusions of ranks and rights which mark the 
 end of Louis XIV. reign, and which were so pro- 
 pitious to a situation irreguliere. What barriers 
 could not be overthrown at a time when the old 
 order of things had been so entirely reversed that 
 a bourgeois minister now addressed as " Monsieur " 
 an hereditary noble, who in reply called him 
 "Monseigneur,"and when Madame de Maintenon's 
 decision to remain standing at her receptions had 
 levelled all hereditary rights to sit, to a polite 
 obligation to stand. 
 
 Monsieur du Maine had ever been vigilant at 
 his post, watching for the opportune moment to 
 
 increase his credit, hiding under the mask of 
 
 100 
 
A CLIMBING FAMILY 101 
 
 filial devotion his determination to conquer any 
 possible chance of precedence, to pick up any 
 stray favour which might fyl\ vftcMi th' King's 
 hands. His efforts had been .well ;r^var4ed;; from 
 year to year his family hail risen to greater con- 
 sideration. After being declared Ugttimes, his 
 brother, the Comte de Toulouse, and he had 
 been raised to the dignity of Peers of the Realm, 
 they had later on been granted equal rights with 
 the Princes of the blood, and in 1714, after death 
 had so fatally decimated the Royal Family of 
 France, they had tasted their final triumph in 
 listening to the proclamation which declared them 
 heirs to the throne. 
 
 These were giddy heights to tread for the 
 bastard cripple and his poupee du sang, but 
 Madame du Maine was prepared to climb higher 
 still ; she walked on the clouds as in her natural 
 element, exulting over the realisation of that 
 which she had expected with perfect confidence. 
 The Due, on the other hand, lived in daily 
 terror of the abysses which loomed by the side 
 of the proud heights. He read mysterious threats 
 in the omniscient Saint-Simon, whenever he met 
 that implacable inquisitor, and he could not think 
 without a shudder of the awe-inspiring words 
 which the King had addressed to him on a day 
 which had been one of the memorable landmarks 
 in his progress. The Royal will had just been 
 
 G2 
 
102 THE KING'S WILL 
 
 signed, and the King, pointing to it, and inclined 
 perhaps to take a revenge for the coercion to 
 which-;, he had been submitted, had thrown a 
 significant glance at his ambitious cripple : " You 
 wished it," he said, " and it is done, but remember 
 that without me you would be nothing, and see 
 that you keep your power when I am gone if 
 you can ! " 
 
 It had been the intoxication which comes of 
 success which had plunged Madame du Maine 
 into the reckless extravagance of the Grandes 
 Nuits. " The Princesse's taste for pleasure," reports 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, "had then reached its 
 zenith." Towards the end of the year 1714, 
 however, there are new symptoms in the air, 
 and though they are not yet noticeable to many, 
 the keen mind of the chronicler of Sceaux has 
 detected and understood them. 
 
 " The King's health was beginning to sink 
 visibly," she remarks going straight to the root of 
 the matter, " no one wished to refer to it and every 
 one affected to disbelieve it, but in the midst of 
 the pleasures which seemed to solely occupy her, 
 Madame du Maine was more watchful than ever 
 over the fortune of the house with which she 
 had allied herself and the establishment of its 
 power on a sure basis." 
 
 The Duchesse felt, at this important juncture, 
 how indispensable it was to know fully the 
 
LOUIS DE BOURBON, 
 COMTE DE TOULOUSE. 
 
 To face p. 102. 
 
INDECISION 103 
 
 decisions expressed in the King's will, and in 
 order to gain that knowledge she decided for 
 the first time to interfere openly with the affairs 
 of the State. So far she had only worked through 
 the secret agency of the Duke, goading on 
 pitilessly what she called his " damnable apathy," 
 railing at his fears, ridiculing his hesitations, and 
 terrorising him into a frenzy of action. His 
 native prudence had saved the situation in spite 
 of all, and now, as events proved, her incon- 
 sequence was to endanger it seriously. She had 
 determined to gain a knowledge of the King's 
 will, but even whilst working for this end she 
 was seized most inopportunely with one of her 
 father's fits of indecision. 
 
 After having with great difficulty obtained, 
 through Madame de Maintenon's intermission, the 
 permission to see the Royal will, she suddenly 
 refused to take advantage of this, on account of 
 the condition that the knowledge gained should 
 entail absolute and inviolable secrecy. This con- 
 dition, she maintained, would paralyse all efforts 
 by which she might otherwise have fortified her 
 position. Her arguments were not particularly 
 conclusive, nor did they appear so to those chiefly 
 concerned : the Due du Maine and the Comte de 
 Toulouse. Should the will be read ? should it not 
 be read ? the question was discussed for several 
 days, and at last decided in the negative. But 
 
104 THE KING'S WILL 
 
 hardly had an intimation of this been despatched to 
 the King, when the decision was bitterly deplored 
 by those who had taken it, and a council was 
 appointed to consider the best means of repairing 
 this grievous error. The council, composed of 
 the premier president, Monsieur de Mesmes, 
 Monsieur de Malezieu, and Monsieur de Valincourt 
 (of the Comte de Toulouse's household) deliberated 
 at length in the presence of the parties concerned. 
 The invaluable advantage of having a full know- 
 ledge of the will having been refused, nothing 
 remained but to beg humbly for a partial know- 
 ledge, one clause of it at least. Which clause 
 should be chosen as the most significant ? more 
 deliberations ensued. The Duchesse was as sure 
 of being able to discover the " magic unit " which 
 would contain the whole, as she had once been 
 convinced of finding the " magic square " ; but 
 her extravagant schemes having been rejected one 
 by one, the Comte de Toulouse's proposal was 
 at last accepted. He had, with the wisdom 
 which was to keep his craft steady in the midst 
 of the universal wreck, hit upon the very point 
 which was most vital, and which was in a way 
 the "magic unit." 
 
 The point at issue was to discover if Louis XIV. 
 was re-establishing the claims of his grandson, 
 Felipe V. of Spain, to the throne of France; 
 failing which, the future King being still a child, 
 
BAD TACTICS 105 
 
 the authority would naturally devolve upon the 
 Due d'Orleans, the King's nephew, and he would 
 be the one rival against whom all forces should 
 be concentrated. The request was presented and 
 granted, and it was then known that Felipe V. 
 was still barred from the line of succession. This 
 discovery led to a second very grave mistake in 
 the tactics of the court of Sceaux. In order to 
 ingratiate themselves with a man who might be a 
 power, although they did not mean him to be the 
 power, they informed the Due d'Orleans of that 
 most weighty of the King's decisions. 
 
 Deliberately to put a weapon into the hand of 
 the man from whom you fear an attack seems 
 absolute madness. At that time, however, the 
 respective position of the Due d'Orleans and the 
 Due du Maine was not clearly defined in their 
 own minds ; each underrated the other's chances, 
 the one from ignorance of Madame de Maintenon's 
 successful intrigues, the other from a knowledge 
 of the King's embitterment towards his nephew. 
 
 The information which was sent to the Regent, 
 coupled with congratulations, seems at the best 
 a very great inconsequence on the part of a 
 house which had clearly shown its determination 
 to stand aloof from the House of Orleans. The 
 injudicious service rendered by the Due du Maine 
 to his opponent brought no advantage to the giver 
 and was of the utmost importance to him who 
 
106 THE KING'S WILL 
 
 received it. The latter had not been popular, 
 except in a small circle of his own ; but now he 
 applied himself diligently to the conquest of the 
 great nobles and dignitaries of the realm. 
 
 " Very lavish of his promises," thus Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay judges him, " and considering his word 
 as of no account, he pledged himself to satisfy all 
 demands in the event of his becoming the master. 
 By similar means he won over the Parliament and 
 had recourse to a thousand intrigues in order to 
 get his friends and partisans into power, so that they 
 might be of use to him later on. The President 
 was to all appearances devoted to the House of 
 Maine, and yet little help could be derived from 
 him : he was a great courtier, but a mediocre man, 
 with agreeable manners and pleasing wit, but weak 
 and timid and possessed of all those faults which 
 help a man to please and prevent him from being 
 useful." 
 
 The successes achieved by the Due d'Orleans 
 caused great perturbation at Sceaux moreover 
 a sudden aggravation in the King's state plunged 
 the Due and the Duchesse du Maine into the 
 utmost consternation. They had not yet given 
 up all hope of getting a fuller knowledge of the 
 Royal will, and of persuading the King to take 
 during his lifetime those measures which would 
 ensure his son's power after his death. If the 
 end should come before this had been contrived, 
 they felt that their cause might be lost indeed. 
 
DEATH OF THE KING 107 
 
 Madame du Maine forsook at a moment's notice 
 the engrossing pleasures of Sceaux, and hastened 
 to Versailles, in order at least to gain Madame de 
 Maintenon's ear, if she could not gain access to 
 the King. She found a court already disorganised 
 by the approaching events, and a woman in whom 
 all other interests had been swept away by the 
 force of the coming catastrophe. Madame de 
 Maintenon could be of no use at this juncture, 
 and little help could be expected from the Due 
 du Maine who stood day after day in stupefied 
 despair by his father's bedside. At last the secrets, 
 on the discovery of which so many efforts had been 
 wasted, fell spontaneously from the King's lips a 
 few days before his death. 
 
 They were certainly of an astonishing nature ; 
 during the last years of his reign the clever 
 politician had entirely died in Louis XIV., leaving 
 only the feeble old man, harassed by intrigues, 
 who yielded wearily to persuasion and coercion, 
 with an utter disregard of the consequences. The 
 following were the King's testamentary disposi- 
 tions; instead of awarding the Regency to the 
 Due d'Orleans, he had formed a conseil de 
 regence the members of which had all been 
 chosen by him, his nephew being only appointed 
 nominal president of the conseil. Every question 
 discussed in the council was to be decided solely 
 by a majority of votes. The Due du Maine, on 
 
108 THE KING'S WILL 
 
 the other hand, was apparently overwhelmed with 
 bounties, the guardianship of the young King, the 
 superintendence of his education, the responsibility 
 of his personal safety, and the commandership over 
 the Royal Bodyguard. The King's last will 
 seemed to be an absolute challenge to the mainten- 
 ance of public order ; on the one hand, slights and 
 no measures to prevent a vengeance, on the other, 
 lavish favours and no power to uphold them. 
 
 The Due du Maine had hoped for one of those 
 compromises, so dear to his heart, by which one 
 may climb the summits, while yet seeming to be 
 treading the lowly plains ; but there was no trace 
 of diplomacy in this last work of the King's hand, 
 and objections, representations were of no avail. 
 The King was weary of complications and turmoil, 
 and nothing could raise him from his state of 
 apathy. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 ON the first day of September 1715 King 
 Louis XIV. died, on the second of September 
 Parliament was to assemble in order to consider 
 the question of the Regency twenty -four hours 
 of mortal suspense for the Due and the Duchesse 
 du Maine! Would Parliament sanction the 
 Royal will, would it annul it in parts? Alas, 
 the signs by which events are read beforehand 
 were now in favour of the last conjecture, and 
 yet ... in the excited minds of the Due and 
 the Duchesse, past scenes rose up to flatter them 
 with vain hopes. They saw once more in imagina- 
 tion, as they had once seen in reality, the lifeless 
 bodies of the Dauphin and of the Dauphine lying 
 on their bed of state, and the Court filing past to 
 render them their last homage. The crowd, massed 
 round the vast hall, looks on in mute grief, but 
 as the Due d'Orleans approaches the body of the 
 Dauphine, the beloved of all, a threatening murmur 
 rises like an angry sea and the sinister whisper: 
 
 empoisonneur, empoisonneur encompasses him on 
 
 109 
 
110 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 all sides. Now the funeral procession winds 
 through the streets of Paris, and an infuriated 
 mob pursues the Due d'Orleans with threats and 
 insults. In front of the Palais Royal, the Due's 
 residence, indignation rises so high that "for a 
 moment there were reasons to fear the worst." 1 
 
 But since then three years have passed bringing 
 forgetfulness to unstable minds, and even Parlia- 
 ment, which once shared the public feeling, and 
 used its influence to strengthen it, could no more 
 be relied upon. The Due du Maine wavered 
 between fear and hope ; could it be possible that 
 the same Parliament, which three years before 
 had shuddered at the enormity of the crime, 
 would now deliberately elect the alleged criminal 
 to the most responsible post in the State, and 
 entrust to him the frail life of the future King, 
 a child of five? It seemed incredible, and yet, 
 all through the long hours of the day, and the 
 still longer watches of the night, the Due and 
 the Duchesse feared it in spite of themselves. 
 
 A significant demonstration, which had taken 
 place only a few days before the King's death, 
 had revealed in which direction blew the wind 
 of popular favour. The King, having ordered a 
 general review of the troops, and feeling unable 
 to preside at it in person, had granted to the Due 
 du Maine the very signal honour of representing 
 him. The Due was cantering proudly at the 
 
 1 Saint-Simon. 
 
ORLEANS REGENT 111 
 
 head of his battalions, when the Due d'Orleans 
 appeared upon the scene; then an astonishing 
 manoeuvre took place, a manoeuvre which seemed 
 entirely unpremeditated, and was all the more 
 impressive for it with one accord the brilliant 
 escort of the Due du Maine turned, and followed 
 the Due d'Orleans. . . . 
 
 The second day of September dawned at last 
 and realised the worst previsions of the House of 
 Maine. The King was dead, his wishes were 
 powerless. Parliament ignored them with insult- 
 ing deliberateness, and appointed the Due d'Orldans 
 Regent of France. His decrees were, it is true, 
 to be checked by a committee, but it was not 
 probable that the latter would have much weight. 
 The new Regent declared in his own facile way 
 that "he was delighted to feel his hands tied 
 against all evil doing, and free to commit all 
 good deeds ..." and proceeded to prove it by 
 forcing Parliament to annul the appointment of 
 the Due de Maine as commander of the Swiss 
 Guard. The safety of the little King being 
 dependent on a sufficient military force to assure 
 it, the Due de Maine saw himself compelled to 
 give up his guardianship over the King also, and 
 at the end of that fateful day he saw himself 
 reduced to a position which was in reality nothing 
 more than the chief tutorship over a child of five. 
 
 The Due and the Duchesse du Maine took this 
 crushing turn of Fortune's wheel each according 
 
112 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 to his or her own peculiar temperament ; the 
 Due with a silent and dogged determination 
 not to yield, the Duchesse with loud recrimina- 
 tions and defiant threats. They agreed on one 
 point only, namely, that the apartments in the 
 Tuileries which belonged by right to those 
 attached to the person of the King, were not to 
 be despised, and they installed themselves there 
 after the little King's return from Vincennes. 
 
 A few months passed in relative serenity, and 
 again some semblance of elation seemed to reign 
 in the Duchesse's circle. Now that the disappear- 
 ance of Madame de Maintenon's sombre draperies 
 had given the signal for a lifting of that pall of 
 sadness which had so long depressed the Court, 
 the Duchesse was not unwilling to have her share 
 of Court life, and to mix a little gaiety with her 
 political strenuousness. 
 
 According to Mademoiselle Delaunay every one, 
 herself excepted, had reason to rejoice over their 
 change of residence ; she, however, had found at 
 the Tuileries the inevitable reduit allotted to her 
 as usual, without a window or a fireplace. But 
 there were compensations 
 
 " I was in Paris," she says, " where it had 
 always been my wish to live, and my residence, 
 in spite of its many drawbacks, saw plenty of 
 good company. Since I have been in a position 
 to receive my friends more comfortably, I have 
 
THE ABBE DE CHAULIEU 113 
 
 not known many to seek me ! I was young 
 then, and that is worth more than anything one 
 can acquire, after the loss of that inestimable 
 advantage ! " 
 
 She seems to have had a very good time indeed, 
 so much so that the old Abbe de Chaulieu, one 
 of her devoted friends, ardent in his admiration 
 in spite of his eighty years and more, thought it 
 his duty to warn her against coquetry. 
 
 " I assured him," she remarks, " that my coquetry 
 was only a dire necessity to please, in order to 
 make up for the discomforts of my lodgings. . . . 
 I gave him my word of honour, which I have 
 kept faithfully, that as soon as I should have a 
 window and a fireplace, I should give up my 
 endeavours ! " 
 
 The old Abbe was a treasure, a rare flower of 
 that theory of Platonic love, held in such honour 
 among the adherents of Descartes's philosophy. 
 He was blind, and his fiery imagination adorned 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay with all the graces and all 
 the charms. " I deserved none of the epithets 
 he bestowed upon me," says the object of his 
 delusions, and she does not hesitate to prove it 
 later on in a portrait which she draws of herself, 
 according to one of the favourite customs of the 
 time. 
 
 " Delaunay is of medium height, thin, dried up, 
 and disagreeable. Her character and her mind are 
 
114 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 just like her face ; there is nothing wrong about 
 them, but they have no charm. Her bad fortune 
 has added to her value, inasmuch as, according to 
 a common prejudice, people who have neither 
 family nor wealth, must also lack cultivation; 
 consequently the little culture she has wins her 
 easy appreciation. 
 
 " Delaunay has had an excellent education, and 
 from it she has derived all the good there is in her : 
 principles and a certain elevation of mind, and 
 some fixed rules for her actions rules which the 
 force of habit has turned into a second nature. 
 Her one folly has always been the wish to be 
 absolutely reasonable, and, just as women imagine 
 they must have a fine figure because they feel the 
 discomfort of tight stays, so she has believed 
 herself very sensible, because her commonsense 
 has ever been a discomfort and a burden to her. 
 
 "She has never been able to check the vivacity 
 of her temper, nor even to reduce it to a semblance 
 of moderation ; this has often caused her to be 
 disagreeable to her superiors, burdensome to society, 
 and quite unbearable to her subordinates ; luckily 
 Fate has not put her in a position to subject many 
 to her vexatious moods." 
 
 Though this portrait was drawn some twenty 
 years later, it may have fitted the original 
 then in a few points, but the good Abbe de 
 Chaulieu would have allowed none of the defects 
 alluded to. As a worthy classical scholar of his 
 period, he compares her to all the goddesses of 
 
AN INSISTENT FRIEND 115 
 
 mythology, and proclaims himself now bound in 
 chains like Prometheus, now pierced by all the 
 arrows of Cupid's quiver. His letters and poems, 
 irreproachable in style, were marred by one defect ; 
 their author, being blind, had to entrust the 
 writing of them to his page boy, who was wholly 
 innocent of the science of orthography, and must 
 have penned strange productions. In spite of the 
 wild flights of his imagination, he must have had 
 plenty of good, sound commonsense, that dear 
 kind-hearted old Abbe' ; and his practical efforts 
 to cheer Mademoiselle Delaunay's monotonous 
 existence were quite as frequent as his poetical 
 ecstasies. 
 
 " The abb^ often proposed to add presents to 
 the incense which he offered me," we read in the 
 Memoirs, "and one day, annoyed by the insistence 
 with which he begged me to accept a thousand 
 pistoles, I said to him : ' Let me advise you, as a 
 proof of my gratitude for your generous offers, 
 not to make similar ones to many women, you 
 might find one who would take you at your word 1 ' 
 ' Oh 1 ' he replied, ' I know quite well to whom I 
 am addressing these ! ' His naive answer made me 
 laugh. He often exhorted me to adorn myself 
 more, and tried to make me feel ashamed of not 
 being more elegantly dressed. ' Abbe,' I used to 
 say to him, * Je me pare de ce qui me manque/ 
 
 " Having no other means to give me pleasure 
 than by his attentions, he increased them un- 
 ceasingly. He wrote to me every morning, and 
 
116 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 came to see me every day, unless I put off his 
 visit. The letters he sent me enquired into my 
 wishes for the day ; and if I preferred his carriage 
 to his society, he sent me the former without 
 demur, and I could dispose of it as I liked." 
 
 If Mademoiselle Delaunay's social position had 
 improved since the household had moved to the 
 Tuileries, her duties as first waiting - woman had 
 not become lighter. For some time past anxieties 
 had deprived Madame du Maine of what small 
 inclination to sleep she had ever possessed, and 
 the tales with which one of her women had been 
 wont to read her to sleep now failed in their 
 effect. 
 
 With unshaken confidence in the soporific 
 virtues of these masterpieces of inanity, the 
 Duchesse declared that the reader was at fault, not 
 the matter read, and she transferred the office to 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay. The truth was that she 
 longed for the contact of a mind able to share the 
 burdens of her own, and to help her more efficiently 
 than could a mere droning voice to get through 
 the interminable hours of the night. 
 
 More or less fantastical fears had agitated her 
 first months at the Tuileries ; but now a black 
 storm was surely though slowly gathering on the 
 horizon, and a very tangible peril was at hand. 
 
 So far the Due du Maine had only lost a power 
 which he had really never possessed, except during 
 
THE RIVAL LEGITIMATES 117 
 
 a few brief moments of exultant expectation, but 
 now he was threatened with the loss of the very 
 titles and prerogatives which alone assured his social 
 position. The attack was led by the Duchesse du 
 Maine's own nephew, commonly called Monsieur 
 le Due. It was he who, in the ensuing quarrel 
 which assumed gigantic proportions, and is known 
 as the war between les princes Ugitimes and 
 les princes legitimes, headed the side of the 
 legitimates. A sorry looking leader to represent 
 high lineage, the pure and proud blood of the 
 Royal Family of France ! He was a hideous, 
 one - eyed wretch, whose physical repulsiveness 
 was only equalled by his natural malevolence. 
 
 His enmity against the house of Maine had 
 begun long before, on the occasion of a law-suit 
 regarding the will and property of the late 
 Monsieur le Prince, the father of the Duchesse du 
 Maine. Monsieur le Due had been on the losing 
 side, and had sworn vengeance against the winners. 
 While waiting for a big opportunity, he had not 
 missed any chance for petty persecutions, refusing, 
 for instance, to sign deeds in which Monsieur du 
 Maine was taking his legal rank of prince of the 
 royal blood, and affecting on all occasions to deny 
 the dignities conferred upon him by the King. 
 
 Among the multitudinous promises given 
 by the Due d'Orleans, before his accession to 
 the Regency, was a formal one made to Monsieur 
 
118 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 le Due, to annul the royal decrees, which 
 gave the princes legitimes their rank and their 
 prerogatives ; he had, however, found this promise 
 as difficult to keep as most of the others. 
 
 He realised how fatal it would be to foment 
 further dissensions in a State already divided 
 against itself. Moreover his own wife, the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans, was a sister of the Due 
 du Maine, and however little respect he had 
 shown her, he was loth to raise the cry which 
 would again draw public attention to the stain 
 on his own escutcheon. So he dallied in his 
 own true way, and strove to keep in with both 
 parties ; fearing the anger of Monsieur le Due 
 and his partisans, he refused to the Comte d'Eu, 
 second son of the Due du Maine, the privilege 
 by which, as a prince of the royal blood, he 
 was entitled to a seat in Parliament on the 
 completion of his fifteenth year, but he also 
 declined to take active steps in the cause of 
 the legitimate princes. 
 
 Monsieur le Due was not a man to waste 
 his anger in fruitless waiting, and with the 
 Prince de Conti and the Comte de Charolais, 
 he drew up against the legitimes a petition which 
 he addressed straight to the King. The party 
 attacked retaliated by means of another petition, 
 which demanded that the question at issue should 
 be adjourned to the time of the King's majority. 
 
AN INVOLVED LAW-SUIT 119 
 
 The Regent, pressed hard on all sides, shifted 
 his responsibility as far as was possible, by 
 electing a committee which was to decide the 
 claims of both parties. Thereupon Paris witnessed 
 the development of one of the most interminable 
 law procedures that has ever excited public 
 curiosity, racked the brains of lawyers, and 
 scattered abroad the dust of thousands of 
 ancient documents. On either side accusation 
 was piled upon accusation, refutation pitted 
 against refutation, plea against plea, precedent 
 against precedent. 
 
 The Duchesse du Maine was one of the most 
 passionate amongst the combatants ; she had 
 never doubted her easy supremacy in all things, 
 and when, through the stress of circumstances, 
 she was forced to attack the involved questions 
 of the law, she felt persuaded that she would 
 find the conclusive documents and arguments 
 which would ensure a brilliant victory to her 
 side. Meanwhile the whole intellectual coterie 
 of Sceaux was pressed into the service of the 
 great science of chicanery no more sonnets or 
 odes, no more delightful readings of the Anti- 
 Lucrece. Monsieur de Malezieu was forced into 
 the paths where an oracle can be most oracular, 
 though he secretly despised his new chances, 
 and even Monsieur de Polignac was bidden 
 to forego the delights of aesthetic discussions. 
 
120 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 Only the Due du Maine was excluded from the 
 common interest; the Duchesse had lost her 
 faith in his efficiency as a diplomat; silence 
 was the watch -word in his presence, and he 
 was greeted by a mysterious hush whenever he 
 presumed to enter his wife's apartments. 
 
 As a token of her rising favour, Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay was admitted into the conspiracy ; but, 
 alas, her turn came at night when hour after 
 hour she had to sit by the Duchesse's bedside. 
 
 " The greatest part of the night," she says, " was 
 spent in laborious researches. The enormous 
 volumes piled upon the bed like so many 
 mountains crushing her made Madame du Maine 
 seem a veritable Encelas buried under Mount 
 Etna ! I helped her with her work, turned over 
 endless old chronicles, ancient and modern books 
 of law, until at last the excess of fatigue drove 
 the Princess to think of taking some rest. Then 
 I had to read her to sleep, and after that only 
 I was free to seek in my turn sleep which very 
 often would not come." 
 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay 's task became more 
 arduous still, when the rumour of Madame du 
 Maine's researches began to spread through Paris 
 and to attract all those needy adventurers or 
 would-be savants, who are ever on the lookout 
 for a chance to make their problematic fortune. 
 As Madame du Maine had no time to test 
 
AN ORIGINAL 
 
 their abilities, the task devolved upon her 
 
 first waiting - woman who, to judge from her 
 
 descriptions, was often sorely puzzled by her 
 interlocutors. 
 
 " Hundreds of obscure people came to offer their 
 help and to bring their meagre discoveries ; most 
 of them were sent to me, or at least advised 
 to come to me. One appeared, among others, 
 who was renowned for his great learning ; but 
 he was more of a Hebrew than a Frenchman, 
 and more conversant with the customs of the 
 Chaldeans than with those of this country. He 
 knew no court except that of Semiramis, and 
 yet he asked to come to ours with his ancient lore 
 which could be of little use for our present 
 affair ; precedents taken from the family of 
 Nimrod were not likely to be conclusive in 
 the case of Louis XIV. 's family! A day was, 
 however, fixed for an interview with him, and he 
 was referred to me. When he arrived I was 
 assisting at Madame du Maine's toilet, and 
 somebody came to call me. She said to me: 
 'Don't go, let him come in here; I will see 
 him.' He came into her room, persuaded that 
 he was being taken to one of her waiting- 
 women. The sumptuous apartment, the para- 
 phernalia of the toilet, the number of people 
 in waiting, did not dispel his first idea. He 
 called the Duchesse, 'Mademoiselle' all through 
 his conversation with her, and went away without 
 having a suspicion that he had been speaking to 
 anybody but me." 
 
RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 Strange dinner and supper parties were among 
 the unexpected consequences of the Duchesses 
 legal activity. Most of those improvised oracles 
 and Pythonesses who came to offer their wisdom 
 were more or less famished individuals, who vowed 
 with charming naivete' that their advice was always 
 superior during or after a meal. One or two 
 picturesque pages in the Memoirs are devoted to 
 these feasts. 
 
 " This traffic of erudition put me into relation 
 with all kinds of people. One of the most 
 tenacious of them was a certain Abbe Lecamus, 
 introduced by a sham countess who was in reality 
 nothing but a beggar. They both played a part 
 in our great comedy, though their platitude made 
 them quite unworthy to appear in it. Among our 
 would-be oracles there was also a former monk 
 whom the countess introduced to us, armed with 
 his writings. She had persuaded him that, in order 
 to see them truly appreciated, he must offer me 
 a supper at his house. It could not be avoided. 
 I went to it accompanied by our famished countess 
 who was beside herself at the prospect of a meal. 
 I found in the house a company which looked 
 more as if it belonged to the world of shades than 
 to this. On the face of the master of the house, 
 who was rich but extremely miserly, one could 
 read quite plainly his regret at having to feed us 
 at all. My annoyance was as great as his, and 
 from utter boredom, or for want of something 
 better to do, I seized a pair of tongs and began 
 
QUACKS AND ECCENTRICS 123 
 
 to poke the fire which was rather low. I got hold 
 of something which my treacherous sight made 
 me take for a charred log which had got displaced, 
 and which I pushed back. Alas ! it proved to be 
 a very black chocolate pot, full of chocolate ! It 
 had nor occurred to me to imagine such an 
 addition to the feast, and it was indeed as much 
 out of place as my imaginary log. The liquid was 
 upset, extinguishing the fire and the mirth of the 
 guests, and throwing our host into the utmost 
 consternation. To comfort him, 1 suggested that 
 one could very well do without chocolate after a 
 supper, and I am convinced that he never brewed 
 any again, in order to be sure of not meeting 
 henceforth with such a sad accident. 
 
 " I went with the countess and the Abbe to 
 another party, still more eccentric. They showed 
 me another intriguante in possession, as they 
 said, of the most important secrets. She was a 
 friend of a certain Abbe de Lerac, who had written 
 either for or against Monsieur le Due, and could 
 throw great light upon our subject. Madame la 
 Duchesse du Maine, like those patients who are 
 not satisfied with clever doctors, but must resort to 
 quacks also, listened to whatever advice came, and 
 then sent me out on voyages of discovery. All 
 the knowledge that I gained from Dame Dupuis, 
 as she was called, was an absolute conviction 
 of her total uselessness. However, our people 
 insisted, and vowed that after a meal she would 
 speak like Pythia on her tripod : all their intrigues 
 evidently tended only towards securing some good 
 morsels. I was driven to sitting down to supper 
 
RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 with that band of brigands. They took me to 
 a kind of tumbled down barn, where the feast 
 was to take place. We winded in and out of 
 dark passages, and crossed floors worn to a thin 
 transparency ; these weird haunts made me expect 
 terrifying things. I did not know whether I was 
 being taken to a witches' sabbath, whether I 
 should find myself among cut-throats, or some- 
 thing even worse. The assembly, when I found 
 it at last, did not look re-assuring; it seemed 
 made up of people well fitted for uncouth 
 mysteries, the songs which cheered the feast were 
 in harmony with the rest, and the wine which 
 Dame Dupuis drank freely during the meal did 
 not lure out of her any of her profound secrets. 
 She reappeared later on with her ambiguous 
 speeches, upon which no light could be thrown. 
 She may have been a spy, but whatever she was, 
 our dealings with her led to nothing, and I only 
 mention her because her name appears in the 
 authentic documents of our great law procedure." 
 
 Alas for the fruitless interviews, the wasted 
 feasts, the sleepless nights! The case of the 
 legitimes was judged and lost. In July 1717 
 Parliament revoked the royal edict which had 
 granted to the princes legitimes the right to 
 succeed to the throne, and divested them of their 
 title of princes of the blood. 
 
 This catastrophe plunged Madame du Maine 
 into the utmost despair. She began by over- 
 whelming with reproaches that ever-patient 
 
AN INTRIGUE WITH SPAIN 125 
 
 scapegoat, her husband, and then proceeded to 
 reflect over means of retaliation. Before very 
 long her over - wrought imagination was filled 
 with visions of the battles of an avenging war. 
 
 The first Memoirs about the Fronde were just 
 then being published, and the Duchesse du Maine 
 had no difficulty in imagining herself a second 
 Mademoiselle de Montpensier, riding into besieged 
 cities at the head of a victorious army and point- 
 ing formidable guns at the very windows of the 
 arch-enemy, the Due d'Orleans. The main body 
 of those victorious troops should be Spanish ; it 
 was to Spain that she awarded in her mind the 
 glory of playing, after her, an honourable second 
 in the heroic epos \ So far her demands upon 
 Felipe V. had been of a more modest nature ; 
 she had only asked his support in favour of her 
 party's request that the States General should be 
 assembled, in order to revise the last decisions 
 taken by Parliament. That petition was already 
 on its way to Spain, and had been entrusted to 
 a Jesuit. 
 
 Up to that point, the Duchesse's actions had 
 been remarkable for their unwonted moderation, 
 but when rumours reached her of an intrigue 
 with Spain in which she might join, it was not 
 in her power to resist. All round her, events 
 were beginning to show that the camp of the 
 legitimes was not the only one in which the 
 
126 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 Regent was anathematised; unfulfilled promises, 
 violated oaths were raising on all sides anger 
 and rebellion. Madame du Maine would have 
 liked to have made common cause with all the 
 discontented ; it was regrettable that chance led her 
 to league herself with two of the most witless 
 the Comte de Laval and the Marquis de Pompadour. 
 The former, whose mind was not over-fertile in 
 ideas, was further hindered in the enunciation of 
 the few he had by having to wear a kind of 
 sinister looking muzzle to hold up his jaw which 
 had been smashed during the wars. The second 
 of the conspirators was not only a fool, but a 
 coward to boot, and he was to bear himself with 
 pitiable weakness in the hour of peril. The two 
 were nevertheless received with open arms, and 
 under their distinguished patronage, Madame du 
 Maine entered into negotiations with the Spanish 
 ambassador, the famous Prince of Cellamare. 
 
 The Spanish Embassy was already under 
 observation and specially marked out by the 
 Regent's spies, but this only added to the 
 Duchesse's delight at embarking in perilous enter- 
 prises. She arranged thrilling interviews in the 
 dead of the night, and in out of the way places, 
 to which the Comte de Laval, disguised as a 
 coachman, had the privilege of driving the Spanish 
 ambassador, mysterious meetings under one of the 
 Seine bridges in Paris, in which Mademoiselle 
 
ENERGETIC PENMANSHIP 127 
 
 Delaunay very unwillingly played a prominent 
 part, 
 
 Many were the confabulations and many the 
 writings. The Duchesse had laid in a good store 
 of encre sympathique ; she used it in profusion, 
 and it afforded her as much pleasure in itself as 
 the drawing up of her political manifestoes. She 
 had composed one in particular, destined to point 
 out to the Spanish Government the inadvisability 
 of approving a treatise of the Quadruple Alliance, 
 which was too favourable to the Regent. We 
 must believe if we accept Mademoiselle Delaunay's 
 authority, that it was an excellent production, and 
 Cellamare got it safely into the hands of his 
 sovereign. Another composition, alas, had a less 
 enviable fate. It owed its origin and ill-starred 
 career to the following circumstances. The Spanish 
 ambassador, who does not seem to have had a 
 high opinion of his own or of his country's 
 epistolary talent, asked Madame du Maine 
 to draw up a model of two letters supposed 
 to have been sent by his Government, one 
 addressed to the King, the other to Parliament 
 on the subject of the convocation of the States 
 General. 
 
 Madame du Maine entrusted this task to the 
 two strongest minds among her conspirators, 
 Monsieur de Malezieu and the Cardinal de 
 Polignac. They produced a masterpiece, as was 
 
128 RIVALRIES AND CONSPIRACIES 
 
 to be expected ; but, alas, the fact that Monsieur 
 de Polignac was a Cardinal as well as a con- 
 spirator proved fatal to the cause. As he was 
 putting the last stroke of his pen to the copy 
 of the letter, the bells for the King's mass began 
 to ring. The Cardinal, who "always acquitted 
 himself in the most seemly manner " l of his duties 
 as Grand Aumonier, hurried away, leaving to 
 Monsieur de Malezieu the care of destroying the 
 rough copy of the document. 
 
 The oracle of Sceaux was likely to be skilled 
 in this peculiar occupation, as Messieurs de Laval 
 and De Pompadour were wont to cover an incon- 
 ceivable amount of paper with the ramblings of 
 their incoherent minds, and upon him devolved 
 generally the task of destroying these divagations, 
 as soon as the authors' backs were turned. On 
 that fatal day, however, whether from negligence 
 or from a certain pride in his joint authorship of 
 the document, Monsieur de Malezieu did not at 
 once destroy the tell - tale paper, and when he 
 wished to burn it, it was nowhere to be found. 
 He spent several days in fruitless search; the 
 missing paper remained undiscovered, and did not 
 reappear until the ill-fated day when all those 
 concerned with its contents were praying most 
 devoutly for its eternal disappearance. 
 
 1 D'Argensou, ' ' Me'moires." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 HUMILIATION OF THE HOUSE OF MAINE 
 
 WHILE the Duchesse du Maine was relishing to 
 the utmost the mystery and secrecy of her political 
 dealings, the Regent was being informed of all the 
 movements of the conspirators. He feared them 
 but little, these dangerous enemies of the State, 
 but he was determined to expose their proceedings 
 as a justification for the final overthrow of the 
 House of Maine. He had at last decided to enter 
 into an alliance with George I. of England an 
 alliance strongly advocated by Lord Stair and 
 Cardinal Dubois. If difficulties were to arise in 
 connection with the succession, England's help 
 against Spain would be invaluable ; and the 
 question of the English alliance was put before 
 Parliament. The Due du Maine, clearly seeing 
 the drift of the question, and carried away by his 
 passion, swerved for once from the path of prudence, 
 and violently opposed the alliance, whereupon the 
 Regent was heard to exclaim on leaving the 
 Assembly : " Monsieur du Maine has taken off his 
 
 129 i 
 
ISO HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 mask at last ! " Whilst deliberating on the possi- 
 bilities opened up by such an unprecedented piece 
 of imprudence, the Due d'Orleans was by degrees 
 raising the strongest advocates of his policy to the 
 most prominent offices of the State, and all those 
 in office who were suspected of even the slightest 
 connection with the opposition were discharged 
 one after the other. Monsieur le President de 
 Mesmes was soon obliged secretly to warn Madame 
 du Maine that one of her staunchest friends, 
 Monsieur de Noailles, the minister of finance, 
 was to be deprived of his office in favour of a 
 fanatical adherent of the Regent's policy, the 
 Marquis d'Argenson. 
 
 At Sceaux warnings began to pour in from all 
 sides ; it was evident that the Due d'Orleans had 
 vowed to bring about the complete humiliation 
 of the House of Maine, and alleging the fact that 
 the court of Sceaux entertained treacherous rela- 
 tions with Spain, he proposed to deprive the Due 
 du Maine of his last office at Court, the direction 
 of the King's education. This was a bold move in 
 the game of a man accused of having poisoned 
 both the father and the mother of the child over 
 whom he now claimed complete control and at a 
 time when suspicion still rankled in many minds and 
 ostentatiously expressed itself in the most insulting 
 precautionary measures. The old Marechal de 
 Villeroi, for instance, the King's governor, kept the 
 
WARNINGS 131 
 
 bread and the linen under lock and key, and affected 
 special precautions in reference to the King's wine, 
 at which action, as Duclos says in his Memoirs, 
 " fools marvelled, and ill - intentioned people 
 applauded ! " 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, the Regent dared to 
 propose to the Council for the Regency the change 
 which he was contemplating, and one voice only was 
 raised in protest. The Due and the Duchesse du 
 Maine were warned of the blow which threatened 
 them, and lived for some time in dreaded anticipa- 
 tion of it ; as the days passed, however, and brought 
 no catastrophe, Madame du Maine's elastic nature 
 rebounded into optimism, and on the eve of the 
 26th August, in honour of Saint Louis, her patron 
 saint, she gave a brilliant reception at the Arsenal. 
 The very next morning was to witness the crash. 
 
 The Duchesse was sleeping peacefully, after 
 the gaieties of the night, when a messenger 
 arrived post-haste from the Due, who had returned 
 to the Tuileries a few hours before. Even while 
 she hastily prepared to obey the imperative 
 message which called her back, Parliament was 
 being summoned to the Tuileries, where the 
 King was to hold a lit de justice. The news 
 had burst upon the Due in the early morning, 
 when one of the gentlemen of his household had 
 waked him with the intimation that something 
 unusual was taking place in the palace ; a sound of 
 hammering was distinctly audible above the Due's 
 
HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 apartment, and the explanation of this untimely 
 disturbance it was then five o'clock in the 
 morning was not long forthcoming : a small 
 army of workmen were getting ready the Throne 
 Room. 
 
 Monsieur du Maine dressed with feverish haste 
 and went up to the King's apartment, where the 
 Regent soon joined him, and said to him with 
 triumphant malice : " I know that since the 
 last edict passed by Parliament, you have not 
 cared for public assemblies ; the King is to hold 
 a lit de justice to-day, your absence will be 
 excused." "I shall dispense with this ceremony 
 all the more willingly, as the lit de ^justice will 
 not concern us," replied the Due du Maine. 
 "Perhaps," retorted the Regent, and left him 
 to ponder on that fateful word. 
 
 The lit de justice was opened ; in helpless 
 consternation and abject fear the Due du 
 Maine wandered about the Tuileries, not daring 
 to face the assembly which was despoiling him 
 of his last honours. It was in this piteous 
 state that the Duchesse found him and strove 
 in vain to terrorise him into action; even then 
 the wrath of his dreaded tyrant could not make 
 him cross the threshold of the salle du trone. 
 In the stress of her anxiety to know something, 
 at least, of that which the " contemptible coward," 
 who was the head of the House of Maine, 
 refused to hear, the Duchesse bade some pages 
 
THE LIT DE JUSTICE 133 
 
 climb up the balconies and spy through the 
 windows of the assembly hall. Clutching at 
 whatever support was available, and straining 
 their eyes and ears, they were able to catch 
 some scraps at least of the momentous events 
 which were taking place, and threw them to 
 their masters below. It was in this ignominious 
 manner that the Due and the Duchesse du Maine 
 first learned the decrees of the 29th August 1718. 
 
 Never, perhaps, did a king of France hold a 
 more dramatic lit de justice than did the little boy 
 king of eight, around whose childish unconscious- 
 ness passions surged so high on that memorable 
 day. " The expression and the countenance of 
 those who were present," says the Due de Saint- 
 Simon in his Memoirs, " beggar description." 
 
 At last the momentous question of the 
 relative rights of the legitimes and the legitimes 
 was to be finally decided, and the former, on 
 whose side were ranged the dukes and peers, 
 knew that their hour of triumph had come. 
 Many of those present could hardly refrain 
 from giving vent to their feelings of exultation. 
 
 " It was well known," says Saint-Simon, " with 
 what ardour I had defended the cause of the 
 Peers against the privileges of the legitimes. 
 I therefore imparted to my countenance an 
 additional expression of gravity and modesty, 
 and, slowly getting my eyes under proper 
 
 I 2 
 
134 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 control, I resolved to look no one in the 
 face. As soon as the Regent had opened his 
 lips, Monsieur le Due had darted at me a 
 triumphant glance which had all but destroyed 
 hiy impassibility; it was a warning to me to 
 exaggerate the sobriety of my expression, and 
 to avoid all possibility that our eyes should 
 meet. Thus I remained self-contained, motion- 
 less, as if glued to my seat, yet watching with 
 a devouring interest everybody's expression, and 
 in a state of the utmost tension ; my whole 
 being was permeated with the most vivid yet 
 delicate sensations of joy, with the most entrancing 
 emotion, with a happiness for which I had longed 
 with boundless yearning. I was sweating with 
 anguish at my efforts to repress the transports 
 of my delight, and with that very anguish mingled 
 a sense of voluptuous enjoyment, such as I never 
 felt either before or after that great day. How 
 truly inferior to the pleasures of the mind are 
 the mere pleasures of the senses ! " 
 
 In an atmosphere thus fraught with passion 
 the decree which deprived Monsieur du Maine 
 of his last honours was moved without en- 
 countering any resistance ; a feeble protest 
 raised by Parliament was swept away, and the 
 Due du Maine's last office at Court was given 
 over to the rival who had been most violent in 
 his persecutions of him, to Monsieur le Due, 
 nephew of Madame du Maine. 
 
 Intimation was, moreover, given to the chief 
 
DEPRIVED 135 
 
 victim of the day, that his apartments in the 
 Tuileries should be vacated within a few hours. 
 On the evening of that same 27th of August 
 Monsieur le Due took possession of his new 
 quarters, while his vanquished rivals had to seek 
 refuge in the Hotel de Toulouse, the property 
 of Monsieur du Maine's younger brother, the 
 Comte de Toulouse. 
 
 If anything could add to the bitterness of 
 this sudden blow, it was the invidious distinction 
 which had on that day been made between the 
 two brothers. The indictment against the Due 
 du Maine had hardly been pronounced, when 
 the Regent had risen and declared before the 
 Assembly that he had "thought it fit to give 
 back, as a favour, that which he had been 
 obliged to take away for the sake of equity, 
 and to make a personal exception in favour of 
 Monsieur le Comte de Toulouse, an exception 
 which would leave him, and him alone, in the 
 possession of all the honours that he had hitherto 
 enjoyed." The Regent added that this favour was 
 granted to the Comte de Toulouse in recognition 
 of "his virtue, his application, his probity, and 
 his disinterestedness." 
 
 However luminous the younger brother's 
 virtues may have been, they could hardly have 
 shed any ray of comfort upon the gloom of that 
 terrible night, which the fugitives spent under 
 
1S6 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 his roof. "The horror of this flight," says 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, " and still more the 
 event which was the cause of it, made an 
 impression upon me, such as I have never 
 experienced on any other occasion. Madame la 
 Duchesse du Maine had sent me to Sceaux to 
 look through all her papers and to burn all that 
 could seem reprehensible. I returned in the 
 evening to the Hotel de Toulouse, and spent 
 the entire night by the bedside of Madame la 
 Duchesse, whose condition was past description. 
 She was in a state of prostration, which was like 
 an entire absence of life, like a lethargic sleep, 
 from which she only roused herself now and 
 again with sudden, convulsive movements." 
 
 A plan of action was imperative, nevertheless, 
 and the next day the Due and the Duchesse, 
 with their suite, returned to Sceaux. There the 
 same shroud of passive gloom hung heavily over 
 all for several days, only lifted here and there by 
 the stirring of some fear or anxiety among the 
 members of the conspiracy. So many dangers 
 threatened! The letters which the Baron de 
 Walef was sending from Spain might be inter- 
 cepted at any time, the imprudence of Monsieur 
 de Pompadour and others had to be reckoned 
 with. The most uneasy of all was certainly 
 Monsieur de Malezieu ; he now spent more hours 
 and efforts than ever in the quest of the rough 
 
THE DUCHESSE PROSTRATE 137 
 
 copy of that letter which he had mislaid, oscillating 
 between the certainty that it must be found and 
 the conviction that it had been stolen and 
 delivered into the hands of the Regent. 
 
 Two months passed without any further com- 
 plications, and the conspirators began to breathe 
 freely again; that Madame du Maine's crushed 
 spirits were recovering from the shock which they 
 had sustained, was amply proved by the fact 
 that she now returned to her political intrigues. 
 A certain caution still characterised her actions : 
 she dared not hold personal intercourse with 
 her allies in Paris, but she could not resist the 
 wish to again dip her fingers into the troubled 
 waters of intrigue ; she did many foolish things, 
 one of which was to send Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 to Paris to hold a secret confabulation with the 
 Comte de Laval. The messenger had little faith 
 in the efficiency of this ill-advised measure, but, as 
 usual, she refrained from expressing her opinion, 
 and submitted to a three hours' tete-a-tete with 
 the Count. She emerged from it in a state of 
 utter mental exhaustion ; in the general incoherence 
 of the conversation one point only, it seems, had 
 appealed to them both with equal force, namely 
 the advisability of never pronouncing each other's 
 names! . . . 
 
 As Mademoiselle Delaunay was returning to 
 Sceaux, in the dead of the night, according to 
 
138 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 strict injunctions, her carriage was overturned 
 and she was hurled into a ditch. " At the time 
 when people believed in omens," she remarks, 
 "this one would not have been despised." 
 
 In truth, a destructive fate was rapidly descend- 
 ing upon Sceaux, called down by Madame du 
 Maine's very efforts to ward it off. She brought 
 about the final catastrophe in less than two months. 
 Once roused from her torpor she felt with a 
 goading keenness that the more insults she had 
 to avenge, the more she needed the help of 
 Spain. There was nothing to be done at Sceaux, 
 a solitude more or less shunned by all, and under 
 the pretext that she wanted to chose a new 
 town residence, Madame du Maine returned to 
 Paris. 
 
 Her allies were able to prove to her that they 
 had not wasted their time, even while deprived of 
 her inspiring presence. Monsieur de Pompadour 
 had been specially hard at work, a towering 
 pile of writings, manifestoes, letters, declarations, 
 formed an imposing monument, in front of which 
 Madame de Pompadour would stand and sigh 
 despondently : " We have the most decisive and the 
 most useful documents ; but nothing can be got 
 through to the Court of Spain ! " The opportunity 
 at last presented itself. The Abbe Portocarrero, 
 a young Spaniard known to Madame du Maine, 
 was returning to his country in a travelling 
 
RETURN TO PARIS 139 
 
 coach which possessed the inestimable advantage 
 of a secret box under the seat. The Abbe was 
 ready to vouch, with the most solemn oaths, for 
 the inviolability of his coach, and although his 
 feeling of security was not shared by all, the 
 occasion seemed too good to be wasted; after 
 some hesitation the precious papers were piled 
 into the secret box, and the Abbe started for 
 Spain. 
 
 Meanwhile one of these small causes which 
 produce great effects was taking its momentous 
 share in the development of the drama. There 
 was on the evening of Portocarrero's departure a 
 disappointed woman in the establishment of La 
 Fillon in Paris; a rendezvous which had been 
 arranged was countermanded. There was nothing 
 very unusual about an occurrence of that kind, 
 but the excuse which explained it raised it to 
 the importance of an affair of State. " I cannot 
 come," had written one of the secretaries of the 
 Spanish Embassy, to the woman who expected 
 him, "on account of the enormous number of 
 despatches necessitated by the Abbe Portocarrero's 
 departure for Spain." 
 
 The woman thought it advisable to put this 
 excuse before La Fillon, and the latter, perhaps 
 one of the numerous spies employed by the 
 Government, sent the Regent an intimation of 
 what had happened. 
 
140 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 Now Fortune was pleased in this case, as in 
 many others, to follow her caprices and to favour 
 first one side of the game and then the other. It 
 is true that Portocarrero was pursued at once, 
 stopped at Poitiers, and deprived of all his papers 
 in spite of the wonderful structure of his coach ; 
 but once despoiled of his despatches he was 
 released, and the papers which were brought 
 back to the Regent, were stopped by an insur- 
 mountable barrier, just before reaching their final 
 destination. 
 
 They were stopped at the door of the Regent's 
 private apartments. It was late, and the Due 
 d'Orle'ans had just sat down to one of his notorious 
 midnight revels with his roues, as he called 
 his friends in debauchery, and a few women of 
 "middling virtue," as Saint- Simon characterises 
 them. The sumptuous table with its shimmering 
 gold plate was awaiting the Lucullan repast ; 
 the jovial company was perhaps lending a hand 
 to the professional cooks, as was its custom, 
 or the witty assembly was holding its usual 
 review of the scandals and the comedies of the 
 Court. 
 
 Perhaps the Regent's favourite mistress, 
 Madame de Sabran, " slightly debauched, but 
 not wicked," had just declared, looking at her 
 lover in one of her defiant moods, that " God 
 has made princes and lackeys of the same clay, 
 
A LUCULLAN REPAST 141 
 
 carefully separating it from that out of which 
 other men were made." Whatever may have been 
 happening behind the closed doors, the orders 
 were strict, and no one dared go against them. 
 
 "From the time of the supper hour," says 
 Saint - Simon, " everything was so strongly 
 barricaded that it was useless to try to gain 
 access to the Regent even about affairs of the 
 most vital interest to the State or to himself." 
 
 On being released, Portocarrero had at once 
 despatched a secret messenger with a warning to 
 the Spanish Embassy, and on that occasion the 
 Regent's dilatory methods of treating business 
 gave the Spanish ambassador a margin of sixteen 
 hours in which to act. Trusting to luck and 
 to the Regent's temperament, he believed he 
 could safely send into Spain the most compro- 
 mising papers which remained still in his charge. 
 He sent them to a certain Abbe Brigaut, with 
 a hundred louis, and the order to start out at 
 once. The Abbe, by no means a heroical con- 
 spirator, took the hundred louis and the papers 
 but only kept the money ; he left the papers in 
 Paris, in the charge of a friend, the Chevalier de 
 Menil, telling him that they were some old family 
 deeds. Then, with a lighter heart, he started 
 on his way. 
 
 Of all these events, nothing transpired until 
 the following day. In the afternoon of that 9th 
 
142 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 day of December 1718, one of the Due du Maine's 
 gentlemen - in - waiting rushed into Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay's apartment with the startling news that 
 the Spanish Embassy was under military occupa- 
 tion and the whole neighbourhood under police 
 supervision ; but that the reason of it was not yet 
 known. It was but too well known to most of the 
 inmates of Sceaux, upon whom real torture was 
 inflicted by the comments and suppositions of 
 uninitiated friends who appeared one after the 
 other, full of the same subject. Madame du 
 Maine dared not try to escape from her impor- 
 tunate callers, she bravely masked her anxiety 
 under a feigned indifference, and only stole a 
 few seconds from her social duties to hold a 
 hurried interview with Mademoiselle Delaunay, 
 and beg her to ascertain the real state of 
 affairs. 
 
 The details of the total failure of the plot 
 reached Sceaux by degrees ; first the news of the 
 confiscation of Portocarrero's papers, then the 
 intimation that important documents had been 
 seized at the Embassy, and at last the announce- 
 ment of the arrest of Prince Cellamare and of the 
 imprisonment of the Marquis de Pompadour and 
 the Marquis de Saint Genies. One hope only 
 remained: the Abbe Brigaut was believed to be 
 well beyond reach, with his weighty documents. 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay's Memoirs tell how this 
 
UNCERTAINTY AT SCEAUX 143 
 
 last hope was shattered, two days after the first 
 news had been received. 
 
 " Madame la Duchesse du Maine was playing a 
 game of biribi, according to her custom (she was 
 careful not to make any change in her usual 
 round of occupations) when a certain Monsieur de 
 Chatillon, a very morose man, who hardly ever 
 spoke at all, said suddenly : By the way, here is 
 a funny piece of news : in connection with that 
 affair at the Spanish embassy, they have just 
 arrested and sent to the Bastille a certain abbe 
 
 Bri Bri ' He could not recall the name 
 
 and none of those who knew it had any wish to 
 help him. At last he found the name and added : 
 ' The ridiculous part of the business is that he has 
 confessed everything, and there must be now a 
 good many people in a nice state of embarrassment ! ' 
 Then he burst out laughing, a thing he had never 
 been known to do before. Madame la Duchesse 
 du Maine, though she felt not the least inclination 
 to join in his merriment, said : ' Yes, that is indeed 
 very funny.' ' It is enough to make one die of 
 laughter,' rejoined Monsieur de Chatillon. Just 
 think of these people who believed their trans- 
 action to be absolutely safe, and here comes a 
 fellow who tells even more than he is asked, and 
 gives the names of all those connected with the 
 affair!" 
 
 It was soon known that the Abbe Brigaut had 
 effected a real chef-d'oeuvre of blunders ; he had 
 disguised himself as a gallant soldier of fortune, 
 
144 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 but he had omitted to remove from his pockets 
 some tell - tale letters addressed to " the Abbe 
 Brigaut," and he had hired a broken down old 
 steed which hopelessly belied his character of a 
 dashing cavalier ! The ill-assorted pair had ambled 
 along so successfully that they had covered several 
 miles in three days, at the end of which they 
 had been stopped in their triumphant progress 
 by an agent of the Regent, who arrested them 
 at Montargis, a very short distance from Paris. 
 Luckily by the time the Abbe was overtaken, the 
 papers he had left in Paris had been destroyed 
 by his prudent friend. 
 
 At the news of the arrest of the Spanish 
 Ambassador, the Chevalier du Menil, who was 
 very suspicious of the documents confided to him, 
 took it upon himself to violate the secrecy of 
 the Abbe's "family papers." He found, as he 
 had expected, that very few of the documents 
 answered to that description, whereupon he did 
 not hesitate to burn the rest. The conflagration 
 thus produced had hardly subsided, when the 
 Chevalier du Menil was ordered to appear before 
 Cardinal Dubois, the Regent's minister; cross- 
 examined as to his relations with the Abbe 
 Brigaut, Monsieur du Menil answered, in strict 
 accordance with the truth, that the Abbe had never 
 spoken to him of this fatal business ; never losing 
 his presence of mind, he appeared at last to be 
 
' : ^ t x >Av//?/^fity/ t - 
 
 GUILLAUME, CARDINAL DUBOIS. 
 
 fo face /. 144. 
 
FAMILY PAPERS RANSACKED 145 
 
 yielding to the force of much persuasion, and made 
 an " ingenuous confession " to the effect that he 
 did have at his house some papers entrusted to 
 him by the Abbe. The papers were fetched and 
 the light of innocence seemed to shine more and 
 more over the incident when the carefully-con- 
 structed plan was ruined by the Abbe himself. On 
 being told that his papers were in the hands of the 
 Regent, he exclaimed : " Then all details must be 
 known, question me no more, fcr every point of 
 the business was stated in those papers ! " Two 
 days later Monsieur du Menil was in the Bastille. 
 Each morning brought tidings of a new arrest, 
 and Monsieur and Madame du Maine lived in 
 hourly expectation of a royal warrant against their 
 persons. The measures which the Regent was 
 taking to justify his treatment of the affair pointed 
 to an even more rigorous intervention of the law, 
 in case of future inculpations. Copies of two 
 letters written by Cellamare to the Spanish 
 minister, Cardinal Alberoni, were put into public 
 circulation, and were headed by the following 
 declaration from the Regent : 
 
 " In order that the public may be informed 
 upon what foundation is based the resolution taken 
 by his Majesty the King on the 9th instant, namely, 
 the dismissal of Prince Cellamare, ambassador of 
 the Court of Spain, and the decree that he should 
 be accompanied as far as the Spanish frontier by 
 
146 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 one of the gentlemen of his suite, we have com- 
 manded to be printed a copy of two letters of 
 the said ambassador to his Eminence, Cardinal 
 Alberoni, written on the first and on the second 
 day of this month, signed by the said ambassador 
 and written throughout in his own hand, without 
 the use of any cipher." 
 
 An ominous note of warning ran all through 
 the paragraph which followed the text of the two 
 letters : 
 
 " When the service of the King and the necessary 
 precautions to be taken for the safety of the 
 State will permit the publication of the plans, 
 manifestos, and memoirs quoted in these two 
 letters, then will be brought to light all the circum- 
 stances of the detestable conspiracy set afoot by 
 the said ambassador for the purpose of causing a 
 revolution in the kingdom." 
 
 From this declaration it was clear that the 
 diverse ramifications of the plot known in history 
 as " Cellamare's conspiracy " would be considered 
 entirely homogeneous with their root, namely, 
 the plan to foster the general discontent then 
 prevalent in France, for the purpose of over- 
 throwing the Regent and strengthening the Spanish 
 influence. Viewed in this light, the dealings of all 
 those implicated would bear the character of high 
 treason and be dealt with accordingly. 
 
 For a time it seemed as if Madame du Maine 
 
CELLAMARE'S CONSPIRACY 147 
 
 would prove herself a true grand - daughter of 
 the Grand Conde. Her spirit rose with the 
 approach of danger, and her dauntlessness inspired 
 all those around her. In reality it was her innate 
 sense of the dramatic which was revelling in the 
 proportions of the approaching tragedy. Never 
 had her most ambitious productions on the stage 
 of Sceaux afforded her a leading part of such 
 magnitude ! This portentous time of waiting was 
 truly one of those psychological crises worthy 
 of the choice of a Corneille, or a Racine, and there 
 came a night which the Duchesse deemed just the 
 one to figure as the culminating point, as a kind 
 of third act in a classical tragedy ! 
 
 In the evening a secret warning had been sent 
 by the Marquise de Lambert that the arrest was 
 imminent. Madame du Maine assembled around 
 her all those whom she considered worthy to 
 figure in the great scene; the younger Monsieur 
 de Malezieu was there, endeavouring to find the 
 noble answer to the high-minded tirade of the 
 heroine; the Chevalier de Gavaudun was there 
 with his polished repartees ; and Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, in her usual role of the classical 
 confidente, listened politely to each one in turn. 
 A few others were there besides, but Monsieur 
 le Due du Maine was not amongst them. He 
 had acknowledged his inability to hold his own 
 in this dramatic performance, and had retired to 
 
148 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 Sceaux, where he was awaiting his fate more or 
 less ingloriously. As a climax, the night was a 
 failure, for it wore on and the day broke and 
 nothing happened. At last the weary actors 
 retired one by one, and no one remained with 
 the exhausted heroine, who had thrown herself 
 on her bed, except her faithful confidente, 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, who now turned to that 
 part of her role which was most familiar to her, 
 and took up a book in order to put her mistress 
 to sleep. The book happened to be Machiavelli's 
 " Decades," marked at the chapter called " Con- 
 spiracies." She showed it to the Duchesse who 
 exclaimed with a burst of laughter : " For heaven's 
 sake put away this evidence against us as fast as 
 you can, it would be of the most damning nature." 
 Four or five days went by without bringing 
 any change ; Madame du Maine, having a great 
 deal of leisure, and being unable to devote it to 
 anything but the great care of the moment, had 
 undertaken to write a defence of her acts, which 
 she meant to entrust to her mother, Madame la 
 Princesse, and in which she put great confidence. 
 Before she could finish this piece of eloquence, 
 however, she was arrested. 
 
 " Madame la Duchesse having spent the greater 
 part of the night writing her apology and talking 
 to me about it, went to sleep about six o'clock 
 and I retired. I was just beginning to doze, when 
 
THE DUCHESSE'S APOLOGIA 149 
 
 I heard my door, which was kept on the latch, 
 suddenly open. I thought that Madame la 
 Duchesse was sending for me, and I said half 
 in a dream: 'Who is it?' An unknown voice 
 answered : ' In the service of the King.' Then 
 I understood the position. I was bidden in a 
 rather uncivil manner to get up at once. I 
 obeyed without speaking. It was on the 29th 
 of December and still very dark. The people 
 who had entered my room had come without a 
 light ; they went to fetch one, and I could then 
 distinguish an officer of the Guards and two 
 musketeers. The officer read out to me an order 
 which enjoined him to keep a close watch upon 
 me. 
 
 " Meanwhile I proceeded to dress and asked 
 for my maid, whose room was some little distance 
 from mine, but they would not allow her to 
 come. The whole house was filled with guards 
 and musketeers, and no one could move about any- 
 where ; she tried several times to force a passage 
 through the soldiers, but was always driven back. 
 I was in a state of horrible anxiety as to what 
 was happening in Madame la Duchesse du Maine's 
 apartments, for I did not doubt that she was 
 being arrested at the same time, and surmised 
 rightly that they would not let me know any- 
 thing about it. I learned later on that the Due 
 de Bethune, captain of the guards, accompanied 
 by Monsieur de la Billarderie, lieutenant of the 
 King's body guard, had brought her the King's 
 order for her imprisonment, to which she had 
 submitted without any resistance. La Billarderie 
 
 K 2 
 
150 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 asked the woman who was sleeping in Madame 
 la Duchesse du Maine's room whether she was 
 not the Demoiselle Delaunay. She denied it with 
 great determination, feeling no desire, for the time 
 being, to undergo the treatment destined to me. 
 
 " I remained alone with my three guards from 
 seven until eleven o'clock that morning, without 
 knowing anything of what was going on outside 
 my room ; I asked one of them with whom I 
 affected to converse light-heartedly if I should 
 not accompany Madame du Maine in the event 
 of her being moved to some other residence. He 
 assured me that she would not be denied any- 
 thing that she might wish to request. This hope 
 was gratifying, but I did not enjoy it long; 
 another guard came in soon to announce that 
 the Duchesse had gone, and that now I could be 
 left with one musketeer. . . ." 
 
 If the Regent's police agents had demurred 
 for a time, they were all the more active on 
 that 29th day of December 1718. The younger 
 Monsieur de Malezieu, the Chevalier de Gavaudun, 
 Mademoiselle de Montauban were arrested with 
 Madame du Maine at her Paris residence, and 
 also two footmen, four grooms, and two chamber- 
 maids. 
 
 The same fate was at the same time overtaking 
 the Due du Maine and the elder Monsieur de 
 Malezieu at Sceaux. While the papers were 
 being examined and sifted in their presence, the 
 
POLICE ACTIVITY 151 
 
 King's officer suddenly came upon the long lost 
 copy of the letter which had so far eluded all 
 researches. Monsieur de Malezieu was the first 
 to spy it, as it lay hidden between the folds of 
 his son's marriage contract, and with a violence 
 born of a long-standing grudge, he pounced upon 
 the refractory document and tore it to pieces. 
 The officer seems to have been prepared for such 
 emergencies ; without a word of remonstrance he 
 picked up the fragments, and later on they were 
 pieced together into a very conclusive evidence. 
 As the weary day of the arrest wore on, 
 Madame du Maine's stoicism forsook her. She 
 had never imagined for one instant that the 
 Regent could forget the honours due to her 
 rank and her person; her gloomiest visions of 
 imprisonment had shown her nothing worse than 
 some distant royal residence and a momentary 
 seclusion in the company of a suitable household. 
 When she learned that she was being taken to 
 the fortress of Dijon, her indignation knew no 
 bounds, and the thought that her prison was in 
 Burgundy, the province governed by Monsieur 
 le Due, her arch-enemy, threw her into a frenzy 
 of despair. If we are to believe the rather 
 spiteful pen of Madame, the Regent's mother, 
 " she nearly choked with rage," and fell tooth 
 arid nail upon her escort, among others upon 
 poor La Billarderie, a man who suffered from 
 
152 HUMILIATION OF THE MAINES 
 
 deplorable tender-heartedness, and who was deeply 
 affected by the harrowing sight of a great princess' 
 misfortunes. 
 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay was left in her room, 
 all day in company with her musketeer, whilst the 
 house was being searched for further evidence. 
 
 The police was disappointed, nothing was 
 found over which Madame du Maine's enemies 
 could have rejoiced except, according to Madame, 
 the Regent's mother, some letters from the 
 Cardinal de Polignac, which were evidently not 
 meant for publication. The answers to these 
 were seized among the Cardinal's papers, and 
 Madame triumphantly quotes a passage from 
 one which, she says, makes her "burst into 
 peals of laughter, in spite of her sadness ! " 
 
 About seven o'clock at night the police had 
 completed its business at Madame du Maine's 
 house, and Mademoiselle Delaunay was invited 
 to get into a coach, guarded by three musketeers. 
 
 " I had an idea," she says, " that the drive 
 would not be a long one, and that I was being- 
 taken to the Bastille : in fact I soon arrived there. 
 They made me alight at the end of a small bridge, 
 where I was met by the Governor. After having 
 entered the prison, I was kept for a while behind 
 the door, because of the arrival of some of our party, 
 whom I was not allowed to see. I understood 
 nothing of all these ceremonies ! When the 
 
ARRIVAL AT THE BASTILLE 153 
 
 prisoners in question had been safely put into their 
 respective niches, the Governor came to fetch me 
 and led me to mine. I had to cross more bridges, 
 when one could hear a clanking of chains which 
 produced anything but an agreeable harmony, and 
 at last I arrived in a big room with four dirty 
 bare walls, all scribbled over by my predecessors. 
 It was so utterly devoid of furniture, that some 
 one had to go and fetch me a stool to sit on, two 
 stones were brought in to support a lighted fagot, 
 and a small end of a candle was fastened neatly 
 into the wall to give me some light. All these 
 luxuries having been provided for me, the 
 Governor retired, and I heard the grating of five 
 or six heavy keys, and of quite double that amount 
 of bolts." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REGENCY 
 
 THE licence and disorder which characterised the 
 first years after Louis XIV. 's death were a direct 
 challenge to conspirators. The Regent, who had 
 won his power by an act of intimidation, only 
 kept it by virtue of the disunion existing among 
 rival factions. It was therefore his interest to 
 foment dissensions and to let conspiracies thrive 
 for a time. They thrived apace, each based more 
 or less on the probable death of the little 
 King. Philip V. of Spain, in spite of renuncia- 
 tion acts, was ready to forsake his kingdom 
 at any time, in order to seize the crown of 
 France ; he would also willingly have snatched 
 at the slightest chance to wrest the Regency 
 from the Due d'Orleans, and had already made 
 all necessary plans for establishing a vicarious 
 government in Spain during his absence. The 
 Condes, hereditary rivals of the House of Orleans, 
 upheld this plan secretly. 
 
 The Due du Maine went on dreaming his 
 154 
 
POMP AND DISPLAY 155 
 
 ambitious dreams, and devoted a considerable 
 amount of his colossal fortune to the buying of 
 influential members in Parliament. If the choice 
 had to lie between Philip V. and the Due 
 d'Orldans, he would, of course, uphold the former, 
 but he would have preferred to use Spain for his 
 own ends, and he was scheming accordingly. 
 England, who, since the death of the Austrian 
 emperor in 1711, had feared Austrian pretensions 
 to the throne of Spain far more than French 
 usurpations, was seeking an alliance with the 
 Regent. Lord Stair, British ambassador to the 
 Court of France, was endeavouring to persuade 
 the Due d'Orleans that in the event of his 
 ascending the throne, his position would be very 
 similar to that of George I., usurper of the Stuart 
 rights, and on that basis he advised an alliance. 
 
 The Regent's natural nonchalance prevented 
 him from deciding upon any definite course. He 
 had "all the gifts except that of making use of 
 them," as his shrewd mother had once said of 
 him, and now he was letting things go, and 
 allowing the direction of affairs to slip more and 
 more into the hands of a low intriguer who had 
 the soul of a flunkey and the manners of a bully. 
 The Abbe Dubois, former tutor of the Due 
 d'Orleans and his future prime minister, was 
 beginning to cast his sinister shadow over the affairs 
 of France. His tyranny, however, was not felt 
 
156 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REGENCY 
 
 yet; neither was the Regent's authority, and 
 Duclos aptly expresses the situation when he 
 says that "all felt that they could regulate their 
 rights according to their pretensions." Not the 
 least among these was the Duchesse de Berry, 
 the Regent's daughter, a reckless, impetuous 
 creature whom he idolised. She had trembled 
 before the King " elle avait rampe devant 
 Mademoiselle de Maintenon," as some Memoirs 
 of the time express it but now she had her 
 revenge, and broke loose from all restraint. 
 
 The extravagance of her caprices kept Paris 
 in a perpetual state of surprise and indignation. 
 Now she demanded a special bodyguard, and, 
 accompanied by it, she paraded the streets of 
 Paris heralded by the sound of trumpets; now 
 she had a royal canopy erected over her seat at 
 the Opera, or at the Theatre Francais she placed 
 four members of her bodyguard upon the stage, 
 and four in the parterre. 
 
 At the hue and cry raised by each of these 
 experiments in royal display, the Regent's authority 
 had to intervene and forbid, but his was only a half- 
 hearted repression. He had a passionate admira- 
 tion for his daughter's daring and inexhaustible 
 vitality ; she was the only woman who could keep 
 abreast of him in his breathless race for pleasures, 
 and he associated her more and more with his 
 revels. So notorious were these that even to the 
 
A TURNING POINT 157 
 
 Court of those days, the situation seemed inde- 
 fensible, and ugly whispers, suggesting the 
 worst, began to be heard. The Regent did not 
 hear them, however, or if he did, he did not 
 heed. 
 
 A new fever had seized Paris ; the country had 
 stood at the edge of an abyss national bankruptcy, 
 but had been saved as by a miracle. Law had 
 arrived upon the scene with his " system " ; his 
 scheme of salvation had been adopted, and Law's 
 system of paper money was now in full swing. 
 The gambling fever was upon all ; it was spread- 
 ing like a devastating fire, and within its grasp 
 measures of prudence were as blades of grass in 
 the whirl of a tempest. Fortunes were made 
 and lost in one day. Even then, though but 
 few suspected it, one third at least of the paper 
 money in circulation was utterly worthless, yet 
 the issue of notes continued, and no one who 
 was responsible for this cared or dared to think 
 of the crash which must inevitably follow. 
 
 The Regent cared least of all ; for years past he 
 had squandered his strength with reckless dissipa- 
 tion, now his excesses were beginning to tell at 
 last ; his vitality was drained to its lowest ebb. 
 After one of his nightly revels, he would often sink 
 into a torpor which hung like a dense fog between 
 him and necessary resolutions. He would then 
 yield without any volition of his own to any 
 
158 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REGENCY 
 
 pressure put upon him. He granted favours to 
 friends and enemies alike, so that his bounties 
 soon sank as low in value as any of Law's paper 
 money; and in the presence of such weakness, 
 people began to regret the violation of the late 
 King's will. 
 
 It was a favourable time for an attempt at 
 overthrowing the Government ; the Due and 
 Duchesse du Maine had chosen their hour well, 
 and but for the fact that Madame du Maine 
 was decidedly not a politician, the whole fate of 
 France might have been turned in that very 
 year 1718. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AT THE BASTILLE 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DELAUNAY'S imprisonment was to 
 last eighteen months, and it was merciful that the 
 luxury of knowing that beforehand could not be 
 added to those other " comforts " which marked 
 her first hour in the Bastille. In spite of a state 
 of despondency which was natural enough, she 
 soon discovered that solitude has some inherent 
 advantages. "I found more liberty than I had 
 left behind me," she says. " It is true that 
 in a prison one cannot please oneself, but on 
 the other hand one need not please any one 
 else." On the whole her lot was very bearable, 
 and hardly in keeping with the traditional ideas 
 about the horrors of the Bastille. She had crossed 
 its threshold with the natural fears inspired by 
 the gruesome tales she had heard about it ; with 
 a sickening terror she had listened for hours to 
 an awful grinding sound which rose from some 
 unknown regions just below her room, and which 
 she attributed to the working of some instrument 
 
 of torture. She was steeling herself to encounter 
 
 159 
 
160 AT THE BASTILLE 
 
 this nerve-racking horror, when, through a chance 
 remark of her gaoler, she discovered that it was 
 nothing more formidable than the turning of 
 the spit in the kitchen below. 
 
 Quite tolerable meals were sent up from 
 that homely quarter of the prison ; they were 
 served in a room which now seemed palatial, 
 after the addition of a bed, an armchair, two 
 chairs, a table, and a jug and basin. Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay was not alone, she had been allowed 
 to take her maid, the " faithful Rondel," with her. 
 They played cards together, or while the mistress 
 feasted on some odd volumes of " Cleopatre," the 
 only literature provided for her, the maid amused 
 herself by holding a washing day in the hand 
 basin. Nor were these their only pastimes ; the 
 two women obtained from the authorities the per- 
 mission to keep a cat, to frighten away the mice 
 and rats, and after having been obliged much 
 against their will to witness the antics of the 
 mice, they could one day amuse themselves with 
 looking on at the gambols of a family of kittens ! 
 
 After a while Mademoiselle Delaunay was 
 allowed the use of paper and ink ; the sheets of 
 paper were carefully counted, and, as they had 
 to be handed back to the Governor, the choice 
 of subjects she could treat was limited ; but 
 that did not discourage the author, and she 
 edified herself and the Governor with " Moral 
 
PHILIPPE, DUG D'ORLEANS, 
 REGENT : 1715-1723 
 
 To face p. 160. 
 
FRIENDS IN NEED 161 
 
 Considerations on the Book of Ecclesiastes ! " 
 Her friends outside had shown that they did 
 not forget her, and this may have helped her 
 to dwell with equanimity on the discouraging 
 pessimism of King Solomon. A few weeks after 
 her incarceration the Governor entered her room, 
 holding in his hand a purse full of gold, and 
 followed by a man who was carrying a bulky 
 bundle. The bundle contained the prisoner's 
 clothes sent by Monsieur de Valincourt ; the purse 
 was one which she had once worked for that 
 faithful friend and which he was now returning 
 well filled. The generous giver did not stop at 
 that ; he obtained from the Ministers the per- 
 mission to send in every week, a large open 
 sheet, one side of which was filled with enquiries 
 as to all possible wants of the prisoner ; on the 
 opposite side, the Governor wrote down the " yes " 
 or "no " which Mademoiselle Delaunay answered 
 in his presence to each point of interrogation. 
 
 For some time neither mistress nor maid could 
 discover which of the Sceaux conspirators had been 
 brought to the Bastille after them, although Rondel, 
 the only one of the two who possessed " a pair of 
 eyes useful for distances," was very vigilant at her 
 post of observation, a tiny grated window high up 
 in the wall and looking over the entrance court. 
 From there she gave her mistress a detailed 
 report of all newcomers. At last one day 
 
162 AT THE BASTILLE 
 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay recognised from her maid's 
 description the strange couple with whom she had 
 been " bidden to still stranger feasts." The Abbe 
 Lecamus and his famished countess had had the 
 honour of being arrested for their " political 
 offences," and were no doubt reckoning with a 
 fair degree of satisfaction the number of days 
 during which they might hope to satisfy their 
 hunger at the expense of the Government. 
 
 The Marquis de Pompadour was seen to arrive 
 soon after, with the escort due to his rank, and 
 was safely put behind lock and key ; but there was 
 no sign yet of the Comte de Laval. At last, 
 Rondel exclaimed one morning : " Here is the man 
 with the muzzle." The prisoners' list of the " Spanish 
 conspirators " was now complete, and contained even 
 some " supernumeraries " ; men who had had no 
 direct connection either with Sceaux or Cellamare, 
 but who were accused of private dealings with 
 Spain. Among them was the Due de Richelieu, 
 who was gaily adding to the number of his 
 seances at the Bastille, the first of which, when 
 he was barely eighteen, had won him much admira- 
 tion from his contemporaries. There were others 
 imprisoned, less gay than he, amongst them a 
 certain Marquis de Bourdon, an old country squire, 
 plunged in a state of stupor from which he seemed 
 unable to emerge. A letter signed by him, full of 
 the most ardent protestations of loyalty and of the 
 
CROSS-EXAMINATION 163 
 
 most generous offers of help had been found among 
 the Due du Maine's papers. He was arrested, 
 brought to Paris, and cross-examined ; his judges 
 enquired how he had conceived this strong attach- 
 ment for the Due du Maine. " I do not know him," 
 he replied ; " I have never seen him, or His Royal 
 Highness either." "Why, then," proceeded the 
 enquiry, " did you devote yourself entirely to the 
 interests of this Prince, to the prejudice of those 
 of the Regent." " Just as one takes sides for one 
 player, rather than for another, without knowing 
 why," was the reply, and no further explanation could 
 ever be extracted from this unfortunate sportsman. 
 
 The cross-examination of the prisoners had 
 been entrusted to Messieurs d'Argenson and 
 Leblanc. The famous Keeper of the Seals found 
 it very difficult on this occasion to uphold his 
 reputation for irresistible eloquence and infallible 
 discrimination. Except for the Abbe Brigaut, who 
 gave all the details asked of him and a great 
 many more in addition, and who was disconcerting 
 through his very loquacity, all the prisoners pre- 
 served a dogged silence or succeeded in giving a 
 most aggravating air of candour to their declara- 
 tions of innocence. 
 
 Many times the judges had to return to 
 the Bastille, and, by means of Rondel's eyes, 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay watched them as they 
 crossed the entrance court. They were sometimes 
 
164 AT THE BASTILLE 
 
 accompanied by the notorious Abbe Dubois, and 
 then " one might have fancied indeed that one was 
 looking at Minos, JEacus, and Rhadamanthus ! " 
 she exclaims. The two women who had, after 
 the manner of most prisoners, developed to its 
 utmost the detective instinct which gives a mean- 
 ing to the smallest trifle, always knew of the 
 judges' arrival beforehand, by the smoke which 
 filtered through the floor and which betrayed the 
 fact that the fire was being lighted in the great 
 hall, which served for the cross-examination. 
 The Abbe Dubois, though all-powerful at Court, 
 was not admitted into the judgment room ; his 
 reputation for being "a madman who attacked 
 everybody," his propensity for hurling people down 
 stairs before they had had time to speak, made it 
 probable that his presence would be a hindrance 
 in the path of justice. During the legal proceed- 
 ings he was often seen pacing up and down the 
 inner courts of the Bastille, his thin, pointed foxy 
 face distorted by impotent rage at the lengthiness 
 of the sittings, and his halting voice, hoarse from 
 continual swearing, raised to the highest pitch of 
 violent altercation, as he attacked the Governor 
 of the Bastille on the subject of the prisoners' 
 insubordination. 
 
 Whenever a legal interview was taking place 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay lay with her ear glued to 
 the floor, straining every nerve to catch at the 
 
DIVERS WITNESSES 165 
 
 meaning of what was going on below. She knew 
 who was being cross-examined, as the prisoners 
 could be seen walking across the court which led 
 to the judgment room, and although no distinct 
 words reached her, she could guess the character 
 of the interview, as the voices rose or sank. 
 Among all those who appeared before the judges, 
 the best equipped for resistance, the best qualified 
 by experience and lightheartedness, was the Due de 
 Richelieu. After seeing all their best methods 
 fail, d'Argenson and Leblanc tried to defeat him 
 with his own arms, and confronted him with forged 
 letters supposed to come from a princess who was 
 not insensible to his passion. Even that was of 
 no avail ; but love, which had not succeeded in 
 causing him to make a political slip, was strong 
 enough to procure him his liberty, after a com- 
 paratively short time. The name of the person at 
 whose bidding his prison door opened was whispered 
 abroad, and it was not the name of the Regent. 
 
 The Abbe Brigaut was a more satisfactory 
 subject for examination ; every day he would find 
 new reasons for unburdening his soul, and then 
 justify this Christian duty to himself in edifying 
 letters addressed to the relatives of those he had 
 accused. The Marquis de Pompadour, on the other 
 hand, preserved an unexpected silence, and he might 
 perhaps have proved a hero after all had not his 
 colleague, the Comte de Laval, been arrested at 
 
 L2 
 
166 AT THE BASTILLE 
 
 last. The judges, working on the probabilities 
 suggested by the close partnership of the two men, 
 carried to one declarations supposed to have come 
 from the other, and by this stratagem brought 
 about the defection of the poor Marquis. It was 
 then that he made what he called his " ingenuous " 
 confession. He talked fast and long, and in his 
 anxiety to omit nothing of what he knew, he 
 mentioned among other things the fact that 
 " Madame du Maine interrupted any political 
 discussion as soon as the Due du Maine appeared." 
 This detail did not seem to gratify the judges, who 
 called his attention to the fact that he had not been 
 asked to write an apology of the Due du Maine ; 
 in short, these equitable men begged him to retract 
 his injudicious remark ! He complied with alacrity ; 
 there was nothing forthwith that he could refuse to 
 those in power over him, and so it was only just 
 that he should be rewarded, in due time, with a 
 sum of 40,000 livres, which he pocketed most 
 readily. 
 
 Monsieur de Laval stood firmly by his oath 
 " not to mention any one's name," but, his friend 
 having quoted all those which it was possible to 
 quote, his steadfastness was a useless sacrifice. 
 His spirit remained firm nevertheless : and to 
 keep the flesh from weakness he demanded that 
 he should have medical attention at least twice 
 a day. The chemist's bills for the Bastille 
 
SUCCESSFUL VERBAL FENCING 167 
 
 lengthened considerably under his patronage, and 
 the Regent, who entered into every detail which 
 concerned the prisoners, was one day perusing 
 these bills with the Abbe Dubois. The latter 
 remonstrated at the frequency of some of the 
 remedies administered, but the Due d'Orleans 
 said, with a humorous smile : " Abbe\ as these 
 are the only pleasures they have, do not let us 
 curtail them." 
 
 Among the many checks experienced by 
 Messieurs d'Argenson and Leblanc, none were 
 more aggravating than those which resulted from 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay's method of answering. 
 Agility was the very essence of her mind. She 
 knew how to elude a question, while seeming to 
 answer it in the most straightforward manner, 
 and she was not burdened by the conscientious 
 scruples of an Abbe Brigaut ; on the contrary, 
 she was convinced that "the paths of deceit are 
 always allowed to those who are deprived of the 
 natural rights of society." She knew that it is 
 always possible so to divide light and shade that 
 those features become salient which one wishes to 
 stand out, and it cost her no struggle to decide at 
 the beginning of each interview that she would 
 " only tell what she chose." Moreover, she was 
 saved from any harrowing grief over the fate of 
 the House of Maine by the conviction that 
 " Princes always manage to get out of their 
 
168 AT THE BASTILLE 
 
 difficulties." Three weeks elapsed before her first 
 interrogatory took place. She had had plenty 
 of time to prepare herself, and declares that she 
 might have filled a volume with the answers 
 thought out beforehand. None served her, it 
 seems ; the simplicity of the first questions baffled 
 her, and she says with one of her favourite 
 authors: "J'avais reponse a tout, hormis a qui 
 va la!" 
 
 A later interview with her judges afforded 
 her more scope for the practice of her theories. 
 On that occasion the aggravating serenity of 
 the prisoner decoyed the lawyer into a quite 
 unprofessional fit of temper. "You know the 
 whole business," he exclaimed, " and we are 
 determined that you shall speak, or else you will 
 remain in the Bastille for life." "Sir," said 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, "this might certainly 
 be a provision worth considering for a spinster 
 like me." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LOVE AND TREACHERY WITHIN PRISON WALLS 
 
 AN indefinite stay in the Bastille would, in 
 truth, not have seemed a deplorable fate to 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay. Her material comforts 
 had increased from month to month ; to keep 
 up her health and her spirits there were walks 
 in the courts and on the ramparts of the prison, 
 there were cheerful dinners followed by sociable 
 " coffee " in the Governor's apartments, or in the 
 room of one or the other of the prisoners. News 
 from the outside world began also by degrees 
 to filter through the prison walls, and were all 
 the more valued because of their scarcity ; they 
 were collected carefully, "shared equally, like 
 the booty of brigands, and feasted upon in 
 the common den." After the first winter 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay's room had been done 
 up and furnished by the business agents of 
 Monsieur du Maine. It looked very habitable, 
 and its occupier specially appreciated the un- 
 accustomed luxury of a mantel-piece where she 
 
 could "put down a book or a snuff-box." The 
 
 169 
 
170 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 room was so attractive that it had soon become 
 the favourite meeting - place of the community, 
 to the secret annoyance of its mistress, who was 
 gradually succumbing to an enchanting dream 
 of happiness, in which one person only did not 
 seem an intruder. 
 
 The Chevalier du Menil, handsome, generous, 
 noble - minded to all appearance, loved her, or 
 at least seemed to love her, and she believed in 
 his whole-heartedness, and was supremely happy 
 in her love for him. Monsieur de Maisonrouge, 
 a blunt, rough soldier in appearance, and a high- 
 minded, unselfish friend in reality, loved her also, 
 and though she did not love him, she made use 
 of him to increase her happiness, for he was the 
 officer in charge, and ever ready to grant her 
 slightest wishes, if it were in his power. 
 
 Monsieur de Maisonrouge, having his own 
 simple conception of the feminine species, had first 
 offered a stout resistance to the Governor's sug- 
 gestion that he should go and see Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay and Mademoiselle de Montauban, the 
 only two women of note whom the Sceaux 
 conspiracy had brought to the Bastille. "What 
 would you have me say to these perouelles" he 
 had objected, " who will do nothing but scream 
 and weep ? " He was assured that they were 
 not at all as desperate as he imagined, and 
 he reluctantly went to see them. The bear was 
 
MONSIEUR DE MAISONROUGE 171 
 
 tamed ; he left Mademoiselle Delaunay's room 
 completely subjugated, and from that day 
 onwards he paid her most gallant attentions, 
 striving manfully to keep up with what he felt 
 to be her very dazzling conversation except on 
 the occasions when she happened to speak on the 
 side of his deaf ear for he had been much too 
 shy to confess to her this infirmity! Through 
 his efforts, all kinds of little favours were given 
 to Mademoiselle Delaunay ; she felt his devotion 
 surrounding her on all sides. 
 
 " He is the only man," she says of him, " by 
 whom I have felt that I was truly loved, although 
 it has happened to me, as it does to all women, to 
 find several men who have shown me love. This one 
 said nothing about his feelings, and I think I knew 
 of them long before he did. He was so preoccupied 
 with the thought of me that he spoke of nothing 
 else. I was the only subject of his conversations 
 with all the prisoners whom he went to see ; and 
 he was simple-minded enough to think that it 
 was they who constantly spoke of me to him. He 
 came back to me, quite delighted with the pre- 
 tended esteem in which all held me. 'It is 
 astonishing,' he used to say to me, * how they all 
 admire you, and how much everybody here is 
 interested in you ; they speak of you constantly, 
 and I can go nowhere without hearing your 
 praises.' This became true later on, when they 
 had noticed the extreme pleasure which it gave 
 him. Being dependent on people produces 
 
172 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 flattery ; captives make use of it towards their 
 gaolers as courtiers do towards their sovereigns. 
 Once the weak point of De Maisonrouge had 
 been discovered, people under him bethought 
 themselves of winning his goodwill through 
 pandering to his weakness. Some began to 
 send me refreshments, others amusing books ; all 
 of them, according to their power, paid me some 
 sort of homage which always passed through 
 him." 
 
 It was thus also that the Chevalier de Menil 
 came into Mademoiselle Delaunay's life. 
 
 " He took advantage," she says in her Memoirs, 
 "of a dream which he had had, or pretended to 
 have had, in order to pay his court to his master. 
 He said to him one day that the night before 
 he had dreamed that his sentence had been 
 passed it was indeed a prisoner's dream and 
 that he had been condemned to the Bastille for 
 life, in company with me, however, who was 
 never to leave prison either and that this 
 circumstance had made up to him for the 
 severity of the judgment. This seemed to 
 Maisonrouge to be flattering for me, coming 
 from one who had never seen me, and the 
 prospect of keeping me under his supervision 
 for ever did not displease him either. He came 
 to me at once to regale me with this tale, and 
 1 don't know why I paid more attention to it 
 than I usually did to similar things which he 
 was accustomed to say to me." 
 
THE CHEVALIER DE MENIL 173 
 
 By the law of premonitions this acquaintance 
 which had hardly begun was destined to be of 
 some significance, and indeed it grew quickly 
 into an intimacy. Simple, good-natured De 
 Maisonrouge helped it as much as lay in his 
 power, unaware as yet that he was helping to 
 prepare for the breaking of his own kind heart 
 in the very near future. 
 
 " He went," as the Memoirs say, " to see De 
 Menil, and the latter having mentioned verses in 
 the course of conversation. ' You ought to write 
 some,' he said to him, 'just to amuse your 
 neighbour.' His room was opposite mine. ' That 
 is all very well,' said De Menil, ' but how ? I have 
 neither paper nor pen.' ' If that is the only 
 difficulty,' rejoined the lieutenant, ' here is a pencil 
 and some paper, you have but to write.' He 
 wrote some verses composed very hastily on a 
 scrap of paper which Maisonrouge brought me, 
 delighted to have procured this new diversion for 
 me. ' To make it still better,' he said to me, 
 'answer in the same vein, I shall give you what 
 you want to write with.' This beginning of 
 an adventure pleased me immensely. I was 
 very grateful to the King's lieutenant for his 
 kindness. Upon my answer came another the 
 next day, to which I was again asked to 
 reply. Maisonrouge, seeing nothing in this joke 
 which could be of any concern to the King 
 or the State, and perceiving that I took great 
 pleasure in it, encouraged us to go on, and 
 
174 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 we were delighted to do so. Our poetry, though 
 it was mere doggerel, did not always flow very 
 easily ; I insinuated that prose, being easier to 
 write, would be more agreeable. The lieutenant 
 gave his consent to that also, in the kindness of 
 his heart, and every day he brought an open 
 letter and carried back my answer." 
 
 If De Maisonrouge had at that time been 
 capable of logical thinking, he would have 
 remembered that he who gives his little finger 
 will soon have to give his whole arm ; and so 
 it happened to him without delay. De Menil 
 began to feel that correspondence was insufficient 
 and that conversation would be more satisfactory, 
 and though Mademoiselle Delaunay, from more 
 or less romantic reasons, was opposed to it, an 
 interview was arranged. 
 
 " Menil was very curious to see me," we read 
 in the Memoirs. "He spoke of it from time to 
 time in his letters. I persisted in my opinion 
 that the charm of our adventure lay in our 
 never having seen each other, that in losing this 
 advantage, it would become commonplace, far 
 less piquant, and that our relations would become 
 strained. In spite of these wise representations, 
 his request for an interview became more and 
 more pressing. At last De Maisonrouge showed 
 us to each other by placing us each on our own 
 doorstep. We both felt rather abashed, perhaps 
 from the fact that we felt we must now come 
 
TONGUE - TIED 175 
 
 down in our expectations. We said nothing to 
 each other such was the agreement made and, 
 after a few minutes, we both disappeared. The 
 letters which followed this 'apparition' betrayed 
 the harm it had done to our prestige. I noticed 
 it. It provided me with some new subjects for 
 pleasantry; we had exhausted all that could be 
 made out of our first relations ! 
 
 " Prisoners, however, are not people to get easily 
 discouraged. The Chevalier, thinking that a con- 
 versation would be more resourceful than this 
 mere glimpse of one another, represented to the 
 lieutenant that the favour he had granted was 
 too small, that this could not be called seeing 
 each other, that getting acquainted meant to 
 talk to one another; at last he wrung from him 
 that supreme favour. The lieutenant brought him 
 to my room one evening. I had gone to bed, 
 and in order not to hinder our conversation, he 
 left him standing at my pillow and went to the 
 further end of the room to talk to Mademoiselle 
 Rondel. Renewed embarrassment took hold of 
 us. The Chevalier, like Tonquin d'Armorique, 
 who, after he had found his love, did not know 
 what in the world to say to her, found nothing 
 to say to me. We had no more reason to be 
 satisfied with each other, on further acquaint- 
 ance, than we had been when we had first met. 
 Maisonrouge, noticing that our conversation 
 dragged, came forward to help it on. It went 
 a little better with him; but was altogether so 
 short that we hardly had time to realise each 
 other." 
 
176 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 The romance was in danger of flagging; 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay revived its fire by means 
 of a little feminine ruse. Whitsuntide was 
 approaching, and she pretended that whilst pre- 
 paring for it, she must give up all worldly 
 diversions and, amongst them, her correspon- 
 dence. This plan did not meet with as much 
 objection as she had hoped. 
 
 "I was extremely piqued," she owns, "by the 
 small resistance offered to my decision, and this 
 feeling, out of all proportion to its cause, made 
 me fear the existence of an even more serious 
 sentiment. This apprehension, added to my pique, 
 helped me to keep to my decision. The faithful 
 Maisonrouge still remained to me, more assiduous, 
 more attached and less favoured than ever." 
 
 Indeed, after Whitsuntide was over, he even 
 tried to make up for past renunciations by pro- 
 posing that the Chevalier and Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay should breakfast together. 
 
 " We took tea together," she says, " with a certain 
 air of unconcern. Soon after that De Menil dis- 
 covered a way of unlocking his own door, so that 
 interviews could take place even without De 
 Maisonrouge's intervention, and while he was 
 having supper with the Governor of the Bastille, 
 innocent of any suspicion, conversations could be 
 carried on in peace until the clanking of the sentinel's 
 picket upon the pavement of the courtyard warned 
 the prisoners that the lieutenant was returning." 
 
A DESPERATE SITUATION 177 
 
 That which was bound to happen sooner or 
 later, happened one evening when Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay imprudently insisted on keeping De 
 Menil a little later than usual; the turnkeys, 
 whose suspicions had been roused, came round 
 earlier than was their custom, locked the doors, 
 and took the keys to the lieutenant. 
 
 " I could not describe," exclaims Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, " the utter dismay I felt when I heard the 
 keys turn in the lock. What decision was I to take 
 under such fatal circumstances ? The only thing 
 which I saw clearly was that the Chevalier de 
 Menil must not remain locked up in my room. 
 To be found with me during the day time would 
 only have been the breach of a rule, of a local 
 custom, but to spend the night in my room 
 would have meant a scandal in any country. 
 And how was I to get him out? The doors 
 were barricaded in such a way that nothing 
 could be attempted there. The windows were 
 not more accessible. There remained to me no 
 other resource than the mercy of poor Maison- 
 rouge who would be grievously offended by this. 
 At last I armed myself with all the courage 
 that was necessary on an occasion so pressing, 
 and I waited at my window for his return 
 from the Governor's rooms, where he was 
 supping. 
 
 "As soon as he entered the courtyard, I called to 
 him and asked him to come in to say good-night. 
 He ran to his rooms to fetch down my keys and 
 
 M 
 
178 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 came to me, beside himself with joy at this 
 unaccustomed favour. I went up to him his 
 rival, who was standing in the background, was 
 yet hidden from his view. I said to him in a 
 most embarrassed manner : ' You taught your 
 neighbour the way to my apartments ; he has 
 very indiscreetly taken it without your help. 
 Meanwhile they have locked us in, you would 
 not, I am sure, leave him here with me, rid me 
 of him, I beseech you 1 ' At the first word I 
 uttered, he caught sight of the Chevalier de 
 Mnil, and his expression changed. The air of 
 gaiety which he had had on coming in, gave place 
 to the utmost gloom, and he said to us very 
 curtly that this put him into a very awkward 
 position, that he could not fetch Monsieur de Menil's 
 keys, come down again, and open his room without 
 attracting the notice of his servants, and giving 
 rise to suspicions which would be as detrimental 
 to me as they would be to him. I owned that 
 he had reason to complain of our imprudence. I 
 confessed that I was in the wrong, and promised 
 not to transgress again ; I implored his friendship 
 as my only resource. He left me without further 
 comment, went to fetch the keys, came back to 
 take away De Mnil who was more disconcerted 
 than any of us, locked him into his room, and 
 did not return to mine." 
 
 This unpleasant adventure ought to have 
 cured the two of their temerity, but it was 
 to be foreseen that it would not. They were 
 caught again, arid this time with more serious 
 
CAUGHT AGAIN 179 
 
 consequences. The Memoirs relate this as 
 follows : 
 
 " One day, when we thought ourselves more 
 secure than ever because the lieutenant had gone 
 to dine at Vincennes with the Marquis du 
 Chatelet, his friend and former colonel, Monsieur 
 Leblanc came to the Bastille to say to the Governor 
 that he needed some explanation in reference to 
 a declaration imputed to the Chevalier de Menil, 
 and that he must see him about it at once. The 
 Governor, who was at dinner, left the table, and 
 ran with such speed to fetch De Menil that the 
 latter, who was with me when we became aware 
 that the Governor was going to his room, had 
 not time to get there before him. The Governor 
 did not find him there, but Menil joined him 
 quickly enough to face the whole outburst of 
 his anger of which the echoes only reached me. 
 After his access of fury was over, he gave the 
 Minister's message, and carried the answer to 
 him without saying anything of what had just 
 happened, and for which his lack of vigilance 
 would have been made responsible. But as soon 
 as Monsieur Leblanc had gone, he ordered the 
 Chevalier de Menil to be transferred to one of the 
 towers and lodged in a kind of cell which was very 
 far away from my apartment. The severity of 
 this treatment, and the unpleasant construction 
 which could be put on so hurried a removal, over- 
 whelmed me with dismay. Contrary to my custom 
 I gave myself up to tears and to despair. Never 
 had a feeling as desperate as this filled my heart ; I 
 felt as if my very soul had been torn out of me." 
 
180 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 This last sentence marks very fairly the degree 
 of intensity to which Mademoiselle Delaunay's 
 passion had risen during the few months which 
 had elapsed. She had begun by carefully guarding 
 against emotional surprises ; she had even, after 
 De MeniFs first protestations of love, written a 
 very wise and very well-balanced letter, in which 
 she had said that to listen to these would be 
 to disavow the principles on which her whole 
 life had been built up, and that she did not wish 
 to add to the misfortunes which Fate had put 
 upon her those into which her own imprudence 
 might drive her, and which would be all the 
 more felt because she would be entirely responsible 
 for them. This letter had not meant more than 
 do most of its kind in similar circumstances; 
 prudence had written, but passion acted with 
 total disregard of this, and when it seemed needful, 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay proved her inconsistency 
 by rousing jealousy in her swain, with a feeling of 
 quite natural elation. There was not only faith- 
 ful De Maisonrouge to be used as an instrument 
 on those occasions, but also the famous Due de 
 Richelieu, whose windows were exactly opposite 
 hers, and who loved to while away his time with 
 a little aerial conversation. His lightheartedness 
 was proverbial, as was the procession of carriages 
 which could be seen advancing towards the Bastille 
 on the days when the Due was known to take 
 
THE DUC DE RICHELIEU 181 
 
 his walks on the ramparts. The carriages filled 
 the whole length of the street from the Porte 
 Saint Antoine to the moats of the prison ; and it 
 was a rather piquant spectacle to see women, who 
 bitterly hated each other for their rivalry in the 
 Due's affections, meet that day, in a common 
 effort to catch a distant glimpse of the careless 
 cavalier. Some women were there who had been 
 the Regent's mistresses, and whom he had im- 
 pudently stolen from his sovereign ; Mademoiselle 
 de Valois, the Regent's own daughter, and 
 Mademoiselle de Charolais were there. It was 
 even whispered that they had disguised them- 
 selves as women of the common people to go 
 and see Richelieu at the Bastille. 
 
 Between times, this irresistible conqueror had 
 to content himself with what the Bastille itself 
 could offer, and he had discovered, without diffi- 
 culty, that Mademoiselle Delaunay was amusing. 
 One day, among others, he helped in his careless 
 way to rouse useful jealousy in the Chevalier de 
 Menil's heart. 
 
 " One evening Maisonrouge had brought me the 
 contents of his hunter's bag," says Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, " and he was supping with me when 
 Menil, who had discovered how to unlock his door, 
 came and listened at mine. He pretended after- 
 wards that I had been very gay, and that I had 
 spoken of him with a lightheartedness which was 
 
182 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 offensive. But what displeased him still more was, 
 that on leaving the table, and as it was extremely 
 hot, we sat down at the window. The lieutenant 
 asked me to sing. I began a scene from the opera, 
 Iphigenia. The Due de Richelieu, who was at his 
 window also, sang the responses of Orestes in this 
 scene, which was exactly suited to our circum- 
 stances ; Maisonrouge, who thought that it would 
 amuse me, let us finish the whole scene. It did not 
 amuse the Chevalier de Menil at all. The next 
 day, in his letters, he asked questions about the 
 conversation at supper; I did not know that he 
 had listened to it. I had forgotten that we had 
 mentioned him at all, and I said nothing about 
 this to him. He construed it as the making of 
 a mystery, about which he was so outrageously 
 angry that he wanted me to break off all inter- 
 course with De Maisonrouge." 
 
 This request was hardly necessary, for poor De 
 Maisonrouge was becoming of less and less 
 account. Rondel, Mademoiselle Delaunay's maid, 
 was first employed to carry some of the letters 
 between the two correspondents, some turnkeys 
 were won over by De Menil to perform the same 
 offices, and in their case there was no point of 
 delicacy which demanded the letters to be sent 
 open ; finally, as the months went on, Madame de 
 Pompadour's intercessions with the Regent obtained 
 full liberty of intercourse between all the con- 
 spirators which were still at the Bastille. This was 
 the final blow for poor De Maisonrouge ; but the day 
 
ARMAND DU PLESSIS, 
 Due DE RICHELIEU. 
 
 To /ace p. 182. 
 
EXIT DE MAISONROUGE 183 
 
 on which the new liberties were first enjoyed left an 
 indelible impression on Mademoiselle Delaunay. 
 She describes it in her Memoirs, with all 
 details. 
 
 " When I was least expecting it," she says, " I 
 saw De Menil enter my room, without any pre- 
 cautions. I was surprised and afraid ; he reassured 
 me by announcing to me the happy news. I was 
 overwhelmed with joy in .spite of the sadness I 
 felt at my sister's death, the circumstances of which 
 had filled my heart with great bitterness. It must 
 be owned, to the shame of natural feeling, that 
 nature's voice is hardly heard when passion speaks 
 at the same time. 
 
 " Messieurs de Pompadour et de Boisdavis came 
 in a little later to congratulate me on the increase 
 of conviviality. The King's lieutenant had gone 
 to dine at Vincennes on that day; on his return 
 he came to me, ignorant still of what had been 
 granted to the Chevalier de Menil. When he saw 
 him in my room, in such good company, and with 
 every appearance of having a right to be there, 
 he remained thunderstruck, speechless and motion- 
 less. I was touched by his grief, and, going up to 
 him, I told him that Madame de Pompadour 
 had obtained permission for us all to see each 
 other. He had known that she was petitioning 
 for this, but he had not believed that it would 
 come so soon. He said to us, in rather forced 
 tones, that it was but meet and right and that he 
 congratulated us upon this, but he could not utter 
 one other word, and remained glued to the seat he 
 
184 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 had taken, like one petrified. The gaiety of the 
 assembly put the last touch to his confusion, and 
 not being able to stand so painful a situation, he 
 left us." 
 
 There was a final explanation between the two 
 a little later, so high-minded and generous on the 
 part of De Maisonrouge that his heroism deserves 
 to be quoted. 
 
 " My dear friend," he said, " you are happy now. 
 I had wished for it, but your happiness costs dear 
 to my heart. Live in peace with one who is dear 
 to you, but do not ask me to witness it. As long 
 as I could be of any help to you I overcame my 
 repugnance by inconceivable efforts ; I should do 
 it still if it could be of any use to you ; but you 
 no longer have need of me. Allow me henceforth 
 to come to you only when propriety or some 
 service which I may still be able to render you 
 will demand it of me. ... I sacrifice myself un- 
 reservedly to your happiness ; may the man who 
 is to give it to you be as faithful and as devoted 
 to you as I am." 
 
 Happiness is generous of small gifts. 
 
 "I insisted," says Mademoiselle Delaunay, 
 "on his continuing to see me, and I won my 
 point. I promised him to keep out of his sight 
 anything that might wound him ; and I was careful 
 that he should not meet the Chevalier de Menil 
 when he came to my room, which was very 
 
 rare." 
 
INCONVENIENT POPULARITY 185 
 
 She was not always equally tolerant of society. 
 
 " I was much annoyed," she owns, " by the easy 
 access to my room granted to the people whom I 
 looked upon with indifference. They did not look 
 upon me in the same way, and this increased my 
 annoyance. If, as a good author has said, even a 
 gardener is a man in the eyes of nuns, a woman, 
 whatever she may be, is a goddess in the eyes of 
 prisoners. Ours did certainly dedicate a kind of 
 worship to me ; but their vows and their incense 
 often nearly suffocated me. . . . They all assembled 
 in my room so continually that I was often beside 
 myself and so bad tempered that Menil reprimanded 
 me severely, without any consideration for the 
 cause of my annoyance, which deserved much in- 
 dulgence on his part." 
 
 These disadvantages were a small price to pay, 
 for the happiness which filled her. 
 
 " I wished," she says, " for no other liberty than 
 that which I enjoyed ; it seemed to me that no 
 other world existed outside my prison walls. It 
 is the only happy time I ever spent in my life. 
 I could not have believed that happiness would 
 attend me there, and that everywhere else I 
 should seek for it in vain ! Every one awaited 
 with avidity the news which should announce 
 our speedy liberation. I pretended, in order to 
 save my dignity, to desire it like the others, 
 although at the bottom of my heart I was far 
 from wishing it." 
 
 Had she known the disillusionments which 
 
186 LOVE AND TREACHERY 
 
 would attend her days of liberty, she would have 
 wished still more fervently for indefinite imprison- 
 ment. De Menil, in whom she believed so implicitly, 
 whom she had made the centre of her universe, was 
 even then planning for himself a successful future 
 in which she was to have no part. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 RELEASE OF THE SCEAUX CONSPIRATORS 
 
 As time went on the little company of Sceaux 
 conspirators dwindled away ; more and more 
 frequently the prison gates opened and let out 
 those who had confessed. The first to go were 
 Mademoiselle de Montauban, young Monsieur de 
 Malezieu, and Barjeton, one of the lawyers who had 
 been employed by the Duchesse du Maine. His 
 colleague Davisard had to wait considerably 
 longer, and to him waiting was a torture. This 
 man of whom it was said that it was easier for him 
 to be in several places at the same time than to be 
 in the same place for any length of time, at last 
 fretted himself into a serious illness. It brought 
 him his release ; the Regent had no wish to let 
 any one cheat him by dying in prison, and he sent 
 an order to set the prisoner free. " Isn't this a 
 hoax ? " said Davisard, from the depths of his bed, 
 when he saw the lettre de cachet. " No," said the 
 Governor, "it is genuine." "My stockings, my 
 breeches, quick, quick," said the prisoner, hurling 
 himself out of bed. His dressing, his departure, 
 his cure, all was effected in one brief moment ! 
 
 187 
 
188 RELEASE OF THE CONSPIRATORS 
 
 Monsieur de Malezieu was, of all the con- 
 spirators, in the most critical position ; it was 
 impossible for him to deny his partnership in the 
 fatal letter, the pasted pieces of which proclaimed 
 his guilt beyond refutation, and yet he maintained 
 a dogged silence which drove his judges to the last 
 limits of exasperation. At last a rumour began 
 to spread that he was to be removed to the Con- 
 ciergerie and executed after a very summary trial. 
 
 Madame du Maine was much affected by the 
 news, and she herself was not bearing with much 
 philosophy what she termed the "horrors of her 
 lonely captivity." She had a maid-of -honour, 
 a lady-in-waiting, a chaplain, a doctor, and five 
 waiting- women ; but, as Mademoiselle Delaunay 
 remarks, "princes feel lonely unless they are in 
 a crowd." As to "horrors," she had found 
 Dijon damp, and she had been allowed to 
 move to Chalons. Chalons seeming to her damp 
 also, and of objectionable architecture, the Regent 
 had given her a choice between two country- 
 houses in the neighbourhood. But in spite of 
 this Madame du Maine declared every day that 
 she was a victim of the most cruel, unfair, and 
 rigorous measures. Madame, the Regent's mother, 
 says that " she played cards and beat her en- 
 tourage alternately " all day long ; but it is hardly 
 probable that her versatile mind could have been 
 satisfied with such a limited range of occupations. 
 
THE DUCHESSE RESTLESS 189 
 
 What is quite certain is that she made the most 
 of a pathetic situation. She played cards " sadly " 
 with her attendants, and interrupted herself now 
 and again to exclaim with dramatic melancholy: 
 "Let the Regent judge of my pains by my 
 pleasures ! " She was as fond as ever of classical 
 quotations, and when she declared more or less 
 opportunely, "Aux fureurs de Junon, Jupiter 
 m'abandonne," the tender-lrearted La Billarderie, 
 unused to classical lore, would fall a prey to 
 profound and puzzled despair. 
 
 As the months passed the Duchesse grew 
 weary of her role of " Orlando Furioso," to quote 
 Madame again, and she yearned to obtain her 
 liberty at any price. Monsieur de Malezieu's 
 unflinching spirit was now the only obstacle in 
 her path ; it piqued her pride and she felt that 
 she could not stoop to a confession, before he 
 had yielded. The Regent, on his side, was 
 more than wishful to bring to an end a business 
 which had entailed endless trouble, yet he also 
 desired to see his honour safe and his dealings 
 justified by a full confession of the culprits. 
 At this juncture, Madame la Princesse, who, in 
 the beginning of her daughter's troubles, had 
 been forced to exercise more energy and initiative 
 than she had ever shown before, decided to 
 ascertain the calibre of Monsieur de Malezieu's 
 resisting power. It was a difficult task, the 
 
190 RELEASE OF THE CONSPIRATORS 
 
 most contradictory rumours being circulated on 
 that subject ; but at last it was declared to 
 Madame du Maine, on the best authority, that 
 the citadel had fallen. The faithful La Billarderie 
 brought this good news, and the truth of it 
 was attested by Madame la Princesse and many 
 others who were anxious to bring about a 
 favourable dJnoument. 
 
 The Duchesse was wise enough not to enquire 
 too much into the strict truth of this statement ; 
 she sat down without demurring, and wrote a 
 most detailed confession of her doings "in order," 
 as we are told, "to prove her sincerity." Before 
 there had been time to read the document to the 
 Council of the Regency, the courier, who had 
 carried it to the Regent, brought back the lettre 
 de cachet which set Madame du Maine free. She 
 received it with transports of joy; only one 
 unexpected clause in it the stipulation that 
 she should reside at Sceaux caused her some 
 disappointment. 
 
 Monsieur le Due du Maine was released about 
 the same time as the Duchesse, in January 1720. 
 From the day of his arrest he had kept up 
 consistently his attitude of a frightened hare, 
 startled at each unexplained noise, shrinking 
 from all unfamiliar sights. Each time his prison 
 door opened, he expected to see the executioner 
 with his fatal axe. He steadfastly repudiated 
 
A FRANK CONFESSION 191 
 
 any connection with his wife's imprudent dealings, 
 and the testimonies of all those concerned tallied 
 entirely with his declarations. " Monsieur le Due 
 du Maine was not advised of this," " Monsieur le 
 Due du Maine was carefully kept in ignorance 
 of the measures taken," are sentences which 
 constantly recur in the evidence given. The 
 Duchesse's emphatic declarations on that subject 
 provoked a general smile, "when they were read 
 aloud before the Council of the Regency. 
 
 The Due d'Orleans was quite safe in giving 
 back their liberty to his formidable opponents; 
 at the beginning of the year 1720 there were 
 very few people who took them seriously. 
 
 The conspiracy of Sceaux, or rather the leisure 
 for reflection which it afforded to the conspirators 
 during their incarceration, had one unexpected 
 consequence. While simulating the broken reed 
 in his prison of Dourlens, the Due du Maine was 
 in reality steeling himself to the most momentous 
 decision of his life. One of Madame's remarks 
 gives us a clue to the situation. " The Due du 
 Maine," she declares, "has written to his sister: 
 ' It is not into prison, but into a strait waistcoat 
 that they ought to have put me, for having thus 
 allowed myself to be led by the nose.'" The 
 Due du Maine was meditating upon the ad- 
 visability of a legal separation from his turbulent 
 wife ! He feared the extravagance of her expenses 
 
192 RELEASE OF THE CONSPIRATORS 
 
 as much as the waywardness of her caprices, 
 and at last he resolved to repair to Clagny, one 
 of his country seats, and from this safe and 
 distant shelter to open negotiations with Sceaux. 
 
 Public rumour was apprised of this earlier 
 than Madame du Maine, but no one dared break 
 to her the news of such an astounding defection. 
 She was journeying by slow stages from her 
 Burgundy residence towards Sceaux, in her own 
 carriages, which had been sent to meet her 
 by order of the Regent; and at each posting 
 station she had expected to find her husband in 
 readiness, eager to take upon himself the familiar 
 yoke. But disappointment followed upon dis- 
 appointment, and the members of her escort were 
 groaning under the necessity of finding evasive 
 answers to her pressing questions, when, to their 
 relief, an imprudent postmaster at Fontainebleau 
 revealed the truth. 
 
 Madame du Maine, says Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, "was seized with astonishment and 
 indignation at this news, and wanted to have an 
 immediate explanation. Bad luck being very 
 persistent in the choice of its victims, this 
 delicate business fell to the lot of poor, faithful 
 La Billarderie, who floundered even more than 
 usual, and patiently bowed his head under the 
 storm which his explanations raised." 
 
 Another painful surprise awaited Madame du 
 
FRIENDLESS SOLITUDE 193 
 
 Maine at Sceaux ; she found her old residence 
 a desolate solitude, none of her friends were 
 there to greet her, not even one member of her 
 family, although she had been given the formal 
 assurance that she would find her children there 
 on her arrival. She was informed that the right 
 to allow access to Sceaux rested with Madame 
 la Princesse, her mother. The crafty Regent 
 had in this way prolonged the chastisement, 
 while seeming to retain no responsibility in the 
 matter, and he had every reason to think that 
 his deputy had been far too terror - stricken 
 by recent events not to be over-strict in the 
 exercise of her duties. Under this new regime 
 at Sceaux Madame du Maine must have felt at 
 times as if she had gone back to the old tyranny 
 of her childish days, only and therein lay the 
 ignominy of the situation she was now forty- 
 five, and her mentor bore the features of her 
 meek, affrighted little mother. 
 
 The Due du Maine's fine resistance lasted just 
 six months. As long as he remained firm in his 
 refusal to see his wife, the danger of a surrender 
 on his part was comparatively small ; his position 
 was impregnable; he had plenty of grounds 
 for his decision, and the conditions he proposed 
 were most fair. Foremost among them was an 
 offer to pay his wife, out of his considerable 
 fortune, a yearly pension, in return for the privilege 
 
 N 
 
194 RELEASE OF THE CONSPIRATORS 
 
 of being allowed to live in peace. The Duchesse, 
 however, would have none of these negotiations. 
 She hurried impatiently through the endless letters 
 he sent, and never wavered in her conviction that 
 she could easily pull down this laborious edifice 
 of resistance, if only she could gain access to 
 the rebel. 
 
 An interview was effected at last, and its easily 
 foreseen result was that the Due du Maine put 
 away his artillery of war, his pens, and his papers, 
 and returned obediently to his old haunts and his 
 useful occupations. His favourite, isolated turret 
 saw him again at work on his accounts, which 
 were in sad need of his care. He was submissive 
 as ever ; in one thing only did he remain obdurate. 
 Monsieur de Malezieu, though pardoned by the 
 Regent, should not return to Sceaux, nor were 
 any of those who had even the most distant 
 likeness to conspirators to cross its threshold. 
 
 It was a sad year which the Duchesse du 
 Maine spent from January to December 1720. 
 Her days were empty, her life was disorganised, 
 her mind unoccupied ; her reputation for being 
 a bel-esprit was in great danger ; there was nothing 
 left to her to stimulate her wits, except an un- 
 ending correspondence with her "Oracle," whom 
 the Due du Maine had installed at a safe distance 
 in one of his country houses. The Cardinal de 
 Polignac, in his exile at the abbey of Anchin, 
 
THE PRUDENT CARDINAL 195 
 
 preserved an injured and prudent silence, nursing 
 many grudges ; his manuscript of the Anti- 
 Lucrece, seized with other papers at Madame du 
 Maine's, had not been returned to him for a long 
 time, and he had not forgotten yet the anxieties 
 he had suffered on that account. So great was 
 the caution which he had sworn to observe 
 thenceforth, that he shrank with physical repug- 
 nance, even from a copy of Madame du Maine's 
 " Declaration to the Regent " sent by her for his 
 perusal. He would have nothing to do with 
 seditious writings, and it was only after his 
 secretary had vouched for the harmlessness of the 
 said document, that he could get reconciled to the 
 idea of having received it at all. His prudence 
 never forsook him he even avoided social 
 functions at which he was likely to meet his 
 former " Circe," and once only, on the eve of his 
 departure for Rome, a safely distant residence, 
 did he appear at Sceaux again to make warm 
 protestations of friendship. From that day he 
 was lost for good to Madame du Maine, who 
 never heard from him again. 
 
 Six months elapsed before Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay was allowed to leave her prison and to 
 return to Sceaux. The Regent had been heard 
 to exclaim that she should be made to speak like 
 all the others, but after sixteen months in the 
 Bastille she was as elusive as ever in her answers, 
 
196 RELEASE OF THE CONSPIRATORS 
 
 as ready with her teasing methods. A few days 
 before her release, the Governor sent her the 
 intimation that Monsieur Leblanc was waiting for 
 her declaration. 
 
 "I answered," she reports, "that I did not 
 know what he meant by a 'declaration,' that I 
 had only met with such things in novels, and that, 
 presumably, it was not the kind of thing Monsieur 
 Leblanc expected from me ! I added, however, 
 that I would write to him to ascertain what he 
 required ! " 
 
 Madame du Maine sent her an imperative 
 command to write all she knew of the affair. 
 " And so I wrote," she says, " but without priding 
 myself on being sincere, and I wrote only what 
 I knew they least cared to read." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 EVENTFUL YEARS, 1720-1730 
 
 WHILE Madame du Maine was disdainfully 
 drawing round her again the magic circle which 
 separated her from the rest of a negligeable 
 world, France had gone through an incredible 
 series of dramatic events; the apotheosis of 
 Dubois, created Cardinal, a gorgeous and 
 scandalous ceremony at which the whole Court 
 had been present, with the exception of Saint- 
 Simon, who boasted of being the only titled man 
 honoured by an exclusion the death of the 
 Cardinal Minister two years later, amidst general 
 abhorrence. " J'espere que ce temps-ci fera partir 
 mon drole," the Regent had said on the morning 
 of the very hot day on which he died. Other 
 events had roused to the utmost the emotions 
 of France; the total collapse of Law's system 
 and Law's bank in the Rue Quincampoix, and 
 the ruin of thousands of people. Law himself, 
 who had become a Catholic and a Frenchman, 
 whose sons had danced the Royal Minuet with 
 the boy princes of the blood, had reaped the fruits 
 
 197 N 2 
 
198 EVENTFUL YEARS 
 
 of his labours at last. He had been attacked by 
 an infuriated mob, had seen his carriage wrecked 
 and shattered, and had barely escaped with his 
 life. " What ! has Law himself not been torn to 
 pieces?" was the cold-blooded comment of a 
 magistrate, when the news of the outrage had 
 been announced in Parliament. 
 
 The young King had been at death's door, 
 had been saved against all expectations, and had 
 been betrothed against his will to the Infanta 
 of Spain, a baby girl of three. The dignity of 
 the eleven - year - old boy had no doubt been 
 vaguely offended by the choice of so very juvenile 
 a bride ; at any rate the tears had welled up in 
 his eyes when the proposal had been made to 
 him, and he had given his formal consent before 
 the Privy Council in a very low and constrained 
 voice. The little Infanta had arrived and been 
 received with great pomp. She was fast forgetting 
 Spain and the memories of her babyhood. Madame 
 de Ventadour, the young King's former governess, 
 had been assigned to her as chief lady-in-waiting, 
 and on her lap the little Princess could be seen 
 following the hunt with all the gravity of a serious 
 Spanish baby. The young King had been crowned 
 and anointed at Rheims, and at the end of the 
 same year 1723, the Regent had died quite 
 suddenly of apoplexy. Though the Regency 
 proper had ceased at the coming of age of the 
 
VERSAILLES AND SCEAUX 199 
 
 King, a few months before, he had still nominally 
 ruled France as its Prime Minister. To whom 
 should the direction of affairs be given henceforth ? 
 The natural successor was the Regent's son, but 
 he was barely twenty, and totally unversed in 
 public affairs. The choice of the Council fell 
 therefore on the next in dignity Monsieur le 
 Due, head of the house of Conde. 
 
 The fact that Madame du Maine's nephew had 
 been appointed Prime Minister did not establish 
 any closer link between Versailles and Sceaux. 
 For years Monsieur le Due had been on the side 
 of the enemy in the great litigation between the 
 legitimate and the legitimised princes; he had 
 been the Duchesse's " gaoler," or so she had con- 
 sidered him during her imprisonment at Pignerol, 
 and she detested him cordially. It was nothing 
 to her that he had redeemed the fortunes of the 
 Condes, beautified Chantilly beyond measure, paid 
 off those creditors who in her childhood days had 
 so crowded the passages of the castle that at 
 times circulation had been difficult ; nor was it 
 of any account to her that all this had been 
 done, thanks to the gigantic fortune which the 
 Due had made in the infamous Rue Quincampoix. 
 
 If Sceaux ignored Versailles, Versailles on the 
 other hand found no interest in Sceaux. There 
 was nothing there which could have attracted 
 the young King; he neither appreciated its com- 
 
200 EVENTFUL YEARS 
 
 merce de beaux-esprits, nor its luxuriant gardens, 
 its arbours of Persian lilac and Bengal roses, its 
 exotic hot-house flowers, which Madame du Maine 
 loved with an hereditary love. He was only 
 happy at Rambouillet, the residence of the Comte 
 de Toulouse, and the best hunting ground in the 
 kingdom. 
 
 The queen of Sceaux might have been jealous 
 of this renewed preference shown to her brother- 
 in-law, the same who had basked in the sun of 
 the Regent's favours whilst the house of Maine 
 was plunged into utter abasement ; she had, how- 
 ever, in theory at least, abjured all rivalry. It 
 is true her many legal researches had not had the 
 results she had hoped for, but they had brought 
 her knowledge of a very pleasant nature the 
 inferiority to herself of most of those dukes and 
 peers who had tried to trample under their feet 
 the dignity of the house of Maine. She had 
 discovered, and had taken care to make known 
 to the world, that the proud De Luynes were 
 descended from an insignificant little lawyer, the 
 Richelieus from a lute-player, the De la Roche- 
 foucaulds from a butcher, the De Noailles from 
 a servant of the Comte de Beaufort. She 
 loved to dwell on these discoveries in moments 
 of dejection, and they were a balm to many 
 small wounds. 
 
 One of these was, perhaps, the growing popularity 
 
CARDINAL DE FLEURY 201 
 
 of the Princesse de Conti. The Contis were a 
 younger branch of the Cond family, their beautiful 
 seat at lisle d'Adam was famous for the Venetian 
 fetes given on its illuminated canals on which 
 flower - bedecked boats glided to the strains of 
 Lulli and Rameau. Madame du Maine could 
 easily have borne a rivalry in outward display, but 
 the point which rankled in her heart was that 
 the Princesse de Conti's salon counted more 
 and more as one of the centres of intellectual life. 
 It was the most advanced in court circles, and in 
 its spirit a precursor of those salons in which later 
 on the Encyclopaedists were to attack and to deny 
 with ruthless independence of mind. Its precincts 
 and that was perhaps a slight consolation to 
 Madame du Maine were generally shunned by 
 the young King; they were practically forbidden 
 ground to him, for Cardinal de Fleury looked 
 upon 1'Isle d'Adam as a hotbed of impiety, and 
 Louis XV. was still entirely under the influence 
 of his old tutor. 
 
 Cardinal de Fleury's ascendency in political 
 matters was daily gaining in strength, and 
 Monsieur le Due was to be deprived of his 
 office before long. His chief aim had been to 
 raise the financial status of France at all costs, 
 and his political enemies had prompted the young 
 King with the declaration that he was weary 
 of the tyranny of financiers and had decided 
 
202 EVENTFUL YEARS 
 
 to govern for himself. The last important 
 measure taken by Monsieur le Due was to be 
 a very decisive one, however the annulling of 
 Louis XV. 's betrothal to the Infanta of Spain. 
 It was imperative that the King should marry 
 immediately and have issue, so that the question 
 of the succession should be definitely assured ; for 
 intrigues were still rife, and France had proofs of 
 the fact that Philip V. still watched with feverish 
 interest every fluctuation in the King's health. 
 
 And so, one day, in the year 1725, Marie 
 Leczinska, living her simple unambitious life in 
 Lorraine, heard the wonderful news that she 
 was chosen to be Queen of France, and on another 
 day, not very long after, the little seven-year- 
 old Infanta stood in the private apartments at 
 Versailles, surrounded by those who had been 
 attached to her small person, and in the dignified 
 manner which was hers by inheritance, she thanked 
 them gravely for their care and for the interest 
 they had taken in her education. Then, in her 
 heavy coach drawn by six mules, she set out on 
 her way to Spain, escorted by her Cameriera and 
 by the Spanish ambassador. 
 
 This event gravely compromised the relations 
 between France and Spain, and although the 
 urgency of the measure had been fully represented 
 to the Spanish Court, the two countries, which 
 were so closely allied, stood on the very brink 
 
THE HOUR AND THE MAN 203 
 
 of a war. To weather the threatening storm, 
 there was need of all Cardinal de Fleury's genius 
 as a peace-maker, and his successful averting of 
 complications did a great deal towards strengthen- 
 ing the position which he was to hold for so 
 long. For years he was to be chief ruler of 
 France, although the power had been nominally 
 transferred to the hands of the young King, who 
 had come of age three years before his marriage. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 V ANITAS, VANITATUM 
 
 IT had been the prudent wish of Madame la 
 Princesse that Mademoiselle Delaunay should not 
 re-enter her daughter's service, but Madame du 
 Maine waved aside the suggestion ; there was 
 still a great scarcity of intelligent listeners at 
 Sceaux, and Mademoiselle Delaunay had decidedly 
 proved her value, she was not a person to be 
 given up. For the first time the Duchesse deigned 
 now to express to her waiting- woman a gratitude 
 which had been well earned. An appreciative 
 letter reached Mademoiselle Delaunay by secret 
 ways, and was read by her with great emotion. 
 
 "I feel more affection and esteem for you than 
 ever," said the last lines, " and all you have done 
 has not surprised me ; I trusted your intelligence 
 and your fidelity. As soon as I have the pleasure 
 of seeing you, you will receive proofs of my 
 friendship, which you deserve. Good-bye, my 
 dear Delaunay." 
 
 In June 1720 the last and the most obdurate 
 
 of the Sceaux conspirators left the Bastille; but 
 
 204 
 
DISILLUSIONMENT 205 
 
 to her liberty, so long delayed, had no enchant- 
 ments ; her feelings were as contradictory as those 
 of the unselfish and devoted Maisonrouge, who 
 did not know whether to grieve or to rejoice. The 
 love of the Chevalier du Menil had not stood 
 the test of the "open air" as she said herself 
 he had left the Bastille some time before her, 
 and the last few months had done much towards 
 proving his faithlessness. The world seemed 
 grey and empty to the woman who felt that 
 even her self-respect had been wrecked in this 
 last lamentable love affair. All through her 
 description of her return to Sceaux there runs 
 a note of weary disillusionment. 
 
 "I received with my liberty," she says, "the 
 order to start at once for Sceaux, where Madame la 
 Duchesse du Maine was staying. I sent to the 
 Temple to ask the Abbe de Chaulieu for his 
 carriage to take me to his house and then to 
 Sceaux. He was already very ill, and his illness 
 was to end fatally three weeks later. I saw him 
 and realised how indifferent one is to everything 
 when one reaches that extremity. He had been 
 deeply concerned by my captivity, and now he did 
 not seem to be even touched by my release. I felt 
 keenly the impending loss of a friend who had ever 
 made it his task to put joy into my life, at least as 
 much joy as was compatible with my mode of 
 living ; but I was not able to stay with the Abbe 
 as long as I should have liked; I had to start 
 on my journey without tarrying. 
 
 " I arrived at Sceaux towards evening, Madame 
 
206 V ANITAS, VANITATUM 
 
 la Duchesse du Maine was out driving, and I 
 went down through the gardens to meet her. 
 She saw me, ordered her coachman to stop, and 
 said : 6 Ah ! here is Mademoiselle Delaunay. I 
 am very glad to see you again.' I went up to 
 her, she kissed me, and drove on. I went back to 
 the house and was taken to the room which she 
 had chosen for me. I was delighted to find that 
 it had a window and a fire-place and to hear 
 that there were two new waiting- women, one to 
 replace the head one who had died, and the other 
 to occupy the place which had been mine. . . . 
 There was hardly any one at Sceaux when I 
 went back. The Duchesse d'Estrees only had 
 come as soon as she had obtained permission. 
 
 " Madame la Duchesse du Maine was not 
 yet allowed to see many people. She used to 
 play * biribi ' nearly all night and to sleep during 
 the greater part of the day. I was asked to sit 
 up and read aloud, just as I had done before. I 
 was very much out of practice, and this tedious 
 occupation soon made me regret the peace of 
 my prison days. Madame la Duchesse talked 
 to me about her captivity, and told me all that 
 had happened. She talked a great deal, and 
 asked very few questions. ..." 
 
 Vanitas, vanitatum ! alas for the glamour which 
 once lent enchantment to a princess's protesta- 
 tions of attachment, to her wearying confidences 
 during the long wakeful hours of the night ! " She 
 kissed me and drove on ... she talked a great 
 
LIFE AT SCEAUX 207 
 
 deal and asked very few questions ! . . . " With 
 what uncompromising sharpness these few ^clear- 
 cut lines, shorn of flourishes of fancy, draw the 
 silhouette of irresponsible selfishness. 
 
 By degrees life at Sceaux regained its 
 equilibrium ; Monsieur de Malezieu came back 
 from Chatenay, Mademoiselle du Maine came 
 back from her convent at Chaillot friends returned, 
 old and new. There were some defections : the 
 Cardinal de Polignac would never again explain 
 his Anti - Lucrece to a fluttering audience of 
 admiring women ; De Laval and De Pompadour, 
 touched to the quick by the contempt for their 
 literary gifts, expressed in Madame du Maine's 
 " Declaration," turned their backs upon Sceaux 
 and preserved a haughty silence. But for these 
 social losses there were some compensations. 
 Sceaux had made obeisance to Versailles, the 
 candour of its Virgilian atmosphere was not 
 marred by the faintest breath of politics ; the 
 Regent and even the most cautious of Versailles' 
 courtiers confirmed that by their frequent presence. 
 
 The echoes of the peaceful valley of the Bievre 
 again resounded with odes and eglogues in praise 
 of its familiar genii, and Madame du Maine 
 trod its soft lawns and winding paths as Venus, 
 Hebe, or Astarte, just as circumstances required. 
 Monsieur du Maine, restored to his charges and 
 with the hope of being some day restored to his 
 
208 VANITAS, VANITATUM 
 
 dignities, enjoyed with serenity the new shadow 
 of authority which had come to him under the 
 new regime. 
 
 No shadow seemed to darken this bright scene, 
 except that thrown by a figure which stood neither 
 outside nor inside the enchanted circle, but 
 hovered ever between the two in all the discomfort 
 of a false position. " The distinctions which had 
 been granted to me, since I had given up the 
 functions and the title of a waiting-woman, had 
 no defined limits," complains this victim, " and I 
 did not know whether I was inside or outside. 
 Whenever I crossed the boundary, either uncon- 
 sciously or by order of Madame la Duchesse 
 du Maine, the expressions and the murmurs of 
 her ladies-in-waiting, careful of the distance which 
 should be observed between us, made me realise 
 it most unpleasantly." 
 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay's scepticism increased 
 perceptibly at that time, and it is not to be 
 wondered at. Du Mnil has shamefully con- 
 fessed his indifference and has married a cousin 
 heavily endowed with flesh and with money, but 
 very sparsely provided with intelligence. The two 
 lovers had been wont to laugh over her letters 
 together in the old days of the Bastille. The 
 deserted woman has wept her last tears of 
 disappointed love, bitter and strenuous tears, of 
 which she is ashamed, and which have made her 
 
MADAME DU C HATE LET. 
 
 To face p. 208. 
 
MARQUISE DU DEFFAND 209 
 
 realise all of a sudden that she is old, and that 
 to her the world is old and colourless. The 
 famous Marquise du Deffand, the sceptic par 
 excellence at least in manner and in principle, 
 wins her admiring sympathy at the very first 
 visit she pays to Sceaux. 
 
 " No one possesses more wit," Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay exclaims, " and of so natural a kind ; 
 this sparkling fire which fills her puts life into 
 everything and penetrates it down to its inner- 
 most recesses ; it gives relief to the faintest lines. 
 She possesses in a supreme degree the talent of 
 depicting a character, and her portraits, which 
 are more living than their originals, give a better 
 knowledge than one could gain from the closest 
 relations with the originals." 
 
 It was under the influence of Madame du 
 Deffand that Mademoiselle Delaunay made that 
 inventory of her qualities and features which 
 resulted in the uncomplimentary portrait of herself 
 already quoted. It is a pessimistic production 
 from beginning to end ; having shown little 
 leniency towards herself, she feels authorised to 
 show none at all to others, she declares deliber- 
 ately; and disillusionment rings all through the 
 last lines of her portrait : 
 
 " She has always been sensitive to friendship, 
 but has set more store by the merit and the 
 virtue of her friends than by their feeling for her ; 
 
 o 
 
210 VANITAS, VANITATUM 
 
 she has been indulgent to them, if they have 
 only failed her, provided they did not fall short 
 of what they owed to themselves. . . . ' 
 
 The chapter of sentiment and romance is 
 closed for Mademoiselle Delaunay and another 
 has opened : that of sober considerations. 
 
 As the adaptability of her temperament 
 decreased the complications of her position 
 increased, and led her to a serious consideration 
 of possible means of escape ; two refuges seemed 
 within reach a convent or a mariage de 
 convenance. A few legacies from old friends 
 made her an eligible candidate for either status, 
 and it might have been comparatively easy to 
 find an honest commoner, willing to share with 
 her his name and the solidity of his bourgeois 
 home, in exchange for promotion or the credit 
 which might accrue to him from the protection 
 of the court of Sceaux. The wife's share in this 
 transaction was, so far, slightly problematic, as 
 it depended on the good-will of her patrons, and 
 Madame du Maine saw treachery in any plan 
 which would partly deprive her of very valuable 
 services. As to Monsieur du Maine, in all matters 
 not political, he had not shaken off his chains 
 and could not be relied upon to act independently. 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay felt after due consideration, 
 that under the circumstances it would be easier 
 to enter a convent than to steer safely into the 
 
THE FAITHFUL LOVER 211 
 
 harbour of matrimony, and, foreseeing Madame 
 du Maine's opposition, she decided not to consult 
 her. She went secretly to a Carmelite convent 
 and asked to be admitted as a novice. The 
 nuns did not receive her with that ardour for 
 proselytism which is commonly attributed to 
 them; they enquired into the sincerity of this 
 sudden vocation, and when the postulant retorted 
 by begging them to take her in at once, lest 
 her fervour should suddenly evaporate, the Mother 
 Superior pushed her back gently into the carriage 
 which had brought her. Thus ended Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay's only attempt at conventual life. 
 
 The other harbour still remained open, and in 
 spite of sober reason and sobering experiences, 
 she still had a lurking hope that her heart might 
 have some share in the satisfaction with which 
 she would glide into its shallow waters. The 
 absolute devotion of the ex-cavalry captain, 
 Monsieur de Maisonrouge, was strong enough to 
 throw, even now, some glamour of sentiment over 
 a union which was still his one aim ; but now, 
 as before, the Chevalier du Menil stood between 
 him and Mademoiselle Delaunay, and ere the 
 latter had succeeded in shaking herself free of her 
 folly, death intervened, and poor faithful De 
 Maisonrouge had to go where human desires are 
 unfulfilled. 
 
 Once again, later on, sentiment softened with 
 
212 VANITAS, VANITATUM 
 
 its glow the harsh outlines of a prospective 
 business arrangement, and this was the result of 
 Madame de la Ferte's efforts. The Duchesse, 
 reconciled to her protegee since the latter had 
 justified her prognostications, was convinced that 
 she could be as successful with Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay's second "establishment" as she had 
 been with the first ! Her choice fell on a dis- 
 consolate widower, whose wife had been a very 
 intellectual woman. The description of her 
 " strategy," as given to her matrimonial candidate, 
 shows her as breezy and self-confident as ever: 
 
 " I found at the Marechal de Villeroi's that poor 
 Dacier," she writes. " It is pitiful to see him. 
 He told us that he was as full of grief as on 
 the first day, and ready to die of despair. 'Eh 
 bien,' I said to him, 'there is only one way of 
 finding comfort, you must marry again.' ' Great 
 God ! ' he exclaimed, ' what woman could replace 
 the one I have lost ? . . . ' ' Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay,' I answered. For a few minutes he 
 remained silent with astonishment, and after some 
 reflexion he said : ' She is the only woman in 
 the world with whom I could live, and who 
 would not be an offence to the memory of 
 Madame Dacier.' 
 
 " The Marechal and I, seeing that he was 
 affected, enlarged upon the theme, and we left him 
 quite inclined to consider the question. I want 
 him to marry you ; he enjoys some celebrity and 
 sufficient means. The place you will fill is that 
 
DACIER 213 
 
 of an illustrious woman ; this marriage will be as 
 honourable as it will be useful." 
 
 Having sown her seed in two directions, 
 Madame de la Ferte left the rest in the hands of 
 Providence, according to her custom. She swore 
 that she would bring this matter to a successful 
 issue, but she went on a journey and forgot her 
 scheme. Meanwhile the seeds were undergoing 
 their natural process of germination. Monsieur 
 Dacier's recovery was decidedly progressing; the 
 comfort held out to him as a possibility had come 
 to appear to him a necessity, and he was rumin- 
 ating over means to his end, when a move from 
 the other side came to his help. Mademoiselle 
 Delaunay, anxious to ascertain whether Madame 
 de la Ferte's visions could be materialised, sent her 
 old friend, Monsieur de Valincourt, as a skilful 
 ambassador who could obtain a knowledge of the 
 situation without showing too much of his 
 credentials. The interview between him and 
 Monsieur Dacier was most satisfactory, and media- 
 tion soon became quite unnecessary. Through 
 some deplorable fatality, however, the more cordial 
 Monsieur Dacier's advances became, the more 
 determined grew Mademoiselle Delaunay 's reserva- 
 tions, and it was only when the finality of death 
 broke up the position that she " felt the irreparable 
 error which she had committed in missing such a 
 
 splendid opportunity to gain leisure and liberty." 
 
 o 2 
 
214 VANITAS, VANITATUM 
 
 As an epitaph on a last hope these words 
 certainly lack sentiment, and her report on subse- 
 quent disappointments strike a still more practical 
 business note. These passages of an eighteenth- 
 century diary savour strangely of the style to 
 be found in the advertisements of a modern 
 matrimonial agency. "A man moderately rich, 
 in a fairly good position, living a somewhat retired 
 life in Paris, required a sensible wife to keep 
 him company. As I did not know him," says 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay, " I doubted whether I 
 could put up with his society. The affair having 
 to be concluded with preliminary examination, I 
 refused." 
 
 Another affair was not despatched with quite 
 so much celerity ; a trusted friend had proposed 
 it. This time the candidate was " a member of the 
 landed gentry, about fifty years of age, recently 
 retired from active service and living on a hand- 
 some income in the provinces, in a well-built and 
 comfortably-furnished house." It seems that a 
 "preliminary examination" was allowed in this 
 case, for Mademoiselle Delaunay went to see the 
 prospective suitor at the house of the friend who 
 was seeking to bring about the marriage. He 
 was, we hear, moderatedly handsome and of 
 stately presence the impression made on him by 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay was not unfavourable. 
 "He did not find me as decrepit as he had 
 
LOVE AND THE WINDOW 215 
 
 expected," she says, " and, moreover, he was satisfied 
 with the small property 1 possessed. . . . He said 
 to his friend that he was prepared to conclude the 
 business, provided I felt no repugnance for a life 
 spent in a country home." 
 
 The prospective bride had, unluckily, a very 
 great distaste for seclusion, and it was truly to be 
 deplored that most of her suitors had chosen to 
 live a retired life. She consulted with one of her 
 friends, described the situation, and added the 
 cheerful comment that this marriage seemed to 
 her like "throwing herself from a window," but 
 that, to tell the truth, she had been aiming at that 
 for some time past. Only one answer was possible 
 to this the friend wrote that the "window" in 
 question was at least a " tenth floor window," that 
 it would be wiser not to select it quite so high 
 up, and that to live shut in between four walls, 
 with some one who would perhaps be incapable of 
 pleasing, would be the surest way to turn into a 
 reality what so far had only been a figure of speech. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MADAME DU MAINE AS A MATRIMONIAL AGENT 
 
 MADAME DU MAINE was meanwhile also engaged 
 in a matrimonial quest ; she realised that the only 
 way to retain Mademoiselle Delaunay's services, 
 and to keep her tolerably happy, was to marry her 
 to some gentleman of the Ducal household, whose 
 charge should entail residence at Sceaux, and whose 
 position should give his wife the right to figure 
 lawfully among the ladies-in-waiting at the Court. 
 The Duchesse's statements were more concerned 
 with the description of the "wife offered," and 
 Mademoiselle Delaunay repeats with an enviable 
 sense of humour what she has heard about it. 
 
 " Madame la Duchesse du Maine," she says, " has 
 commissioned Madame de Sully, wife of a Swiss 
 officer, to find in the Helvetian corps commanded 
 by Monsieur le Due du Maine, a man willing to 
 accept a wife who has neither beauty nor youth, 
 neither fortune nor family. The whole of the 
 thirteen Swiss Cantons would hardly suffice for 
 such a discovery ! Naturally the lady took a long 
 time about it, and I had quite forgotten her 
 commission when, having come to Sceaux one day 
 
 216 
 
A RETIRED LIFE 217 
 
 she said to me : 'I think that I have found the man 
 for whom we are looking. ' She had accompanied her 
 husband on a visit to one of his compatriots, and 
 had come upon a veritable little idyll." 
 
 A retired life once more ! but the clever mediator 
 described it with convincing appreciation. 
 
 " I found a little house very clean and quite new, 
 surrounded by pastures with flocks of cows and sheep. 
 The master of the house, who- is not a young man, 
 won my sympathy by his prepossessing appearance. 
 He is of gentle birth, a widower, and lives in this 
 retreat with two daughters. They seem to be sweet 
 and sensible and entirely occupied with the duties 
 of housekeeping. He has had very slow promotion, 
 although he has been in the army for some time, 
 and has always done his duty; but he has kept 
 himself in the background, and merit which does 
 not brag of itself is rarely discovered. I think, 
 however, that a protection which would advance 
 his interests without demanding too many efforts 
 on his part, would be very agreeable to him, and 
 if Madame la Duchesse du Maine will allow me to 
 put the matter before him, I have no doubt, from 
 what I hear, that the proposition will be received 
 favourably, and that it will be a most suitable 
 establishment for you. He is a man of good 
 family, who has lived very little in society and has 
 not adopted its vices. He possesses, two miles 
 out of Paris, a small property which he manages 
 himself; this, added to what the protection of 
 Monsieur le Due du Maine will do for him, will 
 secure ample comfort for both of you." 
 
218 AS A MATRIMONIAL AGENT 
 
 This well- modulated speech, gliding so pleasantly 
 from the tones of wordliness to those of the pipes 
 of Pan, fired Mademoiselle Delaunay's imagina- 
 tion. It suggested to her the picture of an idyllic 
 life, in which each feature assumed a sweet and 
 naive charm. " I was then in the habit of taking 
 milk," she says, " and for the time being nothing 
 seemed as likely to afford satisfaction as to have 
 cows at hand." 
 
 Some minor points had to be settled before 
 the chief conditions of the agreement could be 
 considered. The excellent daughters had to be 
 pacified by the assurance that their prospective 
 stepmother was not plotting to wrest from 
 their hands the sceptre of housekeeping or the 
 authority in the poultry-yard. Once this was 
 safely accomplished, it was possible to pass on 
 to more important things. Monsieur de Staal, the 
 Swiss lieutenant in question, stated as his chief 
 condition that he should be made captain of his 
 regiment after the death of the present occupant 
 of that post, who was in a very precarious state 
 of health. He proposed that the marriage should 
 be concluded as soon as he should have been given 
 some security that this request would be granted. 
 A demand so reasonable met with more opposition 
 than might have been expected, and Madame du 
 Maine's difficulties on this occasion cannot fail to 
 enlist our sympathies for her impatience at her 
 
AS A MATRIMONIAL AGENT 219 
 
 husband's dilatory methods. Manoeuvres and 
 counter-manoeuvres occupied a considerable time, 
 and the two candidates had not met yet! But 
 the Due du Maine, being at last satisfactorily tied 
 down to his promise, a meeting was arranged at 
 Madame de Sully's house, followed soon after by 
 a dinner at Monsieur de StaaFs country place. 
 
 ' 'The house, the repast, the company, every- 
 thing suggested the simplicity of the golden age," 
 exclaims Mademoiselle Delaunay. " I found a 
 small house, bright and clean, with white-washed 
 walls ; the absence of much furniture seemed 
 rather an adornment, although later on I did not 
 so much appreciate that style of house decoration. 
 Fowls from the poultry-yard, meat from the flocks, 
 and fruit from the orchard covered the table, as 
 happened in the time when Jupiter, the hospit- 
 able, was revered. Our young hostesses had pre- 
 pared most of the dishes themselves, and regaled 
 us with cakes and cheese made and served by 
 their own hands. I looked on with pleasure at 
 this way of living, which is in accordance with 
 Nature, and has become so foreign to our tastes, 
 and I believed that it would suit me. I felt 
 well satisfied with the master of the house, with 
 his bearing, and a certain unstudied courtesy which 
 comes from the heart and denotes a kindly and 
 benevolent nature. ... I found, in fact, that 
 such was his character. . . . We had, after dinner 
 a conversation in which we discussed the affair in 
 question. Monsieur de Staal expressed his great 
 
220 AS A MATRIMONIAL AGENT 
 
 wish to see it concluded, but remained firm never- 
 theless in his intention not to come to a final 
 agreement until he should have been assured of 
 his promotion. I approved this wise precaution, 
 and we separated satisfied with one another. 
 When I had got into my carriage, he deposited 
 at my feet a small lamb, the fattest of the flock, 
 which he begged me to accept. This pastoral 
 gallantry seemed to me in perfect keeping with 
 all the rest." 
 
 An introduction of so entirely satisfactory a 
 character ought to have hastened the conclusion, 
 but Monsieur du Maine, on whom it depended, 
 never hurried. Meanwhile time slipped, the 
 tender colours of the idyll were fading one by 
 one in Mademoiselle Delaunay's memory, and 
 when Madame du Maine sent for her unex- 
 pectedly one day to tell her that Monsieur de 
 Staal had received his nomination, and that all 
 was settled, she was filled with dismay. That 
 which had seemed pleasant at a distance changed 
 its aspect as it drew near. " I was astonished," 
 she says, " at my past blindness, and yet felt the 
 impossibility of drawing back, after the steps which 
 had been taken. I fell into a kind of stupor." A 
 severe illness gave her for a time some hope of 
 escape, but she was restored to health in spite of 
 her wishes, and in vain did she entreat the 
 Duchesse to intervene. Madame du Maine hardly 
 
MARRIED 
 
 listened, and her indignant attitude later on towards 
 any outside claims on Mademoiselle Delaunay's 
 time shows that she never deigned to remember 
 "either the representations made to her or the 
 encouragement she had then given to the pro- 
 posed division of duties." 
 
 The marriage contract was signed ; the Due 
 du Maine granted the bride a pension for life; 
 Madame du Maine provided a trousseau. 
 
 "The victim," say the Memoirs, "bound and 
 garlanded, was sadly led to the altar by Madame 
 de Chambonas, lady-in-waiting to Madame la 
 Duchesse du Maine, and then taken back to 
 Her Serene Highness ; she received and embraced 
 me with great transports of joy. I then went 
 on to Monsieur le Due du Maine to whom I 
 quoted the words of the psalm : ' Suscitans a 
 terra inopem, etc. . . .' I might add besides, I 
 said : ' qui habitare facit sterilem in domo. ..." 
 
 After the ceremony was over, a small wedding 
 party got into a coach to accompany the new 
 bride to Gennevilliers, her husband's country 
 house. Alas ! the little white house worthy once 
 of the inscription " Parva domus, magna quies," 
 and which before had been wreathed in smiles, 
 was now all frowns. 
 
 "My step-daughters," says the bride, "had 
 apparently flattered themselves that the affair would 
 not be concluded ; they were angry at my arrival and 
 
AS A MATRIMONIAL AGENT 
 
 disappeared instead of coming to meet me. They 
 had not consented to be present at the ceremony, a 
 fact which had already made me understand how 
 ill-disposed they were towards me. After many 
 exhortations the eldest was at last prevailed upon 
 to show herself; she came with a rather bad grace, 
 but I pretended not to notice this, and by many 
 advances I tried to overcome her temper which 
 mended a little at last. The youngest daughter 
 appeared towards the end of the dinner with a few 
 unconvincing excuses for not having come sooner, 
 and finally everything assumed a decent, though not 
 very enchanting, appearance. Monsieur de Staal was 
 grieved at this disagreeable reception. I could feel 
 nothing but surprise at being married at all, and 
 there was in the air a feeling of discomfort which 
 by degrees invaded the whole company." 
 
 The day after this pleasant initiation, the bride 
 was found sobbing in her room by the very friend 
 who had brought about the marriage, and after the 
 departure of her guests she felt utterly forsaken 
 and a stranger in a house which she should have 
 considered her own. "Monsieur de Staal," she 
 owns, "did all he could to make me happy, but 
 my first impression could not easily be dispelled." 
 
 Her stay at Gennevilliers was necessarily a 
 short one ; after a few days she and her husband 
 returned to Sceaux to take up their duties there. 
 Some feeling of elation might have been expected 
 from Madame de Staal on entering upon equal 
 
THE NEW ESTATE 223 
 
 terms at last the social sphere to which her 
 education and her tastes entitled her, but her 
 new advantages are by no means painted by her 
 in glowing colours. 
 
 " Madame du Maine showed much pleasure in 
 meeting me again under my new garb ; I enjoyed 
 forthwith all the privileges of the ladies in her house- 
 hold admission to her table, to her carriage. But 
 I noticed on future occasions the repugnance she 
 felt in being seen with me in the broad daylight of 
 publicity. When the King held the review of the 
 Swiss guards, Monsieur le Due du Maine told her 
 that she ought certainly to go to it, and to allow me 
 to see this spectacle. She went and made me go 
 with Madame de Surl ... in another carriage . . . 
 not in hers, in which she took Madame de 
 Bess . . . better known at Court. From this I 
 concluded that the sacrament of marriage does 
 not wipe out les taches originelles like the 
 sacrament of baptism." 
 
 Other discoveries awaited her: Monsieur de 
 Staal went to spend Lent at his country house, 
 and sent his wife word that he was to start on 
 a campaign directly after Easter. He therefore 
 begged her to spend the Easter week with him 
 at Gennevilliers. 
 
 " I put the proposal before Madame du Maine," 
 said Madame de Staal ; " she listened to it with 
 astonishment and indignation, and not satisfied 
 with an absolute refusal to grant my wishes, she 
 
224, AS A MATRIMONIAL AGENT 
 
 bitterly complained of my request, and accused 
 me of the blackest ingratitude and of the most 
 iniquitous procedures, just as if I had entirely 
 failed in my duty to her in wishing to show some 
 dutifulness to the husband whom she had given 
 me. I tried in vain to recall to her the previous 
 discussions which I had had with her on that very 
 subject: everything had been forgotten and was 
 flatly denied ; I. then saw that I had only fastened 
 more securely the chains which I had tried to 
 loosen." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 WITH the words just quoted the Memoirs end ; 
 of the twenty years and more which were still 
 before her, Madame de Staal Delaunay has 
 recorded nothing, and there could be no stronger 
 testimony to the truth of the feeling she expressed 
 as she closed her diary for ever. With her own 
 hands she had definitely fastened the chains, she 
 had closed the gates which lead to the wide 
 avenues of possibilities, and she saw before her 
 the path of dead certainty marked out to its 
 hopeless end. Of her dispirited walk down that 
 dull path, what should she record, and why 
 reiterate vain regrets ? 
 
 And so silence reigns more or less over this 
 last part of her life ; of her correspondence during 
 these years very little remains. The two men 
 who had occupied a supreme place in her 
 thoughts are dead: the Marquis de Silly will 
 never again exact in his lordly fashion those 
 epistolary communications so charming that they 
 
 held his mind in bondage, though his heart was 
 
 225 F 
 
226 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 unaffected ; the Chevalier de Mnil, passing from 
 her through the gates of treachery, is dead to 
 her. The Abbe de Chaulieu, who had once 
 counted as lost a day in which he had not found 
 the means to please her, had at last reached 
 the very limit of old age and life without ever 
 being conscious of approaching it. No one 
 remained who mattered vitally to Madame de 
 Staal, except the confident e and kindred spirit 
 of her later years the Marquise du Deffand. 
 Here and there only, in letters written to her, 
 she throws off her load of silence and allows 
 herself the luxury of small outbursts. " O ma 
 reine ! " she exclaims, " que les hommes et leurs 
 femelles sont de plaisants animaux. Je ris de 
 leurs manoeuvres le jour que j'ai bien dormi: 
 quand le sommeil me manque, je suis prete a les 
 assommer," and she adds philosophically, "this 
 shows that I myself have not strayed very far 
 from the species." 
 
 The "species," she understood them and 
 judged them with merciless lucidity ; a most 
 striking example of it is the portrait of Madame 
 du Maine which Madame du Deffand once 
 found in a letter addressed to her by Madame 
 de Staal within the last ten years of their corre- 
 spondence. The tone of detached criticism, of 
 coldly meted out justice, which runs all through 
 the description of a woman at whose hands she 
 
STILL A CHILD 227 
 
 had suffered, and suffered very poignantly, makes 
 it interesting enough to be quoted in full. 
 
 "Madame la Duchesse du Maine has arrived 
 at the age of sixty without having been taught 
 anything by her experiences ; she is a child 
 possessed of much wit, she has the unpleasing 
 and the pleasing qualities of a child. Being 
 inquisitive and credulous, she has wished to be 
 acquainted with all the different branches of 
 knowledge, but has been satisfied with super- 
 ficialities. The decisions of those who have 
 brought her up have become the principles and 
 rules of her life, she has never doubted their 
 excellence, she has submitted to them once for 
 all. Her provision of ideas is made ; she would 
 reject the most clearly demonstrated truths and 
 the best arguments, if they went against the 
 first impressions which she has received. To 
 examine into anything is impossible to her light- 
 mindedness, and a state of doubt is unbearable 
 to her frailty. Her catechism and Descartes's 
 philosophy are two systems in which she has 
 equal faith. 
 
 " Her opinion of herself, however excessive, has 
 only gone as far as it has been made to go. The 
 idea she has of her value is a prejudice which 
 has been given to her, like the rest of her opinions. 
 She believes in herself as she believes in God 
 and in Descartes, without examination, without 
 discussion. Her mirror has not been able to 
 cast any doubt on the charms of her physiognomy. 
 The testimony of her eyes is more suspicious to 
 
228 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 her than the judgment of those who have decided 
 that she is both beautiful and well-made. Her 
 vanity is of a singular kind, yet it seems less 
 shocking because it is not reasoned out, although 
 it is all the more absurd for it. 
 
 " To have intercourse with her is slavery ; 
 her tyranny is quite unconcealed ; she does not 
 deign to colour it with the semblance of friend- 
 ship. She says ingenuously that she is unlucky 
 enough not to be able to do without people for 
 whom she does not care at all : and, indeed, she 
 proves it. One sees her hear with perfect 
 indifference the death of those who made her 
 shed tears if they were a quarter of an hour late 
 for a game or a walk. 
 
 " One cannot have any illusions about her : 
 her frankness, or, to put it more accurately, the 
 little consideration she has for anybody, causes 
 her never to dissimulate any of her caprices. 
 She suggested to a great wit of her times the 
 saying that 'princes are in a moral sphere what 
 monsters are in physical life ; in them one can 
 perceive with perfect clearness most of those vices 
 which are imperceptible in other men.' 
 
 " Her temper is impetuous and uneven, she 
 passes from anger to despair, to indignation, to 
 serenity, twenty times within a quarter of an 
 hour. She often rouses herself from the very 
 depths of sadness to break into a sudden gaiety 
 which is most winning. Her wit is fine, quick 
 and light ; her memory is prodigious ; she speaks 
 with eloquence, but with too much vehemence 
 and prolixity. One can have no conversation 
 
MANKIND'S EPITOME 229 
 
 with her ; she does not care to be understood, it 
 is enough for her to be listened to ; consequently, 
 she has no knowledge whatsoever of the mind, 
 the talents, the defects, and the ridicules of those 
 who surround her. Some one has said of her: 
 6 qu'elle n'etait point sortie de chez elle, et qu'elle 
 n'avait pas mme mis le nez a la fenetre.' 
 
 "She has spent her life in seeking pleasures 
 and amusements of all kinds ; she spares neither 
 care nor expense to make her court agreeable 
 and brilliant. In one word, Madame la Duchesse 
 du Maine is so constituted that one can say of 
 her a great deal that is good and a great deal that 
 is bad, without offending truth. She is haughty 
 without being proud, is a spendthrift without 
 being generous, she has religion but no piety, a 
 great opinion of herself without contempt for others, 
 much information without real knowledge, and all 
 the show of friendship without the feeling of it. ..." 
 
 What could be the life of those dependent 
 on Madame du Maine, but a meaningless round 
 of activities from which the healthy element of 
 individual promptings, the tonic flavour of 
 individual impulses must always and necessarily 
 be absent ! All the weariness of it groans in 
 the following passages : 
 
 " We are for ever saying and doing the same 
 things, we walk, we remark on the wind, on 
 cards, on gains and losses, on the measures taken 
 to keep the doors closed, whatever the heat may 
 
230 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 be, arid on the subsequent despair of those whom 
 we call the stifled ones among whom I figure." 
 
 Under such circumstances even the discomforts 
 of a transitory summer residence such as Sorel 1 
 from which some letters are dated may be greeted 
 as a godsend, for they create at least a little stir 
 in the torpid waters, they awaken desire for change, 
 and is it not a pleasure to feel the stirring of a 
 desire ? 
 
 "Sorel is good, inasmuch as it makes you 
 wish for Anet," writes Madame de Staal, "and 
 so I always come here with great pleasure. 
 This is one of the pretty places in this world, 
 nothing could be brighter or more cheerful than 
 its general aspect, but nothing could be as 
 morose and cheerless as its inhabitants. The 
 chatelaine herself is reduced to wishing for some 
 annoyance, some teasing element which might 
 rouse the company. To-night we are going 
 to have un grand souper maigre that won't be 
 more entertaining than the rest ! In short, during 
 this whole fortnight since we have been here, 
 nothing has happened, either tragic or comic, that 
 I could have written to you. I had thought of 
 reporting to you Monsieur Dumont's sore throat, 
 as the most remarkable event of these days. He 
 wanted to be bled. Her Serene Highness would 
 not allow it. The tears of his wife, the emotion 
 of the assembly, the request to call in Monsieur 
 Bouteille, refused peremptorily, the manoeuvres 
 
 1 One of the summer residences of Madame du Maine. 
 
WEARY GLORY 
 
 to smuggle in Monsieur Andre instead, reduced to 
 naught, the complaints on the one hand, the 
 dissertations on the other, ' tout cela s'est 
 merveilleusement etendu dans le vide.' Now 
 Dumont has recovered, in spite of himself, without 
 taking any remedy, and he feels quite humiliated 
 by it. ... Good-bye, my queen ; if I had anything 
 worth writing, I would sacrifice my dinner to you, 
 but that which comes into my mind is more 
 tasteless even than what I am going to eat. I 
 lose all my thinking power when I have no 
 time of my own." 
 
 Though weariness moans in her heart, out- 
 wardly she bears herself bravely; graceful and 
 witty, she gives of the bountiful stores of her 
 mind, without expecting too much in return, and, 
 as years go by, her name is found more and more 
 frequently coupled with that of Madame du 
 Deffand, whenever the attractions of Sceaux are 
 discussed. These two women, so subtly alike 
 in temperament, made, it is said, the glory of 
 the second period of Sceaux, more than the 
 Duchesse de Luynes, than the Marquise de 
 Lambert in spite of the fame of her Paris 
 salon, more than the Duchesse d'Estrees whose 
 inexhaustible zest for activities was only equalled 
 by that of Madame du Maine herself. 
 
 This princess, in spite of the prosaic claims 
 of middle age and embonpoint, still looked upon 
 herself as an impersonation of Venus and Astarte, 
 
232 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 and claimed worship even from sceptics whose 
 eyes failed to see this. President Renault him- 
 self, ami attitre of Madame du Deffand, her 
 equal in terseness of speech and biting sarcasm, 
 has to become lyrical like the rest and how he 
 bewails it later on ! 
 
 "I spent more than twenty years at Sceaux, 
 and may God forgive me," he exclaims, "for all 
 the tasteless compliments with which I inflated 
 mediocre verses. If by some piece of ill-luck these 
 wretched things were to survive me, they would 
 lead people to believe that the Duchesse du Maine 
 was beauty personified, that she was Venus floating 
 upon the waters one would mistake for physical 
 charm that which was purely the charm of con- 
 versation. Madame la Duchesse du Maine," he 
 adds, " was the oracle of her small court. It would 
 be impossible to be more witty, more eloquent, 
 more playful, more truly courteous than she was, 
 but, at the same time, one could not be more 
 unfair, more self-seeking, or more tyrannical." 
 
 All those around her had to humour her 
 caprices, to bear with her tyrannies, to follow 
 her breathlessly in a senseless round of activities 
 which had lost their taste even for her, but which 
 had become necessities of her life. 
 
 "... I am very sorry that you should be without 
 diversions," Madame de Staal writes to Madame 
 du DefFand, " they are a medicine which is indis- 
 
FEAR OF THUNDER 233 
 
 pensible to health our Princess, at least, has no 
 doubt of that, for although she is ill, she goes night 
 and day without a pause. . . . These last few 
 days we were steeped in diversions, now we are 
 steeped in rain. . . . Moreover, our Princess has 
 lately caught a feverish chill, in spite of which 
 and in defiance of the diabolical weather our 
 daily walks still continue. It would seem that 
 Providence fashions for the use of princes special 
 bodies made to resist the wear and tear of their 
 caprices, otherwise they could never reach a 
 man's estate." 
 
 One thing only, it seems, daunted the weather- 
 proof energy of the Duchesse : a thunderstorm ; it 
 terrified her, it reduced her and her mental 
 capacities to their very lowest depth. 
 
 " I read your letter to Her Serene Highness two 
 days ago, my queen," reports Madame de Staal to 
 her favourite correspondent. " She was in a state 
 of great terror at the thunder, a circumstance 
 which did not help your civilities to appear to 
 their best advantage. Another time I shall take 
 care not to expose you to a thunderstorm ! " 
 
 Indoor diversions rivalled outdoor pursuits : 
 the stage at Sceaux was seldom empty of actors, 
 and Madame du Maine's zeal for learning the 
 longest parts had not abated ; but it happened 
 sometimes, in that second period of her reign, 
 that an overbearing rival dared to snatch from 
 
234 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 her the sceptre of supremacy, Madame du 
 Chatelet, for instance, who from time to time 
 made tempestuous descents upon Sceaux with 
 " her " Voltaire, her scientific books, her manu- 
 scripts, and her demands which set the whole 
 household agog. Madame de Staal writes to 
 Madame du Deffand, who had announced her 
 arrival shortly after Madame du Chatelet's 
 departure. 
 
 " At any rate the apartment reserved for you 
 here is a comfortable one; it is that of which 
 Madame du Chatelet had taken possession, after a 
 discriminate inspection of the whole house ! You 
 will find in it, perhaps, a little less furniture than 
 she had put in; for she had plundered all the 
 apartments she had had before, in order to garnish 
 this last one. Six or seven tables, which had 
 been missing, were found there ; she needs them 
 in all sizes very wide ones to spread out her 
 papers, heavy ones to carry her travelling cases, 
 light ones for her knick-knacks, ribbons, and 
 jewels; and yet this fine systematic arrangement 
 did not save her from an accident such as happened 
 to Philip II. when, after he had spent the whole 
 night in writing, some one upset a bottle of 
 ink all over his despatches. The lady did not 
 pride herself upon imitating the prince's modera- 
 tion in this case but then he had only written 
 upon affairs of State, whereas, in her case, what 
 had been smudged was algebra, a thing much 
 harder to clear up ! ..." 
 
VOLTAIRE 285 
 
 The arrival of this female pedant is not described 
 in enthusiastic terms. 
 
 " ANET/ Uth August 1747- 
 
 " . . . . Madame du Chatelet and Voltaire, who 
 were to arrive to-day and who lately had been more 
 or less lost sight of, appeared yesterday about 
 midnight, like two ghosts, carrying with them an 
 atmosphere as of embalmed mummies who have 
 just risen from their tombs. We had just got up 
 from supper, however they were famished ghosts 
 and had to have something to eat ; more than 
 that, they had to have beds, which, of course, 
 were not ready. The concierge, who had gone to 
 bed, got up in great haste. Gaya, 2 who had offered 
 to leave his apartment if it should be wanted, was 
 obliged to give it up now ; he moved out with as 
 much precipitation and displeasure as an army 
 overtaken in camp and obliged to leave part of its 
 baggage in the hands of the enemy. Voltaire was 
 very comfortable in Gaya's apartment, a circum- 
 stance which did not comfort Gaya in the very 
 least. As to the lady she declared that her bed 
 had been made very badly, and she had to be 
 moved to-day. You will please note that she had 
 made that bed herself ! " 
 
 Madame du Chatelet's recriminations at all 
 times were proverbial. Madame de Staal, who 
 evidently felt nothing but antipathy for a mind all 
 mathematics and a soul all vanity, writes a little 
 
 1 One of the summer residences of Madame du Maine. 
 
 2 An officer of Monsieur du Maine's suite. 
 
236 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 later : " La du Chatelet has discovered a deviation 
 of 16 degrees by 8 in her mattresses ; this, I should 
 think, has bruised her accurate mind more than her 
 body which could hardly be called delicate." 
 
 On the 20th of August, five days after Madame 
 du Chatelet 's arrival, a new letter of Madame de 
 Staal shows that the migrations of the troublesome 
 guest are not ended yet. 
 
 "Madame du Chatelet has since yesterday 
 completed her third installation ; she could not 
 any longer bear the one she had chosen before ; 
 it was noisy, it smoked without having any fire ! 
 (smoke without fire seems to me to be exactly 
 her emblem). Noise, as she explained, does not 
 incommode her at night, but in the day time when 
 the fervour of her work is at its height, then it 
 disturbs her thoughts. She is at present making a 
 review of her ' Principles ' this is a practice which 
 she repeats every year, for fear they should escape 
 from her and run so far that not one of them could 
 be got back again! I rather think that her mind 
 is to her principles more of a prison than a natural 
 home ; there is then every reason to keep a careful 
 watch over them." 
 
 A very biting piece of sarcasm too biting 
 perhaps, but it is quite evident from the testimonies 
 of contemporaries that Madame du Chatelet never 
 enlisted many sympathies. Madame du Maine's 
 circle shared the common opinion. " They have made 
 themselves generally detested here," Madame de 
 
MADAME DU CHATELET 237 
 
 Staal writes a few days after the departure of 
 Voltaire and his Egeria, "by showing neither 
 politeness nor consideration to any one." It seems 
 that these two guests who were so careless in the 
 matter of opportune arrival, so careful in the matter 
 of their own comfort, made further breaches in 
 the etiquette of hospitality by remaining all day 
 long secluded in their apartments. 
 
 "Our ghosts do not show themselves in the 
 daytime," we hear from Madame de Staal, "last 
 night they appeared at 10 o'clock, I don't think 
 that we shall see them much earlier to-day ; the 
 one is busy describing valorous deeds, the other is 
 writing comments on Newton ce sont bien des 
 non-valeurs dans une societe ou leurs doctes 
 ecrits ne sont d'aucun rapport." 
 
 To the very end Madame du Chatelet seems to 
 have kept to her systematic selfishness, though 
 Voltaire, who evidently felt the criticism in the 
 air, made some effort at propitiation. 
 
 " She prefers," we hear, " the charm of her own 
 occupations to any amusements and she persists 
 in not showing herself till nightfall ; Voltaire, how- 
 ever, has composed some flattering verses which have 
 dispelled just a little the bad impression made by 
 their unusual behaviour." 
 
 The only occasion on which they redeemed 
 their reputation was on the eve of their departure. 
 
238 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 One of Voltaire's comedies, Le Comte de Boivr- 
 soufle, was acted, and Madame du Chatelet, though 
 neither her physique nor her costume were suited to 
 her part, acted with such consummate excellence 
 that she won the complete appreciation, even of 
 Madame de Staal. " She acted with such perfec- 
 tion the extravagance of her part that it afforded 
 me the very greatest pleasure." A few notes of 
 criticism, however, are scattered amongst the praises 
 of this performance, to which many guests had been 
 bidden, and also a well-known actress, Madame 
 Dufour, who was to have the pleasure of acting 
 the secondary part of housekeeper to Madame 
 du Chatelet, in her chief part of Mademoiselle de 
 la Cochonniere. 
 
 " It is Venture 1 who is acting the Comte de 
 Boursoufle his will not be a speaking likeness, nor 
 will this be the case with Madame du Chatelet 
 acting Mademoiselle de la Cochonniere, who ought 
 to be short and fat. ..." 
 
 And a little later the correspondence records : 
 
 " All went off fairly well, and one can say that 
 this farce was well acted ; the author ennobled it by 
 a prologue in which he acted himself, and very well, 
 too, with our Dufour, who but for that glorious 
 role could not have digested being Madame Barbe ; 
 she could not consent to the simplicity of dress 
 
 1 A rather sorry-looking secretary of Monsieur du Maine. 
 
DEPARTURE OF VOLTAIRE 239 
 
 required by her role, neither could the principal 
 actress who, putting the interests of vanity above 
 those of the play, appeared on the stage in all the 
 elegance and brilliancy of a court lady ; she and 
 Voltaire fell out over this point, but she is the 
 sovereign and he is the slave. ..." 
 
 Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet, by their real 
 literary excellence, and, perhaps, who knows to 
 what degree, by the decided independence of their 
 attitude, had set a current of real enjoyment flow- 
 ing through the dormant waters of Anet ; and from 
 the lips of Madame de Staal, who was ever ready 
 to be conquered by excellence of any kind, there 
 falls a spontaneous confession of dependence upon 
 these two : "I am very sorry that they are going," 
 she owns, adding however, " but I am wearied out 
 with her numerous and diverse caprices, all of 
 which she expects me to fulfil." The post which 
 arrived the day after the departure of these exact- 
 ing guests can only have strengthened Madame de 
 Staal in her reservations. She describes this to 
 Madame du Deffand with her usual verve: 
 
 "The day after their departure, I received a 
 letter of four pages and added to that, in the same 
 packet, a note which announces a great desarroi, 
 Monsieur de Voltaire has mislaid his comedy, for- 
 gotten to take with him the actors' parts written out 
 separately, and lost the prologue. I am enjoined 
 to find everything, to send on the prologue at the 
 
240 THE LATER COURT OF SCEAUX 
 
 very earliest opportunity, not by post, because 
 some one would be sure to copy it. I am to keep the 
 separate parts for fear of the same danger and to 
 lock up the comedy under a hundred locks and 
 keys ! I should have considered a latch quite 
 sufficient for the safe keeping of such a treasure ! 
 I have, however, duly executed all the orders I 
 have received." 
 
 Not until Madame du Chatelet brought him 
 in her train had Voltaire appeared at Sceaux, 
 and yet, as a young man, when he relied upon 
 his wit alone to conquer a place in society, he 
 had seemed especially fitted to figure among the 
 intellectual purveyors of Madame du Maine. 
 About 1732 again, Madame du DefFand had 
 tried to attach him in some capacity to the 
 household of the Duchesse, and although the post 
 she offered was not the most desirable, she had 
 pressed him very much to accept it. He had 
 refused ; his independent spirit was full grown 
 at that time and chafed at the restraint which 
 was awaiting him ; his answer, with its little 
 venomous dart at the end, is very characteristic : 
 
 " You have proposed to me, Madame," he wrote, 
 "the dignity of equerry in Madame la Duchesse 
 du Maine's household, and as I did not feel 
 equal to that task, I have been obliged to wait 
 for another opportunity to pay my court to you. 
 I hear that besides that post of equerry there is 
 
OPPOSING EGOISTS 341 
 
 also another one vacant, for a reader; but I am 
 quite convinced that this is not a sinecure with 
 Madame du Maine, as it is with the King." 
 
 Voltaire knew the exactions of the service at 
 the court of Sceaux, and he who at Madame de 
 Chatelet's house was granted, as a matter of 
 course, the undisturbed enjoyment of his own 
 private apartments, his own gold plate, his own 
 moods, and his own tempers^ had naturally been 
 unwilling to bend his neck under the yoke and 
 to file into place in the well-disciplined ranks of 
 the Sceaux courtiers. Disciplined they were 
 indeed, and from a hard necessity, meek of spirit, 
 for Madame du Maine ignored other claims than 
 her own. She expected the best of all things 
 to fall quite naturally to the best of all beings 
 herself ; that division of gifts seemed to her the 
 only possible one. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE CLOSE OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE 
 
 IF there is one human need which was bound to 
 starve most cruelly in the atmosphere of Sceaux, 
 it is the need of friendship. Madame de Staal 
 longed for friendship ; the very frequency of the 
 letters written by her to Madame du Deffand 
 shows how much she yearned for it. All the 
 rather cold and sometimes cynical philosophy 
 which disillusioning circumstances had built up 
 in her, crumbles down when true devotion is 
 roused. The same absolute unselfishness which 
 had once marked her relations with the Marquis 
 de Silly again characterises her intercourse with 
 Madame du Deffand. Where she loves whole- 
 heartedly, she sacrifices herself as whole-heartedly. 
 In her solitude of mind and heart, her friend's 
 letters are the only real joy of her days ; yet 
 she constantly puts a curb upon her desire for 
 them. 
 
 For some reason still unknown, the letters of 
 
 the year 1747 are the only ones which have been 
 
 242 
 
A COMFORTING FRIENDSHIP 
 
 preserved; at that time the friendship between 
 the two women is of long date already, but 
 there has been no blunting of the keen sensi- 
 bilities. The letters of Madame de Staal follow 
 close upon each other, often at a distance of 
 two or three days only, and when the answers 
 do not arrive quickly, impatience calls out 
 insistently. Yet she chides herself for this, and 
 she begs Madame du Deffand -to take no notice of 
 her demands. " I beg you," she writes, " to have no 
 regard for my complaints, and to give way to laziness 
 by all means, when it overtakes you ; I love your 
 letters passionately, but writing them shall not 
 cost you anything," and later on : " Are you going 
 to Champs, ma reine? Perhaps you are there 
 already. I know nothing about you, but pro- 
 vided you are well, 1 approve of everything." 
 And another time : " I will not buy my pleasure 
 at the expense of your trouble, not even the 
 pleasure of hearing from you. ..." 
 
 More precious still than her letters were the 
 visits which Madame du Deffand paid from time 
 to time to the Duchesse du Maine. These seem 
 to have been scarce in that year 1747, and from 
 the cautionary measures advised in the letters 
 stands out quite clearly the fact which was 
 to be expected that intercourse between the 
 independent minded Marquise du Deffand and 
 the tyrannical Duchesse du Maine was not a 
 
244 THE CLOSE OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE 
 
 smoothly working function. Though Madame de 
 Staal longs for the tonic presence of her friend, 
 her one wish is to spare her annoyance, even if 
 it must mean the giving up of a visit long 
 planned. There is in the letters a good deal 
 of discussion about the comparative merits of 
 le grand chdteau and le petit chateau ; these 
 were the two residences of Madame du Maine 
 at Sceaux. In the main building, the grand 
 chdteau, resided the Duchesse herself, and there 
 she assigned apartments to those of her guests 
 whom she wished to honour specially. Madame 
 de Staal, as one of the chief ladies-in-waiting, had 
 her rooms there too, and would naturally have 
 preferred to have Madame du Deffand under the 
 same roof, An apartment in the grand chdteau 
 would, as a matter of course, have fallen to the 
 lot of the influential Marquise, but there were 
 conditions attached to this honour which she was 
 at times utterly incapable of fulfilling. . . . There 
 was something in the atmosphere of Sceaux which 
 would suddenly plunge her into uncontrollable fits 
 of boredom ; on those occasions she would unex- 
 pectedly be called back to Paris on matters of the 
 extremest urgency. Now levity in the treatment 
 of the grand chdteau was the unpardonable sin, 
 and the essence of the crime, it will be noticed, 
 was not wilfully to forego the society of Madame 
 du Maine, but to leave empty one of those apart- 
 
MADAME DU DEFFAND 245 
 
 ments which must ever be filled, lest the tide of 
 popularity should be thought to wane ! 
 
 Madame du DefFand's presence is desired at 
 Sceaux for the sake of her prestige, but her 
 temperament evidently rouses hesitations. 
 
 " I suspect," Madame de Staal writes, " that the 
 fear of having fewer guests by giving you more 
 rooms is very detrimental to the affection ' a certain 
 person ' has for you, for ' our ' dominant passion is 
 the multitude ; this taste increases and grows 
 stronger as 'one' finds less resources in 'oneself.' . . . 
 Whilst deeming you perhaps less amiable than of 
 old, one does not any the less desire to have you 
 here. The wish to be surrounded increases from 
 day to day, and I foresee that if you keep an 
 apartment without occupying it, it will provoke 
 great regret for what will be missed in con- 
 sequence, whatever it may be." 
 
 A little later, as Madame du Deffand has not 
 yet given any certitude of her arrival at Sceaux, 
 the wish to have her there increases in proportion. 
 Madame de Staal has warmer messages to send, 
 but knowing her friend's impulsive ways, she 
 advises the choice of le petit chateau, for although 
 it was damp and uncomfortable, to vacate an 
 apartment there unexpectedly was counted a sin 
 of lesser proportions. 
 
 " Madame la Duchesse du Maine sends you 
 the assurances that she loves you as much as ever, 
 
246 THE CLOSE OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE 
 
 and will give you any apartment you may wish 
 to have, as I have written to you already. To 
 that I add, between ourselves, that if while at the 
 grand chateau you only appear in the evenings, 
 or if you go to Paris frequently, you will encounter 
 great disfavour, even if it were only on account 
 of the bad example you will set, by following 
 your own wishes in these precincts. . . . Therefore, 
 I advise you, ma reine, in spite of the convenience 
 it would be to me, not to accept that apartment, 
 unless you wish to accept with it more responsi- 
 bilities than you take in the other. ... If you 
 cannot be here much, ma reine, try to be satisfied 
 with the petit chateau, in order to avoid talk 
 and perhaps complaints which would be unpleasant 
 to you. Let us strive to let nothing separate us 
 more than we are already ! If you make up your 
 mind to take up your abode in that cold and 
 damp place, give orders that a good fire should 
 be lighted in it, several days before your arrival." 
 
 Just before Madame du Deffand is to arrive 
 at Sceaux, something happens which threatens to 
 break off all relations between her and Madame 
 du Maine. She has been to see the Duchesse de 
 Modene, daughter of the Regent, a fascinating 
 brilliant woman of whose rivalry Madame du 
 Maine has always been passionately jealous. 
 Such a defection is unpardonable ! Madame de 
 Staal warns her of the effect of this action and 
 beseeches her to bridge over difficulties, if only 
 for once, as she herself is strongly suspected of 
 
MAN'S INGRATITUDE 247 
 
 admiration for the obnoxious rival, and unless 
 Madame du Maine's anger is appeased, it will 
 break up everything, irrespective of future regrets. 
 
 "Nothing, ma reine, could equal the surprise 
 and the grief ' a certain person ' feels at hearing that 
 you have been to see Madame la Duchesse de 
 Modene ; the most passionate and jealous lover 
 would bear suspicious dealings on the part of his 
 loved one with more equanimity than 'one' endures 
 these from you." 
 
 And then she quotes more or less textually 
 Madame du Maine's oracular denunciations of the 
 world for treating with such base ingratitude the 
 noble and unique gift of her favours. 
 
 "You go and sacrifice yourself, you give up 
 everything . . . and this is in reserve for you . . . 
 one is indeed a rare example of ill-luck . . . those 
 torments of which one thought to be delivered 
 will again befall one . . . always the same pitfalls 
 ... it is a most cruel fate . . . etc., etc. ! . . . I 
 said all that could be said to calm her, but she 
 would listen to nothing. Although I ought not 
 to be capable of surprise any more, this scene has 
 yet contrived to surprise me. Come, I beseech 
 you, ma reine, come and prevent a catastrophe . . . 
 I understand that you might be tempted to avoid 
 such a thorny path, but remember that if you 
 decide to do it, all will fall upon me whom you 
 would leave utterly forsaken. ' A certain person ' is 
 already very ill-disposed towards me, and I entreat 
 you, considering the circumstances, to lend yourself 
 
248 THE CLOSE OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE 
 
 to what is necessary in order to adjust matters. If, 
 later on, you cannot stand it any longer (for I 
 know how difficult it is) you will loosen the ties 
 gently, without causing a definite rupture; I 
 shall never ask of your friendship that your life 
 should be made thorny and difficult ; it is enough 
 that mine should be so. If you shared my 
 troubles, far from being relieved they would be 
 doubled. We are leaving here to-morrow, and we 
 shall arrive at Sceaux on Thursday ; as I have told 
 you I desire passionately to find you there on our 
 arrival. I have never had so great a need of you, 
 my queen." 
 
 Friendship, affection is for Madame de Staal 
 the great softener of hard edges ; under its 
 influence she grows diffident about herself, she 
 glows with a desire for perfection, she, to whom 
 an exceptionally clear vision has given such self- 
 assurance, a conviction that a very moderate state 
 of grace is all one can expect of oneself and of 
 others ! 
 
 "It would be impossible to be more touched 
 by your friendship than I am, ma reine" she 
 writes, "but I am a little worried about the too 
 good opinion you have of me ; it makes me feel 
 that I may be false, for if you do not see my 
 faults, I must be hiding them, and that is worse 
 than possessing them." 
 
 And going back to the same subject, another time : 
 "I see that it is not I whom you love, but 
 
PATIENCE AND WEARINESS 249 
 
 an ideal of your own creation, which you have 
 made worthy of you, and which has all too little 
 resemblance to the frail creature to whom you 
 present it. You will, in the end, reduce me to my 
 own value : I hope, however, that accustomed to 
 love me and touched by my feeling for you, 
 you will not love me any the less for your 
 discovery." 
 
 Her sincerity prompts her to give instances of 
 her unworthiness, and one of these is so touching 
 in its pathetic grace, so illustrative at the same 
 time of the atmosphere of Sceaux, that it is worth 
 being quoted in full. Madame du Maine was 
 suffering from an attack of rheumatism to which she 
 sacrificed many of her attendants, but none of her 
 diversions. Two nights running Madame de Staal 
 had been called to keep the wakeful Duchesse 
 company, and her weariness was so great that 
 for a moment she so far forgot herself that she 
 dared to show it. She bemoans the fact to 
 Madame du Deffand. 
 
 " I am far from being as perfect as you think 
 me. When I was fetched the second night, I 
 made a wry face, being really hardly able to drag 
 myself. The next day I was reprimanded for it, 
 very curtly, and in the presence of many; that 
 displeased me. I had begged Monsieur de Lassay, 
 who was there at the time, to lodge for me a 
 modest little complaint ; he missed his opportunity, 
 and I don't think he has found one since. Don't 
 
250 THE CLOSE OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE 
 
 mention this to him, if you see him, for now it 
 would not be of use any more." Then she adds 
 philosophically : " The result of all this has been 
 that I have been left to myself a good deal, and 
 perhaps that a little contempt, provided I do not 
 deserve it, is better than a great deal of fatigue 
 which I might have had. . . . ' 
 
 Next to Madame de StaaFs admirable capacity 
 of devotion to real friends stands her no less 
 admirable quality of indifference to all friendship 
 not based on congeniality of mind and feeling. 
 The importance in her eyes of those friends 
 who can only be made by "climbing" and used 
 for " climbing " she expresses in her own ironical 
 manner. " As to those (friends) who can only be 
 caught by aerial flights, one will do well to feel 
 resigned when one misses them, and not to spoil 
 one's features for their sake." All through the 
 long years which she spent with Madame du 
 Maine, she never used that rare perspicacity 
 which was hers, that quick amusing wit on which 
 the Duchesse had learned to depend, for any 
 purpose of self-advancement ; she never presumed 
 on any appreciation shown to her qualities to 
 make claims to any friendship. She had realised 
 that Madame du Maine had none of the qualities 
 which make a real friend, and she scorned a 
 semblance of it. Yet, even while she thought 
 herself resigned to the callous atmosphere around 
 
DEATH OF THE DUCHESSE D'ESTREES 251 
 
 her, something happened in that same year 1747, 
 just as the first autumn leaves were falling from 
 the trees in the beautiful park of Anet something 
 happened which made her realise with an ugly 
 shock that she had yet been dreaming dreams 
 about humanity, and that reality was more 
 hopeless, by far, than she had thought. The 
 Duchesse d'Estrees, closest friend of Madame du 
 Maine, and the very embodiment of vitality, 
 died suddenly, and Anet, shaken to its very 
 foundations by this overpowering victory of Death, 
 showed only one feeling after a few brief hours 
 of stupor, a passionate wish to forget. 
 
 This event is the last she has recorded ; a few 
 passages in letters addressed to Madame du Deffand 
 call up the melancholy episode. The first allusion 
 to it is written in that slight note of mocking 
 cynicism which Madame de Staal so frequently 
 sounds ; she does not foresee any serious conse- 
 quences of the incident she relates, and her style 
 follows its natural bent : 
 
 "Yesterday, the Duchesse d'Estrees had a 
 heavy fall being quite incapable of having a 
 light one ; she declares that her head in striking 
 the stairs made a noise like thunder, and she says 
 that she rolled down five steps. She had herself 
 bled, and went down to supper ; I suppose that she 
 supped well, and that this accident will have no 
 unpleasant consequences." 
 
252 THE CLOSE OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE 
 
 The first consequence was an unexpected one. 
 The Duchesse, deplorably headstrong as a rule, in 
 a way which often caused her to fall from grace, 
 went through a felicitous period of meekness and 
 self-abasement which made Madame de Staal 
 exclaim: "I have never seen her more easily satisfied 
 or more accommodating, her rivals are getting 
 thin w r ith disappointment over this happy truce ! " 
 
 There was no need to fear Madame d'Estrees' 
 ever-renewed influence over Madame du Maine 
 it was doomed even then ; a few days later she 
 died suddenly, perhaps from the consequences of 
 her accident. 
 
 " This afternoon we are burying that poor 
 Duchesse d'Estrees," writes Madame de Staal, 
 " and then the curtain will come down, and we 
 will say no more about it. ... We have not had 
 any acting, it is true, since the awful spectacle 
 which we have had to witness, but I should not 
 wonder if we saw Monsieur de Senetterre's farce 
 acted here again, before we leave. ... It must 
 be owned that this is going a little beyond human 
 nature. I can imagine my own funeral, if regrets 
 for me are greater, my funeral pomp will be 
 greater in proportion . . . but what does it all 
 matter ! " 
 
 What does it all matter this becomes 
 more and more the keynote of Madame de Staal's 
 philosophy. The vanity of things how could 
 it have been illustrated more poignantly than by 
 
SPREADING OF THE MIGHTY ONES 253 
 
 Madame du Maine's desperate wooing of pleasure 
 pleasure at any cost, at any price, as a mere 
 assertion of her caprices, perhaps as a flimsy 
 curtain screening but imperfectly the unfaceable 
 terrors of old age and death. . . . For one who 
 looked on with seeing eyes at the fantasmagory 
 of Sceaux, there were many curious truths to be 
 discovered ; Madame du Deffand confesses that 
 she, too, found in it rare good fortunes of observa- 
 tion. Madame de Staal and she had, from daily 
 experiences, come very much to the same con- 
 clusions. One of those facts which had been 
 most ruthless in the shaping of her life at Sceaux 
 is expressed by Madame de Staal with a note of 
 triumphant superiority although bitterness rankles 
 in it still. 
 
 "From sheer spreading of their personality," 
 she writes, " the mighty ones of this earth become 
 so transparent that one can see through them ; it 
 is a sight which affords fine opportunities for study, 
 and I know of nothing which inclines me more 
 to philosophy." 
 
 She understands that as " the mighty ones " 
 feel this irrepressible need of " spreading," there 
 can be but little room left for those dependent 
 on them, and that the only wise course to take is 
 to school oneself to indifference. " Sensitiveness," 
 she says, " increases as one panders to it ; one is 
 
254 THE CLOSE OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE 
 
 often unhappy only from too great a wish to be 
 happy." 
 
 Thus she expresses her renunciation which, for 
 all its philosophy, still pulses with the eternal 
 yearning of the human heart. How much was 
 life to grant yet to her longings ? Only three 
 short years were left to her as she wrote the 
 words last quoted, and of these last years nothing 
 is known. The letters written after 1747 seem 
 to have been lost, probably there were but few of 
 them : the strenuous personality which had mocked 
 at fate so long, which had hoped so buoyantly 
 and had grieved so passionately, was dying out 
 at last in the cold shadow which " the great ones 
 of this earth " spread around them. Perhaps she 
 found increasing peace and serenity ; had she 
 been asked to sum up these years of her life, she 
 might perhaps have repeated those words which 
 close one of her last letters and which seem to 
 sound a defeat and yet a victory : " Since I have 
 come to wish for nothing, I have felt more at 
 peace than if I had everything that I ever wished 
 to possess." 
 
INDEX 
 
 ALBEMARLB, Duchess of, 56 
 
 Alberoni, Cardinal, 145-146 
 
 Anjou, Duchesse d', 69 
 
 Argenson, Marquis d', 61, 62, 130, 163- 
 
 Artagnan, Comtesse d', 56 
 Austria, Emperor of, 92 
 
 BARRON, 58 
 
 Berry, Due de, 97-98 
 
 , Duchesse de, 156-157 
 
 Bethune, Due de, 149 
 
 Blois, Mademoiselle de, see Duchesse 
 
 d 'Orleans 
 Bourbon, Henri- Jules de, " Monsieur 
 
 le Prince," 40, 49, 56, 94 
 , "Monsieur le Due," 48, 117-118, 
 
 151, 199, 202 
 
 Bourgogne, Duchesse de, 95, 97 
 Brassac, Comtesse de, 77 
 Bretagne, Due de, 34, 96 
 Brigaut, Abbe", 141-145 
 
 CELLAMARE, Prince, 126-128, 142 
 Charolais, Comte de, 118 
 Chatelet, Marquise du, 234-241 
 Chaulieu, Abbe de, 113-116 
 Choiseul, Duchesse de, 56 
 Clermont, Mademoiselle de, 63 
 Coislin, Due de, 56 
 Colbert, 52 
 
 Cond, "le Grand, "40 
 Conti, Prince de, 118-201 
 
 DAUPHIN, the, 92 
 
 Dauphine, the, 29 
 
 Delaunay, Henriette, 36, 65 
 
 , Mademoiselle, birth and educa- 
 tion, 1 - 5 ; is considered a prodigy, 
 6 ; first glimpse of the world, 7-9 ; 
 falls in love, 10-20; is thrown 
 upon her own resources, 22 ; seeks 
 her fortune in Paris, 27 ; meets 
 Madame de la Ferte, 28 ; is shown 
 to society at Versailles, 34 ; is taken 
 to Sceaux, 57 ; enters Madame du 
 Maine's service, 65 ; discomforts of 
 her position, 67-74 ; resolves to put 
 an end to her life, 75 ; comes into 
 notice, 79 ; acts, 84 ; her portrait, 
 113 ; legal researches, 120 ; inter- 
 
 views with adventurers, 121 - 124 ; 
 meetings with conspirators, 137 ; 
 arrested, 149-153 ; diversions at the 
 Bastille, 159-161; elusiveness, 167- 
 J68 ; falls in love with De Menil, 
 169-186 ; the Cellamare conspiracy, 
 196; returns to Sceaux, 204-208; 
 overtures of marriage, 211-215 ; meets 
 Monsieur de Staal, 219-221; corre- 
 spondence, 226-254 
 
 Descartes, 4 
 
 Dubois, Abbe", then Cardinal, 129-155, 
 164, 197 
 
 Duclos, 98, 131 
 
 " EMINENCE grise," 22 
 
 Enghien, Duchesse d', 56 
 
 Estre6s, Duchesse d', 206, 231, 251-252 
 
 Eu, Comte d', 118 
 
 F^NELON, 43 
 
 Ferte, Duchesse de la, 27-38, 39, 53, 
 58-66, 212-213 
 
 , Marechal de la, 38 
 
 Fillon, Mademoiselle, 139 
 Fleury, Cardinal, 201-203 
 Fontenelle, 6, 62, 78, 79, 88 
 
 GENEST, Abbe, 57 
 George I. of England, 129 
 Gobelin, Abb6, 46 
 Grieu, Madame de, 4-7, 21 
 Guise, Princesse de, 71 
 
 HARCOURT, Comte d', 56 
 Renault, President, 57, 232 
 Hombert, 96 
 
 INFANTA, Marie- Victoire of Spain, 198, 
 
 LA CHAISE, Pere, 22 
 
 Lambert, Marquise de, 147, 231 
 
 Laval, Comte de, 126, 137, 162, 165, 207 
 
 Law, 197-198 
 
 Lendtre, 52 
 
 Le Tellier, Pere, 93-94 
 
 Luynes, Duchesse de, 200, 231 
 
 "MADAME," the Regent's mother, 151- 
 152, 188-189, 191 
 
 255 
 
256 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Maillard, Frere, 22 
 
 Maine, Due du, character and appear- 
 ance, 45 ; Madame de Maintenon's 
 devotion, 46-47 ; marriage, 48-49 ; 
 excluded at Sceaux, 89-90 ; declared 
 Ugitim6, 100-101; appalled at the 
 conditions of the King's will, 108 ; 
 deprived of his power, 111 ; opposes 
 an alliance with England, 129 ; ex- 
 cluded from the Duchesse's intrigues, 
 119-148 ; dares not to be present at 
 the Kng's first lit de justice, 132; 
 deprived of his privileges, 134 ; ar- 
 rested, 150 ; attitude in prison, 119 ; 
 plans a separation from the Duchesse, 
 191-192 ; yields to her remonstrances, 
 193-194 ; dilatory ways, 219 ; grants 
 Madame de Staal-Delaunay a pension, 
 221 
 
 , Duchesse du, family and racial 
 
 traits, 40-44 : marries the Due du 
 Maine, 47-49 ; determines to shun 
 Versailles, 51 ; founds her rival 
 court, 52 ; her courtiers and diver- 
 sions, 76, 81-88; aspires at the 
 Regency for the Due, 89 ; efforts to 
 know the terms of the King's will, 
 102 - 105 ; recriminations at the 
 decrees of,Parliament, 111-112 ; takes 
 part in the quarrel between the 
 princes, 119 ; accepts the services of 
 adventurers, 123 ; despair over the 
 defeat of her party, 124 ; plots 
 against the Regent, 125-144; ar- 
 rested and sent to Dijon, 151 ; moans 
 over her captivity, 188-189 ; writes 
 a confession, 190 ; released, 190 ; 
 returns to Sceaux, 193-195 ; reorgan- 
 ises her court, 207-208 ; her portrait, 
 227 ; her tyrannies, 241-248 
 
 Maintenon, Marquise de, 43, 46, 47, 
 49, 95-97, 107 
 
 Maisonrouge, Monsieur de, 170-186, 
 205, 211 
 
 Malezieu, Monsieur de, 54, 56-66, 189 
 
 Meml, Chevalier de, 141-145, 170-186, 
 205 
 
 Mesmes, President de, 104, 130 
 
 Modene, Duchesse de, 246-247 
 
 Montauban, Mademoiselle de, 150, 170 
 Montespan, Madame de, 44, 45 
 
 NANTES, Mademoiselle de, 44, 48 
 Nevers, Due de, 56, 57 
 Noailles, Duchesse de, 35 
 
 , Marquis de, 130, 200 
 
 Novion, Comte de, 26 
 
 ORLEANS, Due d', the Regent, 44, 47, 
 90, 96, 105-107, 111, 117-119, 129- 
 
 151, 154-158 
 
 , Duchesse d', 45, 118 
 
 PHILIP V. of Spain, 104-125, 154-155, 
 
 202 
 Polignac, Cardinal de, 81, 119, 127-128, 
 
 152, 194-195 
 
 Pompadour, Marquis de, 126-128, 162, 
 
 165, 207 
 
 Portocarrero, Abbe" de, 138-140 
 Prie, Marquise de, 44 
 Puget, 52 
 
 RICHELIEU, Cardinal de, 22 
 
 , Due de, 162, 165, 180-182 
 
 Rochefoucauld, Due de la, 2, 200 
 
 , Madame de la, 2-7 
 
 Rohan, Cardinal de, 28, 29, 36, 61 
 
 SABRAN, Madame de, 140 
 
 Saint-Aulaire, 87 
 
 Saint-Simon, Due de. 49, 92. 101. 133- 
 
 134, 140 
 Silly, Marquis de, 10-20, 23, 72, 74, 80 
 
 , Marquise de, 13-16 
 
 Staal, Monsieur de, 217-222 
 Stair, Lord, 129 
 
 TOULOUSE, Comte de, 101, 104, 135 
 
 URSINS, Princesse des, 97 
 Uzes, Comtesse d', 77 
 
 VATEL, 42 
 
 Ventadour, Duchesse de, 2, 28, 31, 61 
 
 Vertot, Abbe" de, 6 
 
 Villeroi, Mare-cha! de, 130 
 
 Voltaire, 234-241 
 
 
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