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Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV and the Regency

Duchesse d'Orleans

Section 13 of 33 - Table of Contents
Madame d'Orleans begins to recover her spirits and to laugh again,
particularly since I learn she has consulted the Premier President and
other persons, to know whether, upon my son's death, she would become the
Regent.  They told her that could not be, but that the office would fall
upon the Duke.  This answer is said to have been very unpalatable to her.

If my son would have paid a price high enough to the Cardinal de
Polignac, he would have betrayed them all.  He is now consoling himself
in his Abbey with translating Lucretius.

The King of Spain's manifesto, instead of injuring my son, has been
useful to him, because it was too violent and partial.  Alberoni must
needs be a brutal and an intemperate person.  But how could a journeyman
gardener know the language which ought to be addressed to crowned heads?
Several thousand copies of this manifesto have been transmitted to Paris,
addressed to all the persons in the Court, to all the Bishops, in short,
to everybody; even to the Parliament, which has taken the affair up very
properly, from Paris to Bordeaux, as the decree shows.  I thought it
would have been better to burn this manifesto in the post-office instead
of suffering it to be spread about; but my son said they should all be
delivered, for the express purpose of discovering the feelings of the
parties to whom they were addressed, and a register of them was kept at
the post-office.  Those who were honest brought them of their own accord;
the others kept them, and they are marked, without the public knowing
anything about it.  The manifesto is the work of Malezieux and the
Cardinal de Polignac.

A pamphlet has been cried about the streets, entitled, "Un arret contre
les poules d'Inde."  Upon looking at it, however, it seems to be a decree
against the Jesuits, who had lost a cause respecting a priory, of which
they had taken possession.  Everybody bought it except the partisans of
the Constitution and of the Spanish faction.

My son is more fond of his daughters, legitimate and illegitimate, than
his son.

The Duc and Duchesse du Maine rely upon nothing having been found in
their writing; but Mademoiselle de Montauban and Malezieux have written.
in their name; and is not what Pompadour has acknowledged voluntarily
quite as satisfactory a proof as even their own writing?

They have got the pieces of all the mischievous Spanish letters written
by the same hand, and corrected by that of the Cardinal de Polignac, so
that there can be no doubt of his having composed them.

A manifesto, too, has been found in Malezieux's papers.  It is well
written, but not improved by the translation.  Malezieux pretends that he
only translated it before it was sent hence to Spain.

Mademoiselle de Montauban and Mademoiselle de Launay, a person of some
wit, who has kept up a correspondence with Fontenelle, and who was 'femme
de chambre' to the Duchesse du Maine, have both been sent to the
Bastille.

The Duc du Maine now repents that he followed his wife's advice; but it
seems that he only followed the worst part of it.

The Duchesse d'Orleans has been for some days past persuading my son to
go masked to a ball.  She says that his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri,
and I, make him pass for a coward by preventing him from going to balls
and running about the town by night as he used to do before; and that he
ought not to manifest the least symptom of fear.  He replied that he knew
he should give me great pain by doing so, and that the least he could do
was to tranquillize my mind by living prudently.  She then said that the
Duchesse de Berri filled me with unfounded fears in order that she might
have more frequent opportunities of being with him, and of governing him
entirely.  Can the Devil himself be worse than this bastard?  It teaches
me, however, that my son is not secure with her.  I must do violence to
myself that my suspicions may not be apparent.

My son has not kept his word; he went to this ball, although he denies
it.

Although it is well known that Maintenon has had a hand in all these
affairs, nothing can be said to her, for her name does not appear in any
way.

When my son is told of persons who hate him and who seek his life, he
laughs and says, "They dare not; I am not so weak that I cannot defend
myself."  This makes me very angry.

If the proofs against Malezieux are not manifest, and if they do not put
the rogue upon his trial, it will be because his crime is so closely
connected with that of the Duchesse du Maine that, in order to convict
him before the Parliament, he must be confronted with her.  Besides, as
the Parliament is better disposed towards the Duc and Duchesse du Maine
than to my son, they might be acquitted and taken out of his hands, which
would make them worse than they are now.  For this reason it is that they
are looking for proofs so clear that the Parliament cannot refuse to
pronounce upon them.

The Duc du Maine writes thus to his sister:

"They ought not to have put me in prison; but they ought to have stripped
me and put me into petticoats for having been thus led by my wife;" and
he wrote to Madame de Langeron that he enjoyed perfect repose, for which
he thanked God; that he was glad to be no longer exposed to the contempt
of his family; and that his sons ought to be happy to be no longer with
him.

The King of Spain and Alberoni have a personal hatred against my son,
which is the work of the Princesse des Ursins.

My son is naturally brave, and fears nothing: death is not at all
terrible to him.

On the 29th of March the young Duc de Richelieu was taken to the
Bastille: this caused a great number of tears to be shed, for he is
universally loved.  He had kept up a correspondence with Alberoni, and
had got his regiment placed at Bayonne, together with that of his friend,
M. de Saillant, for the purpose of delivering the town to the Spaniards.
He went on Wednesday last to the Marquis de Biron, and urged him to
despatch him as promptly as possible to join his regiment at Bayonne, and
so prove the zeal which attached him to my son.  His comrade, who passes
for a coward and a sharper at play, has also been shut up in the
Bastille.

     [On the day that they were arrested, the Regent said he had that in
     his pocket which would cut off four heads, if the Duke had so many.
     --Memoires de Duclos.]

The Duc de Richelieu had the portraits of his mistresses painted in all
sorts of monastic habits: Mademoiselle de Charolais as a Recollette nun,
and it is said to be very like her.  The Marechales de Villars and
d'Estrees are, it is said, painted as Capuchin nuns.

When the Duc de Richelieu was shown his letter to Alberoni, he confessed
all that concerned himself, but would not disclose his accomplices.

Nothing but billets-doux were found in his writing-case.  Alberoni in
this affair trusted a man who had formerly been in his service, but who
is now a spy of my son's.  He brought Alberoni's letter to the Regent;
who opened it, read it, had a copy made, resealed it, and sent it on to
its destination.  The young Duc de Richelieu answered it, but my son can
make no use of this reply because the words in which it is written have a
concealed sense.

The Princess has strongly urged my son to permit the Duchesse du Maine to
quit Dijon, under the pretext that the air was unwholesome for her.  My
son consented upon condition that she should be conducted in her own
carriage, but under the escort of the King's Guard, from Dijon to
Chalons-sur-Saone.

Here she thought she should enjoy comparative liberty, and that the town
would be her prison: she was much astonished to find that she was as
closely confined at Chalons as at Dijon.  When she asked the reason for
this rigour she was told that all was discovered, and that the prisoners
had disclosed the particulars of the conspiracy.  She was immediately
struck with this; but recovering her self-possession, she said, "The Duc
de Orleans thinks that I hate him; but if he would take my advice, I
would counsel him better than any other person."  My son's wife remains
very tranquil.

On the 17th of April a rascal was brought in who was near surprising my
son in the Bois de Boulogne a year ago.  He is a dismissed colonel; his
name is La Jonquiere.  He had written to my son demanding enormous
pensions and rewards; but meeting with a refusal, he went into Spain,
where he promised Alberoni to carry off my son, and deliver him into his
hands, dead or alive.  He brought one hundred men with him, whom he put
in ambuscade near Paris.  He missed my son only by a quarter of an hour
in the Bois de Boulogne, which the latter had passed through in his way
to La Muette, where he went to dine with his daughter.  La Jonquiere
having thus failed, retired in great vexation to the Low Countries, where
he boasted that, although he had missed this once, he would take his
measures so much better in future that people should soon hear of a great
blow being struck.  This was luckily repeated to my son, who had him
arrested at Liege.  He sent a clever fellow to him, who caught him, and
leading him out of the house where they were, he clapped a pistol to his
throat, and threatened to shoot him on the spot if he did not go with him
and without speaking a word.  The rascal, overcome with terror, suffered
himself to be taken to the boat, but when he saw that they were
approaching the French territory he did not wish to go any further; he
said he was ruined, and should be drawn and quartered.  They bound him
and carried him to the Bastille.

I have exhorted my son to take care of himself, and not to go out but in
a carriage.  He has promised that he will not, but I cannot trust him.

The late Monsieur was desirous that his son's wife should not be a
coquette.  This was not the particular which I so much disapproved of;
but I wished the husband not to be informed of it, or that it should get
abroad, which would have had no other effect than that of convincing my
son that his wife had dishonoured him.

I must never talk to my son about the conspiracy in the presence of
Madame d'Orleans; it would be wounding her in the tenderest place; for
all that concerns her brother is to her the law and the prophets.

My son has so satisfactorily disproved the accusations of that old
Maintenon and the Duc du Maine, that the King has believed him, and,
after a minute examination, has done my son justice.  But Madame
d'Orleans has not conducted herself well in this affair; she has spread
by means of her creatures many calumnies against my son, and has even
said that he wanted to poison her.  By such means she has made her peace
with old Maintenon, who could not endure her before.  I have often
admired the patience with which my son suffers all this, when he knows it
just as well as I do.  If things had remained as Madame de Maintenon had
arranged them at the death of the King, my son would only have been
nominally Regent, and the Duc du Maine would actually have enjoyed all
the power.  She thought because my son was in the habit of running after
women a little that he would be afraid of the labour, and that he would
be contented with the title and a large pension, leaving her and the Duc
du Maine to have their own way.  This was her plan, and she fancied that
her calumnies had so far succeeded in making my son generally despised
that no person would be found to espouse his cause.  But my son was not
so unwise as to suffer all this; he pleaded his cause so well to the
Parliament that the Government was entrusted to him, and yet the old
woman did not relinquish her hopes until my son had the Duc du Maine
arrested; then she fainted.

The Pope's nuncio thrusts his nose into all the plots against my son; he
may be a good priest, but he is nevertheless a wicked devil.

On the 25th of April M. de Laval, the Duchesse de Roquelaure's brother,
was arrested.

M. de Pompadour has accused the Duc de Laval of acting in concert with
the Prince de Cellamara, to whom, upon one occasion, he acted as
coachman, and drove him to the Duchesse du Maine at the Arsenal.  This
Comte de Laval is always sick and covered with wounds; he wears a plaster
which reaches from ear to ear; he is lame, and often has his arm in a
sling; nevertheless, he is full of intrigue, and is engaged night and day
in writing against my son.

Madame de Maintenon is said to have sent large sums of money into the
provinces for the purpose of stirring up the people against my son; but,
thank God, her plan has not succeeded.

The old woman has spread about the report that my son poisoned all the
members of the Royal Family who have died lately.  She hired one of the
King's physicians first to spread this report.  If Marechal, the King's
surgeon, who was present at the opening of the bodies, had not stated
that there was no appearance of poison, and confirmed that statement to
the King, this infamous creature would have plunged my innocent son into
a most deplorable situation.

Mademoiselle de Charolais says that the affair of Bayonne cannot be true,
for that the Duc de Richelieu did not tell her of it, and he never
concealed anything from her.  She says, too, that she will not see my
son, for his having put the Duke into the Bastille.

The Duke walks about on the top of the terrace at the Bastille, with his
hair dressed, and in an embroidered coat.  All the ladies who pass stop
their carriages to look at the pretty fellow.

     [This young man, says Duclos, thought himself of some consequence
     when he was made a State prisoner, and endured his confinement with
     the same levity which he had always displayed in love, in business,
     or in war.  The Regent was much amused with him, and suffered him to
     have all he wanted-his valet de chambre, two footmen, music, cards,
     etc.; so that, although he was deprived of his liberty, he might be
     as licentious as ever.]
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