Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle, 1652-1693

These young princesses had nothing to expect from their own mother, and very little from their father, whose pensions and appointments were destined to disappear with him. Madame was preoccupied with this situation.

For a long time [reports one of their intimates]25 Madame has skilfully urged Monsieur to think of his affairs, and to put some solid property aside for her children, telling him that he possessed nothing in the world not reversible to the crown in case he had no male children, and that their daughters would be left to the mercy of the court and the ministers for their subsistence.

Until Gaston's disgrace, Madame had obtained nothing, and for cause. Her husband ruined himself at play; he had been seen to lose a half-million francs to the famous Chevalier de Gramont. He reformed only at Blois, too late to begin to save; his debts crushed him, and his pensions were paid most irregularly. The fortune of Mademoiselle presented itself as the sole means of floating the House of Orléans, and the accounts of her minority were the troubled waters in which it was proposed to fish. Monsieur did not suspect how much the exile and the influence of Préfontaine had changed his daughter.

The Préfontaine type has disappeared with the ancient régime. There is no place in our democratic society for these men at once servants and friends; friends however who remained in the background. Persons of this kind were frequently met with in the great families of former times, and nothing appeared more natural than the dog-like devotion to their masters, always exacting and often ungrateful. The Grande Mademoiselle was not ungrateful but she was violent, and it was always upon the patient Préfontaine that she vented her anger. He was the counsellor, the factotum shrewd and firm, to whom all affairs came, the confidant who knew her most secret projects of marriage without ceasing to be the domestic of no account.

His mistress could do nothing without him, and she does not even tell us – she who loses herself in the smallest details when they concerned people of quality in her suite – at what date this precious man entered her service. She mentions him for the first time in 1651, without saying who he is or where he comes from. From that date she never ceased to speak of him as long as the troubled times lasted, but left him in the shadow nevertheless in her Mémoires. When we have said that he was a gentleman, that there was no reason for his devotion to Mademoiselle but his own choice, we have told all we know about him. He had found the affairs of his mistress in a very bad condition, and so he warned her; Monsieur, her father, had been a negligent guardian and what is more an untrustworthy one. At first Mademoiselle would not listen to Préfontaine. It was at Paris in the midst of the fire of the Fronde, and she had other things to think of.

Préfontaine returned to the charge at Saint-Fargeau, where time abounded, and was better received. A new sentiment had awakened in Mademoiselle. She commenced to love money. She took interest in her affairs, and skilfully applied herself to economising with so much success that she would have soon risen to be a Countess Pimbesche.

Ideas of order and economy, rarely found with princesses of this epoch, occurred to her. "It is not sufficient," said she one day to Préfontaine, "to have an eye upon my legal affairs and the increase of my revenues; but it is also necessary to supervise the expenses of my house. I am convinced that I am robbed, and to prevent this, I wish to be accounted to as if I were a private person."

This was not beneath a great Princess. Examination proved that she was robbed by her people. After being assured of this, she took upon herself the duty of supervising all the accounts twice a week, "even to the smallest."

She knew the price of everything; "who could have predicted when I lived at Court, that I should ever know how much bricks, lime, plaster, carriages cost, what are the daily wages of the workmen, in fine all the details of a building, and that every Saturday I should myself settle the accounts: every one would have been skeptical." And still more the people at large; it was really almost incredible. She quickly perceived that Monsieur had not taken his duties as guardian very seriously. It was in his belief both the right and duty of the chief of the Orléans family to advance the general interests of the House, even at the expense of individual members. The daughter by the first marriage was enormously rich. What could be more just than to use her fortune for the common good? What more natural than to throw upon her the burden of debts contracted to add to the éclat of the family? or to give a little of her superfluity to her young sisters in view of their establishment?

Gaston sent to his daughter for signature an act conceived in this spirit, and received the clearest refusal. Very respectfully but with firmness Mademoiselle assured him that henceforth she intended to hold to her legal rights, which guaranteed the integrity of her fortune. Monsieur threw himself into a great rage, but knew not what more to do. Politics gave him unexpected aid. A gentleman sent as courier by Condé into France had just been arrested. Among other letters was found one without address, but evidently destined for Mademoiselle and most compromising for her.

Mazarin charged the Archbishop of Embrun to take a copy of this to Gaston. The dispatch in which the prelate renders account of his mission has been preserved. Here is one of the significant passages:

Blois, March 31, 1653.Monseigneur:

I arrived Sunday evening in this city where I was received most warmly by Monsieur… Immediately upon arrival I had a conference of an hour with him alone in his cabinet. I pointed out to him through the letter addressed to Mademoiselle her relations to M. le Prince, the Spaniards, and M. de Lorraine, which were all visibly marked in the letter. He declared himself very ill satisfied with Mademoiselle, but that the Queen knew that they had never been eight hours at a time together: and that at this moment she was trying to cause trouble in demanding account of his care of her wealth when he was guardian, and that it was thus impossible to doubt his anger. I told him that I had orders to beseech his Royal Highness to make two observations upon the letter; the first: that Mademoiselle as long as she enjoyed the free possession of her immense wealth could assist any party she pleased, and that the King in order to check this had resolved to place administrators or a commission over her property to preserve it for her own use, but without permitting its abuse. His Royal Highness should be left the choice of these commissioners.

The second remark was, that it was to be feared, according to the news in the letter, that if M. le Prince advanced, Mademoiselle would join him, and that the King in this difficulty demanded counsel of him as the person most interested in the conduct of Mademoiselle. Gaston replied: that he had ordered his daughter to join him at Orléans, Tuesday of Holy Week; and he would bring her back to Blois, and keep her near him.

I have also, my Lord, talked over the same subjects with Madame as with Monsieur, knowing that she was very intelligent, and also that Monsieur deferred much to her opinions.

Mazarin took no action upon this communication of the Archbishop of Embrun.

It was sufficient to intimate to Monsieur that he was authorised not to worry himself about a rebel, and Gaston on his side asked nothing better.

Sure of being for the present under Court protection, he poured forth bitter words and threats against this disobedient and heartless daughter, who forgot her duty. Sometimes he wrote to her that "if she did not willingly give everything he demanded he would take possession of all the property and only give her what he pleased."

Sometimes he cast fire and flame between her and the public: "She does not love her sisters; says they are beggars; that after my death she will see them demand alms, without giving a penny. She wishes to see my children in the poor-house," and other sentiments of the same kind, which were repeated at Saint-Fargeau.

Mademoiselle herself dreamed one day that Monsieur thought of enclosing her in a convent, "that this was the intention of the King," and that she must prepare for his coming. At the same time she was warned from Paris that her father had promised the Court to arrest her as soon as she arrived at Blois. Things reached such a pass that Gaston could no longer hear the name of his daughter without flying into a passion.

The Princess had at first showed herself fearless. Knowing that the letter of Condé did not have any address, she denied that it was meant for her and took a high hand with her father; "I assert that they cannot take away my property unless I am proved either mad or criminal and I know very well that I am neither one nor the other."

Reflection, however, diminished her assurance. The idea of "being arrested" terrified her, and it was this fate, in the opinion of her ladies, which awaited her at Blois – for which reason Monsieur, having previously forbidden her to come, now ordered her to meet him.

She wept torrents of tears; she was ill when she was obliged to obey and she confesses that on arriving at Blois she quite lost her head from terror. It was the story of the hare and the frogs. The projects of Gaston, whatever they may have been, vanished at sight of this agitated person and he had no other thought than of calming his daughter and avoiding scenes.

For this he exerted all his grace, which was much, and forced Mademoiselle, reassured and calmed, to acknowledge that her father could be "charming."

The days rolled by and the question of their differences was not touched upon. "I wanted one day to speak to him about my affairs and he fled and would pay no attention."

Mademoiselle felt the delights of a country covered with superb châteaux in which she was fêted, and amiable cities which fired cannon in her honour. She made excursions during a large part of the summer (1653) and finally separated from her father most amicably. Eight days after, the situation however was more sombre than before her departure for Blois. The demands of Monsieur had not diminished, his language became still more hard and menacing.

These differences lasted many years. Mademoiselle lets it be understood that it was a question of considerable sums. She relates sadly the progress of the ill-will of her father; how painful her sojourn at Blois had been, so that she wept from morning till night; how without the influence of Préfontaine she would have retired into a Carmelite convent; "not to be a religieuse, God having never given me that vocation, but to live away from the world for some years." The ennui of the cloister life would have been compensated by the thought that it was an economical one. "I should save much money," said she; and this thought consoled her. Once it was believed that an amicable solution was imminent. The father and daughter had submitted themselves to the arbitration of the maternal grandmother of Mademoiselle, the old Mme. de Guise, who had made them promise in writing to sign "all that she wished without reading the stipulations."

The only result was a more definite embroilment. Mme. de Guise26 "was devoted to her House,"27 that ambitious and intriguing House of Lorraine into which she had married, and with which she was again connected through the second wife of Gaston, sister of the Duke Henri.28 When Mademoiselle, after "signing without reading," realised the force of the "transaction" into which she had been led by her grandmother, she declared that Mme. de Guise had despoiled her with shocking bad faith, in order that her half-sisters, the little Lorraines, should no longer be menaced with the "poor-house." The love of family had extinguished with Mme. de Guise, as with Monsieur, all considerations of justice and sense of duty towards her own granddaughter. All this happened at Orléans in the month of May, 1655. Mademoiselle, indignant, ran to her grandmother:

I told her that it was evident that she loved the House of Lorraine better than the House of Bourbon; that she was right in seeking to give money to my sisters, that they would have little from Madame, and this showed me, indeed, to be a lady of great wealth, enough to provide for others, and that the fortune of my family should be established upon what could be seized from me; but as I was so much above them that they could receive my benefactions, it would serve them better to depend upon my liberality rather than to attempt to swindle me; that this would be better before both God and man.

This scene lasted three hours. The same day Monsieur was warned that Mademoiselle refused to be "duped." He gave a precipitate order for departure, and declined to receive his daughter. In the disorder that ensued Madame almost went dinnerless and appeared much disconcerted.

The attendants intervened to save appearances at least, and a formal leave was taken, but this was all; the complete rupture was consummated. Upon the return to Saint-Fargeau, Mademoiselle at once learned that Monsieur had taken away her men of business, including the indispensable Préfontaine, and had left her without even a secretary. This gives a vision of the authority possessed by the chief of a family, and its limitations, with the princely houses of this epoch. We perceive how much better the fortune of Mademoiselle was defended against her father than her person and her independence. Monsieur did not dare to take away her money without a free and formal assent; he knew that if things were not done regularly "in a hundred years the heirs of Mademoiselle could torment the children of Monsieur." In revenge for this disability he tyrannised over her household. And here he was in his full right.

He could shut her up in a convent or in the Château of Amboise, as many counselled him to do, and this again would be within his legal powers. If he did nothing of the kind, it was only because, being nervous and impressionable, he dreaded feminine tears.

Mademoiselle realised that she was at his mercy; it did not occur to her to contest the parental authority – outside of the question of money. She wept, "suffered much," but she did not attempt to save Préfontaine.

The years which followed were sad ones for her. Until this time she had had but two days of grief a week, those upon which the courier arrived, on account of the business letters which must be read and answered. She confined herself to her study to conceal her red eyes, but her correspondence once sent off, "I only thought," says she, "of amusing myself."

Conditions changed when she was forced to understand that Monsieur, that father so contemptible, from whom she had suffered so much since her infancy, but so amiable that she admired and loved him notwithstanding, had no kind of affection for her. Very sensitive, in spite of her brusqueness, Mademoiselle experienced a profound grief at this reflection. Her temper gave way in a moment in which the young ladies of her suite, commencing to find the exile long, and to regret Paris, were ill-disposed to patience. There was coldness, frictions, and finally that domestic war, the account of which fills a large space in the Mémoires of Mademoiselle.

Petty griefs, small intrigues, and much gossip rendered insupportable to one another persons condemned to daily intercourse. Affairs became so strained between some of the parties that communication was impossible, and this state of things lasted until the most discontented, Mmes. de Fiesque and de Frontenac, had formed the determination to return to Paris.

These quarrels had the effect of spoiling for Mademoiselle Saint-Fargeau, inclining her to submission to the Court; but mere mention is sufficient, and we shall not again refer to them.

Mademoiselle commenced to be convinced of the imprudence of being at odds with the Court and her father at the same time. Her obstinacy in sustaining Condé had ended by seriously vexing Mazarin. The nobility felt this attitude and showed less fondness for the Princess. In 1655 she approached to six leagues from Paris. She counted much upon visitors; very few appeared. "I was responsible for so many illnesses," says she wittily, "for all those who did not dare to confess that they feared to embroil themselves with the Court, feigned maladies or accidents in extraordinary numbers."

The third day she received an order to "return." This misadventure enlightened her; Mademoiselle admitted the necessity of making peace with royalty. Just at this period the Prince de Condé grew less interesting to her, as his chances of becoming a widower diminished. Mme. la Princesse became gradually re-established in health, and each of her steps towards recovery made Mademoiselle a little less warm for M. le Prince. This latter perceived the change, and at once altered his tone. "There is no rupture," says the Duc d'Aumale, "but one can perceive the progress of the coolness and its accordance with certain news."

A letter from Condé, received after the journey to the environs of Paris, gave warning of the end of a friendship which on one side at least was entirely political.

Brussels, March 6, 1655.

… As to this change which you declare to perceive in me, you do me much injustice and it seems to me that I have more right to reproach you than you me. Since your long silence the tone of your letters plainly indicates how different your present sentiments are from those of past times. This is not true of my own; they remain always the same and if you believe otherwise and if you lend faith to the rumours which my enemies start, it is my misfortune, not crime; for I protest there is nothing in them, that affairs are not in this state, and if they were I should never listen to a proposition without full consideration for your interests and satisfaction, also not without your consent and participation.

You will recognise the truth of this statement through my conduct and not one of my actions will ever give the lie to the words which I now give you, even if you should have forgotten all the fine sentiments you had when you came to see our army, which I can hardly consider possible for a generous person like you.

I knew that you came to Lésigny and that, the Court disapproving of this, you received orders to return, which fact gave me much displeasure.

Mademoiselle did not longer want a pretext for withdrawing her pin from the game. The embroilment with her father furnished it. She immediately prayed Condé to write to her no more. "It is necessary to hold back," said she to herself, "and if I am able without baseness to come into accord with the Cardinal Mazarin, I will do it in order to withdraw myself from the persecutions of his Royal Highness."

Some days later the Comte de Bethune transmitted to the Cardinal overtures of peace from the Grande Mademoiselle. The Cardinal desired pledges. She sent a recall for the companies from the Spanish army, upon which M. le Prince without warning "held the soldiers and put the officers in prison."

In vain the indignation of Mademoiselle. "It is seven or eight years," wrote Condé to one of the agents, "since I have really had the favour of Mademoiselle; I formerly possessed her good graces, but if she now wishes to withdraw them I must accept, without desperation."29 Here is a man liberated rather than grieved.

Thus failed, one after the other, the menaces directed by the Fronde against royalty. The project of alliance between the two cadet branches of the House of Bourbon had been inspired in Mademoiselle by the desire to marry. Few of the ideas of all those which menaced the throne which had entered into the brain of the revolutionary leaders seemed so dangerous and caused so much care to Mazarin. We must recollect that he would have been ready, in order to appease the cadet branches, to marry the little Louis XIV. to his great cousin.

Reassured at length by the promises of Mademoiselle, who engaged herself to have nothing more to do with M. le Prince, Mazarin took the trouble to overcome his wrath and permitted her to expect the recompense for her submission.

In general, Mazarin had shown himself easy with the repentant Frondeurs. The Prince de Conti had been fêted at the Louvre in 1654. It is true that he accepted the hand of a niece of Mazarin in marriage, Anne Marie Martinozzi, on conditions which put him in bad odour with the public. "This marriage," wrote d'Ormesson,30 "is one of the most signal marks of the inconsistency of human affairs and the fickleness of the French character to be seen in our times."

After Conti, another Prince, Monsieur, in person, entirely submerged as he was in laziness and devotions, exerted himself sufficiently to come to Court. The welcome involved conditions which contained nothing hard nor unusual for Gaston d'Orléans; it cost him nothing but the abandonment of some last friends. In truth, he received but little in exchange. When he came to salute the King everyone made him feel that he was already "in the ranks of the dead," according to the expression of Mme. de Motteville. The ill-humour caused by this impression quickly sent him back to Blois, which was precisely what was wished.

It was the men of business who profited above all by this reconciliation. They had greater freedom to harass Mademoiselle, and left her neither time nor repose. Their end was to make her execute the transaction signed at Orléans, but she held her own, without counsel or secretary. She only suffered from an enormous labour, of which her minority accounts were only a chapter, and not the most considerable. The administration of the immense domains had fallen entirely upon herself. It was now Mademoiselle who opened the mass of letters arriving from her registers, foresters, controllers, lawyers, farmers, and single subjects – in short, from all who in the principalities of Dombes or of Roche-sur-Yonne, in the duchies of Montpensier or of Catellerault, had an account to settle with her, an order to demand of her, or a claim to submit.

It was Mademoiselle herself who replied; she who followed the numerous lawsuits necessitated by the paternal management; she who terminated the great affair of Champigny, of which the echo was wide-spread on account of the rank of the parties and of the remembrances awakened by the pleaders.

Champigny was a productive territory situated in Touraine, and an inheritance of Mademoiselle. Richelieu had despoiled her of it when she was only a child, through a forced exchange for the Château of Bois-le-Vicomte, in the environs of Meaux.

Become mistress of her own fortune, Mademoiselle summoned the heirs of the Cardinal to give restitution, and had just gained her suit when Monsieur took away Préfontaine. The decree returning Champigny to her allowed her also damages, the amount to be decided by experts, for buildings destroyed and woods spoiled. Mademoiselle estimated that these damages might reach a large sum; she knew that with her father at Blois the rumour ran that she had been placed in cruel embarrassments and that it would be repeated to all comers that she had obtained almost nothing from this source. This report excited her to action. The moment arrived; Mademoiselle went to Champigny, and remained there during several weeks, spending entire days upon the heels of eighteen experts, procurers, lawyers, gentlemen, masons, carpenters, wood merchants, collected together to value the damages. She had long explanations with that "good soul Madelaine," counsellor of the Parliament, and charged with directing the investigation, who was confounded at the knowledge of the Princess. He said to her: "You know our business better than we ourselves, and you talk of affairs like a lawyer." Operations finished, Mademoiselle had the pleasure of writing to Blois that this doubtful affair from which she was supposed to receive only "50,000 francs, really amounted to 550,000." She came out less generously from her litigation with her father. Mazarin rendered Mademoiselle the bad service of having her suit introduced by the King's counsellor. A decree confirmed the decision of Mme. de Guise, and there was nothing to do but to obey. Mademoiselle signed, "furiously" weeping, the act which despoiled her, and submitted with despair to the departure for Blois.

She was going to visit her father, after having the thought flash through her mind that he could order her assassination. It is said there had been some question of this at Blois. "Immersed in melancholy reveries, I dreamed that his Royal Highness was a son of the Médicis, and I even reflected that the poison of the Médicis must have already entered my veins and caused such thoughts."