La Grande Mademoiselle

Arvède Barine

La Grande Mademoiselle / 1627 – 1652

PREFACE

La Grande Mademoiselle was one of the most original persons of her epoch, though it cannot be said that she was ever of the first order. Hers was but a small genius; there was nothing extraordinary in her character; and she had too little influence over events to have made it worth while to devote a whole volume to her history – much less to prepare for her a second chronicle – had she not been an adventurous and picturesque princess, a proud, erect figure standing in the front rank of the important personages whom Emerson called "representative."

Mademoiselle's agitated existence was a marvellous commentary on the profound transformation accomplished in the mind of France toward the close of the seventeenth century, – a transformation whose natural reaction changed the being of France.

I have tried to depict this change, whose traces are often hidden by the rapid progress of historical events, because it was neither the most salient feature of the closing century nor the result of a revolution.

Essential, of the spirit, it passed in the depths of the eager souls of the people of those tormented days. Such changes are analogous to the changes in the light of the earthly seasons. From day to day, marking dates which vary with the advancing years, the intense light of summer gives place to the wan light of autumn. So the landscape is perpetually renewed by the recurring influences of natural revolution; in like manner, the moral atmosphere of France was changed and recharged with the principles of life in the new birth; and when the long civil labour of the Fronde was ended, the nation's mind had received a new and opposite impulsion, the casual daily event wore a new aspect, the sons viewed things in a light unknown to their fathers, and even to the fathers the appearance of things had changed. Their thoughts, their feelings, their whole moral being had changed.

It is the gradual progress of this transformation that I have attempted to show the reader. I know that my enterprise is ambitious; it would have been beyond my strength had I had nothing to refer to but the Archives and the various collections of personal memoirs. But two great poets have been my guides, Corneille and Racine, both faithful interpreters of the thoughts and the feelings of their contemporaries; and they have made clear the contrast between the two distinct social epochs – between the old and the new bodies, so different, yet so closely connected.

When the Christian pessimism of Racine had – in the words of Jules Lemaître – succeeded the stoical optimism of Corneille, all the conditions evolving their diverse lines of thought had changed.

The nature of La Grande Mademoiselle was exemplified in the moral revolution which gave us Phédre thirty-four years (the space of a generation) after the apparition of Pauline.

In the first part of her life, – the part depicted in this volume, – Mademoiselle was as true a type of the heroines of Corneille as any of her contemporaries. Not one of the great ladies of her world had a more ungovernable thirst for grandeur; not one of them cherished more superb scorn for the baser passions, among which Mademoiselle classed the tender sentiment of love. But, like all the others, she was forced to renounce her ideals; and not in her callow youth, when such a thing would have been natural, but when she was growing old, was she carried away by the torrent of the new thought, whose echoes we have caught through Racine.

The limited but intimately detailed and somewhat sentimental history of Mademoiselle is the history of France when Louis XIII. was old, and when young Louis – Louis XIV. – was a minor, living the happiest years of all his life.

If I seem presumptuous, let my intention be my excuse for so long soliciting the attention of my reader in favour of La Grande Mademoiselle.

CHAPTER I

I. Gaston d'Orléans – His Marriage – His Character – II. Birth of Mademoiselle – III. The Tuileries in 1627 – The Retinue of a Princess – IV. Contemporary Opinions of Education – The Education of Boys – V. The Education of Girls – VI. Mademoiselle's Childhood – Divisions of the Royal Family.

In the Château of Versailles there is a full-length portrait of La Grande Mademoiselle, – so called because of her tall stature, – daughter of Gaston d'Orléans, and niece of Louis XIII. When the portrait was painted, the Princess's hair was turning grey. She was forty-five years old. Her imperious attitude and warlike mien befit the manners of the time of her youth, as they befit her Amazonian exploits in the days of the Fronde.

Her lofty bearing well accords with the adventures of the illustrious girl whom the customs and the life of her day, the plays of Corneille, and the novels of La Calprenède and of Scudéry imbued with sentiments much too pompous. The painter of the portrait had seen Mademoiselle as we have seen her in her own memoirs and in the memoirs of her companions.

Nature had fitted her to play the part of the goddess in exile; and it had been her good fortune to find suitable employment for faculties which would have been obstacles in an ordinary life. To become the Minerva of Versailles, Mademoiselle had to do nothing but yield to circumstances and to float onward, borne by the current of events.

In the portrait, under the tinselled trappings the deep eyes look out gravely, earnestly; the thoughtful face is naively proud of its borrowed divinity; and just as she was pictured – serious, exalted in her assured dignity, convinced of her own high calling – she lived her life to its end, too proud to know that hers was the fashion of a bygone age, too sure of her own position to note the smiles provoked by her appearance. She ignored the fact that she had denied her pretensions by her own act (her romance with Lauzun, – an episode by far too bourgeois for the character of an Olympian goddess). She had given the lie to her assumption of divinity, but throughout the period of her romance she bore aloft her standard, and when it was all over she came forth unchanged, still vested with her classic dignity. The old Princess, who excited the ridicule of the younger generation, was, to the few surviving companions of her early years, the living evocation of the past. To them she bore the ineffaceable impression of the thought, the feeling, the inspiration, the soul of France, as they had known it under Richelieu and Mazarin.

The influences that made the tall daughter of Gaston d'Orléans a romantic sentimentalist long before sentimental romanticism held any place in France, ruled the destinies of French society at large; and because of this fact, because the same influences that directed the illustrious daughter of France shaped the course of the whole French nation, the solitary figure – though it was never of a high moral order – is worthy of attention. La Grande Mademoiselle is the radiant point whose light illumines the shadows of the past in which she lived.

I

Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, was the daughter of Gaston of France, younger brother of King Louis XIII., and of a distant cousin of the royal family, Marie of Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier. It would be impossible for a child to be less like her parents than was La Grande Mademoiselle. Her mother was a beautiful blond personage with the mild face of a sheep, and with a character well fitted to her face. She was very sweet and very tractable. Mademoiselle's father resembled the decadents of our own day. He was a man of sickly nerves, vacillating, weak of purpose, with a will like wax, who formed day-dreams in which he figured as a gallant and warlike knight, always on the alert, always the omnipotent hero of singularly heroic exploits. He deluded himself with the idea that he was a real prince, a typical Crusader of the ancient days. In his chaotic fancy he raised altar against altar, burning incense before his purely personal and peculiar gods, taking principalities by assault, bringing the kings and all the powers of the earth into subjection, bearing down upon them with his might, and shifting them like the puppets of a chess-board. His efforts to attain the heights pictured by his imagination resulted in awkward gambols through which he lost his balance and fell, crushed by the weight of his own folly. Thus his life was a series of ludicrous but tragic burlesques.

In the seventeenth century, in flesh and blood, he was the Prince whom modern writers set in prominent places in romance, and whom they introduce to the public, deluded by the thought that he is the creature of their invention. Louis XIII. was a living and pitiable anachronism. He had inherited all the traditions of his rude ancestors. Yet, to meet the requirements of his situation, nature had accoutred him for active service with nothing but an enervated and unbalanced character. One of his most odious infamies – his first – served as a prologue to the birth of "Tall Mademoiselle." In 1626, as Louis XIII. had no child, his brother Gaston was heir-presumptive to the throne, and he was a bachelor. They who had some interest in the question were pushing him from all sides, urging him not to fetter himself by the inferior marriage of a younger son. They implored him to have patience; to "wait a while"; to see if there would not be some unlooked-for opening for him in the near future. His own apparent future was promising; there was much encouragement in the fact that the King was sickly. What might not a day bring forth? – "under such conditions great changes were possible!"

Monsieur's mind laid a tenacious grasp on the idea that he must either marry a royal princess, or none at all; and he was so imbued with the thought that he must remain free to attain supreme heights that when Marie de Médicis proposed to him a marriage with the richest heiress of France, Mlle. de Montpensier, he tried to evade her offer. He encouraged Chalais's conspiracy, which was to be the means of helping him to effect his flight from Court; he permitted his friends to compromise themselves, then without a shadow of hesitation he sold them all. When the plot had been exposed, he hastily withdrew his irons from the fire by reporting everything to Richelieu and the Queen-mother. His friends tried to excuse him by saying that he had lost his head; but it was not true. His avowals as informer are on record in the archives of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and they prove that he was a man who knew very well what he was doing and why he was doing it, who worked intelligently and systematically, planning his course with matter-of-fact self-possession, selling his treason at the highest market-price of such commodities.

The 12th July, 1626, Monsieur denounced thirty of his friends, or servitors, whose only fault had lain in their devotion to his interests.

Once when Marie de Médicis reproached him for having failed to keep a certain written promise "never to think of anything tending to separate him from the King," Monsieur replied calmly that he had signed that paper but that he never had said that he would not do it, – that he "never had given a verbal promise." They then reminded him that he had "solemnly sworn several times." The young Prince replied with the same serenity, that whenever he took an oath, he did it "with a mental reservation."

The 18th, Monsieur, being in a good humour, made some strong protestations to his mother, who was in her bed. He again took up the thread of his denunciations to Richelieu without waiting to be invited to give his information. The 23d, he went to the Cardinal and told him to say that he, Monsieur, was ready to marry whenever they pleased, "if they would give him his appanage at the time of the marriage," – after which announcement he remarked that the late M. d'Alençon had had three appanages. Monsieur sounded his seas, and spied out his land in all directions, carefully gathering data and making very minute investigations as to the King's intentions. He intimated his requirements to the Cardinal, who "sent the President, Le Coigneux, to talk over his marriage and his appanage."

His haggling and his denunciations alternated until August 2d. Finally he obtained the duchies of Montpensier and of Chartres, the county of Blois, and pecuniary advantages which raised his income to the sum of a million livres. His vanity was allowed free play on the occasion of the signing of the contract, but this was forgiven him because he was only eighteen years old.

Monsieur had eighty French guards, all wearing casques, and bandoleers of the fine velvet of his livery. Their helmets were loaded, in front and behind, with Monsieur's initials enriched with gold. He had, also, twenty-four Swiss guards, who marched before him on Sundays and other fête days, with drums beating, though the King was still in Paris. He was fond of pomp. The lives of his friends did not weigh a feather in the balance against a few provinces and a rolling drum.

His guardian, Marshal d'Ornano, was a prisoner in Versailles, where the Court was at that time. Investigations against him were in rapid progress; but the face of the young bridegroom was wreathed with smiles when he led his bride to the altar, 5th August, 1626. As soon as he had given his consent they had hastened the marriage. The ceremony took place as best it could. It was marriage by the lightning process. There was no music, the bridegroom's habit was not new. While the cortège was on its way, two of the resplendent duchesses quarrelled over some question of precedence. To quote the Chronicles: "From words they came to blows and from blows to scratches of their skins."

This event scandalised the public, but the splendour of the fêtes effaced the memory of the regrettable incidents preceding them. While the fêtes were in progress, Monsieur exhibited a gayety which astonished the people; they were not accustomed to the open display of such indelicacy. It was known why young Chalais had been condemned to death; it was known that Monsieur had vainly demanded that he be shown some mercy. When the 19th – the day of execution – came, Monsieur saw fit to be absent. The youthful Chalais was beheaded by a second-rate executioner, who hacked at his neck with a dull sword and with an equally dull tool used by coopers. When the twentieth blow was struck, Chalais was still moaning. The people assembled to witness the execution cried out against it.

Fifteen days later Marshal d'Ornano gave proof of his accommodating amiability by dying in his prison. Others who had vital interests at stake either fled or were exiled.

Judging from appearances, Monsieur had had nothing to do with the condemned or the suspected. His callous levity was noted and judged according to its quality. Frequently tolerant to an extraordinary degree, the morality of the times was firm enough where the fidelity of man to master, or of master to man, was concerned. The common idea of decency exacted absolute devotion from the soldier to his chief, from servant to employer, from the gentleman to his seignior. Nor was the duty of master to man less binding. Though his creatures or servants were in the wrong, though their failures numbered seventy times seven, it was the master's part to uphold, to defend, and to give them courage, to stand or to fall with them, as the leader stands with his armies. Gaston knew this; he knew that he dishonoured his own name in the eyes of France when he delivered to justice the men who had worn his colours. But he mocked at the idea of honour, shaming it, as those among our own sons – if they are unfortunate enough to resemble him – mock at the higher and broader idea of home and country, – the idea which, in our day, takes the place of all other ideas exacting an effort or a sacrifice.

It must not be supposed that Monsieur was an ordinary poltroon, bowed down by the weight of his shame, desperately feeble, a mawkish and shambling type of the effeminate adolescent; though a coward in shirking consequences he was a typical "prince": very spirited, very gay, and very brilliant; conscious of the meaning of all his actions; contented in his position, – such as he made it, – and resigned to act the part of a coward before the world.

His vivacity was extraordinary. The people marvelled at his unfailing lack of tact. Though very young, he was well grown. He was no longer a child whose nurse caught him with one hand, forcibly buttoning his apron as he struggled to run away; yet he skipped and gambolled, spinning incessantly on his high heels, his hand thrust into his pocket, his cap over his ear. In one way or in another he incessantly proclaimed his presence. His sarcastic lips were always curved over his white teeth; he was always whistling.

"One can see well that he is high-born," wrote the indulgent Madame de Motteville. "His restlessness and his grimaces show it." But Madame de Motteville was not his only chronicler. Others relished his manners less. A gentleman who had lived in his (Monsieur's) house when Monsieur was very young, saw him again under Mazarin, and finding that despite his age and size he was the same peculiar being that he had been in infancy, the old gentleman turned and ran away. "Well, upon my word," he cried, "if he is not the same deuced scamp as in the days of Richelieu! I shall not salute him."

Monsieur's portraits are not calculated to contradict the impression given by his contemporaries. He is a handsome boy. The long oval face is delicately fine. The eyes are spiritual; and despite its look of self-sufficiency the whole face is infinitely charming. One of the portraits shows a certain shade of sly keenness, but as a whole the face is always indescribably attractive, – and yet as we gaze upon it we are seized by an impulse to follow the example of the old marquis, and run away without saluting. In the portrait the base soul looks out of the handsome face just as it did in life, manifesting its deplorable reality through its mask of natural beauty and intelligence. No one could say that Monsieur was a fool. Retz declared: "M. le Duc d'Orléans had a fine and enlightened mind." It was the general impression that his conversation was admirable; judged by his talk he was a being of a superior order. His manners and his voice were engaging. He was an artist, very fond of pictures and rare and handsome trifles. He was skilful in engraving on metals; he loved literature; he loved to read; he was interested in new ideas and in the march of thought. He knew many curious sciences. He was a cheerful companion, easy-mannered, sprightly, easy of approach, fond of raillery, and full of his jests, but his jests were never ill-natured. Even his enemies were forced to own that he had a good disposition, and that he was naturally kind; and this was the general opinion of the strange being who was a Judas to so many of his most devoted friends.

Had Monsieur possessed but one grain of moral consciousness, and had he been free from an almost inconceivable degree of weakness and of cowardice, he would have made a fine Prince Charming. But his poltroonery and his moral debility stained the whole fabric of his life and made him a lugubrious example of spiritual infirmity. He engaged in all sorts of intrigues because he was too weak to say No, and owing to the same weakness he never honestly fulfilled an engagement.

At times he started out intending to do his duty, then when midway on his route he was seized by fear, he took the bit between his teeth, and ran, and nothing on earth could stop him. He carried out his cowardice with impudence, and his villainy was artful and adroit. However base his action, he was never troubled by remorse. He was insensible to love, and devoid of any sense of honour. Having betrayed his associates, he abandoned them to their fate, then thrust his hand into his pocket, pirouetted, cut a caper, whistled a tune, and thought no more of it.

II

The third week in October the Duchess of Orleans returned to Paris. The Court was at the Louvre. The young pair, Monsieur and his wife, had their apartments in the palace, and the courtiers were not slow in finding their way to them.

Hardly had she arrived when Madame declared her pregnancy. As there was no direct heir to the crown, this event was of great importance. The people precipitated themselves toward the happy Princess who was about to give birth to a future King of France. Staid and modest though she was, her own head was turned by her condition. She paraded her hopes. It seemed to her that even then she held in her arms the son who was to take the place of a dauphin. Every one offered her prayer and acclamations; and every one hailed Monsieur as if he had been the rising sun.1

Monsieur asked nothing better than to play his part; he breathed the incense offered to his brilliant prospects with felicity.

Husband and wife enjoyed their importance to the full; they displayed their triumphant faces in all parts of that palace that had seen so much bitterness of spirit.

In itself, politics apart, the Louvre was not a very agreeable resting-place. On the side toward Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois its aspect was rough and gloomy. The remains of the old fortress of Philip Augustus and of Charles V. were still in existence. Opposite the Tuileries, towards the Quai, the exterior of the palace was elegant and cheerful. There the Valois and Henry IV. had begun to build the Louvre as we know it to-day.

A discordant combination of extreme refinement and of extreme coarseness made the interior of the palace one of the noisiest and dirtiest places in the world. The entrance to the palace of the King of France was like the entrance to a mill; a tumultuous crowd filled the palace from morning until night; and it was the custom of the day for individuals to be perfectly at ease in public, – no one stood on ceremony. The ebbing and flowing tide of courtiers, of business men, of countrymen, of tradesmen, and all the throngs of valets and underlings considered the stairways, the balconies, the corridors, and the places behind the doors, retreats propitious for the relief of nature.

It was a system, an immemorial servitude, existing in Vincennes and Fontainebleau as at the Louvre, – a system that was not abolished without great difficulty. In a document dated posterior to 1670, mention is made of the thousand masses of all uncleanness, and the thousand insupportable stenches, "which made the Louvre a hot-bed of infection, very dangerous in time of epidemic." The great ones of earth accepted such discrepancies as fatalities; they contented themselves with ordering a sweep of the broom.

Neither Gaston nor the Princess, his wife, descended to the level of their critical surroundings. They were habituated to the peculiar features of the royal palaces; and certainly that year, in the intoxication of their prospects, they must have considered the palatial odours very acceptable.

It did not agree with their frame of mind to note that the always gloomy palace was more than usually dismal. Anne of Austria had been struck to the heart by the pregnancy of her sister-in-law. She had been married twelve years and she no longer dared to cherish the hope of an heir. She felt that she was sinking into oblivion. Her enemies had begun to insinuate that her usefulness was at an end and that she had no reason for clinging to life. The Queen of France lived so eclipsed a life that to the world she was nothing but a pretty woman with a complexion of milk and roses. The people knew that she was unhappy, and they pitied her. They never learned her true character until she became Regent. Anne of Austria was not the only one to drain the cup of bitterness that year. Louis XIII. also was jealous of the maternity of Madame. It was a part of his nature to cherish evil sentiments, and his friends found some excuse for his faults in his misfortunes. Since Richelieu had attained power, Louis had succumbed to the exigencies of monarchical duty. His whole person betrayed his distress, exhaling constraint and anxiety. The most mirthful jester quailed at the sight of the long, livid face, so mournful, so expressive of the mental torment of the Prince who "knew that he was hated and who had no fondness for himself."

Louis was timid and prudish, and, like his brother, he had sick nerves. Hérouard, who was his doctor when he was a child, exhibits the young Prince as a somnambulist, who slept with eyes open, and who arose in his sleep, walking and talking in a loud voice. Louis's doctors put an end to any strength that he may have had originally. In one year Bouvard bled him forty-seven times; and during that one twelvemonth the child was given twelve different kinds of medicines and two hundred and fifteen enemas. Is it credible that after such an experience the unhappy King merited the reproach of being "obstreperous in his intercourse with the medical faculty"?