“Suffer yourself rather to follow the bent of your temptation, instead of listening to your pride. Your pride would soon cause you to be sent back to France, and France would fling you, as has been the lot of many others, into some convent. But allowing that you should choose of your own free will that dismal kind of retreat, still it would be necessary beforehand to render yourself worthy of entering therein. What a figure you would cut there, if you had not the character of a penitent! True penitence is that which afflicts and mortifies us at the recollection of our faults. Of what has a good girl to be penitent who has done nothing wrong? You would appear ridiculous in the eyes of the other nuns, who, repenting from just motives, should discover that your repentance was only grimace.”
“Suffer yourself rather to follow the bent of your temptation, instead of listening to your pride. Your pride would soon cause you to be sent back to France, and France would fling you, as has been the lot of many others, into some convent. But allowing that you should choose of your own free will that dismal kind of retreat, still it would be necessary beforehand to render yourself worthy of entering therein. What a figure you would cut there, if you had not the character of a penitent! True penitence is that which afflicts and mortifies us at the recollection of our faults. Of what has a good girl to be penitent who has done nothing wrong? You would appear ridiculous in the eyes of the other nuns, who, repenting from just motives, should discover that your repentance was only grimace.”
Louise committed the error of not only approving the advice of that equivocal monitor, but the greater error of following it. Experience came very soon to open her eyes.
In 1672, as has been said, the Querouaille having presented the King with a son, her favour increased considerably. In 1673 she was createdDuchess of Portsmouth, and at the close of the same year Louis XIV., alike to flatter the King of England, and to confirm him in his alliance with himself against Holland, as to reward the good offices ofLouise Querouaille, conferred upon the latter the domain of D’Aubigny, in Berry. This domain given, in 1422, by Charles VII. to John Stuart, “as a token of the great services which he had rendered in war to that King,” had reverted to the crown of France. In the letter of donation which Louis sent to Charles, it stated that “after the death of the Duchess of Portsmouth, the demesne of Aubigny shall pass to such of the natural children of the King of Great Britain as he shall nominate.” Charles II. nominated Charles Lennox (his son by Querouaille), and created him Duke of Richmond on the 19th of August, 1675.
Althoughmaîtresse-en-titre, and favourite mistress as she became, she could not, however, prevent the unworthy and frequent resort of the debauched prince to rivals of a lower grade, and Madame de Sévigné penned some amusing lines on the subject of those duplicate amours:—“Querouaille has been in no way deceived; she had a mind to be the King’s mistress, she has her wish. He passes almost every evening in her company, in presence of the whole Court. She has a child which has just been acknowledged, and on whom two duchies have been bestowed. She amasses wealth, and makes herself feared and respected wherever she can; but she could not foresee finding a young actress in her path by whom the King is bewitched.... He shares his attentions, his time, and his health between them both. The actress is quite as proud as the Duchess of Portsmouth: she spites her, makes wry faces at her, assails her, and often carries the King off from her. She boasts of those points in which she is preferable—that she is young, silly, bold, debauched, and agreeable; that she can sing, dance, and play the partde bonne foi. She has a son by the King, and is determined that he shall be acknowledged.Here are her reasons:—‘This Duchess,’ she says, ‘acts the person of quality; she pretends that she is related to everybody in France. No sooner does any grandee die, than she puts on mourning. Ah well! if she is such a great lady, why did she condescend to become acatin? She ought to expire with shame: for myself, it is my profession; I don’t pique myself on anything else. The King keeps me; I am at present his solely. I have brought him a son, whom I intend he shall acknowledge, and I am assured that he will, for he loves me quite as well as he does his Portsmouth.’ This creature takes the top of the walk, and embarrasses and puts the Duchess out of countenance in a most extraordinary manner.”
In Mrs. Nelly, with all her good qualities, Charles had not found exactly a rose without thorns to stick in his button-hole. In her too wild fun, or spirit of mockery, she was apt, as most others, to give demonstration of all the variety of her woman’s nature and her woman’s wit, and to make her baffled and humbled sovereign wish in his inmost heart that he had never had anything to do with her.
Such were the annoyances—doubtless unforeseen by Mademoiselle Querouaille on quitting France, and to which La Vallière and Montespan were not exposed in the Court of theGrand Monarque, where vice itself put on airs of grandeur and majesty. It must be owned, however, that Madame de Sévigné exaggerates when she pretends to establish a sort of equilibrium between the position of the actress and that of the Duchess. The triumphs of Nell Gwynne were triumphs of the alcove; whilst her Grace of Portsmouth reigned without a rival over the realm of diplomacy. Charles II. was in the habit of passing a great portion of his time in her apartments, where often, in themidst of a joyous circle, he met Barillon, the French Ambassador, who, from his agreeable manners, was freely admitted to all the amusements of the indolent monarch. It was by means of these frequent conversations that, seizing the favourable moment, the Duchess and the Ambassador succeeded in obtaining an order which suddenly changed the face of Europe, by bringing about the signature of the Treaty of Niméguen, and more than once it fell to her lot to obtain a success of the same kind, to which neither her arrogant Grace of Cleveland nor the piquant Nelly could ever pretend. In political affairs the Querouaille held her own triumphantly over all her rivals, and obtained a dominion that ended only with the life of Charles. Too sensible to exact a strict fidelity from the King, the Duchess of Portsmouth was content to sigh in silence so long as her womanly feelings alone were sported with; but when it seemed likely that the influence which she strove to utilise to the profit of France might be trenched upon, her resentment broke forth in sudden and sweeping ebullitions which even the dread of a public scandal was impotent to repress. The correspondence of Bussy-Rabutin furnishes us with a scene of that description:—
“It is rumoured that Querouaille has been sermonising the King, crucifix in hand, as well both to wean him from other women as to bring him back to Christianity: in fact, it appears that she herself has been very near the point of death. However, three or four days afterwards, finding herself better, she rose from her bed, and dragged herself into the box where the King was seeing a play in company with Madame de Mazarin, and there she overwhelmed him with endless reproaches for his infidelity. Love and jealousy are strong passions.”
“It is rumoured that Querouaille has been sermonising the King, crucifix in hand, as well both to wean him from other women as to bring him back to Christianity: in fact, it appears that she herself has been very near the point of death. However, three or four days afterwards, finding herself better, she rose from her bed, and dragged herself into the box where the King was seeing a play in company with Madame de Mazarin, and there she overwhelmed him with endless reproaches for his infidelity. Love and jealousy are strong passions.”
Hortensia Mancini, Duchess de Mazarin, who was commonly thought to be the finest woman in Europe, and more than that—a very great lady, aunt of the Duchess of York,might have easily supplanted the “baby-faced” Querouaille in the inconstant heart of Charles Stuart, but that the haughty Italian paid small attention to the predilections of that prince, whom she cut to the quick by receiving before his face the advances of the Prince de Monaco, and so Charles returned “à ses premières amours.” That phrase, somewhat vague in so far as it applies to the sensual instincts of a man who did not even believe in friendship, describes at least accurately that passionate feeling with which the Duchess of Portsmouth had inspired him. Under certain circumstances—very rare, it is true—she went so far as to sacrifice to him entirely her politicalrôle, and when the question of the famous “bill of exclusion” arose, she was seen to throw herself at the King’s feet, and implore her royal lover not to rush headlong to destruction;[12]entreating him to abandon, if it must be so, the interests of his brother and those of Catholicism, rather than compromise his crown and life. Such proceeding appears still more generous, if we reflect that, in spite of the irregular position which she had accepted, the Duchess had remained deeply attached to her religion and her native country, and that at that juncture no one was ignorant that an era of persecution was about to commence for the reformed Churches of France. Two years later, on the eve of the Niméguen treaty, the decline of the great reign was already foreshadowed; the influence of incapable thoughright-thinkingmen became daily more marked, and the star of the austere Frances d’Aubigny (Maintenon) arose slowly above the horizon. Conversions at any price were clamoured for, and no extent of sacrifice deterred the proselytisers from bringing back within the fold souls of quality, save leaving one dayto Louvois’ dragoons the charge of enlightening the Protestant vulgar. The Duchess of Portsmouth was, together with the Duchess of York, at the head of the English propagandists, and, curious enough, a regular exchange of edifying letters took place between the future foundress of Saint-Cyr and the joyous sinner of the Court of St. James’s. Louis XIV., desirous of duly recompensing the services of the royal favourite, conferred upon her by letters-patent dated January, 1684, the French title of Duchess d’Aubigny.
Thus had Louise Querouaille reached the summit of her rapid prosperity; but a great turn of chance was at hand, and in a moment she was about to be hurled from that dizzy height.
Lord Macaulay has graphically sketched the memorable scene in which she figured so creditably when Charles was struck with his fatal seizure. On the 2nd of February, 1685, “scarcely had Charles risen from his bed when his attendants perceived that his utterance was indistinct, and that his thoughts seemed to be wandering. Several men of rank had, as usual, assembled to see their sovereign shaved and dressed. He made an effort to converse with them in his usual gay style; but his ghastly look surprised and alarmed them. Soon his face grew black; his eyes turned in his head; he uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of one of his lords. A physician, who had charge of the royal retorts and crucibles, happened to be present. He had no lancet; but he opened a vein with a penknife. The blood flowed freely; but the King was still insensible.
“He was laid on his bed, where, during a short time, the Duchess of Portsmouth hung over him with the familiarity of a wife. But the alarm had been given. The Queen andthe Duchess of York were hastening to the room. The favourite concubine was forced to retire to her own apartments. Those apartments had been thrice pulled down and thrice rebuilt by her lover to gratify her caprice. The very furniture of the chimney was massive silver. Several fine paintings, which properly belonged to the Queen, had been transferred to the dwelling of the mistress. The sideboards were piled with richly wrought plate. In the niches stood cabinets, masterpieces of Japanese art. On the hangings, fresh from the looms of Paris, were depicted, in tints which no English tapestry could rival, birds of gorgeous plumage, landscapes, hunting matches, the lordly terrace of Saint-Germain’s, the statues and fountains of Versailles.[13]In the midst of this splendour, purchased by guilt and shame, the unhappy woman gave herself up to an agony of grief, which, to do her justice, was not wholly selfish.”
On the morning on which the King was taken ill, the Duchess of York had, at the request of the Queen, suggested the propriety of procuring spiritual assistance. “For such assistance,” continues Macaulay, “Charles was at last indebted to an agency very different from that of his pious wife and sister-in-law.” A life of frivolity and vice had not extinguished in the Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments of religion, or all that kindness which is the glory of her sex. The French Ambassador, Barillon, who had come to the palace to inquire after the King, paid her a visit. He found her in an agony of sorrow. She took him into a secret room, and poured out her whole heart to him. “I have,” she said, “a thing of great moment to tell you. If it were known, my head would be in danger. The King is really and truly a Catholic; but he will die withoutbeing reconciled to the Church. His bedchamber is full of Protestant clergymen. I cannot enter it without giving scandal. The Duke is thinking only of himself. Speak to him. Remind him that there is a soul at stake. He is master now. He can clear the room. Go this instant, or it will be too late.”
Barillon hastened to the bedchamber, took the Duke aside, and delivered the message of the mistress. The conscience of James smote him. He started as if roused from sleep, and declared that nothing should prevent him discharging the sacred duty which had been so long delayed. Several schemes were discussed and rejected. At last the Duke commanded the crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed, stooped down, and whispered something which none of the spectators could hear, but which they supposed to be some question about affairs of state. Charles answered in an audible voice, “Yes, yes, with all my heart.” None of the bystanders, except the French Ambassador, guessed that the King was declaring his wish to be admitted into the bosom of the Church of Rome.
The difficulty was to find a priest at a moment’s notice; for, as the law then stood, the person who admitted a proselyte into the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of a capital crime. John Huddleston, a Benedictine monk, however, who had, with great risk to himself, saved the King’s life after the battle of Worcester, readily consented to put his life a second time in peril for his prince. Father Huddleston was admitted by the back door. A cloak had been thrown over his sacred vestments; and his shaven crown was concealed by a flowing wig. “Sir,” said the Duke, “this good man once saved your life. He now comes to save your soul.” Charles faintly answered, “He is welcome.” Huddleston went through his part better than had been expected, for he was so illiterate that he did not know what he ought to say on an occasion of so much importance, and had to be instructed on the spot by a Portuguese ecclesiastic, one Castel Melhor. The whole ceremony occupied about three-quarters of an hour; and, during that time, the courtiers who filled the outer room had communicated their suspicions to each other by whispers and significant glances. The door was at length thrown open, and the crowd again filled the chamber of death.
It was now late in the evening. The King seemed much relieved by what had passed. His natural children were brought to his bedside—the Dukes of Grafton, Southampton, and Northumberland, sons of the Duchess of Cleveland; the Duke of St. Albans, son of Eleanor Gwynne; and the Duke of Richmond, son of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles blessed them all, but spoke with peculiar tenderness to Richmond. One face, which should have been there, was wanting. The eldest and best beloved child was an exile and a wanderer. His name was not once mentioned by his father.
During the night Charles earnestly recommended the Duchess of Portsmouth and her boy to the care of James; “And do not,” he good-naturedly added, “let poor Nelly starve.” The Queen sent excuses for her absence by Halifax. She said she was too much disordered to resume her post by the couch, and implored pardon for any offence which she might unwittingly have given. “She asks my pardon, poor woman!” cried Charles; “I ask hers with all my heart.”
At noon of the next day (Friday, February 6th) he passed away without a struggle.
As it commonly happens in the sequel of such sudden and mournful events, the most absurd rumours did not fail to be circulated on the subject of Charles’s death. According to one, the Duchess of Portsmouth had poisoned the King with a cup of chocolate; another asserted that the Queen had poisoned him with a jar of preserved pears. Time has done justice to these ridiculous suspicions; but that which will probably never be discovered is the exact nature of the unfortunate monarch’s malady, whom a deplorable fatality caused to fall into the hands of ignorant physicians who, not being able to agree amongst themselves, tortured the patient haphazard for many hours together.
Hume, at the end of his dissertation upon the hypothesis of the poisoning of Charles, relates the following anecdote:—“Mr. Henley, of Hampshire, told me that the Duchess of Portsmouth having come to England in 1699, he learned that she had caused it to be understood that Charles II. had been poisoned, and that, being desirous of ascertaining the fact from the Duchess’s own mouth, she told him that she continually urged the King to place himself at his ease as well as his people, and to live in perfect understanding with his Parliament; that he had taken the resolution of sending his brother out of the kingdom, and to convoke a Parliament, which was to have been put in execution on the day after that upon which he was seized with his first access; that, above everything, the King recommended her to keep it secret, and that she had only revealed it to her confessor; but she believed that her confessor had revealed the secret to persons who made use of that evil means of preventing thecoup d’état.”
If such, indeed, was the political attitude of the Duchess during the last months of Charles’s life, it may be conceivedthat the supreme recommendations of the dying monarch may have exercised little influence over the predetermined resolves of his ignoble successor, and it explains the sudden step she took to regain her native country. On her return to France she carried with her a large treasure in money and jewels. She had come to England poor, had lived there in splendour, but without much care for the future, and having proudly enjoyed a full-blown prosperity, was now about to endure adversity with courageous resolution. Having quarrelled with James II., the Duchess could not think of taking up her abode at Versailles, where her position would not have been tenable; she determined therefore to settle herself in Paris, where her house and surroundings became the object of a rigorous surveillance.
“It reached the King’s ears,” says Saint-Simon,“that greatfreedom of speech prevailed in her circle, and that she herself spoke very freely of him and Madame de Maintenon, upon which M. de Louvois was directed to prepare immediately alettre de cachetto exile her far away. Courtin was an intimate friend of Louvois, who had a small house at Meudon, where the former was accustomed to enter his cabinet unceremoniously at all hours. On his entrance one evening, he found Louvois alone writing, and whilst the minister was absorbed in that occupation, Courtin perceived thelettre de cachetlying upon the bureau. When Louvois had finished writing, Courtin, with some emotion, asked him what thatlettre de cachetwas? Louvois told him its purpose. Courtin remarked that it was surely an ungracious act, for that, even if the report were true, the King might be content to go no further than advising her to be more circumspect. He begged and entreated him to tell the King so on his part before acting upon thelettre de cachet;and that, if the King would not believe his words, he should get him, before going further, to look at the despatches of his negotiations with England, especially those relating to the important results he had obtained through the Duchess of Portsmouth at the time of the Dutch war, and during the whole of his embassy; and that after such services rendered by her, it would be dishonour to himself to forget them. Louvois, who remembered it all very well, after Courtin had reminded him of several important facts, suspended the execution of thelettre de cachet, and gave the King an account of the interview, and of what Courtin had said; and upon such testimony, which recalled several facts to the King’s mind, he ordered thelettre de cachetto be thrown into the fire, and had the Duchess of Portsmouth admonished to be more reserved in future. She defended herself stoutly from what had been imputed to her, and, true or false, she took heed in future of the nature of the conversation which was held at her house.
Louis XIV., become a bigot and a persecutor, suffered none but silent and submissive slaves to surround him. The Duchess showed herself docile to Courtin’s advice, and passed in profound obscurity the many long years which, remained to her of existence. Saint-Simon and Dangeau say nothing more about her, save to enregister the meagre favours which the Court measured out with an avaricious hand, and that woman, to whom was owing the signature of the Treaty of Niméguen, was reduced in 1689 to solicit a pension of 20,000 livres, which was considerably diminished when the disasters soon afterwards happened which impoverished the French nation.
Such was the parsimony exercised by the great Monarch towards a woman who had laboured strenuously for Frenchinterests so long as her sway over Charles of England lasted, and which sway only ceased with his life. “Therein she employed unceasingly all her talent for politics, all her fascinations, all her wit,” says the English chronicler already cited, and whose object has been, according to his translator, anonymous like himself, to demonstrate that if Charles II. acted in a way so little conformable to the interests not only of several foreign states, but still more of his own kingdom, it was the Duchess of Portsmouth who urged him to it, through the passion with which she had inspired him, by her cunning, and the power she possessed over his mind. The same translator afterwards remarks, that “this lady obtained more easily from the King in a moment and with acoup de languethings the most unreasonable and the most contrary to true policy, than all the most judicious, the most voluble, the most insinuating persons could obtain from him in matters infinitely reasonable and just.” Without attributing to the Duchess of Portsmouth a power of action so prejudicial to the interests of the British nation as her anonymous biographer has done, who wrote under the excitement of discontent caused, says Lyttleton, by “the strengthening of the alliance with France, the secret enemy of England and the Protestant religion, as well as by a costly war with Holland, her natural ally,” Hume states that “during the rest of his life Charles II. was extremely attached to Querouaille, and that this favourite contributed greatly to the close alliance between her own country and England.” Voltaire, without particularising the effects of the ascendancy of the Duchess of Portsmouth over Charles II., says that that monarch “was governed by her to the very last moment of his life.” He adds that “her beauty equalled that of Madame de Montespan, and thatshe was in England what the other beauty had been in France, but with more influence.” This assertion, accurate as it is so far as concerns political influence—for Madame de Montespan never exercised any over the government of Louis XIV.—is not equally so with regard to the question of beauty. On that head, indeed, the Duchess had her detractors. “I have seen that famous beauty, Mademoiselle Querouaille,” wrote Evelyn in hisDiary, about a month after her arrival in England; “but, in my opinion, she is of a childish, simple, and baby face.”
FOOTNOTES:[10]Duchess of Cleveland.[11]Letter 190.[12]Macaulay.[13]Evelyn’s Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2. Oct. 4, 1683.
[10]Duchess of Cleveland.
[10]Duchess of Cleveland.
[11]Letter 190.
[11]Letter 190.
[12]Macaulay.
[12]Macaulay.
[13]Evelyn’s Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2. Oct. 4, 1683.
[13]Evelyn’s Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2. Oct. 4, 1683.
TWO LADIES OF THE BEDCHAMBER DURING THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, LADY CHURCHILL AND THE PRINCESS DES URSINS—POLITICAL MOTIVES FOR THEIR ELEVATION IN ENGLAND AND SPAIN.
Atthe outset of that historic period known as theWar of the Spanish Successiona remarkable feature presents itself in the fact that two women were chosen to be, as it were, its advanced sentinels—the one of the Austrian party in England, the other of the French party in Spain. These were Lady Churchill (wife of the famous soldier, Marlborough), first lady of the bedchamber to our Queen Anne, and the Princess des Ursins, fulfilling, under the title ofCamerara-Mayor, the same functions for the new Queen of Spain, Marie-Louise of Savoy, first wife of Philip V.
The perpetual struggle previously waged between France and Spain for two centuries constitutes a theme of no ordinary interest. True, that in modern times armed interventions and dynastic and family tendencies have attested the political predominance of the former power, but it was not so in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the bigoted Philip II. looked upon himself as the head of all Catholicism and the vicegerent of Godon earth. The general character of the struggle, the events, the men, the results, are all worthy of consideration, and replete with illustrations of historical and political adventure. Every effort made by the two great adversaries shook Europe to its centre, and the ultimate result of each has always been in favour of the great cause of religious and political freedom. Two centuries of warfare between two absolute governments and two states so profoundly Catholic gave birth to the first European republic—Holland; and served to confirm the power of the great Protestant state—England; and to establish religious liberty in Germany.
A brief glance at the more immediate circumstances which brought about thisWar of Successionmay here be necessary. The Treaty of the Pyrenees had terminated the long struggle above alluded to; peace being cemented by the marriage of the Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, to the young Louis XIV. of France, on the 3rd of June, 1660. The royal husband renounced for himself and his heirs all right of succession to the Spanish throne, but was promised in return a moderate dowry, which, however, was only partially paid. Forty years after this marriage, Charles II. of Spain, widowed, childless, and broken in health, selected as his successor Prince Leopold of Bavaria, but he died when five years old. In this difficulty Charles consulted Pope Innocent XII., who decreed that the children of the Dauphin of France were the true, only, and legitimate heirs. But this negotiation was conducted with such profound secresy that it was only after the accession of Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., that the Pope’s interference became public.
The Holy Father’s reply, however, was so positive, that all the scruples of Charles II. were removed. His previous will was immediately burnt in the presence of his confessor; and a new one drawn up wherein Philip d’Anjou was declared absolute heir to the crown and kingdom of Spain; which, in the event of his demise, were to devolve to the Duke de Berri, third son of the Dauphin; and, he failing, to the Archduke Charles; with the reservation, as regarded the two first, that they should not unite in their own persons the sovereignties of France and Spain; and in that of the third that he should renounce all claim to the empire of Germany if he ever became heir to the Spanish throne; while it was, moreover, finally decreed that, if by any extraordinary concatenation of events, neither of those three princes should be enabled to claim the bequest of Charles II., it should devolve upon the Duke of Savoy without any restriction whatever.
The precaution was well-timed; for shortly afterwards, Charles, losing the use of his faculties, descended into the vaults of the Escurial, where he had commanded the tombs of his father, mother, and first wife to be opened in order that he might consult their tenants upon the sacred obligations of the will he had just signed. Wildly interrogating the mouldering relics, upon which he imprinted impassioned kisses, the unfortunate monarch fell senseless upon an adjacent tomb, destined shortly to receive his own remains, and was carried from those gloomy sepulchres back to his couch only to be borne back again in a few short days a corpse.
The royal will—the subject of so much gloomy meditation, of discussions the most anxious in the councils of the Escurial, and of intrigues the most active on the part of theforeigner, had been accepted by Louis XIV. in the name of his grandson, the Duke d’Anjou. The cabinet of Versailles, hoping to ally the Duke of Savoy to its policy, had brought about a marriage between Philip V. and the daughter of Victor Amadeus II., Marie Louise, sister of the young Duchess of Burgundy. The House of Hapsburg, during a period of almost hopeless anarchy, had exhausted its efforts in the attempt to establish a political duality in Spain. “If the government of that monarchy be closely scrutinised,” wrote Count de Rébenac,[14]“it will be found that disorder everywhere prevails to an excessive degree; but that, in the condition in which matters stand, scarcely any change can be ventured upon without risk of incurring dangers more to be dreaded than the existing evils, and a complete revolution would be necessary before perfect order in the state could be re-established.” Rébenac added that it was not the elements of strength that were wanting to Spain, but that they were scattered as in a chaos, and that no master-mind existed capable of reducing them to order and unity. The dynasty, in fact, which reigned at Madrid at that juncture had passed from incapacity to impotence, and henceforward there only remained to Spain herlaw of successionto rescue her from her abasement. The miserable Charles II. was then making and unmaking his will continually—sometimes indicating a prince of Bavaria as his successor, at others a prince of the house of Austria. At last he chose, as has been said, a grandson of Louis XIV., in the hope of interesting France in the preservation of the duality of the monarchy. Two years afterwards one half of Europe was in arms to hurl the youthful Philip from his throne.
FOOTNOTES:[14]Memoirs of Count de Rébenac’s Embassy to Spain in 1689, MS. No. 63, fol. 224, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
[14]Memoirs of Count de Rébenac’s Embassy to Spain in 1689, MS. No. 63, fol. 224, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
[14]Memoirs of Count de Rébenac’s Embassy to Spain in 1689, MS. No. 63, fol. 224, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
THE PRINCESS DES URSINS.
THE MARRIED LIFE OF MARIE ANNE DE LA TRÉMOUILLE—SHE BECOMES THE CENTRE OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICS IN ROME.
Amongthe heroines of the Fronde there were certainly lofty minds and strongly tempered souls to be found; but, when the French nation remitted to those Erminias and Hermengildas the care of its destiny upon some grave emergency or decisive occasion, those very women so conspicuous for their generous impulses, delicate tastes, and unsparing self-abnegation, only profited by their possession of power to inaugurate a policy the record of which has remained branded with opprobrium in history as a treason to their country. The bare remembrance, indeed, of those sterile agitations proves the first rock upon which the memory of the Princess des Ursins suffered shipwreck. In the brilliant daughter of the Duke de Noirmoutier, heiress of a name mixed up with all the struggles of that epoch, we behold a last survivor of the Regency, and the dramatic vicissitudes of a life devoted to the pursuit of political power, have blinded the mental vision of posterity to the grandeur of a work of which that eminent woman was the principal instrument. Proud and restless, as largely dominated as any other of her sex by the vivacity of her preferences and her dislikes, but full of sound sense in her views and in the firmness of her designs, the skilful adviserof a King and Queen of Spain has not received at the hands of posterity the merit due to an idea pursued with a wonderful perseverance amidst obstacles which would have daunted men even of the strongest resolution. Because her public career ended in a catastrophe, popular opinion, which readily follows success, considers as merely abortive that long career during which her hand sustained upon the brow of a French prince the tottering crown against which the arms of Europe, the distrust of Spain, and the discouragement of France vied in conspiring.
Yet in her girlhood, during the last days of the Fronde, Marie Anne de la Trémouille must early have observed how greatly beauty can aid ambition, and how, by tact, endowments the most frivolous may be brought to the service of interests the most serious and complicated. Married in 1650 to the Prince de Chalais, of the house of Talleyrand, she conceived for her young husband the sole passion to be noted throughout a life in which, especially during its later period, love figured only in the dullest of hues. This marriage took place during the wars of the second Fronde, and at an epoch when a rage for duelling, the anarchical and ruthless effect of Frenchmen’s ideas touching the “point of honour,” had infused a new element into the spirit of party, and had become a veritable mania. It chanced on the occasion of one of those duels in 1663—that of the two brothers Frette—wherein four fought on either side, and in which the Duke de Beauvilliers was slain, that the Prince de Chalais figured as one of the champions. The law against duelling, enforced by Henri Quatre, and revived with so much rigour by Richelieu against the father of the famous Marshal de Luxembourg, and from which practice the blood of Bouteville had not completely delivered France, was still in full vigour.The consequences being so terrible, that the Prince de Chalais, to place himself beyond reach of them, was compelled to seek safety in flight. He succeeded in escaping to Spain, whither his wife followed him.
During this brief period of her union with the Prince de Chalais, whom she adored, Marie Anne de la Trémouille had shone as conspicuously by her wit as by her beauty in the famous circle of the Hôtel d’Albret, where she first met Madame Scarron, whose destiny it was later on in life—as Madame de Maintenon—to be so closely allied with the Princess. Thus united by ties of the tenderest affection, scarcely had the young couple quitted Madrid, after a three years’ sojourn, to establish themselves at Rome, when the death of M. de Chalais left her a childless widow, without protection, and almost destitute—a prey to grief apparently the most profound, and to anxieties concerning the future readily conceivable.
Madame de Chalais was then in the plenitude of that attractive beauty so closely observed and described in all its most delicate shades by the graphic pen of the Duke de Saint-Simon when at a more advanced period of her life, but on which beauty, by a miracle of art and nature, the wasting hand of time had as yet scarcely brought a blemish.
The first years of her widowhood, passed in a convent, were marked by the liveliest sorrow. By degrees, however, love of society resumed its sway over her, and she reappeared therein with all her wonted attractiveness, markedly patronised in the highest circles of Roman society by Cardinal d’Estrées, the French ambassador—assuredly not without design, since at the same time that high functionary so distinguished her, he directed the attention of Louis XIV.to the wit and capacity of the charming widow. It was, therefore, in great measure with a political purpose, and by the diplomatic tact of the two brothers d’Estrées, that the second marriage of the Princess de Chalais with Flavio Orsini, Duke di Bracciano, himself a widower, was arranged (1675). Thenceforward the Palazzo Orsini became the focus of French influence, which was further increased by a marriage promoted between her sister Louise Angélique de la Trémouille and her brother-in-law, the Duke de Lanti.
She thus, therefore, became definitively an inhabitant of Rome andquasiRoman. What did she do there? How did she consort with an Italian husband? With what ambition was she soon inspired in the more elevated position in which her second marriage placed her at Rome? What talents, what political aptitude were manifested by her, and developed at a court which at that time bore the highest repute for skill in politics and diplomacy? How did Italian finesse and cunning blend and harmonize with the quick penetration and delicate tact of the Frenchwoman? What advantage did the French government, which, after the death of the Prince de Chalais, could no longer treat her as a proscribed subject, seek to draw immediately from her position and disposition? What were her relations with the first personages at the court of France, with the Roman cardinals, with the French ambassadors at Rome, with the representatives or the principal personages of other nations, and what splendour did her palace display, whether through the influence of natural taste or a calculating ambition? In a word, what was the mode of life, and what was the career of the Duchess di Bracciano, at Rome, before she proceeded to make application of the science she must there have acquired upon another and a wider stage? These are the curious and interesting points, upon which the recent discovery in the public library at Stockholm, of copies of nearly one hundred inedited letters addressed by the Princess des Ursins to Madame la Maréchale de Noailles and Madame de Maintenon, in addition to five long letters published by the Abbé Millot,[15]enable us to furnish very nearly complete details, ranging from 1675 to 1701.
Owning as its mistress a woman so abundantly charming, the Palazzo Orsini became more than ever the rendezvous of the best society. The Duchess di Bracciano held therein an actual Court, as numerous also as it was distinguished. Each visitor delighted to frequent it, in order to witness with his own eyes to what a degree of perfection and gracefulness a French lady could attain. The men especially sought her society; for although womanly, and more so than many around her, the habitual subject of their conversations pleased her better than those of persons of her own sex, and she therein exhibited a solidity of understanding, a correctness of view, together with a perfect lucidity of expression which captivated the Roman nobles, and made them feel it a satisfaction to submit their ideas to her, and hear her discuss them. The Duke di Bracciano was not mentally up to her mark, nevertheless in the first season which followed their union, a season of complaisant affection, when susceptibility was held in check by a more spontaneous admiration, he felt himself flattered by the homage she received, and which wore the semblance of an eulogium upon his choice and good taste. But, eventually, too mediocre, or too much kept in the background, not having wit enough himself to appreciate that of his brilliant partner without blushing athis own defect, or, it might be, sufficient consideration not being given to the inevitable arousing of his masculineamour propre, he sought to attribute to himself the popularity which she obtained, and that which might have constituted his pride became his torment. It would have been wanting in dignity to himself, he felt, ever to have owned or even in the least degree betrayed the secret motive of his wounded self-love; but the excessive extravagance of his wife, and the enormous expenses in which she involved him afforded ample pretext for his complaints: such was the ground, therefore, upon which he fell back. The Princess unhappily comprehended all this, and went to greater lengths than ever: hence untoward misunderstandings ere long arose between them.
Nevertheless, through the effect of her irresistible attractions, the Duchess di Bracciano became the centre of a cosmopolitan society which, in the midst of the noisiest diversions, debated daily in the capital of the papal dominions the weightiest problems of contemporary politics. Whilst externally her palace on the Piazza Navone blazed broadly with illuminated devices and coloured fires, and made all the echoes of Rome resound in pealing harmonies with the name of Louis the Great, in the interior of her magnificent saloons the vicissitudes of the long struggle waged between that monarch and the Holy Father were watched with inquietude, whether as concerning regal claims or the question of religious freedom—a portentous strife which seemed to increase in energy at each fresh act of violence on the part of Louis XIV. against his Protestant subjects. To the arduous questions in which theology ran so closely parallel with State interests, to the burning rivalries of doctrines and persons which then set by the ears themost illustrious among Christian prelates, were added the daily accidents of a policy to which fell the burden of maintaining in all corners of the universe a constant equilibrium between the Houses of France and Austria—a permanent problem which soon helped to complicate the perspective opened by the next succession to the Crown of Spain.
In such a school—borne along the brimming tide of pleasure by the soft breeze of homage—did Madame di Bracciano’s political intelligence rapidly ripen: and if by a glittering gaiety, ease of manner, and a species of decorous gallantry, her life appeared to continue the traditions of Anne of Austria’s time, the restrained firmness of her opinions, her reverence for absolute authority, her settled resolve to owe nothing to any one save to her own Great King, combined to link her fast to the new school of power and respect founded by Louis XIV. in the plenitude of his sway. Thus the passion for politics and power was not slow to obtain the mastery over the mind of a woman constituted like Marie Anne de la Trémouille, who had failed to find in her second marriage any community of taste or intellect.
The disputes between Louis and Innocent XI. proved, perhaps, another source of disunion between the ducal pair. The Orsini were in some sort a sacerdotal family, at the same time that they stood at the head of the Roman aristocracy: it had always furnished Pontiffs and Cardinals to the Church. It was not, therefore, probable that the Duke di Bracciano, who was its chief, should hold, in those famous quarrels, an opinion contrary to that of the Holy Father, more especially if, as it was rumoured, having no child, he had by an adoption long kept secret, sought for a son in the family of Innocent XI. himself. The same induction cannot be drawnfrom acts which were comprised in the life of the Duchess di Bracciano. Whether at Rome or at Madrid, the ideas held by the Court of Versailles upon dogmatic questions, or upon the relations of the Church with the State, were hers also; and in Italy, in the halls of the Vatican, she openly evinced her detestation of the Jesuits, in whom the Ultramontane doctrines were personified. Therein, in all probability, lay a new stumbling block against which the conjugal harmony jarred, already shaken as it was by all the dissemblances of habit, appreciation, and of taste, which difference of nationality engendered. “Ce ménage ne fut pas concordant,” says Saint-Simon; “quoique sans brouillerie ouverte, et les époux furent quelquefois bien aises de se séparer.”
To escape from these different causes of domestic ennui, the Duchess di Bracciano varied her sojourn in Italy by long and frequent visits to France, going thither to present, by clever and well-timed calculation, the spectacle of a Roman princess whom no one even within the grandiose precincts of Versailles surpassed either in true Frenchespritor steady devotion to the Sovereign. The Duchess formed a close intimacy with the Maréchale de Noailles, to whom she was related; she made the acquaintance of the minister Torcy, who was capable of appreciating all the varied resources of her woman’s nature and her woman’s wit; and she was presented to Madame de Maintenon, who had become the goddess of the Court. Her second visit took place shortly after the period of the Treaty of Ryswick—that is to say, near upon that fatal conjuncture at which Louis XIV. saw England escape him for ever, supported as she was by the Dutch alliance, and had hope only from the Court of Spain to counterbalance the formidable union of his enemies. This was the reason that each of those personages, at Versailles orParis, had for retaining the Duchess di Bracciano in the interests of France in the future succession of Spain, and recommended them to her at the Papal Court, to the Spanish Ambassador at Rome, the Duke d’Uzeda, or indeed to any other Spaniard of distinction whom she might meet with in that capital.
The letters addressed to the Duchess Lanti, her sister, which are, as it were, a last echo of the conversations of the Hôtel d’Albret,[16]were for the most part written from Paris between the years 1685 and 1698, the latter being the date of the demise of the Duke di Bracciano. The advanced age and failing health of her second husband had, in that year, summoned her back to Rome, and a kind of reconciliation, brought about chiefly through the good offices of Cardinal Porto-Carrero—soon afterwards destined to play a great part in the political affairs of his native country—had preceded that demise, which placed the Duchess in possession of estates and property reputed to be considerable, but upon which heavy incumbrances, increased by lawsuits, brought down upon her endless anxiety and almost ruin.
The obligation of discharging an immense amount of debt compelled Madame di Bracciano to part with the property of the duchy bearing that name. She was, therefore, forced to relinquish that title and adopt that of Princess des Ursins (Orsini), under which she has taken her place in history. The beneficence of the French King was assured beforehand to a noble widow married under his auspices, ruined, so to speak, in his service, and whose palace had become the residence of his ambassador from the moment that the Prince de Monaco had superseded the disgraced Cardinal de Bouillon in that high post. The Princess obtained, therefore, one ofthose Court pensions, the ordinary patrimony of all great families, and of which the good offices of the Maréchale de Noailles, the staunch patroness of her kinswoman, had ere long succeeded in doubling the amount, when the death of Cardinal Maidalchini had left the considerable subsidy disposable by which that member of the Sacred College was secretly secured to the policy of Louis XIV. She had, indeed, herself solicited an increase of her pension in a charmingly witty letter, in which she undertook to prove how useful it would be for the King’s service that she should be richer. “My house,” says she, “is the only French abode open to the public. It is in my assemblages there that one can speak to people whom it would be difficult to meet with elsewhere.” And thus she rose sufficiently high in the esteem of the cabinet of Versailles to obtain even the recall of the French Ambassador from Rome.