by Jean Plaidy
‘I will write to her today,’ said Louise-Julie. ‘I think you will find her rather outrageous . . . quite different from anyone else.’
Louis yawned slightly. ‘It will be a change,’ he murmured; but Louise-Julie saw that he was not really interested in her sister. Did that mean that he was no longer interested in her?
Pauline-Félicité swept through the Court like a whirlwind. Surely, said the courtiers, there was never a woman so ugly who gave herself such airs. But they had to concede that it was an ugliness which could not be ignored. It was a compelling ugliness inasmuch as when Pauline-Félicité was present she automatically became the magnet of attention.
She was undoubtedly witty, and before she had been at Court a week her sayings were being quoted. She was no respecter of rank and had even made sly comments on the King.
‘His Majesty has lived all his life in leading strings,’ she declared. ‘What matters it who holds the strings? He is controlled by old age, middle age and youth – by the Cardinal’s ancient hands, the motherly ones of Madame de Toulouse, and the loving ones of my sister. What fun, should His Majesty escape and learn to totter along by himself!’
These remarks were recounted to the King and when she was next at one of his intimate supper parties he commanded Pauline-Félicité to sit beside him.
‘You are an outspoken young woman,’ he told her.
‘I speak the truth,’ she retorted. ‘It is more stimulating than lies which can be so monotonously boring. Your Majesty must know this, for you have been constantly fed on the latter.’
Louis smiled. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that there has been a faint flavour of truth in my diet on certain occasions.’
‘A spicy ingredient,’ she retorted, ‘which has been too often lacking.’
‘In order to make the meal more palatable,’ murmured Louis.
‘Yes . . . and the palate, knowing little but flattery and lies, has become jaded.’
‘How is it that you know so much about me?’
‘Despite your crown, Your Majesty is but a man. Therefore, if I use my knowledge of men, I add to my knowledge of Your Majesty.’
‘There are many people here who consider you insolent, Mademoiselle de Nesle.’
‘But all consider me interesting, Sire. You see how they are striving to overhear what I am saying.’
‘Might it not be what I am saying?’
‘No, Sire, it is enough that you talk to me. No effort is required to see that. But what I dare say to you is of the utmost interest.’
‘So they taught you to speak truth at your convent.’
‘Not they! They taught me etiquette, deportment and how to work flowers on a canvas. It was too boring to be endured.’
‘So you wanted to come to see the Court?’
She lifted her eyes to his face. ‘To see Your Majesty,’ she said boldly.
The king was excited. She was enough like her sister to appeal to him. The fact that she was far from beautiful added piquancy to her attraction; there were so many beautiful women at Court waiting to pounce on him, that often he felt as he had when he was a little boy and had wanted to escape from the people. He did not want to escape from Mademoiselle de Nesle. She amused him, and he discovered that in her company he was no longer bored.
Now he must see her every day. Fleury was anxious, Madame de Toulouse furious, and Madame de Mailly brokenhearted; but the inevitable had happened. The King was no longer in love with his mistress; her sister had taken her place in his affections.
Now Pauline-Félicité was a constant visitor to the petits appartements, and at the intimate suppers her place was beside the King.
Her ascendancy over him amazed everyone. It seemed incredible that Louis, who had all his life been accustomed to flattery, should be so enthralled by a woman whose prime characteristics were her outspokenness and her caustic tongue.
When it was announced that Mademoiselle de Nesle was to be married, the whole Court understood what that implied. The young woman was to become the King’s mistress and, because King’s mistresses were always married women, if he should happen to fall in love with an unmarried one efforts must be made with all speed to put an end to her single state.
Felix de Vintimille, who was a son of the Comte du Luc, was selected for the honour of becoming the husband of the King’s favourite, and the ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Paris who was an uncle of the bridegroom and delighted at the turn of events, as the family would lose nothing by having obliged the King in this way.
Louis attended the wedding and took a prominent part in the hilarious ceremony of putting the couple to bed. This ceremony was even more farcical than usual, for it was the King who took the place of the bridegroom, and the Comte de Vintimille who rode off afterwards in the King’s carriage.
Now Pauline-Félicité was beginning to realise her ambitions. In the short time since she had come to Court she had achieved the first. Her plans did not end there. She was now Madame de Vintimille with a husband in name only; she was beloved of the King and she was going to rid him of the influence of that doddering old Cardinal and make him take an interest in state affairs, where of course he should follow her advice.
Madame de Vintimille was following foreign affairs with a great deal of zest.
The Emperor Charles VI of Austria had died; he was the last male descendant of the great Emperor Charles V, and thus there was no son to follow him. There was however his daughter, Maria Theresa, who had been recently married to Duke François of Lorraine.
Maria Theresa was twenty-three years of age and, as she had known that she would one day inherit her father’s dominions, she had prepared herself for this duty. A clever young woman, determined to make her country great, she was fully aware of the difficulties which beset her. The war of the Polish Succession had weakened the country to a great extent – the army had been reduced and the exchequer depleted.
Her Empire was large but scattered. It consisted of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, and there were possessions in Italy and the Netherlands. She was wise enough to know that such scattered possessions could provide great difficulties for their ruler.
Moreover there were many who, believing they had a claim to the Austrian Empire, pointed out that its rule should not be placed in the hands of a woman. Augustus III, who was now not only the King of Poland but Elector of Saxony, staked a claim on the grounds that his wife was a niece of Emperor Charles VI. Charles-Albert, the Elector of Bavaria, claimed the throne through his grandmother who was also a niece of Charles VI.
Becoming aware of these claimants, others arose. There were Charles Emmanuel of Sardinia, Philip V of Spain and Frederick II of Prussia.
It was small wonder that the young woman saw trouble all about her; but she knew that her most formidable enemy was Frederick of Prussia.
Frederick was the first to act. He claimed Silesia and offered money and an alliance to Maria Theresa in exchange for the territory, but Maria Theresa, young and idealistic, retorted sharply that her duty was to defend her subjects, not to sell them.
This was what Frederick was waiting for. He gave the order for his armies to march on Silesia.
France so far had remained outside the conflict, and Fleury, now approaching ninety, wished to keep her so. But there were men in France who had other ideas, who were young and passionately eager to enhance the glory of their country. They saw the means of doing so and a strong party, led by Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, the Comte de Belle-Isle, rose in opposition to the Cardinal, and decided to set Charles-Albert, the Elector of Bavaria, on the Imperial throne.
Under the influence of Madame de Vintimille the King was on the side of the young men who were eager for war.
Fleury wrung his hands but he could do nothing else. Frenchmen were ready to rise against the hated Austrian, and the country was in favour of the war.
The result was a treaty between Prussia, Bavaria and France, and the French army was sent to make war on Austria.
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The King, now visibly changed under the influence of Madame de Vintimille, followed the progress of the war with the greatest enthusiasm. His mistress compelled his interest and he, following her lead, discovered his boredom was receding.
There was one matter on which Madame de Vintimille was eager to have her way and which she found the most difficult of all her tasks. Try as she might to have Fleury removed from Court, the King remained firm in his determination to keep the old man in office.
‘Why, Madame,’ he said, ‘this is an old man. It would break his heart to be dismissed from Court.’
‘So France must be destroyed for the sake of one old man’s heart!’
‘Fleury is no fool.’
‘Oh, no,’ she mocked. ‘He is as alert and as virile as one can expect – at ninety.’
‘He is not yet that,’ laughed Louis. ‘Oh, come, let us talk of other matters.’
‘So Fleury stays?’ she asked, almost challengingly.
But Louis’ expression was equally challenging. ‘Fleury stays,’ he repeated.
Madame de Vintimille was angry. She very much disliked being crossed. Moreover Fleury’s position had been strengthened if anything by the recent death of the Duc de Bourbon, that enemy whom the Cardinal had once had dismissed from Court. Fleury could never feel safe while Bourbon was at Court for he knew that Monsieur le Duc would never forget the terrible humiliation he had suffered at his hands. The Duc de Bourbon was not an old man when he died, being only forty-seven, but he had made himself rather ridiculous in his last years by his extreme jealousy of his wife. Monsieur le Duc had quite blatantly been the lover of the Comtesse d’Egmont, but had raged against his wife when she had in retaliation taken a lover, and he had created quite a scandal by locking her up in a barred room at the top of his château and keeping her a prisoner there.
Madame de Vintimille was certain of one thing; before many months had passed, she was determined, Cardinal Fleury should receive the dreaded lettre de cachet.
In the meantime her attention was slightly diverted when she discovered that she was pregnant.
Delightedly she carried this news to the King.
‘Our child,’ she said, ‘will be a boy.’
Louis was amused. ‘You are sure to be right,’ he said. ‘Providence would not dare go against your wishes in such a matter.’
So during those months Madame de Vintimille was constantly at the side of the King. Her arrogance and outspokenness endeared her to him, for he admired her alert mind and he appreciated her sincerity.
She was clever and there was no doubt that she brought a brilliant mind to the study of state affairs. Louis found that with her beside him the position of King in such times, although bringing with it its anxieties, was a very interesting one.
Although there were often quarrels, she meant more to him than had any woman he had so far known and he was very much looking forward to the birth of their child.
‘You are sour and spiteful,’ Louis told her on one occasion. ‘There is one thing which would cure you: You should have your head cut off. You have such a long neck. It would suit you. Your blood should be drained off and lambs’ blood substituted.’
‘What nonsense you talk!’ snapped Madame de Vintimille. ‘Of what use should I be to you, headless? And if you want a woman who mildly agrees with you on all occasions, pray say so, and I will return to the Abbaye de Port Royal.’
Louis laughed at her. ‘You would die rather. Ah, now I know a way of revenge: Send you back to your convent.’
‘Very well, send me back and I’ll send you back to boredom.’ It was a good answer and it delighted him.
‘I shall never send you away,’ he said. ‘For ever you shall remain here at my side.’
Then she smiled, thinking of the honours that should be given to this son of hers whom she could feel moving within her.
It was August of the year 1741, and Madame de Vintimille had made all the necessary preparations for her confinement. She wanted the birth of her child to be of as much account as the birth of a Dauphin. That self-willed boy in the royal nursery was now twelve years old, apt to strut, full of his own importance.
A few days before the child was due to be born, while she was staying at Choisy, she felt suddenly so exhausted that she retired to her bed and when her women saw how drawn she looked, they were alarmed. Had her pains started? No, she told them, they had not. She merely felt very weary. She would rest and be quite well in the morning.
Her women noticed that she had started to shiver, and that her hands were burning.
‘Madame has a fever,’ said one.
‘It is to be hoped not . . . at such a time.’
‘Oh, she will recover. She has determined to have a healthy child – so how could it be otherwise?’
But during the night there was consternation among her servants, for she was slightly delirious and seemed to think she was plain Mademoiselle de Nesle living in a convent.
In the morning the King called on her, and was horrified at the sight of her; she did not even know him.
‘She must not stay here,’ he said. ‘She must be brought to Versailles. There she will have the best of attention. There her child shall be born.’
So a litter was improvised and Madame de Vintimille left Choisy for Versailles. When she was brought to the château the Cardinal de Rohan hastened to put his apartments at her disposal, and thither she was taken while the King summoned his doctors.
She lay for a week, burning with fever in this state of exhaustion, and at the end of that time her child was born.
It was a boy. Naturally, said the Court. How could it be otherwise when Madame had decided it should be so? Now she would recover.
But she continued in a state of semi-oblivion, and it was necessary for others to look after the introduction into the world of this boy for whom his mother had planned so much. Had she been conscious she would not have been pleased by that reception. The Comte de Vintimille made a protest that the child, whom they were attempting to baptise as his, was certainly not his son. Louis however commanded that he should withdraw that protest. Monsieur de Vintimille did so, somewhat sullenly, but his important relations, the Cardinal de Noailles and the Marquis de Luc were present at the baptism.
Still Madame de Vintimille did not recover; instead her fever grew worse, and less than a week after the birth of her son, she died.
Louis was bewildered. She had seemed so full of life, and their tempestuous relationship had been of such short duration. He could face no one; he wanted to be alone with his grief. He wept bitterly, reliving scenes from their life together. Mass was said in his bedroom, for he could not face his friends in the first agony of this sorrow.
The Queen came to his apartment. Gently she expressed her sympathy.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘what regard you had for Madame de Vintimille.’
The King gazed at her with leaden eyes.
‘Louis,’ she went on, ‘you must not give way to your grief in this way. You have your duties.’
He looked at her most angrily. ‘She was young . . . She had more vitality than the rest of us. Why . . . why? . . .’
‘God has his reasons,’ said the Queen significantly.
Louis looked at her in horror. Then he said: ‘I thank you for coming. I should be happier alone.’
Marie left him, but she had set him thinking. Was this God’s vengeance, his punishment for the sin he and Madame de Vintimille had committed? Then he forgot his own fears in the contemplation of his mistress, struck down without time for repentance. What was happening to her now? He was left; he had time to repent. But what of her?
He felt full of remorse. I should not have made her my mistress, he told himself, forgetting her determination to fill that position. Had I not, she might have returned to her convent – innocent as she came from it. Here was an added lash with which to torment himself.
There was another visitor. It was the Comtesse de Toulouse, who em
braced him with that half-sensuous, half-motherly affection which she never failed to offer on every possible occasion.
‘My beloved Sire,’ she murmured; ‘what can I say to you? How can I comfort you?’
There was comfort in weeping in the motherly arms of Madame de Toulouse.
Madame de Mailly came to him. She stood at some distance, looking at him, and suddenly he knew that, of all the sympathy which had been offered to him, this of his discarded mistress was the most sincere.
‘So,’ he said shamefacedly, ‘you have come back.’
‘Yes, Louis,’ she answered, ‘as I always should if I thought I could be of use to you.’
‘You are welcome,’ he told her.
Madame de Toulouse was not very pleased to see Madame de Mailly welcomed back, but she was too wise to show this.
‘Between us,’ she said, ‘we will make you happy again.’
‘I cannot bear to be here . . . near her death-bed,’ said Louis.
‘Then we will go away,’ said Madame de Toulouse. ‘We will leave at once. Let us go to Saint-Léger. There we can be at peace.’
‘Thank you, my dear ones,’ said the King.
At Saint-Léger he continued to mourn.
He would sit for hours brooding over his brief love affair with that remarkable woman. He told himself that there could never be anyone like her; and although the motherliness of Madame de Toulouse and the unselfish devotion of Madame de Mailly comforted him they could not bring him out of his melancholy.
He felt sick with horror when he heard that, when the corpse of his beloved mistress had been taken, wrapped in its shroud, from the Palace, a mob of people in the streets had seized it and mutilated it.
The people remembered their sufferings, and they believed that the extravagances of King’s mistresses added to these. They did not blame their handsome King who, in their eyes, could do no wrong; but with bread scarce and large families to be fed, there must be a scapegoat.
