CHAPTER XVII
Arrival of Condé at the Court—His reception—He returns to Paris—His ingratitude towards his wife—Dignified behaviour of Madame la Princesse—Affectionate relations between Condé and his son—Indifference of the young prince towards his mother—Marriage of the Duc d’Enghien and Anne of Bavaria—The affair of Poland—Condé’s conquest of Franche-Comté—The mind of the Princesse de Condé becomes affected—The footman Duval—Mysterious affair at the Hôtel de Condé: the princess is wounded in a brawl between Duval and the Comte de Bussy-Rabutin—Singular attitude of Monsieur le Prince—Trial of Duval—Calumnies against the Princesse de Condé: letter of Madame de Sevigné—The princess is exiled to the Château of Châteauroux, in Berry—Her departure: a touching scene—Her captivity—Her hallucinations—Visit of Père Tixier.
On 4 January, 1660, Condé arrived at Coulommiers, whither the Duc and Duchesse de Longueville had come to welcome him. After remaining there a week, the princess and her little daughter, who had joined her the day after her arrival, set out for Trie; the Duc d’Enghien was sent to Augerville, to the house of the Président Perrault, a partisan of Monsieur le Prince, who had himself recently returned from exile; while Condé, accompanied by his brother-in-law, continued his journey to Aix, in Provence, where the Court then was, to salute the King. At Lambesc, they were met by the Prince de Conti, who, after the surrender of Bordeaux, had made his peace with the Court and espoused one of Mazarin’s nieces, the beautiful and virtuous Anne Marie Martinozzi. Conti must have felt a little uneasy as to the reception he was likely to meet with from the brother whose cause he had abandoned. However, Condé greeted him affectionately, and, though the intimacy which had once existed between them was never renewed, they remained on friendly terms.
On 27 January, Monsieur le Prince reached Aix and went at once to visit Mazarin, to whom, since the Peace of the Pyrenees, he had written several “rather civil” letters. The interview between the two old enemies, though necessarily somewhat constrained, passed off satisfactorily enough. Condé recognized that the Cardinal was now far too firmly seated in the saddle ever to be dislodged, while Mazarin felt that he could afford to be magnanimous. At its conclusion the prince was “introduced into the Queen’s chamber, where he presented his respects to their Majesties.”[206] The memoirs of the time,—even those of la Grande Mademoiselle, who does not conceal her chagrin at not having been able to learn anything—are silent regarding this interview, which lasted more than an hour. No one seems to know what passed, but all are agreed that, when it was over, the Prince de Condé appeared to be as much at his ease at Court as if he had never left it.
The following evening the prince supped with Mazarin, who entertained him magnificently, and who, a few days later, in writing to Lenet, spoke in the warmest terms of their “friendship and cordial relations.”
But, if the past were forgiven, it could not be forgotten, at least until time had enabled the prince to show that he was sincere in his professions of fidelity to his Sovereign. Condé, recognizing this, did not prolong his stay at the Court, and on 4 February he set out for Paris, where he was soon rejoined by his wife. In the capital he met with a most cordial reception; the Parlement and the other Courts presented him with an address of welcome; all Paris hastened to follow their example; and the Hôtel de Condé, so long deserted, was for some weeks the centre of animation.
It was in this splendid residence which she had not entered since the death of her mother-in-law, ten years before, that a fresh and final disillusion awaited the long-suffering wife of the Great Condé. On her return from exile, Claire-Clémence might well have believed that a new life was about to begin for her—a life in which she would be restored both to her place in Society and in her husband’s house, and receive abundant compensation for all the hardships and humiliations which she had experienced. Under what immense obligations had she not placed her husband! Twice within two years she had brilliantly played the rôle of a party leader. At the peril of her life she had traversed the seas to bring him his son and to take her place by his side, and for long years had uncomplainingly endured all the bitterness of poverty and exile. Was it conceivable that a man could fail to be touched by so much courage, so much devotion? Was it conceivable that, now that it was in his power to show his appreciation of all that she had suffered for his sake, he should not hasten to take advantage of the opportunity?
And the changes which had taken place since their departure from France seemed to favour a better understanding between husband and wife. To “le temps de la bonne régence,”[207] that era of facile and romantic gallantry, had succeeded one of regularity, order, and outward decorum, revealing a profound change in taste and morals. Of the salons which had been so much frequented before the Fronde, some were already nothing but a memory; others retained the merest shade of their former reputation. Condé’s old entourage no longer existed; the band of pretty women whom his sister had gathered round her, and among whom he had moved as a kind of demi-god, was dispersed. Madame de Longueville herself had turned dévote, and divided her time between her husband and children and her religious duties. Madame de Châtillon had found a second husband in the Duke of Mecklenburg, and, though she was still residing in France, she seemed more anxious to secure his intervention in her lawsuits and her conjugal difficulties than to pick up the thread of their interrupted intrigue.
Besides, Condé himself was no longer the dashing cavalier of former times. Never very robust, his health had been severely tried by the fatigues of so many years of active service; and already he was beginning to suffer from those attacks of gout which were to be the torment of his old age. Now, on the threshold of his fortieth year, weary and disillusioned, it seemed but natural that he should seek solace for his hardships and his thwarted ambition in the society of his wife and children.
Condé had too much family pride to neglect his duties towards his son, but, notwithstanding all the claims which she had upon his consideration, his behaviour towards his wife showed no improvement. It was, indeed, more cold and distant than ever. In the winter, which he generally passed in Paris, he and the princess each had their apartments under the same roof; they were seen together at State ceremonies; on great occasions, it was the latter who did the honours of the Hôtel de Condé. But in the summer, Claire-Clémence never appeared at Chantilly, where Monsieur le Prince was accustomed to gather round him all the celebrities of the time, save on the rare occasions when her presence was formally requested; soon she ceased to come there at all. Apart from attendance at official ceremonies and occasional visits to Saint-Maur, accompanied by a few persons of her suite, she seldom left the Hôtel de Condé, and led almost as retired a life as she had formerly passed among the Carmelites of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. For the last and cruel disillusion which she had experienced had deprived her of all desire to mingle with the gay world around her. Too proud and too generous to complain, she gave as an explanation of her retirement the cares which her delicate health imposed, and the dignity of her behaviour gained for her the admiration and sympathy of all who penetrated the secret of this princely ménage.
ANNE OF BAVARIA, DUCHESSE D’ENGHIEN
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY MONCORNET
But Condé’s neglect was not the only trial which the poor princess had to endure. In the early years of her married life, she had been able to find some consolation for her husband’s indifference in the affection of her son, the Duc d’Enghien, whom she had kept constantly with her and to whom she was passionately devoted. But the boy, as we have mentioned, had been separated from his mother soon after their arrival in Flanders, and sent to the Jesuit College at Antwerp, since which time she had only seen him at long intervals. Monsieur le Prince, on the other hand, had superintended his son’s education, and, as the lad grew older, he spent more and more of his time with his father, for whom he soon conceived the warmest admiration and affection; while Condé, on his side, was tenderly attached to his son. Unhappily, these pleasant relations were established at the cost of the princess; for the little consideration which his father, who could do no wrong in his eyes, showed for his mother was naturally not without its effect upon Enghien, and gradually the affection which as a boy he had entertained for the latter was replaced by the most complete indifference.
Almost as soon as he re-entered France, Condé began to occupy himself with matrimonial projects on behalf of his son. If we are to believe la Grand Mademoiselle, overtures were made to her, and the Duc d’Enghien was “ardently desirous for this marriage, and very assiduous in his attentions to her.” The princess, however, excused herself, “on the ground of the great disparity of age between herself and the duke,” though she informs us, in her “Mémoires,” that it was her suitor’s “want of merit,” and his “base mind,” to which she objected.
No difficulty would, however, have presented itself had Condé been willing for his son to marry Mademoiselle’s half-sister, Mlle. d’Alençon. Madame la Princesse was very anxious for this alliance, as were several of the prince’s counsellors; but Condé had other views for his heir, and had determined to marry him to Anne of Bavaria, second daughter of Edward of Bavaria, Prince Palatine, and of Anne de Gonzague, sister of the Queen of Poland.[208]
His reason for preferring an alliance with a foreign princess of the second rank and of little fortune to one which would have strengthened the position of the Condés, by uniting them to the younger branch of the Royal Family with its great possessions, was the belief that his son’s marriage with a niece of the King and Queen of Poland would be of material assistance to him in the realization of an ambition which he had for some time cherished.
This ambition was nothing less than Enghien’s succession to the elective crown of Poland, which the reigning sovereign, the childless John Casimir, was prepared to abdicate so soon as a candidate likely to be acceptable to the great majority of his subjects could be found. This idea seems to have originated with the Queen of Poland, one of Condé’s most intimate friends, who was using all her influence to secure the support of her husband and the Polish nobles, who in that State were masters of the throne, for the Duc d’Enghien.
Louis XIV. was not ill-disposed towards the Polish project, and, on 10 December, 1663, the marriage of the Duc d’Enghien and Anne of Bavaria was celebrated in the King’s chapel at the Louvre. A clause in the marriage contract stated that the King and Queen of Poland adopted the bride “as their only daughter.” Meanwhile, however, it was becoming apparent that Condé himself was likely to be far more acceptable to the Poles than his son, and the French Court seemed to approve of this solution. At the beginning of 1665, John Casimir decided to abdicate, and Condé was preparing to start for Warsaw with Enghien—whether it was his intention to get himself or his son elected is a moot point—when Louis XIV., fearing to offend the Duke of Neuburg, a rival competitor, whose possessions of Berg and Jülich commanded the passages of the Rhine and covered the Spanish Netherlands on the North-East, ordered him to renounce his candidature. “My cousin,” said he, “think no more of the Crown of Poland; the interest of my State is concerned in it.” Condé reluctantly obeyed, and when, in June 1669, John Casimir, who had been persuaded by the prince’s friends in Poland to retain the crown until then, in the hope that circumstances might permit him to renew his candidature, Michael Wisnowiecki was elected.
Condé received some compensation for the mortification which the Polish affair must have occasioned him in a brilliantly successful reappearance in command of a French army. On the outbreak of the Devolution War in 1667, the command of the forces which invaded the Spanish Netherlands was given to Turenne, and his great rival was left to languish in inaction at Chantilly. Without allowing himself to be discouraged, Condé secretly applied himself to drawing up a plan for the conquest of Franche-Comté. This plan he submitted to Louvois, the Minister for War, who persuaded the King to approve it, and to entrust its execution to the prince himself. On 4 February, 1668, Condé crossed the frontier, and so skilfully had his measures been taken and so rapid were his movements, that in little more than a fortnight the whole province was at his feet. Louis XIV. immediately gave to the prince the government of the conquered territory; but the Triple Alliance between England, Sweden and Holland was already forming, and the King was soon obliged to consent to peace, retaining his conquests in the Netherlands, but restoring Franche-Comté to Spain.
The Princesse de Condé had figured at the marriage of her son and at the subsequent festivities, but, after the young couple had established themselves at Chantilly, where a portion of the château had been placed at their disposal, she gradually disappeared from the Court and Society, and was never seen except at great official functions, where her rank necessitated her presence. Often she was ill and invisible for months at a time, and Condé and Enghien appeared very embarrassed when people inquired after the princess’s health, and hastened to change the subject. A few notes preserved in the archives of Chantilly serve to explain what seems to have remained an enigma, even to the best-informed of contemporary chroniclers. In the autumn of 1664, we find Condé writing to his secretary Caillet as follows:
“Make yourself acquainted with everything that my wife does at Saint-Maur; inform me of everything that she does or says, and whether she still persists in her transports (emportements).... M. Perrault writes me that she spoke to him with moderation. I am a little dubious about that, for I hear from others that she is anything but moderate.... Endeavour, at any rate, to discover what has become of Duval, and if my wife has not seen him at Saint-Maur.... I will inform you of what will have to be done in this matter. Show my letter to the Abbé Roquette and to Père Bergier (the two spiritual directors of the family).”[209]
From these letters, it is very evident that Madame la Princesse’s mind was affected, a fact which is not surprising, when we consider that her mother, Nicole du Plessis, had always been eccentric, and, in her later years, quite insane; that her father had been noted for his morose disposition and violent temper, and that she herself had passed through so many agitations, hardships, and deceptions. It is, indeed, sad to reflect that the reason of this truly noble woman, who in war and exile had shown such admirable courage and fortitude, should have given way at the very moment when she should have been enjoying the repose and happiness which she had so well earned. For this calamity the neglect and indifference of her ungrateful husband and her unnatural son were undoubtedly largely responsible.
Abandoned by those who should have lavished upon her the most tender care, the unhappy Claire-Clémence became the prey of greedy and unscrupulous attendants. The man Duval mentioned by Condé in one of his letters to Caillet was a footman of the princess, a person of some education and “de bonne conversation,” to whom the lonely woman had attached herself. She gave him expensive presents and promised him a pension; and Condé, warned of the influence which he was beginning to exercise over his wife, insisted on her dismissing him from her service.
The dismissal of the only person who appeared to feel for her any sympathy aggravated for a time the malady of Claire-Clémence, and was no doubt the cause of the “emportements” of which her husband speaks. But they do not appear to have lasted long, and by Holy Week 1665, she was sufficiently recovered to assist at the ceremonies of the Lord’s Supper, when the Queen, in accordance with ancient custom, served at table twelve poor women, whose feet she washed. The Princesse de Condé, aided by Mlle. d’Alençon and the Princess of Baden, carried the dishes to her Majesty.
During the next six years, Claire-Clémence continued to lead the same secluded life, emerging now and again from her retirement to assist at some Court ceremony, such as the baptism of the Dauphin at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, on which occasion she was one of the princesses to whom fell the duty of dressing the infant prince. After this brilliant ceremony, however, the appearances of the princess in public became so rare that people appear to have almost forgotten her existence, when, at the beginning of 1671, a mysterious affair, which was to complete the ruin of her life, came to make her, for a moment, the talk of both Court and town.
About two o’clock in the afternoon of 13 January, Claire-Clémence, having just dined, was alone in her apartments at the Hôtel de Condé, when the door opened, and her former favourite, the dismissed footman, Duval, entered the room unannounced. The ease with which he had succeeded in making his way to the princess’s apartments is explained by the fact that at this hour of the day all the servants were at dinner, and that there was no one at hand to inquire his business. Duval had come to demand money—the arrears of the pension which the princess had promised him, but which, owing to the unsatisfactory state of her finances, had only been paid very irregularly. On being told that it was impossible to comply with his request at once, he became very insolent and spoke in so loud a tone that a young musketeer, the Comte Jean Louis de Bussy-Rabutin, formerly page to the Princesse de Condé, who had just entered the ante-chamber, opened the door to see what was the matter. Rabutin, after asking the impudent rascal how he dared to address her Highness in such a manner, ordered him to leave the house immediately; Duval angrily refused, and both drew their swords and rushed upon each other. The princess endeavoured to separate them, and received a wound “above the right breast,”[210] which, though not dangerous, bled profusely. She fell to the ground in a swoon; the servants, attracted by the noise, came rushing in, and the combatants, profiting by the confusion, succeeded in effecting their escape, though not before they had both been recognized.
Such was the version which spread in Paris and was generally accepted, until the singular attitude of Condé piqued the curiosity of the public and invested the affair with an atmosphere of mystery and scandal. The prince, who had long sought an occasion for disembarrassing himself of a wife whom he had never loved, and who was no longer able to be of use to him, did not hesitate a moment to place the very worst construction upon what had occurred. Although suffering cruelly from the gout, he at once ordered his coach and set out for Paris, and, refusing even to see his wife, demanded of the King the punishment of a crime of lèse-majesté and a lettre de cachet against the princess. Louis XIV., who had been himself so far from conceiving any suspicions that he had already paid a personal visit to the injured lady, refused at first to accede to the latter request, and Condé returned to Chantilly in a very bad temper.
However, he was not the kind of person to be easily discouraged, and on 15 January, in the presence of the captain of his guards and the curé of Chantilly, he drew up and signed a document authorizing the Princesse de Condé to make a donation of her property to her son, the Duc d’Enghien. At the same time, he caused a deed to be prepared which stated that the princess, “on account of the tenderness and affection which she had always had for the person of the very high, very excellent and puissant prince Monseigneur Henri Jules de Bourbon, Duc d’Enghien, her son, Prince of the Blood, peer and Grand Master of France, etc., etc., and to recognize the great respect and obedience which he had always had for her, made a donation to him of all her movable property, furniture, titles, actions, immovables, pretensions, in whatsoever place they might be situated, reserving, nevertheless, the enjoyment by usufruct of all her said goods, during her lifetime, to dispose of them as might seem good to her.”[211]
The same day, the Duc d’Enghien, accompanied by two notaries, proceeded to the Hôtel de Condé, informed his mother of the wishes of Monsieur le Prince, and presented the deed for her signature. The unfortunate princess signed without demur this kind of anticipated will, in which it seemed that her husband desired to cut her off from the world of the living. She was no doubt under the impression that her compliance might suffice to appease the conjugal wrath, and did not appear to understand that it was tantamount to a confession that she was no longer responsible for her actions.
As the Duc d’Aumale observes, this deed had not the character of a spoliation, since the usufruct was respected and the free disposition of the princess’s jewels and plate assured. Yet, when viewed in the light of what followed, it had an odious appearance, and nothing in this sad affair has more disposed public opinion against Condé and his son.
Meanwhile, an active search had been made for the culprits. Duval was discovered at the house of a canon of the Sainte-Chapelle, whom he had persuaded to give him shelter, and conducted, with his hands tied behind his back, to the prison of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Rabutin was more fortunate. After lying hidden for a week at the Hôtel des Mousquetaires, he succeeded in effecting his escape to Germany, where he married a lady of royal blood, the Princess Dorothea of Holstein, and rose to high rank in the Imperial service.
As the crime with which Duval was charged was that of having attempted the life of a Princess of the Blood, he was tried by the Grande Chambre and the Tournelle, sitting together. The evidence of Claire-Clémence, taken on commission on 17 January, proved most unfortunate for her, since, from a generous but mistaken desire to shield two men who had been in her service—Rabutin had not yet succeeded in effecting his escape from Paris, and the police were hunting for him high and low—she professed entire ignorance of the cause of the affray. Duval, she declared, had come to ask for money, of which he explained that he was in great need, and she had promised to give it to him in two or three days. (It will be observed that she said nothing about the loud and insolent tone in which he had demanded it, and which had been the cause of Rabutin’s appearance upon the scene.) After he had left her, she had heard a commotion in the ante-chamber adjoining her salon, and, going out to see what was the matter, had received a wound in the breast, from which she immediately lost consciousness, without having recognized the persons who were fighting.
Duval was three times interrogated. On the first two occasions he stoutly denied that he was in any way culpable, but on the third he confessed, and admitted that it was he who had wounded the princess. In view of the latter’s reticence, however, the Court regarded these admissions with considerable suspicion, and, being of opinion that the charge was not fully proved, instead of condemning him to death, merely sentenced him to the galleys.
The result of the proceedings against Duval, joined to the singular attitude of Monsieur le Prince, gave to the affair, in the opinion of a considerable section of the public, a new complexion; and it was now freely asserted that the two men who had drawn upon each other in the princess’s presence had been rivals in her affections. Such was the view taken by Madame de Sévigné, who, in a letter to her cousin Bussy,[212] thus expresses herself:
“I have just been told of an extraordinary adventure which occurred at the Hôtel de Condé, and which deserves to be related to you. Here it is: Madame la Princesse having conceived an affection for one of her footmen named Duval, the latter was foolish enough to suffer impatiently the good-will which she likewise testified for the young Rabutin, who had been her page. One day, when they both happened to be in her chamber, Duval having said something that was wanting in respect to the princess, Rabutin drew his sword to chastise him. Duval drew his also, and the princess, throwing herself between them to separate them, was wounded in the breast. Duval has been arrested, and Rabutin has taken to flight. However honourable the subject of the quarrel may be, I like not the name of a footman coupled with that of Rabutin.”[213]
To which her scandal-loving correspondent replies:
“Our cousin’s adventure is neither beautiful nor ugly; the mistress does him honour, and the rival shame.”
At the same time, most of her contemporaries refused to believe that the sweet and unfortunate Claire-Clémence had been seriously culpable, and, though several of Condé’s biographers, to efface a stain on the escutcheon of their hero, have not hesitated to reproduce this calumny, others, such as Louis Joseph de Bourbon and Earl Stanhope, are of a different opinion, and blame severely the conduct of the prince.[214] “How is it possible,” asks the latter, “to think that the suspicion of the prince was well founded? How can we believe that a princess married nearly thirty years, and, up to this time, entirely free from the slightest imputation—always held sacred by calumny, which spares so few, ever irreproachable in the midst of a most corrupt Court—could have waited till the age when passions have subsided to indulge them? How reconcile such irregularities with that exalted piety which she had practised from her youth upwards? How can we, without any proof, admit such accusations against the woman who had always devoted herself so courageously and constantly to the service of a husband who slighted her? Against the heroine of Montrond and Bordeaux; against Clémence de Maillé? And again, what accusations? Not only of an illicit attachment, but the shameless sharing of her favours between two of her own domestics!”[215]
Condé, who had never scrupled to jeer at the conjugal misfortunes of others, now, in his turn, became an object of ridicule. Chansons and epigrams at his expense began to circulate in Paris, and served to exasperate him still further against his wife. In the first days of February, he again demanded of the King a lettre de cachet, and this time Louis XIV. did not refuse, and signed an order which exiled the princess to the Château of Châteauroux, in Berry. No time was lost in executing it, and as soon as the doctors pronounced her able to stand the fatigue of the journey, she left Paris.
On the day of her departure, she sent for the curé of Saint-Sulpice, with whom she had a long conversation. “Monsieur,” said she, as she bade him farewell, “this is the last time that you will speak to me, since I shall never return from the place to which the King is sending me. But the confession which I now make to you will proclaim my innocence for ever.” Her parting from her son was heartrending, and, after embracing him again and again, she swooned away in his arms. As soon as she recovered, the carriage started for Châteauroux.
The château which Condé had selected as his wife’s prison, and where she was destined to remain for the rest of her days, stands upon a hill on the left bank of the Indre, and commands a magnificent view of the surrounding country. It was built by Raoul le Large, seigneur de Déols, about the middle of the tenth century,[216] an age when security was naturally the primary consideration, and, though its sombre appearance had been a good deal modified from time to time, it was still far from a cheerful habitation.
The princess was followed thither by her whole Household: dame d’honneur, chevalier d’honneur, equerry, almoner, physician, apothecary, comptroller, waiting-women, chef, scullions, coachmen and footmen; and an allowance of 50,000 livres a year was made her for the maintenance of this establishment. She was permitted to walk in the grounds of the château, and even to take carriage exercise in the vicinity, but always very carefully watched and guarded; while no stranger was under any pretext allowed to approach her. Apart from these restrictions, she was treated, at any rate at first, with all the consideration and respect due to her exalted rank, and her captivity was not of the harsh and brutal character with which some writers have invested it.
Nevertheless, the isolation to which she was subjected, the deadly monotony of her existence in this gloomy fortress, soon began to have its effect upon her already tottering reason. Her disorder took the form of terror. From incessant brooding over her wrongs, the husband who had repaid her unselfish devotion with such harshness and ingratitude became, in moments of hallucination, a monster who, not content with burying her alive, was resolved to rid himself of her altogether, and frequently she refused to touch dishes that were offered her, from fear lest they should contain poison.
In 1675, in consequence of some rumours which had reached her that her sister-in-law was being ill-treated by those to whose care she had been entrusted, Madame de Longueville, more compassionate than the rest of her family, requested Père Tixier, a Benedictine monk in whom she had every confidence, to proceed to Châteauroux and ascertain if there were any justification for these reports. The monk, however, before undertaking this mission, considered it advisable to inquire if it would be agreeable to Monsieur le Prince, who was likewise a valued patron of his. Condé raised no objection. “You will go to Châteauroux,” said he, “since my sister wishes it, and will see whether Madame la Princesse has everything she requires; for, such as she is, she is my wife, and I do not wish her to want for anything. But do not speak of me to her at all, you understand.”
On his arrival at Châteauroux, Père Tixier was presented to the princess, who was about to sit down to dinner. “Father,” said she, “you belong to Monsieur le Prince, who sends you to see me.” “No, Madame,” replied the good man, “I am a monk, and the monks belong to God.” “Oh!” rejoined the princess, “I understand;” and she declared her conviction that Condé had sent him to confess her, because he intended to have her made away with. Tixier endeavoured to reassure her, and the officer whom Condé had placed in charge of his wife, and “who I saw clearly,” says the monk, “treated her very roughly,” exclaimed: “Morbleu! Madame, at your usual fables again! Will you never be sensible?”
Dinner was served, and, after the soup, a dish of cod was brought in. The princess partook of it with relish, and asked for a second helping. The dish, however, had just been removed, and, when it was brought back, she declined to touch it, saying that it had been to the kitchen and that there had been sufficient time to mix with it some fatal ingredient. The officer remonstrated. “But,” said he, “does not everything that is served you, Madame, come from the kitchen?” Nevertheless, the unfortunate woman refused to listen to reason.
The princess, having at length been persuaded by Père Tixier that he had merely come, at Madame de Longueville’s request, to inquire as to her welfare, begged him to convey her most grateful thanks to her sister-in-law. For her husband, she had no message and spoke of him with aversion. “Monsieur le Prince,” said she, “greatly despised me, but I greatly despised him also.”[217]