CHAPTER XXII
Beginning of the Ministry of Monsieur le Duc—His early popularity—Difficulties of the situation—Philippe d’Orléans replaced by three new powers: Louis XV., Fleury, and Philip V. of Spain—Futile negotiations between Monsieur le Duc and the Orléans faction—Madame de Prie advises the prince to take the offensive—Resumption of the proceedings against La Jonchère and his accomplices—Indignation and alarm of the Orléanists—Attempted assassination of La Guillonière, in mistake for Pâris-Duverney—Conspiracy against the lives of Monsieur le Duc and his mistress—Madame de Prie insists on prompt and energetic action, and Le Blanc and the Belle-Isles are thrown into the Bastille—Arrest of Lempereur and other persons—The Government is determined on the total ruin of Le Blanc—Murder of Gazan de la Combe—La Blanc claims the privilege of being tried by the assembled chambers of the Parlement—Efforts of Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie to counteract the influence of Fleury over Louis XV.—Recall of Villeroy—Visit of the King of Chantilly—Trial of Le Blanc—Extraordinary proceedings—Acquittal of the accused.
Outside the faction opposed to the Condés, the elevation of Monsieur le Duc was not ill received. With the bulk of the nation Philippe d’Orléans had never been popular. The people had been unable to forget the horrible suspicions concerning him which the successive deaths of the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne, the little Duc de Bretagne and the Duc de Berry had aroused, and many worthy persons steadfastly refused to see in the really touching respect and affection which he had always shown for the young King anything but a cloak for the most sinister designs. The middle-classes blamed him for the financial disasters which had involved so many of them in ruin, and credited him, very absurdly, with the intention of recalling Law. The clergy and the devout had been alienated by his debauched life and his contempt for religion. Thus, the very real service which he had rendered France in maintaining peace, with the exception of a brief interval, for eight years, was forgotten, and the advent of his successor hailed with almost a sigh of relief.
It is true that there were not a few, such as the advocate Barbier, who regretted the change of rulers, and predicted that it was Madame de Prie who would govern the kingdom, and “lay her hands on as much money as she could”;[264] but, on the whole, the possibility of a term of petticoat government does not appear to have aroused much uneasiness.
Monsieur le Duc, on his side, neglected nothing to make himself popular. Though his manners were usually somewhat brusque, he could be charming when he chose to take the trouble, and, during the first few weeks of his Ministry, he was so affable and so courteous, so considerate and so obliging, that he pleased everyone who approached him. The good impression thus created was strengthened by the diminution of several taxes which had weighed very hardly on the Parisians, and by the magnanimity he displayed towards those whose hostility to him was notorious; and soon the gazettes were chanting in unison the praises of the new Prime Minister, and declaring that France was indeed fortunate to have so admirable a prince at the head of affairs.
But this popularity was only momentary, for the difficulties of the situation were immense, the task before him one of the most ungrateful that could well be imagined; and it would have needed a far more experienced and subtle politician than Monsieur le Duc to have steered a safe course amid the shoals and quicksands that surrounded him. The Treasury was empty and the follies of the “System” still unpaid for; commerce was almost annihilated; the Church rent by the Jansenist schism; the Court a battle-ground for contending factions, one of which regarded the new Prime Minister with the bitterest hostility. And, in place of the Regent and Dubois, three new powers had arisen; two close at hand, the young King and his preceptor, Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus; the other distant, Spain, represented by Philip V.
The young Louis XV., whose majority had been proclaimed six months before, on completing his thirteenth year, was a most perplexing factor in the situation. D’Argenson calls him “an impenetrable personage”; Luynes “an indefinable being”; in a word, he was a mystery to the whole Court. Ostensibly, he cared for nothing but the chase, gambling[265] and the pleasures of the table; but many were of opinion that this frivolity and indifference were but assumed; that very little that took place escaped him; and that the time was not far distant when he would begin to assert his authority in no uncertain manner. Morose, uncommunicative, egotistical, he repulsed all the efforts of the courtiers of both sexes to ingratiate themselves with him, and reserved his confidence, and the little affection of which he seemed capable, for one person—his preceptor, the Bishop of Fréjus.
The rise of André Hercule Fleury had been remarkable. Though without great talents or high connexions—he was the son of a collector of taxes at his native town of Lodève—he had understood so well the art of insinuating himself into the good graces of every one who was in a position to advance his fortunes, that obstacles disappeared before him as snow melts in the sun. “He was what one might call a true wheedler,” writes Saint-Simon, who allows us to perceive in the portrait which he has drawn of him something of the jealousy which his extraordinary good fortune had inspired. He wheedled himself into the favour of the Cardinal de Bonzy, who brought him to Court and obtained for him the post of almoner to Queen Maria Theresa; he wheedled himself into that of his royal mistress, of the Duchesse de Bourgogne, of the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, and, finally, into that of Louis XIV., who a few months before his death nominated him preceptor to the Dauphin.
ANDRÉ HERCULE, CARDINAL DE FLEURY
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY P. DREVET, AFTER THE PAINTING BY HYACINTHE RIGAUD
If he failed to cultivate the good qualities which Louis XV. showed as a child, and cannot therefore escape some of the responsibility for the scandals and the disasters of that unfortunate reign, he succeeded little by little in gaining the entire confidence of his pupil. Jealous of his influence, Philippe d’Orléans endeavoured to separate him from the boy by the offer of the archbishopric of Rheims, the first episcopal dignity in the realm. But Fleury knew where his true interests lay, and declined it. Nothing, he declared, should distract him from the duty which he owed to his young Sovereign. When, in 1722, Louis XV.’s gouverneur, the Maréchal de Villeroy, was banished by the Regent from Court, Fleury, deeming that his honour obliged him to share the disgrace of his superior and protector, followed him into exile. But his departure occasioned the young King such distress that he lost no time in recalling him, by a letter in his own hand—an action upon which it is probable the astute old gentleman had confidently counted.
At the time of the death of Philippe d’Orléans, Fleury was in his seventy-first year, an age at which most men have renounced ambition and are thinking only of repose. The Bishop of Fréjus, however, felt that he had some years of activity yet before him, and he was resolved to climb to the very pinnacle of fortune. He might easily have persuaded Louis XV. to make him Prime Minister, but he counselled the young King to entrust the direction of affairs to the Duc de Bourbon; perhaps, because he hoped to govern through him; more probably, because he foresaw that Monsieur le Duc’s Ministry must be of brief duration, and that his own elevation would be far better received after the prince had been allowed his chance.
Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie were not blind to the danger which threatened from this quarter. In his quality of priest, Fleury could not fail to disapprove of the relations existing between them, and that he had communicated his sentiments to his royal pupil was very evident from the coldness with which his Majesty treated the marchioness. Nor could it be said that the King regarded Monsieur le Duc with any marked degree of favour; indeed, he appeared to avoid him, and not infrequently when the Prime Minister had requested an audience, he was informed that M. de Fréjus would receive any communication that he might wish to make.
Encouraged by this, the Orléans party began to make overtures to Fleury with a view to an alliance. But the preceptor preferred to retain his liberty of action, and their advances met with no formal response. It was, however, impossible to say how long he would continue to remain neutral, and the possibility of so powerful a coalition being formed against them occasioned the Duc de Bourbon and his mistress profound uneasiness.
The third power was Philip V. of Spain.
After the conclusion of peace between France and Spain at the beginning of 1720, the Regent and Dubois, anxious to re-establish friendly relations between the two great branches of the House of Bourbon, proposed a triple matrimonial alliance, to which Philip V. and Isabella Farnese readily consented. In accordance with this arrangement, the Infanta Isabella Luisa, then in her fifth year, was sent to the Court of France, to be brought up until she had reached a marriageable age, when she was to become the wife of Louis XV.; the fourth of the Regent’s six daughters, Mlle. de Montpensier, was married to the Prince of the Asturias, heir to the Crown of Spain; while the fifth of the Orléans princesses, Mlle. de Beaujolais, who was only six years old, was sent to Madrid, where it was proposed that, in due course, she should wed Don Carlos, the eldest son of Philip V. and his second wife, Isabella Farnese.
Connected thus closely with the Orléans, Philip V. had everything to lose by events which excluded his allies from power. In January, 1724, he had abdicated in favour of the Prince of the Asturias, though the new king’s authority was merely nominal, and on the son’s death, some months later, the father resumed the Crown. Some writers maintain that this abdication was in fulfilment of a vow that he had made in 1720; others believe that it was intended to facilitate his designs on the French throne; and this is far from improbable. For it is certain that Philip had not abandoned the hopes which he had cherished since the death of his grandfather, and which the feeble health of Louis XV., the well-known incapacity of the new Duc d’Orléans, and the false reports of his partisans concerning the popularity which he enjoyed in Paris, served to sustain. But Monsieur le Duc was determined to resist to the uttermost any such pretensions, if only from jealousy of the Orléans. Hence, Philip detested the new Prime Minister, who was well aware that his Catholic Majesty would employ all the influence he possessed at the Court of France to effect his overthrow.
In the face of these dangers and embarrassments, it was only natural that Monsieur le Duc should have proceeded at first with caution and moderation, and have gone as far as he could reasonably be expected to go to disarm the malice of his foes. Such a course, indeed, was dictated by the most elementary prudence. It served, however, no useful purpose beyond proving to him the futility of attempting to conciliate those whom nothing but a virtual renunciation of his authority would be likely to satisfy. The Duc d’Orléans, it is true, declared himself, in his own name and that of his party, perfectly willing for an immediate reconciliation, and offered to marry Mlle. de Sens, the youngest sister of his rival. But the conditions he desired to impose—the recall of Le Blanc and his restoration to the Ministry for War, and his own admission to every audience which Monsieur le Duc had with the King—were quite impossible for the other to accept.
However, the Prime Minster, on the advice of his mistress, begged to be excused from giving an immediate answer and demanded a few weeks for reflection. A brief truce followed, during which Monsieur le Duc still further strengthened his reputation for impartiality by including a number of combatants from the opposite camp in an important promotion to the Ordre du Saint-Esprit. The new cordons bleus also included the husband and personal friends of Madame de Prie, who, at the same time, obtained for herself a lodging in the Château of Versailles. This was a move of the first importance, since it enabled Monsieur le Duc to have close at hand in every emergency the woman who was not only his mistress, but his most trusted counsellor.
In these early days of the new régime, the favourite appeared to be taking little or no interest in politics and to be absorbed wholly in pleasure. Never had Chantilly received so many visitors; while, when Monsieur le Duc was in Paris or at Versailles, the Hôtel de Condé or the Hôtel of the Grand Master was always the centre of animation. The latter hôtel, which the King had lately purchased from the Dowager-Princess de Conti and presented to the prince, was transformed by Monsieur le Duc and his mistress, whose good taste was indisputable, into the most charming residence imaginable. The two Coypels, Jean François de Troy, Louis de Boulogne, Lemoine, Verdier, Restout, Cazes—all the best painters and sculptors of the day—were employed in the decoration of its salons; splendid tapestries, exquisite porcelain, costly objets d’art were to be seen on every side.
The favourite possessed a beautiful voice and a wonderful talent of interpretation. During her residence at Turin she had conceived a passion for the works of the Italian composers, up to this time very little known in France. With the aid of Crozat, a wealthy banker of the Rue des Petits-Champs, who shared her enthusiasm, she proceeded to organize a company of amateurs, who gave concerts at the houses of several persons of distinction. These artistic reunions soon became popular and undoubtedly contributed to form the taste of the nation.
But while Madame de Prie, all smiles and gaiety, seemed to have no thought beyond the enjoyment of life, she was in secret carefully maturing her plans. Since the hostile faction refused to be placated, save at a price which would entail the virtual sacrifice of all that the Condés had gained, she was determined to continue the struggle; and she had persuaded Monsieur le Duc that the wiser course was not to wait to be attacked, but to take the offensive themselves.
Towards the middle of February, 1724, no small sensation was aroused by the news that Ravot d’Ombreval had been appointed Lieutenant of Police in place of d’Argenson, whom the Duc de Chartres had persuaded to resign his office, and that Pâris-Duverney had become Guardian of the Royal Treasure. These appointments were very significant, for d’Ombreval, besides being a devoted adherent of Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie, had acted as prosecuting counsel before the Commission, while Duverney and his brothers were the most implacable of all the enemies of Le Blanc; and little surprise was expressed at the announcement, a few days later, that the proceedings against La Jonchère were to be resumed forthwith.
The indignation and alarm of the Orléanists knew no bounds, for those already summoned before the Commission were not the only persons who had had interesting financial transactions with the treasurer of the Emergency War Fund, and, now that the Condés were in power, there was no saying how far the net might not be cast, added to which there was the murder of Sandrier, which would without doubt be closely investigated.
From several quarters warnings reached Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie that the lives of Duverney and d’Ombreval, if not their own, were in danger. They refused to attach any importance to them, for, though they were aware of the unscrupulous character of some of their adversaries, they could not bring themselves to believe that they would carry their enmity to such lengths. However, they had soon cause to alter their opinion.
One evening, at the end of February, 1724, a M. de la Guillonière, a cousin of the Pâris brothers, had just alighted from his coach at the door of Duverney’s hôtel in the Rue Saint-Antoine, when he was set upon by masked men, who stabbed him in several places, and then took to flight, leaving him apparently dead upon the ground. Happily his wounds, though dangerous, were not mortal, and eventually he recovered.
Now, La Guillonière, both in build and gait, bore a strong resemblance to Duverney, and no reasonable doubt existed that the blows aimed at him had been intended for his cousin, for the would-be assassins had been observed loitering round the banker’s hôtel for some time previously.
A warning which Monsieur le Duc received a day or two later made it equally clear that, Duverney disposed of, the scoundrels intended to turn their attentions to more exalted personages.
The Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, demanded an audience of the Prime Minister on a matter of the most urgent importance, and, when admitted, told him, in great agitation, that he had just learned from one of his priests that, in a confession which had been made to him, the penitent had spoken of a plot to murder both Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie. The prelate had hesitated before violating the secret of the confessional, but reasons of State had prevailed.
Almost at the same time, a letter which the Chevalier de Belle-Isle had endeavoured to pass into the Bastille to La Jonchère was intercepted. This letter, among other pressing recommendations to the prisoner, contained that of maintaining silence in all circumstances in regard to his relations with Le Blanc, and promised that, if he did this, the friends of the latter would undertake to save him.
So astounded were Monsieur le Duc and the majority of his counsellors at such tactics on the part of their enemies that, for a moment, they were at a loss how to proceed. Madame de Prie, however, retained her presence of mind and insisted on prompt and energetic action, pointing out that it was now a case of war to the knife in the most literal sense of the expression, and that, if they did not hasten to crush their adversaries, they would certainly be crushed themselves.
It was ultimately decided to follow her counsels. The Chevalier de Belle-Isle was forthwith arrested and conveyed to the Château of Vincennes. On 5 March, Du Val, commandant of the mounted police, furnished with a lettre de cachet, proceeded to Doué, where he arrested the late Minister for War and conducted him to Paris and the Bastille. The same night, the police surrounded the hôtel of the Comte de Belle-Isle, with orders to apprehend both the count and his friend the Marquis de Conches, who was staying with him. They secured Belle-Isle and escorted him to the Bastille, whither his younger brother had been transferred a few hours previously; but Conches disguised himself and succeeded in effecting his escape by a secret door. He did not, however, remain long at large, for he was captured the following day at a house in the Rue Tavannes, where he had taken refuge, and sent to join his friends in misfortune. Numerous other arrests followed, including that of Moreau de Séchelles, a high official at the Ministry of War and an intimate friend of Le Blanc. But what aroused the most sensation was the apprehension of a man named Lempereur and his two sons and of two brothers called Mestre, sons of a soldier in the Cent-Suisses.
This Lempereur, who lived in an isolated house near the wood of Rueil, had formerly been a gardener at the Château of La Jonchère, and he was suspected of having murdered Sandrier, with the assistance of his sons and the Mestres. He was also suspected of being concerned in another crime, which the police believed to be closely connected with the first. One evening in September, 1722—that is to say, about five months after the discovery of Sandrier’s body—a carter in the employ of the tenant of La Malmaison, a farm upon the La Jonchère estate, afterwards celebrated as the residence of the Empress Josephine, had been murdered close to his master’s door. As nothing upon him had been touched, and he was not known to have any private enemies, the inference was that he had been in possession of certain facts concerning the death of Sandrier which had made his removal necessary to the safety of the assassins.
It was the intention of the new Government to concentrate all their efforts to secure the total ruin of Le Blanc, the very life and soul of the hostile faction. He was to be brought to trial on two charges: the old one of embezzlement of public funds, the new one of homicide. The first would be easy to prove; in fact, his culpability, if not the exact extent of it, had been clearly revealed by the examination of La Jonchère’s papers. The second presented much greater difficulties, but it was obvious that a conviction on the charge of embezzlement would greatly facilitate the task of the prosecution.
The Orléanists, on their side, made the most desperate efforts to intimidate their adversaries into abandoning their designs against the ex-Secretary of State. Insults and menaces rained upon Monsieur le Duc, upon Madame de Prie, upon the Pâris brothers, upon d’Ombreval, and upon all their most prominent supporters; the most disgusting effusions concerning the Prime Minister and his favourite were scattered about in the gallery and salons of Versailles and even in the bedchamber of the young King; the most biting chansons circulated in Paris; almost every day came warnings that their lives were in danger; and a relative and staunch adherent of Madame de Prie died suddenly, in circumstances which left little doubt that he had been poisoned.
The Government, however, refused to be diverted from its course. The proceedings against La Jonchère were continued, and on 15 April, 1724, the Commission censured him, declared him incapable of holding any office under the Crown, and condemned him to restore to the King 2,100,000 livres—a very small part of the amount of which the State had been defrauded.[266] The Comte de Belle-Isle was to be surety for 600,000 livres of this sum.
This mitigated condemnation was intended to convey the impression that La Jonchère had only been acting under the orders of the late Minister for War, and that the latter was the real culprit.
In the meanwhile, the Government had decided to endeavour to bring home to Le Blanc yet another mysterious crime. In the spring of 1718, a certain Gazan de la Combe, of whom very little is known, had been found dead, strangled by a cord attached to the foot of his bed, at the house of La Barre, lieutenant of the constabulary, in the Rue Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle. Le Blanc and other Ministers had, it appeared, been in the habit of consigning to the care of La Barre certain persons who had incurred their displeasure, and it was given out that the dead man had been confined there on account of intrigues on behalf of the Spanish Ambassador, the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, and their accomplices, and that, knowing that it was the intention of the Government to bring him to trial, he had, in his despair, committed suicide. Now, however, an officer in the Army came forward who informed the police that, at the time of the death of La Combe, he happened to be detained in the same house, by orders of Le Blanc; that one morning, attracted by cries of terror from the wife of La Barre, he had hurried to La Combe’s room, where he found him lying dead, but that, from the position of the body, he was of opinion that it was impossible for him to have taken his own life. He added that, while he was in the room, Le Blanc had entered, accompanied by La Barre; that the Minister, on perceiving him, had appeared very agitated, and had demanded of La Barre why he had not set him at liberty two days before, in accordance with his instructions, and had then ordered him to leave the house. This evidence was subsequently confirmed by one of La Barre’s servants.
In the opinion of the police, there was little doubt that the unfortunate La Combe had, like Sandrier, been in possession of certain facts concerning the Emergency War Fund which made his removal advisable; and La Barre and his wife were promptly arrested and conducted to the Bastille.
Matters now began to look very black indeed for Le Blanc, and there were not a few who declared that he might consider himself very fortunate if he did not terminate his career on the gibbet. But, fortunately for the ex-Minister for War, he was, through his title of honorary maître des requêtes, a member of the Parlement of Paris, and had therefore the right to demand to be judged by all the Chambers sitting together; and just as he was about to be brought to trial, he presented to the Parlement a petition to that effect, which was immediately granted.
This move on the part of the accused was a serious check to Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie, who for a moment had imagined that they had their enemy in their power, and that they were on the point of dealing, through his condemnation, an overwhelming blow to the hostile faction. For the Parlement was not unnaturally inclined to indulgence when the misdeeds of one of its own members was in question, and Le Blanc had had the good fortune to ingratiate himself with it during the Regency. Moreover, the Orléans counted many friends among the magistracy, the Condés comparatively few.
However, as the trial was not to come on for several months, they hoped, in the interval, so to strengthen their position that, even if the issue were unfavourable to them, the consequences would be of comparatively small importance. Their great object was to ingratiate themselves with Louis XV. and to combat the increasing influence of Fleury over the young monarch’s mind, in which they perceived an even greater danger than the enmity of the Orléans.
“The Prime Minister governs certainly,” writes that shrewd observer, the Venetian Ambassador, Morosini, “and directs the affairs of the kingdom, as well as its foreign policy. The bishop appears to court effacement and to be reluctant to meddle with anything. But nothing is concluded without the King’s consent, and the King decides nothing without the bishop’s approval. A few days ago, for example, Monsieur le Duc presented himself to beg him to name an hour which would be convenient to him for work. The King was playing cards with the Duc de Noailles, and, not seeing the Bishop of Fréjus, gave orders that he should be summoned immediately. After which he continued to play until the arrival of the bishop, whom he then caused to enter into his cabinet with Monsieur le Duc. What passed on this occasion is constantly happening.... I hear that the Prime Minister has never had a conversation with the King alone, while the bishop speaks to him when and where he pleases.
“Moreover, it is continually being said in public that, if an ecclesiastic is to continue the traditions of the Dubois, the Mazarins, and the Richelieus, it will be without doubt the Bishop of Fréjus....
“Monsieur le Duc and his entourage perceive with mortification the continual encroachments of the bishop. They fear and detest him, but they dare not attack him openly, finding his position too strong.”
However, if Fleury’s position were too strong to be carried by a direct attack, it was not too strong to be undermined, and the idea occurred to Madame de Prie to draw the aged Maréchal de Villeroy, Louis XV.’s former gouverneur, from his retirement and oppose him to the Bishop of Fréjus. The marshal, it will be remembered, had been banished from Court by the Regent in 1722, since which time he had been vegetating in his government of Lyons. The young King had been attached to Villeroy and had shed bitter tears when he learned of his disgrace, and if, in the interval, his sentiments had not changed, the ex-gouverneur might easily become a formidable rival to the bishop.
Louis XV. seemed quite delighted at the prospect of seeing his old friend again, and the hopes of the conspirators ran high. But they were fated never to materialize, for, though his Majesty received the marshal graciously enough, he subsequently took so little notice of him, that the old man, deeply mortified, almost immediately quitted the Court and never appeared there again. Thus, the influence of Fleury remained as potent as ever, and, since he had not failed to penetrate this little manœuvre, the antipathy which he had always felt for Monsieur le Duc and the favourite was not lessened.
But Madame de Prie was a young woman of infinite resource and she had many cards in her hands. Every day Monsieur le Duc relied more on her counsels, not only because he had formed the highest opinion of her intelligence, but because, as he explained after his disgrace, he felt that she was devoted to his interests, “up to the annihilation of every other sentiment.”
No longer did she make any pretence of being absorbed in pleasure, as in the first weeks of her lover’s Ministry. She had become a politician of the most ardent kind, and the greater part of her time was passed in her cabinet, dictating to the two secretaries she employed for her immense correspondence, discussing with the Ministers, who, by their chief’s desire, invariably consulted her, the most difficult questions, and making notes on the placets presented to Monsieur le Duc, every one of which was submitted to her. All who approached her were astonished at her industry, at the shrewdness of her judgment, and at her grasp of matters which are usually considered quite beyond the comprehension of a young woman. “She was,” wrote the Abbé Legendre, “a heroine capable of regulating the affairs of a vast empire.”
The immense patronage which Monsieur le Duc exercised in both his private and official capacities was almost entirely directed by her, and, though she was, of course, guided chiefly by party considerations, some of her selections showed sound judgment. Thus, her choice of the Duc de Richelieu, in 1725, for the Embassy at Vienna, though ridiculed at the time, was really a very happy one; and this is admitted even by historians so little favourable to Madame de Prie as Lemontey.[267] Without allowing herself to be discouraged by the failure of the Villeroy affair, the marchioness promptly proceeded to make another and more important move.
The surest way to gain the good graces of the young King was to exploit his passion for the chase. Well, no one was better able to procure him this diversion than Monsieur le Duc. His forests of Chantilly and Halatte abounded in big game, already beginning to fail in those in the vicinity of Versailles, owing to their being too constantly hunted. The hunting establishment of the prince, moreover, enjoyed an almost European reputation, while he himself was a famous man when hounds were running.
At the suggestion of his mistress, Monsieur le Duc proposed to the King that he should honour him by hunting his forests and spend the months of July and August at Chantilly, by which means not only would they have every opportunity of gaining the young monarch’s favour by gratifying his taste for sport and amusement, but he would be removed for a time from the influence of Fleury, and also from that of the Orléans’ faction, which was continually bombarding him with petitions on behalf of Le Blanc and complaints as to the alleged ill-treatment to which the ex-Minister and his fellow-prisoners were being subjected in the Bastille.
Louis XV. received the proposal with delight, and on the last day of June he set out for Chantilly, accompanied by a splendid entourage, from which Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie had taken care that every one avowedly hostile to their cause should be excluded, although they had decided to admit several of the more moderate partisans of the Orléans, whom they hoped to win over. The weather was magnificent, and Chantilly had never looked more beautiful. The King “indulged every day in the amusement of the chase, either of the stag or the boar, and appeared very satisfied with the cares which Monsieur le Duc took without ceasing to render his stay at this superb château agreeable.” His Majesty dined daily with the princes and nobles whom he did the honour to select, and in the evening supped with Madame la Duchesse, Mlle. de Clermont, and a few ladies and nobles, whom he named in rotation, his table being served with extreme magnificence. After supper, the company adjourned to a gallery adjoining the King’s apartments, where high play went on until a late hour, to the accompaniment of Monsieur le Duc’s private band.
Thus the days went by, and his Majesty was so delighted with the splendid sport provided for him, and the unceasing efforts of Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie to keep him amused, that his former prejudice against them seemed to have disappeared entirely. He laughed and jested with his host, invited the marchioness to sup at his own table and to ride in his carriage to the chase, and, indeed, was so gracious to that lady that a rumour circulated in Paris that she and her fair friends had designs upon the virtue of the young monarch. In short, everything was proceeding as well as could possibly be desired, and the King had even decided to prolong his visit beyond the time he had originally fixed, when a most unexpected and unfortunate event brought it to an abrupt conclusion, and with it all the calculations of Madame de Prie.
On the afternoon of 31 August, the young Duc de Melun, one of the few of his courtiers for whom Louis XV. had shown any partiality, was charged by a stag which he was pursuing, and so badly gored that he died in the early hours of the following morning. This tragedy produced so painful an impression upon the young King that it was only with great difficulty that he could be prevented from returning to Versailles that very evening, and, though he consented to postpone his departure until 3 September, he scarcely left his apartments and refused to share in any amusement. He quitted the splendid residence of Monsieur le Duc with very different feelings from those which he had shown a few days previously, and there could be little doubt that the death of the Duc de Melun had effaced the good impression which the prince and his mistress had been at such infinite pains to create, and that it would be many a long day ere he consented to return to a spot which possessed such dolorous associations.
And so, like the recall of Villeroy, the Chantilly visit had failed to produce the desired effect, though through no fault of those who had planned it; and at the beginning of 1725 the Condé party sustained another check.
On 7 January, the late Minister for War, Le Blanc, was arraigned before the assembled Chambers, charged with being an accomplice of the murders of Gazan de la Combe, Sandrier, and the carter of La Malmaison, and of the attempted assassination of La Guillonière. The trial, into the details of which it is impossible to enter here, lasted a fortnight, but almost from the first day it was evident that the result was a foregone conclusion. The entry of the Duc d’Orléans, the Prince de Conti and their suites into the Grande Chambre was greeted with loud murmurs of approbation; that of the peers of the Condé party, the Ducs de la Feuillade, de Brancas, and de Richelieu, with derisive laughter. The Bishops of Sarlat and Avranches, Le Blanc’s brothers, the Maréchal de Bézons, his brother-in-law, the Chevalier Le Blanc, his son, and other relatives and intimate friends of the accused, sat together in a body and displayed so much emotion that many of the judges could hardly restrain their tears. And the line taken by the defence—that Le Blanc was a victim of party rancour and that the charges against him had been manufactured by the Government—was admirably calculated to appeal to the prejudice of a magistracy which almost invariably found itself in opposition to the Ministry of the day.
CLAUDE LE BLANC
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY P. DREVET, AFTER THE PAINTING BY A. LE PRIEUR
The proceedings, contrary to custom, were conducted with closed doors, the public being rigorously excluded; a great part of the evidence for the prosecution was ruled out, while everything that was likely to tell in favour of the accused was at once admitted. On the third day, the Ducs de la Feuillade, de Brancas, and de Richelieu withdrew, and were followed by all the counsellors of the Condé party; but the Duc d’Orléans and the Prince de Conti continued to encourage the defence by their presence for some days longer. Finally, on 21 January, the Parlement, by the unanimous vote of sixty-nine judges, acquitted Le Blanc on all four changes—a verdict which was received with applause by the public, with whom, owing to various reasons, of which we shall speak hereafter, the Ministry of Monsieur le Duc was fast losing what popularity it had once possessed, and who, ignorant of the strength of the evidence against Le Blanc, saw in him only a victim of the hatred of the Pâris brothers and Madame de Prie. Notwithstanding what certain historians, who were unacquainted with the facts as they are known to-day, have asserted to the contrary, there can be very little doubt that the ex-Minister for War had benefited by one of those scandalous miscarriages of justice of which the records of the Parlement of Paris afford only too many examples. Before an impartial tribunal he would have been almost certainly found guilty on the charges relating to Gazan de la Combe and La Guillonière, and probably on the others also; and, whatever may be thought of the motives of Madame de Prie, she had rendered a public service by her efforts to run to earth this highly-placed criminal.
Le Blanc, although, as a wag remarked, “after being very black, he had been made white (blanc) again,” was not immediately released, but remained in the Bastille until the following 12 May, when he was set at liberty and exiled to Lisieux. On the same day, the Comte de Belle-Isle was also liberated, and exiled to Carcassonne. Two months later, La Jonchère also found himself a free man.
The ex-Minister’s accomplices were brought to trial before the Tournelle,[268] and were all acquitted, with the exception of La Jonchère’s gardener Lempereur, who was found guilty of the La Malmaison murder and broken on the wheel. He paid for all.