Letters of 1717-1718.
Paris, 1717.
M. le dauphin [Monseigneur] never really loved or hated, but he was malicious; his greatest pleasure was in giving pain; when he had a trick to play on any one he began by treating them graciously. In every respect he had the most inconceivable character that could be imagined. When one thought him angry he was often in the best humour; when he seemed content he was cross; never could we guess correctly. He had not heart enough to know what true friendship was; he loved only those persons who procured him amusement, and disliked all others. For over twenty years, as long as he was in the hands of the grande Princesse de Conti,[11] I was on very good terms with him and he had great confidence in me; but after he passed into those of Mme. la Duchesse he completely changed. He behaved as if he had never seen or known me in his life, and as, after Monsieur’s death, I never hunted with his Highness I had very few relations with him to his death. If he had had good sense he would have preferred the Princesse de Conti to Mme. la Duchesse, for she had a much better heart; she loved him unselfishly, whereas the other loved nothing in the world, and thought only of her pleasures, her interests, and her ambition. As long as she attained her ends she cared very little for the dauphin, who gave clear proof of his weak-mindedness by his dependence upon her.
When the King of Spain [his son, the Duc d’Anjou] departed the king wept bitterly, and the dauphin too, but he had previously never given to any of his sons the slightest sign of attachment. He never had them in his apartments morning or evening; when he was not hunting he was always in those of the Princesse de Conti, or, later, in those of Mme. la Duchesse. No one would ever have guessed that the sons were his; he treated them as strangers and never called them “my son,” always “M. le Duc de Bourgogne,” “M. le Duc d’Anjou,” “M. le Duc de Berry;” and they called him “Monseigneur.”
He lived very well with his wife for two or three years; that is to say, as long as the old woman was satisfied with the dauphine; but as soon as there came a little coolness between them she set herself to make the dauphin believe that his wife did not love him, that she cared only for Bessola [her maid], and that everybody thought him a fool for spending his time in a room where more German was talked than French. He was told also that Bessola was the confidante of the dauphine’s gallantries, and helped her to make pleasure-parties with the maids-of-honour. I heard all these details from the dauphine herself [Marie-Anne-Victoire of Bavaria], for her husband, who still loved her, related them to her. But the old witch returned so often to the charge, and gave the dauphin so many opportunities, that he finally became enamoured of Mlle. de Rambure, afterwards Mme. de Polignac, and as soon as that amour began all his friendship for the dauphine departed.
At times the dauphine was not ugly, when, for instance, she had a fine colour. If she had not had such a passion for that faithless Bessola, she might perhaps have been happy. But that woman, in order to rule her and to maintain herself with the Maintenon, made the poor princess the most wretched creature upon earth. She died tranquil and resigned, but they sent her into another world as surely as if they had put a pistol to her head. In giving birth to the Duc de Berry she was so badly managed that she became deformed; before that she had a very pretty figure. From that time she never had an hour’s health. The evening before her death, while the little Duc de Berry was sitting on her bed, she said to him: “My dear Berry, I love you much, but you have cost me dear.” M. le dauphin was not affected. They had told him so much harm of his wife that he did not care for her, and when he muffled himself up in his great mourning-cloak he burst out laughing. The old guenipe hoped (as really happened) to govern the dauphin through his mistresses, which she could not have done had he continued to love his wife. That old woman had conceived such a terrible hatred to the poor princess, that I believe she had given orders to Clément, the accoucheur, to manage her ill. What confirms me in this idea is that she nearly killed the dauphine by going to see her in perfumed gloves; she afterwards said it was I who wore them, which was not true.
The dauphine often said to me: “We are both unhappy, but the difference between us is that your Excellency endeavoured as much as you possibly could to avoid your fate; whereas I did my best to come here, and so I deserve what has happened to me.” She loved the dauphin as a husband, but more as if he were her son. They tried to make her pass for crazy when she complained. An hour before her death she said to me: “I shall prove to-day that I was not crazy when I complained and said that I was ill.” The old guenipe sent her agents among the populace to spread a rumour that the dauphine hated France and wanted to create new taxes and lay burdens on the people.
The Dauphine wife of Monseigneur
Paris, 1717.
Though the late Monsieur received much property with me, I was obliged to give it all up to him,—jewels, furniture, pictures, in short, all that came to me from my family; and I really had not means to live according to my rank and maintain my household, which is very considerable. I have been ill-used in this respect, but it was rather the fault of the Princess Palatine, who allowed my marriage-contract to be so ill-drawn. All the Madames have had pensions from the king; but as these are established on the old footing, they do not afford sufficient means to reach the end of the year. I have been obliged to cede my jewels to my son; otherwise I could not live as I should and keep up my establishment, which is very large; but to do so is, to my thinking, more commendable than to be decked with jewels.
I cannot see why people should have so many different garments. All I have are either full-dress gowns, or my hunting habit for horseback. I never in my life had a dressing-gown, and I have but one wrapper [robe de nuit] in my wardrobe to go to bed and get up in.
I was very glad when the late Monsieur, after the birth of his daughter, took a bed to himself, for I never liked the business of making children. When his Highness made me the proposal I said: “Yes, with all my heart, Monsieur; I shall be very glad of it, provided you do not hate me and continue to be a little kind to me.” He promised me that, and we were always very well satisfied with each other.
It was very annoying to sleep with Monsieur; he could not endure that any one should disturb his sleep; I was obliged to keep myself on the very edge of the bed, so that sometimes I fell out like a sack. I was therefore extremely pleased when Monsieur, in good friendship and without bitterness, proposed that we should sleep in separate rooms. I am like you; I cannot imagine that any one should remarry; there is but one motive that I can conceive, and that is dying of hunger and getting one’s bread that way.
I never had but one hundred louis for cards until the death of my mother; after Monsieur received the money of the Palatinate he doubled that allowance.
The Maréchale de Villars runs after the Comte de Toulouse; my son is also in her good graces, and he is not discreet. The Maréchal de Villars came to see me one day, and as he assumes to know much about medals he asked to see mine. Baudelot,[12] a very honourable and learned man, who is in charge of them, was obliged to show them. Baudelot is not the most discreet of men, and moreover he is little informed as to what goes on at Court. So he made a dissertation on one of my medals to prove, against the opinion of other savants, that a head with horns which appears upon it is that of Pan, and not that of Jupiter Ammon. To prove his erudition the worthy soul said to M. de Villars, “Ah! monseigneur, here is one of the finest medals Madame has; it is the triumph of Cornificius; he has all sorts of horns. He was a great general like yourself, monseigneur; he has the horns of Juno and of Faunus. Cornificius, as you know, monseigneur, was a very able general.” I interrupted him. “Go on,” I said; “if you stop to talk about each medal, you will not have time to show them all.” But, full of his subject, he replied: “Oh, Madame, this one is worth all the rest. Cornificius is really one of the rarest medals on earth. Consider it, Madame, look at it; here is a crowned Juno crowning that great general.” In spite of all I did, I could not prevent Baudelot from harping on horns to the marshal. “Monseigneur knows all about such things,” he said, “and I want him to judge whether I am not right in saying that those horns are the horns of Pan, and not of Jupiter Ammon.” Everybody in the room had all they could do not to laugh. If it had been done on purpose it could not have been more complete. When the marshal had gone, I laughed out; but I had the greatest difficulty in convincing Baudelot that he had blundered.
Paris, 1717.
It is certain that the Comtesse de Soissons, Angélique-Cunégonde, daughter of François-Henri de Luxembourg, has much virtue and capacity, though, like all the world, she has defects. One may say of her indeed that she is a poor princess. Her husband, Louis-Henri, Comte de Soissons, is very ugly. If her children had been like their mother they would have been very handsome, for all her features are fine; eyes, mouth, and lines of the face could not be better; her nose is a little too large, and her skin not delicate. All her sons, except Prince Eugène, have not been worth much, and any one who resembles Eugène cannot be good-looking. When he was young he was not so very ugly; but he has grown ugly in growing old; he never had a fine countenance or the noble air; his eyes are not bad, but his nose spoils his face; his teeth are too large and protrude from his mouth; he is always dirty, and he wears greasy hair which he never curls. I think a good deal of Prince Eugène, for he is not selfish. He did a fine action: he left behind him here a great many debts; after he entered the service of the emperor and acquired a fortune he paid to the last farthing all that he owed, even to those who had no bill or written engagement with him and never dreamed of being paid. Therefore it is impossible that a man who acted with such loyalty could have betrayed his master for money. The accusations of the traitor Nimtsch are lies and the work of that devil of an Alberoni. I see from the “Gazette of Vienna” which you sent me that Prince Eugène does not intend to let so horrible an accusation drop, but will pursue the Comte de Nimtsch to the death. That is right.
I thank you for the silver coin you send; it comes extremely à propos. I have also the Doctor Luther in gold and in silver. I am convinced that Luther would have done much better not to make a separate Church, but to have confined himself to opposing the abuses of the papacy; more good would have come from it.
To go back to what I was beginning to tell you on Wednesday—I assure you that my son has more enemies than friends. His brother-in-law [the Duc du Maine] and his wife are working with the greatest ardour to rouse the hatred of the populace against him. Mme. du Maine is circulating writings against him. The children of the Montespan come of a malignant race.
The little king has a pretty face and much judgment, but he is a spiteful child; he loves no one in the world but his governess, Mme. de Ventadour; he takes aversions to people without any cause, and likes to say the most wounding things to them. I am not in his good graces, but that does not trouble me; for when he is of an age to reign I shall not be in this world and dependent on his caprices. When I advise my son to be on his guard against all these wicked people, he only laughs and says: “You know, Madame, that we cannot avoid what God has ordained for us throughout all time; therefore, if I am to perish I cannot avoid it; therefore I shall do only what is reasonable for my preservation, but nothing extraordinary.”
[This is a favourable opportunity to reveal Madame’s French spelling; the letter is in German, but she quotes her son in French, as follows:
“Vous saves bien, Madame, qu’on ne peust Evitter ce que Dieu vous a de tout temps destines; ainsi, sije le suis à perir, je ne Le pourris Evitter; ainsi je feres que ce qui est raisonnable pour ma Conservation, mais rien dextraordinaire.”]
My son has studied much; he has a good memory; he expresses himself well on all sorts of subjects; above all, he speaks extremely well in public; but he is a man, he has his faults like others. They do harm to himself only, for he is only too kind and good to other people. I tell him every day he is too kind; he laughs and asks me if it is not better to be kind than harsh. I don’t know where he gets his great patience; Monsieur had none, nor I either.
When he was fourteen or fifteen years of age he was not ugly; but since then the sun of Italy and Spain so burned him that his skin became a deep red. He is not tall, and yet he is stout, with fat cheeks; his bad sight makes him squint, and his eyes protrude; and he has a bad walk. And yet I do not think he is disagreeable-looking. When he dances or rides on horseback he makes a good appearance; but when he goes about in his usual way he does not appear to advantage. Close by he sees very well, and can read the finest writing, but at the distance of half the length of a room he recognizes no one without spectacles. Though he talks well on matters of science or knowledge, one can easily see that they give him no pleasure; on the contrary, they bore him. I have often observed this to him; he admits that at first he has the greatest desire to know a thing, but as soon as he thoroughly knows what he studies it gives him no longer the least satisfaction. I love him from the bottom of my heart, but I cannot understand how women should be enamoured of him; for he has in no way the manners of gallantry, and he is not discreet; besides, he is incapable of feeling a passion and of being attached for any length of time to the same person. On the other hand, his manners are not polite or seductive enough to make him beloved. He is very indiscreet and relates all that happens to him. I have told him a hundred times that I am amazed that those women run after him so madly when I should think they would rather run away from him. He laughs and says: “You don’t know the loose women of the present day. To say you have been their lover pleases them.”
Paris, 1717.
I am very glad that my letters have reached you at last. M. de Torey is no friend of mine; if he could find occasion to do me harm he would not let it escape him; but I do not trouble myself about that. My son knows me well; he knows how sincere my attachment to him is, and it would be difficult to make us quarrel. There is no use in sealing letters with wax; they have a species of composition, made of quicksilver and other substances, which lifts the wax, and when the letters have been opened, read, and copied, they seal them up so adroitly that no one can perceive that they have been opened. My son knows how to manufacture that composition; they call it gama. The Queen of Sicily once wrote and asked me if I no longer walked with the king, as in her day. I answered with these lines:—
“Those happy days are gone; the face of all is changed
Since to these parts the gods have brought
The daughter of the Cretan king and Pasiphaë.”
Torey took them to the guenipe, as if I meant her—which was true enough; and the king was sulky with me for a long time about it.
The late king contracted a great many debts because he would not retrench his luxury in anything; and that has been the cause of great malversations on the part of business men and their partisans; for when one sou had been lent to the king they turned it by agreement with their creatures into a pistole. Thanks to their rascality, on which no check was put, they have enriched themselves, but the king, and now the country, have been impoverished. My son works night and day, with no thanks from anybody, to bring things back to a good condition. He has many enemies, who pour out against him all sorts of horrid threats, and do all they can to rouse the hatred of the people against him; in which they succeed easily, especially because he is no bigot. He is so little self-interested that he has never touched a farthing of what comes to him as regent, although he has great needs because of his numerous children. The young king has around him persons who are very ill-disposed towards my son,—one especially, though he is his brother-in-law; but he is also the falsest of hypocrites. He has an air as if he would eat the very images of saints, but he is none the less the most wicked man on earth. In the days of the late king when that man flattered any one and spoke to him kindly it was taken as a proof that he had played him some evil trick. He contributed to get his mother sent away from Court so as to please the old woman, and he was so anxious to prevent her return to Versailles that he ordered her furniture turned out of doors, as it were. You can imagine what a man of that nature is capable of doing. I fear him for my son as I do the devil; and I think that my son is not sufficiently on his guard against him. The old woman wants his life; all that they say of that diabolical woman is below the truth.
When my son reproached the Maintenon quite gently for slandering him, and asked her to look into her conscience, where she knew that what she said were falsehoods, she replied: “I spread that rumour because I believed it.”
My son said: “No, you could not have believed it, for you knew the contrary.”
Thereupon she answered insolently (and I admired the patience of my son): “Did not the dauphine die?”
“Could she not have died without me?” asked my son, “was she immortal?”
The old woman replied: “I was in such despair at her loss that I blamed the person who they told me had caused it.”
My son said to her, “But, madame, you knew of the report that was rendered to the king; you knew that I had done nothing, and that Mme. la dauphine was not poisoned at all.”
“That is true,” she replied, “I will say no more about it.”
That humpback Fagon, the favourite of the old guenipe, used to say that what displeased him in Christianity was that he could not raise a temple to the Maintenon and an altar for her worship.
Paris, 1717.
I have received to-day a great visit,—that of my hero, the czar [Peter the Great]. I think he has very good manners, taking that expression in the sense of the manners of a person without affectation or ceremony. He has much judgment; he speaks bad German, but he makes himself understood without difficulty, and he converses very well. He is polite to everybody, and is much liked.
He went to Saint-Cyr and saw the old guenipe, who keeps herself completely retired there; no one can say that she has meddled in the slightest thing; which makes me think that woman has still some project in her head, though I can’t imagine what it can be. She used to reproach me, and say it was a shame I had no ambition and never took part in anything, and one day I answered: “If a person had intrigued a great deal to become Madame, might she not be permitted to enjoy that title in tranquillity? Imagine that to be my case, and leave me in peace.”
She said, “You are very obstinate.”
I answered: “No, madame, but I like my peace and I regard your ambition as pure vanity.” I really thought she would burst her skin, she was so angry.
She said: “Make the attempt; you will be aided.”
“No, madame,” I replied; “when I think that you, who have a hundred-fold more cleverness than I, have not been able to maintain yourself at Court as you wished, what would happen to me, a poor foreigner, who knows nothing of intrigues and does not like them?”
She was angry and said: “Fie! you are good for nothing.”
She never could forgive the king for not having declared her queen. She gave herself out to the King of England as so pious and humble that the queen took her for a saint. The old guenipe knew very well that I was a German who could never in my life endure a misalliance, and she imagined that it was partly because of me that the king would not acknowledge his marriage. The hatred she bore me came from that; as long as the queen lived she did not hate me. After the death of the king, and since we left Versailles, my son has not seen the old woman. The mistresses of the late king did not tarnish his glory as much as she did; she has drawn upon France the greatest misfortunes. She occasioned the persecution of the Reformers; she caused the price of wheat to rise, which brought a famine; she helped the ministers to rob the king; she was guilty of the death of the king in consequence of the worry she caused him about that Constitution [the bull Unigenitus]; she made the marriage of my son, and tried to put the bastards on the throne. In short, she threw all things into confusion and ruined them. The ministers also served the king very ill. The king never thought that his will would be sustained. He said to several persons: “They made me write my will and other things; I did it to get peace, but I know that all that will not stand hereafter.”
Paris, 1717.
I will tell you frankly why I will not interfere in anything. I am old; I need to rest, and do not care to torment myself. I am not willing to undertake anything that I cannot be sure of carrying through to a good end; I have never learned to govern; politics I do not understand, nor State affairs, and I am much too old now to learn such difficult things. My son, thanks to God, has capacity enough to guide things without me; besides, I should excite the jealousy of his wife, and his eldest daughter, whom he loves better than he does me; from this, perpetual quarrels would result, and that is something that would in no wise suit me. I have been much urged and tormented to use my influence, but I held firm. I said I wished to set a good example to the wife and daughter of my son. This kingdom has, to its sorrow, been too long governed by women, young and old. It is time to let men take the helm. I have therefore adopted the course of meddling in nothing. In England women can reign; but in France, in order to have things go well, men must govern. What advantage should I gain by tormenting myself night and day? I ask for only peace and rest. All my own nearest ones are dead; for whom, therefore, should I give myself cares? My life is nearly over; there remains to me only enough to prepare for a tranquil death, and it is difficult in great public matters to keep one’s conscience peaceful.
I was born at Heidelberg, in September, 1652. When I can by my influence help those poor people of the Palatinate in the councils which decide their affairs, I employ it with all my heart. If it succeeds I am very glad; if it fails I think it is the will of God, and I am still content.
The king had a better opinion of my brain than it deserves. He wanted with all his might to make me regent with my son. God be praised it was not done. I should have gone crazy very quickly.
I have never had Trench manners and I never could assume them; I have even made it a point of honour to be a German woman, and to preserve German manners and ways, which are little to the taste of people here. In the matter of soup, I never eat any but milk soup, or beer or wine soup; I cannot endure broths; I am made ill at once if there is the merest little broth in the dishes I eat; my body swells up, I have colics, and I am forced to be bled; blood puddings[13] and ham settle my stomach.
The king used to say of me: “Madame cannot endure misalliances; she is always mocking at them.” But all the great ladies who contract such marriages are well rewarded; they are usually unhappy in wedlock and ill-treated by their husbands. That is the case of the Princesse de Deux-Ponts, who married her equerry. She finds herself very badly off, but I do not pity her; she deserves it. I can’t help laughing when I think how I forewarned her of what would happen. She was with me at the opera and wanted with all her might to have that equerry sit behind us. I said, “For the love of God, Madame, let your Highness keep quiet, and not worry yourself so about Gersdorf; you do not know this country; when people show such anxiety about their servants it is always supposed they are in love with them.”
“Cannot persons feel an interest in their people?” she asked.
I said, “Yes; and they can take them to the opera, but there is no need to have them close beside us.” I did not know then that I had guessed true.
Paris, 1717.
For the last six months, in consequence of a terrible blow my son received in the face when playing tennis, one of his eyes is all inflamed and full of blood. He consulted an oculist who prescribed good remedies and made him promise, above all, to restrain himself in eating and drinking, etc.; but he cannot resolve to keep that promise and he leads his usual life. The condition of the eye has therefore grown much worse; my son has had recourse to all the remedies, but he will not interrupt his pleasures, or his business, which gives him a great deal of reading and writing to do. Yesterday, he let himself be bled and purged; to-day he is trying a powder which a priest gave him, having got it from Germany. This powder has begun by causing a great inflammation; he will have to use it two or three times. I really fear it will end in his losing his sight; and you cannot think into what anxiety that idea throws me.
To answer the other points in your letter, I must tell you that it is not allowable to take the communion in one’s chamber, unless in case of illness. I should like very much to hear sermons in Advent; but after dinner it is impossible; for if I listen to preaching just after eating it does not depend on me not to go to sleep.
The Princess of Wales is, thank God, safely delivered of a son. It is quite common that pregnancies should be delayed, like hers, to the tenth month. As for me, I have had three children, but without anything extraordinary. I never had a miscarriage, and bore them all to the end of the ninth month. I lost my first son; my doctor, old M. Esprit, killed him as if he had shot him through the head; but all that is ancient history. He was called the Duc de Valois; but as that name is unlucky, Monsieur would not let my second son bear it; that is why he received the name of Duc de Chartres, which he bore till the death of his father; then he took the name of Duc d’Orléans, and his son is now the Duc de Chartres.
Paris, 1717.
The moment I get an instant of liberty I go to the chapel to pray for my son, whose eye is rather better. He could not at one time distinguish colours; but Cardinal de Polignac came to see him to-day when I was with him, and my son could perfectly discern the cardinal’s red robe; which proves him really better. As long as he was taking remedies he kept himself from excesses of eating and drinking and ill-conduct of every kind, but I fear that as soon as he is cured he will go back to his disorderly life. Those loose women will run after him again and get him back to their little suppers, and then his eye will inflame once more. After the visit to my son I sat down to table, and after dinner I read four chapters of the Book of Job, four psalms, and two chapters of Saint John. The two others I put off till this morning.
It is quite true, as you say, that my son’s mistresses if they really loved him would think about his life and health; but I see, my dear Louise, that you know nothing about Frenchwomen. Nothing leads them except selfishness and a liking for debauchery; these mistresses think of nothing but their pleasure and money; for the individual himself they would not give a hair. That inspires me with utter disgust; and if I were in my son’s place I should find nothing seductive in such connections. But he is so accustomed to them; it is all the same to him what those women are, provided they amuse him. There is also another thing I cannot comprehend. He is never jealous; he will let his own servants have relations with his mistresses. That seems to me dreadful, and proves that he has no love for them. He is so accustomed to eat and drink and lead that debauched life that he cannot tear himself from it. It often afflicts me to the bottom of my heart; but I hope that God will in the end draw him through this labyrinth and wrench him from the hands of these wicked people, who are only wanting to get money from him. But that is saying enough about vexations.
The little king makes me two visits a year much against his will; he cannot endure me. I think that is because I told him once it did not become a great king to be so refractory and obstinate as he is. He was in despair one day because Mme. de Ventadour left him. She said: “Sire, I shall return this evening; be very good during my absence.” “No, my dear mamma,” he replied, “not if you leave me.”
He is well made and has the straightest figure that was ever seen and beautiful brown hair in abundance. His face is pretty, but he only speaks to those persons who habitually surround him. He has intelligence, that is very certain, but he ought to talk more. He has invented an Order which he gives to the boys who play with him; it is a blue and white ribbon, from which hangs an oval piece of enamelled metal, on which is a star and the outline of a little tent which stands on the terrace where he plays. He has eyes as black as jet, and what may be called a noble look; the eyes are much softer than he really is, for he has a violent little temper. His vanity is already dreadful, and he knows very well what reverence is.
Paris, 1717.
The late king told me a story about the Queen of Sweden, Christina. She never wore night-caps, but she twisted a towel round her head. Once, not being able to sleep, she had music played beside her bed. As the concert pleased her she suddenly protruded her head beyond the curtains and called out, “Devil’s death! how well they play!” The eunuchs and Italians, who are not the bravest of the brave, were so terrified at the aspect of that singular figure that they were struck speechless, and the music had to stop. We can still see at Fontainebleau in the great salon the blood of the man she caused to be murdered there. She did not wish that all that he knew about her should come to be known, and she thought certain things would surely be divulged unless she put an end to his life. He had already begun to tattle, out of jealousy for another man who had supplanted him in her good graces. She was very vindictive and given to all sorts of debauchery. If she had not had so much intellect no one could have endured her. She owed her vices to Frenchmen, especially to old Bourdelot, who was the doctor of the great Condé; he encouraged her in her license. She talked of things that the worst men only could have imagined. She was considered to be an hermaphrodite. The Frenchmen who were with her in Stockholm were very depraved men, and it was they who led her into such licentiousness. Duke Frederick Augustus of Brunswick was charmed with Christina; he said that in all his life he had never met with any woman who had so much intellect and was so agreeable and diverting; he never found the time long when he was with her. I told him I heard that her talk was most licentious; he said that was true, but that she knew so well how to present things that they did not inspire disgust. This queen could never please women, because she despised them one and all.
Paris, 1718.
My last letters from England are to the 16th of January; everything is in a sad state there. They say in Paris that the refugees are doing their best to excite the king and the Prince of Wales against each other in the hope that a regent may be chosen by the parliament, and that the country will thus escape the authority of the prince. That seems very likely to be true; but it also seems to me that father and son ought to perceive the scheme and thus be led to reconciliation with each other; if not, great evils will result. There is no motive in the world which can justify a son in not submitting to a father, and when, moreover, that father is his king. I believe there has never existed any tenderness between them; our dear Electress used to say it was the son who was in fault. The dear Princess of Wales inspires me with such compassion that yesterday I wept over her. Her departure from Saint James’ palace as Countess of Buckenburg [sic] was described to me; it was truly deplorable; she fainted several times when her three little princes, all in tears, took leave of her; that touched me deeply. The King of England, if I may dare to say so, treats her too harshly. She has done nothing to justify his forbidding her to see her children, whom she loves with such tenderness. Where can they be better brought up than beside so sensible and virtuous a mother? According to my ideas, the whole thing is very blamable.
King George was always an artful, dissimulating egoist. I have known that for a long time. Whatever marks of friendship I gave him he never gave me any sign of confidence, and sometimes would scarcely speak to me. I had to drag his words from him, one by one, which is a very unpleasant thing to do; he is completely devoid of good natural feelings. I am not surprised that he takes no notice of you. He cares for no one; but it happens to him, as it does to such people, that in return nobody cares for him. He piques himself on not being civil; I saw this by the manners of those who frequented his Court in Hanover. It is not possible to meet any one more sulky and surly than young Count Platten; if he had not been warmly recommended to me by my aunt, and if his father and mother had not been my good friends, I would have let him be put in a place where he would have had time to make reflections and learn how to live; he fully deserved the Bastille, but serious reasons led me to save him.
Paris, 1718.
My Lorraine children have arrived; my daughter was beside herself with an excess of joy. I do not find her much changed, but her husband is, dreadfully. He used to have a fine skin and now he has turned to a red-brown and he is stouter than my son. I can say now that my children are fatter than I.
My daughter is gay and content; but her husband seems preoccupied. Yesterday she had a strong attack of fever: God grant it may not be the forerunner of small-pox; for neither the Duc de Lorraine nor my son have had it, and the duke would not fail to be with his wife; three of his brothers have died of that terrible malady; therefore I am very anxious about this. I will write you more about it on Wednesday.
They told me yesterday that a nun has just died who was one hundred and thirty years old; she had a long old age; I don’t envy it; if one could stay young it would be another thing and would make one’s mouth water for it.
The poor Princess of Wales causes me real pain. In a letter of the 3rd of this month she tells me that her husband and she have three times asked pardon of the king as they would ask it of God, and could not obtain it. I cannot understand such a thing. I fear that the prince may be concerned in his mother’s trouble. I have an idea that the King of England believes he is not his son; for it does not seem possible that he should act with his own child as he has been acting. But, in any case, it appears to me that if he publicly recognizes him as his son he ought to treat him as a son, and not behave so rigorously to a princess who, in all her life, never did anything against him and has always honoured and loved him as a father. From what I see and know, I think no good will ever come of it; the irritation is too great. But the king had better put an end to the matter, for it leads to a hundred impertinent things being said, and renews certain old and villanous tales that had better be forgotten. May God guide all for the best! I have been told that a sort of petition has been sent to the Prince of Wales in which it was said that if he had any honour he would admit that the kingdom did not belong to him, but to the legitimate sovereign, now called The Pretender; who was the son of James II. as surely as he, the prince, was the son of Comte Königsmarck. It was terribly insolent.
Paris, 1718.
My Lorraine children leave me in three days; my heart is full; my daughter would gladly have stayed longer; but the duke was anxious to return. My daughter is, thank God, so firmly fixed in good principles that she can mix in all society without fear of contamination. But nothing was ever seen like the youth of the present day; it makes one’s hair stand on end. I know a daughter who encourages the debauchery of her father; she is not ashamed to procure him a pretty waiting-maid, and her mother looks on and lets it be done, so that she may be left in peace [evidently the Duchesse de Berry]. In short, one sees and hears of nothing but shocking things. My daughter tells me that though I wrote them to her she could not believe me, until she saw them daily with her own eyes. Youth no longer believes in God, and neglects all exercise of religion; consequently God abandons it. It is sad to live in a period when honest people have such surroundings; it inspires universal disgust. I thank God that my daughter knows what virtue is and has a righteous horror for the life that people are leading; that is a great comfort to me.
I hear that in Germany the princesses are beginning to go about and act as they do in France; it was not so in my day. The times have come, as Holy Scripture says, when seven women run after one man; never were women what they are at present; they act as if their only happiness was sleeping with men. What one sees and hears here daily, even about the most eminent personages, is not to be written down. When my daughter lived here it was not so; therefore she is in a state of astonishment that puts her sometimes beside herself and has more than once made me laugh. She cannot accustom herself to see, openly at the opera, women who bear the noblest names behave to men with a familiarity that indicates something very different from hatred. She says to me sometimes, “Madame! Madame!”
I answer: “Well, my daughter, what can I do? those are the manners of the day.”
“But such manners are infamous,” she replies, with truth. Never was the mercy of God needed as it is now, for this epoch of ours is terrible. One hears of nothing but quarrels, disputes, robberies, murders, and vices of all kinds; the old serpent, the devil, has shaken off his chains and reigns in the air. It behooves all good Christians to give themselves up to prayer.
The Princess of Wales writes me that the Countess of Shrewsbury [Madame spells the name Schoresburg] flung herself at the knees of the king to ask pardon for her brother, who is condemned to be hanged. The king replied that if he granted that pardon he should rouse the anger of the English, who would say the guilty man was spared because he was a foreigner, whereas were he English he would be hanged without pity. He deserved severe punishment, but I pity his sister; it is a dreadful thing for nobles to hang on a gibbet. Things are going from bad to worse in England, and I dare write nothing more upon that subject. All Paris says that King George intends to declare publicly that the Prince of Wales is not his son, and, to injure him still further, that he means to marry the Schulenberg, now Duchess of Munster. I told this to Lord Stair; he answered that nothing of the kind would happen, and I need not trouble myself.
In England, and in France too, the dukes and lords have such excessive pride that they think themselves above everybody; and if allowed to have their way they would consider themselves superior to the princes of the blood; some of them are not really nobles. I rebuked one of our dukes very neatly one day. As he was placing himself at the king’s table above the Prince de Deux Ponts I said, quite loud: “How comes M. le Duc de Saint-Simon to be pressing up to the Prince de Deux Ponts? does he want him to take one of his sons as page?” Everybody laughed so loud that he had to go away.
Paris, 1718.
Mme. de Berry has made my daughter a very pretty parting present; it is a commode, or rather a table with drawers, in which are all kinds of stuffs, scarfs, coiffures, etc., in the last fashion. The commode is decorated with gilt ornaments worth a thousand pistoles. My son gave his sister a necessaire, that is to say, a small square chest containing whatever is necessary for taking tea, coffee, and chocolate. The cups are in white porcelain with raised designs in gold and enamel.
My daughter has postponed her departure till Wednesday; the day will come soon enough, for whatever grieves us comes more surely and quickly than what gladdens us. The king owes a great deal of money to the Duc de Lorraine, and on account of that debt he has given him one hundred thousand francs to pay the costs of this journey.
The Prince of Wales has done a fine action, and if that does not touch the King of England nothing will ever restore peace between them. Emissaries went to the prince and urged him to put himself at the head of their party. He answered that never in his life would he belong to any party against his father and king. The King of England is a bad man; he had no consideration for his mother, who loved him tenderly, and without whom he never would have been King of England. None of her children, even the Queen of Prussia, whom she adored, ever treated her as they ought.
My Lorraine children are satisfied with me, and I with them. I am also more satisfied with my grand-daughter the Duchesse de Berry, who behaved very well to them. She has good judgment and she shows a disposition to return to religion and a disgust for vice. I hope that God will have pity upon her and grant her the mercy of a sincere conversion. If she had been properly brought-up she would have turned to better things, for she has capacity, and a good heart; also she has, undoubtedly, intellect, and is never captious. I tease her sometimes, and tell her she only fancies she likes hunting; for at bottom it is only a liking for change of place. She really cares for nothing but the death of the game, and she prefers that of a boar to a stag, because it procures her good blood-puddings and sausages. She amuses herself as much as she can; one day she hunts, another she drives, on a third she goes to a fair; sometimes to see the rope-dancers, or to the comedy or the opera; but always in a scarf, never in a gown with a body to it. She sometimes laughs about her figure and her waist. Her flesh is very firm, and her cheeks are as hard as stones.
I once made the Comtesse de Soissons laugh with all her heart when she asked me: “How is it, Madame, that you never look at yourself when you pass a mirror, as other people do?” I answered: “Because I have too much vanity to like to see myself, ugly as I am.” There cannot be in the whole world more villanous hands than mine. The late king often reproached me for them, and made me laugh heartily myself. As I never in my life could boast of having anything pretty about me, I took a way of laughing myself at my own ugliness; and that has answered, for indeed I have often found cause to laugh.
Mme. de Berry does not eat much at dinner, and it is impossible that she should, because she makes them bring her, before she gets up, all sorts of things to eat; she never stirs from her bed till mid-day; at two o’clock she sits down to table, and does not leave it till three; she takes no exercise; at four they bring her eatables of all kinds, fruits, salad, and cheese; at ten she sups, and goes to bed between one and two o’clock; she drinks the strongest brandy.
The youth of both sexes in France lead the most reprehensible life; the more licentious it is, the better they think it. That may be very nice, but I confess I do not think it is. They do not follow my example in having regular hours; but I am determined not to alter my conduct to suit theirs, which seems to me that of sows and hogs.
Nothing in the world disgusts me so much as the taking of snuff; it makes all noses horrible and spreads a fetid odour. I have known persons with sweet breath who in six months after they took to tobacco, smelt like goats With noses besmeared with snuff they look, forgive me the expression, as if they had tumbled into a cesspool. The king detested the habit, but his children and his grandchildren persisted in it, though they knew how he disliked it. Persons should abstain altogether, for if they take a little they soon want to take much. People call it the magic herb, because those who once begin to use it cannot go without it.
Paris, 1718.
I received a letter yesterday from my daughter; she and her husband are, thank God, safely back at Lunéville in good health. She sends me the measure of the height of her eldest son, taken the week before he was eleven years old; he is just as tall as the Duc de Chartres, who will be fifteen next July. I am afraid my grandson Lorraine is going to be a giant, for the Duc de Chartres is not small for his age. All my Lorraine children are robust; their mother is healthy and always well; she is not good for nothing like Mme. d’Orléans. Never did any one hear of such laziness as hers. She has had a sofa made on which she can lie while playing lansquenet; we laugh at her, but it does no good. She plays cards lying down; she eats lying down; she reads lying down; in short, she spends nearly all her life lying down. It must be bad for her health; and in fact, she is almost always ill; one day she complains of her head, another of her stomach. But it seems, in spite of that, she can make robust children; her three eldest daughters are strong and healthy; the first and third are tall and stout; they are built like men,—Mlle. de Valois especially.
The Montespan, the guenipe, and all the waiting-women made Mme. d’Orléans believe that she did my son great honour in consenting to marry him. She cannot endure any contradiction on the subject of her vanity in being daughter of the king; she does not comprehend the difference between legitimate and bastard children; her nature is proud and full of vanity; my son often calls her in jest Madame Lucifer. She takes all the flattering things that are said to her as her right. She thinks her husband prefers his eldest daughter, the Duchesse de Berry, to her; the daughter has no great affection for her mother.
Paris, 1718.
The person whom I hope to see correct herself [the Duchesse de Berry] has judgment and a good heart. One might hope for her return to better ways if she were not in the midst of such bad company; her aunts and cousins on the maternal side also set her a bad example, for they lead the most irregular lives. The mother acts only from caprice; one day she hates her daughter without knowing why; another she approves of all she does, good or bad; that makes me fear that the good resolutions made at Easter will have no results, and that the devil will return to the house he left, accompanied by seven other evil spirits more wicked than himself, as Holy Scripture tells us. In short, one sees and hears nothing here but grievous things; I can do nothing; and I am most sincerely afflicted. My daughter did not stay here long enough for her good example to have any effect. They asked me how I managed to bring her up so well; I answered: by always talking reason to her; by showing her why such or such a thing was good or bad; by never passing over any foolish caprice; by striving as much as possible that she should not see bad examples; by not disheartening her with attacks of ill-humour; by praising virtue, and inspiring her with a horror of vice of all kinds. That is how I brought up my daughter, who, thanks be to God, has won the respect of all. But it is not to be supposed that we can bring up children without giving ourselves great trouble; vigilance and activity are indispensable.
In Germany there is one good thing: those who put no curb upon their conduct are despised. Here it is not so; youth imagines that the lectures of old persons are simply the result of bitterness in those who did the same things themselves in other days. People with bad reputations are just as well received and treated as those who have always led good lives; and it is that sight which ruins youth.
Saint-Cloud, 1718.
I write you with a troubled heart, and yesterday I wept the whole morning. The good and pious Queen of England died at seven o’clock yesterday morning at Saint-Germain. Assuredly she is now in heaven. She did not keep a penny for herself, but gave all she had to the poor; she supported whole families; she never said an unkind thing of any one, no matter who, and if others began to talk to her about their neighbours, she would say: “If it is harm of any one, I beg you not to tell me.” She bore her misfortunes with perfect resignation; she was polite and agreeable, though far from being handsome; she was always cheerful and was constantly praising our Princess of Wales. I loved her well, and her death grieves my heart. She died with sincere satisfaction, thanking God for delivering her from this world. I think, as you do, that we may look upon her as sainted; more so than her husband; though I believe that he is also in heaven; he suffered with great resignation. The queen had great firmness, and true royal qualities, much generosity, politeness, and judgment. She used to joke me about my liking for the theatre. She told me once, laughing, that there had been a time when she could not go out, because her horses were dead and she had no money to buy others, but she never complained of her misfortunes.
She was very thin, but more so in the body than in her face, which was long, the eyes spiritual, the teeth white and large, the skin wan, which showed all the more because she never wore rouge; she had a good expression of countenance, and was always very clean. My son, out of compassion for her poor servants, has allowed quite a number of them to keep their pensions.
It is perfectly false that she left great sums of money behind her. She supported her son, as well as her household; she gave pensions to most of her ladies; she maintained whole families of English people, and deprived herself of necessaries to succour the poor in hospitals. In the matter of cupidity she was not an Italian, for she never laid a penny aside. It may truly be said that she had all the royal virtues. Her sole fault (for no one is perfect) was in pushing her piety to such extremes; but she paid dear for that, as it was really the cause of all her misfortunes. She could not make any savings while living in France, for her pension was paid irregularly, and she was forced to borrow money and make debts. It is not true that her servants pillaged her furniture. She was lodged at Saint-Germain, where the furniture belongs to the king. Few queens of England have been happy; and the kings themselves in that land have not had much to make them so.
Paris, 1718.
Mme. de Berry has nursed her mother through an illness with the devotion of a Gray Sister. I should be very ungrateful if I did not feel attachment to her, for she shows me all possible friendship and treats me with such politeness that I am often quite touched by it. The Maintenon was so afraid that the king would like the Duchesse de Berry, and thus be detached from the dauphine, that she did her as many ill-turns as she could. But after the death of the dauphine she patched matters up, though, to tell the truth, the liking of the king for the duchess was never great.
Nothing new from England: the king is defiant and suspicious. The English are wily and think only of their own interests; they see very well that they can fish in troubled waters, and that as long as there is ill-will between father and son, the king will not think of tightening his authority upon them. They therefore endeavour to keep up the ill-temper that is natural to him. I do not believe he will return to Hanover as soon as some people think. I heard from the Princess of Wales yesterday that she had written to the king a most submissive letter; the king answered it harshly and made her many reproaches on her behaviour. He will get himself laughed at for behaving in that way; for the good reputation of the princess is perfectly established. I cannot comprehend the king’s behaviour.