CHAPTER XLV.
The Comte de Vermandois.—His Entrance into the World.—Quarrels with the
Dauphin.—Duel.—Siege of Courtrai.—The Cathedral of Arras.
When Madame de la Valliere (led by suggestions coming from the Most High) left the Court and the world to shut herself up in a cloister, she committed a great imprudence; I should not know how to repeat it: The Carmelites in the Rue Saint Jacques could easily do without her; her two poor little children could not. The King confided them, I am well aware, to governors and governesses who were prudent, attentive, and capable; but all the governors and preceptors in the world will never replace a mother,—above all, in a place of dissipation, tumult, and carelessness like the Court.
M. le Comte de Vermandois was only seven years old when exaggerated scruples and bad advice deprived him of his mother. This amiable child, who loved her, at first suffered much from her absence and departure. He had to be taken to the Carmelites, where the sad metamorphosis of his mother, whom he had seen so brilliant and alluring, made him start back in fright.
He loved her always as much as he was loved by her, and in virtue of the permission formally given by the Pope, he went every week to pass an hour or two with her in the parlour. He regularly took there his singing and flute lessons; these were two amiable talents in which he excelled.
About his twelfth year he was taken with the measles, and passed through them fairly well. The smallpox came afterwards, but respected his charming brown face. A severe shower of rain, which caught him in some forest, made him take rheumatism; the waters of Vichy cured him; he returned beaming with health and grace.
The King loved him tenderly, and everybody at Court shared this predilection of the monarch. M. de Vermandois, of a stature less than his father, was none the less one of the handsomest cavaliers at the Court. To all the graces of his amiable mother he joined an ease of manner, a mixture of nobility and modesty, which made him noticeable in the midst of the most handsome and well made. I loved him with a mother's fondness, and, from all his ingenuous and gallant caresses, it was easy to see that he made me a sincere return.
This poor Comte de Vermandois, about a year before the death of the Queen, had a great and famous dispute with Monsieur le Dauphin, a jealous prince, which brought him his first troubles, and deprived him suddenly of the protecting favour of the Infanta-queen.
At a ball, at the Duchesse de Villeroi's, all the Princes of the Blood appeared. Monseigneur, who from childhood had had a fancy for Mademoiselle de Blois, his legitimised sister, loved her far more definitely since her marriage with M. le Prince de Conti. Monseigneur is lacking in tact. At this ball he thought he could parade his sentiments, which were visibly unpleasant, both to the young husband and to the Princess herself. He danced, nevertheless, for some minutes with her; but, suddenly, she feigned to be seized with a sharp pain in the spleen, and was conducted to a sofa. The young Comte de Vermandois came and sat there near her. They were both exhibiting signs of gaiety; their chatter amused them, and they were seen to laugh with great freedom. Although Monsieur le Dauphin was assuredly not in their thoughts, he thought they were making merry at his expense. He came and sat at the right of the Princess and said to her:
"Your brother is very ill-bred!"
"Do you think so?" the Princess answered immediately. "My brother is the most amiable boy in the world. He is laughing at my talking to myself. He assures me that my pain is in my knee instead of being in the spleen, and that is what we were amusing ourselves at, quite innocently."
"Your brother thinks himself my equal," added the Prince; "in which he certainly makes a mistake. All his diamonds prove nothing; I shall have, when I like, those of the crown."
"So much the worse, monsieur," replied the Comte de Vermandois, quickly. "Those diamonds should never change hands,—at least, for a very long time."
These words degenerating into an actual provocation, Monseigneur dared to say to his young brother that, were it not for his affection for the Princess, he would make him feel that he was——
"My elder brother," resumed the Comte de Vermandois, "and nothing more, I assure you."
Before the ball was over, they met in an alcove and gave each other a rendezvous not far from Marly. Both of them were punctual; but Monsieur le Dauphin had given his orders, so that they were followed in order to be separated.
The King was informed of this adventure; he immediately gave expression to his extreme dissatisfaction, and said:
"What! is there hatred and discord already amongst my children?"
I spoke next to elucidate the facts, for I had learnt everything, and I
represented M. de Vermandois as unjustly provoked by his brother. His
Majesty replied that Monsieur le Dauphin was the second personage in the
Empire, and that all his brothers owed him respect up to a certain point.
"It was out of deference and respect that the Count accepted the challenge," said I to the King; "and here the offending party made the double attack."
"What a misfortune!" resumed the King. "I thought them as united amongst themselves as they are in my heart. Vermandois is quick, and as explosive as saltpetre; but he has the best nature in the world. I will reconcile them; they will obey me."
The scene took place in my apartment, owing to my Duc du Maine. "My son," said his Majesty to the child of the Carmelite, "I have learned with pain what has passed at Madame de Villeroi's and then in the Bois de Marly. You will be pardoned for this imprudence because of your age; but never forget that Monsieur le Dauphin is your superior in every respect, and must succeed me some day."
"Sire," replied the Count, "I have never offended nor wished to offend Monseigneur. Unhappily for me, he detests me, as though you had not the right to love me."
At these words Monsieur le Dauphin blushed, and the King hastened to declare that he loved all his children with a kindness perfectly alike; that rank and distinctions of honour had been regulated, many centuries ago, by the supreme law of the State; that he desired union and concord in the heart of the royal family; and he commanded the two brothers to sacrifice for him all their petty grievances, and to embrace in his presence.
Hearing these words, the Comte de Vermandois, with a bow to his father, ran in front of Monseigneur, and, spreading out his arms, would have embraced him. Monsieur le Dauphin remained cold and dumb; he received this mark of good-will without returning it, and very obviously displeased his father thereby.
These little family events were hushed up, and Monseigneur was almost explicitly forbidden to entertain any other sentiments for Madame de Conti than those of due friendship and esteem.
Some time after that, Messieurs de Conti, great lovers of festivity, pleasure, and costly delights, which are suited only for people of their kind, dragged the Comte de Vermandois, as a young debutant, into one of those licentious parties where a young man is compelled to see things which excite horror.
His first scruples overcome, M. de Vermandois, naturally disposed to what is out of the common, wished to give guarantees of his loyalty and courage; from a simple spectator he became, it is said, an accomplice.
There is always some false friend in these forbidden assemblies. The King heard the details of an orgy so unpardonable, and the precocious misconduct of his cherished son gave him so much pain, that I saw his tears fall. The assistant governor of the young criminal was dismissed; his valet de chambre was sent to prison; only three of his servants were retained, and he himself was subjected to a state of penitence which included general confessions and the most severe discipline. He resigned himself sincerely to all these heavy punishments. He promised to associate only with his mother, his new governor, his English horses, and his books; and this manner of life, carried out with a grandeur of soul, made of him in a few months a perfect gentleman, in the honourable and assured position to which his great heart destined him.
The King, satisfied with this trial, allowed him to go and prove his valour at the sieges of Digmude and Courtrai. All the staff officers recognised soon in his conversation, his zeal, his methods, a worthy rival of the Vendomes. They wrote charming things of him to the Court. A few days afterwards we learned at Versailles that M. de Vermandois was dead, in consequence of an indisposition caught whilst bivouacking, which at first had not seemed dangerous.
The King deplored this loss, as a statesman and a good father. I was a witness of his affliction; it seemed to me extreme. One knew not whom to approach to break the news to the poor Carmelite. The Bishop of Meaux, sturdy personage, voluntarily undertook the mission, and went to it with a tranquil brow, for he loved such tasks.
To his hoarse and funereal voice Soeur Louise only replied with groans and tears. She fell upon the floor without consciousness, and M. Bossuet went on obstinately preaching Christian resignation and stoicism to a senseless mother who heard him not.
About a fortnight after the obsequies of the Prince (which I, too, had celebrated in my church of Saint Joseph), the underprioress of that little community begged me to come to Paris for a brief time and consecrate half an hour to her. I responded to her invitation. This is the important secret which the good nun had to confide to me: Before expiring; the young Prince had found time to interview his faithful valet de chambre behind his curtains. "After my death," said he, "you will repair, not to the King, my father, but to Madame la Marquise de Montespan, who has given me a thousand proofs of kindness in my behalf. You will remit to her my casket, in which all my private papers are kept. She will be kind enough to destroy all which ought not to survive me, and to hand over the remainder, not to my good mother, who will have only too much sorrow, but to Madame la Princesse de Conti, whose indulgence and kindness are known to me."
Sydney, this valet de chambre, informed me that the Count was dead, not through excessive brandy, as the Dauphin's people spread abroad, but from a cerebral fever, which a copious bleeding would have dissipated at once. All the soldiers wept for this young Prince, whose generous affability had charmed them. Sydney had just accompanied his body to Arras, where, by royal command, it had been laid in a vault of the cathedral. I opened his pretty casket of citron wood, with locks of steel and silver. The first object which met my eyes was a fine and charming portrait of Madame de la Valliere. The face was smiling in the midst of this great tragedy, and that upset me entirely, and made my tears flow again. Five or six tales of M. la Fontaine had been imitated most elegantly by the young Prince himself, and to these rather frivolous verses he had joined some songs and madrigals. All these little relics of a youth so eager to live betokened a mind that was agreeable, and not libertine. In any case the sacrifice was accomplished; reflections were in vain. I burned these papers, and all those which seemed to me without direct importance or striking interest. That was not the case with a correspondence, full of wit, tenderness, and fire, of whose origin the good Sydney pretended ignorance, but which two or three anecdotes that were related sufficiently revealed to me. The handsome Comte de Vermandois, barely seventeen years old, had won the heart of a fair lady, of about his own age, who expressed her passion for him with an energy, a delicacy, and a talent far beyond all that we admire in books.
I knew her; the King loved her. Her husband, a most distinguished field-officer, cherished her and believed her to be faithful. I burned this dangerous correspondence, for M. de Vermandois, barely adolescent, was already a father, and his mistress gloried in it.
On receiving this casket, in which she saw once more the portraits of her mother, her brother, and her husband, Madame la Princesse de Conti felt the most sorrowful emotion. I told her that I had acquitted myself, out of kindness and respect, of a commission almost beyond my strength, and I begged her never to mention it to the King, who, perhaps, would have liked to see and judge himself all that I had destroyed.
M. le Comte de Vermandois left by his death the post of High Admiral vacant. The King begged me to bring him my little Comte de Toulouse; and passing round his neck a fine chain of coral mixed with pearls, to which a diamond anchor was attached, he invested him with the dignity of High Admiral of France. "Be ever prudent and good, my amiable child," he said to him, raising his voice, which had grown weak; "be happier than your predecessor, and never give me the grief of mourning your loss."
I thanked the King for my son, who looked at his decoration of brilliants and did not feel its importance. I hope that he will feel that later, and prove himself worthy of it.