CHAPTER XXXIV.
Mademoiselle de Mortemart, Abbess of Fontevrault.—She Comes to
Court.—The Cloister.—Her Success at Court.—Her Opinion Respecting
Madame de Montespan's Intimacy with the King.
My second sister, Mademoiselle de Mortemart, was so unfortunate as to fall in love with a young Knight of Malta, doomed from his birth and by his family to celibacy. Having set out upon his caravans,—[Sea-fights against the Turks and the pirates of the Mediterranean.]—he was killed in combat by the Algerians.
Such was Mademoiselle de Mortemart's grief that life became unbearable to her. Beautiful, witty, and accomplished, she quitted the world where she was beloved, and, at the, age of seventeen, took the veil at Fontevrault.
So severely had she blamed the conduct of Mademoiselle de la Valliere, while often vehemently denouncing that which she termed the disorder at Court, that, since the birth of the Duc du Maine, I had not gone to the convent to see her. We were like unto persons both most anxious to break off an intimacy and yet who had not done so.
The Duc de Lorraine was known to her. He wrote to her, begging her to make it up with me, so as to further his own ends. To gratify him, and mainly because of her attachment to Prince Charles, my sister actually wrote to me, asking for my intervention and what she termed my support.
Nuns always profess to be, and think that they are, cut off from the world. But the fact is, they care far more for mundane grandeur than we do. Madame de Thianges and her sister would have given their very heart's blood to see my niece the bride of a royal prince.
One day the King said to me, "The Marquise de Thianges complains that I have as yet done nothing for your family; there is a wealthy abbey that has just become vacant; I am going to give it to your sister, the nun; since last night she is the Abbess of Fontevrault."
I thanked the King, as it behoved me to do, and he added, "Your brother shall be made a duke at once. I am going to appoint him general of Royal Galleys, and after one or two campaigns he will have a marshal's baton."
"And what about me, Sire?" said I. "What, may it please your Majesty, shall I get from the distribution of all these favours and emoluments?" I laughingly asked the question.
"You, madame?" he replied. "To you I made a present of my heart, which is not altogether worthless; yet, as it is possible that, when this heart shall have ceased to beat, you may have to maintain your rank, I will give you the charming retreat of Petit-Bourg, near Fontainebleau."
Saying this, his face wore a sad look, and I was sorry that I asked him for anything. He is fond of giving, and of giving generously, but of his own accord, without the least prompting. Had I refrained from committing this indiscretion, he might, possibly, have made me a duchess there and then, renaming Petit-Bourg Royal-Bourg.
The new abbess of Fontevrault, caring less now for claustral seclusion, equipped her new residence in very sumptuous style. In a splendid carriage she came to thank the King and kiss hands. With much tact and dignity she encountered the scrutiny of the royal family and of the Court. Her manners showed her to have been a person brought up in the great world, and possessed of all the tact and delicacy which her position as well as mine required.
As she embraced me, she sighed; yet, instantly recovering herself, she made the excuse that so many ceremonious greetings and compliments had fatigued her.
It was not long before the King joined us, who said, "Madame, I never thought that there was much amusement to be got by wearing the veil. Now, you must admit that days in a convent seem very long to any one who has wit and intelligence."
"Sire," replied my sister, "the first fifteen or twenty months are wearisome, I readily confess. Then comes discouragement; after that, habit; and then one grows resigned to one's fetters from the mere pleasure of existence."
"Did you meet with any good friends among your associates?"
"In such assemblies," rejoined the Abbess, "one can form no attachment or durable friendship. The reason for this is simple. If the companion you choose is religious in all sincerity, she is perforce a slave to every little rule and regulation, and to her it would seem like defrauding the Deity to give affection to any one but to Him. If, by mischance, you meet with some one of sensitive temperament, with a bright intellect that matches your own, you lay yourself open to be the mournful sharer of her griefs, doubts, and regrets, and her depression reacts upon you; her sorrow makes your melancholy return. Privation conjures up countless illusions and every chimera imaginable, so that the peaceful retreat of virgins of the Lord becomes a veritable hell, peopled by phantoms that groan in torture!"
"Oh, madame!" exclaimed the King. "What a picture is this! What a spectacle you present to our view!"
"Fortunately," continued Mademoiselle de Mortemart, "in convents girls of intelligence are all too rare. The greater number of them are colourless persons, devoid of imagination or fire. To exiles like these, any country, any climate would seem good; to flaccid, crushed natures of this type, every belief would seem authoritative, every religion holy and divine. Fifteen hundred years ago these nuns would have made excellent vestal virgins, watchful and resigned. What they need is abstinence, prohibitions, thwartings, things contrary to nature. By conforming to most rigorous rules, they consider themselves suffering beings who deserve heavy recompense; and the Carmelite or Trappist sister, who macerates herself by the hair-shirt or the cilex, would look upon God as a false or wicked Being, if, after such cruel torment, He did not promptly open to her the gates of Paradise.
"Sire," added the Abbess de Fontevrault, "I have three nuns in my convent who take the Holy Communion every other day, and whom my predecessor could never bring herself to absolve for some old piece of nonsense of twenty years back."
"Do you think you will be able to manage them, madame?" asked the King, laughing.
"I am afraid not," replied my sister. "Those are three whom one could never manage, and your Majesty on the throne may possibly have fewer difficulties to deal with than the abbess or the prior of a convent."
The King was obliged to quit us to go and see one of the ministers, but he honoured the Abbess by telling her that she was excellent company, of which he could never have too much.
My sister wished to see Madame de Maintenon and the Duc du Maine; so we visited that lady, who took a great liking to the Abbess, which was reciprocated.
When my sister saw the young Duc du Maine, she exclaimed, "How handsome he is! Oh, sister, how fond I shall be of such a nephew!"
"Then," said I, "you will forgive me, won't you, for having given birth to him?"
"When I reproached you," she answered, "I had not yet seen the King. When one has seen him, everything is excusable and everything is right. Embrace me, my dear sister, and do not let us forget that I owe my abbey to you, as well as my independence, fortune, and liberty."