Very little is known for certain concerning the antecedents of Louise Querouaille before she figured at the Court of France as one of the maids of honour to the unfortunate Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of Charles the Second of England. The contemporaries of the merry monarch, witnesses and censors of his political errors, in tracing them to their source, have attributed them primarily to the foreign favourite, who was, more than any other of the many mistresses of that Prince, odious in the eyes of the English people.
At the commencement of 1670, the splendour and corruption of the French Court had reached their acme. The seraglio of the great King recalled to mind that of Solomon, whilst his brother, enslaved by effeminacy and debauchery, had only to hold up his finger and the most important personages of the state were suitably provided with mistresses to such an extent that at length it became necessary to transfer occasionally to foreign courts those attractive creatures who, by antiphrasis doubtless, were always called “maids of honour.” It was in the household of his sister-in-law, Henrietta of England, that Louis had first met the two mistresses of his predilection; and when he wished to assure himself by a new tie of his royal vassal on the other side of the channel, it was still the domestic circle of the Duchess of Orleans which supplied him with the diplomatist in petticoats he wanted.
When Mademoiselle Querouaille’s mission to the Court of St. James’s became thoroughly understood, and her position as Duchess of Portsmouth assured in it, her previous history was hunted up, the details of which no one knew—not even the royal family of France, who had used her as an instrument without caring to trouble itself about her origin. Madame de Sévigné, in her letters to her daughter, speaks of the Duchess of Portsmouth in a very disrespectful fashion, so much so as to reveal, if not the certainty, at least the belief that the antecedents of the maid of honour, as she says, were not the most honourable. In 1690, five years after Charles’s death, a pamphlet was published in London in which the Duchess figures under the fictitious name of Francelie; Louis XIV. designated as Tirannides, and our English king as Prince des Iles. In the preface to the French translation of this pamphlet, which bears the title of Histoire secrète de la Duchesse de Portsmouth, it is stated that the author desired to give, by these changes of name, some additional piquancy to the revelations contained in his book. According to such chronicle, the father of Louise Querouaille was a wool merchant of Paris. After having realised a moderate fortune in trade, he retired into Brittany, his native country, with his two daughters; the youngest, Louise, being amiable and pretty; the eldest, plain and ungraceful. The dissimilarity of the two sisters, the one universally pleasing, the other displeasing everybody, created such misunderstanding between them that their father was obliged to separate them. He kept the plain daughter at home, and placed the younger and pretty one as a boarder in a neighbouring town to that in which he lived. Louise thereby acquired accomplishments which enhanced her natural charms. She was sharp, cunning, insinuating, and having gained the confidence and goodwill of the lady to whose care her father had entrusted her, the former introduced her amongst her relations and general society. In that circle Mademoiselle Querouaille ere long inspired passions, rumours of which reached the ears of the old wool-merchant. Fearing lest his daughter might but too thoughtlessly respond to the attentions of which she was the object, he withdrew her from the boarding-house, and took her to Paris, where he left her under the care of his sister-in-law, then a widow. Her husband had been a dependent of the Duke de Beaufort, and she herself lived, for the most part, upon the bounty of that nobleman, who, on reconciling himself with the Court after the Fronde, had obtained the post of high-admiral of France. Shortly after the arrival of Louise in Paris, in 1669, the Duke seeing her walking in the Tuileries gardens with her relative, and being struck with the young girl’s beauty, and moreover it is said with the effect which she produced upon the public, became suddenly enamoured of her. The author of the Histoire secrète relates the manœuvres resorted to by Beaufort and Louise to deceive the vigilance, more affected than real, as it would seem, of her old aunt. In short, the Duke’s passion made rapid progress; and the young girl, yielding to the wishes of a lover who adored her and heaped magnificent presents upon her, allowed herself to be carried off by him at the moment that he was about to enter upon his naval command. That expedition had for its object the succour of the Venetians, who for some twenty-four years had been blockaded by the Turks in Candia. Mademoiselle Querouaille, disguised as a page, embarked with the Duke, who, shortly after landing, was cut to pieces in action. An officer of the French force, whom the before-cited chronicle merely designates as a marquis, and to whom Beaufort had confided the secret of his love, offered to conduct Louise back to France. It appears that Mademoiselle Querouaille would have preferred to have been accompanied on her return by a certain smart page who had been in the Duke’s service, but the marquis did not give her the option of such a choice. Yet, though Louise could not withdraw herself from the protection of the latter, there is no reason to believe that he forced his love upon her. The anonymous chronicler concedes that much; but, in his opinion, the Marquis might have hoped that Louise would have acknowledged his care and respect by the same favours which she had accorded to “Beaufort, and,” he adds, “one may presume that a girl who previously, urged by love, had allowed the Duke to carry her off to Candia, could do no less for a man who showed her so much attention on the voyage back to France.” More or less just as these inductions may be, it appears quite certain that this same prank of Mademoiselle Querouaille was the foundation of her fortunes. In giving his friends an account of the expedition in which he had taken part, the Marquis did not omit the episode of the Duke de Beaufort’s pretended page. Henrietta of England, to whom this romantic tale was carried, became desirous of seeing the heroine of it, and Louise Querouaille was therefore duly introduced to the Duchess. The fictitious Cherubino was cunning enough to represent herself as being the victim of a forcible abduction. Henrietta listened to her story with the liveliest interest, took her into her household, and soon afterwards admitting her amongst the number of her maids of honour. Louise, at the age of nineteen, was thus at once introduced to all the pleasures and temptations of a magnificent and dissipated court. Her introduction took place at a critical moment (1669), and, in deciding her future, fate has made her destiny and character matter of history.
The conquest or the ruin of Holland had long been one of the favourite projects of Louis the Fourteenth. The Dutch, however, resisted his overgrown power, as their ancestors had formerly defied that of Philip the Second of Spain. In order to carry his plans into execution, Louis found it necessary to detach England from the interests of Holland. This was matter of some difficulty, for an alliance with France against Holland was so odious to all parties in England, so contrary to the national prejudices and interests, that though Louis did not despair of cajoling or bribing Charles into such a treaty, the utmost caution and secresy were necessary in conducting it.
The only person who was at first trusted with this negotiation was the Duchess of Orleans. She was at this time about five-and-twenty, “a singular mixture of discretion, or rather dissimulation, with rashness and petulance; of exceeding haughtiness, with a winning sweetness of manner and disposition which gained all hearts.” She was not, however, exactly pretty or well made, but had the dazzlingly fair complexion of an Englishwoman, “un teint de rose et de jasmin,” a profusion of light hair, with eyes blue and bright as those of Pallas. She had inherited some of the nobler qualities of her grandfather, Henri Quatre, and all the graces and intriguing spirit of her mother, Henrietta Maria. Early banished from England by the misfortunes of her family, she regarded the country of her birth with indifference, if not abhorrence, and was a Frenchwoman in education, manners, mind, and heart. She possessed unbounded power over the mind of Charles the Second, whose affection for her was said to exceed that of a brother for a sister; he had never been known to refuse her anything she had asked for herself or others, and Louis trusted that her fascinations would gain from the king of England what reason and principle and patriotism would have denied.
The shrewdness of mind and inclination for intrigue which characterised his sister-in-law’s maid-of-honour did not escape the observation of Louis. In her he found an apt as well as willing instrument in the secret negotiation of which he had constituted her mistress the plenipotentiary. For such compliance the manners of the time may, to a certain extent, furnish La Querouaille with an excuse. At Versailles, ideas of honour and morality had lost their ordinary signification: the men envied generally the lot of Amphitryon, and the women lost every instinct of modesty when it became a question about satisfying a caprice of Jupiter. Breathing such a vitiated atmosphere, and having so many lamentable examples before her eyes, Mademoiselle Querouaille saw only the dazzling side of the proposition made to her—the hope of reigning despotically over the heart of a great prince, and of becoming the equal of that La Vallière whose elevation was the object of so much envy and feminine ambition.
It was arranged, therefore, that the piquant Bas-Bretonne should be brought under the notice of the amorous Charles II. during a visit to him, arranged to take place at Dover. In order to give the interview between the royal brother and sister the appearance of an accidental or family meeting, the pretext of a progress to his recently acquired Flemish territories was resorted to by Louis, who set out with his queen, his two mistresses De Montespan and La Vallière, the Duchess of Orleans and Mademoiselle de Montpensier, with their respective retinues, and attended by the most beautiful women of the Court. The splendour exhibited on this occasion exceeded all that had been witnessed, even during the reign of this pomp-loving monarch. Thirty thousand men marched in the van and rear of the royal party; some of them destined to reinforce the garrisons of the conquered country, others to work upon the fortifications, and others again to level the roads. It was a continued series of fêtes, banquets, and triumphs, the ostensible honours being chiefly for Madame de Montespan; the real object of this famous journey, well-nigh unparalleled for its lavish and luxurious ostentation, was known only to Henrietta of England, who enjoyed in secret her own importance, and this gave a new zest to the pleasures with which she was surrounded.
On reaching Dunkirk, the Duchess of Orleans embarked for England with her maid-of-honour and a small but chosen retinue, and met Charles at Dover, where this secret negotiation was initiated. The result anticipated came to pass, and proved that Louis had not miscalculated the power of his sister-in-law over her easy-going and unscrupulous brother. Charles fell into the snare laid for him, and Henrietta carried most of the points of that disgraceful treaty, which rendered the King of England the pensioned tool of France, and his reign the most abject in the annals of her native country.
Aiming rather to stimulate than gratify the languid desires of her brother for fresh feminine novelty, the Duchess of Orleans, with finished finesse, appeared not to perceive the attention which the piquant charms and almost childish grace of her young maid-of-honour won from the captivated King. Nor did she, at her departure, leave Louise in England, as some historians have erroneously supposed. In order to render the impression which her fair attendant had made upon Charles more deep and lasting, it was sought by her absence to incite the desire felt by her royal brother to retain her in his Court. The secret negotiation with which Louis had entrusted his sister-in-law had not been, in fact, yet completed. To conduct it to a prosperous termination, to preserve perfect harmony between France and England, it was still needful to make use of another kind of female influence. It was necessary, moreover, that such influence should become permanent—a thing hitherto very difficult at courts wherein the fair sex disputed strenuously and shamelessly for the royal favour. But thus much seemed certain—that the key to the will of the sovereign of Great Britain had been found in Mademoiselle Louise Querouaille.
Charles had indeed written in reply to his sister, on the 8th July of the preceding year (1668), that “in every negotiation she shall have a share, which will prove how much I love her.” In August he told the French ambassador—“The Duchess of Orleans passionately desires an alliance between me and France; and as I love her tenderly, I shall be happy to let her see what power her entreaties have over me.” Henrietta, probably, did not consider that by thus bringing her brother into alliance with France she was betraying her native country. She no doubt thought rather of augmenting the greatness of Charles than of benefiting England. The sea should be given up to England; the territory of Continental Europe to France. Louis XIV. expressly declared, in opposition to the views of Colbert, “that he would leave commerce to the English—three-fourths of it at least—that all he cared for was conquest.” But that would have involved, as a first step, the conquest of England herself, and have cost torrents of blood. The fascinating Henrietta, doubtless, did not perceive this when she trod so far in the fatal footsteps of her ancestress, Mary Stuart. She had none of her rash violence, but not a little of her spirit of romantic intrigue, and that feminine delight of having in hand a tangled skein, of which she held securely the end of the thread.