“It often happens, Madame,” she writes to Madame de Maintenon, “that when one thinks all is lost some fortunate circumstance occurs unexpectedly which entirely changes the face of things.” “I think,” she says in another letter, “that fortune may again become favourable to us; that it is with its favours as with too much health; I mean that one is never so near falling sick as when one feels oneself so remarkably well, nor so near being unfortunate as when our measure of happiness is full to the brim. I reverse the medal, and I await some consolation which may effectually alleviate my sorrows. I wish, Madame, that you would do the same, and that your temperament were your best friend, as mine is that on which I can surest reckon; for I think, to speak frankly, that I have more obligation to it than to my reason, and that there is no great merit in possessing that tranquillity of mind, of which you are disposed, in your extreme kindness, to think me possessed, and on which you bestow so much praise.”
Madame de Maintenon, in fact, who, strong-minded as she might be, was nevertheless perpetually tormenting herself and wailing about something or other, continually eulogised that natural equanimity which she envied, that courage allied with good temper, that amiability, and that beau sang qui ne laissait rien d’âpre et de chagrin en elle.
Her letters to Madame de Maintenon from Burgos, admirably paint this characteristic tranquillity of mind. “To enliven you,” she writes, “I must give you a description of my quarters. They consist of a single room, which may measure twelve or thirteen feet at most. One large window which will not shut, facing the south, occupies almost entirely one side. A somewhat low door gives me admittance to the Queen’s chamber, and another still smaller opens into a winding passage, into which I dare not go, although it always has two or three lamps lighted in it, because it is so badly paved that I should break my neck there. I cannot say that the walls are whitewashed, for they are so dirty. My travelling bedstead is the sole piece of furniture I have in it, besides a folding stool and a deal table, which latter serves me alternately for a toilette, to write upon, or to hold the Queen’s dessert—there being no receptacle in the kitchen or elsewhere wherein to put it. I laugh at all this ... and amidst all the sombre occurrences which have befallen us, I console myself with my own reflections. I imagine that fortune may take a good turn, and I calmly and trustfully wait for those consolations which are powerful to assuage all my trouble.”[38] “Action becomes you,” Madame de Maintenon might remark with great truth. It was, in fact, an original and most distinctive feature in the Princess des Ursins’ character, that of having been known to be a person so thoroughly calm in the main during a career so active and a destiny so agitated; and it was to this very characteristic equanimity that she was indebted, after so abrupt a downfall at sixty-two, for the lot reserved for her of dying in peace and of old age at eighty. But there are many other traits worthy of study in her composition, and which place her in perfect contrast with her friend Madame de Maintenon.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] The Duke of Berwick.
[36] Despatch of Marshal de Tessé to Chamillard, 4th Feb., 1706.—Mémoires de Noailles, tom. ii., p. 380.
[37] Letters of the Princess to Mad. de Maintenon, from the 24th of June to 26th October, 1706.—Tom. iii., pp. 305 to 367.
[38] Mém. de Noailles, tom. iii., p. 375, and Letters to Mad. de Maintenon, tom. iv., p. 163.