“‘Behold, meanwhile, the orphan mendicants, whose resting-place the night before had been a heap of filthy straw, beneath the manger of a cowshed, reclining on a bed of down, beneath a velvet canopy! But Jeanne declared to us that she did not sleep a whit the sounder, so tormented was she the whole of that night with the fear that Madame de Boulainvilliers might keep and appropriate to her own use the title-deeds which she had imprudently suffered to pass from her hands, and which she had been used to regard as the means whereby she should one day be raised to a level with royalty itself. So much for the candour and innocence, and freedom from suspicion, upon which poor Madame de Boulainvilliers had reckoned so blindly!
“‘Once fairly established in the household of the Marquise de Boulainvilliers, the fortune of the children of the Count de Saint Remy changed from the lowest depths of misery to a state of ease and affluence, of which they could not even have dreamed. It appears, however, that the marquise, for some reason or other, very soon abandoned her darling project of rearing her little protegées à la Jean Jacques; for, after suffering them to run wild about her park at Passy, well-dressed but barefoot, for some time, she procured the boy’s admission into the Ecole de Marine, despatched the little Marguerite to the care of a nurse in Burgundy, but retained among her dependents the lively Jeanne, always with the promise that she would prosecute her cause at court with the utmost vigour and perseverance, and declaring that she had no doubt of the ultimate success of her undertaking, for that Madame Elizabeth, with all the ardour and warmth of benevolence which characterizes youth, had promised to second her application to the king. It was in the midst of this good will, and Madame de la Motte declared without any fault on her part, that, by a singular caprice, for which she could not account, and which, by the bye, she slurred over in rather an embarrassed tone, her protectress suddenly changed her manner towards her, and one day, having declared to her that it was considered in the society in which she moved, both imprudent and derogatory to retain in her family a person in the position of Mademoiselle de Saint Remy, announced to her that she had taken the necessary measures to place her with Madame Leclercq, the most famous couturière of the day in Paris!
“‘The astonishment and indignation of poor Jeanne, on hearing this sentence, can well be imagined, but there was no appeal. What right had she to complain, who had been taken from the streets but a short time before by the kindness of the marquise? Besides, there was some consolation still amid her trouble, for Madame de Boulainvilliers promised not to neglect her suit at court, and I really believe did continue to prosecute it with undiminished zeal. It appears that it was Monsieur le Marquis who had insisted upon the dismissal of Jeanne—for what offence remains a mystery—but there must have been a grievous cause of displeasure, I judge, by the hatred which existed between the pair, and which was not satisfied on the part of the marquis, even by the imprisonment and disgrace of his victim.[B]
[B] I have heard the circumstance of this dire offending variously discussed, but I believe the true version of the tale to run thus:—Poor Jeanne, who had been afflicted by nature with an incurable curiosity, had discovered, in one of her barefooted rambles in the park at Passy, the entrance to the secret still which M. le Marquis de Boulainvilliers, in common with many French noblemen of the time, worked illicitly, in defiance of law or justice, and from which many of them derived the principal source of the colossal fortunes which they possessed. With primitive simplicity, Jeanne kept her discovery a profound secret, but used to spend her time suspended by a branch above the hole in the mound of earth, which concealed, by a clump of brambles and wild barberries, the entrance to the passage which served for the descent to the unlawful hiding-place. Here she would remain for whole hours together, gazing down, and watching with interest and amusement the whole process of the conversion of good grain into liquor, never once betraying herself by the slightest exclamation or gesture to the poor fools who worked on below, little supposing they were thus overlooked and noted.
The day of reckoning arrived at last; the château—the park—the gardens of Passy, were one morning filled with the emissaries of the police; every closet and cellar underwent a thorough scrutiny; the servants were strictly examined; but M. de Boulainvilliers laughed to scorn every attempt at detection; for he alone of all the household was in the secret of the illicit still. Disappointed and confused, the officers were retiring to report upon the fruitlessness of their errand, when Jeanne came bursting into the apartment, exclaiming, ‘I know where it is—I know it—this way, gentlemen—this way! To think of all this trouble, when I knew it so well! How fortunate I should have just been told what it was you were seeking! Come along, I will show you the still. How strange that Monsieur le Marquis should not have known that it was in the park! but I will show him the nearest way. Oh, come along quick! it is in full glory at this very moment—the fire blazing—the sparks flying splendidly; two men were at the bellows when I left!’
The consternation, the rage, the terror which these words produced, cannot be described. M. le Marquis was hurried off to prison, amid the laughter of the officers and the sobs and tears of the Marquise; while poor Jeanne received, with astonishment, the furious kicks and cuffs of the marquis, instead of the thanks and praises to which she deemed herself entitled. From this hour the marquis, who had ever hated the child, vowed most bitter vengeance against her, and, on his leaving prison, commenced his system of persecution, which ceased not until he had contributed to bring down his victim to the lowest depths of desolation and infamy.
“‘Jeanne remained with the couturière for two long mortal years, during which the marquise wearied every minister, every man in place, with prayers and placets on behalf of her protégée; and, at length, one fine day, she sent for her to meet her brother, whom she had not seen since his departure for Brest, and when she arrived, the lacquey in waiting introduced them both into the salon, filled with the highest company, as Monsieur le Baron de Valois, and Mademoiselle de Valois!
“‘Madame de Boulainvilliers had prepared the scene—she expected tears of gratitude and élans of sentiment—but she was disappointed: the boy drew back, abashed at the novelty of his situation, and Jeanne uttered not a single word, but fainted! From this hour did a change take place in her character; her real nature, Stirring and ambitious, now began to show itself without disguise; the years of rags and starvation were forgotten, as likewise the humiliation of her days of toil and labour with the couturière. She had but one drawback—the insufficiency of the pension allotted by the government, until the estates in Dauphiné and the châteaux in Brittany, and the forests in Maine, belonging to the title, and upon which the crown had seized in former reigns, were restored to her family,—when she might move with the splendour becoming her rank, and take her place among the princesses of the blood royal, as beseemed her name and descent. The pension was of eight hundred livres only per annum—a pittance barely sufficient to enable her to clothe herself with decency; but again did Madame de Boulainvilliers, the tried friend, come to her assistance, and, proud of her work, of having by her exertions caused the title to be recognised, now offered to pay her board in some convent, which she had refused to do so long as she was only poor Jeanne de Saint Remy.
“‘She retired then to a convent at Bar-sur-Aube, her native place, where she captivated the affections of the Count de la Motte, a young man of excellent family but small fortune, and they were soon afterwards married; and, with this auspicious event, her romance, like many others, might have been supposed to be concluded. But, alas, for her! there was yet a second volume. When I saw her, as I have described to you, at the Hôtel Cardinal, she had come to Paris to prosecute her suit with the ministers for the restoration of her estates. She was supported by the powerful interest of the Rohans. She was of a bold, enterprising, ambitious nature, fearless and intriguing, with friends at court devoted to her cause; and yet it will to this day excite a certain suspicion in my mind whenever I think of all the circumstances which followed—she never could gain access to the queen!