I said to M. de Lauzun, "Take care to wear a cap when you are in the forest; the evening dew is bad for the teeth, and further you are subject to weak eyes and to catching cold. The air of Fontainebleau makes the hair fall out." He replied: "I certainly must try to preserve my teeth. I also fear cold; but as for the red eyes with which you are constantly reproaching me, they are caused by wakefulness, with which I have been troubled for some time. As for my hair, I have too little left to take further pains about it."
She preached neatness to him. "If you are slovenly, it will be said that I have bad taste. For my sake, you must be careful." Lauzun only laughed. Indeed, she scolded him through jealousy, fearing that he was escaping from her influence and going she did not know where, and perceiving this, he cajoled her. "As soon as he saw that I wished to scold him, he had unequalled methods for putting me in a good humour." All this folly resembled a honeymoon, and the Mémoires of Mademoiselle for this same year include a passage which is almost a confession. "It is still said that we are married. We neither of us say anything, it being only our particular friends who would dare to address us, and it is easy to laugh at them, only saying, 'The King knows all.'"
The conduct of Mademoiselle during the ten years following being a perpetual and striking confirmation of this half-confession, the fact of the secret marriage would seem to be assured, and the date would be placed between May and November, 1671, if it were not for a last quotation, to be given at its proper date, which again throws doubt upon the event.
Whatever the truth may be, it would appear that Mademoiselle had known how to reunite the broken fragments of her happiness; but Lauzun, for a second time, lost everything. He had easily learned that he owed the rupture of the first plan to Mme. de Montespan, and had conceived so furious a hate against this false friend that he lost his head.
After a scene worthy of fishwives, in which he had called her names impossible to print, he would proceed to declaim against her in the salons, with the utmost violence, and sometimes at only a few steps from her ears. The courtiers marvelled at the excessive insolence on the one side and the curious patience on the other, for Mme. de Montespan endured these outrages without whispering a single protest. It was rumoured that she had once been his mistress, and that his power was derived from this fact.
It is to this enforced penitence of the all-powerful favourite that Mme. Scarron alluded when at a supper, the account of which is given by Mme. de Sévigné[266]: "she dilated upon the horrible agitations in a country very well known, the continual rage of the little Lauzun, and the black chagrin or the sad boredom of the ladies of Saint-Germain; and suggested that the most envied was perhaps not always exempt." Mme. Scarron had seen the "horrible agitations" very near, for it was she who had intervened against Lauzun; it was upon her representations that Mme. de Montespan had ended by saying to the King that "she did not believe that her life was safe as long as this man was free."[267]
Lauzun was arrested at Saint-Germain, in his chamber, the evening of November 25, 1671. The evening previous, Mademoiselle had departed for Paris declaring: "I do not know what is the matter; I am in such dreadful apprehension that I cannot remain here." She wept on the way. She very well knew the cause. One of her friends had been asked, "if M. de Lauzun had been arrested," and this query had worried her.
Delayed by chance or by precaution, the news of the arrest did not reach the Luxembourg until twenty-four hours later. Lauzun was already on the road to Pignerol. Before him hastened M. de Nallot, a man of confidence despatched by Louvois, who certainly felt a ferocious joy in the action, to bear the instructions of his master to the Sieur de Saint-Mars, governor of the prison of Pignerol, and of those enclosed within its walls. Foucquet had been during seven years under the care of Saint-Mars, who had followed orders with such fidelity that Louvois did not doubt that he would be obeyed as blindly in any commands it might please him to give regarding Lauzun. The instructions gave orders to imprison him with one valet, and never to permit him to leave the fortress nor to have any communication with the outer world.
Saint-Mars thus responded:
Pignerol, December 9, 1671.
Monseigneur, M. de Nallot arrived here on the fifth instant, conveying the note of instructions you have been pleased to send me.... He will report to you my haste in preparing the apartment for M. de Lauzun; he will tell you, Monseigneur, that I will lodge him in the two low vaulted chambers which are over those of M. Foucquet: these are the ones with the barred windows you yourself[268] examined. From the way in which I have arranged the place, I can respond with my life for the safety of the person of M. de Lauzun, and also the certainty of intercepting any news sent or received.
I engage upon my honour, Monseigneur, that as long as this gentleman is under my care you will hear no further word about him, it will be as if he already lay in pace.
The place prepared is so constructed that I can have holes made, through which I can spy into the apartment. I shall also know all that he does and says through the reports of a valet whom I will furnish as you have ordered; I have found one with much trouble, because the clever ones do not wish to pass their life in prison. You order that mass shall be celebrated for M. de Lauzun only on fête days and Sundays and I will scrupulously follow the letter of your instructions.... The Confessor of M. Foucquet will attend the new prisoner on Easter and at no other time, whatever may happen. My only desire is to carry out exactly the orders with which you have honoured me: I shall always endeavour to do this with zeal, passion, and fidelity, so I trust that you may be content with my small services.[269]