The guests of Mademoiselle profited also by the refinement of her tastes. She enforced one single rule in her salon: cards were banished. No one was exposed to the danger of being ruined, as was the case in the circle of the King, who encouraged heavy play. It did not displease Louis XIV. to be the Providence of the losers, this again being a method of keeping his nobles in hand. His cousin in no way shared in such considerations. She said: "I hate to play cards," and only played when it was impossible to avoid doing so. She did not at all like to lose. It was remarked that the Luxembourg had gained in gaiety with the exclusion of gambling games. "There is a hundred times as much laughter," relates the Abbé de Choisy,[108] at this date very young and a frequent guest at the palace of the Luxembourg, where he met numerous companions of his own age.
The three daughters of the old Madame, Mlles. d'Orléans, d'Alençon, and de Valois,[109] were always with their step-sister. They escaped from their deserted apartment to run towards the noise and movement; their life was too sad with Madame and her eternal "vapours." Relegated to their chambers as at Blois, with some childish companions, among whom was Louise de La Vallière,[110] still unknown, they lived in a state of distrust of their almost invisible mother, who never addressed a word to them except in scolding.
At least, with Mademoiselle one had the right to move. Young people had great freedom. Little games were organised. Parties of hide and seek and blind-man's-buff were enjoyed. "As I had violin players, it was easy to dance in any room sufficiently distant from Madame." The Abbé de Choisy adds a gracious detail: "There were violinists, but ordinarily they were silent and we danced to singing. It is so charming to dance to the sound of the voice." While the young moved gaily about, their elders had also their little games.
Everything yielded, however, to the unequalled pleasure of conversation. Among those who gave éclat to the Luxembourg, the names of La Rochefoucauld, Segrais, Mme. de Lafayette, and Mme. de Sévigné may be mentioned. Mademoiselle herself often led the conversation, beating the drums a little, her fashion in everything, but also with a certain spontaneity which she always displayed.
Conversation was, during more than a century, even to the time of the Revolution, to be the great delight of intelligent France, and this pleasure rendered incomparable service to the French language, which had rather deteriorated during the first periods of the seventeenth century. It was immediately perceived that the worst fault for a talker was to speak like a book, and the French owe to this simple observation the lesson which taught them to become the first in the world for vivacity and naturalness in the art of conversation. The habitués of the Luxembourg only regretted that the conversation did not oftener turn upon love. But, in this respect, Mademoiselle was not as complaisant as at Saint-Fargeau. We have seen that, in practice, she closed her eyes; this simplified life. For her own pleasure, she preferred other topics; this particular one became at length insupportable to her. "I am much criticised," says she in her Portrait, "because the verses I like the least, are those which are passionate, for I have not a tender soul." Besides, she had really nothing more to say upon the subject of love. She had just made her profession of faith in a correspondence with Mme. de Motteville, who, while awaiting something better, circulated a manuscript in which one reads, "Its conditions are shameful; it is robbery and unjust, without faith and without equity. It is an impiety; it mocks the holy sacrament. Marriage adjusts nothing: everything is given to man."
"Let us escape from slavery," cried Mademoiselle. "Let there be at least one corner of the globe in which one can say that women are their own mistresses." Every one has the right to despise love and marriage, provided only that one does not insist on applying this sentiment only to others. The youth of the Luxembourg knew too well that Mademoiselle sought with an increasing ardour that "slavery" against which in conversation or in writing she called her sex to revolt. Her intimate friends realised that she was inventing illusions, under the influence of a possible possession which induced a belief in their reality. She had believed in an eager tenderness on the part of the little Monsieur who had married some one else. After the restoration of the Stuarts (April, 1660), she imagined (the recital is fully given in her Mémoires) that the King, Charles II., whom she had refused with disdain when he was only a poor pretender, had no other intention in remounting the throne than again to demand her hand, and that she would nobly respond: "I do not deserve this, having rejected your suit when you were in disgrace. The remembrance of this would always rest on our two hearts and would prevent true happiness." This fine response has been quoted a hundred times. Unfortunately, it is very clearly proved through the testimony of English documents[111] that Mademoiselle had no occasion to make it.
Advances, alas! had come from one side only and had been ill received. "I very much desire the marriage of Mademoiselle," wrote Lady Derby[112] to her sister-in-law, Mme. de la Trémouille, through whom passed the "insinuations," "but the King has a great aversion to it on account of the contempt which she has shown him. I have spoken of her to Marquis d'Ormond, but I have met with little encouragement." In another letter: "I have proposed Mademoiselle, but I have little hope. If the King looks for wealth, we can hardly expect greater than with Mademoiselle. But I fear that having been despised in his poverty, he may be little disposed to regard such a marriage." Charles II. would listen to nothing; he had guarded a grudge against his cousin. On the other hand, there is every appearance of truth when she states that the old Duc Charles III. de Lorraine,[113] had demanded her "on his knees" for a youth of eighteen, Prince Charles de Lorraine, his nephew, who became afterwards one of the most famous Austrian generals. It was a question, as can well be understood, of a political combination.
Unfortunately, Prince Charles himself had another project, better suited to his age. He was in love with the eldest daughter of Madame, Marguerite d'Orléans, who returned his affection with all her heart. The youthful society of the Luxembourg accuses Mademoiselle of having, through jealousy, caused this project to fail. "The affair had been advanced," relates that gossip, the Abbé de Choisy, "but the old Mademoiselle had talked and cackled so much that she spoiled everything." She was desperate at the thought of her younger sisters, beggars compared to herself, marrying under her very eyes. Marguerite d'Orléans made, out of spite, a marriage which turned out badly,[114] but through which Mademoiselle in no way profited. Owing to a singular change of desire, from the day on which it had depended upon herself to marry Prince Charles, she had only felt contempt for this little prince "sans forts."[115]
These caprices made the King impatient, who ended by making negotiations with Lorraine without any longer occupying himself with his cousin. Louis XIV. still retained the old monarchical principles in relation to the marriage of princesses. He regarded them simply from the point of view of politics; questions to be settled by governments and into which sentiments must not be permitted to intrude. The idea that every human being has a right to happiness did not belong to his times, and if it had been suggested, the King would have surely condemned it, for it insisted upon individual interests as opposed to those of the community, the rights of which appeared specially sacred to the people of the seventeenth century.
Louis XIV. did not believe for himself that he had the right to accept only the agreeable duties belonging to his "trade of king," since he had undertaken an existence devoted to strenuous labour, when it would have been so pleasant to do nothing. According to his principle, the higher the position of an individual, the more it was fitting that he should sacrifice his own desires to the public good. Mademoiselle had the honour of being his first cousin; he had firmly resolved to marry her, or not to marry her, to bestow her hand upon a hero or a monster, according as he should judge it useful to "the service of the King." There was a certain grandeur in this fashion of recognising relationship.