MADAME HENRIETTE D'ORLÉANS
From the painting by Mignard in the National Portrait Gallery
(Photograph by Walker, London)
The Queen Mother was forced to open eyes which wished to remain closed. She had spoken frankly, and her plainness had perhaps saved the kingdom of France from an ineffaceable stain. Such service cannot be forgotten by honest people. To gratitude was added a sincere admiration for her courage under suffering. The poor woman endured without complaint, and with an incredible tranquillity, nine months of sharp pain increased by the barbarous remedies applied by a crowd of quacks.
In the royal family, the sentiments were mixed. Louis XIV., as Mme. de Motteville had well remarked, was a man full of "contradictions." He cherished his mother. During a previous malady, a short time before the cancer declared itself, he had cared for her night and day with a devotion and also a skill which astonished the attendants.
The thought of now losing her gave him seasons of stifling sobs. At the same time, his mother was a little too much of a personage. She troubled him by her clairvoyance. He experienced a certain relief at the knowledge that the time was approaching when she would no longer be able to watch his course of life. In all probability, he was himself ignorant of this feeling, but it was apparent to observers. When she was actually dying, affection bore away all other considerations, and the King almost fainted. Hardly was she interred when the pleasure of feeling himself entirely free again became ascendant.
The attachment of Monsieur for his mother was his best emotion. His grief possessed no hidden relief and forced him to be always near the invalid's bed. "The odour was so frightful," reports Mademoiselle, "that after seeing the wound dressed it was impossible to sup." Monsieur passed all his time in the chamber and tried to demonstrate his tenderness. Sometimes most ridiculous ideas occurred to him; but he was not the less touching, through his never-failing tears, on account of his sincerity.
At length, Anne of Austria herself sent her son away. Monsieur returned to his pleasures and forgot his grief in them; he would not have been Philippe Duc d'Anjou if he had acted differently. When the end drew near, timid and submissive as he was, he would not be sent away. The King withdrew, obeying the custom which forbids princes, as formerly gods, to witness death. Louis twice told his brother not to remain longer, and only received the response "that he could not obey him in this, but he promised that it was the only point, during his entire life, on which he would ever disobey."[176]
A cry of Monsieur piercing the walls announced to Louis that the end had come.
The young Queen Marie-Thérèse, who was losing all, justified the reputation of "fool" which the Court gave her. She permitted herself to be persuaded that her position would be made higher, through all the privileges left to her by the death of the Queen Mother, and she was more than half consoled by this chimera.