The poor Duchess of Mecklenbourg, the wife of Christian Louis, was a very good woman when one was thoroughly acquainted with her. She told me the whole history of her intrigue with Bernstorff. She regulated her household very well, and had always two carriages. She did not affect the splendour of a sovereign; but she kept up her rank better than the other Duchesses, and I liked her the better for this. The husband, Christian Louis of Mecklenbourg, was a notable fool. He one day demanded an audience of the King, under the pretence of having something of importance to say to him. Louis XIV. was then more than forty years old. When the Duke found himself in the King's presence, he said to him, "Sire, you seem to me to have grown." The King laughed, and said, "Monsieur, I am past the age of growing."—"Sire," rejoined the Duke, "do you know everybody says I am very much like you, and quite as good-looking as you are?"—"That is very probable," said the King, still laughing. The audience was then finished, and the Duke went away. This fool could never engage his brother-in-law's favour, for M. de Luxembourg had no regard for him.
When the Queen had the government of the country, all the females of the Court, even to the very servants, became intriguers. They say it was the most ridiculous thing in the world to see the eagerness with which women meddled with the Queen-mother's regency. At the commencement she knew nothing at all. She made a present to her first femme de chambre of five large farms, upon which the whole Court subsisted. When she went to the Council to propose the affair, everybody laughed, and she was asked how she proposed to live. She was quite astonished when the thing was explained to her, for she thought she had only given away five ordinary farms. This anecdote is very true and was related to me by the old Chancellor Le Tellier, who was present at the Council. She is said often to have laughed as she confessed her ignorance. Many other things of a similar nature happened during the regency.
There is a Bishop of a noble family, tolerably young but very ugly, who was at first so devout that he thought of entering La Trappe; he wore his hair combed down straight, and dared not look a woman in the face. Having learned that in the city where he held his see there was a frail fair one, whose gallantries had become notorious, he felt a great desire to convert her and to make her come to the confessional. She was, it is said, a very pretty woman, and had, moreover, a great deal of wit.
No sooner had the Bishop began to visit than he began to pay attention to his hair: first he powdered it, and then he had it dressed. At length he swallowed the bait so completely, that he neither quitted the fair siren by night nor by day. His clergy ventured to exhort him to put an end to this scandal, but he replied that, if they did not cease their remonstrances, he would find means of making them. At length he even rode through the city in his carriage with his fair penitent.
The people became so enraged at this that they pelted him with stones. His relations repaired to his diocese for the purpose of exhorting him in their turn, but he would only receive his mother, and would not even follow her advice. His relations then applied to the Regent to summon the lady to Paris. She came, but her lover followed and recovered her; at length she was torn from him by a lettre-de-cachet, and taken from his arms to a house of correction. The Bishop is in a great rage, and declares that he will never forgive his family for the affront which has been put upon him (1718).
The Queen-mother is said to have eaten four times a day in a frightful manner, and this practice is supposed to have brought on that cancer in the breast, which she sought to conceal by strong Spanish perfumes, and of which she died.
Those female branches of the French Royal Family, who are called Enfants de France, all bear the title of Madame. For this reason it is that in the brevets they are called Madame la Duchesse de Berri; Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans; but in conversation they are called the Duchesse de Berri, the Duchesse d'Orleans; or, rather, one should say, Madame de Berri will have it so with respect to herself. The title of Duchesse d'Orleans belongs to Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, as granddaughter. Such is the custom prevalent here. The brother and the sister-in-law of the King are called simply Monsieur and Madame, and these titles are also contained in my brevets; but I suffer myself to be called commonly Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans. Madame de Berri will be called Madame la Duchess de Berri, because, being only an Enfant de France of the third descent, she has need of that title to set off her relationship. There is nothing to be said for this: if there were any unmarried daughters of the late King, each would be called Madame, with the addition of their baptismal name.
It seems that Queen Mary of England was something of a coquette in Holland. Comte d'Avaux, the French Ambassador, told me himself that he had had a secret interview with her at the apartments of one of the Queen's Maids of Honour, Madame Treslane. The Prince of Orange, becoming acquainted with the affair, dismissed the young lady, but invented some other pretext that the real cause might not be known.
Three footmen had a quarrel together; two of them refused to admit the third to their table, saying, "as he and his master only serve a president's wife, he cannot presume to compare himself with us, who serve Princesses and Duchesses." The rejected footman called another fellow to his aid, and a violent squabble ensued. The commissaire was called: he found that they served three brothers, the sons of a rich merchant at Rouen; two of them had bought companies in the French Guards; one of the two had an intrigue with the wife of Duc d'Abret, and the other with the Duchesse de Luxembourg, while the third was only engaged with the wife of a president. The two former were called Colande and Maigremont; and, as at the same time the Duc d'Abret, the son of the Duc de Bouillon, was in love with the lady of the President Savari.
The Envoy from Holstein, M. Dumont, was very much attached to Madame de La Rochefoucauld, one of Madame de Berri's 'dames du palais'. She was very pretty, but gifted with no other than personal charms. Some one was joking her on this subject, and insinuated that she had treated her lover very favourably. "Oh! no," she replied, "that is impossible, I assure you, entirely impossible." When she was urged to say what constituted the impossibility, she replied, "If I tell, you will immediately agree with me that it is quite impossible." Being pressed still further, she said, with a very serious air, "Because he is a Protestant!"