The love-affairs of the Condés (1530-1740)

by H. Noel Williams

This move on the part of the accused was a serious check to Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie, who for a moment had imagined that they had their enemy in their power, and that they were on the point of dealing, through his condemnation, an overwhelming blow to the hostile faction. For the Parlement was not unnaturally inclined to indulgence when the misdeeds of one of its own members was in question, and Le Blanc had had the good fortune to ingratiate himself with it during the Regency. Moreover, the Orléans counted many friends among the magistracy, the Condés comparatively few.

However, as the trial was not to come on for several months, they hoped, in the interval, so to strengthen their position that, even if the issue were unfavourable to them, the consequences would be of comparatively small importance. Their great object was to ingratiate themselves with Louis XV. and to combat the increasing influence of Fleury over the young monarch’s mind, in which they perceived an even greater danger than the enmity of the Orléans.

“The Prime Minister governs certainly,” writes that shrewd observer, the Venetian Ambassador, Morosini, “and directs the affairs of the kingdom, as well as its foreign policy. The bishop appears to court effacement and to be reluctant to meddle with anything. But nothing is concluded without the King’s consent, and the King decides nothing without the bishop’s approval. A few days ago, for example, Monsieur le Duc presented himself to beg him to name an hour which would be convenient to him for work. The King was playing cards with the Duc de Noailles, and, not seeing the Bishop of Fréjus, gave orders that he should be summoned immediately. After which he continued to play until the arrival of the bishop, whom he then caused to enter into his cabinet with Monsieur le Duc. What passed on this occasion is constantly happening.... I hear that the Prime Minister has never had a conversation with the King alone, while the bishop speaks to him when and where he pleases.

“Moreover, it is continually being said in public that, if an ecclesiastic is to continue the traditions of the Dubois, the Mazarins, and the Richelieus, it will be without doubt the Bishop of Fréjus....

“Monsieur le Duc and his entourage perceive with mortification the continual encroachments of the bishop. They fear and detest him, but they dare not attack him openly, finding his position too strong.”

However, if Fleury’s position were too strong to be carried by a direct attack, it was not too strong to be undermined, and the idea occurred to Madame de Prie to draw the aged Maréchal de Villeroy, Louis XV.’s former gouverneur, from his retirement and oppose him to the Bishop of Fréjus. The marshal, it will be remembered, had been banished from Court by the Regent in 1722, since which time he had been vegetating in his government of Lyons. The young King had been attached to Villeroy and had shed bitter tears when he learned of his disgrace, and if, in the interval, his sentiments had not changed, the ex-gouverneur might easily become a formidable rival to the bishop.

Louis XV. seemed quite delighted at the prospect of seeing his old friend again, and the hopes of the conspirators ran high. But they were fated never to materialize, for, though his Majesty received the marshal graciously enough, he subsequently took so little notice of him, that the old man, deeply mortified, almost immediately quitted the Court and never appeared there again. Thus, the influence of Fleury remained as potent as ever, and, since he had not failed to penetrate this little manœuvre, the antipathy which he had always felt for Monsieur le Duc and the favourite was not lessened.

But Madame de Prie was a young woman of infinite resource and she had many cards in her hands. Every day Monsieur le Duc relied more on her counsels, not only because he had formed the highest opinion of her intelligence, but because, as he explained after his disgrace, he felt that she was devoted to his interests, “up to the annihilation of every other sentiment.”

No longer did she make any pretence of being absorbed in pleasure, as in the first weeks of her lover’s Ministry. She had become a politician of the most ardent kind, and the greater part of her time was passed in her cabinet, dictating to the two secretaries she employed for her immense correspondence, discussing with the Ministers, who, by their chief’s desire, invariably consulted her, the most difficult questions, and making notes on the placets presented to Monsieur le Duc, every one of which was submitted to her. All who approached her were astonished at her industry, at the shrewdness of her judgment, and at her grasp of matters which are usually considered quite beyond the comprehension of a young woman. “She was,” wrote the Abbé Legendre, “a heroine capable of regulating the affairs of a vast empire.”

The immense patronage which Monsieur le Duc exercised in both his private and official capacities was almost entirely directed by her, and, though she was, of course, guided chiefly by party considerations, some of her selections showed sound judgment. Thus, her choice of the Duc de Richelieu, in 1725, for the Embassy at Vienna, though ridiculed at the time, was really a very happy one; and this is admitted even by historians so little favourable to Madame de Prie as Lemontey.[267] Without allowing herself to be discouraged by the failure of the Villeroy affair, the marchioness promptly proceeded to make another and more important move.