After the King had driven away, Monsieur le Duc went to his cabinet, where he passed the rest of the afternoon working with the Minister for War, Breteuil, and the Comptroller-General, Dodun. Shortly before eight o’clock, the other Ministers left the château, and the prince was about to follow them, when he was informed that the Duc de Charost, Captain of the Guards, had been waiting for three-quarters of an hour in order to speak to him.
But let us allow Mathieu Marais to relate what followed in his own words:
“The prince went out and told the Duc de Charost that he was going to join the King at Rambouillet, and was pressed for time, and asked him to defer until the morrow what he had to say to him. The Captain of the Guards answered in a low tone that what he had to say to him was from the King; upon which they re-entered the cabinet. The Duc de Charost handed him an order from the King, which was to the effect that, as he wished to govern himself in the future, he was suppressing the office of Prime Minister; that he thanked him for his services, and ordered him to retire to Chantilly, until further orders. This order was in the King’s own hand. The prince’s first movement was one of anger, after which he said that he would obey. He asked: ‘And my papers?’ and was told that there were no orders concerning them. He sorted them, burned some, placed some in his pocket, and filled a despatch-box with others, observing: ‘These are the King’s papers, and all the others that remain are his.’ He wrote to Madame la Duchesse almost, it is said, in these terms: ‘Every day follows another, and does not resemble it. Yesterday, I was Cæsar; to-day, I am Pompey. I am going to Chantilly. I count, belle maman, on your still preserving for me your good graces.’ He was asked for his parole, which he gave, and then entered his carriage, which had been waiting for a long time to take him to Rambouillet. He thanked all the courtiers who accompanied him to his carriage, and when he was outside the gates, he was heard to say to his postilion: ‘To Chantilly!’ M. de Saint-Pol, exempt of the Guards, accompanied him as far as the château.”
While Charost was communicating the wishes of the King to the Prime Minister, Fleury, who was about to replace him, proceeded to the Queen’s apartments, armed with a letter which he had dictated that morning to his former pupil. It was as follows: “I beg you, Madame, and, if need be, I order you, to do everything that the former Bishop of Fréjus will tell you on my behalf, as if it were myself.”[271] The selection of Fleury to inform the Queen of the disgrace of her friends and to signify to her his orders was a refinement of cruelty, and the poor woman wept bitterly. After a while, however, she recovered her composure and wrote to the King: “Gratitude towards Monsieur le Duc has made me shed tears, but your commands dry them.”
As soon as the bishop had departed, the Queen sent for Madame de Prie and the fallen Minister’s favourite sister, Mlle. de Clermont, whom she informed of what had occurred. Both ladies started that same night for Chantilly, where they arrived at daybreak. In the evening, Madame la Duchesse, who had received the news of her son’s disgrace at the Château of Saint-Maur, appeared upon the scene, with the faithful Lassay in her train.[272] Madame la Duchesse had always detested Madame de Prie, and regarding her, as she now did, as the cause of her son’s disgrace, her indignation against her knew no bounds. “She was very surprised to learn that Madame de Prie was there, and manifested it in terms which marked her contempt and hatred. After having embraced her son, she told him that she hoped that the lady would not be so indiscreet as to present herself before her. Monsieur le Duc replied that she should have reason to be satisfied, and begged her not to be displeased if he did not sup with her, as he was very tired. He supped alone with Madame de Prie; Madame la Duchesse supped with M. de Lassay.
“On the Thursday, on descending to dinner, Madame la Duchesse perceived that a place had been laid for Madame de Prie next to her own. She stopped and manifested her surprise. Madame de Prie approached and said to her: ‘Is it your wish that I retire?’ She replied: ‘No, you may sit down to table!’ But she called the Prince di Carignano to sit by her, and Madame de Prie took the prince’s place.
“As this was done in a manner sufficiently humiliating, there were, after dinner, a great many comings and goings, in order to persuade Madame la Duchesse to permit Madame de Prie to sup with her. Finally, Madame la Duchesse consented, out of complaisance for Monsieur le Duc, in the state in which he was.”[273]
For nearly two days after the disgrace of Monsieur le Duc no steps were taken against his mistress. But no one at Chantilly doubted that her respite would be but a brief one. Duverney had been exiled forty leagues from Paris; all the Ministers most attached to Monsieur le Duc had been relieved of their functions; Le Blanc and the Belle-Isles had been recalled, and the man who, if he had received his deserts, would have been decorating a gibbet had actually been reinstated in his old post of Secretary of State for War, in place of the honest Breteuil. In such a revolution of the palace, it was impossible for her to escape, and on the Thursday evening the blow fell, in the shape of a lettre de cachet exiling her to her husband’s estate of Courbépine, in Normandy.
Her parting with Monsieur le Duc on the morrow was a most touching one. “She kept up the comedy to the last,” writes the author of the manuscript we have just cited. “Twice after entering her carriage she returned, not being able, she said, to depart without again embracing Monsieur le Duc. She appeared in despair at leaving him, and gave him all the tokens of a passionate love. The prince, on his side, was so afflicted that it is impossible to describe it.”
For ourselves, we prefer to believe that the grief of Madame de Prie was as genuine as that of Monsieur le Duc. It would have been, indeed, strange if it had not been so, since, with all his faults, he had been to her the most devoted and generous of lovers, the truest and best of friends.