Among several children, Madame de Pléneuf had a daughter, born in 1698, some two years after the marriage of her parents, to whom she had given her own name of Agnès. Beautiful as was the mother, the daughter promised to be more beautiful still, and with her physical perfections she combined vivacity, intelligence, and the most charming manners. “A figure supple and above the middle height, the air of a nymph, a delicate face, pretty cheeks, a well-formed nose, blonde hair, eyes a trifle small, but bright and expressive; in a word, a physiognomy refined and distinguished, and a voice as charming as her face.” Such is the description given of her, when she was fifteen, by the Président Hénault, and his praises are echoed by practically all contemporary writers. Saint-Simon declares that she was “beautiful, well-made, more charming by reason of those indescribable things which captivate, and with much intelligence carefully cultivated”; Marais admits that there was “much that was agreeable in her countenance, in her mind, and in all her manners”; d’Argenson proclaims her “la fleur des pois”; while in the eyes of Duclos, she “possessed more than beauty,” and “everything about her was seductive.”
Now, while Agnès remained a child, Madame de Pléneuf would appear to have been quite a devoted mother, and “it was the passion and occupation of her life to bring her up well.” But, as the little girl advanced towards womanhood, and gained every day what she herself was losing in attractions, with the result that the homage of some of the gallants who frequented the Hôtel de Pléneuf began to be transferred from the mother to the daughter, the affection which she had once entertained for her gradually changed to dislike, and eventually to the bitterest jealousy and hatred. “In proportion as the daughter pleased by a hundred attractions,” writes Saint-Simon, “she displeased her mother. Madame de Pléneuf could not endure the sight of homage addressed to others than herself at her own house. The advantages of youth irritated her. Her daughter, whom she was unable to prevent from perceiving it, suffered her dependence, endured her murmurs, supported the constraints imposed upon her, but she began to be annoyed by them. Pleasantries concerning the jealousy of her mother escaped her, which were reported to Madame de Pléneuf. The latter felt the ridicule of them. She flew into a passion. The girl retorted, and Pléneuf, more prudent than she was, dreading a scandal which might prejudice the establishment of his daughter in life, decided to provide her with a husband.”
It was certainly high time to separate mother and daughter, for the enmity between them was increasing every day, and at the beginning of 1713 an incident occurred which brought matters to a crisis and made it impossible for them to remain any longer under the same roof.
Among the admirers of Madame de Pléneuf was a certain Comte d’Angennes. Young, handsome, and of charming manners, he had not been permitted to sigh in vain; indeed, the lady appears to have conceived for him a most violent passion. In a surprisingly short time, however, she perceived that the ardour of her new lover was beginning to cool, for, though frequenting the house as assiduously as ever, he no longer sought opportunities of being alone with his hostess. Madame de Pléneuf, her suspicions aroused, watched him closely, and more than once detected him talking in low tones to Agnès, with an expression on his face which there was no mistaking.
Thenceforth the jealous woman’s hatred of her too attractive daughter knew no bounds. No longer did she trouble to dissimulate her feelings from her friends, but actually incited the most devoted of them to imitate the attitude she adopted towards the girl, with the result that poor Agnès’s life became almost unendurable.
Unendurable, too, was the sight of her to her unnatural mother, and she importuned her husband until he consented that the girl should leave the house and be placed in a convent, while awaiting the appearance on the scene of an eligible suitor. Several gentlemen who answered more or less to this description speedily presented themselves, and, after some hesitation, M. de Pléneuf decided in favour of the Marquis de Prie.
The marquis was twenty-five years older than Agnès and, though he was the possessor of large estates, they were either so unproductive or so heavily mortgaged that they brought him in next to nothing. But he was a member of a very ancient House, connected with several of the most illustrious families in France, was governor of Bourbon-Lancy, colonel of the cavalry regiment which bore his name, held the rank of brigadier-general in the Army, and, finally, was one of the godfathers of the heir to the throne.
This last honour, which he owed to his good fortune in happening to be with his aunt the Duchesse de Ventadour, gouvernante to the Duc d’Anjou, in Louis XIV.’s cabinet, at the moment when the infant prince was brought thither for his Majesty’s inspection, seems to have had great weight with M. de Pléneuf, who was intoxicated with the idea of an alliance with the godfather of his future King. As for the marquis, it is probable that M. de Pléneuf’s money-bags constituted a far more potent attraction for him than the beaux yeux of his lovely daughter. He was not only poor, but ambitious, and, now that the approach of peace threatened to put an end to his hopes of military distinction, he had decided to embark upon a diplomatic career, and aspired to an embassy, for which, of course, the possession of a long purse was an indispensable qualification.
The preliminaries were soon concluded, and on 27 December, 1713, Agnès Berthelot de Pléneuf became the Marquise de Prie. Taken to Versailles by the Duchesse de Ventadour, to be presented to Louis XIV., she astonished all the Court by her dazzling beauty and her precocious airs of a woman of the world; and even those who had been inclined to condemn M. de Prie for having contracted a mésalliance were obliged to admit that he had married a wife of whom any man might be proud. Almost immediately after his marriage, the marquis was nominated Ambassador to the King of Sardinia, and set out for Turin, whither, after a short interval, his wife followed him.
At Turin Madame de Prie remained five years. For the first two or three, during which a little daughter was born to her, everything went smoothly. Her husband was kind and attentive, and, if she felt for him no affection and some contempt—for he was a pompous and self-opinionated person, with abilities as slender as his ambitions were lofty—she, at least, tolerated him; while, as the Ambassadress of the greatest King in the world, and one of the most beautiful women in the Piedmontese capital, she was the object of universal homage, and no social gathering was deemed complete which she did not grace with her presence. But towards the end of 1716 an event occurred which was to effect a great change in the fortunes of the Pries.