The third member of the triumvirate, the Chevalier de Belle-Isle, was a young man of twenty-seven, noted for his dashing valour in the field and his innumerable gallantries. His abilities were, however, considerable, and his ambition perhaps even more excessive than that of his elder brother, whose entire confidence he enjoyed.
Le Blanc and the Belle-Isles, while secretly the protagonists of the opposition party, remained, in appearance, devoted adherents of Philippe d’Orléans, and this made them doubly dangerous. Profiting by the confidence which the Regent reposed in them, they had lately attempted a master-stroke, by imputing to the Duc de Bourbon machinations of their own cabal which were on the point of being discovered. They accused him of conspiring to supplant the Regent, and so cleverly did they manufacture evidence in support of this charge that Monsieur le Duc had all the difficulty imaginable to prove his innocence. Eventually, the Duc d’Orléans accepted his indignant protestations, but from that moment the chief of the House of Condé began to be regarded by the public as a possible rival of his Royal Highness.
Now, by a singular coincidence, the same three men who had so nearly succeeded in bringing about the disgrace of Monsieur le Duc were the most devoted of all the friends of Madame de Pléneuf, and, in consequence, implacable enemies of Madame de Prie. Le Blanc had rendered himself particularly odious to the Duc de Bourbon’s mistress. For some years past the Minister had been completely infatuated with Madame de Pléneuf and obedient to her slightest behest, and in the miserable days which had followed the discovery of Agnès’s flirtation with M. d’Angennes he had ably seconded her mother in making the girl’s life a burden to her. Moreover, whether justly or no, she strongly suspected him and the Belle-Isles of having been concerned in the tragic end of the unfortunate d’Angennes, who, shortly after the episode in question, had been found dead in the street, pierced by three sword-thrusts, in circumstances which pointed to his being the victim of some private vengeance. Again, Le Blanc had, at his own special request, been appointed a member of the commission appointed to investigate the accounts of M. de Pléneuf and his fellow-commissaries; and the animus he had displayed against the principal delinquent on this occasion—which, it was generally believed, had been prompted by the desire to please Madame de Pléneuf, who had been for some years past on very bad terms with her husband, and, at the same time, to obtain greater facilities for enjoying that lady’s society—had largely contributed to his ruin.
And, finally, he had committed an action which would alone have sufficed to assure him the undying hatred of Madame de Prie.
We have mentioned that among the admirers of Madame de Prie at Turin was the Marquis d’Alincourt, son of the Maréchal de Villeroy. Whether there had ever been anything serious between them is very doubtful, but, at any rate, the lady had been indiscreet enough to write d’Alincourt several letters which were capable of such an interpretation. Now, Le Blanc, who was a friend of d’Alincourt, knew of the existence of these epistles, and, soon after Madame de Prie became the mistress of Monsieur le Duc, he contrived, by some means, to get possession of them, and handed them to Madame de Pléneuf, who carried them straight to her daughter’s lover. The precious pair doubtless hoped thereby to bring about a rupture between the prince and his inamorata, but they had sadly underrated the strength of the former’s infatuation; and the only result was to disgust him with persons who could make war with such weapons and to intensify the hatred with which Madame de Prie regarded her mother and the Minister for War.
As soon as Madame de Prie understood the precarious situation of Monsieur le Duc, and that her mother’s friends, Le Blanc and the Belle-Isles, were his most redoubtable enemies, she recognized that her interests were one with those of her lover, and that, by placing him in a position in which he would be able to defy them, she would shelter herself from their blows. From that moment, the line of action which it behoved her to follow was clear, and she determined to devote all her talents and all her energies to rallying the prince’s partisans around him and thwarting the machinations of their common foes. Nor did she intend to rest from her labours until she had crushed them utterly, and raised Monsieur le Duc so high that they would be powerless to injure either him or herself.
But, to accomplish this, it was necessary to begin by freeing herself from certain embarrassments: by appeasing her husband’s indignation and preventing a scandal, which might prejudice her in the eyes of those old-fashioned persons who consented to condone immorality only so long as the conventionalities were duly observed; by rehabilitating her father, whose delinquencies were a continual reproach to her; and by persuading the Condés, and, in particular, the Dowager-Duchesse de Bourbon to accept the situation and admit her to their intimacy.
All these matters were satisfactorily arranged. M. de Prie, who, at the beginning of 1720, had resigned his post at Turin, returned to Paris vowing vengeance against his erring wife, and, if gossip is to be believed, did actually go so far as to give her several blows with his cane. But he was a man of feeble character, and, besides, desperately in need of money; and soon, perceiving in which direction his interests lay, he calmed down, and eventually took himself off to Languedoc, with the title of lieutenant-general of that province, which Monsieur le Duc had been instrumental in obtaining for him.
Thanks to the same influence, the Government consented to throw a veil over the misdeeds of M. de Pléneuf, and to permit him to return to Paris, though it refused to restore him his property. His daughter, however, hastened to provide for his necessities, and soon afterwards secured for him the post of secretary to Sennecterre, who had been despatched to England to discuss with the British Government the question of the restoration of Gibraltar to Spain.
The question of her relations with the Condé family presented some difficulty. The Duc de Bourbon’s two brothers, the Comte de Charolais and the Comte de Clermont, were disposed to be friendly enough. With the elder, indeed, she happened to be already on amicable terms, as some three years before, during a visit to Italy, he had stayed for a time at the French Embassy at Turin, and had been much pleased by the hospitality he had received while she had earned the gratitude of the Comte de Clermont by assisting him in a love-affair with a cousin of her own. But their sisters, with the exception of Mlle. de Clermont, were less inclined to complaisance, while it was plain that Madame la Duchesse looked upon Madame de Prie’s subjugation of her son with a very jaundiced eye. Madame la Duchesse had very little affection for the latter, but she aspired to control all his actions, and she strongly resented the appearance upon the scene of a rival influence. For some time she made no secret of her dislike of Madame de Prie, and treated her with the coldest disdain; and the favourite had need of all her suppleness to overcome her hostility. At length, however, the princess decided to accept the situation, and, though she continued to cherish for her son’s mistress a strong aversion, their relations were, to all appearances, perfectly cordial.