In this suspense, inquiry was made for some lady of great rank to present the new Countess. Not one could be found that would stoop to that office. Maréchal Richelieu was forced to fetch an obscure lady from Bordeaux. The presentation, however, was delayed. Madame, the eldest of the King’s daughters, took to her bed, and protested she would not receive the mistress. This stopped it for some time. The Duc de la Vauguion, Governor of the Dauphin, a great bigot and partisan of the Jesuits, went to Madame, and advised her to be civil to the Countess. She asked him if he came by the King’s orders? He said, No, but as a well-wisher to her Royal Highness. She bade him instantly quit the room: and the hypocrite reaped nothing but the shame of having prostituted himself to so scandalous an office for the good of the Church—the zealot party hoping everything from the rising Cabal—and, in fact, as despotism soon took such strides under the new influence, enthusiasm had reason to flatter itself with a restoration, too, under a doating Prince, a common strumpet, an old debauchee, and a profligate swindler, aided by such adjuncts as the Head of the Law and D’Aiguillon, who breathed the very spirit of the Inquisition. This junto soon called a female saint to their counsels, the Carmelite Louisa, the King’s youngest daughter; and the poor Monarch divided his leisure between Capreœ and Mount Carmel.
In the meantime the Duc de Choiseul went so far as to talk of resigning, if the presentation took place. Arrogant as he was, this bravery was not solely of his own growth, but inspired by the women of his connection. Of all human kind, there were not two beings so insolent as his own sister, the Duchesse de Grammont, and her friend, the Princesse de Beauvau.[12] These amazons took it into their heads to brave the King and his mistress; and, though the creatures of favour, were so transported by this imaginary heroism, that they urged the Duke to resign in defiance. This impertinence in Madame de Grammont was absurd beyond measure. Subsisting but by her brother’s power, abhorred for her haughtiness, suspected of many gallantries, and notorious for one that ought to have been the most secret, what could she expect from his fall but universal neglect? The Princess, no Penelope, was hurried on by equal impetuosity, and by rancour, to another person, whom I shall mention presently: yet, divested of their passions, both these viragos had uncommonly good understandings. There was a third person, who it was more surprising took the same line, though regulated by the same decency that governed all her actions. This was the Duchesse de Choiseul, a woman in whom industrious malice could not find an imperfection, unless that charming one of studying to be a complete character. She was too virtuous to fear reproach or contagion from civilities to the mistress, and should have left it to the Duchess and Princess to be disdainful prudes.[13] Yet in a quiet style she was not less earnest than they in soliciting her husband not to bend to the ignominy of the hour. The King, who, by a singular situation, opened all letters, having the chief postmaster his own creature, and not the Minister’s, read the Duchesse’s importunities with her husband; and as he had expected more duty from her, resented her behaviour more than that of the two other dames.
After an anxious suspense of three months, and when the public began to think the presentation warded off, it suddenly took place. The King returning from hunting, found (no doubt by concert) Maréchal Richelieu, who was in waiting in the outward room with a letter in his hand. The King asked what it was? “Sire,” said the Duke, “it is from Madame du Barry, who desires the honour of being presented to your Majesty.” “With all my heart,” replied the King; “she may come to morrow, if she pleases.” This was said aloud. The Duc de Choiseul and Versailles learnt the news at the same moment. Next day all Paris was there to see the ceremony.
Notwithstanding such indications of the Cabal being possessed of the King’s confidence without the privity of the Minister, the faction of the latter had established such a tone, that the person of all France who seemed most in disgrace, was the new mistress. The men, indeed, began by degrees to drop their visits at her apartment, and then sparingly to appear at her toilet. The women shunned her as they do an unhappy young damsel, who has fallen a victim to a first and real passion. At Marly, in the very salon with the King, it was a solitude round his mistress: and one or two of the ladies attending the Mesdames deigning to leave their names at her door, were scratched out of the list for Marly by Madame. On the other hand, the Duchesses de Choiseul and Grammont and the Princesse de Beauvau, refusing to stoop even to that piece of form, were totally excluded from the King’s suppers. Instead of being mortified, they engaged all their female relations in the same insult.
It became necessary for the King to form a new set of company; yet all his authority could assemble but five or six women of rank, and those of the most decried characters, except the last I shall mention. There was Madame de l’Hôpital, an ancient mistress of the Prince de Soubize; the Comtesse de Valentinois, of the highest birth, very rich but very foolish, and as far from a Lucretia as Madame du Barry herself. Madame de Flavacourt was another, a suitable companion to both in virtue and understanding. She was sister to three of the King’s earliest mistresses, and had aimed at succeeding them. The Maréchale Duchesse de Mirepoix[14] was the last, and a very important acquisition. No man, no woman in France, had a superior understanding; and it was as agreeable as it was profound. Haughty, but supple, she could command respect even from those that knew her; and could transform herself into, or stoop to, any character that suited her views. All this art, all these talents, were drowned in such an overwhelming passion for play, that though she had long had singular credit with the King, she reduced her favour to an endless solicitation for money to pay her debts. Her constant necessities were a constant source of degrading actions. She had left off red, and acted devotion to attain the post of Dame d’Honneur to the Queen; the very next day she was seen riding backwards with Madame de Pompadour in the latter’s own coach. In one of her moments of poverty she had offended Choiseul by matching her nephew, the Prince d’Henin, with the daughter of Madame de Monconseil, a capital enemy of the Prime Minister, but rich and intriguing.[15] To accelerate the Prime Minister’s ruin, to secure her own favour, and in opposition to her sister-in-law, the Princesse de Beauvau, Madame de Mirepoix now united herself strictly, not only with the mistress, but with Maréchale Richelieu, who, having killed her first husband, the Prince of Lixin, thirty years before in a duel, had been obliged, as much as possible, to shun her company. But in all this scene of hatred and intrigue, nothing came up to the enmity between the Maréchale and the Princesse. That the latter boasted of it was not surprising. The former, as cool as the Princesse, was outrageous—confessed it too. The first fruits of her complaisance, was a gift of an hundred thousand livres from the King. One day she attempted to explain away this reward to her niece, Madame de Bussy. “It was promised to me,” said Madame de Mirepoix, “a year ago; but from the disorder of the finances I did not obtain it till now; but it was not in consideration of my attention to Madame du Barry.” “No surely, Madam,” replied the other; “it would not have been enough.”[16]
The King having gratified his mistress, was very desirous of preserving peace; and, as usual, unwilling to change his Minister. The Duc de Choiseul availed himself of this indolence, and, to re-establish the appearance of his credit, obtained the recall of the Parliament of Bretagne, the deepest wound he could inflict on the Duc d’Aiguillon. The latter returned the blow. The Duc de Chaulnes was dying;[17] D’Aiguillon treated with him for the purchase of the Chevaux legers, and secretly, by the mistress’s influence, obtained the King’s consent. The Duc de Choiseul laboured to defeat it, but in vain. Now again to prop his credit, he procured to have the Procureur-General du Châtelet sent to the Bastille, for announcing that he was to be Comptroller-General in four days. This was an able man, and a creature of the Cabal. The King, too, was prevailed on to say in council, that he heard there were reports of an approaching change in the ministry, and did he know the authors, he would thrust them into a dungeon. To revive their hopes, the mistress herself carried the Duc d’Aiguillon his new patent.
At the same time, probably by the King’s direction, in hopes of some accommodation, the mistress sent for the Duc de Choiseul. He replied, If she wanted him, she might come to him. She sent again that she was not dressed, and must see him. It was to ask preferment for that very postmaster that was his enemy. The Duke went; and though he staid an hour and a quarter with her, came away refusing her request; and leaving her, who had been only an instrument of the Cabal, an offended principal. The weakness of this conduct was the more remarkable, as he had the example of his immediate predecessor, the Cardinal de Bernis, before his eyes.[18] From an indigent, sonnet-writing abbé, Madame de Pompadour had raised Bernis to the Cardinalate, and to the office of Prime Minister. In six weeks he refused to wait on her in her apartment, as if incompatible with his sacred dignity—and as if ingratitude was compatible with it! In six days she sent him to his bishopric.[19]
At Fontainebleau, hostilities were carried very high, but came to no decision. It was known, that though the Duc de Choiseul had staid so long with the mistress, he had rather exasperated than softened her. When they were partners at whist with the King, she made faces and shrugged up her shoulders at the Minister. The King disapproved this, and forbade it. One night after the Court’s return to Versailles, the Maréchal de Soubize, playing against her, said to her on her scoring two by honours, “Non, Madame, vous n’aviez pas les honneurs; vous n’aviez que le roi.” The King laughed, and so did the mistress violently; it being said without design, by Monsieur de Soubize, who was extremely decent, and not hostile to her. Had he been her friend, he could have decided the contest at once to the ruin of Choiseul; for Soubize was better than any man with the King; and, had he not wanted ambition, might have been minister himself.
With all her antipathy to Monsieur de Choiseul, Madame de Mirepoix had too much parts not to be sensible of his, and of his engaging vivacity. One day, that to please her Madame du Barry was railing at the Duke, she caught herself, and said, “Mais comprenez vous, Madame, qu’on puisse tant hair un homme qu’on ne connoit pas?” Madame de Mirepoix replied, “Je le comprendois bien moins, Madame, si vous le commissiez”—as flattering and genteel a compliment as could be made by an enemy.
The desperate state of the finances brought the Duke as near to his ruin as the Cabal could do. His new Comptroller-General, to whom he paid unbounded court, to give him spirits, could, as everybody had foreseen, produce no effectual plan; and though he offered one, it was rejected by the majority of the Council. The man, who was upright, desired leave to retire, said he had done his best, and had neither enriched himself nor his friends. The King ordered Choiseul to name another. Aware of the difficulty, and to avoid furnishing his enemies with a new handle for accusing him of miscarriage, he threw the burthen off himself, saying, it was the Chancellor’s business. Maupeou, the Chancellor, named the Abbé du Terray, who immediately set out, with a violence and rigour beyond example, not only lessening pensions and grants by the half, but striking at the interest on the debt; and was on the point of blowing up the credit of France entirely, especially with foreign countries. Choiseul probably inflamed the bankers of the Court; and then harangued so ably in Council against such breach of faith, that he carried it against the Comptroller, to make good their foreign engagements, the King himself saying, every man must tax himself, and that he himself had two thousand louis-d’ors, and would give them to support public credit.[20] This victory, and the clamours of the sufferers, endeared Choiseul more than ever to the nation. At the same time he gave a dangerous wound to his capital enemy, the Duc D’Aiguillon, who, perceiving the horror he had raised, or that had been raised, by the story propagated of having attempted to have La Chalotais poisoned, petitioned the King to allow him to be tried for his conduct in his government of Bretagne. Choiseul, under pretence of justifying him, prevailed on the King, not only to consent, but to order the trial in his own presence at Paris, whither the Parliament was ordered to repair and be prosecutors,—a measure big with a cruel alternative; as, if guilty, the Duc D’Aiguillon would not be able to conceal his guilt from the King; and, if acquitted, the novelty of the trial, and the known partiality of his master, would seem to have screened him from conviction. The Parliament was very averse to this new mode, but was obliged to acquiesce; and so great vexation did the accused undergo, that at the very beginning of the trial it threw him into a jaundice. After the trial had gone on for many weeks, the King suddenly put a stop to it, forbade all further proceedings, declared his approbation of the Duc d’Aiguillon’s whole conduct, and that the latter had done nothing but by his orders, and for his service—a sentence, that left the public at liberty to surmise the worst, when the criminal did not dare to trust his cause even to so partial a protector! The sequel of these intrigues will appear in the following years.