[7] Four or five years after the period I am speaking of, the Maréchal was greatly disgraced by seducing a married woman of quality, Madame de St. Vincent, descendant of the famous Madame de Sevigné. The suit between them made considerable noise. At his hotel in Paris he built a pavilion in his garden, luxuriously furnished, for his amours; as it was supposed to be built with his plunder of the Electorate of Hanover, it was nicknamed Le Pavillon d’Hanovre.
[8] In his eighty-third year he married his third wife, who, it is said, had too much reason to complain of his infidelities. This heartless voluptuary died in 1788, at the great age of ninety-two.—E.
[9] See supra, vol ii. p. 245.—E.
[10] He claimed affinity with the Barrys, Earls of Barrymore, and that family did acknowledge the relationship, and had the meanness, when so many French would not, to grace the mistress’s triumph at Versailles. [This alludes to Lady Barrymore, a foolish woman, whom Walpole ridicules in his Correspondence. An amusing life of the Comte du Barry is given in the Biographie Universelle, partly from an autobiographical MS. He seems to have been a consummate blackguard. He perished by the guillotine in 1794. A more favourable account of the Du Barrys is to be found in Capefigue, the panegyrist of every Bourbon king but Henry the Fourth.—(Louis XV., et la Société du XVIII. Siècle, t. iv. pp. 106–111.)—E.]
[11] It was a most absurd etiquette at the Court of France that the King’s mistress should be a married woman,—perhaps for fear of the precedent of Madame de Maintenon.
[12] She was the daughter of the Comte de Chabot, and widow of a Monsieur de Clermont. The Prince de Beauvau, son of the late Prince de Craon, a Lorrainer, and one of the Colonels of the King’s guards, had been attached to her, during the life of his first wife, daughter of the Duc de Bouillon, and married her on his wife’s death. [The Prince had served with distinction in the German wars. He was made Governor of Provence in 1782, and Marshal in 1783. He died in 1793.—E.]
[13] I once said this very thing to her. I was sitting by her at her own house at some distance from the rest of the company, and we were talking of the stand making against Madame du Barry. The Duchesse de Choiseul asked me if that opposition of the nobility to the King’s pleasure would not be reckoned greatly to their honour in England? I answered coldly, “Yes, Madam.” “Come,” said she, “you are not in earnest; but I insist on you telling me seriously what you think.” I replied, “Madam, if you command me, and will promise not to be angry, I will tell you fairly my opinion.” She promised she would. “Then,” said I, “I think this is all very well for Mesdames de Beauvau and de Grammont; but you, Madam, had no occasion to be so scrupulous.” She understood the compliment, and was pleased—and I knew she would not dislike it, as it was no secret to me that she was violently jealous of and hated her sister-in-law; and I knew, too, that her warmth against Madame du Barry was put on, that Madame de Grammont might not appear to have more zeal against the Duc de Choiseul’s enemy than she had. When she advised her husband to resign, she was more sincere. Her warmest wish was to live retired with her husband, on whom she doted; and she perhaps thought the Duchesse de Grammont did not love her brother enough to quit the world for him. She herself was once on the point of retiring into a convent from the disgusts the Duchesse de Grammont continually gave her. The Duke always sat between his wife and sister at dinner, and sometimes kissed the latter’s hand. Madame de Choiseul was timid, modest, and bashful, and had a little hesitation in her speech. Madame de Grammont took pleasure in putting her out of countenance. When the Duke was banished, his wife and sister affected to be reconciled, that their hatred might not disturb his tranquillity. Madame de Choiseul was pretty, and remarkably well made, but excessively little, and too grave for so spirituous a man. Madame de Grammont, with a fine complexion, was coarsely made, had a rough voice, and an overbearing manner, but could be infinitely agreeable when she pleased. Madame de Choiseul was universally beloved and respected, but neglected; Madame de Grammont was hated by most, liked by many, feared and courted by all, as long as her brother was in power. Her own parts, and the great party that was attached to the Duke, even after his fall, secured much court to the Duchesse de Grammont. The Duke esteemed his wife, but was tired of her virtues and gravity. His volatile gallantry did not confine itself to either.
[14] Madame de Mirepoix was the eldest daughter of the beautiful Princesse de Craon, mistress of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, who married her to Monsieur de Beauvau, a poor nobleman of an ancient family, whom he got made a Prince of the Empire. [She was a woman of extraordinary wit and cleverness, but totally without character. Many amusing anecdotes of her may be found in the memoirs of the day, especially those of Madame de Haussez.—E.]
[15] Madame de Monconseil was the friend and correspondent of Lord Chesterfield, whose letters to her show that he entertained a high opinion of her sense and good breeding.—(See Lord Chesterfield’s Letters, vol. iii. p. 159, note. Lord Mahon’s edition.)—E.
[16] It is due to the satisfaction of the reader that I should give an account how a stranger could become so well acquainted with the secret history of the Court of France. I have mentioned my intimacy with the Prince and Princesse de Craon. It was in the years 1740 and 1741, when the Prince was head of the Council there, and my father was Prime Minister of England, I resided thirteen months at Florence, in the house of Sir Horace Mann, our resident and my own cousin—passed almost every evening at the Princesse’s, and being about two years older than their son the Prince de Beauvau, contracted a friendship with him, and was with the whole family at Rome when the Prince went thither to receive the toison d’or from the Prince of Santa Croce, the Emperor’s Ambassador. That connection with her family soon made me as intimate with Madame de Mirepoix on her arrival in England, which my frequent journeys to Paris kept up. Madame de Monconseil had been in correspondence with my father; I was acquainted with her in 1739, and renewed my visits in 1765, and often since. Her house was the rendezvous of the Duc de Choiseul’s enemies, and I have supped there with Maréchal Richelieu and Madame de Mirepoix. The Dowager Duchesse d’Aiguillon was an intimate friend of my friend Lady Hervey, and was remarkably good to me. In England I was as intimate with the Comte and Comtesse du Châtelet, the bosom friends of the Duc de Choiseul, and was regularly of their private suppers twice a-week, just at the beginning of Madame du Barry’s reign; and as they knew how well I was at the Hôtel de Choiseul, and consequently better acquainted than almost any man in England with what was passing, it was an entertainment to them to talk to me on those affairs; at the same time that I had had the prudence never to take any part which would not become a stranger, and was thus well received by both parties. The Maréchal Richelieu was an old lover of the Dowager Duchesse d’Aiguillon, and constantly at her house; and yet she acted a handsome and neutral part; and it was at last that with great difficulty her son could make her go to Madame du Barry. But the great source of my intelligence was the celebrated old blind Marquise du Deffand, who had a strong and lasting friendship for me. As she hated politics, she entered into none, but being the intimate friend of the Duchesse de Choiseul, who called her “granddaughter” (Madame du Deffand having had a grandmother Duchesse de Choiseul), of the Prince of Beauvau and of Madame de Mirepoix, I saw them all by turns at their house, heard their intrigues, and from her: and on two of my journeys I generally supped five nights in a week with her at the Duchesse de Choiseul’s, whither the Duke often came—and in those, and in the private parties at Madame du Deffand’s I heard such extraordinary conversations as I should not have heard if I had not been so very circumspect, as they all knew. I shall mention some instances hereafter. Here are two. Madame de Mirepoix soon grew not content with Madame du Barry. I was one evening very late on the Boulevard with Mesdames du Mirepoix and Du Deffand. The latter asked the former, “Que deviendroit Madame du Barry, si le Roi venoit à mourir?” “Que deviendroit elle?” replied she, with the utmost scorn; “elle iroit à la Salpetrière, et elle est très faite pour y aller.” On the death of Louis the Fifteenth Madame de Mirepoix was disgraced; on which her brother, the Prince de Beauvau, in compassion, was reconciled to her, and she and the Princess pretended to be reconciled, and always kissed when they met. I saw them and their niece, the Viscomtesse de Cambis, act three of Molière’s plays two nights together, to divert Madame du Deffand, who was ill. This was in 1775. Yet when I went to take leave of Madame de Mirepoix, she opened her heart to me, and showed me how heartily she still hated her sister-in-law.