The court of Louis XV

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

The early days of the marriage were very happy; at that time Louis XV. was a model youth. The counsels of his former preceptor, the Bishop of Fréjus; the sense of duty; religious beliefs; the timidity inseparable from adolescence,—all these contributed to keep in the paths of wisdom the young monarch who dreamed of being a good husband and father, a good king, and working out his own salvation along with the welfare of his subjects. Naturally inclined to the pleasures of the senses, he attached himself to Marie Leczinska with the ardor of an innocent young man who loves for the first time. Notwithstanding the shamelessness of many of them, the court beauties did not yet venture to raise their eyes toward this royal adolescent, who made even the most audacious respectful, by his gentleness and his reserve. Nothing, at this time, announced the disorders to which the young monarch was one day to yield himself. The roués of the Regency could not console themselves for having so calm and virtuous a master; they awaited with impatience the moment when they could thrust him over the declivity of scandal, and, like real demons, they lay in wait for their prey.

III
THE DISGRACE OF THE MARQUISE DE PRIE

The Marquise de Prie congratulated herself upon having brought Marie Leczinska to the throne. It was, in fact, as D’Argenson has remarked, an excellent choice, according to the views of the Marquise: “Fecundity, piety, sweetness, humanity, and, above all, a great incapacity for affairs. This court policy required, moreover, a woman without attractions and without coquetry, who could only retain her husband through the sense of duty and the necessity of giving heirs to the crown.” The Duke and his favorite had found in the Queen all the gratitude and complaisance they had counted on. As to the King, amused by the chase, festivities, journeys to Marly, Chantilly, and Rambouillet, he occupied himself with politics very little. The prime minister could flatter himself on being a real mayor of the palace. But he had reckoned without a prelate of seventy-four years, to whom ambition had come with age, and who was about to cast down with a breath all this scaffolding of intrigues and calculations.

Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, the preceptor of Louis XV., was of humble origin, having been the son of a tithe-collector[8] in the diocese of Fréjus. Appointed chaplain to Queen Marie Thérèse in 1680, “he was,” says Saint-Simon, “received at the ministers’ houses where, in fact, he was of as little importance as he was elsewhere, and often supplied the place of a bell before such things had been invented.” He was selected as preceptor for the little Prince, who was to be styled Louis XV., and gained his pupil’s good-will by his easy, gentle, and insinuating character, his perfect calmness, and his mingled veneration and tenderness for a child who, thinking himself always menaced, felt that this assiduous and obsequious devotion protected him. The secret of his affection for Fleury was that Fleury never opposed him. He affected, moreover, an absolute disinterestedness, and seemed to be making a sacrifice to the King by remaining at court instead of taking refuge in a convent. The Bishop was always one of the party when the young King was working, or pretending to work, with his Ministers. In appearance he guarded the most humble, most insignificant attitude; but, in reality, he exerted an influence which exasperated the Duke, and still more Madame de Prie. The Queen herself was jealous of the confidence enjoyed by this silent old man who followed the King like his shadow, and who seemed likely to monopolize everything in spite of his modest airs. The Marquise, who had constant access to the Queen in her capacity as lady of the palace, contrived a real plot with her. It was a question of getting rid of this troublesome third person who was always putting himself between the King and the Prime Minister. “In order to deliver herself from the old Bishop, Madame de Prie devised a scheme by which she might take his place, and enter almost openly into the council of State. She persuaded her lover to induce the King to work in the apartments of the Queen whom he loved, at least with that love which every young man feels for the first woman he possesses. The preceptor, having no lessons to give there, would not follow his pupil, so that, without being pushed too rudely he would slip out of his place, and, naturally, find himself on the ground. Then the Marquise, relying on the good-nature of the Queen, would introduce herself as a fourth, and from that time on would govern the State. Although the plan seemed to her an admirable one, yet its success was not equally so.”[9]

The little conspiracy, however, had been conducted with great vigor. One evening, the Queen, who happened to be with the Duke of Bourbon, sent the King a request to come to her. Louis XV. complied, and the Prime Minister handed him a letter from Cardinal de Polignac containing violent accusations against the Bishop of Fréjus. This was the first time that Fleury had not been present when the King and the Duke were together. Convinced that his exclusion was henceforth determined, he went at once to his own apartment, and after writing a very mournful but tender and respectful letter in which he took leave of his young master, he departed at once for the Sulpician convent at Issy. The Duke and Madame de Prie thought themselves sure of victory, but they were in too great haste to triumph. On reading the letter of his former preceptor the King began to weep. He dared not avow the cause of his chagrin, however, and being always timid and irresolute, he kept silence. His first gentleman, the Duke de Mortemart, at last emboldened him. “What! Sire, are you not the master?” said he. “Have the Duke told to send a messenger at once for Monseigneur de Fréjus, and you will see him again.” This was no sooner said than done. The Bishop returned, and hid his success at first under the appearance of modesty. He pretended to desire nothing for himself, and showed profound deference toward the Duke, but the Prime Minister and his favorite were doomed.

The little King, with his seventeen years, was about to show that he was master. With that dissimulation which from infancy he had been accustomed to consider a quality indispensable to princes, he silently prepared the Duke’s downfall. As he was getting into his carriage to go to Rambouillet, June 11, 1727, he said to his Prime Minister with the most gracious air in the world: “I expect you to supper this evening.” The Duke re-entered the château in perfect confidence. But what was his surprise when, three hours later, he received a royal letter in these terms:—

“I order you, under pain of disobedience, to repair to Chantilly, and to remain there until further orders.” This was a veritable exile. The Duke submitted without a murmur. At the same time, the Queen received this laconic billet from Louis XV.: “I beg you, Madame, and if necessary, I order you, to do all that the Bishop of Fréjus shall tell you from me as if he were myself.” The poor Queen wept and resigned herself. As to Madame de Prie, she was struck at the same time as her lover, and relegated to her estate of Courbépine in Normandy. M. de Prie was startled at this disgrace. He went about asking people with an affectation which made everybody smile: “But what is there in common between the Duke and my wife?” Those who but yesterday were at the feet of the Duke and his favorite now overwhelmed them with gibes and sarcasms. The people lighted bonfires, and the walls were covered with posters whereon might be read: “A hundred pistoles’ reward for whoever finds a valuable mare accustomed to follow a one-eyed horse.”[10]

M. Michelet, usually so severe and merciless toward the court of Louis XV., speaks with a certain complacency of the Marquise de Prie. “Though history ought to be severe toward this female tyrant,” says he, “it is, nevertheless, a duty to own the vigor with which she supported the bold attempts of Duverney. This rude government, thoroughly violent and shameless as it was, had, nevertheless, instincts of life which one may regret in the mortal torpor of the asphyxia which followed it.” One hardly comprehends this indulgence, for there was nothing moral, nothing great in the ephemeral reign of the Duke and his mistress.

It is not an easy thing for a coquettish, ambitious woman, accustomed to have her caprices accepted as laws, to endure disgrace, humiliation, and retirement. Madame de Prie was at first under an illusion. She thought she would be speedily recalled to Versailles, but when she saw she was mistaken, and that her place as lady of the palace had been given to the Marquise d’Arlincourt, her disappointment was cruel. According to M. Michelet: “She devoured her own heart, and could not conceal it. No caged lion or tiger ever was so restless. She was furious, and talked nonsense. She hoped to die, and later on she tried to kill herself by furious excesses; but in vain. She lost nothing by it but her health, her freshness, and her beauty. In extremis she still retained a lover and a friend in her desert. The latter, very malicious, very corrupt, a real cat, was Madame du Deffand, and the two friends scratched each other every day between their caresses. The lover, a young man of merit, persisted in loving her, bad as she was. She was hopelessly dried up, and her last punishment was that she could not resume life through love. She was devoured by pride. She no longer desired anything but to die like a Roman woman, like Petronia.”

All this seems to us exaggerated. We believe Madame de Prie was too frivolous to experience such despair. She had not waited for her exile in order to know those alternations of sadness and folly which accompany vice even when it has the air of being happy. For some time, already, the taste for intrigue, the thirst for pleasure, the ardor of ambition, had kindled in her veins a fever which undermined her strength. Her plumpness had been succeeded by an excessive lankness. Struggling against ill-health with extreme energy, she tried to build herself up, to put a good face on everything, to shake off trouble, and find amusement. Though her body was so much weakened, says the Marquis d’Argenson, her mind and temper were still as gay, shrewd, merry, and frivolous as in the times of her greatest prosperity. Even in her misfortune she had courtiers who deceived her. She had become ugly, and her flatterers continued to tell her she was adorable. She was hopelessly ill, and her physicians told her she was doing very well. Two days before her death she played in a comedy, and recited three hundred lines with as much sentiment as memory. Nevertheless, she had predicted her approaching death. People thought, however, that this was but a jest, a pleasantry. Hence, when she breathed her last, October 6, 1728, after such convulsions that her toes were turned towards her heels, a rumor that she had poisoned herself got abroad. Such a suicide is improbable, and not easily reconcilable with the superficial character of Madame de Prie. M. Michelet adds that she made a farcical confession (bouffonna une confession)—these are the expressions employed by an historian who is often too fanciful. What can M. Michelet know about it? Why does he affirm that she did not repent of her faults and errors? Greater sinners than she have been illuminated at the last moment by a ray of light. It is certain, at all events, that the sudden and terrible death of this young woman of only twenty-nine years, who expiated so cruelly her shameful successes, was a striking lesson for her contemporaries. Was Madame de Prie’s death-bed conversion sincere? God only knows.