The next day Louis XV. has Madame de Villais waked up at four o’clock in the morning. He knows the Queen has great confidence in her, and he wants her to tell him if Marie Leczinska has really forgiven him. He expresses the most beautiful sentiments, begging God, as he says, to withdraw him from the world if his people would be governed better by some one else. His convalescence begins a few days later. The Queen is full of joy; she thinks her husband has become a saint. But here we leave the narrative to the Duchess de Brancas, a witness of the hopes and the disappointments of Marie Leczinska:—
“The old court,” she says in a curious fragment of Memoirs, “found small difficulty in convincing itself that God, after striking the King, would touch his heart. The maid-of-honor was so devoutly persuaded of this one day that, finding the King in such a condition that he could give the Queen indubitable marks of a sincere reconciliation, she had the Queen’s bed changed into a nuptial couch and put two pillows over the bolster. You can understand what hopes were revealed, by the joy of some people and the astonishment of others. The Queen had been wonderfully well dressed since the King’s convalescence; she wore rose-colored gowns. The old ladies announced their hopes by green ribbons; in fact, there had been nothing so spirituelle in toilet adornments seen for a long time; one was reminded of ancient gallantry by the way in which they were relied on to announce everything without compromising anybody. But you can also conceive the pleasure which the Duke de Bouillon and the Duke de Richelieu took in speaking to the King about what was going on in the Queen’s palace. He seemed so dissatisfied with it that these gentlemen thought they would not displease him by notifying the mothers of the churches that they had been mistaken in getting ready a Te Deum which they would never chant, and that nothing was more uncertain than the King’s conversion. This was quite enough to decide these ladies to change their toilette. Some assumed more modest colors, others lowered their headdresses, still others wore less rouge.”
The Duke de Richelieu, that Mephistopheles of Louis XV., had prophesied correctly. When he was sick, the King was a saint. When he was well, he once more became a debauchee. A sort of human respect made him blush at his momentary conversion to virtue. He felt there was something ridiculous in his repentance. He bore a grudge against his confessor, his chaplain, and all those who had given him good advice. The love of his people, far from touching his heart, dissatisfied him, because these loyal and faithful subjects had had the audacity not to kneel before the Duchess de Châteauroux. He took offence at the respect showed to the Queen, and considered the priests who had prayed so well for him almost as adversaries of his royal authority. Poor Marie Leczinska’s illusions were soon dispelled. When Louis XV. was about to leave Metz, she tremblingly asked his permission to follow him to Saverne and to Strasburg. “It is not worth while,” he responded in a dry tone. The Queen went away in despair. The heart she thought she had regained had finally escaped her.
X
THE DEATH OF THE DUCHESS DE CHÂTEAUROUX
What has become of Madame de Châteauroux? How is she bearing her humiliations and her disgrace? We left her at Metz at the moment when, driven away ignominiously by the Bishop of Soissons, treated as an accursed wretch by the people, overwhelmed by the anathemas of the public conscience, she with great difficulty procured a carriage from Marshal de Belle-Isle in which to return to Paris. Her flight had been painful. She only escaped rough treatment by taking by-roads and going through several villages in disguise and on foot. However, she had not yet submitted. From Bar-le-Duc she wrote to M. de Richelieu:[16] “I can well believe that so long as the King’s head is feeble he will be in a state of great devotion; but as soon as he is a little better, I bet I shall trot furiously through his head, and that in the end he will not be able to resist, and will quietly ask Lebel and Bachelier what has become of me.”
In the same letter the fallen favorite speaks of herself with admiring complacency. “So long as the King is living,” she says, “all the torments they want to inflict on me must be borne with patience. If he recovers, I shall affect him the more on that account, and he will feel the more obliged to make me a public reparation. If he dies, I am not the sort of person to humiliate myself, even if I could gain the kingdom of France by it. Up to now I have conducted myself with dignity; I shall always preserve that inclination; it is the only way to make myself respected, to win back the public and retain the consideration I deserve.” Can one be amazed at the illusions cherished by certain kings when a mere royal mistress has her eyes so thickly bandaged?
Debility succeeded to fever. Sometimes Madame de Châteauroux, intoxicated with pride and vengeance, fancied she was about to resume arrogantly the left-handed sceptre which had just slipped through her fingers; sometimes she cast a disdainful glance at the sorry spectacle of the human comedy, and talked of abandoning everything. She wrote from Sainte-Ménehould to the Duke de Richelieu (August 18, 1744): “All this is very terrible and gives me a furious disgust for the place I lived in despite myself, and, far from desiring to return there some day, as you believe, I am persuaded that even if they wished it I could never consent. All I desire, meanwhile, is that the affront offered me shall be repaired, and not to be dishonored. That, I assure you, is my sole ambition.... Ah! my God, what does all this amount to? I give you my word it is all over so far as I am concerned. I would have to be a great fool to go into it again; and you know how little I was flattered and dazzled by all the grandeurs, and that if I had had my own way, I would not have been there; but the thing is done; I must resign myself and think no more about it.”
These be sage reflections. But the favorite’s philosophy lasted no longer than the King’s repentance. La Rochefoucauld says in his maxims: “The intelligence of the majority of women serves rather to fortify their folly than their reason.” Hardly had she reached Paris when the Duchess felt all her ambitious spites and rages rekindle to new life. She wrote to the Duke de Richelieu: “You have good reason to say it would be fine to make the day of the Dupes come round again; for me, I don’t doubt, it is all the same a Thursday; but patience is needed,—in fact, a great deal of patience. All you have been told about the remarks made at Paris is very true; you could hardly believe how far they have gone; if you had been there at the time, you would have been torn to pieces.... I tell you we shall get through it, and I am persuaded it will be a very fine moment; I should like to be there now, as you can easily believe.”
Evidently, renunciation of earthly vanities was already far in the background. The Duchess wrote again to Richelieu, September 13: “I hope the King’s sickness has not taken away his memory. No one but me has known his heart thus far, and I assure you he has a very good one, very capable of sentiments. I don’t deny that there is something a little singular along with all that, but it does not get the upper hand. He will remain devout, but not a bigot; I love him ten times better; I will be his friend, and then I shall be beyond attack. All that these scamps have done during his illness will only make my destiny more fortunate and secure. I shall no longer have to fear either changes, sickness, or the devil, and we shall lead a delicious life.... Adieu, dear uncle, keep yourself well. For my part, I am really thinking of getting a health like a porter’s, so as to enrage our enemies as long as I can and have time to ruin them; that will happen, you may rely on it.”
Meanwhile all this was accompanied by moral and physical sufferings, convulsions, nervous attacks, inquietudes, and agonizing pains. With her ecstasies and self-abasements, her alternatives of pride and humility, folly and clear-sightedness, ardor and disgust, illusions and discouragement, Madame de Châteauroux is the type of the passionate woman. There is nothing sadder than this correspondence, which is the confession of a soul. One lacks courage to be angry with these avowals so naïve in their immorality. To make such scandals possible a whole century must be corrupted. What one should accuse is not a woman, but an epoch.