In view, therefore of the seemingly general evil opinion as to the character of François de La Motte we may possibly abate somewhat of the severity of judgment in regard to his wife. Yet on the whole Madame Aulnoy does not present a too pleasing portrait. Of her five children two only were acknowledged by their father. Marie-Angélique was born on the 26th of January, 1667; Dominique-César on the 22d of November of the same year; Anne, 1668; Judith-Henriette, 1669; Thérèse-Aymée in 1676.
Of these the only son died young. Thérèse was taken to Spain in the early part of 1679 by Madame Aulnoy, whither the latter had gone to rejoin her mother, the Marquise de Gudaigne. Marie-Angélique, it appears, had the clever nature of her mother, and won a salon reputation. She married Claude Denis de Herre de Vaudois. Anne, the most beautiful, married a gentleman of Berry, by name M. de Preaulx d’Artigny. Thérèse-Aymée remained in Spain with the queen, where she was in 1705. Judith-Henriette seems to have remained in Paris and followed, in a “carrière d’intrigue et de galanterie,” the footsteps of her mother and grandmother.
All amicable relations between Madame Aulnoy and her husband had come to an end even before the tragic event which all but involved her and her mother, and for which they were undoubtedly responsible. A certain C. Bonenfant, Seigneur de Lamoizière, and another, J. A. de Crux, Seigneur Marquis de Courboyer, who were, without seeming question, lovers of Madame Aulnoy and the Marquise de Gudaigne, attacked, at their instigation, in the courts, the unfortunate La Motte, who, however, managed to save himself, and the attempt ended in failure. The accusers were tried, put to the torture, and confessed. Both suffered death, and the two women found it necessary to make their escape. It was said that Madame Aulnoy was all but captured, having been found by the officer in bed, whence she managed to escape, and hid herself beneath a catafalque in a neighboring church. The two went first to England and afterwards to Spain. Here, however, having rendered some service to their own government, they were finally pardoned and returned to France, where, in 1699, Madame Aulnoy again appears, this time mixed up in the famous Ticquet scandal, which ended in the beheading of Angélique Ticquet on the 17th of June. Our author seems to have run some danger of joining her on the scaffold. She died, however, in her house in the Rue Saint-Benoit on the 14th of January, 1705.
If the Contes des Fées of Madame Aulnoy have had a remarkable vogue, not so fortunate has been the lot of some of the historical endeavors of this lady. Her Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne (1679-1681) and Mémoires de la Cour d’Angleterre (1695) have been quietly laid aside, together with the Histoire d’Hippolyte, Comte de Douglas (1690), and the Histoire de Jean de Bourbon (1692), for, though always interesting, the qualities of imagination which combine to the writing of a fairy tale are not quite those needed for the making of history, and unfortunately for the clever lady, it is in the field of “delicate frivolity” that she has been placed.
But Madame Aulnoy has put forward a more serious claim to legitimate reputation in the small volume of travel published anonymously at Paris in 1691, wherein she describes her voyage into Spain with a brilliancy and wealth of detail which is all the more grateful in that the period has furnished us with but little like it. In this Journey she has produced a remarkable book. To the quick eye of the clever French woman nothing is lost. She sees the astonishing condition of the Peninsula with an instant but not unsympathetic glance. Into what might have well proved a dismal picture she has woven her ever lively personality, and with a ready humor turns the incidents of evil chance to amusing asides. If in all this an air of unreality and lack of truth is introduced, it does not on the whole affect the picture. Nor does this resemble the more fanciful historical work of the same writer, for here at least all is natural and fairly told. Spaniards have been at pains to attack this writer. They have argued and abused. But it is not far wrong to find in her book a near approach to a truthful picture. There was, in fact, small need for calling up the imagination. There is evidence enough that in that day no one need closet himself and dream for the seeing of strange sights. It is the commonplace that surprises us. We feel how little the nation was responding to the sense of awakening which began to be felt elsewhere. Cervantes with his laughter had not brought to earth all fabrics of romance. The modern spirit was not yet stirring.
Of this book, as of Madame Aulnoy, Taine has been unhesitating in his praise. To him she was neither prude, philosopher, nor pedant; without affectation; a ready observer, praising or condemning with discretion, he seemed to find in her a representative in some measure of the great literary age of which she was a part.
And to him she never exaggerates; she has the inestimable qualities of good sense, frankness, and tact, is a French woman of culture and breeding. “On imprime,” he says, speaking of the book before us, “beaucoup de livres nouveaux, on ferait bien de réimprimer quelques livres anciens, au premier rang celui-ci.”
On the death of Philip IV., in 1665, a sigh of relief might well have risen from all Spain, yet scarcely through any anticipation of better days to come. For, though this man had presented to Europe a peculiarly marked type of bad government, his end raised no profound hopes of improvement. A man of strong character, of inflexible honesty, of patience; a statesman, a philosopher, and, last of all, a king, was what a few who remembered other days may have hoped. Instead, a Regency. At a time when throughout the land a magistrate, a viceroy, or a noble who had no place to sell or influence to buy was scarcely to be found; when an exhausted treasury, the loss of possessions, the slipping of prestige, the corruption of all classes, called for a guiding hand, then it was that fate saw fit to introduce a new king—at the age of four.