I have every reason to rejoice in the king’s favour, and so has my son, whom the king has made a very great seigneur. I am well pleased for him; we live happily together; he is a good lad with very good feelings.
October, 1701.
My health is now perfect, and to keep it so I drive out as much as I can. All the others hunt daily with the king, and go twice a week to the theatre. I am deprived of those things, as you know, and between ourselves, it is not a little privation to be obliged to forego those two amusements. I walk out often on foot and go a good three miles in the forest; that disperses the melancholy that would otherwise crush me; especially when I hear talk about public affairs of which I had previously never heard a word in all my life. I should be very fortunate if I could understand them as you do, but I never could, and at fifty one is too old to begin to learn; I should only make myself as annoying and irritating as a bed-bug. Apropos of bed-bugs, they nearly ate up the little Queen of Spain on her passage up the Mediterranean in the Spanish galleys. Her people were obliged to sit up with her all night. She arrived a few days ago at Toulon, and went from there by land to Barcelona because, so she wrote me, she could not endure the sea any longer. I would not be in her place; to be a queen is painful in any country, but to be Queen of Spain is worst of all.
I must acknowledge that the death of King James has made me very sad; his widow is in a situation to melt a heart of rock. The good king died with a firmness I cannot describe, and with as much tranquillity as if he were going to sleep. The evening before his death he said: “I forgive my daughter with all my heart for the harm she did me; and I pray God to pardon her, and also the Prince of Orange and all my other enemies.” The Queen of England cannot be consoled for the death of her husband, though she bears her sorrow with Christian resignation. I have nothing new to tell you; I walk and read and write; sometimes the king drives me to the hunt in his calèche. There are hunts every day; Sundays and Wednesdays are my son’s days; the king hunts Mondays and Thursdays; Wednesdays and Saturdays Monseigneur hunts the wolf; M. le Comte de Toulouse, Mondays and Wednesdays; the Duc du Maine, Tuesdays; and M. le Duc, Fridays. They say if all the hunting kennels were united there would be from 900 to 1000 dogs. Twice a week there is a comedy. But you know, of course, that I go nowhere; which vexes me, for I must own that the theatre is the greatest amusement I have in the world, and the only pleasure that remains to me.
You are wrong in supposing that I have ceased to read the Bible; I read three chapters every morning. You ought not to imagine that French Catholics are as silly as German Catholics; it is quite another thing,—one might almost say it is another religion. Any one reads Holy Scripture who chooses. Nobody here thinks the pope infallible, and when he excommunicated Lavardin in Rome everybody laughed and never dreamed of a pilgrimage. There is as much difference in France from the Catholic of Germany as there is from those of Italy and Spain.
Those who wish to serve God in truth and according to His word should read Holy Scripture every day; otherwise we sit in darkness. I am persuaded that good religion is founded on the word of God, and consists in having Jesus Christ in the heart; all the rest is only the prating of priests. Of whatever religion we be, it is only by works that true faith is shown, and only by them can it be judged who does right. To love God and our neighbour is the law and the prophets, as our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us.
I heard yesterday, through a letter from my aunt, the Electress of Brunswick, of the death of our poor Charles-Maurice. I am sincerely afflicted by it, and I pity you from the bottom of my heart. If Charles-Maurice had not loved wine so much he would have been a perfect philosopher. He has paid dear for his fault, for I am sure that drunkenness shortened his life; he could not keep from drinking, and he burnt up his body.
If the Court of France was what it used to be one might learn here how to behave in society; but—excepting the king and Monsieur—no one any longer knows what politeness is. The young men think only of horrible debauchery. I do not advise any one to send their children here; for instead of learning good things, they will only take lessons in misconduct. You are right in blaming Germans who send their sons to France; how I wish that you and I were men and could go to the wars!—but that’s a completely useless wish to have. The higher one’s position in life the more polite we ought to be in order to set a good example to others. It is impossible to be more polite than the king; but his children and grandchildren are not so at all. If I could with propriety return to Germany you would see me there quickly. I love that country; I think it more agreeable than all others, because there is less of luxury that I do not care for, and more of the frankness and integrity which I seek. But, be it said between ourselves, I was placed here against my will, and here I must stay till I die. There is no likelihood that we shall see each other again in this life; and what will become of us after that God only knows.
Versailles, 1704.
There are very few women here who are not coquettes by nature; it is excessively rare to meet any. Before God that is perhaps very reprehensible, but before men it is thought a fair game. The coquettes flatter themselves that, our Lord having shown in Holy Scripture so much charity for persons of their stripe, he will certainly have compassion for them; the cases of Mary Magdalen, of the Samaritan woman, and of the woman taken in adultery make them easy in mind. You must not think that they ever tire of coquetry; they cannot do without it, so to speak, and they never get tired of it. Drunkenness is but too much the fashion among the young women; but just now they are all in a state of complete satisfaction. Nothing is thought of but how to amuse the Duchesse de Bourgogne with collations, presents, fireworks, and other rejoicings: