Aime la d’Aubigné
Moi, Villarceaux, je mén créve de rire,
Hi! hé! hi! hi! hi! hé!
Puis je dirai, sans être plus lestes,
Tu n’as que mes restes,
Toi!
Tu n’as que nos restes,” etc. etc.
Briefly, the French nation looked with contempt on the left-handed marriage contracted by the king. Madame de Maintenon, less a bigot than an assumed one, hypocritical, ambitious, wrapped about in a veil of piety, ruled Louis to the disaster of the country. She was calmly, ruthlessly cruel in her methods of fostering the natural passion of Louis for getting all under his own control. Not content with the grasp of government which Richelieu had bequeathed to him, and he had retained with iron hand, he only too readily allowed himself to be urged to acquire the grip of the consciences of his subjects. The Edict of Nantes, established by the other great king, which had brought peace to the distracted land, and permitted the Protestants freedom of worship after their own simple forms, was revoked, religious intolerance was once more rampant, and to such a degree, that a few months later, a second edict deprived the Huguenots of keeping their children. The quick death of the night of St Bartholomew only took on now the guise of slow torture, prolonged into years, which witnessed the departure of an industrious community, and sowed the dragon’s teeth of revolution, which in less than another hundred years was to ripen into such fearful harvesting. Discontent prevailed, deep hatred rankled against the despotism of Versailles. The faults of Louis, glaring as they had ever been, had hitherto been toned in the eyes of his people by the brilliancy and glory of martial successes, and of great achievement in civil government; but victory was no longer constant, and the Thirty Years’ War had exhausted the public funds.
The enormous prodigality of the king’s mode of life was beginning to be more and more recognised for the evil it was. The Sun-King’s light was fast dimming; the people no longer worshipped from afar, and the death-stroke to his popularity and renown waned as the domination of Madame de Maintenon waxed ever more powerful. The pamphleteers fell to work. Many such productions found circulation in spite of the efforts of the police to run them to earth. One of marked effect was entitled, The Sighs of Enslaved France for Liberty, and was widely read. The liberal sentiments of the pamphlets made deep impression. When they were detected in any person’s possession, the unfortunate students were forthwith conducted to the torture-chamber or the Bastille; and while stricture on Louis was harshly enough dealt with, it was mild compared with any attacks on Madame de Maintenon. The king was so entirely conscious of the great political mistake he had made in his marriage with her, that it enraged him to be reminded of it. One of the tractates was called The Ghost of M. Scarron, and it was adorned with a picture parodying the statue of Louis on the Place des Victoires, whose four allegorical figures of its pedestal were replaced in the pamphlet picture by the figures of la Vallière, de Montespan, Fontanges, and de Maintenon. One morning the king found a copy of this literary effort under his breakfast napkin, and Madame Louis Quatorze also found one under hers. It was the princes of the blood who were her most bitter enemies, and their powerful influence fomented the enmity, and contrived to defeat, again and again, the endeavours of Monsieur de la Reynie, the lieutenant of police, to bring the pamphleteers to “justice.”
The Ghost of M. Scarron was the crowning offence, and Monsieur de la Reynie was summoned to Versailles, and commanded at any cost to track down the authors of this pamphlet.