Ninon de l'Enclos and her century

by Mary C. Rowsell

And almost within the days of those marriage festivities at Versailles, la Grande Mademoiselle lay dying in the Luxembourg, and she sent for Mademoiselle de L’Enclos, very much to the surprise of that lady; for the two had not met after the misunderstanding created by the machinations of Madame de Fiesque. Only that morning, it appeared, Madame de Fiesque had made clean acknowledgment to the dying woman of the real facts of the rupture; and now, sorely distressed, she begged Ninon’s forgiveness, and to extend it to the far greater offender, Madame de Fiesque herself. Ninon replied that this was freely accorded. Her child was happy in the love of a good man. It was enough; and she turned and held out her hand to Madame de Fiesque, who sat sobbing in a corner of the room. Just at that moment a lady of honour entered, to say that Monsieur de Lauzun was at the door, desiring an interview; but the dying woman refused, entreating that he should not be admitted. “If you but knew, Ninon, how wretched he has made my life,” she gasped out. “Oh, I have cruelly expiated all my folly. There was never any bond blessed by Heaven between us. It was no more than a liaison. May God forgive me, since my suffering has been so great.” And so, two hours later, she died.

The noble traits in the disposition of the daughter of Gaston d’Orléans deserved a happier fate than to be the tool of a selfish coxcomb like Lauzun, who was, however, himself not destitute of good qualities; but whose best memory stands recorded by the patience and fortitude with which he endured the terrible suffering of a cancer in the mouth, of which he died at the age of more than ninety. The woman whose infatuation for him was so great as to sacrifice the natural dignity which distinguished her, was no ordinary character. Dignified she was, but without pride, and a pleasant and clever conversationalist. True in friendship, gentle and sensible, and incapable of any mean or base action. If sometimes her susceptible, sensitive temperament betrayed her into anger, she would quickly pour balm on the wound she had caused, by gracious and tender words and caresses. She had the courage of a soldier, and would endure fatigue, and face danger as one of the bravest. It is only the fate of ardent, generous souls like hers, if sometimes she was betrayed into the many nets which greed, jealousy and base cunning are always at hand to spread, for rendering nobler natures wretched. Mademoiselle de Montpensier was, in one word, a true descendant of her grandfather, Henri IV.

Lauzun, exiled as he had been, from Versailles, soon after passed over to England, where he contrived to make himself useful by conducting the queen and infant prince of James II. safely to France, during the revolution of ’88. Louis, who received the dethroned English king with great demonstration of sympathy and magnificence, and gave the exiles his palace of St Germains for their home, was thus again brought into direct communication with Lauzun, who, being readmitted to royal favour, was created a duke; but he never really regained the confidence of Louis.

On the occasion of the death of Mademoiselle, he presented himself at the palace, attired in a magnificent mourning cloak. This so angered Louis, that Lauzun ran a parlous risk of once more taking the road to Pignerol.

All that remained of la Grande Mademoiselle’s possessions was now proposed to be given to the illegitimate and legitimatized children of the king; but precisely how to deal with Lauzun and his wealth, acquired from Mademoiselle de Montpensier, was not so apparent, since the question still remained open, whether Mademoiselle had been his lawful wife. No one knew for certain, and Madame de Maintenon conceived the ingenious idea of trying to worm the true state of the case from Ninon, whom she knew had been summoned to Mademoiselle’s dying bed, feeling persuaded that Mademoiselle de L’Enclos was acquainted with it. She accordingly begged her, in a little note very affectionately worded, to come to Versailles.

Ninon was greatly tempted to reply that if Françoise desired to speak to her, she might be at the trouble of coming to the rue des Tournelles. All circumstances taken into account, and the generosity with which she had treated Françoise’s little ways, it did not appear to her that she was bound to wait upon the woman, merely because she had lighted upon the lucky number in life’s lottery. Ninon, however, was but a daughter of Eve. Curiosity was strong to see how Madame Louis Quatorze lived in the lordly pleasure-house, and forthwith she obeyed the summons.

Queen Maria Théresa’s surroundings and retinue had been modest enough even to parsimony. Madame Louis Quatorze was attended by a numerous guard, a train of pages, Swiss door-keepers, and the rest; while her Court and receptions were as magnificent as those of the king. Madame took herself very seriously, and her deportment had become most majestic. To Ninon, however, she unbent, and was simply the Françoise of old times. She led her into her own richly furnished private boudoir, adorned with a curious conglomerate of pictures and statuary, Christian and pagan, where an enormous, life-sized figure of Christ, in carved ivory, was neighboured by painted Jupiters and other Olympian deities, in curiously heterogeneous fashion. There Françoise embraced Ninon with quite a prodigality of affection. Suddenly, however, her manner changed; she congealed into gravity and tones of great solemnity, and Ninon saw the tapestry folds along the wall quiver slightly. It occurred to her that one only, His Majesty Louis XIV., could have any possible right to be present in that most private apartment, and even then she felt the need of putting a strong restraint upon herself and her foot, to prevent it from bestowing a kick upon the tapestry. Then the truth began to come out, the lamentable truth that Madame and the king were greatly perplexed as to the best mode of dealing with the Duc de Lauzan, whose possessions, made over to him by the Grande Mademoiselle, those, that is to say, which he still held, were much wanted for the king’s children. He had so many, as Madame de Maintenon pointed out. That, admitted Ninon, was true enough, “but I will engage, you will not be increasing the number,” she added. “What is the point of the question?” It was whether Mademoiselle had really married Monsieur de Lauzun.

The full significance of it all now dawned upon Ninon. Had Mademoiselle not been his wife, it would be a comparatively simple matter to compel a revocation of the gifts which the princess had made him in the course of her life, in order that these should enrich the children of de Montespan. No consideration was yielded to the fact that, be Lauzun what he might, the gifts had been tokens of Mademoiselle’s affection for him. Ninon preferred complete inability to afford any trustworthy sort of information on this head, and suggested applying for it to Madame de Fiesque, who might be better instructed: “but,” continued Ninon, “supposing Mademoiselle was not his wife, surely to publish the fact, would create a scandal which His Majesty would consider paying too dear a price for the estates of Auvergne and St Fargeau. Either she was Lauzun’s wedded wife or—”

Here the chronicle goes on to relate: Mademoiselle de L’Enclos’ words were interrupted by a tremendous disturbance at the door, occasioned by an altercation with the guards, of some person endeavouring to force his way in. The voice was d’Aubigné’s, and the next instant he reeled in, far gone in a state of intoxication, and staggering to his sister, he gripped her by the arm and thrust her back into the chair from which she had risen.

This chronicle goes on to relate a terrible scene, over which, for the honour of human nature, some kind of veil may be allowed to hang, lest veracious history has been embroidered by the ample material fact has afforded. The family differences of private domestic relations are frequently unedifying; but when it comes to the base humiliating of a great monarch, one in whose very vices and mistakes grace and virtue had been apparent, until the widow Scarron crossed his path, pen may well refrain from detail, and explain only that the intruder, d’Aubigné, had burst in upon his sister, to reproach her for her treachery in the matter of inducing him to enter St Sulpice. Taking advantage of the absence of his mentor and alter ego, Santeuil, she had contrived to trap him by false promises and misrepresentation into the hated place. His liberty for one thing, and of all things prized by d’Aubigné, would not, she had said, be curtailed; it had, however, been so entirely denied him, that when he had attempted to leave, he had been unceremoniously “clapped,” as he phrased it, “into a cellar,” and he had only escaped by wriggling through an air-grating. To any one possessed of the faintest sense of humour, the notion of making a monk of any sort of this wild harum-scarum would have seemed too preposterous; but the sense, always so lacking in Françoise d’Aubigné, allowed her to indulge in only too many absurdities whose ending was disastrous; and in any case, the notion of removing the incommoding one from the taverns and cafés and other public resorts where he freely gave utterance to his estimate of Madame Louis Quatorze, and notably of her newly acquired saintliness, was dominant in her, and to be achieved at any cost. She earnestly desired his conversion, possibly if only to silence the hideous music of the ditty, whose refrain he was for ever chanting in the streets, echoed by so many ribald tongues—