“THE first family in France after the royal family, is evidently that of Lorraine; the second without dispute that of Rohan, and the third La Tour d’Auvergne, or Bouillon-Turenne, after that La Trémoille,” [66] and then come a whole string of illustrious names, Mailly-de-Nesle, Créquy, Harcourt, Clermont-Tonnerre, Saint Jean, Thoury; Sabran, La Rochefoucauld, Montmorency, Narbonne-Pelet, Béthune, Beauvoir, Beauffremont, Villeneuve (premier Marquis de France), and many others.
The writer of these fascinating memoirs of the time proceeds, after speaking of various noble names and regretting many that were extinct, such as Lusignan, Coucy, Xaintrailles, Châtillon, Montgommery, &c., to say, “One thing that has always given me the best opinion of the Noailles, is the protection they have never ceased to grant to all gentlemen who can prove that they have the honour to belong to them, no matter what their position nor how distant the relationship.” He (or she) [67] goes on to relate that a family of much less consideration, the Montmorin, being envious of the Noailles, asserted that they were not of the ancient noblesse, and pretended that they possessed a piece of tapestry on which a Noailles was depicted serving a Montmorin as a maître d’hôtel, with the date 1593.
But as the Noailles were known to have possessed the estate and castle bearing their name in the twelfth century, and that in 1593 the Seigneur de Noailles was also Comte d’Ayen, and of much more consequence than the Montmorin, this spiteful fabrication fell to the ground.
Nobody ever saw the tapestry in question because it did not exist, and Louis XV., speaking of the story, said scornfully, “Have there ever been such things as tapestries chez les Montmorin?”
For no one knew better than he did the histories and genealogies of his noblesse, and that he did not hesitate to explain them even when to his own disadvantage, the following anecdote shows:—
A discussion was going on about the great difficulty of proving a descent sufficiently pure to gain admittance into the order of the Knights of Malta.
“You think me de très bonne maison, don’t you?” said the King; “well, I myself should find difficulty in entering that order, because in the female line I descend in the eighth degree from a procureur.”
There was a general exclamation of dissent, but the King replied—
“I am not joking, Messieurs, and I am going to give you the proof of what I say. Griffet, the procureur, who was one of my ancestors, made a large fortune and gave his daughter in legitimate marriage to a Sieur Babou de la Bourdoisie, a ruined gentleman, who wanted to regild his shield. From this union was born a daughter who was beautiful and rich, and married the Marquis de Cœuvres. Everyone knows that of la belle Gabrielle, daughter of this Marquis, and Henri IV., was born a son, César de Vendôme; he had a daughter who married the Duc de Nemours. The Duchesse de Nemours had a daughter who married the Duke of Savoy, and of this marriage was born Adélaïde of Savoy, my mother, who was the eighth in descent of that genealogy. So after that you may believe whether great families are without alloy.” [68]