COUNTESS DE LAMOTTE
(After Robinet)
Nature had specially cast Madame de Lamotte for the part she played in this drama. Descended from the Valois through a natural son of Henry II, her family had sunk into a state of abject poverty. At her birth her father was reduced to poaching for a livelihood on his former ancestral estate. He eventually died in the Hôtel Dieu, the famous hospital for the indigent founded by Madame de Pompadour. Madame de Lamotte herself as a child was a barefoot beggar on the highway. It was in this condition that she first attracted the attention of the Marquise de Boulainvilliers, who out of pity gave her a home, educated her as well as her brother and sister, and afterwards obtained a small pension for them from Louis XVI.
Being naturally extremely precocious and intelligent, Jeanne de Saint-Remy, as she was called, did not neglect her opportunities. It was her misfortune, however, to derive but small profit from them. Having flirted with the wrong people—her benefactress’s husband and a bishop—she married the wrong man. Lamotte was good-looking, of a respectable family, and crippled with debt. Unable to support himself and his wife on his pay as a subaltern in the army, he resigned his commission, adopted the title of Count—to which he had a shadowy claim—added Valois to his name, and went to Paris to seek fortune, where the Countess made the most of her wits and her looks.
The expedient to which she most frequently resorted was to pester well-known people with petitions, in which she sought to have the claim she had set up to the lands of her ancestors recognized. As by some extraordinary coincidence the Crown had recently acquired these lands, she had, she hoped, only to find the right person to take up her cause to triumph in the end. Among those to whom she appealed was Cardinal de Rohan. His Eminence, who was both sympathetic and susceptible, manifested the greatest pity for the young and charming Countess whose condition was in such a contrast to her illustrious birth. He was amazed that the Court should so neglect a descendant of Henri II, and promised readily to support her claim. A few days later in his capacity as Grand Almoner of France, he sent his interesting protégée 2,400 livres as an earnest of his intention. As gratitude and necessity caused the suppliant to renew her visits frequently, the impression she produced on the Cardinal deepened. His pride as well as his sensuality urged him to protect a woman as fascinating and distinguished as she was unfortunate. He entered into her views, gave her advice; and even confided to her his own grievances and desires.
With all his splendour his Eminence was what is known as a disappointed man. It was his ambition to play a conspicuous part in affairs of state. To flatter him the sycophants who surrounded him were in the habit of comparing his abilities to those of Richelieu, Mazarin, and Fleury, the three great Cardinals who had governed France. It was more than his right, it was his duty, they told him, to become First Minister. In reality he was utterly unfitted for such a position, though not more so than Calonne and Loménie de Brienne, the last two ministers to govern the state under the ancien régime. Rohan, however, intoxicated by flattery, believed what he was told; and his desire for power developed into a passion, a fixed idea.
One obstacle alone stood between him and the pursuit of his ambition—Marie Antoinette; a fascinating and dazzling obstacle to this consecrated voluptuary, so dazzling that it became confused in his mind with the summit from which it kept him. He did not bear the Queen the slightest resentment for her animosity to him. He was aware that it had been imparted to her by her mother Maria Theresa, at whose instance he had been recalled from Vienna twelve years before. He felt certain that if he could but meet her, get into communication with her, he could win her esteem. Unfortunately Marie Antoinette’s contempt extended to Louis XVI. Versailles was thus closed to the Cardinal. He was never seen there but once a year, on Assumption Day, in his rôle of Grand Almoner, when he celebrated mass in the Royal Chapel.
The confidences of her protector gave the Countess de Lamotte more than an insight into his character. In the vanity and credulity they revealed, her alert and cunning mind saw a Golconda of possibilities which not only her necessity but her genius for intrigue urged her to exploit.[28] By circulating rumours of her friendship with the Queen, to which her frequent journeys to Versailles in search of some influential person to present her petition to the King gave weight, she had obtained credit from tradespeople. To cause this rumour to glide to the ears of his Eminence was easy. And as people generally believe what flatters them, when Madame de Lamotte spoke of the interest that the Queen took in him, an interest that circumstances compelled her to conceal, the dissipated, amorous Cardinal, too vain to dream any one would deceive him, listened and believed all he was told.
Thus began the famous series of violet-tinted letters which during May, June, and July, 1784, passed between Marie Antoinette and Rohan. This correspondence of which the Queen, needless to say, had not the least inkling, becoming as it proceeded less and less cold and reserved, inflamed all the desires that fermented in the heart of the Cardinal. In this way it was the simplest thing in the world for the Countess de Lamotte to induce him to send the Queen through her “60,000 livres out of the Almonry funds for a poor family in whom her Majesty was interested.”