At the time of her arrest Mademoiselle de Montalais had managed to save Guiche's letters to Madame, of which she had the care, from falling into the hands of Monsieur. These she carried with her to her convent prison, whence she had sent them for safer keeping, as she thought, to her lover, Malicorne. This man showed them to a certain Manicamp, a supposed friend of the Comte de Guiche, from whom Vardes artfully got possession of them. And from this rape of the letters sprung a numerous progeny of little intrigues, by means of which, in the usual French fashion, a crowd of minor persons set to work to weave the threads of their own fortunes into the general pattern of Vardes-Guiche-Madame.
To enumerate all the adventures of this precious crew would require a book almost as long as the "Vicomte de Bragelonne." Perhaps only a Dumas could unravel all the threads of this curious tangle. And what a tangle it was! Think of the incriminating correspondence passing from a Montalais' hand to those of a Malicorne and a Manicamp, who wrote a libel on Madame and Guiche, printed in Holland, and bought up, all save one copy, by Madame's father-confessor, who travelled secretly to Holland for the purpose and had adventures not a few. Think of Vardes' forged letters from the Queen of Spain to ruin Madame—letters lost by the forgers. Think of the Comte de Guiche returning from Poland and discovering his friend's treachery; think of Guiche's attempts to clear himself in Madame's eyes—attempts in which the whole Gramont family lent a hand with daily consultations at the house of the famous Philibert and his La Belle Hamilton—attempts in which masked balls and lackey's liveries play a prominent part. If one thinks of the possibilities of such incidents, one will get some idea of the adventures the Affaire Guiche-Madame had to encounter. To stop it, once started, not even Vardes himself, had he wished, had the power. Like a Juggernaut, it continued to advance, crushing all who got in its way, the innocent and the evil alike.
So cleverly had Vardes schemed, it seemed impossible that Madame, still unaware of his villainy, could escape destruction. She carried on an intimate correspondence with her brother, Charles II., in which neither concealed their thoughts of the people around them. One of these letters, not very flattering to Louis, Vardes got possession of and showed the King, to whom as gentleman of the bedchamber he had easy access. But this fatal shot missed fire owing to the treachery of his chief ally—his mistress, Olympe Mancini, Comtesse de Soissons. This woman, believing that Vardes' hatred of Madame was but a mask to conceal a passion as wild as Guiche's for the Princess, had a quarrel with her lover, on whom in a fit of jealousy she revenged herself by having an éclaircissement with Madame. Horrified at the plot of which she was to be the victim, Madame went straight to the King and explained to him what she had learnt. Louis accepted her interpretation of the letter to her brother, and Vardes was sent to the Bastille.
But now the Comtesse de Soissons, realising that her jealousy had not only utterly lost her her lover but freed her rival, resolved to be revenged on the Comte de Guiche. She had one of his letters, in which, in his romantic way, he had offered to make his regiment swear allegiance to Madame. But the day was long past when Olympe Mancini could make Louis XIV. eager to fulfil her requests. To the mortification and terror of the Comtesse, he went to consult Madame. By this time Madame's gaiety was sobered by experience; she had come to see the incredible folly of a woman of her position flirting with Guiche and making friends with a Vardes. Whatever affection she may have had for the Comte de Guiche was at an end, and she wished him out of the way. But she was shrewd enough to detect an enemy in the Comtesse de Soissons, and she resolved to save Guiche at her expense as the lesser of two evils. Louis was induced to pardon him if it could be proved that his faults were small in comparison to those of his enemies. As Madame now held all the court-cards in the game, this was easy to do. She gave the King a full and frank account of her flirtation with Guiche from its beginning, as well as the complications to which it had led, and wrote to Guiche to do the same, "assuring him that she had found plain dealing the best security against Court machinations." The indignation of Louis was aroused, and he lost no time in venting his anger. Vardes was taken from the Bastille—the ancien régime's prison for such persons as we nowadays call "first-class misdemeanants"—and immured in a dungeon at Montpelier. It was nearly thirty years before he saw the Court of France again.
A much milder punishment was meted out to the Comtesse de Soissons. She was forced to retire into the country for a time; but, far from having a wholesome effect on her lawless spirit, this temporary exile seemed to have assisted its degeneration. When she returned to Court she took to poisoning, or was at least suspected of being implicated in the "Poison Affair," whereupon Louis had to banish her altogether from the country. She died in great misery, after a sensational vagabond life, just as the star of her son, Prince Eugene of Savoy, began to rise over Europe.
As for the Comte de Guiche, he and his Dulcinea never met again, in spite of all his attempts, in the last of which, disguised as a footman, he fainted in the very presence of Madame. Louis once more obliged him to carry his high-flown, imaginary passion off to the war then raging, in which, after a short but brilliant career, he perished. Of all those who had been entangled in this intrigue Madame alone succeeded in escaping with colours flying. But though the King's confidence in his brilliant sister-in-law was fully restored, and she was admitted to the secret councils of the Cabinet—a distinction that no other woman, save Madame de Maintenon, enjoyed in this reign—she could not win happiness. Monsieur was a constant thorn in her flesh. Perhaps it would have been impossible to overcome the resentment of his petty, contemptible nature; but Madame's attempt merely served to whet his dislike into hatred. Rightly guessing that his favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, fomented the discord between them, she determined that this man should be banished. The necessary excuse for effecting an object so thoroughly justifiable was provided for her by Louis, who disliked the Chevalier de Lorraine quite as much as she did herself. Instead of remonstrating with his brother on his behaviour, the King gave the Chevalier a lecture on the subject, who, by declaring that henceforth he would be answerable for Monsieur's good conduct, fell into the trap set for him.
"What!" said Louis haughtily, "you answerable to me for my brother? Do you think that I choose to have such a guarantee? But, be it so, I shall hold you to your word."
As opportunities of objecting to Monsieur's conduct were innumerable, the Chevalier's impertinent boast was soon put to the test. One day, accordingly, without any warning, Louis sent to arrest him. He was seized in a room in which he was closeted with Monsieur, who fell into such a paroxysm of grief and rage as to give the widest publicity to a disagreeable scandal.
But the Chevalier de Lorraine in a dungeon at the Château d'If, or in exile in Italy, was even more dangerous to Madame's domestic happiness than when at the Palais Royal. From the day of his favourite's disgrace to his wife's strange death a few months later, Monsieur was an impossible husband for any woman to live with. He seemed now to have but two objects in life, to be possessed of two burning desires which dwelt in him evilly like demons. One was the return of his Chevalier, the other the death of Madame.
The vindictive animosity that Monsieur displayed towards his wife was still further whetted by a singular mark of favour which Louis bestowed on his sister-in-law. Wishing to detach Charles II. from the alliances he had formed, the King of France thought that he could not find a more suitable instrument to accomplish his design than the insinuating Madame, whose relations with her brother were, as Vardes had proved to him, of the most cordial description. The Princess, when the subject was explained to her, willingly undertook to go to England and negotiate with Charles in person, having, according to one authority, the ulterior object of persuading her brother to afford her his protection in the not unlikely event of her separating from her husband, whose conduct was becoming more and more insupportable. Whether this was so or not, considering the character of Monsieur, it was extremely undesirable that he should be acquainted with the secret of her mission. Hereupon he availed himself of his conjugal rights with characteristic pettiness and forbade her to leave France. But Louis was not to be thwarted in a matter of such importance to him by his brother's paltry rancour, and he sternly told Monsieur "that she should go and that he would have no more obstacles thrown in his way."