Louis XIV., having taken the opportunity while England and Holland were at war to plunder Spain of Flanders, was now anxious to swallow the Franche Comté and the Palatinate. Hereupon all Europe became terrified, and England and Holland hastened to patch up their differences. All the Ministers and Members of Parliament whom Louis had bought suddenly turned against him. The patriotism of the whole nation was profoundly stirred. Even Buckingham turned Puritan—for a time. With his broncho bucking like this Charles was obliged to exert all his skill to save himself from being thrown. He disbanded the regiments, to keep up which, in case he should need them, Louis had paid him eight million livres. Moreover, at this critical time, when the Duchess of Portsmouth was of the utmost consequence to Louis, she fell seriously ill. The less said of this illness the better, it was anything but creditable to her royal lover. Misfortune seldom comes alone, and to discourage her Grace still more a large sum of money and her jewels were stolen, while at the same time the Duchesse de Mazarin arrived and fascinated Charles. Never had Louise de Kéroual been so near utter ruin. Even Louis began to neglect her now. "She who was so plucky and fertile in resources," says Forneron, "began to lose courage. Courtin wrote to Louis to communicate to him a scene that took place in her apartment. He went to visit her at Whitehall and found her weeping. She opened her heart to him in the presence of her two French maids, who stood with downcast eyes close to the wall, as if glued to it. Tears flowed from their mistress's eyes; sighs and sobs interrupted her speech. M. Courtin stayed with her until midnight, trying to soothe her wounded spirit. Louvois made fun of her troubles, and coarsely wrote that the scene of la Signora adolorata had vastly amused his Majesty."
But perhaps to "little Kéroual," now so sunk in favour, hourly expecting to be dismissed by the fickle Charles, and to be publicly disgraced like Jane Shore, nothing seemed so hard to bear as the ridicule showered upon her by Nell Gwynn.
Nell inspired her with fear as well as hate. In the bottom of her heart Louise de Kéroual knew what she was; every time she looked into her mirror it was not a duchess but a prostitute she saw reflected in it; in many a moment of triumph shame leered at her suddenly from under the flattery of Ambassadors and Ministers, Court ladies and serving-maids. A prostitute and a prostitute's fate haunted her everywhere. It was to escape the terror of this ghost that she tried to disguise herself as a Duchess of Portsmouth and a Duchesse d'Aubigny. The same reason induced her to make people in England believe she was closely related to the illustrious family of Rohan by going into mourning when one of its junior members died. It was also the underlying motive of her desire to possess the right of a tabouret, whereby she hoped to strangle the scorn of Versailles. And Nell Gwynn stripped her masks from her and dragged her down to her own unspeakable level in a way that no art could baffle. A specimen of Nell's method of torturing her rival would scarcely be suffered in print nowadays, but some idea of it may be got from the following style in which Madame de Sévigné describes it, taking advantage herself of the occasion to sneer at "Kéroual":—
"This is how Gwynn argues: 'That hoity-toity French duchess sets up to be of grand quality. Every one of rank in France is her cousin. The moment some grand lord or lady over there dies, she orders a suit of deep mourning. Well, if she's of such high station, why is she such an (unprintable)? She ought to be ashamed of herself! If I were reared to be a lady, I am sure I should blush for myself. But it's my trade to be a (likewise unprintable), and I was never anything else. The King keeps me; ever since he has done so I have been true to him. He has had a son by me, and I'm going to make him own the brat, for he is as fond of me as of his French miss.'"
She had to endure Nell Gwynn just as Queen Catherine had to endure herself and the Duchess of Cleveland.
It is not likely that Courtin was touched by the sight of her dejection when he paid her the visit mentioned above. Louis XIV.'s Ambassadors in England never wasted sympathy on those who were falling from power. But an event unexpectedly occurred at this critical juncture that proved advantageous to the spy. The Duchesse de Mazarin, "that female Buckingham," as Mrs. Jameson very aptly calls her, recklessly threw her great opportunity away by falling madly in love with the Prince of Monaco, "who came to England for two weeks and prolonged his visit for two years." Hereupon the sly Courtin advised her Grace of Portsmouth to dry her eyes and entertain. This advice was followed with considerable success, and Charles's lukewarmness was once more turned to boiling heat when Louise, who had gone away to Bath to take the waters, returned more blooming than ever. With the restoration of her health all her energy and cunning returned. Feeling the need of powerful English friends, and perhaps, too, from the devotion she always showed to her family, she sent to France for her sister Henriette, and married her to the Earl of Pembroke, on which occasion Charles gave the bride away, and a handsome dowry as well. Her power over her royal lover being once more established, and as an incentive to her loyalty of which at such a critical situation Louis had more need than ever, he now bestowed on her the ducal estates of Aubigny, with the right of transmission to her son, and the coveted tabouret. About the same time Charles created the issue of this amour Duke of Richmond.
The cunning of the Duchess of Portsmouth was never better displayed than on this occasion. For Charles, who was still afraid of her Grace of Cleveland, in order to allay her jealousy, had created his eldest son by this former mistress Duke of Grafton. But far from allaying the jealousy of the Duchess of Cleveland, it aroused that of the Duchess of Portsmouth as well. Each determined that her own son should take precedence of the other's; this could only be settled by one woman getting the letters patent signed before the other. The Duchess of Portsmouth now gave evidence of the ingenuity she possessed, for learning that the Minister whose duty it was to affix the seals to these patents was starting for Bath, she went to him at night just as he was stepping into his carriage, and thus "did" her rival, who arrived the first thing the next morning to find him gone and her object defeated. History does not relate her Grace of Cleveland's language on this occasion.
Fortune once more smiling on "Madam Carwell," she worked for Louis with a right good will. "It is to her," says Forneron very fittingly, "more than to any statesman, that France is indebted for French Flanders, the Franche Comté, her twice secular possession of Alsace, her old ownership of the valley of the Mississippi and Canada, and her lately revived claim on Madagascar." Louis thoroughly understood that if his dream of empire was ever to be realised, it could only be by the aid of England. But the English people were in a white rage with France, due to the unblushing policy of Louis, which directly menaced the existence of England. And political fear was kept alive by religious hate. "They will vote anything against us in the House of Commons," reported Courtin, "and they say they are ready to sell their shirts off their backs to keep the Netherlands from being seized by us. These are the very words they make use of." Active assistance, an alliance, was clearly out of the question. And the temper of the English people being such, could even their passive aid be counted on, would they be content merely to look on angrily while Louis carved up the map of Europe to suit him?
To Courtin this seemed improbable. "Make haste to conquer what you can," he wrote to Louvois dejectedly. "Clearly not the man for the delicate work he has to do," thought Louis. So Courtin was recalled, like Colbert de Croissy and Ruvigny before him. All three were men of exceptional ability—men trained in the school of Mazarin to specialise their talents, and to each of them the Court of Whitehall proved a labyrinth whose man-devouring Minotaur was the Imperial policy of Louis Quatorze.
Courtin was succeeded by Barillon, who, says Forneron, "was master in the art of corrupting men, and of hiding his contempt for those whom he corrupted. He resembled those Ambassadors of Phillip II. who showered doubloons on the Catholic conspirators, affected interest in the democracy of the League, saw their heads fall without a shudder, and when the game was lost, prepared coolly for a new one." As if to render the Machiavellian abilities of this man still more dangerous, nature had gifted him with warm human affections and an exquisite sense of the Beautiful! Barillon is probably the greatest Ambassador that ever represented a foreign nation at the English Court.