Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV. and of the Regency Part 11

1719

They say that the d.u.c.h.esse du Maine used all her persuasions to induce her husband to fly; but that he replied, as neither of them had written anything with their own hands, nothing could be proved against them; while, by flying, they would confess their guilt. They did not consider that M. de Pompadour could say enough to cause their arrest.

The d.u.c.h.ess's fraternal affection is a much stronger pa.s.sion than her love for her children.

A letter of Alberoni's to the lame b.a.s.t.a.r.d has been intercepted, in which is the following pa.s.sage: "As soon as you declare war in France spring all your mines at once."

What enrages me is that Madame d'Orleans and the Princess would still make one believe that the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse du Maine are totally innocent, although proofs of their guilt are daily appearing. The d.u.c.h.ess came to me to beg I would procure an order for her daughter's people, that is, her dames d'honneur, her femmes de chambre, and her hair-dresser, to be sent to her. I could not help laughing, and I said, "Mademoiselle de Launay is an intriguer and one of the persons by whom the whole affair was conducted."

But she replied, "The Princess is at the Bastille."--"I know it," I said; "and well she has deserved it." This almost offended the Princess.

The d.u.c.h.esse du Maine said openly that she should never be happy until she had made an end of my son. When her mother reproached her with it, she did not deny it, but only replied, "One says things in a pa.s.sion which one does not mean to do."

Although the plot has been discovered, the conspirators have not yet been all taken. My son says, jokingly, "I have hold of the monster's head and tail, but I have not yet got his body."

I can guess how it happened that the mercantile letters stated my son to have been arrested; it is because the conspirators intended to have done so, and two days later it would have taken place. It must have been persons of this party, therefore, who wrote to England.

When Schlieben was seized, he said, "If Monsieur the Regent does not take pity upon me, I am ruined."

He was for a long time at the Spanish Court, where he was protected by the Princesse des Ursins. He has some wit, can chatter well, and is an excellent spy for such a lady. The persons who had arrested him took him to Paris by the diligence, without saying a word. On reaching Paris the diligence was ordered to the Bastille; the poor travellers not knowing why, were in a great fright, and expected all to be locked up, but were not a little pleased at being set free. Sandrazky is not very clever; he is a Silesian. He married an Englishwoman, whose fortune he soon dissipated, for he is a great gambler.

The d.u.c.h.esse du Maine has fallen sick with rage, and that old Maintenon is said to be afflicted by the affair more than any other person. It was by her fault that they fell into this sc.r.a.pe, for she put it into their heads that it was unjust they should not reign, and that the kingdom belonged as much to them as King Solomon's did to him.

Madame d'Orleans weeps for her brother by day and night.

They tried to arrest the Duc de Saint-Aignan at Pampeluna; but he effected his escape with his wife, and in disguise.

When they carried away the Duc du Maine, he said, "I shall soon return, for my innocence will be speedily manifested; but I only speak for myself, my wife may not come back quite so soon."

Madame d'Orleans cannot believe that her brother has been engaged in a conspiracy; she says it must have been his wife who acted in his name.

The Princess, on the other hand, believes that her daughter is innocent, and that the Duc du Maine alone has carried on the plot.

The factum is not badly drawn up. Our priest can write well enough when he likes; he drew it up, and my son corrected it.

The more the affair is examined, the more clearly does the guilt of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess appear; for three days ago, Malezieux, who is in the Bastille, gave up his writing-desk. The first thing that was found in it was a projet, which Malezieux had written at the d.u.c.h.ess's bedside, and which Cardinal de Polignac had corrected with his own hand. Malezieux pretends that it is a Spanish letter, addressed to the d.u.c.h.ess, and that he had translated it for her, with the a.s.sistance of the Cardinal de Polignac; and yet the letters of Alberoni to the Prince de Cellamara refer so directly to this projet that it is easy to see that they spring from the same source.

The d.u.c.h.esse du Maine has made the Princess believe that the Duke (of Bourbon) was the cause of all this business, so that now he dare not appear before the latter, although he has always behaved with great respect and friends.h.i.+p towards her; while the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse du Maine, on the contrary, have been engaged in a law-suit against her for five years. It was not until after the Princess had inherited the property of Monsieur de Vendome, that this worthy couple insinuated themselves into her good graces.

The Parliament is reconciled to my son, and has p.r.o.nounced its decree, which is favourable to him, and which is another proof that the Duc du Maine had excited it against him.

The Jesuits have probably been also against my son; for all those who have declared against the Const.i.tution cannot be friendly to him; they have, however, kept so quiet that nothing can be brought against them.

They are cunning old fellows.

Madame d'Orleans begins to recover her spirits and to laugh again, particularly since I learn she has consulted the Premier President and other persons, to know whether, upon my son's death, she would become the Regent. They told her that could not be, but that the office would fall upon the Duke. This answer is said to have been very unpalatable to her.

If my son would have paid a price high enough to the Cardinal de Polignac, he would have betrayed them all. He is now consoling himself in his Abbey with translating Lucretius.

The King of Spain's manifesto, instead of injuring my son, has been useful to him, because it was too violent and partial. Alberoni must needs be a brutal and an intemperate person. But how could a journeyman gardener know the language which ought to be addressed to crowned heads?

Several thousand copies of this manifesto have been transmitted to Paris, addressed to all the persons in the Court, to all the Bishops, in short, to everybody; even to the Parliament, which has taken the affair up very properly, from Paris to Bordeaux, as the decree shows. I thought it would have been better to burn this manifesto in the post-office instead of suffering it to be spread about; but my son said they should all be delivered, for the express purpose of discovering the feelings of the parties to whom they were addressed, and a register of them was kept at the post-office. Those who were honest brought them of their own accord; the others kept them, and they are marked, without the public knowing anything about it. The manifesto is the work of Malezieux and the Cardinal de Polignac.

A pamphlet has been cried about the streets, ent.i.tled, "Un arret contre les poules d'Inde." Upon looking at it, however, it seems to be a decree against the Jesuits, who had lost a cause respecting a priory, of which they had taken possession. Everybody bought it except the partisans of the Const.i.tution and of the Spanish faction.

My son is more fond of his daughters, legitimate and illegitimate, than his son.

The Duc and d.u.c.h.esse du Maine rely upon nothing having been found in their writing; but Mademoiselle de Montauban and Malezieux have written.

in their name; and is not what Pompadour has acknowledged voluntarily quite as satisfactory a proof as even their own writing?

They have got the pieces of all the mischievous Spanish letters written by the same hand, and corrected by that of the Cardinal de Polignac, so that there can be no doubt of his having composed them.

A manifesto, too, has been found in Malezieux's papers. It is well written, but not improved by the translation. Malezieux pretends that he only translated it before it was sent hence to Spain.

Mademoiselle de Montauban and Mademoiselle de Launay, a person of some wit, who has kept up a correspondence with Fontenelle, and who was 'femme de chambre' to the d.u.c.h.esse du Maine, have both been sent to the Bastille.

The Duc du Maine now repents that he followed his wife's advice; but it seems that he only followed the worst part of it.

The d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans has been for some days past persuading my son to go masked to a ball. She says that his daughter, the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri, and I, make him pa.s.s for a coward by preventing him from going to b.a.l.l.s and running about the town by night as he used to do before; and that he ought not to manifest the least symptom of fear. He replied that he knew he should give me great pain by doing so, and that the least he could do was to tranquillize my mind by living prudently. She then said that the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri filled me with unfounded fears in order that she might have more frequent opportunities of being with him, and of governing him entirely. Can the Devil himself be worse than this b.a.s.t.a.r.d? It teaches me, however, that my son is not secure with her. I must do violence to myself that my suspicions may not be apparent.

My son has not kept his word; he went to this ball, although he denies it.

Although it is well known that Maintenon has had a hand in all these affairs, nothing can be said to her, for her name does not appear in any way.

When my son is told of persons who hate him and who seek his life, he laughs and says, "They dare not; I am not so weak that I cannot defend myself." This makes me very angry.

If the proofs against Malezieux are not manifest, and if they do not put the rogue upon his trial, it will be because his crime is so closely connected with that of the d.u.c.h.esse du Maine that, in order to convict him before the Parliament, he must be confronted with her. Besides, as the Parliament is better disposed towards the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse du Maine than to my son, they might be acquitted and taken out of his hands, which would make them worse than they are now. For this reason it is that they are looking for proofs so clear that the Parliament cannot refuse to p.r.o.nounce upon them.

The Duc du Maine writes thus to his sister:

"They ought not to have put me in prison; but they ought to have stripped me and put me into petticoats for having been thus led by my wife;" and he wrote to Madame de Langeron that he enjoyed perfect repose, for which he thanked G.o.d; that he was glad to be no longer exposed to the contempt of his family; and that his sons ought to be happy to be no longer with him.

The King of Spain and Alberoni have a personal hatred against my son, which is the work of the Princesse des Ursins.

My son is naturally brave, and fears nothing: death is not at all terrible to him.

On the 29th of March the young Duc de Richelieu was taken to the Bastille: this caused a great number of tears to be shed, for he is universally loved. He had kept up a correspondence with Alberoni, and had got his regiment placed at Bayonne, together with that of his friend, M. de Saillant, for the purpose of delivering the town to the Spaniards.

He went on Wednesday last to the Marquis de Biron, and urged him to despatch him as promptly as possible to join his regiment at Bayonne, and so prove the zeal which attached him to my son. His comrade, who pa.s.ses for a coward and a sharper at play, has also been shut up in the Bastille.

[On the day that they were arrested, the Regent said he had that in his pocket which would cut off four heads, if the Duke had so many.

--Memoires de Duclos.]

The Duc de Richelieu had the portraits of his mistresses painted in all sorts of monastic habits: Mademoiselle de Charolais as a Recollette nun, and it is said to be very like her. The Marechales de Villars and d'Estrees are, it is said, painted as Capuchin nuns.

When the Duc de Richelieu was shown his letter to Alberoni, he confessed all that concerned himself, but would not disclose his accomplices.

Nothing but billets-doux were found in his writing-case. Alberoni in this affair trusted a man who had formerly been in his service, but who is now a spy of my son's. He brought Alberoni's letter to the Regent; who opened it, read it, had a copy made, resealed it, and sent it on to its destination. The young Duc de Richelieu answered it, but my son can make no use of this reply because the words in which it is written have a concealed sense.

The Princess has strongly urged my son to permit the d.u.c.h.esse du Maine to quit Dijon, under the pretext that the air was unwholesome for her. My son consented upon condition that she should be conducted in her own carriage, but under the escort of the King's Guard, from Dijon to Chalons-sur-Saone.