The Comte de la Marche, a prince of the blood--Madame de Beauvoir, his mistress--Madame du Barry complains to the prince de Soubise of the princess de Guemenee--The king consoles the countess for this--The duc de Choiseul-- The king speaks to him of madame du Barry--Voltaire writes to her--The opinions of Richelieu and the king concerning Voltaire
Amongst those personages who came to compliment me on the evening of my presentation was M. the comte de la Marche, son of the prince du Conti, and consequently prince of the blood. He had long been devoted to the will of Louis XV. As soon as his most serene highness had wind of my favor he hastened to add to the number of my court; and I leave you to imagine how greatly I was flattered at seeing it augmented by so august a personage.
This conquest was most valuable in my eyes, for I thus proved to the world, that by attracting the king to me I did not isolate him from the whole of his family. It is very true that for some time the comte de la Marche had been out of favor with the public, by reason of his over complaisance towards the ministers of the king's pleasure; but he was not the less a prince of the blood, and at Versailles this rank compensated for almost every fault. He was a lively man, moreover, his society was agreeable, and the title he bore reflected his distinction amongst a crowd of courtiers. I felt, therefore, that I ought to consider myself as very fortunate that he deigned to visit me, and accordingly received him with all the civility I could display; and the welcome reception which he always experienced drew him frequently to my abode.
The friendship with which he honored me was not agreeable to my enemies; and they tried by every possible means to seduce him from me. They got his near relations to talk to him about it; his intimate friends to reason with him; the females whom he most admired to dissuade him from it. There was not one of these latter who did not essay to injure me in his estimation, by saying that he dishonored himself by an acquaintance with me. There was amongst others a marquise de Beauvoir, the issue of a petty nobility, whom he paid with sums of gold, altho' she was not his mistress by title. Gained over by the Choiseuls, she made proposals concerning me to the prince of so ridiculous a nature, that he said to her impatiently: "I' faith, my dear, as in the eyes of the world every woman who lives with a man who is not her husband is a ------, so I think a man is wise to choose the loveliest he can find; and in this way the king is at this moment much better off than any of his subjects."
Only imagine what a rage this put the marquise de Beauvoir in: she stormed, wept, had a nervous attack. The comte de la Marche contemplated her with a desperate tranquillity; but this scene continuing beyond the limits of tolerable patience, he was so tired of it that he left her. This was not what the marquise wished; and she hastened to write a submissive letter to him, in which, to justify herself, she confessed to the prince, that in acting against me she had only yielded to the instigations of the cabal, and particularly alluded to mesdames de Grammont and de Guemenee.
The comte de la Marche showed me this letter, which I retained in spite of his resistance and all the efforts he made to obtain possession of it again. My intention was to show it to the king; and I did not fail to give it to him at the next visit he paid me: he read it, and shrugging up his shoulders, as was his usual custom, he said to me,
"They are devils incarnate, and the worst of the kind. They try to injure you in every way, but they shall not succeed. I receive also anonymous letters against you, they are tossed into the post-box in large packets with feigned names, in the hope that they will reach me. Such slanders ought not to annoy you: in the days of madame de Pompadour, the same thing was done. The same schemes were tried to ruin madame de Chateauroux. Whenever I have been suspected of any tenderness towards a particular female, every species of intrigue has been instantly put in requisition. Moreover," he continued, "madame de Grammont attacks you with too much obstinacy not to make me believe but that she would employ all possible means to attain her end."
"Ah," I exclaimed, "because she has participated in your friendship you are ready to support her."
"Do not say so in a loud tone," he replied laughingly; "her joy would know no bounds if she could believe it was in her power to inspire you with jealousy."
"But," I said, "that insolent Guemenee; has she also to plume herself on your favors as an excuse for overpowering me with her hatred, and for tearing me to pieces in the way she does?"
"No," was the king's answer; "she is wrong, and I will desire her father-in-law to say so."
"And I will come to an explanation with the prince de Soubise on this point; and we will see whether or not I will allow myself to have my throat cut like an unresisting sheep."
I did not fail to keep my word. The prince de Soubise came the next morning; chance on that day induced him to be extraordinarily gallant towards me; never had he praised me so openly, or with so much exaggeration. I allowed him to go on; but when at length he had finished his panegyric, "Monsieur le marechal," said I to him, "you are overflowing with kindness towards me, and I wish that all the members of your family would treat me with the same indulgence."
Like a real courtier he pretended not to understand me, and made no reply, hoping, no doubt, that the warmth of conversation would lead me to some other subject; but this one occupied me too fully to allow me to divert my attention from it; and, seeing that he continued silent, I continued: "Far from treating me as well as you do, madame your daughter-in-law behaves towards me like a declared enemy; she assails me by all sorts of provocation, and at last will so act, that I shall find myself compelled to struggle against her with open force."
You must be a courtier, you must have been in the presence of a king who is flattered from morning to night in all his caprices, to appreciate the frightful state in which my direct attack placed the prince de Soubise. Neither his political instinct, nor the tone of pleasantry which he essayed to assume, nor the more dangerous resource of offended dignity, could extricate him from the embarrassment in which he was thrown by my words. He could do nothing but stammer out a few unintelligible phrases; and his confusion was so great and so visible, that the marquis de Chauvelin, his not over sincere friend, came to his assistance. The king, equally surprised at what I had just said, hastily turned and spoke to Chon, who told me afterwards, that the astonishment of Louis XV had been equal to that of the prince de Soubise, and that he had evinced it by the absence of mind which he had manifested in his discourse and manners.
M. de Chauvelin then turning towards me, said, "Well, madame, on what evil herb have you walked to-day? Can it be possible that you would make the prince, who is your friend, responsible for the hatred which ought to be flattering rather than painful to you, since it is a homage exacted towards your brilliant loveliness?"
"In the first place," I replied, "I have no intention to cast on monsieur le marechal, whom I love with all my heart, the least responsibility relative to the object of which I complain. I only wished to evince to him the regret I experienced at not seeing all the members of his family like him: this is all. I should be in despair if I thought I had said anything that would wound him; and if I have done so, I most sincerely ask his pardon."
On saying these words I presented my hand to the prince, who instantly kissed it. "You are," said he, "at the same time cruel and yet most amiable: but if you have the painful advantage of growing old at court, you will learn that my children have not all the deference and respect towards me which they owe to their father; and I often am pained to see them act in a manner entirely opposite to my desires, however openly manifested. If my daughter does not love you, it is to me, most probably, that you must look for the why and wherefore: it is because I love you so much that she is against you. I have committed an error in praising you before her, and her jealousy was not proof against it."
"That is very amiable in you," said I; "and now whatever may be my feelings against the princesse de Guemenee, I will endeavor to dissemble it out of regard for you; and, I assure you, that however little consideration your daughter-in-law may testify towards me, I will show her a fair side: endeavor to make peace between us. I only ask to be let alone, for I do not seek to become the enemy of any person."
Altho' M. de Soubise said that he had no influence over the princesse de Guemenee, I learned, subsequently, that the day after this scene he testified to the Guemenee some fears as to his future destiny at court. He begged her not to oppose herself to me; to be silent with respect to me, and to keep herself somewhat in the shade if she would not make some advances towards me. His daughter- in-law, whose arrogance equalled her dissipation and dissolute manners, replied, that she was too much above a woman of my sort to fear or care for me; that my reign at the chateau would be but brief, whilst hers would only terminate with her life: that she would never consent to an act of weakness that would be derogatory to her character and rank. In vain did the prince try to soften her, and make her consider that my influence over the king was immense: he preached to the desert, and was compelled to abandon his purpose without getting any thing by his endeavors.
I now return to my conversation with him. During the time it lasted the king did not cease talking to Chon, all the time listening with attention to what the prince and I were saying; and he did not approach us until the intervention of M. de Chauvelin had terminated this kind of a quarrel. He returned to his seat in front of the fire; and when we were alone, said to me,
"You have been very spiteful to the <