immediately composed for her an Oraison Funèbre, in which occurs this noteworthy passage: "Madame de Mazarin no sooner established herself anywhere than she opened a house which caused all others to be forsaken. There was found there the greatest freedom in the world and equal discretion. Every one was more at his ease than in his own home, and bore himself more respectfully than at court." It is here, as SainteBeuve has remarked, that lies the principal merit of Hortense; "the art in living and in reigning that has immortalized her and vindicated her fame. She showed, when all is said, justice and economy even in the prodigality of her own endowments and of her gifts; she was not satisfied with being brilliant herself, she liked brilliancy in others; she sought for enlightenment, and to do so was something new in those days; and she knew how to surround herself everywhere with a circle of distinguished men; in fine, she lived and died as a great lady." She died in 1699, and M. de Mazarin, separated from her for so long a time, had her body brought to him, and carried it about with him for nearly a year from one to another of his estates. "He deposited it for a time," SaintSimon says, "at Notre Dame de Liesse [the name Our Lady of Joyousness was singularly appropriate], and the pious peasants of the neighborhood prayed to her as a saint, and consecrated their rosaries by touching them to her coffin." The little Italian girl, the great lady, the French saint, — the strangeness of the career is completed by this last elevation. About midway of the stay of the Duchesse de Mazarin in England, it was in 1687, there came there, on a visit to her, her equally brilliant but not so beautiful sister, the Duchesse de Bouillon, Marie-Anne, the youngest of all. Though the youngest, her cleverness and precocity as a child had led to her being treated by her uncle, it is said, almost as if she were the eldest. She was his special favorite, and of the queen also, and consequently of the whole court. She was married at the age of sixteen, about the same time as Marie and Hortense; after her uncle's death, but by his command. Her husband, "le meilleur parti de France," the Abbé de Choisy thought, was a nephew of the great Turenne, by whom the marriage was arranged with the cardinal, and the duchess found herself connected, on all sides, with persons of distinguished position. It was not unnatural, therefore, that, as Saint-Simon says, "she carried pride to audacity, and her pride entered into all her concerns; but as she had much intelligence, and wit, and delicacy of perception, she recognized proportions, and had the judgment never to exceed them, and to conceal her assumptions by much civility toward persons whom it was desirable not to offend, and by an air of familiarity with others which veiled as with kindness her tone of authority. In whatever place she was, she led, and appeared the mistress. It was dangerous to displease her; she denied herself few things, and when she did so it was from consideration for herself; elsewise, a very faithful friend, and very trustworthy in intercourse." 7 "Never was there a woman," he continues, "who occupied herself less with her toilet; and there are few faces as beautiful and as peculiar as hers that have so little need of aid, a to which everything is so becoming; still she was always much dressed and with beautiful jewels. She was well informed, talked well, was fond of discussions [like Hortense], and sometimes said biting things." This characterization of her comes from one who knew her in her later years, but must be true of her in great measure during her most splendid season, the twelve or fifteen years following her marriage. In the course of the very first year representations of both pieces, to secure after her marriage, she made the ac- hisses for the one and applause for the quaintance and became in her degree the other, an honorable trick that cost her patroness of La Fontaine, whose praises fifteen thousand livres. There was a of her have added to her renown as moment when the battle seemed doubtthat of Hortense has been increased by ful, and when Racine's disheartenment Saint-Evremond. He was past forty was extreme; he saw his great work alwhen they met, and his reputation not most the victim of his enemies. But yet made, and her appreciation of him when the power of the duchess's purse seems to have given a needed stimulus was broken, the forces of Racine soon to his indolent genius; so that, in some took glorious possession of the field. measure, we owe La Fontaine to Madame de Bouillon. She and her kindred obtained for him places and gave him pensions, and thus aided him materially. Before 1677, the year of the production of this masterpiece, the imperious young duchess had gained for herself the position of a bestower of literary fame. But her decrees were not always equitable. Though Molière as well as La Fontaine had been counted among her guests, she was none the less influenced by inferior men of letters, and by them she was inspired with a prejudice against Racine, which was shared by her odd and brilliant brother, the Duc de Nevers, and by her young but influential nephews, the princes of Vendôme. These were the powerful leaders of a league that was formed against Phèdre, with the intention of stifling it as soon as it should appear. For this purpose, they brought forward a rival to Racine in the person of the pseudo-poet Pradon, whose name, to his misfortune, became, in consequence, later, caught, like a fly in amber, in the satiric verse of Despréaux. They induced him to write a tragedy on the same subject, which was acted two nights after the first performance of the Phedre of Racine. Madame de Bouillon engaged the front boxes for the first six There followed immediately, however, a scattered combat of violent epigrams. M. de Nevers opened fire with a sonnet, of which the first line "Dans un fauteuil doré, Phèdre, tremblante et blême and the rhymes throughout were echoed by an answering sonnet, supposed then, erroneously, to be written by Racine and Despréaux, but really composed by some young nobles, their partisans, which began,— "Dans un palais doré, Damon, jaloux et blême," and in which the most insulting allusion is made to "Une sœur vagabonde, aux crins plus noirs que blonds," who wanders through the world; that Toutes les nations sont vos propres Etats, The angry duke replied with another "Racine et Despréaux, l'air triste et le teint blême," and threatened a more vigorous vengeance. But Racine and Despréaux were taken under the protection of the great house of Condé, and the barks of the cabal died away; “le bruit passager de leurs cris impuissants," as Boileau begged his friend to consider them. Unfortunately, Madame de Bouillon, like her sisters, found herself obliged at one time to withdraw behind convent But Racine, wounded and discouraged, days, a fourth Grace would have been for twelve years afterward wrote no deified for her sake." more; and only ventured back to the stage under the inspiration (in a double sense) of Esther, of Madame de Maintenon. The only gain to literature to counterbalance such loss is to be found in the admirable seventh Epistle of Boileau, occasioned by the attack on Racine. The companions of Madame de Bouillon in this adventure were her familiar associates at all times: her brother; her brother-in-law, the Duc d'Albret, who at twenty-six years of age became the eulogized and condemned Cardinal de Bouillon; and her nephews, the famous and infamous Vendôme and his fraternal brother. Nothing could be more disreputable (in the moral sense) than this circle; but no society could be more brilliant than theirs, not only in the magnificence of its luxury, but in the keenness of its wits and its powers of intellectual appreciation. La Fontaine, in a letter to Madame de Bouillon, after a passage of light and easy reference to the Cartesian philosophy, continues: "Those who are not sufficiently aware of what your Highness knows, and what you desire to know without taking any greater trouble than hearing it talked of at table, would not think me very judicious to entertain you thus with philosophy; but I could tell them that all sorts of subjects are welcome to you, and also all sorts of books, provided they are good of their kind;" and he adds in verse: "Le pathétique, le sublime, Le sérieux, et le plaisant, Tour à tour vous vont amusant. Tout vous duit, l'histoire et la fable, Prose et vers, latin et français." Writing to Saint-Evremond, La Fontaine says of Madame de Bouillon: "It is a pleasure to see her disputing, scolding, jesting, and talking of everything with so much wit that one cannot imagine more. If she had lived in pagan NO. 386. VOL. LXIV. 49 bars, from whence she issued gayer and more charming than ever, and able to cope with the highest powers. This she was forced to do on the occasion of the La Voisin affair, in which she, like her sister Olympe, was involved, but not to the same extent; Madame de Bouillon was simply "interrogated." There is in Madame de Sévigné's letters a not-tobe-rivaled account of the scene, which took place in January, 1680: "Mesdames de Bouillon et de Tingry [a sister of Madame de Luxembourg] were interrogated yesterday at the chamber of the Arsenal. Their noble families accompanied them to the door. It would seem, at present, that there is nothing black in the follies attributed to them; not even dark gray. If nothing more is discovered, the thing is a great scandal that might have been spared persons of such position. The Maréchal de Villeroi [the same whom we have heard thirty years and more before speaking of the Mancini] says that these gentlemen and ladies do not believe in God, and do believe in the devil." Then she mentions an absurd accusation against Madame de Bouillon, of wishing the death of her husband, and continues, "When a Mancini commits only such a folly as that, it's permitted; and these sorceresses [La Voisin, etc.] tell of it seriously, and fill all Europe with horror about a trifle." Then the narrative begins: "Madame de Bouillon entered the chamber like a little queen; she sat down in a chair that had been arranged for her; but, instead of answering the first question, she demanded to have written down what she wished to say, which was that she came there only from respect for the king's order, and not at all from respect for the chamber, which she did not recognize, not choosing to derogate from the privilege of dukes.' She did not say a word till that was written; then she took off her glove, showing a very beautiful hand. She answered honestly, even about her age. 'Do you know La Vigoureux?' 'No.' 'Do you know La Voisin?' 'Yes.' 'Why do you wish to get rid of your husband?' 'I, to get rid of him! You may ask him if he thinks so; he accompanied me to that door.' 'But why did you go so often to this Voisin?' 'Because I wanted to see the Sibyls whom she had promised me; one would go far to meet such company.' 'Have you not shown this woman a bag of money?' She said she had not, and for more than one reason, and all this with a laughing and scornful manner. Well, gentlemen! is this all that you have to say to me?' 'Yes, madame.' She rose, and as she went out she said audibly, 'Really, I never should have believed that sensible men could ask such foolish questions.' She was received by her relations and her friends of both sexes with adoration, she was so pretty, and simple, and natural, and daring, and with such an excellent manner and such a quiet mind." Her daringness is confirmed by a story Voltaire reports, to the effect that one of the counselors of the chamber was unwise enough to ask her if she had seen the devil; to which she answered that she saw him at that moment; that he was very ugly and very disagreeable, and was disguised as a counselor of state. The interrogation, Voltaire says, was not continued. A fortnight later, Madame de Sévigné writes: "Madame de Bouillon has boasted so much of the replies she made the judges that she has drawn down on herself a lettre de cachet to go to Nérac, near the Pyrenees; she went yesterday in much trouble. . . . All her family accompanied her half a day's journey. . . . Think of the four sisters, what a wandering star rules them! - one in Spain, one in England, one in Flanders, one in the depths of Guienne." This affair was seven years before the visit of the Duchesse de Bouillon to England, — a visit which, it is believed, took the place of another seclusion in a convent. During her absence she received a charming letter from La Fontaine, written in the mingled prose and verse that was a fashion of the day. He talks of coming to England himself, as he had been urged to do, and flatters himself that "Anacreon and those like him, such as Waller, Saint-Evremond, and I, will never have the door shut against them. Who would not admit Anacreon? Who would banish Waller and La Fontaine? Both are old; SaintEvremond is so also: but will you see on the banks of the fountain Hippocrene people less wrinkled in their verses than these? The trouble is that there are wished for here severer moralists. Anacreon is silenced by the Jansenists, although their teachings seem to me a little dismal; but you, I dare say, value these writers, full of wit and keen disputants; and you know how to enjoy them in more ways than one. The Sophocles of the day and the illustrious Molière always furnish you with an occasion to discuss something or other. What is there that you do not dispute?" In the original this is all in lively and varied verse. The letter closes by La Fontaine saying after a passage about the king: "Je reviens à mes moutons. And these moutons,' madame, are your Highness and Madame Mazarin. This would be the place to compose a eulogy of her and to write it with yours; but after profound reflection, as eulogies of this kind are rather a delicate matter, I think it better I should abstain from them." Then, breaking into verse: "You love each other with sisterly affection; nevertheless, I have reason to avoid a comparison. Gold, but not praise, may be divided. The best skilled orator, were he an angel, would not con at most. tent in such an attempt, · two beauties, and, spite of her past conduct, she was two heroes, two authors, nor two saints." not the less a personage in Paris, and a A month later, writing to Saint-Evre- tribunal which could not be overlooked. mond, he says: "What do you think of I say in Paris, where she was a sort a design that has entered my mind? of queen; at court she never remained Since you wish the fame of Madame but for a few hours, and went there Mazarin to fill the universe, and I de- only on occasion, once or twice a year sire that of Madame de Bouillon to extend yet farther, let us not rest till we have accomplished so noble an enterprise. Let us make ourselves Knights of the Round Table; all the more, since this chivalry began in England. . . . We will await the return of the leaves and that of my health; otherwise I should have to go in a litter in search of adventures. I should be called the Knight of Rheumatism." In the midst of these gayeties of private life the political storm darkened and broke that swept James II. and his Martinozzi wife from the throne and drove them as fugitives to France. The position of the Mancini sisters in England was rendered very insecure. But William treated them with more than courtesy. He continued to Hortense the pension given her by Charles and James, and gave Marie-Anne the use of his private yacht to return to France. She was not permitted to return to Paris. Dangeau writes under date of the 12th September, 1688: "Madame de Bouillon, who is in England, has asked of the king, through M. de Seignelay, permission to go to Venice; the king has replied that she may go where she will, except to court and to Paris." She went to Italy and to Rome, and there met her sons, whose affairs now became for some years the great interest and occupation of her life. When she was permitted (in 1690) to return to Paris, she established herself there in a prouder position than ever, and the picture Saint-Simon paints of her at the time of her death, in 1714, is a representation of triumphant success: "She had a freedom of demeanor that was not merely daring, but audacious, "The king personally had never liked her. Her freedoms startled him. She had been often exiled, and sometimes for a long while. Notwithstanding this, she entered the king's apartments carrying her head high, and her voice could be heard two rooms off. This loud talking was very often not hushed even at the king's supper, where she would attack Monseigneur and the other princes and princesses who were at table (behind whom she was placed), as well as the ladies sitting near her. "She treated her children, and often, also, her friends and associates, with authority; she usurped it over the brothers and nephews of her husband and her own, over M. le Prince de Conti and over M. le Duc himself, violent as he was, and when at Paris they were always with her. She treated M. de Bouillon with contempt, and every one was less than grass before her.... Her wit and beauty supported her, and her world became accustomed to being ruled by her. Taken for all in all, she was a loss to her friends, especially to her family, and even to Paris. . . . Her house was open all day: great tables standing ready night and morning; great gaming, and of all kinds at once; and the largest, the most illustrious, and often the best society of men." ... With her death came to a conclusion the fortunes of these seven remarkable women, who each one of them, except perhaps the Comtesse de Soissons, it is evident, possessed a natural strength, the manifestations of which must have had a considerable though untraceable influence on the social conditions of their day. Hope Notnor. |