The Lemoine Affair

IX IN THE MEMOIRS OF SAINT-SIMON

Wedding of Talleyrand-Périgord. — Successes won by the Imperials at Château-Thierry, exceedingly inferior. — Le Moine, by La Mouchi, is introduced to the Regent. — Conversation I had with M. the Duc d’Orléans on this subject. He is resolved to bring up the affair with the Duc de Guiche. — Fantasies of the Murats on the rank of foreign prince. — Conversation of the Duc de Guiche with M. the Duc d’Orléans on Le Moine, at the parvulo given at Saint-Cloud for the King of England traveling incognito in France. — Unprecedented presence of the Comte de Fels at this parvulo. — Journey to France of an Infante of Spain, very remarkable.

That year took place the wedding of good lady Blumenthal with L. de Talleyrand-Périgord, who has been mentioned many times in the course of these Memoirs, with emphatic and well-deserved praise. The Rohans hosted the wedding, which was attended by people of quality. He did not want his wife to remain seated during the wedding, but she presumed to use a slipcover on her chair and incontinently had herself addressed as Duchess of Montmorency, which did not advance her in the least. The campaign continued against the Imperials who despite the revolts in Hungary caused by the high price of bread won some successes at Château-Thierry. It was there that for the first time we saw the impropriety of M. de Vendôme, publicly called “Highness.” The scourge reached even the Murats, and did not fail to cause me anxieties against which I kept up my spirits only with difficulty, so that I had gone far from the court, to spend the Easter fortnight at La Ferté in the company of a gentleman who had served in my regiment and was highly regarded by the late King, when on the eve of Low Sunday a letter that Mme de Saint-Simon sent advised me to go to Meudon as quickly as possible for an important affair concerning M. the Duc d’Orléans. At first I thought it was a matter of the affair of the false Marquis de Ruffec, which has been noted in its place; but Biron had skimmed it, and from a few words Mme de Saint-Simon dropped, about gems and some rogue named Le Moine, I was quite certain that it was not one more problem of those alembics that, without the influence I exercised with the chancellor, had been so close to getting — I scarcely dare write it — M. the Duc d’Orléans locked up in the Bastille. We do in fact know that this unfortunate prince, having no true or extensive knowledge about births, family histories, or what truth there might be in pretensions, the absurdity that bursts forth from some people and lets the bedrock be glimpsed which is nothing at all, the brilliance of marriages and offspring, even less the art of distinguishing in his courtesy between higher and lower rank, or of charming others with the obliging word that shows one knows what is the real and enduring, dare I say, intrinsecum of genealogies, this prince had never learned how to enjoy himself at court, had therefore seen himself abandoned by what he had first turned away from, to such an extent that he had fallen, although a first-rate prince of the blood, to immersing himself in chemistry, in painting, in the Opera, the musicians from which often came to bring him their scores and their violins which held no secrets for him. We also saw with what pernicious art his enemies, and above all the Maréchal de Villeroy, had used his taste for chemistry against him, so out of place, during the strange death of the Dauphin and the Dauphine. Far from the frightful rumors that had been spread at the time with pernicious cleverness by anyone who came close to the Maintenon causing M. the Duc d’Orléans to repent of researches that were so little suited to a man of his breeding, we saw that on the contrary he went on pursuing them with Mirepoix, every night, in the quarries of Montmartre, working on coal that he heated with a blowtorch, where, by a contradiction that can be conceived of only as Providence’s chastisement of this prince, he drew an abominable glory from not believing in God and confessed to me more than once that he had hoped to see the devil.

The Mississippi business had come to an abrupt end and the Duc d’Orléans came, against my advice, to pronounce his useless edict against gemstones. Those who owned some, after having shown eagerness and experienced difficulty in selling them, preferred to keep them by hiding them, which is much easier to do with gems than with money, so that despite all the sleights of hand and various threats of imprisonment, the financial situation had been only very slightly and very temporarily bettered. Le Moine knew this and thought he could make M. the Duc d’Orléans believe the situation would improve if he could persuade him that it was possible to make diamonds. He hoped at the same time thereby to flatter that prince’s detestable tastes for chemistry, and thus gain his favor. This did not happen right away. But it was not difficult to approach M. the Duc d’Orléans provided one possessed neither high birth, nor virtue. We have seen what the dinners of those ruffians were, from which only good company were kept at a distance by careful exclusion. Le Moine, however, who had spent his life buried in the most obscure debauchery and did not know even one person at court who could call him by name, did not know whom to address in order to win access to the Palais Royal; but in the end, La Mouchi did the honors. He saw M. the Duc d’Orléans, told him that he knew how to make diamonds, and this prince, naturally credulous, fell for it. I thought at first that the best thing was to approach the King through Maréchal. But I feared breaking the news, which might hurt the one I wanted to save, so I resolved to go straight to the Palais Royal. I ordered my carriage, simmering with impatience, and I threw myself into it like a man who is taking leave of his senses. I had often said to M. the Duc d’Orléans that I was not a man to importune him with my advice, but that when I had any, if I dared say, to give him, he should believe it was urgent, so I asked him to do me the good favor of receiving me right away since I had never been of a humor to wait quietly in the anteroom. His chief valets could have saved me that trouble, in any case, because of the knowledge I had of the whole inner workings of his court. But that day he had me come in as soon as my carriage had pulled up in the inmost courtyard of the Palais Royal, which was always full of those to whom entrance should have been forbidden, since, by a shameful prostitution of all dignities and by the deplorable weakness of the Regent, those who were of the lowest quality, who did not even fear making their way up in long coats, could penetrate the court just as easily as dukes and almost on the same standing. Those are matters one might treat as being of no consequence, but to which men of the previous reign would not have given credence, who, fortunately for them, had died promptly enough not to witness such things. Immediately ushered into the presence of the Regent whom I found without a single one of his surgeons or other domestics, and after I had greeted him with a very perfunctory bow that was returned me in exactly the same way: “Well, what is it now?” he asked awkwardly, as if humoring me. “Since you order me to speak, Monsieur,” I said heatedly, keeping my gaze fixed on his own, which could not sustain it, “it is only that you are in the process of losing in the eyes of everyone the little esteem and consideration”—those were the very words I used—“that most of society has kept for you.”

And, sensing him deeply wounded (because of which, despite what I knew of his insouciance, I conceived some hope), without pausing, so as to unburden myself once and for all of the unfortunate medicine I had to make him swallow, and so as not to give him time to interrupt me, I represented to him with the most frightful detail with what abandon he lived at the court, and how advanced this neglect — the right word had to be said, this contempt — had become in a few years; how these would be increased by the intrigues that would not fail to use the so-called inventions of Le Moine to cast wicked accusations against the Duc d’Orléans himself that might be absurd, but dangerous down to the last point; I reminded him — and I still tremble sometimes, at night when I wake up, when I think of the boldness I had in using these very words — that he had been accused many times of poisoning the princes who barred his way to the throne; that this great pile of gemstones they would have accepted as real would help him more easily attain the throne of Spain, for which reason no one doubted there was an entente between him, the Viennese court, the Emperor, and Rome; that because of the detestable authority of Rome he rejected Mme d’Orléans, and that it was a blessing from Providence for him that her recent confinements were fortunate, since otherwise the wicked rumors of poisoning would have been renewed; that to tell the truth, for desiring the death of Madame his wife, he was not like his brother guilty of Italian taste — these were my very terms — but that it was the only vice of which he was not accused (along with not having clean hands), since his relations with Mme la Duchesse de Berry seemed to many not to be those of a father; that if he had not inherited the abominable taste of Monsieur for all the rest, he was indeed his son from the habit of the perfumes that had put him out of favor with the king who could not bear them, and later on had favored the frightful rumors of having made an attempt on the Dauphine’s life, and by having always put into practice the detestable maxim of dividing to conquer with the help of repeating rumors from one person to another which were the plague of his court, as they had been that of Monsieur, his father, where they had prevented a unified reign: that he had preserved for Monsieur’s favorites a consideration that he did not grant to another, and that it was they — I did not force myself to name Effiat — who, aided by Mirepoix and La Mouchi, had cleared the way for Le Moine; that having as his only shield only men who no longer counted for anything after the death of Monsieur and who during his life had only amounted to anything because of the horrid conviction everyone had, even the king who had thus arranged to marry Mme d’Orléans, that one could obtain anything from them by means of money, and from him by those in whose clutches he was, no one feared attacking him by the most odious, the most intimate calumny, that it was high time, if indeed there still was time, for him finally to recover his grandeur and there was only one way to do that: to take measures in the greatest secrecy to have Le Moine arrested and, as soon as the thing was decided, not to delay the execution of it, and not to let him ever return to France.

M. the Duc d’Orléans, who had merely exclaimed once or twice at the beginning of this speech, had afterwards kept the silence of a man devastated by such a great blow; but my last words finally made a few of his own come out of his mouth. He was not spiteful, and resolution was not his strong point:

“What, then!” he said to me in a complaining tone, “Arrest him? But what if his invention happens to be real?”

“What’s this, Monsieur,” I replied, utterly surprised at such an extreme and pernicious blindness, “how can you think that, and so soon after having been disabused about the writing of the false Marquis de Ruffec? But really, if you have even one doubt, call for the man who knows more than anyone else in France about chemistry and all the sciences, as has been recognized by the academies and by astronomers; his character and birth, and the stainless life that has accompanied him, are your guarantee of his word.” He understood that I was talking about the Duc de Guiche, and with the joy of a man entangled in conflicting choices, from whom another man has removed the anxiety of having to make the right one:

“Excellent! We both had the same idea,” he said. “Guiche will decide, but I cannot see him today. You know that the King of England, traveling quite incognito under the name of the Earl of Stanhope, is coming tomorrow to talk with the King about matters in Holland and Germany; I’m giving him a party at Saint-Cloud, to which Guiche is invited. You will speak to him and me both, after dinner. But are you sure he’ll come?” he added in an embarrassed way.

I understood that he didn’t dare summon the Duc de Guiche to the Palais Royal, where, as you may imagine from the kind of people that M. the Duc d’Orléans saw, with whom Guiche was not at all acquainted, aside from Besons and me, he came as seldom as he could, knowing that it was the libertines who ranked first there rather than men like himself. Also the Regent, always fearing the duke would shower him with reproaches, lived in constant suspicion and reserve towards him. Very careful to give everyone his due and not being unaware of what was due the true son of Monsieur, Guiche visited him only on special occasions, and I do not think anyone had seen him at the Palais Royal since he had come to pay him his respects upon the death of Monsieur, and the pregnancy of Mme d’Orléans. Even then he stayed only a short while, with indeed an air of respect, but as one who knew how to show with discernment that he was addressing, not the person, but the rank of a first prince of the blood. M. the Duc d’Orléans sensed this and did not fail to be affected by so bitter and cutting a treatment.

As I was leaving the Palais Royal, deeply sorry to see a project consigned to the parvulo⁴ at Saint-Cloud, something which might not even be carried out at all if it wasn’t done at the very instant, so great were the habitual fickleness and sophistries of M. the Duc d’Orléans, a curious adventure befell me that I relate here only because it foretold only too well what would happen at the parvulo. I had just climbed into my carriage where Mme de Saint-Simon was awaiting me, when I was utterly surprised to see about to pass in front of it the carriage of S. Murat, so well-known by armies for his valor, and for that of his entire family. His sons had covered themselves with honor by traits worthy of antiquity; one, who lost a leg, shines everywhere with beauty; another son died, leaving parents who were inconsolable; so much so that although displaying pretensions as unbearable as those of the Bouillons, they did not lose the esteem of respectable people as the Bouillons had.

I might have been less surprised by this matter of the carriage perhaps, if I had remembered some rather strange suggestions, such as at one of the last marlis⁵ where Mme Murat had tried the ruse of making way for Mme de Saint-Simon, but very equivocally and without putting on a show of rank, saying that there was less air there, that Mme de Saint-Simon feared air but that Fagon on the other hand had prescribed it for her; Mme de Saint-Simon had not let herself be taken in by these bold words and had briskly replied that she chose that place not because she feared the air, but because it was her place and that if Mme Murat made as if to have one, she and the other duchesses would go ask Mme the Duchesse de Bourgogne to complain to the King. To which Princess Murat had said not a word, except that she knew what was due to Mme de Saint-Simon, who was strongly applauded for her firmness by the duchesses present and by the Princess d’Espinoy. Despite this very singular marli, which had remained in my memory and where I clearly grasped that Mme Murat had wanted to test the waters, I believed this time in a mistake, so strong did the pretension seem to me; but seeing that Prince Murat’s horses were getting ahead, I sent a gentleman to ask him to make them fall back, to whom it was replied that Prince Murat would have done so with great pleasure had he been alone, but that he was with Mme Murat, and some vague words about the fancy of a foreign prince. Deeming that this was not the place to demonstrate the triviality of such an enormous undertaking, I gave the order to my coachman to spur on my horses, which did some little damage to Prince Murat’s carriage in passing. But, thoroughly worked up over the Le Moine business, I had already forgotten that of the carriage, important as it was for what concerns the smooth functioning of the justice and honor of the kingdom, when on the very day of the parvulo at Saint-Cloud, the Ducs de Mortemart and de Chevreuse came to warn me, as one who had at heart the fairest concern for the ancient and indubitable privileges of dukes, the true foundation of the monarchy, that Prince Murat, to whom the royal court had already given the dangerous assurance of its favor, had claimed the royal hand for dinner, claiming precedence over the Duc de Gramont, supporting this fine claim on being the grandson of a man who had been King of the Two Sicilies, as he had explained to M. d’Orléans through Effiat, and had been the chief support of the court of Monsieur his father, so that M. the Duc d’Orléans, utterly embarrassed and moreover not having that clear, clean, profound training whereby a decisive person reduces such whims to nothingness, had not dared to make any definitive decision about this, but had replied that he would see, that he would speak about it with the Duchesse d’Orléans. Strange irony of going off to entrust the most vital interests of the affairs of state, which rests on the privileges of dukes so long as they are not interfered with, to a person who was connected with them only by the most shameful ties and had never known what was proper to herself, much less to Monsieur her husband and to the entire peerage. This very curious and unprecedented reply had been relayed by Princess Soutzo to Messieurs de Mortemart and de Chevreuse who, surprised to the extreme, had immediately come to find me. It is common enough knowledge that she is the only woman who, for my unhappiness, had succeeded in making me emerge from the retirement in which I had been dwelling since the death of the Dauphin and the Dauphine. One scarcely knows oneself the reason for these kinds of preferences, and I could not say how she succeeded, where so many others had failed. She looked like Minerva, as she is represented in the beautiful miniatures on the pendant earrings my mother left me. Her charms had captivated me and I hardly ever stirred from my room in Versailles except to go see her. But I will wait for another part of these Memoirs that will be especially devoted to the Comtesse de Chevigné, to speak at greater length about her and her husband, who had greatly distinguished himself by his valor and was one of the most honest people I have ever known. I had had almost no commerce with M. de Mortemart since the bold cabal he had initiated against me at the Duchesse de Beauvilliers’ to make me lose the King’s esteem. Never was there a duller mind, one more inclined to be contrary, more tempted to strengthen this contrariness with gibes without any foundation whatsoever, gibes that he then went on to peddle by himself. As for M. de Chevreuse, companion to Monsieur, he was another kind of man and he has been too often spoken of elsewhere here for me to have to go back over his infinite qualities, his science, his kindness, his gentleness, his word that was always kept. But he was a man who, as they say, made mountains out of molehills, a man to dig holes in the moon. We have seen the hours I spent trying to show him the flimsiness of his fantasy about the antiquity of Chevreuse and the fits of rage he almost displayed to the chancellor for building Chaulnes. But in the end, they were both dukes, and very justly attached to the prerogatives of their rank; and since they knew that I myself was more punctilious about ducal prerogatives than anyone at court, they had come to find me because I was moreover a special friend of M. the Duc d’Orléans, and had never had in mind anything but the good of this prince, and had never abandoned him when the intrigues of La Maintenon and the Maréchal de Villeroy left him alone in the Palais Royal. I tried to reason with M. the Duc d’Orléans, I represented to him the insult he was showing not only to dukes, who would all feel wounded in the person of the Duc de Gramont, but to common sense, by letting Prince Murat, like the Ducs de la Tremoïlle earlier, under the empty pretext of being a foreign prince and because his grandfather, so well-known for his bravura, was King of Naples for a few years, take during the parvulo at Saint-Cloud the hand he would make a point not to demand later on at Versailles, at Marly, and that it would serve as a vehicle to being called Highness, since we know where these ridiculous and base ways of princery lead when they are not nipped in the bud. We have seen the effect of this in Messieurs de Turenne and de Vendôme. More authority and a more extensive knowledge were necessary than M. the Duc d’Orléans possessed. Never however was a case simpler, clearer, or easier to explain, more impossible, more abominable to contradict. On one hand, a man who cannot go back more than two generations without getting lost in a night where nothing of note appears; on the other, the head of an illustrious family known for a thousand years, father and son of two Marshals of France, never having admitted any but the greatest alliances. The Le Moine affair itself did not involve interests so vital for France.

During the same period of time, Delaire married a Rohan and rather oddly took the name of Comte de Cambacérès. The Marquis d’Albuféra, who was a good friend of mine as was his mother, filed a number of complaints that, despite the minuscule and, as we will see later on, well-deserved esteem the King had for him, remained without effect. So now he is one of those fine Comtes de Cambacérès (not to mention the Vicomte Vigier, whom we imagine still back in Les Bains where he arose), like the counts de Montgomery and de Brye, whom ignorant Frenchmen think of as descended from G. de Montgomery, so famous for his duel under Henri II, and as belonging to the de Briey family, which included my friend the Comtesse de Briey, who has often figured in these Memoirs and who jokingly called the new Comtes de Brye, who at least were gentlemen of good stock although of lower lineage, les non brils.⁶

Another, greater marriage delayed the arrival of the King of England, one that concerned more than just this country. Mlle Asquith, who was probably the most intelligent of anyone, and was like one of those beautiful figures painted in fresco that one sees in Italy, married Prince Antoine Bibesco, who had been the idol of the people who lived where he resided. He was a good friend of Morand, envoy from the King to their Catholic Majesties; he will often be discussed in the course of these Memoirs, as a good friend of my own. This marriage made a great stir, and was applauded everywhere. A few poorly educated Englishmen alas believed that Mlle Asquith was not contracting a good enough marriage. She could indeed lay claim to anything, but they did not know that these Bibescos are related to the Noailles, the Montesquious, the Chimays, and the Bauffremonts who are of Capetian stock and could with great reason claim the crown of France, as I have often said.

Not a single duke, or any titled gentleman, went to that parvulo at Saint-Cloud, aside from me, who came because Mme de Saint-Simon was lady-in-waiting to Mme the Duchesse de Bourgogne, and consented under sheer compulsion, and at risk for any refusal, and out of necessity to obey the King, but with all the suffering and tears we have seen and the endless entreaties of M. the Duc and Mme the Duchesse d’Orléans; the Ducs de Villeroy and de La Rochefoucauld, present because they were unable to console themselves at counting for so little, one might even say for nothing, and wanting to cook up one last little stew of rumors, who used this as an occasion to pay court to the Regent; the chancellor too was there, needing advice, of which he got none that day; at times, Artagnan, Captain of the Guard, would come in, to say that the King was served, or a little later, with the fruit, bringing dog biscuits for the pointers; finally when he proclaimed that the music had begun, by which he fervently hoped to win favorable regard, which yet eluded him.

He was of the house of Montesquiou; one of his sisters had been a lady’s maid to the Queen, had gotten ahead nicely, and had married the Duc de Gesvres. He had asked his cousin Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac to come to this parvulo at Saint-Cloud. Who replied, however, with the admirable apothegm that he was descended from the ancient counts of Fezensac, who were known before Philippe-Auguste, and that he did not see why a hundred years — it was Prince Murat he meant — should have precedence over a thousand years. He was the son of T. de Montesquiou who was well-known to my father and about whom I have spoken in another place, and he had a face and demeanor that gave a powerful sense of what he was and where he came from, his body always slim, and that’s an understatement, as if tilted backwards; he could bend forward, actually, when the whim took him, with great affability and with bows of all kinds, but returned quite quickly to his natural position which was all pride, hauteur, intransigence not to bend before anyone and not to yield on anything, to the point of walking always straight ahead without bothering about the way, jostling someone without seeming to see him, or if he wanted to annoy someone, showing that he did see him, that he was in his way, with a great crowd always around him of people of high quality and wit to whom he sometimes bowed right and left, but most often left them, as they say, by the wayside, without seeing them, both eyes fixed in front of him, speaking very loudly, and very well, to those of his acquaintance who laughed at all the funny things he said, and with great reason, as I have said, for he was as witty as can be imagined, with graces that were his alone and that all those who approached him tried, often without wanting to, sometimes even without suspecting they were doing so, to copy and assume, but not one person ever managed to succeed, or do anything but let appear in their thoughts, in their discourse, and in the very air almost, his writing and the sound of his voice, both of which were very singular and very beautiful, like a varnish of his that was recognized immediately and that showed by its light and indelible surface that it was just as difficult not to try to imitate him as it was to manage to do so.

He had often at his side a Spaniard by the name of Yturri whom I had known during my ambassadorship in Madrid, as has been related. At a time when everyone else scarcely ever advanced an opinion except to have his merit noticed, he had that quality, very rare actually, of putting all his own merit into making the Count’s shine, helping him in his researches, in his dealings with booksellers, even in matters of the table, finding no task too tedious so long as it spared the Count one, his own task being, if one may say so, only to listen and make Montesquiou’s statements resound far and wide, just as those disciples did whom the ancient sophists were accustomed to have always with them, as is evident from the writings of Aristotle and the discourses of Plato. This Yturri had kept the fiery manner of his countrymen, who make a fuss over anything at all, for which Montesquiou chid him very often and very amusingly, to the merriment of all and of Yturri himself first of all, who apologized, laughing at the heatedness of his race, yet took care not to do anything about it, since everyone liked him that way. He was an expert in antique objects, of which knowledge many people took advantage to go see him and consult him about them, even in the retirement our two hermits had resorted to, located, as I have said, in Neuilly, close to the house of M. the Duc d’Orléans.

Those whom Montesquiou invited were very few and very select, only the best and the greatest, but not always the same ones, and this was done expressly, since he played very much at being king, offering favors and disgraces to the point of shameful injustice, but all this was supported by such well-known merit, that others overlooked it in him, but some however were invited very faithfully and very regularly, and one was almost always certain of finding them at his house when he hosted an entertainment, like the Duchesse Mme de Clermont-Tonnerre of whom much will be spoken later on, who was the daughter of Gramont, granddaughter of the famous secretary of state, sister of the Duc de Guiche, who was very much inclined, as we have seen, toward mathematics and painting, and Mme Greffulhe, who was a Chimay, of the famous princely house of the counts of Bossut. Their name is Hennin-Liétard and I have already spoken about the Prince de Chimay, on whom the Elector of Bavaria had the Golden Fleece bestowed by Charles II and who became my son-in-law, thanks to the Duchesse Sforze, after the death of his first wife, daughter of the Duc de Nevers. He was no less attached to Mme de Brantes, daughter of Cessac, of whom it has already been spoken quite often and who will return many times in the course of these Memoirs, and to the Duchesses de la Roche-Guyon and de Fezensac. I have spoken enough of these Montesquious, about their amusing fancy of being descended from Pharamond, as if their antiquity were not great enough and well-known enough not to need to scribble fables, and also about the Duc de la Roche-Guyon, eldest son of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld and ward of his two charges, of the strange present he received from M. the Duc d’Orléans, of his nobility at avoiding the trap that the shrewd villainy of the first president of Mesmes set for him and of the marriage of his son with Mlle de Toiras. One also very often saw there Mme de Noailles, wife of the eldest brother of the Duc d’Ayen, today the Duc de Noailles, whose mother is La Ferté. But I will have occasion to speak of her at greater length as the woman of the finest poetic genius her time has seen, who renewed, and one might even say enlarged, the miracle of the famous Mme de Sévigné. Everyone knows that what I say of her is pure fair-mindedness, it being well enough known by everyone what terms I came to with the Duc de Noailles, nephew of the cardinal and husband of Mlle d’Aubigné, niece of Mme de Maintenon, and I have gone on enough in its place about his intrigues against me to the point of making himself along with Canillac an advocate to the state councillors against people of quality, his skill at deceiving his uncle the cardinal, in criticizing the chancellor Daguesseau, in courting Effiat and the Rohans, in lavishly pouring the enormous pecuniary graces of M. the Duc d’Orléans onto the Comte d’Armagnac to have him marry his daughter, after having failed to snare the eldest son of the Duc d’Albret for her. But I have spoken too much of all that to return to it, of his dark schemes concerning Law, and of the matter of the gemstones, and also of the conspiracy of the Duc and Duchesse du Maine. Quite otherwise, and of quite a different breed, was Mathieu de Noailles, who married the woman in question here, and whom her talent has made famous. She was the daughter of Brancovan, reigning prince of Wallachia, which they call there Hospodar, and had as much beauty as genius. Her mother was a Musurus, which is the name of a very noble family, one of the foremost in Greece, made illustrious by numerous and distinguished ambassadorships and by the friendship of one of those Musuruses with the famous Erasmus. Montesquiou had been the first to speak of her verses. Duchesses went often to listen to his own, at Versailles, at Sceaux, at Meudon, and in the past few years women in town have been imitating them by a familiar strategy, and they invite actors over who recite them, with the aim of attracting one of those ladies, many of whom would go to the house of the Great Nobleman rather than abstain from applauding them there. There was always some recitation in his house at Neuilly, and also the concourse of the most famous poets as well as of the most respectable people and the best company, and on his part, to everyone, and in front of the objects of his house, always a flood of discourse, in that language so peculiar to him that I have described, at which everyone continually marveled.

But every coin has its other side. This man of unrivalled qualities, in whom the brilliant and the profound were equally prominent, this man, who could have been called delightful, who could be listened to for hours to the amusement both of others and of himself, since he laughed loudly at what he said as if he were both author and performer, to their benefit, this man had one vice: he was just as thirsty for enemies as he was for friends. Insatiable for the latter, he was relentless for the former, if one can put it that way, since after a few years had gone by, it was the same ones in whom he had lost all interest. He always needed someone to hate, to pursue, to persecute on the pretext of the most trifling remark — thus he was the terror of Versailles, since he did not in the least restrain his voice, which he employed to hurl the most grievous, biting, unjust remarks at whoever was not to his liking, as when he very clearly proclaimed about Diane de Peydan de Brou, esteemed widow of the Marquis de Saint-Paul, that it was just as unfortunate for paganism as it was for Catholicism that she was named after both Diana and Saint Paul. His choice of words always took people by surprise and made them tremble. Having spent his youth among the highest society, and his maturity among the poets, and having liked both circles equally, he feared no one and lived in a solitude that he made ever more austere by each former friend that he chased away. He was one of the close friends of Mme Straus, daughter and widow respectively of the famous musicians Halévy and Bizet, wife of Emile Straus, lawyer for a major charity; her admirable retorts are remembered by everyone. Her face had kept all its charm and would have been enough even without her intellect to attract all those who crowded round her. She is the one who, once in the Chapel of Versailles where she had her pew, when M. de Noyon whose language was always so affected and unnatural asked her if the music they were listening to didn’t strike her as octagonal, replied, “My dear sir, I was just about to say the same thing!”—as if answering someone who had uttered in front of everyone something that came naturally to mind.

One could fill a whole book if one recounted all that has been said by her and that should not be forgotten. Her health had always been delicate. She had taken advantage of this early on to dispense with the Marlys and the Meudons, so went to pay court to the King only very rarely, whereupon she was always received alone and with great consideration. People were astonished by the fruits and mineral waters she made use of all the time, without any liqueurs, or chocolate, and which had drowned her stomach; Fagon had not wanted to acknowledge this since his reputation was already dwindling. He called “charlatans” all those who prescribe remedies or who had not been received into the Faculty of Medecine; because of such notions he drove away a Swiss who could have cured her. In the end, as her stomach had lost the habit for strong food, and her body for sleep and long walks, she turned this fatigue into a distinction. Mme the Duchesse de Bourgogne came to see her and did not want to be shown beyond the first room. She received duchesses sitting down, who came to visit her just the same, since she was such a delight to listen to. Montesquiou never failed to visit her; he was also highly regarded by Mme Standish, his cousin, who came to that parvulo at Saint-Cloud, being the friend of longest standing of any to be admitted, and the one closest to the Queen of England, and most cherished by her; all the women there did not give way to her as should have been the case but was not, thanks to the incredible ignorance of M. the Duc d’Orléans, who thought little of her since her name was Standish, whereas in fact she was the daughter of Escars, of the house of Pérusse, granddaughter of Brissac; she was one of the greatest ladies in the kingdom as well as one of the most beautiful, and had always lived in the choicest society, of which she was the supreme elixir. M. the Duc d’Orléans also did not know that H. Standish was the son of a Noailles, of the branch of the Marquis of Arpajon. M. d’Hinnisdal had to tell him this. So we had at this parvulo the very remarkable scandal of Prince Murat, on a folding chair, next to the King of England. The stir that created resounded far beyond Saint-Cloud. Those who had the good of the State at heart felt its foundations being undermined; the King, so unversed in the reckoning of births and precedence, but understanding the stain inflicted on his crown by the weakness of having destroyed the highest dignity of the kingdom, attacked Comte A. de La Rochefoucauld on this subject in conversation, who was better versed in this history than anyone and who, ordered to reply by his master, who was also his friend, was not afraid to do so in terms that were so clear and so distinct that he was heard by the entire salon, where however a lively game of lans-quenet was being noisily played. He declared that, though much attached to the greatness of his house, he did not believe that this attachment blinded him or made him conceal anything from anyone, when he found that he was — not to say more — as great a lord as Prince Murat; nonetheless he had always given precedence to the Duc de Gramont and would continue to do so. At which the king forbade Prince Murat under any circumstance from taking anything higher than the title of Highness, or crossing the throne room. The only one who could claim this right was Achille Murat, because he owns sovereign prerogatives in Mingrelia, which is a State bordering territories of the Czar. But he was as simple as he was brave, and his mother, so well-known for her writings, whose charming mind he had inherited, had quickly understood that the substantial reality of his situation among those Muscovites was less than in the more-than-princely house that was hers, since she was the daughter of the Duc de Rohan-Chabot.

Prince J. Murat faltered a bit beneath the storm, just long enough to pass this unfortunate strait, but he wasn’t any more troubled than that, and we know that now, even to his cousins, lieutenant generals make no difficulty whatsoever, seeing no deep reason to do so, about addressing him as Your Highness and Sire, while the Parliament, when he goes to greet them, sends out its bailiffs with their staffs raised, an honor which Monsieur the Prince had so much trouble achieving, despite being a prince of the blood. Thus everything declines, everything is debased, everything decays as soon as it is born, in a State where the iron cautery isn’t applied right away to pretensions so that they cannot grow anew.

The King of England was accompanied by Lord Derby who was enjoying here, as in his own country, much consideration. He did not have at first sight that air of grandeur and reverie that was so striking in B. Lytton, who has since died, or the singular and unforgettable face of Lord Dufferin. But people liked him perhaps even more, by virtue of a sort of kindliness that the French completely lack and by which they are won over. Louvois had wanted him almost despite himself close to the King because of his abilities and his profound knowledge of the affairs of France.

The King of England avoided calling M. the Duc d’Orléans by that title when he talked to him, but wanted him to have an armchair, to which he did not lay claim, but took care to refuse. The princesses of the blood dined in a manner beyond their station by virtue of an indulgence that got talked about a lot but bore no other fruit. The dinner was served by Olivier, first steward of the King. His family name was Dabescat; he was considerate, beloved by everyone, and so well-known at the court of England that many of the noblemen who were accompanying the King saw him with more pleasure than the knights of Saint-Louis recently promoted by the Regent, whose faces were new. He preserved great loyalty to the memory of the late King and went every year to his memorial service at Saint-Denis, where, to the shame of forgetful courtiers, he was almost always alone with me. I have lingered for a moment over him, because by the perfect knowledge he had of his profession, by his kindness, by his connection to the highest people without being over-familiar, or servile, he had not failed to gain in importance at Saint-Cloud and to become a singular character there.

The Regent made the very true remark to Mme Standish that she was not wearing her pearls as other ladies did, but in a way that the Queen of England had imitated. Guiche was there; he had been brought there as if on a leash out of fear of incurring the Regent’s displeasure forever, and was not very much at ease being there. He was much happier at the Sorbonne and in the Academies, where he was sought out more than anyone else. But in the end the Regent had reeled him in; he sensed what he owed in respect of birth, if not of person, to the good of the State, perhaps to his own safety; it would have been too conspicuous if he had not come, and since there was no middle ground between disappearing and refusing to come, he came despite himself. At the word “pearls,” I sought him out with my eyes. His own, very similar to his mother’s, were admirable, with a gaze that, although no one liked amusing himself as much as he did, seemed to pierce through his pupils, as soon as his mind was engaged in some serious subject. We have seen that he was a Gramont, his name Aure, of that illustrious house made important by so many marriages and positions ever since Sanche-Garcie d’Aure and Antoine d’Aure, Vicomte d’Aster, who took the name and arms of Gramont. Armand de Gramont, who is in question here, with all the seriousness the other lacked, recalled the graces of that gallant Comte de Guiche, who had been so extensively welcomed in the early years of the reign of Louis XIV. He towered over all the other dukes, if only by his infinite knowledge and his admirable discoveries. I can truthfully say that I would say the same things even if I had not received so many marks of friendship from him. His wife was worthy of him, which is saying quite a lot. The position of this duke was unique. He was the delight of the court, the hope, with good reason, of scholars, the friend, without servility, of the highest people, the protector of choice for those who were not yet elevated, the close friend infinitely regarded by José Maria Sert, who is one of the foremost painters in Europe for his likenesses of faces and his smart, enduring decoration of buildings. It has been remarked in its place how, abandoning my berlin for some mules when I was returning to Madrid for my embassy, I had gone to admire his works in a church where they are arranged with prodigious art, between the row of altar railings and columns inlaid with the most precious marble. The Duc de Guiche was chatting with Ph. de Caraman-Chimay, uncle of the one who had become my son-in-law. Their name is Riquet and he truly resembled Riquet with the Tufted Hair as he is portrayed in the fairytales. Despite that, his face promised charm and delicacy and kept its promises, according to what his friends have told me. But I was not at all used to him — we had no commerce, so to speak — and I speak in these Memoirs only of things I have been able to know for myself. I led the Duc de Guiche into the private gallery so that no one could hear us: “Well!” I said to him, “Has the Regent spoken to you of Le Moine?” “Yes,” he replied smiling, “and for now, despite these cunctations, I think I have persuaded him.” Lest our brief conference be noticed, we had drawn very close to the Regent, and Guiche pointed out to me that they were still talking about gemstones, Standish having explained that in a fire all the diamonds of her mother, Mme de Poix, had burned and turned black, because of which peculiarity, very curious in its effects, they had brought them to the cabinet of the King of England where they were preserved: “But if the diamond was blackened by fire, couldn’t coal be changed into a diamond?” asked the Regent, turning to Guiche with an embarrassed air, who shrugged his shoulders and looked at me, confounded by this bewitchment of a man he had thought already dissuaded.

We saw for the first time at Saint-Cloud the Comte de Fels, whose family name is Frich, who came to pay court to the King of England. These Frichs, although they came long ago from the dregs of society, are very glorious. It is to one of them that the good lady Cornuel replied, as he was having her admire the livery of one of his lackeys and added that it came to him from his grandfather: “Oh really, Monsieur? I had no idea that Monsieur your grandfather was a lackey.” The presence at the parvulo of the Comte de Fels seemed strange to those who can still be surprised; the absence of the Marquis de Castellane surprised them even more. He had worked for more than twenty years, with the success we know, for the rapprochement of France with England where he had made an excellent ambassador, and the instant the King of England came to Saint-Cloud, his name, illustrious in so many respects, was the first one that had come to his mind. We saw at this parvulo another very singular novelty, that of a Prince d’Orléans traveling in France incognito under the very strange name of an Infante of Spain. I expostulated in vain with M. the Duc d’Orléans that, as great as the house from which this prince came was, one could not conceive of calling an Infante of Spain someone who was not so in his own country, where they give that name only to the heir to the crown, as we have seen in the conversation I had with Guelterio during my ambassadorship to Madrid; and more, that it was only a short step from Infante of Spain to simply Infante, and that the former would serve as a shoehorn for the latter. At which M. the Duc d’Orléans protested that one said simply King only for the King of France, that it had been commanded to M. the Duc de Lorraine, his uncle, not to let himself say King of France, when speaking of the King, or else he would never leave Lorraine, and finally that if one said the Pope, with nothing more, it’s because no other name would be needed. I could offer no reply to any of these fine reasonings, but I knew where the Regent’s weakness would lead him, and I made free to tell him. We have seen the result of this, and it wasn’t long before people said simply Infante. The King of Spain’s envoys went to seek him out in Paris and led him to Versailles, where he paid reverence to the King who remained closeted with him for a good hour, then went into the gallery and presented him, where everyone greatly admired his wit. Near the country house of the Prince de Cellamare he visited that of the Comte and Comtesse de Beaumont whither the King of England had already gone. People said with reason that never had husband and wife been so perfectly made for each other, or for them their magnificent and singular home situated on the pathway to the Annonciades, where it seemed to have been waiting for them for a hundred years. He praised the magnificence of the gardens in perfectly chosen and measured terms, and from there went to Saint-Cloud for the parvulo, but made a scandal there by the unbearable pretension of placing his hand on the Regent. The Regent’s weakness made the deliberations reach this highly unprecedented compromise that the Regent and the Infante of Spain entered at the same time, through different doors, into the dining room where the dinner was being given. Thus he hoped to hide his hand. He charmed everyone again with his wit, but did not kiss any of the princesses, but only the Queen of England, which surprised everyone greatly. The King was outraged to learn of the claim on the royal hand and that the Regent’s weakness had allowed the plot to be hatched. He did not admit the title of Infante and declared that that prince would be received only with his former rank, immediately after the Duc du Maine. The Infante of Spain tried to reach his goal by other ways. They did not succeed in the least. He stopped visiting the King other than through lingering habit, and at that only irregularly. In the end he suffered from weariness and was seen only rarely at Versailles, where his absence made itself strongly felt, and awoke regret that he had not settled there. But this digression on the peculiarity of titles has taken us too far astray from the Le Moine affair.

4 An exclusive dinner party given by Louis XIV at Meudon; the term was coined by Saint-Simon. — Trans.

5 Dinner parties given by Louis XIV at the Château de Marly. — Trans.

6 A play on nombril, “navel,” which sounds like “non-Briey.” —Trans.