La Grande Mademoiselle. Barine Arvède

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СКАЧАТЬ returned to Paris, and whenever he returned he fulfilled his fatherly duties in his own fashion, romping and chattering with Mademoiselle. He amused himself by listening to her songs against Richelieu, and for her pleasure he organised a corps-de-ballet of children. All the people of the Court flocked to the palace to witness the ballet.

      On the occasion of another ballet danced at the Louvre he displayed himself to Mademoiselle in all his glory (18th February, 1635). The King, the Queen, and the principal courtiers of their suite were among the dancers.

      This last solemnity left mingled memories, both good and bad, in Mademoiselle's mind. One of her father's most faithful companions in exile was to have danced in the ballet. During a rehearsal, Richelieu had him arrested and conducted to the Wood of Vincennes, "where he died very suddenly."26 The rôle in which he should have acted was danced by one of the other courtiers, and therefore Gaston did not appear to be affected.

      The Gazette informed the public that the fête had "succeeded admirably"; that every one had carried away from the place so teeming with marvels the same idea that Jacob had entertained when, having looked upon the angels all the night, he believed that the earth touched the confines of heaven! But, at least, there was one person for whom the sudden disappearance of Puylaurens had spoiled everything. Mademoiselle had "liked him and wished him well." He had won her heart by giving her bonbons, and she felt that the ugly history reflected upon her father. "I leave it," she said, "to people better instructed and more enlightened than I am to speak of what Monsieur did afterward to Puylaurens' prison."

      The following year she had to swallow an insult on her own account. The lines which appeared in one of the gazettes of July, 1636, must have seemed insupportable to a child full of unchecked pride.

      "The 17th, Mademoiselle, aged nine years and three months, was baptised in the Louvre, in the Queen's chamber, by the Bishop of Auxerre, First Almoner to the King, having for godmother and godfather the Queen and the Cardinal Duke (Richelieu), and was named Anne Marie."

      Mention of this little event is made in Retz's Mémoires. "M. le Cardinal was to hold at the font Mademoiselle, who, as you may judge, had been baptised long before; but the ceremonies of the baptism had been deferred."

      This godfather, who was not a prince, was a humiliation to Mademoiselle, and to crown her distress he thought that he ought to make himself agreeable to his god-daughter.

      By his intention to be amiable he "made her beside herself" because he treated her – at nine years! – as if she had been a little girl. "Every time that he saw me he told me that that spiritual alliance obliged him to take care of me, and that he would arrange a marriage for me (a discourse that he addressed to me, talking just as they do to children to whom they incessantly repeat the same thing)."

      A journey through France, which she made in 1637, "put balm on the wounds of her pride." They chanted the Te Deum, the Army Corps saluted her, a city was illuminated, and the nobility offered her fêtes. She "swam in joy"; for thus she had always thought that the appearance of a person of her quality should be hailed. She ended her tour in Blois where Monsieur, the ever good father, desired that he, in person, should be the one to initiate his child in the morality of princes, which virtue in those aristocratic times had nothing in common with the bourgeois's morality. For the moment he was possessed of an insignificant mistress, a young girl of Tours called "Louison." Monsieur took his daughter to Tours so that he might present his mistress to her. Mademoiselle declared herself satisfied with her father's choice. She thought that Louison had "a very agreeable face, and a great deal of wit for a girl of that quality who had never been to Court." But Mme. de Saint Georges saw the new relations with an anxious eye; she submitted her scruples to Monsieur:

      Madame de Saint Georges … asked him if the girl was good, because, otherwise, though she had been honoured by his good graces, she should be glad if she would not come to my house. Monsieur gave her every assurance and told her that he would not have wished for the girl himself without that condition. In those days I had such a horror of vice that I said to her: "Maman (I called her thus), if Louison is not virtuous, even though my Papa loves her I will not see her at all; or if he wishes me to see her I will not receive her well." She answered that she was really a very good girl, and I was very glad of it, for she pleased me much – so I saw her often.

      Mademoiselle did not suspect that there was anything comical in this passage; had she done so she would not have written it, because she was not one of those who admit that it is sometimes permissible to smile at the great.

      On her return from her journey she resumed her ordinary life.

      I passed the winter in Paris as I had passed my other winters. Twice a week I went to the assemblies given by Mme. the Countess de Soissons at the Hôtel de Brissac. At these assemblies the usual diversions were comedies [plays] and dancing. I was very fond of dancing and, for love of me, they danced there very often…

      There were also assemblies with comedies at the Queen's, at Richelieu's, and at a number of personages', and Mademoiselle herself received at the Tuileries.

      The night of the 23d-24th January (1636) [reports the Gazette] Mademoiselle in her lodgings at the Tuileries, gave a comedy and a ball to the Queen, where the Good Grace of this princess in the dawn of her life, gave proof of what her noontide is to be. The 24th February, Monsieur gave a comedy and a collation to His Royal Highness of Parma at Mademoiselle his daughter's, in her apartments at the Tuileries.

      Mademoiselle passed the days and the nights in fêtes. Her studies did not suffer by it because she never studied and never knew anything of study outside of reading and writing, making a courtesy, and carefully observing the rules of a minute etiquette.

      It is probable that she owed the little that she knew to several months of forced retreat in a convent, when she was nine years old. She made herself so intolerable to every one, – it is she who tells it, – she was so vexatious, with her "grimaces" and her "mockeries," that they put her in a cloister to try to discipline her and to correct her faults; the plan succeeded: "They saw me return … wiser, and better than I had been." Yes, more sober, better behaved, and a little less ignorant, but not much less. The following letter, bearing the date of her maturity, shows more clearly than all the descriptions in the world, the degree of instructions which satisfied the seventeenth century's ideas of the education of a princess. The letter is addressed to Colbert ("a Choisy ce 5 Août 1665"):

      Monsieur, le sieur Segrais qui est de la cademy et qui a bocoup travalie pour la gloire du Roy et pour le public, aiant este oublie lannee passée dans les gratifications que le Roy a faicts aux baus essprit ma prie de vous faire souvenir de luy set un aussi homme de mérite et qui est a moi il ya long tams jespere que cela ne nuira pas a vous obliger a avoir de la consideration pour luy set se que je vous demande et de une croire, monsieur Colbert, etc.

      This orthography did not hinder Mademoiselle when, under the name of "Princess Cassandane" she figured in the Grand Dictionnaire des Précieuses; and according to the distinctions established between the "true précieuse" and the "Savante" by Mademoiselle de Scudéry, she had a right to figure there, as had many of her noble contemporaries, who would have been the shame of the humblest of the schools.

      The "true précieuse," she who left comets and the Greek language to the "Savantes," applied herself to the task of penetrating the mysteries of the heart. That was her science, and from certain points of view it was worth as much as any other.

      La Grande Mademoiselle devoted her talents and her life to the perfection of her particular art. Keeping well within the limits that she herself had set, she made a special study of the hearts of princesses and of everything concerning them; and she professed that she had established, definitely, the only proper methods СКАЧАТЬ