Death of the Duchess de Fontanges.
Louis XIV. dreaded every thing which could remind him of that tomb toward which all are hastening, and especially did he recoil from every death-bed scene. The wretched man would not have listened to the plea of the dying girl had not the remonstrances of his confessor constrained him. Thus, reluctantly, he entered the dying chamber. He found Mary Angelica faded, withered, and ghastly – all unlike the radiant beauty whom for a few brief months he had almost worshiped. Egotist as he was, he could not restrain his tears. Her glassy eyes were riveted upon his countenance. Her clammy hand almost convulsively clasped his own. Her livid lips quivered in their last effort as she besought him to pay her debts, and sometimes to remember her. Louis promised all she asked. As she sank back upon her pillow, she gasped out the declaration that she should die happy, as she saw that the king could weep for her. Immediately after she fell into a swoon and died.
Madame de Montespan rejoices.
The exultation of Madame de Montespan at her death was so indecent and undisguised as to excite the disgust of the king. Her very name became hateful to him. Wicked man as he was, Louis XIV. believed in Christianity, and in its revelations of responsibility at the bar of God. He was shocked, and experienced much remorse in view of this death-bed without repentance. He could not conceal from himself that he was in no inconsiderable degree responsible for the guilt which burdened the soul of the departed. His aversion to Madame de Montespan was increased by the report, then generally circulated, that the duchess had died from poison, administered through her agency. The poor victim of sin and shame was soon forgotten in the grave. The court whirled on in its usual round of frivolous and guilty pleasures, such as Babylon could scarcely have rivaled.
Supremacy of Madame de Maintenon.
Père la Chaise.
Remorse of Louis.
The supremacy of Madame de Maintenon over Louis XIV. was that of a strong mind over a feeble one. The king had many very weak points in his character. He was utterly selfish, and the slave of his vices. Madame de Maintenon, with much address, strove to recall him to a better life. In these efforts she was much aided by the king's confessor, Père la Chaise. This truly good man reminded the king that he had already passed the fortieth year of his age, that his youth had gone forever, that he would soon enter upon the evening of his days, and that, as yet, he had done nothing to secure his eternal salvation. He had already received many warnings as he had followed one after another to the grave. The king was naturally thoughtful, and perhaps even religiously inclined. Not a few events had already occurred calculated to harrow his soul with remorse. He had seen his mother die, one of the saddest of deaths. He had seen his sister Henrietta, his brother's bride, whom he had loved with more than a brother's love, writhing in death's agonies, the victim of poison. He had followed several of his children to the grave. Madame de la Vallière, whom he had loved as ardently as he was capable of loving any one, now a ruined, heart-broken victim of his selfishness and sin, was consigned to living burial in the glooms of the cloister. He could not banish from his mind the dreadful scenes of the death of the Duchess of Fontanges.
Degradation of the people.
Just at this time the dauphiness gave birth to a son. This advent of an heir to the throne caused universal rejoicing throughout the court and the nation. It is melancholy to reflect that the people, crushed and impoverished as they were by the most atrocious despotism, were so unintelligent that they regarded their oppressors with something of the idolatrous homage with which the heathen bow before their hideous gods.
Birth of the Duke of Burgoyne.
The king himself, at times, manifested a kind of tender interest in the people, who were so mercilessly robbed to maintain the splendor of his court and the grandeur of his armies. Upon the birth of the young prince, who received the title of the Duke of Burgoyne, the populace of Paris crowded to Versailles with their rude congratulations. Every avenue was thronged with the immense multitude. They even flooded the palace and poured into the saloons. The king, whose heart was softened by the birth of a grandson to whom the crown might be transmitted, received all very graciously.
Louis taken ill.
The birth of an heir to the crown added much to the personal importance of the dauphiness. But, neglected by her husband and annoyed by the scenes transpiring around her, she was a very unhappy woman. No efforts on the part of the court could draw her from the silence and gloom of her retirement. Madame de Maintenon and the king's confessor, Père la Chaise, were co-operating in the endeavor to lure the king from his life of guilty indulgence into the paths of virtue. Fortunately, at this time the monarch was attacked by severe and painful illness. Death was to him truly the king of terrors. He was easily influenced to withdraw from his criminal relations with one whom he had for some time been regarding with repugnance. Madame de Maintenon was deputed to inform Madame de Montespan of the king's determination never again to regard her in any other light than that of a friend.
Dismissal of Madame de Montespan.
It was a very painful and embarrassing commission for Madame de Maintenon to fulfill. But the will of the king was law. She discharged the duty with great delicacy and kindness. Deeply mortified as was the discarded favorite, she was not entirely unprepared for the announcement. She had for some time been painfully aware of her waning influence, and had been preparing for herself a retreat where she could still enjoy opulence, rank, and power.
Resolves to build a convent.
Her great wealth.
In pursuit of this object, she had determined to erect and endow a convent. The sisterhood, appointed by her and entirely dependent upon her liberality, would treat her with the deference due to a queen. The king had lavished such enormous sums upon her that she had large wealth at her disposal. She had already selected a spot for the convent in the Faubourg St. Germain, and had commenced rearing the edifice. It so happened that the corner-stone was laid at the very moment in which the unhappy Duchess de Fontanges was breathing her last. Madame de Montespan had no idea of taking the veil herself. The glooms of the cloister had for her no attractions. Her only object was to rear a miniature kingdom, where she, having lost the potent charms of youth and beauty, could still enjoy an undisputed reign.
The marchioness already owned a dwelling, luxuriously furnished, which the king had presented her, in the Rue St. Andre des Arcs. Her wealth was so great that, in addition to the convent, she also planned erecting for herself a magnificent hotel, in imitation of the palace of the Tuileries. The estimated expense was equal to the sum of one million five hundred thousand dollars at the present day.
The convent of St. Joseph completed.
The workmen upon the convent were urged to the most energetic labor, and the building was soon completed. The marchioness gave it the name of St. Joseph. One room was sumptuously furnished for her private accommodation. She appointed the abbess. The great bell of the convent was to ring twenty minutes whenever she visited the sisterhood. As the founder of the community, she was to receive the honors of the incense at high mass and vespers. The marchioness richly enjoyed this adulation, and was a frequent visitor at the convent.
The king recovers, and goes to Flanders.
The king, having recovered from his illness, decided upon a journey to Flanders. Oppressed with ennui, he sought amusement for himself and his court. He wished also to impress his neighbors by an exhibition of his splendor and power. The queen, with the dauphin and dauphiness, attended by their several suites, accompanied him on this expedition. Madame de Montespan was excessively chagrined in finding her name omitted in the list of those who were to make up the party. But the name of Madame de Maintenon headed the list of the attendants of the princess.
Return to Versailles.
The gorgeous procession, charioted in the highest appliances of regal splendor, swept along through cities and villages, every where received with triumphal arches, the ringing of bells, the explosions of artillery, and the blaze of illuminations till the sea-port of Dunkirk was reached. Here there was a sham-fight between two frigates. It was a serene and lovely day. The members of the royal suite, from the deck of a bark sumptuously prepared for their accommodation, witnessed with much delight the novel spectacle. At the close, the king repaired to one of the men-of-war, upon whose deck a lofty throne was erected, draped with a costly awning. Here the splendor-loving monarch, surrounded by that ceremonial and pageantry which were so dear to him, received the congratulations of the dignitaries of his own and other lands upon his recent recovery from illness. At the end of a month the party returned to Versailles.
Political ambition of Louis XIV.
Devoted as Louis XIV. was to his own selfish gratification, he was fully aware of the dependence of that gratification upon the aggrandizement of the realm, which he regarded as his private property. Upon this tour of pleasure he invested the city of Luxembourg with an army of thirty thousand men, and took it after a siege of eight days. He then overrun the Electorate of Treves, demolished all its fine fortifications, and by the energies of pillage, fire, and ruin, rendered it impossible for the territory hereafter to render any opposition to his arms. The destructive genius of Louvois had suggested that these unnecessary spoliations would tend to increase the authority of his royal master by inspiring a greater terror of his power.
Sickness and death of the queen, Maria Theresa.
Soon after this, the queen, Maria Theresa, was suddenly taken sick. Her indisposition, at first slight, rapidly increased in severity, and an abscess developed itself under her arm. The pain became excruciating. Her physician opened a vein and administered an emetic at 11 o'clock in the morning. It was a fatal prescription. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon she died. As this unhappy queen, so gentle, so loving, so forgiving, was sinking away in death, she still, with woman's deathless love, cherished tenderly in her heart the memory of the king. Just as she was breathing her last, she drew from her finger a superb ring, which she presented to Madame de Maintenon saying,
"Adieu, my very dear marchioness. To you I confide the happiness of the king."
Maria Theresa was one of the most lovely of women. Her conduct was ever irreproachable. Amiable, unselfish, warm-hearted, from the time of her marriage she devoted herself to the promotion of the happiness of her husband. His neglect and unfaithfulness caused her, in secret, to shed many tears. Naturally diffident, and rendered timid by his undisguised indifference, she trembled whenever the king approached her. A casual smile from him filled her with delight. The king could not be insensible to her many virtues. Perhaps remorse was mingled with the emotions which compelled him to weep bitterly over her death. As he gazed upon her lifeless remains, he exclaimed,
Tribute to her worth.
"Kind and forbearing friend, this is the first sorrow that you have caused me throughout twenty years."
Masses.
Versailles.
The royal corpse lay in state at Versailles for ten days. During this time perpetual masses were performed for the soul of the departed from 7 o'clock in the morning until dark. The king had reared the gorgeous palace of Versailles that he might not be annoyed, in his Babylonian revelry, by the sight of the towers of St. Denis. But God did not allow the guilty monarch to forget that kings as well as peasants were doomed to die. The king was compelled to accompany the remains of Maria Theresa from the sumptuous palace, where she had found so splendid and so unhappy a home, to the gloomy vaults of the abbey, where, in darkness and silence, those remains were to moulder to dust.
Heartlessness of the king and of the courtiers.
The queen was forgotten even before she was buried. The gay courtiers, anxious to banish as speedily as possible from their minds all thoughts of death and judgment, sought, in songs, and mirth, and wine, to bury even the grave in oblivion. The funeral car was decorated with the most imposing emblems of mourning. A numerous train of carriages followed, filled with the great officers of the crown and with the ladies of the royal household. The procession was escorted by a brilliant and numerous body of mounted troops.
"But nothing could exceed the indecency with which the journey was performed. From all the carriages issued the sounds of heartless jest and still more heartless laughter. The troops had no sooner reached the plain of St. Denis than they dispersed in every direction, some galloping right and left, and others firing at the birds that were flying over their heads."17
Accident.
The king, on the day of the funeral, in the insane endeavor to obliterate from his mind thoughts of death and burial, ordered out the hounds and plunged into the excitement of the chase. His horse pitched the monarch over his head into a ditch of stagnant water, dislocating one of his shoulders.
Death of the minister of finance.
About this time, Jean Baptiste Colbert, the king's minister of finance, and probably the most extraordinary man of the age, died, worn out with toil, anxiety, and grief. Few men have ever passed through this world leaving behind them such solid results of their labors. As minister of finance, he furnished the king with all the money he needed for his expensive wars and luxurious indulgence. As superintendent of buildings, arts, and manufactures, he enlarged the Tuileries, completed the gorgeous palace of Versailles, reared the magnificent edifices of the Invalides, Vincennes, and Marly, and founded the Gobelins. These and many other works of a similar nature he performed, though constantly struggling against the jealousy and intrigues of powerful opponents.
Ingratitude.
Remarkable condescension on the part of Louis.
The king seldom, if ever, manifested any gratitude to those who served him. Colbert, in the 64th year of his age, exhausted by incessant labor, and harassed by innumerable annoyances, was on a dying bed. Sad reflections seemed to overwhelm him. Not a gleam of joy lighted up his fading eye. The heavy taxes he had imposed upon the people rendered him unpopular. He could not be insensible to imprecations which threatened to break up his funeral and to drag his remains ignominiously through the streets. The king condescended, as his only act of courtesy, to send a messenger to ask tidings of the condition of his minister. As the messenger approached the bed, the dying sufferer turned away his face, saying,
"I will not hear that man spoken of again. If I had done for God what I have done for him, I should have been saved ten times over. Now I know not what may be my fate."
The day after his death, without any marks of honor, his remains were conveyed, in an ordinary hearse, to the church of St. Eustache. A few of the police alone followed the coffin.
Genoa assailed.
Capture.
The Doge humbled.
Genoa had offended the king by selling powder to the Algerines, and some ships to Spain. Louis seized, by secret warrant, lettre de cachet, the Genoese embassador, and plunged him into one of the dungeons of the Bastile. He then sent a fleet of over fifty vessels of war to chastise, with terrible severity, those who had offended him. The ships sailed from Toulon on the 6th of May, 1684, and entered the harbor of Genoa on the 19th. Immediately there was opened upon the city a terrific fire. In a few hours fourteen thousand bombs were hurled into its dwellings and its streets. A large portion of those marble edifices, which had given the city the name of Genoa the Superb, were crumbled to powder. Fourteen thousand soldiers were then disembarked. They advanced through the suburbs, burning the buildings before them. The whole city was threatened with total destruction. The authorities, in terror, sent to the conqueror imploring his clemency. The haughty King of France demanded that the Doge of Genoa, with four of his principal ministers, should repair to the palace of Versailles and humbly implore his pardon. The doge, utterly powerless, was compelled to submit to the humiliating terms.
Chapter IX.
The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
1680-1686
Character of Madame de Maintenon.
It is the undisputed testimony of all the contemporaries of Madame de Maintenon that she possessed a character of rare excellence. Her personal attractions, sound judgment, instinctive delicacy of perception, and conversational brilliance, gave her a certain supremacy wherever she appeared. The fidelity with which she fulfilled her duties, her high religious principles, and the bold, yet tender remonstrances with which she endeavored to reclaim the king from his unworthy life, excited first his astonishment, and then his profound admiration.
Every day the king, at three o'clock, proceeded to the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and, taking a seat in an arm-chair, sat in a reclining posture, sometimes silently watching the progress of her tapestry-work, and again engaged in quiet conversation. Occasionally some of Racine's tragedies were read. The king took a listless pleasure in drawing out Madame de Maintenon to remark upon the merits or defects of the production.
"In truth, a weariness of existence was rapidly growing upon Louis XIV. He had outlived his loves, his griefs, and almost his ambition. All he wanted was repose. And this he found in the society of an accomplished, judicious, and unassuming woman, who, although he occasionally transacted business in her presence with Louvois, never presumed to proffer an opinion save when he appealed to her judgment, and even then tendered it with reluctance and reserve."18
Depression of the dauphiness.
Père la Chaise.
The Edict of Nantes.
Upon the death of the queen the dauphiness was raised to the first rank at court. Still she was gloomy and reserved. No allurements could draw her from her retirement. Madame de Maintenon was a very decided Roman Catholic, and was very much influenced by the king's confessor, Père la Chaise, who seems to have been a man of integrity and of conscientiousness, though fanatically devoted to what he deemed to be the interests of the Church. In former reigns the Protestants had endured from the Catholics the most dreadful persecutions. After scenes of woe, the recital of which causes the blood to curdle in one's veins, Henry IV., the grandfather of Louis XIV., feeling the need of the support of the Protestants to protect the kingdom from the perils by which it was surrounded, and having himself been educated a Protestant, granted the Protestants the world-renowned Edict of Nantes.
By this edict, which took its name from the place in which it was published, and which was issued in April, 1598, certain privileges were granted to the Protestants, which, in that dark age, were regarded as extraordinarily liberal.
Protestants were allowed liberty of conscience; that is, they were not to be punished for their religious faith. In certain designated places they were permitted to hold public worship. The highest lords of the Protestant faith could celebrate divine service in their castles. Nobles of the second rank could have private worship, provided but thirty persons attended. Protestants were declared to be eligible to offices of state, their children were to be admitted to the public schools, their sick to the hospitals, and their poor to the public charities. In certain places they could publish books; they were allowed four academies for scientific and theological instruction, and were permitted to convoke synods for Church discipline.
The Catholic clergy indignant.
The Catholic clergy were very indignant in view of these concessions. Pope Clement VIII. declared that the ordinance which permitted liberty of conscience to every one was the most execrable which was ever made.19
Ravaillac.
There were then seven hundred and sixty churches in France of the Protestant communion. No such church was allowed in Paris. Protestants from the city, rich and poor, were compelled to repair, for public worship, to the little village of Ablon, fifteen miles from the city. The Edict of Nantes probably cost Henry IV. his life. The assassin Ravaillac, who plunged his dagger twice into the bosom of the king, said, in his examination,
"I killed the king because, in making war upon the pope, he made war upon God, since the pope is God."
Confirmation of the Edict of Nantes.
The Protestants were thrown into the utmost consternation by the death of Henry IV. They apprehended the immediate repeal of the edict, and a renewal of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. But the regent, Mary de Medici, and the court immediately issued a decree confirming the ordinance. Louis XIII. was then a child but eight and a half years of age. As he came into power, he was urged by the Jesuits to exterminate the Protestants. But they were too powerful to be wantonly assailed. They held two hundred fortified places. Many of the highest lords were among their leaders. Their soldiers were renowned for valor, and their churches numbered four hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms. It was not deemed safe to rouse such a people to the energies of despair. Still, during the reign of Louis XIII., there were many bloody conflicts between the royal troops and the Protestants.
La Rochelle.
Sufferings of the Huguenots.
In this religious war, the Protestants, or Huguenots, as they were then called, defended themselves so valiantly, that the king felt constrained, in October, 1622, to relinquish his attempt to subjugate the Protestants by force of arms, and to confirm the Edict of Nantes. The sword was scarcely sheathed ere it was drawn again. All over France the Catholics and Protestants faced each other upon fields of blood. The battle raged for seven years with every conceivable concomitant of cruelty and horror. The eyes of all Europe were directed to the siege of La Rochelle, in 1627, where the Huguenots made their most decisive stand. All that human nature could suffer was endured. When two thirds of the population of the city had perished, and the streets and dwellings were encumbered with the unburied dead, and the remaining soldiers, reduced to skeletons, could no longer lift their weapons, the city surrendered on the 28th of October, 1628.
By this war and the fall of La Rochelle, the Protestants were hopelessly weakened. Though they were deprived of many of their privileges, and were greatly diminished in numbers and influence, still the general provisions of the Edict of Nantes were not repealed.
In the year 1662, Louis XIV., then upon the throne, in recognition of some support which he had received from the Protestants, issued a decree in which he said,
Policy of Louis.
"Inasmuch as our subjects of the pretended Reformed religion have given us proofs of their affection and fidelity, be it known that, for these reasons, they shall be supported and guarded, as in fact we do support and guard them, in the full enjoyment of the Edict of Nantes."
The king had even appointed, the year before, two commissaries, the one a Catholic, the other a Protestant, to visit every province, and see that the requisitions of the Edict of Nantes were faithfully observed. This seemed very fair. But, in appointing these commissioners, a Catholic was always appointed who was a high dignitary of the state, a man of wealth and rank, distinguished for his devotion to the interests of the Catholic Church. On the other hand, the Protestant was always some poor country gentleman, timid and irresolute, and often one who had been secretly sold to the court to betray his duties.
Influence of Madame de Maintenon.
The Protestants had hoped much from the influence of Madame de Maintenon over the king, as she was the granddaughter of Agrippa d'Aubigné, one of the most illustrious defenders of the Calvinistic faith, and as she herself had been a Protestant until she had attained the age of sixteen years.
Religious zeal of the king.
But the king was fanatically Catholic, hoping, in some measure, to atone for his sins by his supreme devotion to the interests of the Church. Madame de Maintenon found it necessary, in promotion of her ambitious plans, to do all in her power to conceal her Protestant origin. She was fully aware of the king's great dislike to the Protestants, and of the necessity of cordially co-operating with him in these views. Still she could not refrain from manifesting some compassion at times for the sufferings of the friends of her earlier years.
False-hearted.
Louis XIV., while assuring the Protestant powers of Europe that he would continue to respect the Edict of Nantes, commenced issuing a series of ordinances in direct opposition to that contract. First he excluded Protestants from all public offices whatever. A Protestant could not be employed as a physician, lawyer, apothecary, bookseller, printer, or even as a nurse. This decree was issued in 1680. In some portions of the kingdom the Protestants composed nearly the entire population. Here it was impossible to enforce the atrocious decree. In other places it led to riots and bloodshed.
Persecution of the Protestants.
This ordinance was followed by one forbidding marriages between Catholics and Protestants. Catholic servants were forbidden to serve in Protestant families, and Protestant servants could not be employed by Catholics.
Rapidly blow followed blow. On the 17th of June, 1680, the king issued the following ordinance: "We wish that our subjects of the pretended Reformed religion, both male and female, having attained the age of seven years, may, and it is hereby made lawful for them to embrace the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion, and that to this effect they be allowed to abjure the pretended Reformed religion, without their fathers and mothers and other kinsmen being allowed to offer them the least hinderance, under any pretext whatever."
Severe measures to force proselytism.
The effect of this law was terrible. Any malignant person, even a servant, could go into a court of justice and testify that a certain child had made the sign of the cross, or kissed an image of the Virgin, or had expressed a desire to enter the Catholic Church, and that child was immediately taken from its parents, shut up in a convent, and the parents were compelled to pay the expenses of its education. Even Madame de Maintenon availed herself of this law in wresting from her relative, the Marquis de Vilette, his children.
A decree was then issued that all Protestants who should become Catholics might defer the payment of their debts for three years, and for two years be exempt from taxation, and from the burden of having soldiers quartered upon them. To save the treasury from loss, a double burden of taxation and a double quartering of soldiers was imposed upon those Protestants who refused to abjure their faith.
If any Protestant was sick, officers were appointed whose duty it was to visit the sick-bed, and strive to convert the sufferer to the Catholic faith. Any physician who should neglect to give notice of such sickness was punished by a severe fine. The pastors were forbidden to make any allusions whatever in their sermons to these decrees of the court. Following this decree came the announcement that if any convert from Catholicism should be received into a Protestant Church, his property should be confiscated, he should be banished, and the privilege of public worship should no longer be enjoyed by that Church. Under this law several church edifices were utterly demolished.
One of the severest measures adopted against the Protestants was quartering brutal and ferocious soldiers in their families. In March, 1681, Louvois wrote to the governor of Poitou that he intended to send a regiment of cavalry into that province.
"His majesty," he said, "has learned with much satisfaction the great number of persons who are becoming converts in your province. He desires that you continue to give great care to this matter. He thinks it best that the chief part of the cavalry and officers should be lodged in the houses of the Protestants. If, after a just distribution, the Calvinists would have to provide for ten soldiers, you can make them take twenty."
The dragonnades.
Moral suasion of the dragoons.
The governor, Marillac, lodged from four to ten dragoons in the house of every Protestant. The soldiers were directed not to kill the people with whom they lodged, but to do every thing in their power to constrain them to abjure Protestantism. Thus originated that system of dragonnades which has left an indelible stain upon the character of Louis XIV., and the recital of which has inspired every reader with horror.
Brutality of the soldiery.
"The cavalry attached crosses to the muzzles of their muskets to force the Protestants to kiss them. When any one resisted, they thrust these crosses against the face and breasts of the unfortunate people. They spared children no more than persons advanced in years. Without compassion for their age, they fell upon them with blows, and beat them with the flat side of their swords and the butt of their muskets. They did this so cruelly that some were crippled for life."20
It does not reflect credit upon Madame de Maintenon that she was eager to enrich her friends from the spoils of these persecuted Christians. Her brother was to receive a present of one hundred and eight thousand francs ($21,600). This sum was then three or four times as much as the same amount of money now.