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
tofind 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 tryingto 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
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
tofind 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 tryingto 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
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