Memoirs of Louis XIV, vol 4 | Page 4

sample the author's ideas before
making an entire meal of them. D.W.]

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. AND OF THE
REGENCY, v4
Being the Secret Memoirs of the Mother of the Regent, MADAME
ELIZABETH-CHARLOTTE OF BAVARIA, DUCHESSE
D'ORLEANS.

BOOK 4.
CONTENTS:
Victor Amadeus II. The Grand Duchess, Consort of Cosimo II. of
Florence The Duchesse de Lorraine, Elizabeth-Charlotte d'Orleans The
Duc du Maine The Duchesse du Maine Louvois Louis XV. Anecdotes
and Historical Particulars of Various Persons Explanatory Notes

SECTION XXXV.
VICTOR AMADEUS, KING OF SICILY.
It is said that the King of Sicily is always in ill humour, and that he is
always quarrelling with his mistresses. He and Madame de Verrue have
quarrelled, they say, for whole days together. I wonder how the good
Queen can love him with such constancy; but she is a most virtuous
person and patience itself. Since the King had no mistresses he lives
upon better terms with her. Devotion has softened his heart and his
temper.
Madame de Verrue is, I dare say, forty-eight years of age (1718). I
shared some of the profits of her theft by buying of her 160 medals of
gold, the half of those which she stole from the King of Sicily. She had
also boxes filled with silver medals, but they were all sold in England.
[The Comtesse de Verrue was married at the age of thirteen years.
Victor Amadeus, then King of Sardinia, fell in love with her. She
would have resisted, and wrote to her mother and her husband, who
were both absent. They only joked her about it. She then took that step
which all the world knows. At the age of eighteen, being at a dinner
with a relation of her husband's, she was poisoned. The person she
suspected was the same that was dining with her; he did not quit her,
and wanted to have her blooded. Just at this time the Spanish
Ambassador at Piedmont sent her a counter-poison which had a happy
effect: she recovered, but never would mention whom she suspected.
She got tired of the King, and persuaded her brother, the Chevalier de
Lugner, to come and carry her off, the King being then upon a journey.
The rendezvous was in a chapel about four leagues distant from Turin.
She had a little parrot with her. Her brother arrived, they set out
together, and, after having proceeded four leagues on her journey, she

remembered that she had forgotten her parrot in the chapel. Without
regarding the danger to which she exposed her brother, she insisted
upon returning to look for her parrot, and did so. She died in Paris in
the beginning of the reign of Louis XV. She was fond of literary
persons, and collected about her some of the best company of that day,
among whom her wit and grace enabled her to cut a brilliant figure. She
was the intimate friend of the poet La Faye, whom she advised in his
compositions, and whose life she made delightful. Her fondness for the
arts and pleasure procured for her the appellation of 'Dame de Volupte',
and she wrote this epitaph upon herself:
"Ci git, dans un pais profonde, Cette Dame de Volupte, Qui, pour plus
grande surete, Fit son Paradis dans ce monde."]

SECTION XXXVI.
THE GRAND DUCHESS, WIFE OF COSMO II. OF FLORENCE.
The Grand Duchess has declared to me, that, from the day on which she
set out for Florence, she thought of nothing but her return, and the
means of executing this design as soon as she should be able.
No one could approve of her deserting her husband, and the more
particularly as she speaks very well of him, and describes the manner of
living at Florence as like a terrestrial paradise.
She does not think herself unfortunate for having travelled, and looks
upon all the grandeur she enjoyed at Florence as not to be compared
with the unrestrained way of living in which she indulges here. She is
very amusing when she relates her own history, in the course of which
she by no means flatters herself.
"Indeed, cousin," I say to her often, "you do not flatter yourself, but
you really tell things which make against you."
"Ah, no matter," she replies, "I care not, provided I never see the Grand
Duke again."
She cannot be accused of any amorous intrigue.
Her husband furnishes her with very little money; and at this moment
(April, 1718) he owes her fifteen months of her pension. She is now
really in want of money to enable her to take the waters of Bourbon.
The Grand Duke, who is very avaricious, thinks she will die soon, and
therefore holds back the payments that he may take advantage of that
event