Memoirs of Louis XIV, vol 8 | Page 8

soliloquy lasted a long time, and I was not told
what the Princesse de Conti said to it; but from the silence of Du Mont,
her annoyance at the marriage, I had brought about, and other reasons,
it seems to me unlikely that she tried to soften Monseigneur.
Du Mont begged me not, for a long time at least, to show that I knew
what had taken place, and to behave with the utmost prudence. Then he
fled away by the path he had come by, fearing to be seen. I remained
walking up and down in the arbour all the time, reflecting on the
wickedness of my enemies, and the gross credulity of Monseigneur.
Then I ran away, and escaped to Madame de Saint-Simon, who, as
astonished and frightened as I, said not a word of the communication I
had received.
I never knew who had served me this ill-turn with Monseigneur, but I
always suspected Mademoiselle de Lillebonne. After a long time,
having obtained with difficulty the consent of the timid Du Mont, I
made Madame de Saint-Simon speak to the Duchesse de Bourgogne,
who undertook to arrange the affair as well as it could be arranged. The
Duchesse spoke indeed to Monseigneur, and showed him how
ridiculously he had been deceived, when he was persuaded that I could
ever have entertained the ideas attributed to me. Monseigneur admitted
that he had been carried away by anger; and that there was no
likelihood that I should have thought of anything so wicked and
incredible.
About this time the household of the Duc and Duchesse de Berry was
constituted. Racilly obtained the splendid appointment of first surgeon,
and was worthy of it; but the Duchesse de Berry wept bitterly, because
she did not consider him of high family enough. She was not so
delicate about La Haye, whose appointment she rapidly secured. The
fellow looked in the glass more complaisantly than ever. He was well
made, but stiff, and with a face not at all handsome, and looking as if it
had been skinned. He was happy in more ways than one, and was far
more attached to his new mistress than to his master. The King was
very angry when he learned that the Duc de Berry had supplied himself

with such an assistant.
Meantime, I continued on very uneasy terms with Monseigneur, since I
had learned his strange credulity with respect to me. I began to feel my
position very irksome, not to say painful, on this account. Meudon I
would not go to--for me it was a place infested with demons--yet by
stopping away I ran great risks of losing the favour and consideration I
enjoyed at Court. Monseigneur was a man so easily imposed upon, as I
had already experienced, and his intimate friends were so unscrupulous
that there was no saying what might be invented on the one side and
swallowed on the other, to my discredit. Those friends, too, were, I
knew, enraged against me for divers weighty reasons, and would stop at
nothing, I was satisfied, to procure my downfall. For want of better
support I sustained myself with courage. I said to myself, "We never
experience all the evil or all the good that we have apparently the most
reason to expect." I hoped, therefore, against hope, terribly troubled it
must be confessed on the score of Meudon. At Easter, this year, I went
away to La Ferme, far from the Court and the world, to solace myself
as I could; but this thorn in my side was cruelly sharp! At the moment
the most unlooked-for it pleased God to deliver me from it.
At La Ferme I had but few guests: M. de Saint-Louis, an old brigadier
of cavalry, and a Normandy gentleman, who had been in my regiment,
and who was much attached to me. On Saturday, the 11th of the month,
and the day before Quasimodo, I had been walking with them all the
morning, and I had entered all-alone into my cabinet a little before
dinner, when a courier sent by Madame de Saint-Simon, gave me a
letter from her, in which I was informed that Monseigneur was ill!
I learnt afterwards that this Prince, while on his way to Meudon for the
Easter fetes, met at Chaville a priest, who was carrying Our Lord to a
sick person. Monseigneur, and Madame de Bourgogne, who was with
him, knelt down to adore the Host, and then Monseigneur inquired
what was the malady of the patient. "The small-pox," he was told. That
disease was very prevalent just then. Monseigneur had had it, but very
lightly, and when young. He feared it very much, and was struck with
the answer he now received. In the evening he said to Boudin,