The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, vol 1 | Page 8

of those vulgar-minded men who do not look upon a

woman as a friend, a companion, a frank, free associate, but as a piece
of property or of furniture, useful to his house, and which he has
procured for that purpose only.
I am told that in England a man is the absolute proprietor of his wife,
and that if he took her to the public market with a cord round her neck
and exhibited her for sale, such sale is perfectly valid in the eyes of the
law. Laws such as these inspire horror. Yet they should hardly surprise
one among a semibarbarous nation, which does nothing like other
peoples, and which deems itself authorised to place the censer in the
hands of its monarch, and its monarch in the hands of the headsman.
M. de Montespan came to Paris and instituted proceedings against me
before the Chatelet authorities. To the King he sent a letter full of
provocations and insults. To the Pope he sent a formal complaint,
accompanied by a most carefully prepared list of opinions which no
lawyer was willing to sign. For three whole months he tormented the
Pope, in order to induce him to annul our marriage. Of a truth, our
Sovereign Pontiff could have done nothing better, but in Rome justice
and religion always rank second to politics. The cardinals feared to
offend a great prince, and so they suffered me to remain the wife of my
husband. When he saw that on every side his voice was lost in the
desert, and that the King, being calmer and more prudent than he, did
not deign to pick up the glove, his folly reached its utmost limit. He
went into the deepest mourning ever seen. He draped his horses and
carriages with black. He gave orders for a funeral service to be held in
his parish, which the whole town and its suburbs were invited to attend.
He declared, verbally and in writing, that he no longer possessed a wife;
that Madame de Montespan had died of an attack of coquetry and
ambition; and he talked of marrying again when the year of mourning
and of widowhood should be over.
His first outbursts of wrath were the source of much amusement to the
King, who naturally was on the side of decorum and averse to hostile
opinion. Pranks such as these seemed to him more a matter for mirth
than fear, and, on hearing the story of the catafalque, he laughingly said
to me, "Now that he has buried you, it is to be hoped that he will let
you repose in peace." But hearing each day of fresh absurdities, his
Majesty grew at last impatient. Luckily, M. de Montespan, perceiving
that every house had closed its doors to him, decided to close his own

altogether and travel abroad.
Not being of a vindictive disposition, I never would allow M. de
Louvois to shut him up in the Bastille. On the contrary I privately paid
more than fifty thousand crowns to defray his debts, being glad to
render him some good service in exchange for all the evil that he spoke
of me.
I reflected that he had been my husband, my confidant, my friend; that
his only faults were bad temper, love of sport, and love of wine; that he
belonged to one of the very first families of France; and that, despite all
that was said, my son D'Antin certainly was nothing to the King, and
that the Marquis was his father.

CHAPTER IV
.
Mademoiselle de la Valliere Jealous.--The King Wishes All to Enjoy
Themselves.--The Futility of Fighting against Fate.--What is Dead is
Dead.
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE was tall, shapely, and
extremely pretty, with as sweet and even a temper as one could
possibly imagine, which eminently fitted her for dreamy, contemplative
love-making, such as one reads of in idyls and romances. She would
willingly have spent her life in. contemplating the King,--in loving and
adoring him without ever opening her mouth; and to her, the sweet
silence of a tete-a-tete seemed preferable to any conversation enlivened
by wit.
The King's character was totally different. His imagination was vivid,
and mere love-making, however pleasant, bored him at last if the charm
of ready speech and ready wit were wanting.
I do not profess to be a prodigy, but those who know me do me the
justice to admit that where I am it is very difficult for boredom to find
ever so small a footing.
Mademoiselle de la Valliere, after having begged me, and begged me
often, to come and help her to entertain the King, grew suddenly
suspicious and uneasy. She is candour itself, and one day, bursting into
tears, she said to me, in that voice peculiar to